The other day, I speculated that Al Gore's flip-flopping on matters of war and peace might be something new in our political history. However, my cousin George Chimes, who knows more about American history than I can ever hope to, reminds me that "Gore's weasel words on issues of war and peace are part of a long Democratic tradition." He cites Woodrow Wilson's 1916 campaign pledge to "keep us out of war" and FDR's 1940 Boston campaign speech in which he vowed never to send troops abroad. George notes that both Wilson and FDR were actively trying to involve the U.S. in war "but wouldn't own up to it for fear of offending elements of their electoral coalitions."

I take George's point. Still, there seems to be something different about Clinton and Gore, though less than what I tentatively claimed. Wilson and FDR were trying to hide the ball. With Clinton and Gore, it's not apparent that there is a ball. For them, issues often seem to lack reality other than as play-things to be manipulated for political purposes. Consider Clinton's response to the question of how he would have voted on the 1991 congressional resolution concerning Iraq. Clinton said he would have supported the pro-war resolution if the vote was close, but that the opposition had the better arguments. It's hard for me to imagine Wilson, FDR, or any other elected high official from the past making a statement like this on the issue of whether to go to war. The statement betrays a lack of seriousness that no past politician could admit to and that, I suspect, few could consciously entertain.

What I take to be the Clinton-Gore lack of seriousness about issues has parallels in modern (or should I say post-modern) intellectual and academic thought. In that world, "texts" (e.g., great literature, philosophy and even laws and judicial opinions) are not valued in their own right, but rather exist only to be appropriated by creative "scholars" for whatever purposes they see fit. Everything is up for grabs. The only limit on valid interpretation is the imagination, and political correctness quotient, of the interpreter. I fear that we are starting to see this sort of "deconstructionist" approach spilling into our politics (recall "it depends on what the meaning of is is"). And if this approach works as well for Gore as it did for Clinton, Republicans are likely to adopt it. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to work very well for Gore. The reason may be that Clinton actually enjoyed the deconstruction game; Gore just seems driven to play it.

Whether the Democrats will be able to field a substitute candidate for Torricelli is unclear. The Democrats reportedly believe the New Jersey Supreme Court will come through for them, but I can't imagine how this can be achieved in five weeks. Here is the latest from the Washington Post. My favorite quote is from Doug Forrester, who says: "The laws of the state of New Jersey do not contain a 'we think we're going to lose so we get to pick someone new' clause."

Here is evidence that democracy may not be doomed.

Donald Lambro of the Washington Times reaches the same conclusion as Rocket Man regarding Tom Daschle's recent outburst -- it "had more to do with his political frustration over Iraq's dominance in the election debate than with President Bush's slap at Senate Democrats on national security." Lambro cites some significant poll results. A Gallup Poll shows that, by a margin of 49 percent to 41 percent, voters are more worried about Iraq than the economy when it comes to deciding how to vote in the upcoming House and Senate races. This represents a 16-point shift since last month. And an Ipsos Public Affairs poll (whatever that is) shows that, by a 6-point margin, Americans now think that the country is moving in the right direction. This represents a 13-point shift.

In order to cope with this sentiment and still appease their liberal base, Daschle and Gore want to persuade folks that one can care about our security and still be opposed to war with Iraq. But Gore recognized that this refrain, by itself, won't cut it. Thus, he tried to argue that he has a better plan for protecting our security -- ongoing pursuit of Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This required him to argue that current pursuit of these terrorists is inadequate. But most Americans (with some conservatives dissenting) believe that administration policy in Afghanistan has been a clear success and that Al Qaeda is already very much on the run. Consequently, Gore looked petty and foolish trying to argue otherwise.

The reality is that, in practice, the Democrats do place less of a priority on national security than the Republicans. Neither party places security considerations above all others under all circumstances. For example, neither advocates doubling the size of the armed forces or implementing a police state. But, compared to the Democrats, the Republicans advocate more resources for the military and greater constraints on civil liberties. Moreover, as we have documented during the past few months, Democratic policy on issues of high importance to their favorite interest groups, such as immigration and tort reform, does not consistently seek to maximize national security. These specifics are not understood by the public because they are not reported in the mainstream press. But the public seems to understand instinctively that the Democrats are more willing than the Republicans to trade-off security concerns. And every time a Democrat whines that the Iraq debate is shifting attention away from economic issues, he or she reinforces this understanding.

The Associated Press confirms that Torricelli is dropping out of the race. Speculation over possible replacement candidates focuses on former Senators Bill Bradley and Frank Lautenberg and current House members Bob Menedez, Frank Pallone, and Rob Andrews (the latter has been an ardent Bush supporter when it comes to Iraq). But state law apparently is an obstacle to replacing a candidate this late in the game, absent extraordinary circumstances such as the death of the candidate. Terminal corruption is not an extraordinary circumstance, at least not among Democrats in New Jersey.

It appears that Torricelli may pull out of his Senate re-election race. HIs campaign manager says a press conference is planned for this afternoon. I assume he won't hold a press conference to announce that he is staying in. Apparently this is being engineered by the national Democratic party; no doubt they have a plan to substitute another candidate, but it is awfully late in the day for that.

Here's a nice piece about the film "Barbershop" by an African-American writer. She finds the movie "reassuring," not offensive. She sees "Barbershop" as evidence that the new generation of African-American artists (and its audience) no longer "fears the truth" and, not coincidentally, is no longer taking its cues from the old civil rights leadership.

Debka File has a fascinating account of diplomatic progress in the Persian Gulf: "On the quiet, Washington has made important strides in the bid to assemble an Arab-Muslim coalition for its war effort. Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the first to climb on board." Debka File reports that Egypt has turned its Cairo West military base over to the US war command, while American warships are freely traversing the Suez Canal. Meanwhile, "the Saudi Prince Sultan air base northeast of Riyadh is now an American forward base for air raids over southern Iraq." But the chief coup is enlisting Iran in support of the effort against Iraq. Debka File claims that "Months of laborious bargaining have produced a secret US-Iran military cooperation agreement for the operation to overthrow Saddam's regime." Debka reports that Iran has already inserted special forces into Iraq, and that when Iraq's foreign minister traveled to Tehran yesterday seeking support against the US, he was coldly rebuffed. Debka evaluates the current Persian Gulf coalition as "weightier than the one which confronted Iraq in 1991."

More on Torchgate: In National Review Online Allison Hayward has the first really good column on the latest revelations.

Some time after the fall of the Soviet Union the New York Review of Books became worth reading. The current issue has a fine essay/review by Pico Iyer on William Buckley and his three most recent books. I am struck by the open-hearted appreciation of Buckley as a person that comes through in Iyer's review and in his reading of these books. To my surprise I see that this review is one of the pieces from the current issue that the magazine posts on its relatively new Web site, and I am delighted to be able to bring it to your attention.

More on Torchgate: The Trenton Courier Post has a terrific summary of the situation as of today, "Ethics blows have Torricelli battered and on the brink." Among other things, the story notes a poll showing the Torch now down 13 points to his invisible Republican opponent. The story also notes another fact I had missed: "Democrats announced Friday that Torricelli had been selected to make the Democratic response to President Bush' s weekly Saturday radio broadcast."

The Torch is indeed the perfect spokesman for the Gore/Dasche Democratic party. Perhaps the guy can join Steve Van Zandt on "The Sopranos" after he gets blown out of office. Rocket Man, do you remember the song Bruce Springsteen wrote for Steve Van Zandt in his previous incarnation as the rocker Little Stevie? "Trapped Again..."

The Washington Post editorial that Deacon linked to earlier isn't bad; it concludes that voting to confirm Miguel Estrada is "an easy call." In typical fashion, however, the Post can't bear to criticize unequivocally the Democratic smear campaign against Estrada. Instead, the Post casts Republicans and Democrats as equally blameworthy. The Republican sin, apparently, is praising Estrada as "a kind of Horatio Alger story." In the Post's view, praising a well-qualified candidate and groundlessly defaming him are somehow the same. More important, however, is the central point of the Post's editorial: "Both sides should remember that there is no Hispanic manner of deciding cases." This proposition is obviously true if you're a conservative; coming from the Post it is a breathtaking admission. Leaving aside the implications of this proposition for affirmative action generally, I can't resist noting how differently Clarence Thomas would have been treated if the Democrats in general, and the Post in particular, had been willing to acknowledge that there is no black manner of deciding cases.

Trunk, you beat me to Mark Steyn's hilarious column, but I want to add one correction: Tom Daschle's theme song, "How Can I Be Sure?," was recorded not by David Cassidy but by the immortal Rascals.

Here is a tribute to this year's Minnesota Twins from their ancestral home. Washington Post sportswriter William Gildea, who is old enough to remember when the Twins were the Washington Senators, finds immense satisfaction in the Twins' season. He is also pleased that two other less than glamorous franchises -- the Oakland A's and the Anaheim Angels -- have joined the Twins in the playoffs.

Maybe I shouldn't cancel my subscription after all. The Washington Post calls for the confirmation of Maguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. As to claims that Estrada black-balled non-conservative applicants for judicial clerkships, the Post finds that "it is terribly wrong to demand that Mr. Estrada answer charges to which nobody is willing to attach his or her name."

George Will calls for tort reform now. He notes that "by preventing agreement on reasonable limits to liability for terrorism insurance purposes, the trial bar and its poodle, the Democratic party, are casuing delays or cancellations of $10 billion in construction projects," thus sacrificing "hundreds of thousands of jobs."

Do you believe that Senator Robert Torricelli (D-unmarried, no kids) drinks milk? If you do, you won't be troubled by this story.

I believe we failed to note that Senator Tom Harkin's campaign manager has now resigned over the campaign's dirty trick that neither he nor Senator Harkin had anything to do with. The Des Moines Register had the story yesterday.

To be thorough in our continuing scandal coverage, we should note that on Friday the Star Tribune reported that Bill "Luther sticks with campaign aide who helped bogus candidate."

Unlike me, Mark Steyn has not lost his sense of humor watching the Democratic party's leading political pygmies play the angles in the "debate" over Iraq. In his Chicago Sun-Times column this morning, "Dems Irrelevant on Iraq," he reviews the musings of each of the party's leading lights and sums up:

"The sight of the Democratic Party wrestling with its conscience is like some old-time carnie freak show: It's strangely compelling, but you can't help feeling it's cruel to put these poor misfits on public display. A week ago, most of the bigshot Dem senators seemed to have wised up: The sooner we stop talking about why we don't want to talk about Iraq, the sooner we can start talking about Iraq. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can neutralize it as a political issue and move on to vital issues like a prescription drug plan plus dinner theater with Robert Goulet for America's seniors. Sure, in the political order of battle we're behind Bush, Blair, the Aussies, Italians, Turks, French, Canadians and even Saudis, but better late than 'Hang on, we've still got a few more questions.'''

Tom Harkin is another politician who "takes full responsibity" for an incident that he would prefer to get out of the news so that we can all "move on" to discuss "the issues." Rob Borsellino of the Des Moines Register says "Harkin waited too long to talk." Harkin, the Torch, and Bill Luther all appear to be running the same play out of the Clinton playbook.

Rocket Man, excellent blog about South Dakota politics and the Daschle meltdown. I'd been meaning to ask you what's going on in your old state, and why it keeps sending people like McGovern, Daschle, and Senator "Arab-League" (or whatever his name was) to Washington. The question is important because it is the upper Midwest that keeps the Republicans from a commanding position in the Senate. When the parties are equal in popularity, as they were in 2000, the Senate should be Republican, as demonstrated by the fact that Bush carried more states than Gore. To my knowledge, the states that Bush carried comfortably but that send Democrats to the Senate (and often liberal Democrats at that) are basically the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Montana.

I had suspected that there was a strain of isolationism and/or anti-militarism in the upper Midwest. After all, Kentucky and Arizona don't send McGoverns, Gene McCarthys, or Tom Harkins to Washington no matter how good they are on tobacco or water issues. And I've read some scholarly writings that purport to trace alleged anti-interventionism in the upper Midwest back to New England and forward to the upper Northwest (which gave us Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield but, in fairness, also Scoop Jackson). That's why I was happy to read your blog and especially happy about the poll you cited from the Sioux Falls paper. The good people of South Dakota seem to be fully in accord with the national sentiment when it comes to self-preservation.

Today's NY Times has a story on the memo released yesterday summarizing the federal prosecutors' evidence against Senator Robert Torricelli, "Support found for claims by Torricelli donor." The NY Daily News has a reaction piece that does not summarize the memo. Maybe it's elsewhere in the paper, but I can't find it. I love the headline: "Ethics flap gettin' old, saysTorch." The NY Post's story is "Torricelli still lying, says foe."

Bernard Lewis is the dean of scholars of the Middle East, perhaps the finest ever. His piece on Iraq from Friday's Wall Street Journal, "Time for Toppling," is also on OpinionJournal this morning (registration required).

I don’t want to overdo the Al Gore commentary, but William Bennett's piece on OpinionJournal this morning is worth reading (The link wasn't working earlier but should be now). I especially like this quote:

Let us get one thing straight, once and for all: Allies are good to have, but at the end of the day, it is Great Britain and the U.S. that matter. When oppressed people protest their dictators, they do not march with symbols of the Eiffel Tower and statements from Otto von Bismarck: they march with papier-mâché Statues of Liberty and excerpts from the Declaration of Independence.

Nice history lesson, Deacon. I think you're right; I'm sure Rocket Prof will let us know if he dissents. Here is the latest on our friend John Kline's Congressional race. You may remember that the race includes a "dirty tricks" angle--the campaign manager for John's opponent, incumbent Bill Luther, recruited a long-time DFL activist to file under the banner of the nonexistent "No New Taxes" party in order to siphon off conservative support from Kline. Luther has now become the latest in a long series of public figures to "take full responsibility" for a scandal without actually, you know, taking any responsibility. Like so many others, he "takes responsibility" strictly as a prelude to the inevitable plea that it is time to "move on."

Al Gore's speech, and the excellent critiques thereof by Rocket Man, Michael Kelly, and Charles Krauthammer, got me thinking about whether Gore is merely one of the most slippery politicians of this era or whether, along with Bill Clinton, he surpasses all past generations of American politicians in this regard. There certainly have been many politicians more corrupt than Gore and there have been bigger overall scoundrels (e.g., Aaron Burr). And, while the smear tactics of Gore are reprehensible, they hardly seem unprecedented. But did past politicians flit from position to position on key issues the way Gore and Clinton have? I don't know enough about American history to answer definitively, but I'm going to suggest that Gore and Clinton have made a unique contribution when it comes to prevarication on substantive issues.

Our history is full of significant shifts in position by famous politicians. Calhoun started as a nationalist and ended up advocating the right of secession. Webster may have flirted with New England secessionists but he ended up a great nationalist. Clay started as a "war hawk" and ended up quite dovish. Goldwater can be said to have followed a similar path. Van Buren was solicitous of slave interests when he was a Democrat but later was the Free Soil party candidate for president. Seward began as a stong anti-slavery "conscience Whig" and ended up a loyal member of Andrew Johnson's cabinet. Nixon was considered a "red baiter" when he started out but would eventually appease the Soviet Union and go to China. Even Jefferson is sometimes said to have compromised his states rights principles when he purchased Louisiana. (I'm going to rely on the Rocket Prof and other historically astute readers to correct any errors I have already made or will make as I proceed).

Some of these changes were opportunistic; others simply reflected genuine personal evolution and/or changed conditions. Rocket Man, Trunk, and I all started out on the "left". None of us changed our views to advance a political career.

What is perhaps unique about Gore is his willingness to take flagrantly inconsistent positions within a short period of time on the most crucial issue in politics -- war and peace. To be sure, many politicians changed their tune on the Vietnam war within the space of a few years. However, this was the product of new conditions -- we appeared to be losing the war. Politicians also sometimes start out opposed to a war but reluctantly fall into line behind the president as the shooting is about to start. But Gore's flip-flops on Iraq are based neither on changed conditions (other than political ones) nor on patriotism. Both in 1991 and this year, he spoke out of both sides of his mouth well before war was about to begin. Gore's shifts represent pure jockeying.

I can think of one somewhat comparable situation It involves Henry Clay and the Mexican War. In 1844, popular sentiment strongly favored annexing Texas, even though it would mean war with Mexico. Clay did not. Fortunately for him, neither did Van Buren who was considered almost certain to be his opponent in that year's presidential election. Some historians believe that Clay and Van Buren (who, as founders of the Whig and modern Democratic party respectively were bitter, if largely genteel, rivals) reached a secret agreement not to advocate annexation during the campaign. The only probem was that Andrew Jackson strongly favored annexation. When Van Buren would not advocate it, Jackson abandoned his long-time friend and protege and helped bring about the nomination of James Polk ("Young Hickory"), a strong hawk on the issue. This left Clay in an extremely close election against a candidate who had a far more popular position on this critical issue. In the latter days of the campaign, Clay waffled on annexing Texas, particularly in his "Alabama letters." The first letter stated, "Personally I could have no objection to annexing Texas, but I would be unwilling to see the union dissolved or seriously jeopardized for the sake of acquiring Texas." When this statement caused an uproar, he issued a second suggesting that he would simply be guided by public opinion on the issue. Clay narrowly lost the election and then lost a son in the ensuring Mexican War.

Although Clay waffled on Texas, the differences between his conduct and Gore's are telling. First, Clay did not set out to "demagogue" the issue. Indeed, he may have reached an agreement with Van Buren not to do so. Second, Clay did not advocate war one month and peace the next. As I understand it, his biggest concern was avoiding the threat to the union that would be posed when Texas was acquired as a slave state. This is a concern he continued to express until the end. Ultimately, then, I see only a superficial resemblance between Clay's conduct and Gore's. Aside from the posturing of Bill Clinton, I can think of no historical precedent for Gore's unprincipled flip-flopping on matters of war and peace.

I grew up in South Dakota when George McGovern was in the Senate. I doubt that more than a small minority of South Dakotans had any idea that their Senator was regarded as the most liberal politician in America, the darling of leftists from Hollywood to Manhattan. When he was in South Dakota, all McGovern ever talked about was farm policy. Times have changed, and it is not so easy nowadays to keep the folks at home from knowing about the speeches you give in Washington. This has always been one of Tom Daschle's problems, and he has solved it--so far--by avoiding ideology and running for office on the basis of the money he brings into his home state. This approach, while not pretty, has been effective; yet it is a mean, small-minded strategy crafted for placid times. There has been a lot of speculation in the press and the blogosphere about the causes of Daschle's meltdown, but I think one key element is that he is frustrated, and feels wronged, to find that his small-beer strategy will no longer serve. We no longer live in placid times, and an ability to bring home the federal bacon may not trump his constituents' overriding desire for security and--even more important--for victory over the forces of evil. This "Dakota Poll" from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader highlights Daschle's dilemma. Daschle's constituents support "a United States invasion of Iraq in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power" by better than two to one. President Bush is much more popular than Daschle in South Dakota, and 49% of the men in South Dakota rate Daschle's performance either "fair" or "poor." This is, I believe, the source of the meltdown. If our politics moves from penny-ante graft to great issues of right and wrong, and the survival of our civilization, a small-timer like Daschle will be swept away by the tide. Hence the hysteria that he betrayed on the Senate floor. But childish tantrums will not stem the flow of history.

The Harkin plot thickens. This race was once thought to be competitive, but had turned out not to be. This could put it back into play.

I have combed the Web for a summary of the information contained in the evidentiary memorandum, released today, that Senator Robert Torricelli had sought to suppress, at least until after the election. The only report I can find at this time is from the Bergen Record, but it's a good one. Is it possible that New Jersey voters would knowingly return this disgusting crook to office? The guy should be doing time.

Today's NY Times has an interesting story by Adam ("big-time") Clymer on the two competitive races, in Minnesota and Maryland, that we have noted today. It also has good photographs of John Kline and Bill Luther prospecting for votes at a parade in New Prague, Minnesota.

I live in one of the few congressional districts where there is a competitive race. We are represented by Republican Connie Morella, who lives in my neighborhood. Connie is no John Kline. If she were, she would never have been elected to Congress in our district, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by something like 2-1 and liberals outnumber conservatives by an even larger ratio. Connie nearly always votes with the Democrats and spends much of her time on "women's issues." On the other hand, she votes for a Republican for Speaker every two years and occasionally casts moderate to conservative votes (she tends to support tax cuts, for example). Connie also excels in constituent services and I have never met anyone who doesn't like her personally. In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that my daughter worked in her district office.

Morella has represented the district since 1986, if memory serves. The only time she had a race that was even somewhat close occurrred in 2000 when she faced an extremely well-financed opponent who benefitted from a heavy pro-Gore turnout. Even under these circumstances, she won by about 4 percentage points. However, this year the Democrats re-drew the district, removing a semi-Republican enclave and adding some areas with heavy concentrations of African-American voters. Since Connie's spectacular ability to win over Democratic voters may not extend to black Democratic voters, the expectation has been that she faces a decidely uphill battle this time. However, she may have gotten a break when Mark Shriver (a Kennedy nephew) lost a close primary race to Chris Van Hollen. Shriver is more popular than Van Hollen among African-Americans, so the Republicans hope that Connie won't lose quite as badly with that group as had initially been feared. In addition, Van Hollen had to spend much of his war-chest in the primary.

I'm not aware of what the polls say about this race. The people I know who follow these things just say it's a toss-up. In a normal election year, most conservatives probably wouldn't care who wins. But the way things stand with the House races this year, all conservatives have reason to pull for Connie.

Last weekend I posted the story of the Scottish yeshiva student who was murdered in the Tel Aviv suicide bus bombing and whose family donated his kidney to save the life of a six-year-old Palestinian Arab girl. We said that this incident was symbolic of the fact that the war against Israel, like the war against the United States, is a war of barbarism against civilization.

Someone here other than us has finally picked this story up. Mona Charen's column today tells the story and adds some telling details.

For a lucid explanation of why so few congressional districts have competitive races, check out Steve Sailer's interview with Daniel Polsby. As Polsby points out, the art of the gerrymander is another instance with respect to which the constitutional order has been turned on its head.

Here is Byron York's take on the Senate Democrats' ambush of Miguel Estrada, President Bush's conservative nominee for the federal court of appeals in Washington D.C. As I reported last night, the Dems hit Estrada with allegations that he blocked liberal candidates for judicial clerkships. They did this after first getting Estrada to deny having done so. York expresses the same fear I tried to articulate -- that this will become a fight about Estrada's credibility. York also conveys his disappointment with the Republicans on the judiciary committee for not having prepared Estrada for the ambush. I also like the part where one of Estrada's unnamed alleged "victims" protests that he is just a "moderate Democrat."

One of the few competitive congressional races in the country is the race of our friend, former Marine Col. John Kline, against incumbent Democrat Bill Luther in Minnesota's redistricted sixth district. As part of his Marine service John carried the nuclear football for President Reagan and is a great American. The district leans Republican, and Luther therefore resorted to the almost unbelievble tactic of recruiting a bogus "no new taxes" third candidate to siphon votes from Kline in the upcoming election. The participation of Luther's campaign in formulating and implementing this disgusting tactic has not been entirely clear. Today's Star Tribune begins to get to the bottom of the story.

Hindrocket and I both had the privilege of working with John when he served as executive director of the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis. The Hindrocket family has proudly marched with John's brigades at campaign events this year. We trust John will remember us when he makes it back to Washington.

Charles Krauthammer's take on one of the two recent despicable speeches by contemptible men (Al Gore's, not Tom Daschle's) in today's Washington Post is a demolition job. I love this paragraph toward the end: "The New York Times reports that Gore wrote the speech 'after consulting a fairly far-flung group of advisers that included Rob Reiner.' Current U.S. foreign policy is the combined product of Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and the president. Meanwhile, the pretender is huddling with Meathead."

In "Daschle's Breakdown" John Podhoretz covers the despicable speech by the other contemptible man in his column in today's NY Post.

Deacon, your post is admirably dispassionate, but I must say the Democrats' conduct is sickening. Can anyone imagine a world in which a liberal's working to advance the cause of liberalism would disqualify him from becoming a judge? I can't.

The Senate Democrats may have found the ammunition (or, more accurately, the fig leaf) with which to shoot down Miguel Estrada's nomination to the federal judiciary. As noted in previous blogs, the Dems are trying to prove that Estrada is a "conservative ideologue." At today's hearing, they relied on allegations that Estrada blocked liberals who wanted to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Kennedy from being considered. Federal judges take on recent law school graduates as clerks. The clerks do legal research and often draft the opinions of the judges, who then edit the drafts as they see fit. Estrada clerked for Justice Kennedy and later served on a committee that helps screen applicants for future clerkships with the Justice. Again, the allegation is that Estrada would not pass along applications if he thought the candidate was too liberal.

I don't know many of the facts, but in principle there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what Estrada is said to have done. Other things being roughly equal, Supreme Court Justices of all political persuasions are best served by like-minded clerks. And, because a Supreme Court clerkship is so coveted, things will always be roughly equal -- that is, there will always be extremely well qualified liberal, conservative, and moderate candidates to select from. Estrada did Justice Kennedy no disservice unless (a) Kennedy told him he didn't care about the ideology of his clerks or (b) Estrada excluded candidates whose ideology differed from his own but not significantly from Kennedy's (Kennedy being conservative but not that conservative). However, since the Dems don't need much of a pretext to sink conservative nominees, this flap may be enough. Moreover, Estrada was asked today to admit or deny making various statements that allegedly have been attributed to him by people involved in the clerk selection process. Thus, if the Dems can't get traction on the merits, they can always say it's about credibility. Stay tuned.

Today the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a sentencing memo describing illegal contributions from David Chang to Robert Torricelli, as well as describing Chang's cooperation with the police prior to his sentencing, must be released to the public immediately. This is very bad news for Torricelli, who tried to keep the Chang memo secret until after the election. Recent polls have shown Forrester with a substantial lead; this setback for Torricelli could prove decisive.

There are certain weird aspects to the Iraq situation. For some weeks, the Administration has been announcing its plans to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Various details of strategy and tactics, including movements of troops and other military assets, are in the news nearly every day. Iraqi officials, meanwhile, give interviews to the Washington Post in which they detail their defensive strategy. They will not defend the desert, as in Desert Storm: "Take the desert. What's in the desert?" they ask. Instead, they will try to lure American troops into Baghdad, where air power will be neutralized and building-by-building fighting will claim American lives. Ordinarily, nations contemplating war do not give interviews so that their battle plans will appear in newspapers. What is happening here, of course, is that we are announcing our plans for the benefit of the Iraqi audience. We want Iraqi officials and soldiers to know that Saddam Hussein is finished and they should not sacrifice their lives to defend his regime, nor should they obey his orders if he tries to unleash biological and chemical weapons. Our constant leaking of war aims and strategies is intended for an audience in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, is doing exactly the same thing. When his officials describe their urban warfare strategy to the Washington Post, they are playing to an American audience. They are trying to furnish ammunition to antiwar Democrats in hopes that they will be able to frustrate the Administration's desire to overthrow Saddam's government. Whether either side's actual tactics in the war, should it come, will resemble the ones they leak to newspapers, remains to be seen.

The jury is still out on Tom Daschle's performance in the Senate yesterday. Hugh Hewitt considers it a "Muskie moment" that will seriously damage Daschle's career. I don't know; the newspaper headlines I've seen have been along the lines of "Daschle Rips Bush," not "Bizarre Near-Breakdown in Senate." Why did he do it? The ostensible point of the speech was to complain about something that Bush never said; in fact, Bush never even came close. Daschle is a man who doesn't get out of bed in the morning without consulting a poll, so he is no doubt aware that by a two to one margin, Americans are more likely to think the Democrats are playing politics with Iraq than the President. I assume he thought it would be helpful to the Democrats' prospects in November to try to narrow that gap. Whether he succeeded, I have no idea. I doubt that in today's America, the sight of a male politician getting in touch with his feelings on the evening news will damage his career. Whether Daschle achieved his larger goal of narrowing the credibility gap on the war, we will see when the next polls come out--and ultimately, of course, in November.

Here's another fine column by Bret Stephens of the Jerusalem Post. The subject is the "Third Way" (the reformed Left), and three of its leading figures, Al Gore, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schroeder. Among other insights, Stephens provides a plausible explanation as to why, of the three, only Blair has taken a consistent and coherent position on Iraq. For those who don't make it to the end of the column, here is Stephens' thought-provoking final paragraph: "Third Way politics have offered a lifeline to the ailing Left, in Europe and American alike. For the sake of democratic pluralism, this has been salutary. As a style of governance, it is somewhat refreshing. In the face of radical evil, it is downright dangerous. Between civilization and barbarism, there is no third way."

Yesterday, I posted a piece by Byron York about the looming confirmation struggle over Miguel Estrada. According to that article, virtually the sole source of the charge that Estrada is too much of a conservative ideologue to be a federal judge is Paul Bender, Estrada's former supervisor at the Justice Department's Office of the Solicitor General (who, by the way, always gave Estrada high marks in written performance evaluations). In today's National Review Online, Robert Alt exposes Bender as a liberal ideologue. Bender was the "political deputy" in Estrada's office, which sounds like a polite way of saying that he was there impose the liberal biases of the Clinton administration on the career lawyers in the Solicitor General's office. (Without engaging in excessive "lawyer talk" and at the risk of oversimplifying, I should explain that the Solicitor General argues the positions of the U.S. government before the Supreme Court. To some extent, the Solicitor General necessarily is a political creature, but members of the office have always tried above all else to be fair-minded lawyers, and the office retains a strong reputation for professionalism). Alt's piece demonstrates Bender's "unabashed liberalism," which manifested itself in the reversal of the office's position on child pornography, to cite one example. According to Alt, Bender was later booted from his role as neutral arbitrator in a dispute between the Arizona Gaming Control Board and Indian tribes based on "serious concerns" by the American Arbitration Association "regarding Bender's attitude and approach" including "inappropriate communications" with one of the parties. But most significantly, for purposes of evaluating Estrada's qualifications for the bench, Bender's boss, former Solicitor General Seth Waxman (a liberal in his own right), has written to the Senate Judiciary Committee to disagree with Bender's assessment of Estrada and to laud Estrada's professionalism and judgment.

According to Stanley Kurtz in National Review Online, Kenneth Pollack, a member of Clinton's National Security Council and its chief expert on Iraq, is taking the position that Saddam Hussein must be deposed by an invasion. In his book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, Pollock grudgingly concludes that the post-Gulf War policy of containing Saddam has irretrievably broken down, according to Kurtz. Pollock's case for invasion apparently focuses on the likelihood that Saddam will develop nuclear weapons that will enable him to seize Kuwait and then threaten to nuke the Saudi oil fields. This will leave him in control of the world's oil supply. Pollock also makes the point that allowing our fear of Saddam's current weapons of mass destruction to hold us back will signal to every rogue nation that they can neutralize the power of the United States with even a small stock of chemical or biological weapons. Pollock rates the prospect of Saddam passing weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against the U.S. as "unlikely" but certainly not impossible. Pollock argues that if Saddam believes the probability of the attack being traced to him is quite low, then "he might well decide" to work through terrorists to attack the U.S. Kurtz adds that Condolezza Rice has said that Saddam is now sheltering members of Al Qaeda and helping them develop chemical weapons.

Here is something I don't understand. Articles like this one in the Washington Times say the Republicans have a huge advantage in cash on hand, and apparently are in a position to out-spend the Democrats by a two to one margin on Senate races. Yet in the races I observe, the Democrats seem to be spending more. I haven't seen any hard numbers, but the Norm Coleman camp says Paul Wellstone outspent them three to one over the summer. And my sources in South Dakota say Tim Johnson ads outnumber John Thune ads by two to one; yesterday, the Sioux Falls newspaper published a poll that showed a three point lead for Johnson. If the Republicans' cash isn't going to support key candidates like Coleman and Thune, what good is it? I think part of the answer is differing tactics; Republican strategists seem to favor last-minute blitzes, while the Democrats believe that money spent early, before public perceptions of candidates have hardened and everyone is sick of political ads, can be most efficient. I fear that experience supports the Democrats' strategy.

In August Minneapolis had its first race riot in ten years. A Minneapolis police officer and several white reporters were assaulted while Minneapolis officers executed a search warrant at a notorious north Minneapolis crack house. The Minneapolis mayor, chief of police, and city council have reacted with a display of spinelessness that we thought must be most encouraging to the thugs and gangbangers who have made Minneapolis their home. I may be mistaken, but I have yet to see the perpetrators of the assaults identified or apprehended.

The response of Minneapolis's public authorities has been a disgrace. The most absurd of the responses has been the funnelling of cash to Minneapolis's own Jesse Jackson, one professional race hustler named Spike Moss who operates as an officer of a nonprofit inner city organization named The City Inc. In time-tested 1960's fashion, the chief funnelled thousands of dollars to the organization to hire north Minneapolis kids to pick up trash. The Minneapolis city council has now blessed this arrangement.

We have posted every published story regarding the riot because we thought that in many respects it was an omen of ill tidings for Minneapolis. In a sequel whose details are still not clear, and which we have therefore refrained from commenting on, a 19-year-old University of Minnesota football player was murdered by a known gangbanger in downtown Minneapolis shortly after the riot. The University of Minnesota football player was from Detroit. It seemed to us a sickening sign of Minneapolis's deterioration that that young man had survived what must have been some hard years in Detroit only to lose his life weeks after coming to Minneapolis to go to college on a scholarship.

Years ago many of us learned everything we needed to know about The City Inc., after Minneapolis police officer Jerry Haaf was murdered by associates of a notorious gangbanger named Sharif Willis. In 1992 Officer Haaf was shot in the back as he was eating at the Pizza Shack on Lake Street, one of Minneapolis's main thoroughfares. In 1994 Willlis was arrested in connection with another offense and was found driving a Mercedes registered to The City Inc., where he then worked. One would think that Willis's relationship with The City Inc., whatever it was, would forever discredit the organization in the eyes of the chief of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Yesterday a man standing outside the Pizza Shack was shot in the head in an apparent gang-related drive-by shooting. This morning's Star Tribune has the story.

This news item in the Washington Times reports that Joseph Lieberman, John Edwards, and the desperate Bob Torricelli have disagreed with Al Gore's remarks about President Bush's policy on Iraq. Tom Daschle, on the other hand, has echoed them. The Times story also points to additional conflicting statements by Gore about Iraq (see the post from the Weekly Standard below). According to the Times, in a February 2002 speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, Gore acknowledged that the war on terrorism would require a "final reckoning" with Saddam. Yet as President Bush moves towards the required final reckoning, Gore accuses him of trying to please the "far right at the expense of solidarity among all Americans" and with our allies. Gore could try to reconcile these statements by arguing that the final reckoning should await the destruction of Al Qaeda. But, as Rocket Man explained a few days ago, if a final reckoning with Saddam is required, it is because of the danger he poses to our security. That being the case, the reckoning cannot await a hypothetical future day when Al Qaeda is out of business.

And what can Gore mean when he criticizes President Bush for developing his policy "at the expense of solidarity among all Americans?" Most Americans believe that Saddam poses an intolerable threat to the security of this nation and to the safety of its citizens. A policy that ignored this threat, or that entrusted dealing with it to U.N. inspectors, or that postponed dealing with it until the last Al Qaeda terrorist is rounded up clearly would not create "solidarity among all Americans."

Given the incoherence of his speech and all of his flip-flops, it is hard to avoid concluding that Gore has now calculated he can become president only if the war with Iraq goes badly, in which case he will need to have opposed that war from the beginning. This is a debatable calculation on Gore's part. The first President Bush lost the 1992 election less than two years after his highly successful war against Iraq. But, as a presidential candidate, Al Gore is no Bill Clinton.

More on "Barbershop:" Frontpagemag has a thoughtful column by Toronto attorney Marni Soupcoff on Jesse Jackson's complaint. You may recall that Jesse Jackson's current demand is that the politically incorrect, utterly hilarious monologues of Eddie the Barber be deleted from the film.

We have scrupulously sought to maintain the Power Line as a family publication. We ask your forebearance to violate this policy by quoting Ms. Soupcoff's conclusion that says almost everything that needs to be said here: "At one point in Barbershop, one of the customers warns Eddie that he'd better not let Jesse Jackson hear his iconoclastic remarks, but Eddie is not cowed. 'F*** Jesse Jackson!' he says."

The Weekly Standard has collected some of Al Gore's "conflicting statements" about Iraq over the years. I know that Rocket Man and Trunk don't deal in rumors, and I have tried to honor that policy. But here I cannot resist mentioning the persistent Washington rumor that, in 1991 when Al Gore was trying to decide how to vote on the Gulf War resolution, Gore conditioned his agreement to vote for President Bush's resolution on Bob Dole's agreement to give him a good television time in which to deliver his speech on this issue.

During the past few weeks, we have covered the confirmation battle over MIchael McConnell, President Bush's distinguished nominee to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The next confirmation struggle will be over the excellent hispanic lawyer, Miguel Estrada, who has been nominated to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Byron York presents a useful if somewhat depressing analysis of the Estrada situation. However, the title of York's article -- "A Battle Over Nothing" -- mischaracterizes the stakes. Estrada is a conservative, even if there is no paper trail to prove it, and he is being opposed solely for being a conservative. So the issue is whether a Republican President can successfully nominate highly qualified conservatives to the federal bench. And before too long, the issue is likely to be whether a Democratic President can successfully nominate highly qualified liberals.

More on "Barbershop:" Rod Dreher of National Review Online addresses Jesse Jackson's complaint.

I recently wrote about a movie I enjoyed seeing with my kids, the hit movie "Barbershop." There are several good things about the movie, but the best is the character who steals the movie--the ancient barber Eddy. Eddy is a Falstaffian comic character who is a paragon of political incorrectness. Jesse Jackson, who is himself one of the butts of Eddy's humor, is now demanding that producers of the movie delete Eddy's hilarious monologues from video and DVD versions of the movie. I urge you to see the movie while you can see it whole.

The Coleman-Wellstone race is heating up. Coleman has been under intense pressure to be more aggressive and has hired a new ad agency. I assume this is the result. The Minneapolis Star Tribune's account is naturally favorable to Wellstone; I haven't seen the ads and can't comment on their likely effect. The basic question is, if the campaign stays aggressive and both candidates' negative perceptions are driven up, who benefits? Notwithstanding the advice that he has gotten from nearly every quarter, I'm not sure the answer is Coleman. Wellstone's negatives are already high, and political ads aren't likely to dent his solid base of support. Mud thrown at Coleman, on the other hand, may dissuade swing voters who are prepared to vote for someone else--especially after Wellstone broke his two-term pledge--but may conclude Coleman isn't the man.

Our friends at the invaluable RealClearPolitics site have posted a terrific column by a Houston Chronicle columnist I had not heard of before, a gentleman evocatively named Cragg Hines. In his column today on the German election, "We've done it before, could do it again," Mr. Hines eloquenty expresses his righteous indignation at those whom he calls "our good friends" in Germany.

It is extremely gratifying to read a published assessment of Al Gore's recent speech that does some kind of justice to Gore and to the speech. The Seattle Times headlines Michael Kelly's column today "A despicable speech from a contemptible man," allowing even me to figure out what the subject of the column is. Wonderful!

The Boston Herald's editorial on Gore's speech, "Al Gore mouths off unhelpfully on Iraq," makes several of the same points I did in response to Rocket Man's assessment the day of the speech.

This isn't a parody. Really.

Several days ago, I noted that Maryland gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend had been forced to fire a consultant who vowed to portray her Republican opponent Bob Ehrlich as a "Nazi" to black voters. I predicted that, while the consultant would go, the tactic would stay. It turns out that I may have been wrong on the first count. If the consultant is to be believed (a big "if" to be sure), Democratic officials asked him to continue working "undercover" for Townsend. The Washington Post reports that the consultant is claiming he was told by the campaign that "the Jewish community is so up in arms that [we] have to get rid of [you]. But we still want you to work undercover and we'll work it out. We'll pay you some kind of way."

Fareed Zakaria expands on one of the points made by Charles Krauthammer in an article I posted a few days ago, namely that "France and Russia have turned the United Nations into a stage from which to pursue naked self-interest." However, my quarrel with France and Russia is not that they view the United Nations this way. Any rational nation will treat the U.N. as a means to pursue its ends, not as an end in itself. My quarrel with France and Russia is with their decision to make collusion with Saddam Hussein one of their ends. If decisions like these make it too difficult for the United States to pursue its ends through the U.N., then, as Trunk suggests, it truly will be time to revisit the underlying issue of our participation in that organization.

In New Hampshire, the most recent poll data show Rep. Sununu with a surprising (to me, anyway) nine-point lead over Governor Shaheen.

In one of this year's most closely watched Senate campaigns, Norm Coleman has opened up a six-point lead over Paul Wellstone, according to the latest MSNBC/Zogby poll. This is despite being badly outspent, so far, and despite a media campaign that nearly everyone considers lackluster. I was initially pessimistic about this race, and still am to some extent. But the race is mostly about Wellstone, not Coleman. If these latest poll numbers are accurate, Wellstone has worn out his welcome with lots of Minnesotans.

For those interested in more on Gore, here is Andrew Sullivan's harsh but entirely fair assessment. He also relates Gore's speech to the David Brooks column we linked to a day or two ago.

Here is a link to the complete dossier on Saddam Hussein that Tony Blair released this morning.

The ongoing debate over Iraq has highlighted serious questions about the legitimacy of the United Nations as an institution. I have wondered why so few conservatives have sought to revisit underlying issues regarding the UN including the most basic one, the political theory of world government. The UN is the product of a kind of utopian liberal internationalism that seeks to transcend the nation and to produce the homogenous universal state. I also do not understand the "one nation, one vote" principle that reigns in the UN's various bodies, including the General Assembly. George Will has recently noted how obsolete the structure of the Security Council is, with its permanent members reflecting the world of 1945 or so. Perhaps the reluctance of conservatives to undertake a thoroughgoing examination of the legitimacy of the UN is the difficulty of doing so without sounding like a kook.

In his weekly column in today's New York Post, the incomparable Daniel Pipes goes as far as any conservative has gone recently in raising questions that go to the heart of the project represented by the UN. Pipes's column summarizes an article by John Fonte from the current issue of Orbis that begins to raise the kind of radical questions we urgently need to address. I wonder if other serious conservatives will follow Pipes's lead in pursuing these issues.

The article by David Brooks that Rocket Man posted earlier today is well worth reading. I was particularly taken with Brooks' observation that President Bush's liberal critics are "playing culture war" and not really "arguing about Iraq." Ever since Trunk posted articles by Mark Helprin and Angelo Codevilla denouncing Bush's efforts against terrorism as a "failure" and a "phony," I have been thinking that some conservatives too are having trouble distinguishing between the culture war and the war against terrorism.

There clearly is a relationship between between how well conservatives are faring in the culture war and how well equipped the nation is to combat terrorism. The inroads made by tendencies that go by names like multiculturalism, multilateralism, and political correctness have made it more difficult to prosecute the war on terrorism. Ten years of sponsoring the Middle East "peace process" haven't helped either. Nor have decades of under-funding the military. If conservatives were doing better in the culture war, we wouldn't be searching non-Arab grandmothers in airports and we wouldn't have wasted time and energy by sending Colin Powell to Israel to negotiate with Arafat. Who knows, Colin Powell might not even be the Secretary of State.

It is certainly proper, moreover, for conservatives to criticize President Bush whenever the tendencies described above cause his administration to be diverted from effective action against terrorism (although conservatives should not ignore Bush's progress in overcoming some of these tendencies). But Helprin and Codevilla go much further. To Helprin, Bush has already "failed the test of September 11." To Codevilla, his war on terrorism is a "phony," deserving nothing more than a "postmortem." Helprin and Codevilla concede defeat to terrorism even though there has been no successful follow-up attack against the United States; even though we have toppled the regime that most directly supported Al Qaeda and will probably soon topple the regime most capable of providing lethal support; and even though we may well have killed the head of Al Qaeda and undoubtedly have killed and captured many Al Qaeda members including some high-ranking ones.

How, on this record, do Helprin and Codevilla establish that the war is failing? The same way that, according to David Brooks, Bush's liberal critics attack his policy on Iraq -- by "repeating the hatreds [they have] cultivated." In Codevilla's case, it is hatred of, among other things, the vision of an orderly multicultural international community, the peace process, our failure to support the Shah of Iran, our deference to Saudi Arabia, and the way the CIA gathers intelligence. In Helprin's case, the list is similar. He even invokes the war in Vietnam, which Brooks implies is also the origin of the liberal hatreds at play in the Iraq debate.

Codevilla and Helprin are right to despise most of the tendencies they despise. They are also justified in pointing out how these tendencies interfere with the fight against terrorism. But they are on shakier ground when they assume that the war on terrorism is being lost, or will be lost, due to these tendencies. Conservatives should be careful not to commit the same fallacy as Brooks' liberals. To borrow Brooks' words, our demons should not occupy our entire field of vision, leaving no room for analysis of anything beyond, such as what is happening in the real world.

Rocket Man, discrimination against whites males is indeed illegal. Taylor's brief discussion of the limited circumstances under which an employer can defend such discrimination based on an alleged need to assist minorities is accurate. Based on Taylor's article and an article that I posted a few weeks ago by Terry Eastland, it sounds like this lawsuit has a good chance of succeeding. If the case is as strong as it sounds, then it may settle on favorable terms to the white plaintiffs. You may recall that the Clinton administration threw money at a white teacher from New Jersey in order to settle her case of "reverse discrimination" before it got to the Supreme Court. However, Taylor says that the plaintiffs in this case aren't seeking any money; supposedly they just want their agency to stop discriminating. The Bush administration will be under great pressure not to agree to a settlement that could affect other federal govenment "affirmative action" programs.

Bret Stephens, a brilliant columnist who writes for the Jerusalem Post, assesses the position of Germany and Gerhard Schroeder following the election. He notes that Schroeder was endorsed by the Al-Iqtisadi newspaper in Baghdad and by neo-Nazi Franz Schoenhuber--not "exactly the endorsements...Schroeder was looking for." More fundamentally, Schroeder and his government are in the deep freeze as far as America and its more reliable allies, like Italy, are concerned. Worst of all, news of Schroeder's victory caused Frankfurt's stock market index to fall 4.9% as shareholders--"dismayed by the prospect of another Schroeder government"--sold in droves. Stephens quotes Karl-Heinz Nassmacher of Oldenberg University saying, "What we need is a German Margaret Thatcher, but where are we going to find her?" On the whole, German prospects are not bright: "After a decade of stagnation, the country is no longer the economic powerhouse of former days. And with its stance over Iraq, the seriousness of its foreign policy may now be called into question as well."

On a wholly different topic, Stuart Taylor writes about a class action suit filed by Dennis Worth against HUD and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of white men, alleging race and sex discrimination. It is an interesting story, and the statistics are mind-boggling: 42 out of 43 people hired or promoted in Worth's division were either African-American or women. I find the claim of discrimination highly plausible--all of us can vouch for the reality of such discrimination based on our experience in the business world--but what I don't know is whether this lawsuit has a chance to succeed. Is discrimination against white men legal or not? I'm not sure, but Deacon is one of the country's leading experts in this field. Hopefully he can enlighten us.

Thanks, Trunk. If anyone is hungry for more, VodkaPundit offers a less tolerant assessment of Gore's speech.

Rocket Man has said everything important that needs to be said about Gore's speech, including Gore's obliviousness to any consideration but politics in saying what he said. But I find the political calculation here unfathomable. First, as Rocket Man has noted, the Democrats lose ground so long as Iraq remains the focus of public discussion. Second, Gore made himself a viable national candidate by voting in favor of the 1991 war resolution for which the first President Bush had asked. Third, whatever Gore's speech means, what he says is wrong. Fourth, the current problem of Saddam Hussein is as much a legacy of President Clinton's frivolousness as it is the first President Bush's misjudgment. Fifth, the distinction between the war on terrorism and the war against Saddam Hussein is nonexistent. Saddam Hussein and the mullahs of Iran are the foremost state sponsors of terrorism, and Saddam Hussein has never ceased waging his war against the United States through terrorist instrumentalities. Sixth, as a matter of pure political calculation, wouldn't it be wiser for Gore to remain silent or respectfully supportive of President Bush? Isn't his speech stupid politically as well as substantively? Maybe the politics involved here are purely intraparty, but I still don't understand them.

As to the connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorism, I note coincidentally in tomorrow's Ha'aretz an amazing story, "Shin Bet arrests three suspects who trained in Iraq." According to the story, the three suspects are members of the Palestine Liberation Front who trained in Iraq with terrorist mastermind Abu al-Abbas. Abu al-Abbas has been hiding out in Bagdhad in Saddam Hussein's sheltering arms. Alththough the story does not mention it, it should be noted that when last seen in 1985, Abu al-Abbas and the PLF had hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and thrown an American citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, overboard in his wheelchair into the Mediterranean. After trial in absentia, Abbas was convicted of the crime in an Italian court. That he remains at large in Baghdad says virtually everything that needs to be said on this particular subject, and is a disgrace.

Al Gore has gotten lots of publicity by by criticizing President Bush on Iraq. I haven't seen the whole speech yet; maybe it makes more sense if you read it in its entirety. But based on what has been reported, it is very difficult to see what Gore's point is. CNN reports that he "[backed] Bush's overall goal of ousting Saddam and eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," but "questioned the timing of a military strike." Since the timing of any strike is not known, it is unclear what Mr. Gore was questioning. Gore appears to be making the same argument that Bill Clinton made a week or two ago--that we should do nothing about Saddam Hussein until every last al Qaeda operative has been hunted down. In his usual inflammatory style, Gore said that "Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another." This is just stupid. It will surely be impossible to kill every member of al Qaeda, and even if possible, it would take many years. It is ridiculous to suggest that if Saddam Hussein threatens our security--as Gore admits he does--we should nevertheless be paralyzed until some arbitrary threshold of success in destroying al Qaeda has been met. (This, of course, is quite apart from the fact that Saddam's terrorist activities have often merged with those of al Qaeda and other Islamofascists.) The heart of Gore's criticism seems to be directed against Bush's policy of pre-emptively destroying terrorists before they can destroy us. But what is the alternative? Does Gore seriously argue that we cannot move against Saddam's nuclear program until after Saddam has destroyed one or more of our cities? Apparently so, except that Gore never seriously argues anything. He is the most purely political animal of our time, as this speech demonstrates once more. Gore's performance illustrates why no one takes the Democrats seriously on issues of national security.

David Brooks dissects the anti-war left, focusing on the left's eerie silence about the risks posed by Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

One of the basic tenets of the liberal faith is the beauty of "diversity." Every day the dogmas of multiculturalism are promulgated relentlessly by our schools, newspapers and media, and public authorities. The transformation of the United States by waves of immigration from non-European countries is always depicted as a phenomenon to be celebrated, as are the immigrants' religions and cultures.

Minneapolis and St. Paul have been deeply affected by the large number of Somali and Hmong immigrants who have made the Twin Cities metropolitan area their home. The occasionally disturbing cultural practices of these groups and the related social costs are never publicly discussed. Despite the liberal dogmas of multiculturalism, for example, one of Minnesota's leading left-wing legislators was responsible for introducing legislation criminalizing the Somali practice of female genital circumcision in Minnesota in 1994. (Her feminism trumped her multiculturalism.) You can take a look at the statute here. Female genital mutilation was not much of a problem in Minnesota before Somalis settled here in the 1980's and 1990's.

The cultural practices of the Hmong have also proved extremely troubling. Animal sacrifice, teenage marriage, and polygamy are a few of the practices that have had secondary effects that expose them to public view if not discussion. Today's St. Paul Pioneer Press carries an account of a wife's murder of her husband because he was about to take a second, much younger wife. The story makes it clear that the Hmong frequently practice polygamy.

The Republican Party was established in the mid-1850's in profound opposition to what its founders believed to be the moral evils of slavery and polygamy. The Republican Party platform of 1856 therefore equally condemned the "twin relics of barbarism--Polygamy, and Slavery."

I wonder how long it will be before the doctrinal imperatives of multiculturalism will prevail and its proponents will demand that we respect the practice of polygamy, as they demand that we respect the practice of homosexuality, or if the understanding of those who founded the party that saved the Union can be restored to its rightful prominence in American public life.

Today's Jerusalem Post carries the story of a seven year old Palestinian Arab girl whose life has been saved by a kidney transplanted from the 19-year old yeshiva student from Scotland who was one of the victims of the Tel Aviv suicide bus bombing. Although the article doesn't say so, the hospital at which the transplant was performed was of course Israeli and the surgeons Israeli Jews. I hope you will forgive me for stating the obvious conclusion: that the war now being waged against Israel is not only a war for Israel's survival, but also a war of barbarism against civilization.

The Freedom Club is a group of Minnesota businessmen who banded together about seven years ago to promote conservative causes and candidates. Naturally, its existence is regarded by local media as a sinister phenomenon. Every two years the Minneapolis Star Tribune runs a piece on the Club. This year there is a series of articles on the Freedom Club and its liberal counterpart (sort of), the teachers' union. These two groups are accused of "dominating Minnesota politics." The articles actually aren't too bad; maybe the Strib is getting used to us. I'm quoted at the very end of the principal article.

Things keep going downhill for Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's Maryland gubernatorial campaign. The Washington Post reports that Townsend has had to fire a political consultant after the consultant vowed to portray Repulbican candidate Robert Ehrlich as a "Nazi" to African American voters. Actually, the consultant was simply articulating the standard winning Democratic strategy in Maryland. In 1998, the Maryland Democrats, directed by top party consultant and Al Gore adviser Bob Shrum, derailed Republican Ellen Sauerbrey by attacking her alleged racist voting in the Maryland state legislature. But the vote in question concerned legislation that had nothing to do with race; it was controversial "women's" legislation that prominent black Democrats had also voted against. The smear campaign was later denounced by Baltimore's black mayor, but not before Sauerbrey (who had narrowly lost the gubernatorial race in 1994 in an election that may have been stolen) saw her campaign sink like a stone. Playing the race card works in Maryland, and now that the offending consultant has been fired, don't be surprised if his (and Shrum's) strategy is duly implemented. It may be Townsend's only hope.

Here are some first-person accounts of the latest mass murder in Israel, courtesy of the Jerusalem Post. This is an old story, but worth reading once more to remember why the Israelis have again moved to isolate and humiliate Yasser Arafat, the perpetrator of these atrocities over a period of decades.

The Federal Election Commission has imposed a record $719,000 in fines on the Democratic Party and others involved in the Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals of 1996. In addition, the FEC had to drop cases involving more than $3 million in illegal contributions to the Democratic National Committee because the wrongdoers either are "out of the country and beyond our reach, or corporations that are defunct."

E.J. Dionne a leading shill for liberal Democrats, recognizes that "Bush is boxing the Democrats on Iraq," and then spends his column whining about it. Dionne seems to think it is unfair for Bush to ask Democrats in Congress whether they will support a war against Iraq and, where the answer is negative, for Republicans to point this out to voters. Dionne objects that Democrats "who would support a war under the right conditions" should not be asked "to endorse a war under all conditions." But every politician would support a war "under the right conditions." It is hardly unfair to deprive politicians of this dodge.

Dionne's article illustrates a larger problem in our politics. Ever since the first President Bush successfully pointed out the consequences of Michael Dukakis's weekend pass for prisioners policy (namely Willie Horton's brutal acts of rape and murder), the Democrats and their journalistic guard have screamed foul whenever Republicans attempt to hold them responsible for the consequences of their policies. The unstated premise is that politicians can only be criticized for having bad intentions (e.g. not favoring war in "the right circumstances") or for lacking compassion -- in other words, that politicians should be immune from attack when well-intentioned policies don't work out. Republicans often have been cowed by fear of being attacked for "Willie Hortonism." This has made it too easy for liberal Democrats to prosper, especially in conservative states. E.J. Dionne's mission in articles like the one above is to preserve this unfortunate state of affairs.

The Weekly Standard's Noemie Emery compares the early days of the War on Terror to the early days of the Cold War. As Emery notes, "several Presidents have had to wage wars, but only two Bush and Truman, have had to perceive them, and then to define them as wars." Although it seems odd to credit Bush for perceiving after September 11 that we are at war, such is the state of our politics (and arguably our society) that credit is due. And the President has had a strong few weeks lately when it comes to defining the war. Emery's piece is a useful rejoinder to Bush's conservative critics, such as Helprin and Codevilla, whose views Trunk posted last week.

This story about the FBI agent who warned shortly before September 11 that "someday someone will die" will get huge play. Most people--even those as knowledgeable as Glenn Reynolds in this morning's InstaPundit--will simply take this as more evidence that the FBI dropped the ball; the Democrats are pouncing on it and asking "What did President Bush know?" Few will read the fine print and understand why the FBI's legal department turned down the agent's request to investigate a man who became one of the September 11 hijackers. The reason is this: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) contained a provision that required sharp separation between the government's intelligence gathering and criminal prosecution activities. Information gained in one capacity could not be used to further the other, and communication among federal agents in these two areas was curtailed. Thus, the FBI's legal department was abiding by the restrictions imposed by Congress when it refused to allow intelligence-related information to be used to launch a criminal investigation. Fortunately, this issue was addressed in the much-reviled Patriot Act, adopted last fall. Federal prosecutors can now, under the supervision of the federal government's special security court, use intelligence information to further criminal investigations, and vice versa. This change in the law has, of course, been bitterly attacked by liberals who see it as an infringement of civil liberties. Thus, the liberals have their cake and eat it too--they denounce the FBI for incompetence, when in fact, the FBI was scrupulously following Congress' rules. At the same time, when the Administration tries to plug the loopholes that Congress created, they accuse John Ashcroft of being a fascist. A couple of weeks ago I wrote in this space that the Democrats would welcome a second successful terrorist attack, because they would gain politically by blaming it on the Administration. Some readers thought I was being too harsh. If anyone can point to a single thing the Democrats have done to make the country more secure since September 11, I will change my mind. So far, I see nothing but hypocrisy and politically-inspired grandstanding.

On September 18, Governor Paul Patton of Kentucky held a news conference, wife by his side, to deny having an affair with nursing home owner Tina Conner. Patton is a Democratic bigfoot, chairman of the National Governors Association, and was expected to challenge former National League pitching great and current incumbent Senator Jim Bunning in 2004. Ms. Conner has brought a sexual harassment lawsuit claiming she had a two-year affair with the governor and that he sicced state regulators on her nursing home after she broke off the affair in October. The state regulators assert that the 163-page list of deficiencies found in Ms. Conner's nursing home in December, two months after she broke off the relationship with Patton, resulted from an occupant's compaint. Ms. Conner is now divorced and her nursing home has filed for bankruptcy protection.

On September 20, Governor Patton admitted to "an inappropriate personal relationship" with Ms. Conner, but denied that he sicced state regulators, or state regulators working "directly" for him, on her nursing home. He does admit that his denial of their affair was "another mistake." This story adds the following: "Conner's lawsuit against Patton, filed Wednesday, alleges he provided extraordinary state assistance to her and her business because of the sexual relationship. She claimed that after she ended the relationship Patton made 'lewd' calls to her and that he made harassing calls after she ended the relationship. The phone records show 440 calls from phones in the governor's offices to Conner's numbers, but do not indicate who placed the calls."

Incidentally, Ms. Conner's nursing home is located in Clinton.

Schroder, by the way, has now "apologized" to President Bush. It seems like a pretty equivocal apology--"I want to let you know how much I regret the fact that alleged comments by the German justice minister have given an impression that has offended you." The "alleged comments" that "gave an impression" were obviously offensive, to say the least. We haven't heard the last of this.

In this piece, Michael Ledeen reminds us of the "intelligence failures" that we should be most concerned about in the aftermath of September 11. These include congressionally imposed or encouraged restrictions on intelligence gathering and covert activity, along with the simple unwillingness of Bill Clinton to accept help from Sudan in monitoring and apprehending bin Laden.

My own experiences with Europeans have led me to think that anti-Americanism is mainly a phenomenon of the European elites--one of their many annoying qualities. I still hope that's true. The German election may be the best test in a long time of how deep anti-Americanism runs. But the fact that Schroder considered attacks on America to be the most expedient way to close a gap in the polls is not reassuring.

Jonah Goldberg examines the sources of Germany's anti-Americanism. It's a good piece, but may underestimate sheer envy as one of the explanations.

Absolutely, Trunk, although it might be fair to add that the United Nations is already doing a good job of discrediting that theory in the eyes of the American public. On another front, now that the confirmation of Michael McConnell to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals looks like a done deal, the Washington Post advocates his confirmation. The Post expresses concern, however, over "the ideological uniformity of the Bush administration's [judicial] nominees." It expresses no concern over the fact that Senate Democrats denied the "well qualified" McConnell a hearing for more than a year.

As intimated by Charles Krauthammer's column, the doctrine of liberal internationalism applies the suicidal impulse at the core of liberalism to the most elementary questions of self-defense. Thus the Clinton doctrine: the use of American military force may be justified--but never in the national interest of the United States. President Bush's UN speech states with admirable clarity our intention to act against Iraq with or without the blessing of the UN. But doesn't Krauthammer's column call for a more thoroughgoing reassessment of the American commitment to the United Nations as an institution, and call for citizens like us to begin the work of discrediting the political theory of "world government" represented by the United Nations?

For those who haven't seen it, here's today's column by Charles Krauthammer in which he brilliantlly exposes the illogic (and I would say pathology) of "Liberal Internationalism, the foreign policy school of the modern Democratic Party." This is the mindset that "finds it unseemly to act in the name of [our] own self-interest and cannot see the logical absurdity of granting moral legitimacy to American action only if it earns the approval of the [U.N.] Security Council -- approval granted or withheld on the most cyncial grounds of self-interest."

I had thought that I was completely familiar with the phenomenon of the phony "Jenin massacre." Rocket Man and I discussed it daily as it transpired and as it was almost instantaneously deconstructed in the blogosphere. I have just come across David Rosenberg's review of the "Jenin massacre" affair in the weekly Forward, "How Jenin Coverage Massacred the Truth." I have found that I have much to learn.

Rosenberg's review highlights several absurdities retailed by reporters in the elite media of which I was not aware. For example, Rosenberg summarizes Richard Boudreaux's April 12 article in the Los Angeles Times: "Near the top of his story he warns the reader that the accounts 'couldn't be independently verified.' But by that point Boudreaux has already related the story of Khadra Samara's '17 terrifying hours' huddled with 30 neighbors as Israeli soldiers destroyed their homes. The article continues with Israelis executing 7-8 disarmed Palestinians; the shooting death of a 16-year-old boy; a 52-year-old woman bleeding to death; a 70-year-old dying as he tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying his home, and on and on. In fact, Boudreaux found witnesses to 10 civilian deaths, a remarkable success rate given that human rights groups could later document only 23."

Rosenberg also correctly notes that the media coverage of the war against Israel is trying "to preserve a narrative"--a narrative of oppressive Israelis and victimized Palestinians. His conclusion is clearly on the mark: "The coverage of the Jenin massacre and its aftermath is unusual only in that the facts were established decisively and early."

I've been wondering when we'd hear about the Republicans' pre-election investor tax cut package. Now, it apparently isn't going to happen. Seems like a mistake to me. But then, I'm an investor.

This morning's papers bring us competing interpretations of the past applied to the present. In the Wall Street Journal Israel's former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu invokes the inaction of France and England regarding Hitler in the 1930's to argue that now is the moment to act against Saddam Hussein: "We now know that had the democracies taken pre-emptive action to bring down Hitler's regime in the 1930s, the worst horrors in history could have been avoided." On the other hand, Germany's justice minister, one Ms. Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, argues that it is President Bush and not Saddam Hussein who resembles Hitler: "Bush wants to divert attention from his domestic problems. It's a classic tactic. It's one that Hitler used." But isn't Saddam the guy with the mustache?

And who's Neville Chamberlain? If Germany's Janet Reno believes that Bush is Hitler, I wonder if that means she believes that Saddam Hussein is Neville Chamberlain. I vaguely recall that someone once pointed out a photograph of Neville Chamberlain to President Reagan, who truly was a master in the wise use of history for contemporary purposes. Reagan asked, "Where's the umbrella?"

You're right, Rocket Man. The reasons why Leahy and company have decided not to block McConnell's nomination are not clear, at least not to me. Last week, I posted a piece by Byron York (the author of the piece you posted today) in which he speculated that McConnell would probably be confirmed. He reasoned that the Democrats didn't want to be seen as overplaying their hand, having just killed two well qualified Bush appointees. And the Democrats were under less pressure to kill McConnell, York suggested, because of his support within the network of liberal legal scholars that the Dems often look to in these matters. FInally, York noted McConnell's connection to Senator Hatch. Although not entirely satisfactory, and certainly capricious, the convergence of these facts seems like as good an explanation as any. By the way, from this account by the Washington Post, one would have no clue that McConnell probably will be confirmed

The Washington Post throws in the towel, conceding that President Bush's "rout of Congressional Democrats is virtually complete." What follows is an attempt to understand how it can be that the President--an enigma to the Post's Dana Milbank--keeps outsmarting and outmaneuvering the home team.

For reasons that are far from clear, it appears the Democrats have decided not to block Michael McConnell's nomination to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is a good thing, obviously, but it is hard to defend the capriciousness of the process in the hands of the execrable Senator Leahy.

Will this be the fulcrum on which control of the Senate turns? Paul Wellstone opposes authorizing action against Iraq. This might seem to make him unelectable; however, my guess is that the Senate leadership will come up with a slightly watered-down version of the resolution which Wellstone (and other left-wing Democrats) will then vote for. This will insulate Wellstone against backlash on the issue, while at the same time placating the more liberal portion of his base.

So now the Congressional Democrats appear to be willing to support the President's Iraq policy. But if you want to know what they really think, check out Democrats.com, which bills itself as "the premier online community site for Democratic voters and activists." Democrats.com is not officially run by the Democratic Party, but its founders have managed and consulted for a number of Democratic campaigns, and the site's Advisory Board includes several former Clinton White House employees; at least one former Democratic National Committee employee; an individual who has advised President Clinton and Senators Dodd, Lieberman and Bingaman; and Al Gore's chief domestic policy adviser. Check it out. You will be shocked by its mindless hatred, absurd falsehoods, and constant appeals to the most ignorant prejudices. Is this really how Democrats talk when they think they're among friends?

To me, liberalism's war on the Boy Scouts is a notable sign of the fact that liberalism has become a seriously deranged and destructive force. The old M*A*SH anthem "Suicide is Painless" should be the liberals' official song. Hum it to yourself the next time you have to sit through a diatribe on how disapproval of homosexual sex constitutes hate speech or a form of mental illness now known as "homophobia." Harold Johnson's account of the District of Columbia Human Rights Commission's (illegal) proceedings against the Boy Scouts provides more food for thought.

When the incomparable Daniel Pipes spoke at Connecticut College on the war we are in, the college treated the event as though it were highly confidential. An outsider's account of the machinations involved makes fascinating reading.

Let's see...If he was already beneath contempt and he sinks lower, where does that put him? Al Gore addresses the fact that in two Florida counties, controlled entirely by Democrats, poll workers couldn't figure out how to work their brand new, expensive computer equipment. And he blames...You guessed it.

Right, Deacon. It's time to stop wondering why they hate us and start counting the reasons why we hate them. In the meantime, here is an article whose headline says it all: Want 'Weapons Inspectors'? Try the 82nd Airborne.

One of my favorite sites, HonestReporting.com, reports on disturbing aspects of media coverage of the anniversary of September 11. Later in the piece, HonestReporting picks up on an Associated Press report of the interception by the Israelis of cigarette lighters which feature a plane crashing into the World Trade Center and an image of Bin Laden. The lighters were en route to Palestinian dealers in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, a booklet that anticipates the destruction of the U.S. has become a best seller among Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. I guess this means we better hurry up and create that Palestinian state, so the Palestinian's won't hate us anymore.

Susan Schmidt, who did some excellent reporting for the Washington Post on various Clinton scandals, is the co-author of this piece about the Pentagon's new approach to the war on terror. Schmidt and Thomas Ricks report that the Pentagon will shift control of most of its war on terror to U.S. Special Operations Command. The shift is the result of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's view that the military needs to be more aggressive in capturing and killing Al Qaeda members. Rumsfeld is reportedly dissatsified with the performance of U.S. regional military commanders-in-chief. Thus, Special Operations Command, which traditionally trains and equips troops and then turns them over to other commanders, will directly oversee anti-terrorist operations around the world.

Retired Marine General Bernard Trainor presents his strategy for attacking Iraq in today's Washington Post. Trainor calls for the use of a sizable American force, in excess of 100,000 troops, rather than the use of Iraqi opposition as a proxy. He argues that the larger the American force, the more clear it will be that resistance is futile, and thus the less resistance we will face.

OK, everyone knows that this is no fashion site. However, even the out-of-touch Power Line crew knows that fashion can't make a political statement, and if it tries, it will be really stupid. Here, courtesy of Best of the Web, is a Lebanese model purporting to "demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian uprising against Israel" by wearing a dress that features tanks and bloodstains. This, on the other hand--from Supermodels Are Lonelier Than You Think, scroll down about half way--is a thoughtful critique of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan (not for children, I'm afraid). This costume may be less politically offensive, but might be even dumber in that the models couldn't see the runway and fell off.

Tom Daschle, man of principle, saw these poll results and decided to schedule a quick vote on Iraq. The Democrats had three reasons for this change in strategy: 1) The USA/CNN/Gallup Poll indicated that a large majority of the country is rallying behind the President's Iraq policy; a substantial majority also believed the Democrats' effort to delay a vote was politically motivated. 2) Several key Democratic Senate candidates, including Tim Johnson and Paul Wellstone, were being blasted for their failure to support the President. 3) The Democrats calculate that if they cry "uncle" on Iraq, hold the vote quickly and vote to support President Bush, there is still enough time for them to get back to talking about domestic issues before November. My only other observation on these poll data is that President Bush's approval rating is back up to 70%. The American public's enduring confidence in the President, in the face of constant sniping in the press, is remarkable.

Today I was at a business meeting on one of the upper floors of the Sears Tower. It was impossible not to think about terrorism. Everyone seemed normal, but one of the people I was meeting with said that the building's owner is worried about keeping it occupied, especially after a recent article in one of the Chicago papers highlighting the Tower's status as a potential target. He said he is concerned that his company is unable to hire some people whom they want, because of their location. This is a soft cost, and I am afraid will be an enduring soft cost, of terrorism.

The latest poll data have to be encouraging to the Coleman camp, but they probably put more faith in their own data, which, as I understand it, show Coleman with a slight lead. Coleman got a nice boost yesterday morning with a long and friendly interview on the Twin Cities' most popular morning radio show. After the interview the host, who is usually non-politcal, endorsed Coleman. When asked whether he would also be having Wellstone on the program, he said, "No way. I hate the little p****." Support from that quarter will help Coleman with young, middle of the road voters.

The Star Tribune carries a remarkably biting piece by history professor Chuck Chalberg about Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone's broken promise not to seek a third senate term. Professor Chalberg is optimistic that Minnesota voters will do the next best thing--next best to Wellstone voluntarily keeping his promise--and involuntarily keep him from serving a third term.

This morning's Star Tribune reports a poll showing Senator Wellstone with only a small lead after a month of brutal attack ads during which his opponent's campaign has been invisible. The Strib also reports how the poll was conducted, stating that the poll results were adjusted by means of a mysterious formula "verified in past elections" to reflect the preferences of voters most likely to vote. The formula is proprietary and secret, like the formula for Coca Cola, only we can't taste it ourselves or see with our own eyes how it has been "verified" in past elections. At Minneapolis's City Center Mall, when the fire alarm is mistakenly sounded, the Center announces over its public address system that the alarm "has been verified as false." Based on its past results, including the poll's last pre-election 2000 Bush/Gore results, I think that's probably the kind of verification the Star Tribune poll methodology has. But I am afraid that Wellstone will pull this race out.

The Indepundit has started a Daschle Dawdle Watch.

My response to Mark Helprin's article "Failing the Test of September 11" is this -- I don't think we can know at this point whether or not President Bush has failed that test. As I said a few days ago, we don't know what opportunities to attack or disable Al Qaeda, if any, have been missed. We do know that, other than Afghanistan, we have not yet toppled any regimes. And it seems to me that we should have attacked Iraq months ago. Again, however, we don't whether there are valid reasons for not having done so yet, nor do we know whether our failure to attack earlier will matter in the end. I share Helprin's instinct that Bush should have been tougher on Saudi Arabia, but there too I don't think we know enough about what is going on behind the scenes to conclude that our policy towards Saudi Arabia has been inadequate, much less to conclude that it makes our overall response to September 11 a failure. I do agree with Helprin that Bush should be doing more to restore the military inasmuch as the military was already significantly underfunded before September 11. I agree with Rocket Man, for the reasons he states, that Bush was correct during the days after September 11 not to ask Congress for a declaration of war.

Angelo Codevilla's critique of President Bush's war leadership, originally published in the Claremont Review of Books, is available online as "Postmortem on a Phony War" courtesy of the site of Daniel Pipes's Middle East Forum. The CRB's current issue runs a symposium (posted yesterday) on Professor Codevilla's critique.

It is being reported that one of the killers of Daniel Pearl was among those captured with Binalshibh in Karachi a few days ago. If true, this could provide the first hard evidence of Al Qaeda involvement in that crime. It seems that Pakistan has made a great deal of progress in rolling up the Al Qaeda network there over the last month.

Today is the 140th anniversary of the commencement of the momentous battle of Antietam, and today is as a result the anniversary of the bloodiest day in American history. Two columns note the anniversary: one by AP writer Lawrence Knutson, and one by Baltimore attorney Raymond Burke. Burke's column is eloquent, informed, and brave.

And John Podhoretz nicely sums up the lack of intellectual seriousness on Iraq among the Democratic leadership.

This morning's papers bring us columns by virtually all of our favorite commentators on the war we are in: Victor Davis Hanson ("Finish the War"), Daniel Pipes ("The War on Campus"), and Mark Steyn ("Chretien Caught in a Web of Confusion"). For good measure, the Chicago Sun Times also brings us a column adapted from the remarks of Benjamin Netanyahu ("US Must Beat Saddam to the Punch") before the House Government Reform Committee last Wednesday.

Netanyahu recalls an ealier example of preemption that has some bearing on the current situation: "The dangers posed by a nuclear-armed Saddam were understood by my country two decades ago. In 1981, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin dispatched the Israeli air force on a pre-dawn raid that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. Though at the time Israel was condemned by all the world's governments, even by our closest friend, history has rendered a far kinder judgment on that act of unquestionable foresight and courage." Netanyahu also pointedly notes the foremost difficulty of preemption as it applies to us: "In the history of democracies, preemption has always been the most difficult choice. Because at the time of decision, you can never prove the naysayers wrong. You can never show them the great catastrophe that was avoided by preemptive action. And yet we now know that had the democracies taken preemptive action to bring down Hitler's regime in the 1930s, the worst horrors in history could have been avoided. And we now know, from defectors and other intelligence, that had Israel not launched its preemptive strike on Saddam's atomic bomb factory, recent history would have taken a far more dangerous course."

I personally do not believe that going to war against Saddam Hussein would be preemptive; it would be retaliatory. In her brilliant 2000 book "Study of Revenge" (now titled "Saddam Hussein's War Against America"), Laurie Mylroie powerfully demonstrated his connection to the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The post 9/11 edition of the book carries a foreword by then-CIA director James Woolsey endorsing Mylroie's conclusions. Given Saddam Hussein's likely connection to the first World Trade Center bombing, I find it extremely difficult to believe that Mohammed Atta's Prague meeting with an Iraqi intelligence agent was unconnected to 9/11. It certainly wasn't a social meeting.

Referring back to my comments on Mark Helprin's Wall Street Journal article, I would suggest that you forgo his political commentary and read his two books of short stories, Ellis Island and A Dove of the East. And on the subject of literary criticism, I'm in the midst of reading Anna Karenin for the first time in a long while. It is really amazingly good--so fresh it could have been written yesterday, except that nothing so good has been written in many years. A few nights ago in Alaska I had dinner with some Russians, and was reminded that the issues that Tolstoy wrote about long ago are, for the most part, the same ones that obsess Russians today. So if you want to escape from today's dilemmas into a better world, or at least a better mind, you can't do better than Anna Karenin. Its reputation as the best novel ever written doesn't do it justice.

Christopher Caldwell in the Weekly Standard notes that our European allies, with the exception of Germany, are falling into line behind President Bush's plan to attack Iraq. And the deplorable German chancellor Schroeder is now under pressure to change his tune.

So Saddam Hussein has now agreed to accept U.N. weapons inspectors without conditions. What a coincidence, just a few days following President Bush's speech. The White House, meanwhile, said: "This is a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong U.N. Security Council action. As such, it is a tactic that will fail." The Administration obviously anticipated that Iraq would now try to stall by announcing a resumption of U.N. inspections. Now we'll see how the dialectic plays out.

In light of Rocket Man's comments, I will revise my previous statement to say (for the moment) that "it is not at all apparent at least to me where Codevilla is in error."

Mark Helprin is a superb short story writer, an inventive but hopelessly verbose novelist, and an over-the-top political analyst. Notwithstanding the seeming strength and clarity of his prose, I'm not sure exactly what he is criticizing President Bush for not doing. He says the President "failed to ask for a declaration of war," and later, "What kind of war can you fight if you cannot even bring yourself to declare it?" But I can't figure out whom he wants us to declare war against. I think Iraq, or maybe Saudi Arabia, but I'm really not sure. If he seriously thinks that in the days after September 11 there was the slightest chance that Congress would declare war on either of those countries, he is loony. And how an immediate declaration of war against either country would have advanced our position, I can't see. (It may be that in talking of declaring war, Helprin doesn't mean Iraq or Saudi Arabia, but rather al Qaeda--a group which, curiously, his article barely mentions. In that event, his point is even less tenable. Declaring war against a terrorist gang may give emotional satisfaction, but would be entirely meaningless--a matter of "word," not "deed," exactly the confusion of which he accuses the Administration. And in any event, it is hard to see how President Bush could have made our commitment to destroying al Qaeda more clear, or how he could have pursued that objective, so far, more successfully.) Beyond the matter of declaring war, it appears that Helprin would be happier if we were producing lots of aircraft carriers and bombers, as in World War II. But for the present conflict, it appears to me that we have plenty of aircraft carriers, bombers and other materiel. I see no point in analogizing the kind of mobilization we carried out in World War II to the present conflict, which is entirely different. Further, Helprin's suggestion that President Bush has "overridden professional military advice stipulating a minimum of 250,000 troops" to attack Iraq is ridiculous. Even casual newspaper readers know that military analyses of the manpower necessary to overthrow Saddam vary widely, and at this point, neither Helprin nor anyone else knows how many men the Administration is prepared to deploy, if necessary. Like so many who criticize President Bush from the right--sorry, Deacon--Helprin seems to assume that Bush fails to understand that the Saudis are the source of much of the evil in the Muslim world. On the contrary, I think that the President and his Administration understand this perfectly well, probably better than the rest of us given their access to intelligence data. But whereas Helprin apparently would like us to deploy aircraft carriers and bombers to simultaneously attack Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian Authority and wipe them all off the map--a prospect that does have a certain allure, admittedly--I think the Administration has a better thought-out plan to address these countries and these issues one at a time. And I really do believe that the ultimate result will be the liberation of all or much of the Arab world. Oh, one more thing--Helprin's view that President Bush has compromised our ability to attack Iraq by failing to strong-arm the Saudis to access their bases is wrong on several counts. First, as today's news indicated, the Saudis will allow use of their territory when the time comes. Second, we have numerous alternative bases in the area, including in Qatar, Turkey and Jordan. Aircraft carriers are not the only alternative to Saudi Arabia. So whether examined in large outline or in detail, I don't think Helprin's criticisms hold water.

I'll get to Helprin's piece soon, Trunk. In the meantime, keep this in mind next time someone says bloggers are unreliable sources of information!

The most important piece on the Web today is Mark Helprin's critical assessment of the president's war leadership, "Failing the Test of September 11." Helprin's assessment is relentlessly negative and I fear incurring the wrath of Rocket Man even in posting this item. But Helprin's knowledge and thoughtfulness are self-evident in this piece and it deserves our thoughtful consideration and response.

Helprin is not alone in this negative assessment of the president's war leadership. Among the few analysts who share this assessment and whose opinion cannot be disregarded is Angelo Codevilla, an intelligence expert who teaches politics at Boston University and who is also our fellow fellow at the esteemed Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship. Professor Codevilla has set forth his views at length in successive issues of the Claremont Review of Books. The Review's current issue features an outstanding symposium including responses to Professor Codevilla's articles by William Buckley, Norman Podhoretz, Frank Gaffney and others. Professor Codevilla has the last word in the symposium and it is not at all evident to me at least where he or Helprin are in error.

Rocket Man, take it away.

Morton Kondracke writes that President Bush's "brilliant" U.N. speech "left most of the Democratic Party in the dust." Democrats "seem totally confused," and "most have been querulous, passive and indecisive." "In particular, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle seems to be a man with 1,000 questions...but no good ideas of his own." I guess it's a good thing Bush is so dumb. If he were smart, the Democrats would really be in trouble.

Courtesy of James Taranto, more evidence that bin Laden is dead: One Shahid Ayan, a comrade of bin Laden's in Afghanistan, told Al Bayan, a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, that he was at Tora Bora in December 2001. On the night of December 10, a group of about fifteen caves was bombarded heavily. Bin Laden's cave was the only one destroyed, according to Ayan; it "was completely erased from the ground and became nothing." Let's hope Ayan's report is accurate.

CONTRACT THIS: Amid the more serious events of the day, it is appropriate to take a moment to congratulate the Minnesota Twins, who clinched their division title today. After an off-season in which their franchise was threatened with extinction by an owner who preferred to volunteer for contraction--entailing a $250 million payment by major league baseball--rather than sell to a competitive bidder for, say, $150 million, the Twins never gave up. In the end, they put together enough great fielding, deep pitching and timely hitting to win their division. Minnesotans have visions of 1987 and 1991 dancing in their heads. Soon it will be the postseason, and anything is possible. This is the kind of story that explains why sports have such a hold on the American imagination.

According to an interview in the London Times, Iraq's former chief nuclear scientist believes that Iraq is on the verge of fabricating its first nuclear weapons.

The Washington Post has an extremely interesting article about the al-Jazeera reporter who interviewed two high-ranking Al Qaeda operatives, one of whom, Binalshibh, was subsequently captured in Pakistan. The reporter, Yosri Fouda, has received death threats from Al Qaeda supporters who blamed Binalshibh's capture on Fouda's al-Jazeera interview. Fouda describes the elaborate security precautions that surrounded his interview of the Al Qaeda leaders; Fouda says he did not fear being murdered like Daniel Pearl, since "they would not win points with their fans for killing a Muslim." The Al Qaeda men justified killing American civilians on the ground that they were taxpayers, and regretted the death of Muslims, which they termed "collateral damage."

We just returned from seeing the weekend's box-office champion, "Barbershop," a comedy which I believe will prove to be some kind of a minor classic. The rapper Ice Cube takes a star turn as Calvin, the proprietor of the eponymous barbershop. Mr. Cube is serious and likable in a way that took me entirely by surprise. But Cedric the Entertainer steals the show as Eddie, the ancient barber who is a paragon of political incorrectness. The NY Times review provides a little of the movie's flavor.

Debka File has a fascinating update on the Palermo Senator, the threat of nuclear terrorism, and the phantom Al Qaeda group that embarked for the U.S., but apparently has disappeared without a trace. Debka warns that "US President George Bush and his top military and intelligence advisers are clearly convinced by the evidence in their hands that America faces an existential peril."

This Washington Post editorial is a classic of its genre. It begins by stating a thesis -- that Presdent Bush has squandered a golden opportunity to capitalize on the sympathy we received after September 11 by stengthening U.S. relations with much of the world. It then demonstrates its sophistication and fair-mindedness by acknowledging the objections to its thesis. Here, these objections include (1) the fact that we have strengthened our relations with the countries that we most needed support from in order to wage the war against terrorism and (2) the fact that the countries that we haven't strenghtened our relations with are ones like Germany that "have failed to fully face the threats to Western security revealed by 9/11 and instead cynically have lapsed into exploiting the anti-American resentment always latent in their countries." But despite the force of these objections -- which one might have expected to end the discussion -- the Post concludes by unabashedly reasserting its thesis: "It is hard not to conclude that the administration has failed to take full advantage of a rare international opportunity."

The Post fails to explain how President Bush could have pursued the war on terrorism to the full extent necessary while at the same time improving relations with nations that can't or won't "fully face the threats to Western security revealed by 9/11." Can it be that for all of its sophistication, the Post is unable to grasp the notion that there might be a trade-off between protecting our security interests and improving relations with those who don't care very much about those interests? Not likely. In Washington Post-speak, it is hard not to conclude that the Post is unable to resist the opportunity to assert its stock criticism of President Bush even when it knows better.

Rocket Man, I found the Mark Steyn piece you posted last night frightening, and not just in the casual sort of way that most of his stuff frightens me. Steyn is saying that the stories about students at various schools in the New York area who had advance knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center are not just "urban legends." He is saying that at least some of these stories have held up under investigation, but that the media is unwilling to pursue or publicize them. If this is true, and if the government is also not pursuing the matter, it brings to mine Bernard Lewis' warning that anti-American Muslims become emboldened whenever we shy away from the truth about these kinds of issues.

I stumbled across this composite photo of the earth at night some time ago. It's mostly just fun to study, but it is also interesting to compare Cuba to the rest of the Caribbean and, especially, to compare North and South Korea.

George Will touches on the theme of appeasement in this call for military action against Iraq. He notes that Saddam Hussein is one of the few tyrants of the ballistic missile age to have launched missiles in war. And he wonders why our decision to overthrow Saddam should depend on whether he is one year away or, say, four years away from acquiring nuclear weapons.

David Gelernter is a renaissance man. He is a professor of computer science at Yale University and the author of books that suggest a kind of Herodotean interest in everything human. He has written a history of the 1939 World's Fair. After he survived an attack by the Unabomber, he wrote a thoughtful book about that. Commentary Magazine has been running excerpts of his forthcoming book on Judaism. The new issue of the Weekly Standard carries Professor Gelernter's piece "The Roots of European Appeasement."

Among many provocative observations in the piece is the following: "Once upon a time we thought of appeasement as a particular approach to Hitler. We have long since come to see that it is a Weltanschauung, an entire philosophical worldview that teaches the blood-guilt of Western man, the moral bankruptcy of the West, and the outrageousness of Western civilization's attempting to impose its values on anyone else. World War II and its aftermath clouded the issue, but self-hatred has long since reestablished itself as a dominant force in Europe and (less often and not yet decisively) the United States. It was a British idea originally; it was enthusiastically taken up by the French. Today (like so many other British ideas) it is believed more fervently in continental Europe than anywhere else."

Trunk and Rocket Man have relentlessly exposed the biased reporting of the New York Times. If I recall correctly, Rocket Man has gone so far as to call it the worst newspaper in the U.S. I submit, however, that when it comes to anti-Israel bias, the Washington Post is significantly worse than the Times. At least this latest example of the Post's anti-Israel bias appears in the editorial section. But that doesn't excuse the paper's slipshod reasoning. For example, the Post acknowledges that there have been no suicide attacks against Israel in the past six weeks, but frets that Israeli troops occupy six major west bank towns and parts of Gaza, and have imposed curfews and other restrictions on movement. Apparently, it hasn't occurred to the Post that the occupation and restrictions may well be the reason why there have been no successful suicide attacks. The Post's failure to grasp this reminds me of the New York Times' puzzlement that, at the same time the crime rate is going down, the prison population is increasing.

The Post takes President Bush to task for not focusing enough energy on implementing his vision of side-by-side Israeli and Palestinian states. It laments that, instead, Bush is focused on the "suddenly all-consuming campaign against Iraq." Some might find it understandable that the President is more concerned with combating terrorism and destroying a hostile and dangerous regime than with attempting to create a new hostile terrorist state. The Post claims to be concerned that our failure to take up the Palestinian cause will "prove a serious impediment to building a coalition against Iraq." But it offers no evidence that the support of any coalition partner the U.S. might need is contingent on greater "engagement" in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In fact, no such argument can be sustained and the Post knows it. The "coalition building" argument is a red-herring. In reality, the Post is gung-ho for a Palestinian state and ambivalent about going to war with Saddam, despite the obvious danger he poses to our security.

Here's Mark Steyn on multicultural sensitivity.

Michelle Malkin in the Washington Times continues to decry the "political correctness and bureaucratic sclerosis" that she says paralyze our efforts to deal "with the reality of homicidal America-haters lurking at our doorstep." Malkin argues that "our immigration system remains gutless, clueless, senseless and defenseless."

Grover Norquist, in an article posted on American Enterprise Online, asks why President Bush has remained so popular among conservatives despite his uneven record on certain important issues. The answer: "George W. Bush has pleased every key Republican constituency on its central issues; the movement has applied realistic expectations to his Presidency [and] there is no alternative to his leadership."

I'd missed this article, Trunk, but Royce has often written with sensitivity and insight on topics related to religion. Unlike many reporters, who write about religious people as though they were entomologists examining an odd kind of bug, Graydon is himself a regular church-goer, active in his congregation--which happens also to be mine. No doubt this has something to do with the ease and sympathy with which he writes about religion.

Nunsense, Part 5: Yesterday's Star Tribune carries Graydon Royce's sympathetic account of the Nunsense franchise and its new entry, Meshuggah-Nuns, making its world premiere next week at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater out in Prince country. Dan Goggin is the author of the Nunsense comedies and sounds like some kind of a genius. According to Graydon Royce's story, "Nuns forever: Goggin goes 'Meshuggah' over his favorite nuns," Nunsense and its sequels have proved popular all over the world and saved many otherwise dying theaters to boot.

In the new installment, the nuns take a cruise on which Fiddler on the Roof is the featured entertainment. When the entire cast falls ill, with the exception of the actor playing Tevye, the nuns gamely jump in and offer to do a variety show with him. In short, the nuns set sail for the borscht belt.

Every element of this story comes as news to me; where have I been? The play sounds very funny. The title is inspired. We will have to see Meshuggah-Nuns.

Maybe, Deacon, but McClellan at least fought for a while before throwing in the towel! Your observation points out another of the Democrats' problems, however. While the party's elders would like to nominate anyone other than Al Gore, the reality is that the only candidate who currently shows significant support in the polls other than Gore is Hillary Clinton. The others, like Daschle, generally trail Al Sharpton. Of course, two years is forever in politics. But at some point, Daschle, Edwards or someone has to start showing some traction.

I should have guessed that they are friends, Rocket Man. Like your brother, McConnell is an American history scholar. One of the talks I heard him give was about the history surrounding the enactment of the civil rights acts of the reconstruction era. Speaking of 19th century history, a while back you compared Tom Daschle to James Buchanan. Since Daschle appears to be considering a run for president in 2004, it may turn out that an apt comparison is to 1864 presidential candidate George McClellan, who wanted to back out of the Civil War.

Another victory in the war against Islamofascism. It is almost too much to hope that Al Qaeda can be contained without another successful strike, but the organization continues to be rolled up. It appears that Binalshibh surfaced long enough to give an interview to Al Jazeera. Consistent with the pattern in recent months, once he stuck his head out of his hole, he was run to ground and captured.

Michael McConnell is a brilliant scholar. He also happens to be a friend of my brother, the Rocket Prof. The fact that the Democrats are determined to kill his nomination is just one more indication that they have nothing constructive to offer America. They have elevated bad faith to a principle of policy.

Once again, the President is running rings around the Democrats. Do you remember when people were saying that Tom Daschle was smart? Now he is a deer in the headlights, unable to lead, unable to make a decision. The Democrats should be thinking about gettiing rid of him, but it isn't clear who his replacement might be.

Byron York, for National Review Online warns that Senate Democrats may be about to kill another Bush judicial nominee, Michael McConnell. A law professor at the University of Utah, McConnell was nominated 15 months ago to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which sits in Denver. I have heard McConnell speak at Federalist Society meetings. He struck me as thoughtful, scholarly and fair-minded. Moreover, he strikes leading liberal professors the same way. According to York, the liberal Cass Sunstein wrote a letter on McConnell's behalf describing him as "judicious" and "genuinely willing to think and go where the best arguments take him." And the ultra liberal Laurence Tribe rated McConnell as "among the nation's most distinguished constitutional scholars" and found that he exhibits "openness to opposing views and a gentleness with others that commends him as someone likely to display an ideal judicial temperament."

I'm sure you have guessed by now why, despite these virtues, the usual liberal suspects find that McConnell just won't do. It's his views on Roe v. Wade, the decision that overturned state laws banning abortion. McConnell called the reasoning behind that ruling "an embarrassment to those who take constitutional law seriously." As Sunstein notes, however, "many lawyers, on the left as well as the right, question Roe v. Wade." This is probably an understatement. Roe was decided when I was at law school. I couldn't find anyone on the overwhelmingly liberal faculty at Stanford who thought the Court's legal reasoning was sound. Nonetheless, McConnell's hardly controversial view is enough to place his nomination in jeopardy, although York predicts that McConnell will scrape through. With hearings scheduled, at last, for next week we should find out soon.

Arab News is an interesting source; some of its stuff is reasonably mainstream, some is wacky. This is an example of both at once. I like the headline: "Neo-conservatives and pro-Israel lobby working to destabilize Middle East." In a sense, that's true. The Middle East has been way too stable for way too long. The article focuses on the American Alliance of Jews and Christians, which it characterizes as a "nefarious" group working toward the "balkanization" of the Middle East. It is interesting to see this kernel of truth--increasing unity and cooperation between conservative Christians and conservative Jews--cast in a sinister light. Our view of this alliance is, of course, the opposite of Arab News'.

In one of the most closely-watched Senate races, former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman is challenging Paul Wellstone, the Senate's most liberal member. Wellstone is vulnerable not only because of his relatively extreme views, but also because, in seeking a third term, he is violating an oft-repeated term limits pledge. Wellstone's health may also become a concern as the race progresses. On the other hand, Wellstone has always been personally popular in Minnesota. Coleman is a talented politician whose biggest problem has been his inability, so far, to connect strongly with rural voters. To date, Coleman has run a good-government campaign that most observers consider uninspiring. Nevertheless, he enjoys a four-point lead in the most recent poll. Rumor has it that Coleman's campaign is about to get more aggressive. If he is able to pull ahead with a drab, "working together to get things done" theme, it seems likely that he can bury Wellstone if he emphasizes Wellstone's longstanding anti-defense positions. To a greater degree than any of his fellow Senate Democrats, Wellstone's record can fairly be interpreted as unpatriotic. This is not the year to be running on that kind of record; control of the Senate may turn on whether Coleman can aggressively remind the voters where Wellstone has stood on defense issues for the last twelve years.

OK, I know it's wrong to enjoy this story, but how can I help it?

Many of you have followed the Trunk's posts about the riot in north Minnespolis in which several journalists were assaulted, which the Minneapolis Star Tribune refers to delicately as "the melee." This story descended into farce some time ago, but it reached a new low yesterday. The Justice Department appointed a mediator to meet with the various "groups" involved to try to negotiate a "solution." (Are the crack dealers and smokers who rioted one of the groups?) This proposal, however, met with hostility from several members of the Minneapolis City Council, one of whom asked the mediator: "Are you a spy for John Ashcroft?" Another Council member also expressed skepticism, noting Ashcroft's "readiness to erode our civil liberties." None of this promises much progress in dealing with crack houses and rioters, but I suppose no one ever looked to the Minneapolis City Council for leadership in that regard anyway.

This story about the apprehension of three Middle Eastern men in Florida--who may or may not turn out to be terrorists--based on a report from a woman who overheard them talking in a restaurant, appears to be a good example of competent law enforcement supported by an alert citizenry. I don't know enough about the details of the proposed TIPS program to be sure whether it would add to our security or not, but it seems clear that with or without any formal program, Americans are highly alert to the threat of terrorism and are ready and willing to report suspicious behavior, which the conduct of these three men clearly was.

The Middle East Media Research Institute specializes in bringing to light the political discourse of the Arab world that occurs in Arabic, and that is not intended for Western eyes or ears. Its work consists of the translation of Arab politcal and religious speeches as well as notable editorial and news pieces into English. It is an invaluable organization, so much so that Jay Nordlinger of National Review proposes making "the invaluable" the first part of its name. Its most recent publication is a report entitled "A New Antisemitic Myth in the Middle East: The September 11 Attacks Were Perpetrated by the Jews." It is a remarkable document, complete with extensive citations as well as digital copies of Arabic sources. I commend it to your attention without further comment.

National Review Online has posted additional comments on President Bush's UN speech by Daniel Pipes and Christian Brose.

Deacon, I think your analysis of the political spectrum is exactly right, and I share your suspicion as to why such a misleading construct continues to be taught. Some weeks ago in a post on this site I described the great battle of the 20th century as the conflict between socialism and freedom. The first phase of that war ended in 1945 with the victory over national socialism. The second phase ended--sort of--in 1989, with the victory over Marxian socialism. Of course, socialism hasn't entirely gone away, as we see on a daily basis in the U.S. Congress. But we may have entered a phase of history in which the principal threats to freedom come from other directions--directions which have no obvious place on the traditional "left" vs. "right" continuum. One more comment on the close proximity of fascism and communism on any rational political scale--I read somewhere, years ago, about the delegation that Hitler sent to Moscow to sign the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. The delegation was headed by von Ribbentrop, and the execution of the pact included a scene in which the two countries' diplomats, having partaken heavily of vodka, danced to music from an old Victrola. When he returned to Berlin to report to Hitler, Ribbentrop summed up the meeting by saying, gleefully: "They're just like us."

I'm back from a few days in Alaska. We saw some beluga whales and a grizzly bear--and this was only a business trip! However, I picked up no political intelligence whatsoever.

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard asks "Why Can't the CIA Keep Up with the New Yorker?" He doesn't have the answer, but he does seem to prove the predicate of the question.

The other day I blogged about the distinction (in my mind, anyway) between a conservative and a right-winger. This led me to think about the way the schools teach the political spectrum. My teen-age daughters were taught, as I was in the 1960s, that the spectrum runs from the far left, occupied by communists, to the far right, occupied by fascists and nazis. They were also encouraged to believe, as I was, that these two extremes somehow merge when pushed to their limits.

Although I bought this concept for many years, I now consider it nonsense. A useful political spectrum must be based on a continuum of ideology. I can't think of any such continuum in which communism and fascism are polar opposites. The most meaningful continuum is based on the two fundamental and related questions of political philosophy -- how much power should the government have and how much freedom should the individual exercise. On this spectrum, as Balint Vazsonyi has pointed out, communism remains at one extreme, while the other extreme is occupied not by fascists but by pure libertarians. The fascists and the nazis (short, after all, for National Socialists) are situated right next to the communists because, as Vazsonyi has explained, their views on government power and individual freedom are quite similar. In other words, the two "merge" not as the result of some cosmic paradox but because they were nearly the same from the beginning. On this spectrum, mainstream American conservatives, with their belief in effective but limited government, are located on the libertarian end, but at a distance from pure libertarianism.

I don't know who came up with the orthodox political spectrum, but it is not difficult to see whose interests it served. In the post World War II environment, socialists, many of whom had initially opposed war with Germany because of Hitler's alliance with Stalin, must have been pleased with a model that distanced them from fascism. Liberals would have been similarly pleased with a model suggesting that conservatives were not far removed from nazis. Today, the orthodox spectrum serves similar purposes. Although utterly misleading, it is probably taught in government classes all over America. Indeed, I suspect it is taught because it is so misleading.

I have been checking National Review Online off and on all day looking for commentary on President Bush's UN speech, expecting the site's customary symposium of intelligently expressed views that it assembles on such occastions. Here it is. And well worth waiting for.

More on Madison's Ron Greer: The country's most politically incorrect candidate for Congress, and our personal favorite, has emerged triumphant from the Republican primary election on Tuesday. Greer is running against the incumbent whose distinction is that she is the House of Representatives' only avowed lesbian member, a distinction we find pregnant with implications. We will continue to track Pastor Greer's fortunes with interest and admiration. And yet more good news from Tuesday's primaries: Billy McKinney, father of the execrable Cynthia McKinney, went down to defeat in his bid for renomination as the Democratic candidate for his position in the Georgia House of Representatives. He had previously distinguished himself by ascribing Cynthia McKinney's primary defeat to "Jews. J-E-W-S."

Fred Barnes presents a good critique of the excuses being offered by Senate Democrats and a few Republicans for not going to war with Iraq. However, Rocket Man will probably join me in taking exception to the grammar of the article's sub-heading. Barnes notes the hypocrisy of Democrats like Tom Daschle who, as we discussed yesterday, supported an attack on Iraq when Clinton was talking as if he wanted to launch one.

Daschle's real hypocrisy occurred under Clinton. The anti-war position he's taking now undoubtedly reflects his true feelings and, as our posts from earlier today suggest, he is taking this position to the probable political detriment of his party. Yet, as strong as Daschle's anti-interventionist instinct is, his need to adhere to the Clinton line trumped it in 1998. One suspects, though, that Daschle knew at the time that Clinton would back down and not attack Iraq.

The $78 million fraud verdict against the investment firm owned in part by California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon has been thrown out by the trial judge. Even before this development, the most recent polling showed Simon running ahead of Governor Gray Davis among those considered most likely to vote. In the same poll, 56% of Californians said they want a new governor. The Davis/Simon race is far from over.

A couple of days ago, Nancy Pelosi was quoted as saying there is no urgency to the Iraq situation such that military action must begin in October. In other words: Please, please put it off until after the election! Here's why: The generic congressional preference polls have taken a sharp turn in favor of the Republicans. This can only be because for the past several weeks, the news has been dominated by Iraq. Ironically, the vast majority of that news coverage has been negative. But the attacks on the President's policy, while no doubt weakening support for that policy in some quarters, have also had the effect of convincing lots of Americans that we need a Republican congress. Hence the Democrats' desperation to stop talking about foreign policy until after the election.

In 1987 my cousin Dean Phillips was given the football helmet of his Blake School football teammate Gordy Aamoth. Gordy asked Dean to return the helmet for him to school. Gordy was killed at work in the World Trade Center (tower 2) on 9/11. Yesterday Blake School dedicated its football stadium to Gordy's memory and named it after him. Dean not only remembered that Gordy had given him his helmet to return to the school, he dug it out of his basement and returned it just in time for the ceremony yesterday. (Those who remember Socrates' last words may find a connection to Dean's remembrance of his friend.) Don't miss this story.

Here, Bob Kerrey, former Democratic Senator from Nebraska makes the case for regime change in Iraq. Kerrey says the choice is between sustaining the current military effort to contain Saddam Hussein and expanding that effort in order to topple him. He views the case for the second choice -- regime change -- as "overwhelming."

One hates to post anything written by former Clinton operative Dick Morris, especially alongside posts from serious scholars of life and death issues like John Keegan and Victor Davis Hanson. But Morris is an astute observer of politics, and in this column for the New York Post, he explains how the Democrats have given President Bush a huge gift by demanding that he explain his Iraq policy to the public. Morris predicts that "as the evidence of Saddam's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons mounts and the public becomes more conscious of the biological and chemical weapons this maniac has at his control already, the public support for an invasion will swell past 70 percent, even 80 percent."

One other gentleman who brings a lifetime of learning to his commentary on the war is the British military historian John Keegan. Also worth reading from yesterday's commentary is Keegan's "The War Ahead."

Like only a few other commentators on the war we are in (preeminently Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes), Victor Davis Hanson brings a lifetime of relevant learning and reflection to his analysis. In "The Wages of September 11" Professor Hanson summarizes the critical changes in our world over the past year that result from the attack.

These are the first few sentences of his paragraph on America's relationship with Europe: "Foreign relations will not be the same in our generation. Our coalition with Europe, we learn, was not a partnership, but more mere alphabetic nomenclature and the mutual back scratching of Euro-American globetrotters — a paper alliance without a mission nearly 15 years after the end of the Cold War. The truth is that Europe, out of noble purposes, for a decade has insidiously eroded its collective national sovereignty in order to craft an antidemocratic EU, a 80,000-person fuzzy bureaucracy whose executive power is as militarily weak as it is morally ambiguous in its reliance on often dubious international accords. This sad realization September 11 brutally exposed, and we all should cry for the beloved continent that has for the moment completely lost its moral bearings."

The rest of the paragraph, as well as the rest of the piece, is equally pointed. Professor Hanson's column should not be overlooked among the voluminous commentary that appeared yesterday.

Here is Tony Blankley's sobering assessment of what will be required of American foreign policy for the indefinite future. Writing in the Washington Times, Blankley sees it this way: "While we will not plant our flag on foreign lands, nor claim them for ourselves, we will insist on intruding and searching and managing. To do less would be criminal negligence on the part of our leaders. But in doing it, we will be cursed, like the Flying Dutchman of legend, to wander the globe until the day of judgment."

As we commemorate our fellow citizens who fell as victims, martyrs, and heroes a year ago today, let us pay special tribute to the "uniforms that guard [us] while [we] sleep":

TOMMY
by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Rocket Man, my main thought/emotion after having watched and listened to various September 11 observances is that we should be killing more terrorists. I realize that I am not in a position to defend this thought/emotion, since I have no way of knowing how many terrorists we are actually killing or whether any opportunites to kill terrorists are actually being missed. But I do recall that Secretary Rumsfeld was reported to have had this same thought a few months ago. And whenever I read that Al Qaeda operatives are re-grouping in this Iranian town or that Lebanese camp, I can't help but wonder why we haven't bombed said town or camp.

Some September 11 observances will no doubt be, from our point of view, too therapeutic and not sufficiently warlike. President Bush, however, is striking the right note. The Washington Times reports that the Commander in Chief, "gesturing with his right hand clenched into a fist, added: 'As long as terrorists and dictators plot against our lives and our liberty they will be opposed by the United States Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and Marines!'" And not only opposed, but, as George Will wrote in the column that Deacon linked to earlier today, "smashed."

This article by Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard is one of the most damning indictments of political hypocrisy I have ever read. Hayes has collected quotations from leading Democrats, Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle and John Kerry, in which they advocate (or in Kerry's case find perfectly acceptable) taking military action against Iraq in response to Saddam's ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction. The quotes are from 1998, when Clinton was contemplating military action -- before he backed down and turned responsibility for our national security over to Kofi Annan, who made another "deal" with Saddam.

The question for Daschle, Kerry, etc. is the one they keep putting to President Bush -- "what has changed?" Why, in Daschle's words, was it appropriate to "force [Iraq] to comply" and to "do[] so militarily" in 1998, but not today? The question for the rest of us is this -- what are we to make of politicians whose views on matters of war and peace are determined strictly by the the party affiliation of the president advocating military action?

Professor Kesler's speech is excellent, Trunk. Here's another fine reflection on September 11 by George Will. As Will says, "our enemies attacked us not for what we have done but for who we are. And because of the attacks, we are even more intensely what we are, a nation defined by our unum, not our pluribus." But "civilization -- especially the highest, ours -- is not inevitable. So we fight."

I believe that the most thoughtful and comprehensive reflections marking tomorrow's anniversary of the attack on the United States are those of Professor Charles Kesler of Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Institute. Professor Kesler's reflections take the form of a speech titled "Our Fighting Faith" that he delivered yesterday at a Claremont luncheon program in Washington, D.C. Professor Kesler's speech deserves the widest possible audience on this solemn occasion.

The HonestReporting web site does an outstanding job of exposiing anti-Israel bias in the mainstream press. Here the offending piece is from Reuters. It pertains to the relocation to the Gaza strip of two Palestinians who helped their brother plan a suicide attack. The two are transformed by Reuters from "accomplices to mass murder" into "oppressed folk heroes." A past favorite from this site is this report on the extent to which certain newspapers refused to correct past reports of a "massacre" in Jenin, even after a United Nations report established that there was none.

"Jimmy Carter Rides Again," to the well-expressed disgust of Mona Charen in the Washington Times. Her opening sentence says it all: "Jimmy Carter has come out sniveling."

Frank Gaffney in today's Washington Times hopes that President Bush will base his diplomacy and actions regarding Iraq on the model of his recent and successful disentangling of the U.S. from the 1972 ABM treaty. According to Gaffney, the lesson of our withdrawal from that "talismanic treaty" is this: "Once it is clear that the United States is going to act pursuant to its perceived national requirements, and that it has both the capability and the leadership to see the policy through, most of the world gets with the program."

Heather Mac Donald documents the phenomenon of "The Elite War on our Bigotry" in today's New York Post. The path to national suicide runs right through the heart of liberalism.

A few days ago we sought to make the point that it has become impossible to satirize the universities; their everyday reality is beyond satire. Our faithful reader Gene Allen noted another illustration of this point in UC Berkeley's deliberations over appropriate 9/11 observances. "The Hilarious Dilemma of Liberal Patriotism" provides a useful summary, if you can stand it.

Bernard Lewis is the single most learned living person on the subject of Islam, and on the subject of Islam and the West. He is a true scholar who brings a lifetime of learning to his examination of the war we are in. It should be noted that Lewis's essay "The Revolt of Islam," posted below by Deacon, was originally published in the New Yorker last year shortly after 9/11 and recently republished on the New Yorker's Web site. It is outstanding. Today the Washington Post carries Professor Lewis's "Targeted by a history of hatred," a shorter piece that also displays Professor Lewis's myriad virtues.

The eminent historian of the Middle East Bernard Lewis discusses "The Revolt of Islam" in the New Yorker. This is a lengthy piece, but worth reading. I want to pick up on one point that Lewis makes. Towards the end of the article, Lewis notes that Al Qaeda was buoyed during the 1990s by what it perceived to be weakness in America. The main evidence of this weakness was our retreat from Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. But, according to Lewis, we were also perceived as weak to the extent that our spokesmen "refused to implicate -- and sometimes hastened to exculpate -- parties that most Middle Easterners believed to be deeply involved in attacks on America." As Trunk has shown, our State Department steadfastly refuses to acknowledge Arafat's involvement in attacks on Amercan diplomats. If Lewis is right, this refusal -- shameless enough on its own terms -- plays into the hands of our enemies by making us appear weak.

Point taken, Deacon. Meanwhile, evidence that Bin Laden is dead accumulates.

Excellent analysis, Rocket Man. I would also like to comment on your blog from yesterday about "right-wing American Jews." This may sound picky, but I much prefer being described as a Jewish conservative. The dichotomy between the "right" and the "left" comes from European politics and applying it here isn't particularly helpful except to those who want to diminish American conservatives. In Europe, "right-wing" connotes a statist and somewhat authoritarian philosophy to which anti-Semitism is often attached (although nowadays such sentiment is far more prevalent within the European left). This philosophy has nothing to do with the main strand of American conservatism, with its strong optimism and libertarian tendencies. Instead, the fundamental divide in our politics is best captured by the terms "liberal" and "conservative." This, of course, is how the divide traditionally has been described, although the terms "right" and "left" have also been present in our politics.

I believe that the attempt to re-characterize the debate as between the "right" and the "left" is really part of a marketing strategy used by liberals to make up lost ground. During the 1990s, polling showed that the electorate viewed liberals (the "L" word) negatively. This was not due to the word itself (which has a solid pedigree) but rather to the failed policies of liberalism as practiced in the 1960s and 1970s, and to liberal opposition to the successful and popular conservative policies of the 1980s. Liberals needed new jargon, and they found it in the European concept of the "right-wing." The media has had a field day with this. For example, we often read of the "right-wing" element within the Supreme Court, which is usually contrasted to the "moderate" Justices on the other side. You will almost never hear any American political figure described by the mainstream media as belonging the left wing. This is another sign that the "right-left" dichotomy is a phoney one.

Mark Steyn writes on the real significance of September 11: the day America fought back.

Today President Bush is meeting with Prime Minister Chretien, trying to line up Canadian support for regime change in Iraq. Thursday he will address the United Nations on the same subject. The week will be largely devoted to trying to gain international support for the military effort that is already underway. What I consider remarkable about the media's coverage of these events is the failure to acknowledge that what is motivating the Europeans' (and others') failure to line up behind the U.S. is, for the most part, sheer cowardice. The problem is not that world leaders doubt the necessity of deposing Saddam Hussein. Rather, the usual calculation is that President Bush will do the right thing in any event, and that by purporting to oppose military action in Iraq, a European leader can assure that future terrorism will be directed against the U.S. and not his own country. What we are seeing is a reenactment of the movie High Noon, with President Bush in the role of Gary Cooper, trying to round up deputies for the coming battle with the outlaws who are about to arrive on the train. The townspeople fully understand the danger posed by the outlaws, but they rely on the Sheriff, Gary Cooper, to deal with the problem because they are simply too cowardly to join in. President Bush, obviously, is playing the Gary Cooper role. Who is Grace Kelly? Tony Blair, I guess. And I don't mean that to be in any way demeaning. It appears that Englishmen are among the last people--Europeans, anyway--whose national self-respect demands that they stand up for what is right and not rely on others to do their dirty work. The spirit of Churchill is not yet extinct.

If I could assemble a panel to discuss the status of Saudi Arabia's relationship witht the United States, my dream panelists would be Daniel Pipes, Michael Ledeen, and Stephen Schwartz. The folks at David Horowitz's online publication Frontpagemag have assembled precisely this panel to discuss this question. Frontpagemag has published their comments as a symposium, "Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe?" It is both informative and provocative.

The Washington Times reports on serious in-fighting among Democrats in my home state of Maryland. The TImes believes that the campaign of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (daughter of Robert Kennedy) for Governor is in trouble and that "we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of one-party rule in Maryland." I don't know about that. But it warms my heart to see the Democrats subjecting each other to the vicious racial politics and smear tactics that they have used in the past against Republicans to perpetuate their one-party status.

As the sun sets this evening, we are just completing our two-day observance of the Jewish New Year. At services this morning we sang both "Hatikva," the beautiful Israeli national anthem, and "America the Beautiful," a song which since 9/11 I can't get through without breaking up. Sitting in services this morning I thought about a remarkable passage about Jews in Nietzsche's book The Dawn, originally published in 1881. The passage is too long for me to quote in its entirety (I know that would be your preference), but let me quote enough to give you a flavor:

"Among the spectacles to which the next century invites us is the decision on the fate of the European Jews[!]....Every Jew has in the history of his fathers and grandfathers a mine of examples of the coldest composure and steadfastness in terrible situations....

"There has been an effort to make them contemptible by treating them contemptibly for two thousand years and by barring them from access to all honors and everything honorable, thus pushing them that much deeper into the dirtier trades; and under this procedure they have certainly not become cleaner. But contemptible? They themselves have never ceased to believe in their calling to the highest things, and the virtues of all who suffer have never ceased to adorn them...."

Nietzsche is of course also the author of the pregnant phrase "the transvaluation of values," meaning something like the reordering or overturning of values. Prior to the transvaluation of values, however, came the transformation of principles of right and wrong into "values" or personal preferences. This transformation is a function of nineteenth century German philosophy and social science that has had devastating consequences even in the United States; it is a transformation that is alien to the principles that informed the founding of the United States and that are expressed in the Declaration of Independence. The founders did not hold "freedom" and "virtue" as "values," for example; they held freedom as a "right" flowing from man's nature and nature's God, and "virtue" as the excellence of man's character or the perfection of human nature.

Nevertheless, in thinking about contemporary liberalism, "the transvaluation of values" is a useful concept. The project of contemporary liberalism is predicated on the abrogation of human nature. Under this liberalism, everything is permitted; but so that we will be persuaded that everything should be permitted, everything good must be castigated as evil. Thus have homosexuality and abortion become positive goods; thus have the Boy Scouts--the Boy Scouts!--become the liberals' great villain. It is quite an accomplishment.

Courtesy of the Washington Times story "Conservative black leads House's only avowed lesbian," I have learned of Madison's Ron Greer. Mr. Greer is my kind of conservative and perhaps even some kind of a hero. Suffice it to say with respect to the core doctrines of contemporary liberalism, he ain't buyin'. Although his political prospects (the subject of the story) don't sound great, the story made my day.

James Lileks, who like the Trunk and me lives in Minnesota, is one of the best of the bloggers. In fact, before there was such a thing as a web log, he was doing something akin to blogging in our local newspaper. Andrew Sullivan linked to Lileks' explanation of why he is still angry one year later. We hear a lot of hand-wringing about the idea that a year after the terrorist attacks, the American people have lost their resolve, forgotten that there are people out there trying to kill us and our children, and sunk back into a state of indolence punctuated now and then by therapy. I don't think this is true--certainly not in the circles I move in, and as far as I can see, not throughout America generally. The left, of course, has not given up the territory it controlled a year ago in government, the press and the universities, its three sources of power. The old outrages continue, some of them documented here on Power Line--the Mountaineers' musket banned by the University of Wisconsin, the American flag banned from the September 11 program at the University of California, fiction propounded as fact in the pages of the New York Times and other left-wing outlets. But the outrages are challenged more consistently, and I think more successfully, than before. It is noteworthy that in both of the cases referred to above, the Universities of Wisconsin and California were forced to back down. And correcting the errors of the "mainstream" press has become a cottage industry in the blogosphere. So I'd be curious to hear from readers--where you are, is the anger gone? Is America back to business as usual, or is the resolve to win the war still there?

Here is Arab News' take on the primary battles of the McKinneys, father and daughter. It's pretty predictable, but there is one phrase in the article that warms my heart. Yup, that's it in the lead sentence: "Right-wing American Jews." Some years ago the Trunk and I were talking to a television producer about hosting a TV show. Asked for a capsule summary of his political views, the Trunk described himself as a "member of the Jewish right." The producer took that as a clever quip, never having heard of any such group. When "Jewish right" is no longer an oxymoron, we'll know the conservative movement has turned the corner. Are we starting to get there? I think so, finally.

Michelle Malkin exposes the efforts of Senate Democrats to sneak a pro-criminal immigration provision into the Homeland Security bill. The offending provision pertains to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which, as Malkin explains it, can reopen the factual findings of federal courts and can overturn deportation decisions. Presently, the Attorney General is able to overrule this Board, but the Senate Democrats would strip him of this power. This would leave the Janet Reno-appointed bureaucrats on the Board with the unchecked power to allow criminals to avoid deportation. While many of the Board's decisions are unpublished, Malkin notes that its published decisions include cases of "repeat drunk drivers, sexual abusers, burglars, and drug offenders and other aggravated felons who escaped deportation on convoluted technicalities." She even cites a case in which a nanny convicted of second-degree manslaughter in connection with the fatal beating of a 19 month old baby was allowed to remain in the U.S. because she had not committed a crime of violence. While protecting these bleeding-heart decisions from review serves the interests of the immigration lawyers' lobby, it hardly promotes homeland security.

Unfortunately, this is not the only instance in which the nation's security interests have taken a back-seat to the Democrats' immigration agenda. For years, Democrats (led by Ted Kennedy) sought to remove INS case officers from the immigration enforcement process. According to their vision, case officers should never talk to the enforcement people. Rather, they should simply confer status and benefits on immigrants (future Democrats in the vision). But it is far more sensible for "services" and "enforcement" to interact. The case officer is the best situated person in the entire system to discover suspicious aliens who might do us harm. Indeed, one INS official told me that, when it comes to matters of security, case officers are the only consistently good source of enforcement tips. Without their intelligence, the enforcement people end up investigating small time drug offenders on tips from the police, or hanging out at the local jailhouse looking for aliens to deport. That is not a recipe for finding Al Qaeda cell members.

Yet in the aftermath of September 11, the Democrats seized upon the call for reform and streamlining of the INS as a pretext for erecting a wall between services and enforcement, so as to make life easier for immigrants, both legal and illegal. Under this regime, the case officers don't get valuable information from enforcement that could reveal fraud and provide a legitimate basis for denying benefits. And the enforcement folks don't get tips from case officers that could enable them to identify threats to our security.

It would be bad enough if the Democrats were simply using September 11 as a pretext for enacting misguided special interest legislation. But it is unconscionable that they are using an attack on the U.S. as the basis for enacting special interest legislation that actually reduces our security.

I want to pick up on an observation that Deacon made yesterday, which I think was extremely perceptive. There has been lots of comment in the blogosphere about the "guilty white southern boys," typified by Howell Raines and many others, that form much of the core of modern American leftism. Deacon noted the theory that GWSB's are trying to show their northern counterparts in the elite media that they are not hicks, and pointed out that the same phenomenon exists with regard to Europe--liberal American journalists trying to demonstrate to their European counterparts that they are sophisticated like the Europeans, not yahoo Texans like, for example, our President. This is a very important observation--you can trace various threads through American intellectual history and slice the vast American pie in lots of different ways, but I think one of the most enduring divisions in American intellectual life is between those who think America is a crude, uncultured and often embarrassing place that needs to grow up and be more like Europe, and those who think that America is a different, freer, more vigorous and on the whole better place than Europe and should stay that way. This divide goes back to very early American history, and has never lost its relevance. Today the pro-Europe camp is exemplified by the New York Times, the State Department and most of the Democratic leadership; the pro-America camp is typified most gloriously by our President with able assistance from most of his inner circle, ranging from Dick Cheney to Condoleezza Rice. The current debates about how to approach the Iraq issue cannot be understood outside of this historic division.

The Scotsman provides an excellent summary of the information about Iraq's weapons program--nuclear, biological and chemical--that has been made public. it is pretty chilling, and this is only what is in the public domain. When Democrats say that the Administration has not made the case that regime change is necessary, I can only conclude that they haven't been reading the newspapers. They could do worse than to start with The Scotsman.

InstaPundit links to an Editor and Publisher article that cites a poll showing that Americans' disdain for the media has returned to pre-September 11 levels and asks: "Why do they hate us?" (The press, that is.) I can't improve on Professor Reynolds' answer to this question. Check it out. Also, check out his link to the American Kaiser piece on an MSNBC program on Hamas.

President Bush is finally starting to respond to Democratic obstructionism on judicial appointments. It will take more than a press release, obviously, but let's hope this is the beginning of a vigorous campaign to make the Democrats pay a price for their actions. And let's hope he publicly supports the next candidate before it's too late.

Many of you will have seen these by now, but for the rest I recommend this piece on September 11 by Charles Krauthammer, my favorite columnist and this one about Iraq by George Shultz, one of my favorite public servants.

Good dissection, Deacon. Is there a more cynical, dishonest or small-minded politician in American history than Tom Daschle? I can't think of one. One might wonder what the Democrats' objective is with regard to Iraq. I think it is simple: the Democrats' greatest fear is that the war in Iraq will be short and successful. In particular, they worry that by November 5 the conflict may be over, or at least well on the way to being won. This would disrupt their plans for the midterm elections. So they are doing everything in their power--raising silly objections, making impossible demands, imposing procedural hurdles--to stall the progress of the campaign. The fact that Saddam is drawing ever closer to obtaining a nuclear capability, that every day he remains in power poses a danger to unknown thousands or even millions of Americans, is of no concern to them. On the contrary, they would welcome a successful terrorist attack, which they would blame on the Administration. We are witnessing one of the most disgraceful political performances in American history, maybe the worst since James Buchanan deliberately disarmed the U.S. Army prior to the Civil War.

National Review Online contributing editor Mark Levin analyzes the objections of Tom Daschle, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton to using military force against Iraq. Deconstructing the pronouncements of Carter and Clinton is fun, but may not be worth the effort. Neither holds power and neither is likely to be taken seriously in this debate (unless Clinton supports military action). As for Sen. Daschle, Levin exposes the cynical shell game the Senate Majority Leader is playing. Initially, Daschle demanded "new information" about an Iraqi threat. When advised of that information -- new evidence that Saddam is close to developing nuclear weapons, has developed new means of delivering chemical and biological weapons, and was in contact wtih Al Qaeda before and after the Sept. 11 attacks -- Daschle raised the bar by suggesting that "international support" in the form of a new U.N. resolution should be a precondition for military action. It seems to me that the call for new information is specious to begin with. Why isn't the Sept. 11 attack and our subsequent declaration of war against terrorism "new information" enough? If we really are conducting a war against terrorism, then "old" information that Saddam is making progress with weapons of mass destruction, coupled with his longstanding hatred for the U.S. and past "dabbling" in anti-U.S. terrorism, would seem reason enough to bring him down. The burden should then fall on Daschle and his like-minded colleagues to make the case for inaction.

In today's Washington Times, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. satirizes the "suave European political leaders who are so relunctant to discomfit Saddma Hussein with bombs overhead." Tyrrell's discussion reminds us that the European political class was wrong about the defining issues of the last century. I would add that, having watched this pretty carefully over the years, attacks by our own elite media on alleged American cowboy recklessness tend to spike after major displays of European displeasure with us. Yesterday, I mentioned Andrew Sullivan's theory that southern members of the media elite are as liberal as they are because they feel the need to show their northern counterparts that they are not hicks. It seems to me that a key portion of the U.S. media may be driven by the need to make the same showing to certain Europeans. As Tyrrell shows, these Europeans have attained an arrogant and feckless complacency that liberals in our elite media, as smug as they are, can only dream of.

With elections right around the corner, the Power Line crew will be spending a lot of time reading and analyzing polls. I think it's fair to say that the ubiquity of polling is one of the major ways in which our public life is different from that of a generation ago. But polls have to be read carefully and with some skepticism. A few days ago there was a lot of comment about an English poll in which a plurality of UK residents ranked the death of Princess Diana as the most important event of the last 100 years, ahead of both world wars, among other things. Well, it can't possibly be true that most Britons consider Diana's death to be more important than World War II. I don't know whether a lot of people were having fun with the pollsters or what, but that result simply can't be taken seriously. A less bizarre example of polling that can't be right is this CNN/Time poll. CNN headlines the fact that the poll shows a drop in support for military action against Iraq from 73% in December to 51% last week. The article says this decline in support is "spurred more by practical concerns than by ethical ones." No kidding--look at the data that follow the main question. If this poll is to be believed, 88% of Americans think that military action against Iraq is likely to lead to higher oil prices; 77% think it is likely to lead to more terrorism in the U.S.; 74% think it is likely to increase instability in the Middle East; and 55% think it is likely to bring about another recession. Now, if people really believed that all those consequences were likely to result from war with Iraq, wouldn't they be crazy to support the attack? After all, the main purpose of regime change in Iraq is to prevent future terrorism here. Here is how I would interpret these data: When people say in a poll that they believe something to be true, what they often mean is that it sounds familiar. These data show that the endless negativity promoted by the news media and the Democrats (with help from a few Republicans) has had an effect--the arguments against an attack have sunk into peoples' awareness. Yet most people have enough good sense to realize that Saddam is a serious threat and that we have no alternative but to depose him, notwithstanding the carping that fills the daily news. If I were President Bush, I would read these data optimistically. Most Americans already know that he is right about Iraq, and simply need to be reminded of the reasons why. The public relations campaign that is now starting should do just that.

It is simply not possible to satirize the absurdity of academia today (forgive me, Professor Hindrocket). No more Lucky Jim, no more Pictures from an Institution! Every day the academy's reality far outstrips the imaginative powers of our best comic writers. If you don't believe me, or if you want the kind of amusement formerly provided by the Kingsley Amises of the world, take a look at "Wisconsin Diversifies" by Dave Kopel, from yesterday's National Review Online. Or have I fallen for a hoax? The links within Kopel's piece unfortunately appear to be authentic!

Congressional leaders have announced their intention to hold hearings on Iraq for several weeks, perhaps hoping that a vote can be pushed back beyond the election. Whether this has any bearing on the actual progress of the war remains unclear. Debka File reports that last night, in a "massive air raid," 100 American and British fighter-bombers attacked and destroyed Iraq's western air defense installation near the Jordanian border. According to Debka File, the attack leaves Iraq defenseless against landings of special forces anywhere west of Baghdad.

Among the many interesting editorial pieces on the Web yesterday was "The Iraq Connection" by Micah Morrison in the Wall Street Journal, also posted on the paper's Opinionjournal Web site. In the tradition of the Journal's editorial page, it is a superb example of "reported" commentary.

Yesterday was a sad day in the U.S. Senate, as Judiciary Committee Democrats denied Texas Judge Priscilla Owen a Senate hearing in which her 5th Circuit appointment would have been confirmed. The Democrats announced that as long as they control the Judiciary Committee, they will allow nominations only of liberal judges, a position that has never before been taken by either party. Judge Owen's defeat marked the first time in history that a judge ranked as "well qualified" by the liberal American Bar Association has not been allowed out of committee. The Democrats have launched an unprecedented attack on the President's Constitutional power to fill vacancies in the Federal judiciary. Will anyone care? Voters in Texas might. In a state where every official elected statewide is a Republican, Attorney General John Cornyn is locked in a surprisingly tough Senate race against former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk. Texas voters may see the Democrats' rejection of Judge Owen as reminiscent of their refusal to confirm Judge Clement Haynsworth, President Nixon's 1969 Supreme Court appointee, simply because he was a southerner. The Democrats' contemptible treatment of Judge Haynsworth--like Judge Owen, a respected and relatively apolitical jurist--was a key milestone in the conversion of the South from Democratic bastion to Republican stronghold. Maybe history will repeat itself in Texas.

I just got home from South Dakota, where I've been for a couple of days. No shortage of posts, I see! The political ads are flying thick and fast out there. The Thune/Johnson race, in particular, is getting nasty, judging by the ads. The exchange I heard, Thune won on a TKO. You may have seen a recent poll that showed the race as a dead heat, but the local insiders I talk to say that poll is notoriously screwy, and Thune continues to hold a small but steady lead. On another note, the Rocket Prof had better stay anonymous if he's going to take on sacred cows like global warming. I'm not sure the academy is ready for that particular dose of reality. A select few Power Line readers may remember that quite a few years ago, the Trunk and I authored a piece titled "The Global Warming Hoax"--one of our first efforts. We may have to dust it off and update it.

Our faithful reader, the esteemed Professor Hindrocket, has brought to our attention a news account describing Russia's intention of subscribing to the execrable Kyoto Protocol to reduce alleged global warming. Professor Hindrocket notes that such accounts never intimate the fraudulent scientific basis of the Protocol documented by outstanding scientists such as Dr. Fred Singer. Professor Hindrocket has also kindly supplied us the link to Dr. Singer's essay "The Costly Politics of Global Environmentalism," in which he lucidly summarizes the Protocol's contribution of real hot air to the otherwise fictitious phenomenon of global warming.

At the risk of overloading our faithful readers, I want to bring to your attention the column by Michael Oren in today's Jersusalem Post. It raises the question I have been asking myself over the past year: whether we are capable of rising to the challenge of fighting the war we are in as our parents fought World War II. Oren is a brilliant historian holding both American and Israeli citizenship. His column is the best of the Web today. Right behind it is "Hunting 'Chicken Hawks'" by Eliot Cohen in today's Washington Post.

Mickey Kaus has an intriguing discussion of the origins of the pathology of the Guilty Southern White Boys (the N.Y. Times' Howell Raines, etc.) and "their pernicious continuing effect on American politics." Kaus largely rejects Andrew Sullivan's explanation -- that these are hicks trying to prove they are not bigots -- in favor of Virginia Postrel's view that the Raines' of the world reject anything conservative because their thinking was formed at a time when the conservatives in their towns were reprehensible bigots. Both explanations may come into play when it comes to foreign policy. As Michael Lind has shown, throughout our history the south has been a bastion of support for the military and for military action. Thus, the Guilty Southern White Boys may have powerful overlapping reasons to loathe the military and the use of force. Sure, the vanquished local bigots of their youth were "miliatarists." But so too is the unvanquished culture from which the GSWBs might still be running. While people like Raines may not need to keep distancing themselves from Bull Connor, the need to separate from the more abiding "Cavalier" culture of the south may persist. How else is one to explain the original GSWB, Jimmy Carter?

Kaus also tackles the question of whether Bill Clinton is a GSWB. He concludes that Clinton is not, and points out that Raines hated Clinton. I once read that the Clintons had a very simple explanation for that hatred -- the fact that Clinton, not Raines, was the middle-aged southerner in the White House. It is possible, after all, to overthink these things.

Our war on terrorism began almost a year ago. Israel's latest such war broke out two years ago with Arab attacks that took place on the day of the Jewish new year. In Ha'aretz, Yisrael Harel writes that finally, after two years, "there are definitely signs of exhaustion among the Arabs and of recovery among the Jews." According to Harel, the first 18 months of terrorism created panic in the civilian population, which increased the motivation for such acts. But the Defensive Wall campaign, embarked on by the government six months ago following the attack of Passover eve, appears to have changed the dynamic.

Stephen Hayes in the "Daily Standard" predicts that action in Iraq is coming "sooner than you think." Hayes' sources tell him that the administration will present its case to Congress, and obtain congressional approval, in less than a month. Hayes also predicts that, once the case is presented, the public will demand that our military response be prompt.

Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column today is characteristically outstanding. He covers a lot of territory with good humor and equally good judgment. What caught my eye this morning was a recollection prompted by the death of Charles Lichenstein: "Reading Charles Lichtenstein’s obit gave me a thrill — not because this fine man was dead, but because I was able to re-live his shining moment, in 1983. He was working at the U.N., under Jeane Kirkpatrick...It was shortly after the Soviets shot down KAL 007, murdering all those people, and legislatures in New York and New Jersey were denying Soviet aircraft landing rights. Some at the U.N. raised the question of whether that body should remove from the United States. And Lichtenstein, fed up and in no mood for 'diplomacy,' said, 'We will put no impediment in your way. The members of the U.S. mission to the United Nations will be down at the dockside waving you a fond farewell as you sail off into the sunset.'”

I have come to wonder about the inconsistency between "world governmnent" as represented by the United Nations and the American government as established in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. America's democratic republic is founded on the principle that all men are created equal. The concept of majority rule is derivative of the principle of individual equality. The UN, however, is predicated on some version of a principle regarding the equality of countries: thus, one country, one vote. The principle is not only not self-evidently true, it is on the contrary self-evidently false. It is as false as the doctrine of multicuItutalism asserting that all cultures are equal. It would be a glorious moment if some official representative of the United States were to say so on an appropriate occasion, of which there have been many recently and of which there will be more coming soon.

Nothing other than considerations of prudence suggests that the United States should consult or abide by the opinion of the "world community" as expressed in the UN. On a matter deemed vital to the national interest of the United States, the UN should be used by the United States for whatever use it may be and otherwise considered a nullity.

There is no equality between the United States, a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and the numerous dictatorships, thugocracies, satrapies, monarchies, and ganster countries (think "Syria") represented in the UN. In his glory days, Pat Moynihan used to say such things as the United States Ambassador to the UN. It made him a famous and it made him a hero to many Americans. To use an appropriately Kissingerian formulation, the things Moynihan said had the additional virtue of being true. It is about time our official representatives again started making the case for the moral superiority of the United States in the teeth of the "world community" that would prefer to see us humbled like Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

Yes, Rocket Man, and the Bush administration should do so with or without the support of other governments. In fact, there is a sense in which the less support we have, the better our interests are served by a successful attack on Iraq. Here's why I think that may be the case. Operations of this nature serve two general purposes in the war on terrorism -- (1) to derail specific terrorists and their operations and (2) to influence other governments that may be supporting and/or harboring terrorists. The Afghanistan operation accomplished the first purpose well. But its effect on other governments was limited because the Taliban had no international support. The only government that had ever been even slightly friendly towards that regime, Pakistan, abandoned the Taliban at the outset. Thus, the more mainstream and less isolated tyrannies could reasonably conclude that they are not in the same boat as the Taliban and that they can harbor and support terrorists with impugnity. In fact, the evidence is that Syria, Iran, and Iraq are all doing so.

Of the remaining tyrannies, Iraq has traditionally been the least mainstream and the most isolated. During the Gulf War, its lone support, as I recall, came from Jordan and the Palestinians. If Saddam were again targeted, as a pariah, by a broad coalition, the deterrent effect on other governments might well be minimal (although, as Rocket Man points out, a pro-US regime in Baghdad would have other positive effects). But if the successfully U.S. attacks Iraq with little or no support, or in the face of European opposition, the lesson will be unmistakable -- the terrorists cannot hide behind friendly Arab governments and these Arab governments cannot hide behind "international opinion" (or European business interests).

I do not conclude from this theory that the U.S. should decline to seek international support. But there is a corollary to the theory that I do insist upon. If the U.S. backs down from attacking Iraq because it lacks international support, the Bush doctrine of fighting terrorism by attacking governments that support and harbor terrorists will be dead. If the international community can get the likes of Saddam Hussein off the hook, then governments like Syria and Iran will have no basis for fearing any meaningful adverse consequences from supporting Al Qaida. That sounds like the defeat of the war against terrorism.

I agree, Deacon. I'd be surprised if Saddam's government doesn't fall quickly. Debka File reports that Saddam is listless and seemingly depressed, and war preparations in Iraq have slowed. On the other hand, Debka File also reports that Iran, deeply concerned about the implications of a pro-US regime in Iraq, is plotting with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority to open up a second front via attacks on Israel, hoping that this will deter or interrupt American action. Iran's overture is said to have received an enthusiastic reception in Syria, because "Syria's Bashar Assad shares Tehran's conviction that the installment of a pro-American regime in Baghdad is extremely dangerous, a direct threat to the Ayatollahs in Tehran, the Baath regime in Damascus, the freedom of operation of the Syria-based Palestinian terror groups and the very existence of the Hizballah, Tehran's primary arm for overseas operations and intelligence." That is, I think, an accurate assessment, and it sums up very well why the Bush administration is wise to begin with Iraq.

Writing in the New Republic, Michael Rubin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy argues that many pundits, military analysts, and former government officials are substantially over-estimating the military resistance the U.S. will encounter in Iraq. Military predictions of this type, on either side of the argument, are problematic. But Rubin's piece presents a plausible case that much of what he calls the emerging conventional wisdom is too pessimistic. And he makes the undeniable point that this was true prior to our actions in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and the first Gulf War.

Tony Blankley has a column out today that is reflective of his many virtues as a commentator. If you are trying to understand the high stakes combat being played out in the newspapers between Secretary of State Powell and Vice President Cheney (and President Bush, I trust), read the column.

David Horowitz denounces political indoctrination in the college classroom and the exclusion of conservatives from college faculties. In response, his Center for the Study of Popular Culture has launched a "Campaign for Fairness and Inclusion in Higher Education." And Thomas Sowell explains the harm inflicted on black students when their "friends" lower the standards they must meet.

I don't want to say anything to alienate a single one of our faithful readers, especially if the faithful reader is a member of the Hindrocket family. But I want to note my admiration for Deacon's blogs on the subject of racial preferences in higher education. Rocket Man and I published a piece on this subject in the Spring 1998 issue of the American Experiment Quarterly that can be accessed through the site of its publisher, Center of the American Experiment. In that piece we noted what I believe to be the first use of the argument for "diversity" in American politics. It's a point I have not seen anyone else make, perhaps because it not worth making, but I take the liberty of mentioning it for the historical interest it may have for Professor Hindrocket.

In the course of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, while Lincoln insisted on elaborating the moral evil of slavery as an institution, Stephen Douglas upbraided Lincoln for his hostility to slavery. (Douglas, you may recall, proclaimed his neutrality as between slavery and freedom for American blacks; he proposed that their legal status be resolved by the vote of whites in the territories as they became states, i.e., the doctrine of "popular sovereignty.") According to Douglas, Lincoln's position was inconsistent with the "diversity" of the states and their institutions. We noted in our piece that the contemporary debate over racial preferences appears to illustrate Marx's dictum that history repeats itself, playing out first as tragedy and then as farce.

Andrew Sullivan has a thoughtful account of the blogging phenomeon in Slate. It appears to be part book review, part open letter. In any event, the piece is more informative than the journalistic accounts that have appeared in Newsweek and the New York Times. Why might that be? Sullivan notes what seems to me the key fact that the mainstream media have yet to share with their consumers: "The great journalistic virtue of blogs is...they're fantastic fact-checkers and media monitors. You can't simply make stuff up if you're executive editor of the New York Times and hope no one will notice. I love the fact that the self-important pooh-bahs at 43rd Street now have to worry that they'll be corrected on a daily basis by a bunch of former nobodies. Go, Instapundit. It helps defuse the self-serving pomposity of much of the journalistic clerisy."

Unfortunately, Sullivan to the contrary notwithstanding, I notice no decline in the New York Times's fecklessness with the facts and in its constant page-one axe-grinding since the advent of the blogging phenomenon. But the desire to expose, embarrass, and shame the media pooh-bahs is clearly a driving force. From Sullivan's piece I also learn that the estimable Michael Barone also has a blog site. Finally, from Sullivan's piece I learn how to spell pooh-bah.

My musings on racial preferences at Wesleyan and elsewhere prompted an e-mail from one of Rocket Man's brothers, a college professor. His thoughtful response included the observation that "most academics, even if they are appalled by extreme examples of favoritism, will agree that some dissimilarity among students is a good thing and spurs learning all around."

I agree with this consensus, but submit that the racial preferences being doled out today by college administrators have little to do with promoting diversity in the sense of "dissimilarity among students." Indeed, if diversity were the true goal, extreme examples of favoritism would rarely occur. The diversity rationale has always seemed suspicious coming from colleges that tend to peddle a sterile liberal orthodoxy. But I didn't fully appreciate the pretextual nature of the diversity rationale until I started following the litigation over the University of Michigan's race-based admissions preferences. Michigan argued that, without racial preferences, it would admit a freshman class in which African-Americans made up only about five percent. But for a school the size of Michigan, this represents a large number, surely enough African-Americans to provide diversity in the normal sense of enabling students to get to know "dissimilar" kids. In both my college and law school, the numbers (both absolute and in percentage terms) were much smaller, yet there was no problem obtaining this benefit of diversity. But Michigan was insisting on its right to grant preferences to the point that African-Americans would make up more than ten percent of the entering class. Why? Because its real goal was not diversity; it was proportional representation.

I then recalled that, when big-time affirmative action began at colleges, the rationale was never "diversity." Rather, the idea was to lend a helping hand to the victims of past injustice, whether by the institution itself or by society. In the 1960s, this was a far more meaningful argument than "diversity." In fact, a diversity rationale, had it occurred to anyone, would have sounded a discordant note in that innocent time when the civil rights movement was about discovering similarities, not differences.

Over the years, however, the "remedial" argument began to lose both its force and its appeal. This happened, I think, for several reasons. First, preferences were supposed to be a temporary remedy, not a permanent entitlement. But instead of withering away, they became more pronounced and ingrained. Second, the notion that members of a group are entitled to preferences due to past injustices is a value judgment that anyone can question. And, because the preference regime was hardening into a state of permanance, it was increasingly being questioned. On the other hand, an educator's view that diversity promotes learning sounds like a scientific fact that neither the public, nor even a court, has the expertise to question. It is harder to attack, in part because it does contain that grain of truth. Third, the diversity rationale has a more politically correct ring. It sounded too patonizing --too much like a form of welfare -- to suggest that colleges were doing minorities a favor by admitting them despite a relative lack of credentials. Much better to say, in effect, that the minorities were actually conferring a benefit on the college (and especially its white students) by providing a diverse learning experience. Much better to view skin color as a credential, rather than as grounds for trumping credentials. And, of course, the diversity rationale is forever. It can justify preferences for as long as colleges want to serve them up.

If I am right, then, the excesses of racial preferences at colleges are not the result of a valid rationale -- diversity -- run amuck. Instead, they occur because diversity is not the real issue. Stated most generously, the real issue is the desire of college administrators to hand out justice in an unjust world. Unfortunately, their justice is "social' or "group" justice, largely an oxymoron. The casualty is individual justice, the truest kind.

Michael Ledeen reports on the latest wave of repression in Iran, as well as new al Qaeda activity there. Ledeen notes that, while ignoring these developments, the New York Times is touting the nominal Iranian president's bold vow to introduce legislation that purports to require the mullahs and ayatollahs to let him exercise the limited powers he already has.

The New York Times reports that senior Special Operations commanders are requesting that their elite units be released from hunting for bin Laden on the ground that he is, in all likelihood, dead. This view, which apparently is held by the senior commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, is based largely on the fact that the last intercept of a communication believed to come from bin Laden was last December. Since the assault on Tora Bora, he has been silent, and the ongoing search for him has been fruitless. Nor have intercepted communications from other Al Qaeda members contained evidence that he is alive. On the other hand, some intelligence officials are quoted as saying that if bin Laden were dead, other Al Qaeda leaders, as well as his family, would behave differently. "If he is dead, very few people in Al Qaeda know it," one official says. My own guess is that, as Mark Steyn put it some time ago, bin Laden has been laiden six feet under.

In this excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Bray contrasts media attitudes toward the militia "movement" in the wake of the the Oklahoma City bombing with media attitudes toward American Muslims and purported threats to their civil rights.

You invoke some painful memories, Trunk. I still remember the confusion I felt the day that a female member of the Dartmouth SDS told me that the only campus radical I considered cool was a male chauvinist.

In today's Jerusalem Post Max Singer points to the "embarrassment of riches" possessed by the U.S. when it comes to reasons for removing Saddam Hussein. Singer concludes that Saddam's past actions justify his removal and that the growing threat he poses in the context of the war being waged against us by terrorists requires that his removal happen soon.

I appreciate Deacon's post of the Alan Dershowitz piece from Haaretz. It discusses the same assassination I wrote about this past June, the 1973 assassination of US Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel and his deputy Curt Moore in Khartoum on the direct order of Yasser Arafat. Dershowitz's piece misses the issue I raised in my piece: the American interest in bringing Arafat to justice separate and apart from Israel's. Dershowitz urges the Israelis to try Arafat for murder.

I wonder why Dershowitz does not urge the government of the United States to do so for Arafat's crimes against Americans, and why Dershowitz does not do so in an American newspaper. Noel's murder is at the heart of Dershowitz's piece, yet the state of Israel has absolutely no interest of any kind that would support a prosecution of Arafat for it. We do. Reasons of state might argue that we give Arafat a pass for all the American blood he has on his hands, and such reasons appear to have been operative to date in causing the American government to avert its eyes from Arafat's crimes against Americans. But I think that most Americans would strongly disagree with the wisdom of our inaction if they knew of the evidence incriminating Arafat in the murder of American citizens, and that they would be right.

Speaking strictly from my own experience, when Rocket Man refers to his leftism as including "a certain wistful hope that we might meet girls," I'm afraid that both the desire and the desired activity were more intense than that suggests. I would add only that Midge Decter's remarkable 1972 book "The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation," based solely on her reading of feminist literature, corroborated what one might conclude from meeting the girls on the left: that there was something seriously wrong at the heart of feminism.

Ha'aretz reports that Syria "has allowed some 150-200 Qaida operatives to settle in the Palestinian refugee camp Ein Hilwe near Sidon in Lebanon." The article also discusses evidence that, before September 11, Syria was "a stomping ground for Qaida operatives." Even after September 11, Syria defiantly refused to change its policy until after the attack on the Taliban commenced. Then, the government agreed to cooperate with U.S. intelligence, but the change in policy was mostly cosmetic. Ha'aretz also contains a piece by Alan Dershowitz recommending that Israel put Arafat on trial for first degree murder. Describing the case against Arafat as "open-and-shut," Dershowitz relies on some of the evidence presented by Trunk on these pages and elsewhere regarding Arafat's responsibility for killing U.S. diplomats in Khartoum. This piece is worth reading regardless of one's view of the author.

Excellent point, Rocket Man. It may help explain why, despite the overwhelming leftism of the professoriate, conservatives seem to hold their own among college students, Dartmouth being a case in point. Speaking of The Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer reflects on "Year One" in the new issue of that fine magazine. He finds us unchanged, and considers this a sign of our success thus far. Krauthammer warns, however, that our respite "will not last if we simply look back with satisfaction on our initial resilience."

You're right, Deacon, our leftism always included a certain wistful hope that we might meet girls, maybe even Swedish girls. Which raises the point that nowadays, the fun is on the right, not the left. I'm not sure why it is that liberals have become gloomy, scolding, peevish and puritanical, but so they have. This article by John Powers in L. A. Weekly sums up the phenomenon nicely, focusing on the contrast between The Nation and The Weekly Standard.

I can't link to it yet, but Francis Fukuyama and Nadav Samin have a provocative article in the September issue of Commentary called, "Can Any Good Come of Radical Islam?" The first part of the article argues that Al Qaeda's brand of Islam is best understood not as a traditional fundamentalist movement, but as a very modern phenomenon. While conceding that "it would be foolish to downpaly the role of religious or civilizational factors," the authors see the movement mostly in 20th century European terms. Specifically, they trace its political roots through the Muslim Brotherhood back to fascism and Marxism. This passage sums up that thesis: "The key attributes of Islamism -- the aestheticization of death, the glorification of armed force, the worship of martyrdom, and faith in the propaganda of the deed -- have little precedent in Islam but have been defining features of modern totalitarianism." The authors also see a sociological connection between the rise of fascism and communism in Europe and the advent of Islamism in the Arab world. Both, they argue, stem from the social transformation caused by villagers moving en masse to large urban slums. Ideology fills the void, "offereing a new identity based on a puritanical, homogenized creed."

If this analysis is controversial, the second part of the article is more so. The authors ask whether, "like both fascism and communism before it," Islamism "could serve as a modernizing force, preparing the way for Muslim societies that can respond not destructively, but constructively to the challenges of West." The answer, they optimistically suggest, is affirmative. But they are wise enough to acknowledge that the wait for Muslim modernization "is likely to be a long one" and that, in the meantime, "the determined application of military power is part of the answer." Just as it was with fascism and communism.

Two pieces of commentary in today's Washington Times, one by Cal Thomas and the other by Oliver North, discuss the fact of, and reasons for, European opposition to taking on Saddam Hussein. The Europeans seem to be relying on the doubts of certain American luminaries, while those luminaries rely on lack of support by the Europeans. I am married to a European and most of the Europeans I know are charming and cultured people. Yet the Europeans as a group have been wrong about almost every major issue (the Cold War, Hitler, socialism, religious freedom, etc.) for as long as anyone can remember.

More on "the melee:" Today's Star Tribune carries a report on the neighborhood that was the site of Minneapolis's first race riot in ten years on August 22. The story mostly recycles a variety of liberal cliches while focusing on police-community relations and the drug-dealing that blights the neigborhood. The race-based assaults committed by neighborhood residents on journalists covering the police search that triggered the riot go without mention. The Star Tribune's ombudsman also defends the paper's writers for calling the riot a "melee." He says the Strib should be proud of its coverage. For the reasons suggested below over the past several days, we beg to differ.

Other Star Tribune "melee" pieces running on Thursday (editorial), Friday (news), and Saturday (news) add exclamation points to the related crises of thought and governance confronting Minneapolis.

Among other things, the current state of Minneapolis illustrates the perils of one-party rule. Since the demise of the Soviet Union Minneapolis has lost interest in its old Soviet sister city; Minneapolis has lost interest in it because it cannot be used any longer as a stick with which to beat the United States. But now is the time when that city could really be useful and should be called on to help Minneapolis construct a system of multiparty government.

Two of our daughters are the students of a great music teacher, Ellen Kim. Ellen is profiled in today's Star Tribune. The piece is worth reading to get a glimpse of a remarkable teacher.

In today's Washington Times, African-American economist Walter Williams lambastes the "phony diversity" of America's college campuses. Williams cites a study showing that at colleges such an Brown, Cornell, and Harvard only 5 percent or less of the faculty is Republican or Libertarian. The study found that 9 percent of Ivy League faculty voted for George Bush in 2000. That's about the same percentage of newspaper journalists who, according to a Freedom Forum study, voted for the first President Bush in the 1992 election.

Rocket Man, as I recall, we did hold up Sweden as a model, which at least was a step up from admiring Cuba. With Sweden it was always difficult to differentiate between our admiration of their form of government and of their women and alleged sexual scene (the ethical vs. the aesthetic). Turning to local politics, in Maryland, where I live, Robert Kennedy's daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, is running for Governor. It was widely assumed that she would win easily, since Democrats always win state-wide elections here. Townsend was even being promoted as a possible Vice Presidential candidate in 2004. However, she has run a poor campaign and finds herself in what looks like a tough race against Republican Robert Ehrlich. In an editorial, The Washington Post compares Townsend unfavorably to Ehrlich on budgetary issues. We'll see what the Post says when it comes time to actually make its endorsement.

Andrew Sullivan has a bracing essay in Time's September 11 issue: "[M]ost of us know that there is no moving on from September 11. It wasn't a random tragedy for which grief is a slow-acting salve. It was a massacre....It was an invasion....The appropriate response to this attack is therefore not grief or remembrance or sadness or reflection, although each of these has its place. The appropriate response is rage." You should read the whole essay.

Here's a headline that raises a question I would classify as self-answering: "Surge in sick pay raises questions in Sweden". It appears that 10% of the entire population of Sweden, which should be more like 20% of what would normally be the employed population, is on long-term sick leave or early medical retirement. Let's see...if not working pays virtually as well as working, and ambition is hardly a factor since no one can get ahead financially anyway...I think the mystery is solved. I can remember when Sweden was seriously held up as a model that the US should follow--even by us, right, Deacon? At least no one is saying that anymore.