While I'm talking about the Brits, here's a column by Suzanne Fields of the Washington Times about the strange scandal involving Tony Blair's goofy human-rights lawyer wife, Cherie. The Times of London put the question posed by this scandal as follows: "Should We Care If Mrs. Blair Is Bonkers?" Probably not, but anything to get my mind off of the sorry Trent Lott affair.

Here is an unsentimental look, to say the least, at Al Gore's abdication by the Times of London correspondent who had the misfortune of covering Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. The correspondent, Damian Whitworth, uses one of my favorite British phrases -- "nearly man" -- to describe Gore. Along with a distinctively American term -- "loser."

A few days ago we linked to a column by Michelle Malkin, who pointed out that Trent Lott was already trying to pander himself out of trouble--one of several good reasons to remove him as Majority Leader. Tonight he is doing an interview on Black Entertainment Television; the interview hasn't aired yet but CNN has a report on the interview. Sure enough, Lott is now pandering as well as groveling. "There has been immoral leadership in my part of the country for a long time," Lott says. Asked whether he had been a part of that immoral leadership, Lott says, "Yes, I can't deny that. And I, you know, believe I have changed and I am trying to do a better job." Changed since when? Last week? What part of his public record does Lott now consider to be immoral?

Worst of all is this exchange about affirmative action: Lott: "I'm for that." ["even though"--CNN volunteers--"he has voted against affirmative action legislation."] Interviewer: "Across the board?" Lott: "Absolutely...My actions don't reflect my voting record." Whatever that means.

So, in order to save his skin, is Lott now willing to buy into the liberal notion that opposition to affirmative action is equivalent to advocating segregation? I'm not sure we can afford to wait until January 6 to get rid of him.

From today's Washington Times here's an editorial on how things have been going for German Chancellor Schroeder since he won re-election by means of a viruently anti-American campaign. Here's a hint -- things haven't been going well for the Chancellor. One poll showed that half of the people who voted for him in September now wish they hadn't. And a disagreement between Schroeder and the Green Party over the appropriate level of military cooperation with the United States threatens to dissolve the ruling coalition. According to the Times, there is talk that Schoeder's liberal Social Democratic Party will oust him and form a coalition with Germany's leading conservative party (the CDU/CSU alliance) in order to enact needed economic reforms and improve relations with the United States.

David Frum's take on Gore's decision. Frum thinks Gore was afraid of losing the nomination in 2004. As he sees it, Gore is "doing a Nixon," letting someone else lose in 2004 and hoping to come back in 2008. The fact that Gore might well confront Ms. Clinton at that time prompts Frum's best line, at the very end of the piece.

More on Tyesha Edwards: Monday's St. Paul Pioneer Press has a follow-up without much news in it, although it has quotes from the chief of police and the mayor. According to the chief, "We want to take advantage of the interest and excitement generated from Tyesha's death. As a result of the killing, our police department was able to pick up a significant amount of intelligence on gangs in the city." I would love to know what that means; I'm afraid it means quite a bit less than it suggests.

Mayor Rybak employs his usual eloquence to explain further : "A door has been opened and we're going to drive a truck through that door."

The Pioneer Press story is "Tyesha's slaying brings city together." An updated version of our "Time for Regime Change in Minneapolis" column bashing the mayor and the chief is scheduled to appear in Tuesday's Pioneer Press.

The CBS Web site has a good piece on the Gore announcement: "Saturday night live, Sunday night dead." Good line: "Gore’s most unattractive feature is his penchant for frequent, ham-handed attempts at reinvention. This latest sequence – the big Iraq speech before the election, the voracious book tour after the election where he promiscuously courted every camera and microphone in the country, 'Saturday Night Live' - ensures that his withdrawal will be seen by many as just one more choreographed crock. Especially since he didn’t rule out a run in 2008."

More on Minnesota's Angry Humorist: As stated previously, there was no truth to the rumor I started that the unfunny one had been seen out behind the Minnesota Club downtown St. Paul this past Thursday. The suspect who left a bomb simulation at the club prior to a Norm Coleman event has been arrested; he is 64 years old, has a prior criminal record, and apparently left a video trail that led police to him. The unfunny one is 60 and has no rap sheet of which we are aware. We look forward to learning if the suspect might have been inspired by the unfunny one, and if so whether he will lionize this one of his epigones: "Suspect had earlier run-ins."

Al Gore has said he will not run in 2004. Is this a positive development for conservatives? My initial reaction is that it doesn't make much difference. The 2004 election will be a referendum on President Bush. The chances that the identity of the Democratic nominee will change the outcome are very slight, in my opinion. In addition, the Democrats are unlikely to nominate a candidate who differs significantly from Gore. That is, the nominee will almost surely be a left of center opportunist.

To the small degree that Gore's apparent choice not to run could make a difference, my initial take is that it is not a positive development. If the election is close enough that the identity of Democrat matters, I suspect that the Democratic nominee (Mr. or Ms. X) will be a stronger candidate than Gore, who is carrying a good deal of baggage and just isn't a particularly good candidate. Some will say that this possible downside to Gore's withdrawal is offset by the fact that Gore won't be there to claim the spoils if things go badly for Bush. However, as I suggested above, Mr./Ms. X (and it could be Ms. Clinton) is not likely to be much better than Gore. The one area where we could see a real difference is foreign policy. And keep in mind that, for all his faults, Gore seems to have better instincts on foreign policy than the average top Democrat. He did vote to support war with Iraq in 1991 and has always been a strong backer of Israel (or at least has talked a good game). He seems comparatively unafflicted by the semi-pacifist tendencies of his party. But then, I'm often too quick to see the negative side of things.

Bruce Fein in the Washington Times finds the conclusory assertions about the educational beneftis of "diversity" no more reliable than the testimony of Columbia University's psychology department chairman about the educational splendors of segregation in a companion case to Brown v. Board of Education back in the early 1950s.

We are grateful to Mark Steyn for wringing the all the humor available out of the pain Trent Lott is causing us: "Lott's sin is giving Dems ammo--so he must go." Only the headline is pedestrian.

In today's Washington Post, Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, presents a stunningly platitudinous defense of race-based college admissions. We have dealt with most of Coleman's arguments in prior blogs. Nonetheless, a few things stand out here. First, Coleman offers no support for any of her assertions about the benefits of campus "diversity." For example, she states that "diversity of our colleges and universities is one of the major reasons the American system of higher education has been viewed in recent decades as the best in the world." This claim seems absurd, except to the extent that those doing the "viewing" merely assume that diversity has a positive relationship to quality. As I pointed out on Friday, the lowering of admissions standards that accompanies race-based preferences of the magnitude now in play naturally leads to a lowering of educational standards.

Coleman also asserts that a ruling overturning Bakke could result in "the immediate re-segregation of our nation's top universities, both public and private." Again, she offers no support for this highly charged contention. As I have noted, such a ruling would not result in anything resembling segregation at the University of Michigan. Indeed, statistics presented by Coleman's predecessor in a Washington Post op-ed piece several years ago showed that blacks would remain a significant presence at the University -- they just wouldn't have the proportional representation that the education bureaucrats insist upon.

Equally disingenuous is Coleman's claim that "universities have relied on Bakke for the past quarter-century." It is more accurate to say that universities have seized on Justice Powell's opinion in Bakke (the opinion of one Justice) as a pretext for doing what a majority of the Court (including Powell) said they couldn't do -- institute a quota admissions system.

Finally, consider this statement by Coleman -- "our society is more diverse today, yet more segregated along racial lines in many ways than at any time since. . .1954." What is Coleman's evidence for this slanderous statement? She offers none. Yet this seems to be the basis for the title of her piece, "No Time for Colorblindness." Is it unfair to ask Coleman when she thinks the time for colorblindness will come?

George Will describes the failed efforts to disarm post-World War I Germany through a weapons inspection regime. Will points to a 1944 study of this failed regime that stressed the impossibility of disarmament-by-inspectors when the government to be disarmed is uncoopertive. At the time, Germany was about the same size of today's Iraq.

The dike is starting to crack. Don Nickles said this morning that "There are several outstanding Senators who are more than capable of effective leadership and I hope we can have an opportunity to choose." An aide to Trent Lott, who has feuded with Nickles for some time, said that he "believes Nickles is exploiting the controversy for his own political gain." The Washington Post reports that if five Republican Senators sign a letter requesting a meeting of the Republican Conference to vote on the Senate leadership, such a meeting would be held on January 8.

Many people regard the New York Times as humorless, but, as it slides further into ineptitude, its corrections pages can be pretty funny. The following item is reproduced in its entirety from this morning's Times:

"An article on Nov. 10 about animal rights referred erroneously to an island in the Indian Ocean and to events there involving goats and endangered giant sea sparrows that could possibly lead to the killing of goats by environmental groups. Wrightson Island does not exist; both the island and the events are hypothetical figments from a book (also mentioned in the article), 'Beginning Again,' by David Ehrenfeld. No giant sea sparrow is known to be endangered by the eating habits of goats."

Those Times reporters have to start getting a little more skeptical.

Unfortunately, the Times' factual inaccuracies are not limited to fictitious islands and hypothetical ecological crises. The following correction is also excerpted from this morning's Times:

"A chart on Dec. 1 with an article about President Bush's role in reshaping the federal judiciary misstated the makeup of four appeals courts."

The Times' chart misstated the composition of four of the eleven appellate courts; the most wildly inaccurate were the Times' descriptions of the Sixth and Seventh Circuits:

"In the Sixth Circuit (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee) there are 16 seats, not 22; 4 judges were appointed by Republicans and 6 by Democrats, with 6 vacancies (not 10 by Republicans, 6 by Democrats).

In the Seventh Circuit (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin) there are 11 seats, not 6; 8 judges were appointed by Republicans and 3 by Democrats (not 3 by Republicans and 3 by Democrats)."

Now, federal judges are not obscure creatures like giant sea sparrows. It is really not difficult to find out how many of them there are in a given circuit. The Times' correction says that the newspaper went to the chief judges in the various circuits to get the correct totals. Where on earth did they get the wrong information in the original article? The Times now routinely makes mistakes that would embarrass a self-respecting suburban weekly newspaper that is handed out for free in shopping malls.

Rocket Man, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "it seems perverse to suggest that Lott has failed to grovel enough." One of the many reasons why Lott should be replaced is that the penitence that is (not unreasonably) being asked of him is inconsistent with being an effective, conservative leader.

The Washington Post reports that the White House is hedging its bets on the Trent Lott situation, refraining from giving Lott its unequivocal support and waiting to see what develops. Apparently Lott approached both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice for support, but was rebuffed. An unnamed Administration official is quoted as saying, "No one thinks the press conference was successful." Another official says, "People were looking for absolute and total contrition, and I don't think they saw that." Publicly, however, Administration spokesmen, most notably Ari Fleischer, have continued defending Lott.

It seems perverse to suggest that Lott has failed to grovel enough. His next (and I hope final) exercise in self-abasement will come on Black Entertainment Television tomorrow night. The bottom line, I think, is that Lott is finished, although so far it appears that no one has come forward to challenge him. My guess is the end will come some time right around Christmas, to minimize public attention, and will be precipitated by the President's putting out the word that he would welcome Lott's replacement by either Don Nickles or Mitch McConnell.

This may be more a hope than a prediction, however. Among other imponderables, the Post reports that Lott's allies are suggesting that if removed from the leadership he would resign from the Senate, leaving his seat to be filled by Mississippi's Democratic governor. To me, this sounds too spiteful to be credible, but who knows?

Interestingly, the Post reports that Lincoln Chafee, the Republicans' weakest linc (heh heh) in the Senate, has refrained from pounding on Lott "because he worries that potential successors might be more conservative." Well, that's what we're hoping for.

It's taken a few weeks, but the Star Tribune has finally run a story noting several remarkable facts about the election results in Minnesota last month: "Fully 70 percent of the newly elected Minnesota House, 57 percent of the Senate and Gov.-elect Tim Pawlenty oppose abortion rights. Every female challenger who campaigned for legislative office on a platform of abortion rights lost Nov. 5."

Hmmm...interesting...wonder why it took a month for the Strib's crack political reporters to notice, and then bury it in a Saturday metro section story...on leftie women politicos: "Election news is bad, but women's caucus hopes are high."

The men who murdered American diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan two months ago have been caught. They were members of al Qaeda.

I have wondered how it is that UN representatives seem so frequently to be working cheek by jowl with terrorists, and why it is a scandal for which Israelis have to answer when these folks get caught in the crossfire. This morning's Jerusalem Post has a good column on the subject: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the UNfairest one of all?"

John McWhorter's request that Senator Lott do the right thing and step down from his leadership position is of course unanswerable, but it also comes from an unusual perspective: "Not fit to lead." (Courtesy of RealClearPolitics.)

I missed this when it came out yesterday--Columbia University has rescinded the Bancroft Prize it awarded to Michael Bellesile for "Arming America."

Real Clear Politics pointed me to an article in Slate this morning that was pretty bad, except that it referred to this exchange between Trent Lott and Larry King that I hadn't seen before. Even though we have been saying for the last week that Lott has to go because he is an idiot, I was shocked:

"LOTT: But I do still think that there are issues that Senator Thurmond has advocated that are in the best interests of his state and people of all backgrounds. So...

KING: But you don't think he'd of been a better president, say, than Harry Truman who defeated him that year?

LOTT: You know, I'd have to go back and look at the election of that year. Harry Truman obviously did a lot of great things for our country, and, you know, I was trying to remember who the Republican nominee was...

KING: Dewey. Tom Dewey.

LOTT: Yes, it was Dewey. I don't -- you know, I couldn't tell you one thing about what Dewey's policies were at the time. I remember the headline, you know, that Dewey wins.

KING: Yes, Dewey defeats...

LOTT: Yes, Harry Truman won."

This is simply beyond belief. And consider the context: Lott was trying to salvage his career, which was jeopardized by a firestorm of controversy ignited by his statement that the world would be a better place if Strom Thurmond had won the 1948 election. Wouldn't you think he would anticipate being asked about that election, and be prepared to talk about it intelligently? Not to mention that the Senate Majority Leader should know more about American history than the average junior high school student.

No wonder the Republicans have been consistently outsmarted in the Senate over the last several years. Their leader is a moron. And what does that say about the Senators who vote for him?

Tim Pawlenty's support of the requirement that visa holders have their visa expiration dates printed on their drivers' licenses was a powerful issue for him in the Minnesota gubernatorial campaign. Both the Democratic candidate and the Independence Party candidate opposed it, as they both supported tax increases to resolve Minnesota's current budget problems. Tim's principled stands on these issues propelled him to victory against his two better-known rivals.

Joe Soucheray, a savyy St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist and radio talk show host, has an excellent piece in this morning's paper supporting the requirement: "Rights sometimes require playing by the rules." He expresses a biting impatience with those who protest having their photograph taken for the driver's license on religious grounds: "If I have to carry around a photograph on my license that makes me look like Nick Nolte after a three-day bender you can ask your maker for forgiveness for one lousy snapshot."

I've been brooding a bit on Deacon's post that linked to an article by Emmett Tyrell on the Holy Land and the Arabs' increasing brutalization of Christians and others living there. My wife and I spent ten days in Israel seven years ago, before the second intifada, and it was truly a life-altering experience, well beyond what can be encapsulated in a post. Even then, when things were relatively peaceful, there was an astonishing contrast between Israel--normal and very, very fun--and the West Bank--completely bizarre and often threatening. This was during the halcyon days when most Israelis thought that the Labor government had found the key to peace--i.e., give the Arabs what they want. But, to give myself a bit of credit, I was highly doubtful even then. Our ventures into the West Bank--the heart of the Biblical Promised Land--were often scary, even in the company of our guide, a recently-retired IDF intelligence officer, who was both well-armed and fluent in Arabic. The hour or two we spent in Jericho, I still remember with a shudder. In East Jerusalem, I recall gauging the distance between us and our van, and estimating whether we could get to the vehicle before a gang of Arab youths on a nearby hill, and wondering whether they were armed. This was at the very spot that Tyrell describes in his article.

One afternoon we visited Temple Mount, and toured the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa Mosque. (Does anyone remember when the Arabs claimed that the second intifada was all due to Ariel Sharon's visit to Temple Mount? It is a tourist attraction, open to the public. I've been there, and I can't imagine why Sharon or anyone else wouldn't visit. But this is a theory we haven't heard for a while.) Anyway, we had emerged from the Dome of the Rock, and my wife and I were walking across Temple Mount when I casually put my arm around her waist. A moment later I heard a shout in Arabic, and, fortunately I guess, thought it might be directed at me. I looked around and saw an Arab in a watchtower, with a sub-machine gun pointed at us. I caught on and dropped my arm. Whether he actually would have shot us, I don't know. But I had been in the region long enough not to take any chances.

We went to the Mount of Olives, where Jesus spent the last night before his arrest, one of the holiest Christian sites on earth. It is beautifully kept; the grotto where Jesus and his disciples slept is open to the public, and the adjacent garden, in which olive trees that were there two thousand years ago are still growing, is a beautiful and well-tended spot. This is due to the fact that the Israelis now control the area. When the Arabs controlled the Mount of Olives, it was used as a garbage dump and Christian and Jewish graves were systematically defiled.

On our last day in Israel, our guide took us to a recently-constructed monument to the "three great monotheistic religions." Despite everything, the Israelis were willing to give equal billing to Islam. By that time, I thought they were crazy.

As regular readers have no doubt noticed, this is an ecumenical site. With our readers, we are celebrating the holiday season. I'm the techno-guy of the group, and the only one who knows how to post pictures. One day next week I'll post Christmas and Hanukkah images and wish our readers a happy holiday season. But--speaking only for myself--I'm not celebrating Ramadan.

The other day, in discussing the title of Derek Bok's book on racial preferences in college admissions, The Shape of the River, I ridiculed Bok's image of enlightened college administrators skillfully navigating their way through the turbulent currents of racial and educational politics for the general betterment of mankind. To illustrate the absurdity of Bok's conceit, I want to tell the story of an acquaintance of mine who teaches at a high-caliber, high-profile univeristy. Because he spoke to me off the record, I will not reveal either the university or the subject he teaches.

This professor began his career teaching undergraduates, but switched over to one of his university's graduate schools. At about that time, that graduate school instituted an aggressive race-based preferential admissions policy intended to attain a pre-determined level of African-Americans in its entering classes. My acquaintance actively supported this program. Unfortunately, he also taught the most demanding of the school's required courses. He quickly found that very few of those admitted pursuant to the "affirmative action" plan could pass his course. Under pressure, he made the class less rigorous, to the extent that his conscience would permit, but the failure rate remained high. His fellow faculty members urged him to dumb down the course some more. When he refused, the school removed the course from the list of those required in order to graduate. At that point, my acquaintance resigned from the school and went back to teaching undergraduates.

In the upcoming debate over the Supreme Court cases regarding racial preferences at the University of Michigan, you will hear lots of rosy talk about how preferences bring about diversity without compromising educational standards. One should be very skeptical about such claims.

Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post has been Saddam Hussein's most persistent critic among journalists for the past two decades. In today's column, he argues that Saddam's 12,000-page report has sealed his fate, eliminating the slight chance that the dictator will slip out of the noose, as he did with the "hubristic first President Bush and the clueless Bill Clinton." According to Hoagland, "having to defend that mess of a report should embarrass even the Russians and the French." Unfortunately, while Hoagland has always had the right line on Saddam, his assessment of the Russians and the French may be too generous.

Michelle Malkin is incisive as usual in dissecting the Trent Lott saga: her column "Vacant Lott" is a must-read. I think she has Lott nailed precisely:

"My fellow conservatives, if you weren't already convinced that the Mississippi senator was a gutless, ineffective, self-preservationist sap before his remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party last week, this pandering to the race Mafiosi in the aftermath of his comments seals the deal."

The real danger is that Lott will give away the store to buy off the race-hustlers (i.e., Democrats):

"In interviews with Sean Hannity and Larry King, Lott cravenly pledged support for 'community renewal' (more minority set-asides); said he would 'put more money into education so no child is left behind' (more federal spending for failed urban programs); and boasted of his 'African-American interns' and appointments (more racial preferences)."

Michelle is, I hope, too hard on the Administration, but I think she is right about Lott.

Another reason it is good that Strom Thurmond did not become president in 1948--one that hasn't been much commented on--is that Harry Truman did. That fact is an incidental reflection brought to mind by Steve Hayward's brilliant piece on the 2002 election results: "Give 'em hell, George."

In addition to our "Time for Regime Change in Minneapolis" piece, Frontpage also carries an important column from today's Wall Street Journal. The piece is by Harvard professor Ruth Wisse and is titled "Anti-Semitism on Campus."

Rats. Henry Kissinger resigned, and Trent Lott didn't.

R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr. reports in the Washington Times on the destruction of Christian holy sites and the persecution of Christians themselves by Palestinians in the Holy Lands. Tyrell notes that "where Israeli political control has preserved sacred shrines for all three of the monotheistic religions, Palestinian Muslims under the Palestinian Authority set up after the Oslo Accords have desecrated holy places, brutalized non-Muslims and driven Christians from Bethlehem." This story is rarely reported by the Western press, but is familiar to anyone who has spent time in the region.

South Dakota Attorney General Mark Barnett announced this morning that affidavits by three American Indians, who said they were paid $10 apiece to vote for Democrat Tim Johnson in last month's Senate race, were false. Barnett has consistently downplayed the significance of claims that various irregularities contributed to Johnson's victory, and with these key affidavits discredited, the election will probably be put to rest. Only one Democratic operative is expected to be criminally prosecuted in connection with the election; she was charged with forgery, related to fraudulent voter registrations, earlier today.

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports on George Tenet's speech yesterday on progress against al Qaeda. Tenet said that more than one-third of al Qaeda's known leadership has been killed or captured, with approximately 3,000 al Qaeda members "detained" in various countries. Many more, of course, have been killed in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Tenet included bin Laden and Zawahiri among those "at large," consistent with the Administration's position that recent audio tapes purporting to be by both men are authentic. Personally, I doubt it. But time will tell.

More on Minnesota's Angry Humorist: There is no truth to the rumor I'm starting--that the unfunny one was seen behind the Minnesota Club in downtown St. Paul yesterday--but it could well have been someone inspired by his post-election political rantings, couldn't it? The Pioneer Press has the intriguing story "Fake bomb disrupts event for Coleman."

OK, I'm working on a book/Christmas gift list too. I'm afraid it won't be quite as erudite as the Trunk's, however. It'll probably be more like the director's cut of Vixen and the CD with six alternative versions of "Smoke on the Water." Meanwhile, one comment on Pete Rose and Bill Clinton. Clinton was "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" as a Doonesbury cartoon announced during Watergate. Rose, on the other hand, was guilty of a number of things--stupidity, crudeness, having horrible friends, betting on a variety of sports. But he just might be innocent of the one thing that really matters--betting on baseball. Years ago, Bill James (who could easily have been a lawyer, but it would have been a waste of his talents) wrote a brilliant analysis of the case against Rose, and concluded that it fell short. His view was that, if studied carefully, the evidence showed that someone was betting on baseball from the phone in Rose's house, but it wasn't Pete. James conceded that Rose's innocence couldn't be proved from the evidence before the arbitrator either, but I was so struck by the quality of James's analysis that I've always suspected Pete is innocent, as he has so long insisted.

I hesitate before posting a message that may be read as little more than a token of my vanity. But I have wanted to list a few of my top holiday gift recommendations that recall things I have written about or mentioned before here over the past several months and hope you will accept them in the spirit of the season:

1. A gift subscription to the Claremont Review of Books. Now entering its third year under the inspired editorship of Charles Kesler, the review shares the immodest goal of the Claremont Institute itself--to roll back the progressives' undoing of the Constitution. Under Kesler, I wouldn't bet against the CRB.

2. A gift subscription to the New Criterion magazine. A monthly review of arts, literature, and ideas, full of good writing every issue. Mark Steyn and Jay Nordlinger are the magazine's theater and music critics, respectively.

3. Broadway Babies Say Goodnight or The Face of the Tiger, by Mark Steyn. Our favorite columnist; the former is his history of the Broadway musical, the latter his new collection of columns.

4. An Army at Dawn, by Rick Atkinson. The first volume of "The Liberation Trilogy." Based on my reading of The Long Gray Line, this is probably the new book I most want to read.

5. Band of Brothers. The 10-hour HBO miniseries, now out on DVD, the best television series, maybe the best movie, ever, but you must read the companion portions of the book along with each episode in order to understand the tactical difficulties these guys faced in each of the battles. The battles are depicted with a fidelity that borders on reverence, but they look the same unless you understand the terrain and situation involved in each one. The portrait of Bastogne is necessarily excruciating; how else can we pay the tribute due these guys unless we understand the torments they endured? The subtitle of the book summarizes the story: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest.

6. Alison Krauss and Union Station, Live. A two CD set of the current Alison Krauss live show featuring a brilliant bluegrass band with an updated pop sound that lends new life to the tradition.

7. Bruce Springsteen, The Rising. Can there really be such a thing as mature rock music? About 9/11? The guy has brought all his resources to bear to pay tribute to blue collar heroism, dignify mundane aspirations, memorialize the dead, and console the survivors.

8. The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm. You'd have to trust me on this one...Just issued by Yale University Press in paperback, the book is a classic of British comedy whose author is esteemed by P.J. O'Rourke (among many others). This edition includes Beerbohm's own color doodles and illustrations of the text that he drew on his copy of the first edition; Beerbohm was both a fine writer and superb caricaturist.

Some of the best correspondence I get at Power Line comes from reader Stanton Brown. Mr. Brown is obviously a baseball fanatic, as I once was. The latest in the Pete Rose affair prompted him to send me an e-mail in which he finds similarities between Rose and Bill Clinton. On its face, of course, it's an odd comparsion -- the gruff, direct scrapper and the smooth-talking slickster. But Brown makes a case. As similarities he cites Rose's hoping for forgiveness without really admitting wrongdoing, cheap shots (e.g. at Ray Fosse and Bud Harrelson), selfishness at the expense of the team (as a manager he continued to play himself at a time when he was no longer productive for a first-baseman, "a .250 singles hitter chasing Cobb's record while his team finished second"), and style over substance (running to first base after walks). I agree that Rose was over-rated. Yet he was a legitimate star for a time and accomplished much on the diamond. Thus, for all of Rose's faults, it's hard for me to liken him to Clinton. In any event, here's the Washington Post's Tom Boswell's take on the latest with Rose.

Gary Andres in the Washington Times discusses the outlook for President Bush's judicial nominees the second time around. In the new Senate, the nominees can no longer be bottled up in the Judiciary Committee. Andres notes, though, that some Democrats are suggesting stalling the nominees on the Senate floor, where the Republicans would need 60 votes to end a filibuster. Andres regards this prospect as unlikely and a "political deadend" for the Democrats. I suspect that the Dems may try to identify one or two nominees they can characterize as "well outside the mainstream" and obstruct them. However, the overwhelming majority of nominees should now sail through.

President Bush has apparently heard enough. In a speech today in Philadelphia, the President implicitly rejected Trent Lott's claim that he merely used a "poor choice of words" and intended to refer to issues other than segregation when he praised Strom Thurmond's 1948 Presidential run. As reported in the Washington Post, Bush said: "Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong." Turning to Lott specifically, he said: "He [Lott] has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals. And the founding ideals of our nation and in fact the founding ideals of the political party I represent was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American." We hope this is the prelude to Lott being eased out as Senate Leader before the next Congress begins.

According to this morning's Star Tribune, the Minneapolis police chief has ordered the department to redeploy the six officers it had previously withdrawn from the state Gang Strike Force: "Minneapolis to add officers to state's Gang Strike Force."

David Frum writing for National Review Online, fears that Trent Lott will try to save himself by jettisoning the conservative agenda in the Senate. Jonah Goldberg, also for National Review Online, sees an upside for Republicans in this sorry affair because moderate voters see conservative Republicans denouncing possible bigotry. However, it is not enough just to denounce. Trent Lott should not be a Republican leader. For both moral and pragmatic reasons, he should be replaced.

RealClearPolitics has managed to round up several important columns I missed this morning, but none I want to read more than the Wall Street Journal column by William Buckley providing his retrospective on his career: "A Half Century in Defense of Freedom."

And two of our favorite columnists administer justice to Trent Lott for his capital political offense. Charles Krauthammer finds no extenuating circumstances to mitigate the punishment in "A Clear Choice of Words." Thomas Sowell also finds that "Lott is too much." We may as well throw in Jeff Jacoby--"A disgrace to a grand old party"--and John Fund--"The weakest link"--for good measure.

In the meantime, it appears that al Qaeda has acquired VX nerve gas from the well stocked Saddam Hussein: "U.S. Suspects Al Qaeda Got Nerve Agent From Iraqis." We may reasonably conclude that at this time we cannot afford to suffer fools gladly.

Careful readers may remember that our good friend John Kline was elected to Congress last month; he will be my Congressman, in fact. Here is a photo of the Trunk (R) and me (L) with John at a victory party last weekend. John is a retired Marine colonel who served as the Marines' liaison with Congress, was part of a small group who did long-range weapons procurement planning for the Marines, and carried the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes for Presidents Carter and Reagan. This is, of course, in addition to active duty in places like Viet Nam and Mogadishu. John's crushing victory over incumbent Bill Luther was one of many bright spots in last month's election, and went a long way toward confirming my faith in democracy.

Thanks to reader Michael Sharon for providing us with the Thernstrom article about The Shape of the River, and to Trunk for posting it. Some of our readers may be wondering how a book about racial preferences at colleges and universities ended up with such an unusual title. Bok and Bowen explain that the title comes by way of Mark Twain and his discussion of riverboat pilots who, after years of experience, learned the "shape" of the Mississippi River and thus how to navigate it expertly. The use of this title reveals, I think, the central conceit of the liberalism of Bok and Bowen. They see themselves as skilled pilots flawlessly navigating the treacherous waters of higher education and race relations. In their minds, they have transcended their status as bureaucrats to become near-perfect social engineers and, as such, godlike. One need only thumb through a few issues of the Chronicles of Higher Education to get a sense of how laughable the Bok-Bowen pretention is.

I recall, however, an off-hand comment by conservative law professor Richard Epstein at a Federalist Society event on affirmative action. Epstein remarked that he personally could grant preferences in law school admissions in a way that made sense, but that he wouldn't be able to explain how he did it. The comment was greeted with derision by Clinton's quota commissar, Norma Cantu, and with skepticism by Linda Chavez on the other side of the spectrum, and Epstein did not elaborate. What he meant, I think, was that those who actually teach students (and thus do have some knowledge of the "shape of the river") could, if they acted in good faith, identify minority students who are likely to "outperform" their paper credentials, and thereby admit a class with enough minority students to achieve the benefits of diversity without compromising very much, if at all, on quality. This is what many of us wish could happen, and I suspect that Epstein may be correct in theory. Free from bureaucrats like Bok and Bowen, professors acting in good faith perhaps could make affirmative action work in the sense described above. Some discrimination would probably result, but it might well be minimal enough for most of us to avert our gaze. Ultimately, though, Epstein's vision (or my understanding of it) is as much of a conceit as Bok and Bowen's because the idea of professors working in good faith on something like this for any period of time is fanciful. I should add that Epstein believes that private colleges (and indeed private employers) should have the right to discriminate on the basis of race, whether in favor of, or against, African-Americans.

The Supreme Court is considering the Constitutionality of Virginia's law banning cross-burning; here is the Washington Post's account of the oral argument. Let me preface these comments by saying that I am not a First Amendment scholar, and have not followed the nuances of this case. Readers should feel free to weigh in if they have an opinion.

For what it's worth, I think the Supreme Court screwed up the First Amendment a long time ago. I am close to being a First Amendment absolutist, but before you can argue about "free speech," you have to define what "speech" is. I think the Supreme Court has done this very poorly. For example, however much I might personally approve of nude dancing, it is not "speech" and is not Constitutionally protected. I think a strong argument can be made that, likewise, burning a cross in someone's yard is not "speech." This is the point that, as WaPo reported so breathlessly, Justice Thomas was making during the oral argument. If a gangster says, "Give me your wallet or I'll blow your brains out," he has committed a crime. His threat is not protected "speech" despite the fact that it consisted of spoken words. Likewise, if, as in one of the Godfather movies, a gangster delivers to another gangster a dead fish in a box, his threat is not "speech." I think it is reasonable to view burning a cross as comparable to delivering a dead fish. It conveys a threat, but is not "speech" within the meaning of the First Amendment. So the Supreme Court likely will, and in my view probably should, uphold the Virginia statute. Based on what I have read, I think the Virginia law can be distinguished from the St. Paul "hate speech" ordinance that the Court invalidated a few years ago.

What most clearly constitutes "speech" within the meaning of the First Amendment is, of course, debate about which candidates should be elected to public office. It is deeply ironic that, at the same time that the protected status of cross burning is being hotly debated, and the protected status of nude dancing seems to be securely established, the Court will be called upon to remind Congress that it cannot prevent interested citizens from voicing their opinions about candidates within thirty days of an election.

Our kind reader Michael Sharon has forwarded one of Professor Stephan Thernstrom's articles on the Bowen/Bok book supporting affirmative action, The Shape of the River. The article was published in Commentary in February 1999 and I believe it is a shortened version of Professor Thernstrom's much longer law review article to which Deacon alludes below. The Commentary article is "Racial preferences: What we now know" and is in any event an outstanding and utterly devastating consideration of the Bowen/Bok party line on preferences.

One development that has received insufficient attention here is the realignment of Israeli politics that seems to be in progress. The Labor Party, recognizing that its "peace process" obsession will no longer fly with an electorate that knows it is fighting for survival, dropped its most dovish candidates far down the party's "list" for the coming general election, to positions where they would have no realistic chance of being elected. In response to that action, Haaretz reports that two of these Labor candidates have deserted the party and joined the far-left Meretz. They have announced further that after the election, a new social-democratic party will be established as a "home to all those who seek to make peace with our neighbors and social justice at home." The real significance of all this is that the center of gravity has shifted dramatically. Likud, always labeled in the American press as "right wing" or "far right," now represents the mainstream of Israeli public opinion. Labor recognizes this and is trying to shed its dovish image to remain competitive. The far left never goes away entirely, the capacity for self-delusion apparently being infinite, but it is increasingly marginalized. It will be interesting to see whether Israeli politics are a precursor of what is to come here in the U.S.

More on the Iraq inspections: the Washington Times reports that many of the Iraqi scientists whom the inspectors want to interview have "been spirited abroad or switched to innocuous posts and their places taken by unknown technicians....Some key workers have been sent abroad to sympathetic countries, including Libya, Sudan and Syria, and told to remain there while inspections continue. Their families are being kept in Iraq to ensure that they do not defect." Let's hope they drop the curtain on this charade soon.

The Claremont Institute has posted our response to Mayor Rybak and Chief Olson's Pioneer Press column regarding "The Silence of the Liberals." Our response is posted as "Time for Regime Change in Minneapolis." On a separate page the institute has also posted links to all the related pieces, including "The Silence of the Liberals," Kathy Thurber's Dec. 4 Star Tribune column, and the Rybak/Olson columns responding to us and to Thurber: "Firestorm in Minneapolis." We want to express our sincere gratitude to the Claremont Institute and the institute's Glenn Ellmers and Kevin Walker for the efforts they devoted in presenting all these items via the institute's Web page.

We anticipate that "Time for Regime Change in Minneapolis" will also be published on David Horowitz's excellent Web site, Frontpagemag, in the next few days. We will perform the usual double dip when the piece appears there. Stay tuned!

Just a few thoughts about the Derek Bok piece posted by Trunk below regarding the "diversity" argument in favor of race-based preferences. Most of what Bok says comes from a book he co-authored a few years ago called "The Shape of the River." Abigail Thernsterm and her husband Steven wrote a glorious critique of the book that appeared in the UCLA Law Review, if I'm not mistaken. My hastily put-together observations do not do justice to the topic, but here they are anyway. First, Bok commits the same fallacy I discussed last night. He assumes that the diversity needed to confer the alleged benefits he cites requires racial preferences and, indeed, preferences of the magnitude under attack. This is doubtful and certainly should not be assumed. Second, as Trunk suggests, Bok also seems to assume that the fact that white students favor racial preferences at the schools they attend constitutes a meaningful argument in their favor. This is a curious argument on its face. One wonders, moreover, how these whites feel about racial discriminaton at the schools they were not accepted at. And one wonders to what extent the views of these students are the result of one-sided teaching by the institutions in question. Indeed, Bok's piece suggests that race-based preferences are part of a broader project to indoctrinate law and medical students with certain views about society. How does Bok know the extent to which the project succeeds (if it really does) as a result of what the faculty teaches, as opposed to what students learn from other students? To speak more plainly, law students do not need blacks in the classroom to hear about how racist our society supposedly is (but if it's so racist, why has it tolerated blatant preferences for blacks this long). And one suspects that law school professors have significantly more influence in this respect than black classmates. Third, one should hardly be surprised that the beneficiaries of the racial preferences are, on balance, happy to have received them. This is no way refutes the notion that preferences stigamatize the beneficiaries to some degree. It just means that the preferences have a big enough payoff to offset any stigma from the point of view of the beneficiaries. If anything, the large payoff makes the preferences more problematic. Finally, in the current environment, the existence of 30 large corporations that endorse racial preferences in the academy is not particularly impressive. I am surprised that the civil rights establishment has been unable to shake down a much larger number of corporations.

As an internet siren she's not yet in Pam Anderson's league, but Mary Landrieu apparently has her fans. We commented a few days ago on the misguided surfer who Google-searched "nude Mary Landrieu" and wound up at Power Line--no doubt to his disappointment. Earlier today, someone searched for "Mary Landrieu nude" on Google and, sure enough, the first search result was our blog--our post of a few days ago apparently being the only place on the internet where the words "nude" and "Mary Landrieu" appear in sequence. This could become a whole new market for us.

For guys like Deacon (and the rest of the Power Line trio), former Harvard president Derek Bok patiently explains it all: "Why diversity matters." See, there is no underlying question of justice; rather, the answer lies within the deeply meaningful opinion surveys of "students of institutions with diverse student bodies." The guy can't write very well, but we were always taught that muddled thought is the handmaiden of poor writing. And as I read the column, I can actually hear the author talking down to us. Or is it just my imagination? (Courtesy, of course, of RealClearPolitics).

In his classic essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell observes that "modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug."

Hugh Hewitt's new WorldNetDaily column does a great job of looking at the Trent Lott fiasco as refracted through the prism of Al Gore's eyes: "Al Gore's world: The new season."

Picking up where Deacon left off last night, Terry Eastland has a column on the Michigan cases in this morning's Washington Times. Eastland is the publisher of the Weekly Standard and the author of Ending Affirmative Action, an excellent book on the subject. His column is "Affirmative distraction collision."

The great Thomas Sowell also has a wonderful column on socialism that my kids' teachers would benefit from reading: "Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous." The column discusses Joshua Muravchik's history of socialism, Heaven on Earth, a book I will now have to put on my reading list. Sowell's column is "Disastrous Utopia."

Helle Dale of the Heritage Foundations also has an excellent column on the Iraq weapons report: "Snow job in the desert." The column has information that I had not noticed elsewhere. According to Saddam Hussein's crew, their huge inventory of chemical and biological weapons has been destroyed, along with all evidence documenting the destruction.

Now that the Supreme Court has decided to hear two cases regarding race-based preferences exercised by the University of Michigan, I thought I would restate some thoughts I expressed on the subject in early September, shortly after I joined Power Line. My excuses for presenting old material are: (1) most of our readers have joined us since early September and (2) I'm too tired to post anything original right now.

I was responding to a thoughtful comment from the Rocket Prof 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 agreed with that sentiment, but suggested that the racial preferences being doled out by college administrators have little to do with promoting "dissimilarity among students" and that, if they were based on that goal, extreme examples of favoritism would be rare.

I continued as follows: 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 [here I admit that I relied on an op-ed piece in the Washington Post by two University of Michigan administrators, rather than the record in the lawsuit, which I have not reviewed]. 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. But Michigan was insisting on the right to grant preferences to the point that African-Americans would make up more than ten percent of the entering class [again I was relying on information extrinsic to the record in the lawsuit]. Why? Because it was seeking proportional representation, not diversity.

I then recalled that, when affirmative action began at colleges, the rational was not "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 more about discovering similarities than 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 permanence, 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. And, as noted above, it does seem to contain a germ of truth. Third, the diversity rationale has a more politically correct ring. It sounded too patronizing -- too much lilke a form of welfare -- to suggest that colleges were doing blacks a favor by admitting them despite a relative lack of credentials. Much better to say, in effect, that the blacks 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 a basis 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 colleges 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.

Mark Levin in National Review Online blasts liberal hypocrisy regarding Trent Lott by noting that there was no outcry when Bill Clinton praised Sen. William Fulbright who, like Strom Thurmond, was a segregationist. I believe that Levin misses the point. Lott's error was not his praise of Thurmond. Thurmond is praiseworthy in some respects and, even if he were not, no one could reasonably take major offense at a general offer of praise to the 100-year-old Senator. The problem was Lott's claim that the nation would have been better off if Thurmond had been elected in 1948, a statement that seems to state a preference for Thurmond's segregationist views. Bill Clinton never said or implied that the country would have been better off if Fulbright's segregationist views had prevailed. Clinton instead lionized Fulbright for his anti-interventionist views on foreign policy. Those views, though misguided, were not overtly racist.

One of the pleasures of writing for Power Line is the opportunity it gives me to attack the work of E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post. The fact, noted by Rocket Man, that he is an easy target in no way detracts from that pleasure. Dionne has rarely offered an easier targer than this piece called "Lessons from Louisiana." Early in the column, Dionne tells us that "independence beat Bush." While this is certainly an oversimplification, it contains some truth, in that Landrieu successfully cast the election as a choice between a candidate who would invariably vote with President Bush and a candidate who would vote independently. Yet a mere three paragraphs later, Dionne describes the lesson from Louisiana to Democratic legislators as follows: "It doesn't matter how you vote or what you say or how patriotic you try to be....Consequently, there is no percentage in making nice with this administration." Thus, Dionne is telling us that Democrats can win by being independent but that it doesn't matter how they vote. How, though, does a legislator establish that he or she is independent other than through his or her votes? In fact, as Dionne acknowledges in the very next paragraph, Landrieu voted for the Bush tax cut and has consistently voted pro-military. These votes made credible her claim that she is independent, and not a Daschle Democrat. Perhaps Dionne wants to obscure the real lesson of Louisiana -- that, in many states, only Democrats who curb their liberalism will be able to survive, at least in the present environment.

Earlier today we posted the response by Minnepolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Minneapolis Chief of Police Robert Olson to our column on the murder of Tyesha Edwards. In our column we made three basic points: 1) Minneapolis has a serious gang problem; 2) it is not talked about publicly by Minneapolis municipal leaders because Minneapolis's gangs are largely black, even though the primary victims of Minneapolis's gang crime are black as well; 3) appropriate municipal leadership and law enforcement can take back the streets from the gangs, but the mayor and the chief have failed to provide such leadership.

The response of the mayor and the chief is a work of extraordinary cowardice. It pretends that our column attacked the department's officers and detectives who have apprehended the defendants charged with the murder of Tyesha Edwards and comes to their defense. That is an outright lie. In our column we expressly credited the officers and detectives; we expressly stated that they were to be thanked and congratulated for their work on the case. Our column expressly criticized the mayor and the chief for failing to exercise the leadership necessary to defeat the gangs that have taken back the Minneaolis streets. On this point the mayor and the chief refuse to fight; they hide behind the men in blue to whom they otherwise refuse to lend the kind of vociferous support they need to do their job.

Let's get the timeline here straight. Minneapolis's murder rate peaked in 1995 as the gangs took over Minneapolis's poorest neighborhoods and Minneapolis was dubbed "Murderapolis" by the New York Times. In 1996 three Minneapolis officers visited New York City and studied the crime control program that had been implemented by Rudy Giuliani and his chief law enforcement officers. Upon their return to Minneaolis, the officers helped introduce a version of that program that they named CODEFOR, a program whose mission is crime prevention. Then-Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton and the chief supported the implementation of the program and were delighted to claim credit for its success, which was virtually immediate. Unfortunately, however, that is not the end of the story.

Starting in the spring of 2000, the Minneapolis Police Department voluntarily collected data on the race of drivers stopped in routine traffic checks. In early 2001, Chief Olson submitted the data to Minneapolis's "independent" (liberal) Council on Crime and Justice, a key purveyor of the "racial disparities" line of attack on law enforcement. As Dr. David Pence has written in his account of CODEFOR, "there is no group whose work and philosophy are more diametrically opposed to the police strategy represented by CODEFOR." Pence's commentary on this development is devastating: "Handing over police data to this ideological group (currently headed by former County Attorney Tom Johnson) is a breach of confidence between the chief and police officers. To give them data, which places them in the role of unbiased expert, is to supply one's executioner with both well-made bullets and a shooting vantage point."

The group's study was released in April 2001 and was widely advertised as establishing "racial disparities" in police stops. (Minneapolis's own Katherine Kersten used the study to question the underlying assumption of the whole "racial disparities" racket in an outstanding piece she wrote for the Weekly Standard.) Neither the mayor nor the chief spoke a word in defense of police officers and the officers' cut their stops in half. Minneapolis has not been the same.

As a result of Belton's failure to support the officers, the police supported Belton's opponent, R.T. Rybak, in the 2001 mayoral election despite the fact that he ran to the left of her and only talked about crime or law enforcement in the context of "racial disparities." Rybak never spoke about the problem of crime in Minneapolis or the necessity of supporting the CODEFOR policing program. His key supporters were Minneapolis's lakeside liberals for whom crime is not a problem and his victory in the mayoral election has had predictable results.

Anyone with eyes to see can observe that the gangs are back in something like full force. In south Minneapolis they have taken back the Chicago and Portland arteries between Lake and Franklin, while in north Minneapolis they are centered on the Lowry/Lyndale intersection. In downtown Minneapolis, the City Center shopping mall has become a gang hangout and the police have simply ceded control of the streets that house the active bar scene. In her bombshell December 4 Star Tribune column, DFL former City Council member Kathy Thurber who lives in Tyesha's south Minneapolis neighborhood powerfully testified to her own observations regarding the gangs' retaking the streets of her neighborhood. To her eyewitness testimony the mayor and chief essentially respond in their Star Tribune column today a la Groucho Marx, "Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"

On August 22 Minneapolis police officers were attacked by the occupants of a notorious drug house in north Minneapolis while they were executing a search warrant. A race riot followed when a child occupant of the house was accidentally wounded by an officer who shot the pit bull that had been sicced on him by an adult occupant of the house. Black bystanders attacked the white journalists who were covering the execution of the search warrant. The utterly inexplicable upshot of the riot is a federal mediation process to which the police are a party by agreement of the chief, who has not spoken a word in support of his officers.

Since that day two innocents have been murdered by Minneapolis gangbangers; on September 1, 19-year-old Brandon Hall was murdered and on November 22, 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards was murdered. The gangbanger charged with Hall's murder is Jermaine Stansberry, a guy with multiple felony convictions who simply shouldn't have been on the streets; the gangbangers charged in Tyesha's murder include Isaiah Tyson, a confirmed gang member with an outstanding warrant for being a felon in possession of a gun, a guy who would not have been on the streets if the warrant had been executed.

Since our column appeared on December 1, we have received an outpouring of supportive responses from citizens, city council members, and members of law enforcement. Among the evidence we have been provided by law enforcement is the following. Within the past six months, on the order of the mayor, the chief cut the Minneapolis police department's gang-dedicated officers from nine to two--a fact that to our knowledge has not previously been reported by any Twin Cities media outlet. We have learned that there are 1500 current arrest warrants on Hennepin County (Minneapolis) perpetrators who have been arrested six or more times in the past year. We have also learned that no special provision has been made to execute warrants issued on confirmed gang members identified as such by the state gang task force. We have been advised by a highly knowledgeable law enforcement officer in the heart of the action that law enforcement is paralyzed by the "racial disparities" crusade to which municipal authorities have not only offered no resistance, but to which they have lent support.

The appeasement mentality that holds municipal leaders in its grip has now reached some kind of a nadir. In July 1939, when Great Britain was far gone in the throes of appeasement on the eve of World War II—when the advent of fascism throughout Europe seemed like an irresistible tide--some anonymous public benefactor erected a billboard in the heart of London asking a single question: What price Churchill? The point was not necessarily that Churchill was the only man who could save England from Hitler, but that England could be saved and that Hitler needed to be resisted.

By the same token, the question that Minneapolis citizens need to ask today is: What price Giuliani?

We've reached a milestone of sorts. Currently, this blog is the first site that comes up if you do a Google search on the words "power line." Which probably puzzles some electrical engineers looking for information on power lines. Thanks to all of our readers!

England's BBC is a joke, corresponding more or less to the New York Times, only even more intolerably sanctimonious. Today the BBC reports on Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize. The headline says that "Carter Warns Against 'Catastrophic' War," but the story itself acknowledges that Carter "refused to criticize George W. Bush's handling of Iraq" in his interview with the BBC. The BBC praises Carter's post-presidential career: "Mr Carter has worked on conflict mediation, election observation, poverty reduction and environmental issues through the Carter Center, which he founded in 1982." Here is the part I like: apropos of nothing in particular, the article includes a photograph of President Bush with this caption: "Mr Carter's ideals are in sharp contrast to Mr Bush's." Just in case anyone missed the point, I guess.

The House Democrats are in the midst of a two-day forum on the economy. The Washington Times reports: "Democrats said they are not ready to announce their plan and that the forum is the first in a series of meetings meant to gather the latest economic information and help them craft their plan." So far, what the Democrats have done is criticize the Administration; Nancy Pelosi's statement is typical of their general, content-less critique: "We are in a place when the economy has not worked; every family in America knows that." What to do about it, the Democrats have yet to decide.

This strikes me as an astonishing admission. One of the House Democrats, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, said of last month's election that "people knew what we were against, but they didn't have a certain idea of what we were for." No wonder, since the Democrats themselves have yet to make up their minds what they are for. The truth is that the Democrats' posture on the economy has been exactly the same as their position on the war on terror: stay on the sidelines, hope things go badly, and take political advantage if they do.

The only thing we know for sure is that the Democrats would like to raise taxes, but no one has been able to articulate a coherent theory as to how that would help the economy. Also, raising taxes would contradict the one element of the Democrats' program that we have been promised, i.e., "fiscal stimulus," which means tax cuts. So it will be interesting to see what the Democrats come up with. My guess is that the Democrats like the position they are in now, and will commit themselves to as few specifics as possible. I also predict that the package the Democrats propose will not be based on any discernible economic theory, but rather will be an assortment of goodies for various constituent groups. Most fundamentally, the Democrats, like the Republicans, know that the economy will continue to improve with time; both parties want to be in a position to take the credit when that happens.

I'm back from my job-related travels and should be able to start weighing in again. This post may constitute piling on, but I was appalled by Trent Lott's statement of preference for Strom Thurmond in the 1948 election. The notion that Thurmond, running as an out-an-out segregationist, was preferable to Harry Truman and Tom Dewey is as preposterous as it is offensive. Moreover, after reading the comments, I cannot see how they could have been made in jest. Arguably, Lott's comments, standing alone, are sufficient reason for him to be replaced as Senate Majority Leader. And this is not the first time Lott was made an embarrassing utterance since November, although the others are not in the same league. When one also takes into account that Lott was not a particularly effective majority leader the last time, the case for replacing him becomes compelling, in my view. I recall that, as early as 1995, conservative insiders on Capitol Hill whose views I respect were disappointed with Lott and much preferred Don Nickles. Perhaps the Republicans can, simultaneously, do the right thing, repair the damage done to the Party's reputation, and improve the quality of the leadership -- all by having Lott step aside.

This morning's Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press carry columns by Mayor Rybak and Chief Olson in response to last week's columns regarding the murder of Tyesha Edwards, including our own. The Star Tribune column is "Working together against gangs" and the Pioneer Press column is "Tyesha's death poor excuse for partisan attacks." We will have more to say about this subject and these responses.

Sometimes it's news when something doesn't happen. Yesterday Jimmy Carter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, and he did not use the occasion to attack the present Administration. Based on news accounts and these excerpts, his speech seems to have been unexceptionable (albeit platitudinous). Since we would have been among the first to jump on Carter if he had misused the event for partisan ends, it seems only fair to note that on this occasion, he did not betray his country.

Lots of good, important stuff from RealClearPolitics this morning: Frank Gaffney on the Ptech raid, "Know thy enemy," Thomas Bray on Hans Blix et al., "Saddam meets the Keystone Kops," Max Boot on the same, "A dossier as empty as a factory when the UN calls," and the New York Post's Robert George on Trent Lott, "Lott's Mississippi Ghosts."

I have said before that the Claremont Review of Books is my favorite periodicial, period. But the New Criterion is my favorite obscure magazine; I have subscribed to it since its maiden issue in 1982. It is a monthly arts-oriented review edited by Hilton Kramer, full of good writing. Mark Steyn and Jay Nordlinger are regular columnists, Steyn on the theater and Nordlinger on music. This month's issue runs true to form. Take a look at Hilton Kramer's editorial on the Air Force Academy/Peter Kirstein blowout, "Tenured Adolescents," and Victor Davis Hanson's review of a new biography of the Duke of Wellington, "The Lessons of Wellington."

Despite Rocket Man's definitive condemnation of Trent Lott's tribute to Strom Thurmond, we aren't done with Lott. The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes takes a good whack at him today in "Thanks a Lott."

I know little about Anne Applebaum except that she is a woman of great seriousness and intelligence who is writing a history of the Soviet Union's prison camp system. I am delighted to find that the Washington Post gives the absurd New York Times campaign against Augusta National another kick this morning in a column by Applebaum: "Teeing up for the wrong cause."

Great post, Trunk. I'm asking for "Grievous Angel" for Christmas. It's been a slow couple of days in the blogosphere, with the election behind us and no real news on the war. Notwithstanding the usual ups and downs--Paul O'Neill, Trent Lott, Hans Blix, blah, blah, blah--it feels like everyone is waiting for something bigger to happen. In the meantime, we may as well do some culture commentary, exchange holiday book lists, or whatever. Maybe I'll post pictures of the Miss World runners-up.

Gram Parsons is one of the legendary flameouts of rock and roll history. He hijacked the Byrds' groundbreaking country rock album "Sweeheart of the Rodeo" in 1968 and singlehandedly created the country rock phenomenon. He wrote the achingly beautiful song "Hickory Wind" for that album, moved on to found the Flying Burrito Brothers with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and future Eagle Bernie Leadon, discovered the great Emmylou Harris, and killed himself on a drug/alcohol binge at age 26.

Amazingly for a 1960's member of the rock milieu, he moved unashamedly to the heart of America via country music; find any version of his wonderful song "Return of the Grievous Angel" and you can hear the love and joy in the music. But he was driven by something other than those emotions; his father's suicide seems to have been a precursor of his own suicidal excesses. What a horrible waste!

Yesterday's New York Times had an interesting article by Neil Strauss about Parsons and his lasting imprint on American popular music: "Gram Parsons: A grievous angel, a busy ghost." Even if you don't read the article, do give "Return of the Grievous Angel" a listen.

Thanks to InstaPundit for pointing me to this CSpan link to the streaming video of Strom Thurmond's hundredth birthday celebration. Trent Lott's comments start at about 32 minutes. Having watched Lott with a sympathetic eye, I still don't understand what he was thinking. Everything he said was more or less a joke, and I don't think he inserted one serious observation on social policy into the middle of his monologue. Still, it is incomprehensible how Lott could have such a deaf ear as not to realize how bizarre it would sound to express regret that Thurmond lost the 1948 election. And if his comment was a joke, it was even less funny than the rest of his speech.

Here is the broader point I want to make: Lott and the other participants in the Thurmond event were guilty of a massive, collective failure of judgment in the way they handled the event. I assume they were blinded by the friendship and respect that they have personally for Thurmond, and failed to understand what he symbolizes to Americans generally. It was a terrible mistake for their tributes to be unqualified and to make no reference to Thurmond's evolution over the last 50+ years. To listen to Trent Lott (and others), it would appear that Thurmond's career was, from beginning to end, a credit to himself and his native state. This simply isn't true. Thurmond's early career, viewed from the perspective shared by nearly all twenty-first century Americans, was a disgrace. His political rehabilitation coincides more or less with his leaving the Democratic Party and becoming a Republican. For the Republicans to be seen as unqualifiedly embracing Thurmond is a needless tactical blunder. It exposes the Republicans to the slander that, as the party now supported by the majority of Southern whites, they have merely inherited the racist mantle once worn by the Democrats--thus leaving the Republicans holding the bag for the Democrats' embarrassing past. The truth is the opposite: the ascendancy of the Republican Party in the South has largely coincided with white Southerners' rejection of their region's segregationist past, and their desire to create a "New South" unsullied by the unsavory aspects of the region's history. For Republicans to give up this moral high ground by failing to take the opportunity to distinguish between Thurmond's inglorious past as a Democrat and his mainstream present as a Republican was unforgivably stupid.

Everything I've seen about John Snow makes me think he is a good choice for Treasury Secretary. What I don't understand is how the normally-astute President Bush came to nominate a Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, who was not a tax-cutter.

We haven't yet said anything about the Trent Lott affair that is roiling the blogosphere. At the 100th birthday celebration for Strom Thurmond, Lott, while paying tribute to Thurmond's long career, referred to his 1948 Dixiecrat Presidential run, and said: "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." This event was broadcast over CSpan, but I didn't see it, nor have I been able to find a transcript of Lott's complete remarks. I keep hoping to see a context that would somehow make sense out of Lott's comment. Lott himself hasn't been helpful; his office merely released this statement: "Senator Lott's remarks were intended to pay tribute to a remarkable man who led a remarkable life. To read anything more into these comments is wrong."

While I would have been happy to hear Lott explain what "problems" he was referring to, the reality is that, given the history of the Dixiecrat movement, no explanation could save Lott's comment from being incomprehensibly stupid. It is hard to avoid the image of Lott as a Dr. Strangelove who has to be restrained from blurting out what he really thinks. Lott has not been an especially effective Senate leader, and I wouldn't be sorry to see him go. This incident confirms that he doesn't have the good sense necessary to be Majority Leader. The biggest downside to replacing him, I think, is that it will give credence to the liberal theory that Republicans are closet racists. So far, Lott's blunder hasn't drawn as much fire as one might have expected. But this is sure to change, and I am afraid Lott and the Republican Party will bleed slowly until he is replaced.

This Fox News follow-up on the South Dakota voter fraud story doesn't contain anything particularly new, but is a good summary of what has been reported so far. I like this quote: "In Dewey County, fraudulent signatures were found on absentee ballot applications. In Zeibach County, two applications arrived from a dead woman. At least one was an obvious forgery." The other was more subtle, I guess.

Newsweek has a nice cover story on Condoleezza Rice. It manifests some of the usual prejudices (doves vs. hawks, etc.), but not too annoyingly, and it is a very flattering portait of Rice. Which raises once again the question why the Republicans can't get more than 5% or so of the African-American vote. For the first time in world history, a major power (the dominant power, in fact) has blacks in leading positions, execising real influence on the world stage. This has never happened before; it would seem to be a newsworthy milestone; and American blacks, for reasons I can't understand, don't appear to care at all. On this same theme, it seems noteworthy that the ultimate source of Rice's power (along, of course, with her considerable talents) is her close relationship with the President: "Rice has Bush's complete confidence," as Newsweek says, and as many others have observed. This ought to undercut the NAACP's effort to portray Bush as an accessory to the murder of James Byrd, but if it has any impact, it is hard to detect.

These are obviously not novel observations. On the contrary, they are commonplace. I, for one, thought that over time, as the reality of President Bush's giving unprecedented power to black advisors sank in, African-American opinion would start to come around. No such effect is apparent. I do think, however, that if blacks are indifferent to seeing Ms. Rice on the cover of Newsweek, women of all races are another story. I think that Bush's obvious affinity for strong, admirable women like Karen Hughes and Condoleezza Rice has impressed many female voters, and is one of the reasons for Bush's broad electoral appeal.

Courtesy of RealClearPolitics, two more items for your consideration today. Ben Stein has a wonderful column on the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign: "Roadway Pharisees." And the New York Times Magazine has an interesting article by George Packer on the internal liberal debate over war with Iraq: "The Liberal Quandary over Iraq." The portrait of liberalism that emerges from discussions with the prominent intellectuals interviewed by Packer is not a pretty one. The only unabashed American patriot of the lot seems to be the Brit emigre socialist Christopher Hitchens. Don't miss the article's concluding four paragraphs.

Mark Steyn's latest is "Strom has done a lot of living." Steyn pays the kind of tribute to Thurmond that he deserves, noting a number of his unusual accomplishments including the following: "[H]e's the only circuit court judge in South Carolina history to have made love to a condemned murderess as she was being transferred from the women's prison to Death Row."

When white southerners defied court orders to admit black students to public schools, the phenomenon was dubbed "massive resistance." Disgusted by the ugliness and illegality of such acts, the Power Line trio grew up learning the justice and virtue of treating people equally without regard to the color of their skin. Now, of course, the phenomenon of massive resistance has returned, and we are being asked every day to unlearn the lessons we were taught about the justice of equal treatment. The New York Times has waged a frivolous campaign over the past year demanding the admission of women to the private Augusta National Golf Club; but when it comes to equal treatment without regard to race, the Times now wages a deadly serious campaign in support of the policies of racial discrimination that permeate the admissions offices of competitive educational institutions. It lauds the efforts of these institutions to defy court rulings ordering them to disregard race and ethnicity in their admissions policies.

This morning's New York Times carries a classic story of its kind, vividly illustrating how the spirit of Orval Faubus and Ross Barnett has migrated from the souls of the departed to the living bodies of the admissions officers at our finest universities: "Using synonyms for race, college strives for diversity." (That should of course be "diversity"--a code word for race and racial discrimination.) One difference between today's racists and yesterday's is the support they receive from elite institutions such as the Times itself. In Arkansas, the Arkansas Gazette waged a brave campaign, a campaign that cost it thousands of subscriptions, to oppose Governor Faubus. Today's New York Times supports him, so to speak.

Debka File explains what is going on in Iraq. I'm not sure I can summarize Debka's view; you'd best read the whole article. Basically, Debka says that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are constantly on the move, but are being tracked by American and allied special ops units, who are ready to seize them at any moment. This may explain the Administration's next move; now that Iraq has denied having any such weapons, seizure of an Iraqi crew with chemical or biological weapons, red-handed, may be the trigger for armed conflict. Meanwhile, the U.N. inspections are viewed as a farce. The inspectors in Baghdad are far removed from the whereabouts of the mobile labs, and Debka says that the U.N. team has been infiltrated by Iraqi intelligence.

Rats. It's Landrieu in Louisiana. Well, maybe her near-death experience will be a lesson to other Democrats; she survived only by posing as a Republican.

South Dakota Attorney General Mark Barnett is downplaying reports of widespread voter fraud on the state's Indian reservations. "I don't have any indication of widespread fraud. They don't remotely approach suggesting the count is wrong or the outcome would be different," Barnett told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. He says his investigation continues to focus on a single Democratic operative who submitted fraudulent voter registrations; she is expected to be charged with forgery next week.

With just over half the precincts reporting, the Times Picayune has Suzanne Terrell ahead of Mary Landrieu 52%-48%.

We covered the Miss World fiasco in Nigeria, and pointed out the spineless reaction to the Muslim violence there by the Miss World organization. Tonight the finale of the pageant went off without a hitch in London. Here is the winner, Miss Turkey:

Tomorrow's Sunday Times Book Review runs a review of a new book--tome is probably the correct word--on Laurel and Hardy: "'Stan and Ollie': Two Minds Without a Single Thought." The book sounds like a dud, but the review is worth reading even though it is slightly irritating. The review's description of L&H comedy made me smile from beginning to end. Here's a sample: "No matter what befalls them -- and I have not mentioned the truly frightening women they often encounter -- they find new and fabulous ways to retaliate. My favorite is the egg placed under the victim's chin, after which the coup de grace is delivered by snapping the chin rapidly down onto his chest. Watching this is like listening to Mozart." Beautiful!

Tomorrow's New York Times carries an interesting story on the military buildup of American forces around Iraq: "Buildup leaves US military nearly set to attack." While the route to the endgame is unclear, its advent is unmistakable.

Here, along the same lines as the Chavez column posted below, is Suzanne Fields' column in the Washington Times. Fields discusses the views of Shelby Steele, of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Steele, along with Chavez, is one of the most forceful critics of preferential treatment among minority group members. Fields' column does justice to Steele's powerful views, as he states them in an essay in Harper's Magazine called "The Age of White Guilt."

Linda Chavez, in the Washington Times, on the two cases about race-based admission policies at the University of Michigan that the Supreme Court has agreed to decide. Chavez notes that the median SAT score for black students admitted to the University of Michigan is 230 points lower than for admitted whites, while the grade point average for these black students is nearly half a point lower on a four-point scale. The graduation rate for blacks at the University is only about two-thirds, compared to 90 percent for whites. Chavez adds that, if racial preferences were not used, the blacks who are being admitted to the University because of their race would not be denied the opportunity to attend college. Instead, they would attend other colleges where they would not be at a disadvantage in competing with their white and Asian peers.

These two cases are of great interest to all three of us Power Line. We expect to have more to say about them over the next few months.

Mark Steyn's most recent National Post column addresses one of our favorite subjects under a title that shows the benefits of a literary education: "A fatwa of one's own." The column itslef shows the benefits of well directed and eloquently expressed anger; it won't help us one bit with our anger management therapy.

Two more items that are worth your time today, courtesy of RealClearPolitics: Walter Isaacson presents what seems to me a nuanced portrait of Henry Kissinger (ignore Isaacson's liberal digs at current betes noires such as Donald Rumsfeld) in connection with his appointment to the 9/11 commission by President Bush: "History Student." Isaacson is chairman of CNN (ouch!) and coauthor of a biography of Kissinger. He is also coauthor of an extremely interesting biography of the architects of the Cold War, The Wise Men. In this article Isaacson does not mention any of Kissinger's three volumes of memoirs. I have never looked at Kissinger the same since I read the first of those three volumes, a book that must be the finest volume of memoirs by an American public official this side of Grant's autobiography.

Also worth a look is John Feinstein's take on the merry spikesters at the Times: "Not fit to print?" Feinstein has not failed to notice that the Times has become a national laughingstock, and here he is noting the fact on the editorial page of the Washington Post (ouch! again).

We have been watching events unfold in Iraq without much comment lately. Today, Iraq showed international reporters its "disclosure" to the United Nations; the Washington Post describes the scene in Baghdad and the timetable for digesting Iraq's report. Apparently review of the document for military secrets will take about a week; only then will members of the Security Council receive copies. As expected, the bottom line of Iraq's disclosure is that it has no weapons of mass destruction. The Administration has already stated that it will consider such a claim to be a material breach of the latest U.N. resolution. The Administration has also said, however, that it will not initiate war solely on the basis of that breach. This has been interpreted to mean that the inspections dance will go on. To what end, I have no idea.

The big unknown, to me, is how the Administration intends to get into the end game. As recently as yesterday, an Administration spokesman reiterated that war remains a "last resort." The Administration cannot possibly be counting on the inspectors actually finding something to trigger the conflict. What the trigger will be, I don't understand.

Whatever it is, I believe it will come soon. General Franks is now in Qatar for a war games exercise. We are said to have approximately 50,000 troops in the region. Some reports claim that we need to increase that number to 200,000--which would take considerable time, and doesn't seem to be happening--to be ready for war. I don't believe it. Iraq has no air force. That means that when Saddam masses his troops together--necessary, obviously, for infantry action--he is just making it more convenient for us to kill them. There has been speculation about how many of Saddam's troops will be willing to stand and fight. I think this is a moot point. The reality is, they can't stand and they can't fight. Picture the effect of some daisy cutters on an infantry or tank division. This brutal reality is, I think, the reason why we hear that Saddam's strategy is to pull his men back into Baghdad to threaten a house by house defense. Absent an air force, human shields, in the form of Baghdad's residents, are the only protection his army can have. This strategy will allow all of Iraq, including the oil fields and nearly all military facilities, to fall more or less immediately into our hands. (Debka File has reported that our special forces already have both the northern and southern oil fields surrounded on three sides.) How to topple Saddam and reduce Baghdad will be the tactical issue; but I doubt that this task will require any forces other than those already stationed in the Gulf. So I think the war is ready to begin as soon as President Bush gives the word. What I am not clever enough to anticipate is what the Administration plans to use as the occasion for the attack. If it isn't the report being released today, what is it?

Rocket Man, the Google searcher looking for "nude Mary Landrieu" may very well have been pleasantly surprised to discover "Capitalist Chicks." I know I was. But the Google searcher who visited us (twice) looking for "how to break up with your boyfriend" definitely came to the wrong place.

Lawrence Kudlow has a column in this morning's New York Post making it clear that the firing of Paul O'Neill is good news, or that his appointment was a mistake: "No tears for O'Neill."

Elliot Abrams is one of my heroes. As a State Department assistant secretary for Inter-American Affairs from 1985-88, he was an indomitable foot soldier in the Reagan administration's rollback of Communism. Because of his vociferous attack on Communism in Nicaragua, and because he was such an effective public spokesman, the left hated him with a passion. The left got a measure of revenge in 1991 when Abrams became one of the victims of the Iran-Contra independent prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh. It is a Kafkaesque story that Abrams tells in detail in his gripping book Undue Process.

The good news is that Abrams has returned to public life in a big way. Yesterday Fred Barnes had an outstanding piece on the Weekly Standard Web site making sense of Abrams' appointment to a key position under Condoleezza Rice on the National Security Council staff: "Mr. Rice Guy." This morning's New York Times tells the story its way in "Abrams back in capital fray at center of Mideast battle."

The news of the day includes word that the previously spiked sports columns of New York Times writers Dave Anderson and Harvey Araton will see the light of day--in the Times--this weekend. The story is a Newsweek Web exclusive by Seth Mnookin: "The Times backs down." For those involved, such as the estimable Dave Anderson, the story is obviously not funny. But is it possible that the powers that be at the Times have any understanding of the fact that they have made themselves a national laughingstock?

Our apologies to the surfer who found Power Line via the Google search "Mary Landrieu Nude." I'm afraid he was disappointed in our Louisiana election coverage.

More violence in the Middle East:

"Tensions have been running high between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza City following a series of incidents in which several people were killed. On Wednesday night, Fatah gunmen opened fire at a group of Hamas activists while they were painting graffiti on the walls congratulating Palestinians on the occasion of Id al-Fitr, killing two.
"The killings triggered a confrontation between dozens of Hamas and Fatah gunmen, who also lobbed hand grenades and bombs at each other.
"This was the second confrontation of its kind in the past 72 hours. Earlier, rival students at the Azhar University engaged in a gun battle on campus. Several people were reportedly wounded, but no one was killed. The university administration decided to suspend studies until further notice.
"Witnesses said scores of Fatah gunmen participated in Thursday's pre-dawn attack. They said the assailants were forced to retreat after Hamas gunmen returned fire. The Fatah gunmen also attacked a number of mosques."

The root cause of the violence, of course, is Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank.

InstaPundit alerted me to a nice blog I hadn't known about: Capitalist Chicks. Just one more reason why conservatives have more fun!

This photo is of President and Mrs. Bush at the lighting of the National Christmas tree. Nice hat, W. Don't you enjoy thinking about how liberals will grit their teeth at the sight of a President wearing a cowboy hat?

Reader Greg Nesmith reports from Baton Rouge on tomorrow's Senate runoff election:

"By my personal count, Suzanne Haik Terrell has blitzed the airwaves in the last two weeks by at least a two to one margin. Mary Landrieu has picked up the pace in the last few days, but it's too little too late in my opinion....Suzanne has run one 'positive' ad for a couple of weeks featuring her three daughters. It's warm and fluffy and an effective way of answering the critics who claim she has been too 'negative'....[Terrell] also tries to tie herself to Democrat Senator John Breaux. In one ad, they speak of the positives of a 'bipartisan' team in the Senate, and in another, they use the pro-life plank to call for a 'bipartisan team for life'....Her latest ads show her arm-in-arm with President Bush. That one may put her over the top. Landrieu's ads are mainly defensive....The latest debacle from the Landrieu camp concerns some gift cards....Around Thanksgiving, Landrieu and her staffers were caught handing out $10 Wal-Mart gift cards with an inscription...saying something like 'thank you for your military service; go buy a turkey' and was signed 'The Armed Services Foundation and Mary Landrieu'....A little investigation reveals that 'The Armed Services Foundation' does not exist. What were they thinking?....The feeling here is that Senator Landrieu is done. There is no excitement on the left in this election....Look for Terrell to win tomorrow, but do not underestimate the power of the machine in New Orleans. Terrell will win by no more than five points. Without the sure-to-happen fraud in New Orleans, she would win by much more."

It is difficult to capture the virulent racism created by the culture of "affirmative action." Yesterday the the school-funded, official daily newspaper of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Daily Cardinal, carried a letter to the editor by Patrick Meehan defending "affirmative action" from the legal threat it faces in the Michigan cases pending in the Supreme Court. Meehan's letter itself vividly embodies the sickening racism that is both tolerated and promoted by the ideology of "affirmative action." Here it is:

UW 'white culture' stops recognition of race issues
Letter To The Editor

Though the decision of the United States Supreme Court leaves me with little doubt as to the final outcome of the case, I would hope this is not the final word we hear on affirmative action. Luckily, as a student at the University of Wisconsin I don't have to worry about that. You see, this campus is so vastly white in ways that leave me utterly aghast that any threat to its social order is treated as apostasy.

I wish I could pass off the disgust this campus has for affirmative action as ignorance, but that would be unproductive and disingenuous. Rather, I would say the posture owes itself to what I alluded to earlier: the overarching if imperceptible white culture here at the UW.

Why this issue gets dragged into the realm of who is depraved and who is not depraved is beyond me. So long as I see the white students of this university talking on their cell phones and riding on their mopeds I will have a difficult time being anything more than confrontational. It isn't until you actually recognize that there are people on this campus who are not white that you begin to see the arguments for affirmative action.

As a white student I would add only one more thing, and that is that there are plenty of white students at this university who don't belong.

--Patrick Meehan
UW-Madison sophomore

But Meehan's letter is not the last word. Now comes Matt Cedergren riding on his moped to the defense of the campus's white students--and offering Mr. Meehan a practical solution to his concerns:

Out-of-state admission cap keeps UW white
Letter To The Editor

I am Chinese-American, born and raised in Madison. Growing up, I have learned to appreciate the benefits that racial diversity brings with it, and I have always tried to promote racial diversity where it is realistically possible. However, I have also accepted the fact that Wisconsin has always historically been a predominantly white state. Complaining that Wisconsin's population is too white is like complaining that China's population is too yellow.

As long as this university requires at least 75 percent of its incoming freshman class to come from in-state, it will remain predominately white for the foreseeable future. A good first step would be raise the cap on out-of-state and international students, along with lowering their ridiculously high tuition.

We should not, however, simply throw insults at the white students who are already here. Most of them are simply trying to get a quality education, like everyone else. I most definitely want to see more diversity on this campus, and I have nothing against affirmative action, but I do not suddenly feel confrontational when I see white students "talking on their cell phones and riding their mopeds."

If Mr. Meehan wants the immediate diversity he seeks, he should transfer to the University of California. And with one fewer white student here, this campus would be more diverse, as well--a win-win scenario.

--Matt Chen Cedergren
UW-Madison senior

Our friend and faithful reader Roger Conant has advised us of the existence of the Daily Cardinal's independent competitor, the Badger Herald. With no school subsidy whatsoever, the Badger Herald has a circulation that has grown to double that of the Daily Cardinal.

Roger's son Alexander is the once and future editor of the Badger Herald. Alexander took a break from school after graduation to write speeches and policy papers for Norm Coleman's senate campaign. Roger also advises us that the Badger Herald features the writing of the improbably named Carey Meals, a young lady who must be the finest undergraduate sex columnist in the country. Carey's most recent column is Wednesday's "Rhythms that make you randy." Do you suppose Madison's Ms. Meals has met South Dakota's Mr. Assman?

Our faithful reader Cory Skluzak has alerted us to the Newsmax article summarizing the most recent evidence of vote fraud in the South Dakota senate election on November 5: "South Dakota Poll Workers Expose Democrats' Election Theft." A key source for the allegations is a former law enforcement officer and current Todd County poll watcher with the improbable name of Ed Assman.

More on Ptech, the Boston software company that has government contracts and apparently is owned by a Saudi al Qaeda sympathizer. When I posted on the Ptech raid below, I wondered why the raid had been carried out by Customs agents. InstaPundit is now reporting that according to Boston radio stations, Ptech employees tried to interest the FBI in Ptech a year ago, but got nowhere. So they called Customs.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports that Democrats are pessimistic about holding on to Mary Landrieu's Senate seat in tomorrow's runoff election. One delightful nugget: Landrieu received a $1,000 contribution from Handgun Control--and donated it to a hunting organization to "clear up any 'confusion' about her backing of the Second Amendment." Another supposedly Democratic issue has bitten the dust. Remember when Tom Daschle and other leading Democrats were having vigils in Washington where they would solemnly intone the names of "victims of gun violence"? Many of whom, by the way, were criminals shot in self-defense by armed citizens. Now, Democrats in all but the safest (and most urban) districts are fleeing from the gun issue.

Here is an AP story on the Ptech raid.

Debka File is reporting that U.S. Customs has raided a software company in Boston called Ptech. Ptech supplies the FBI, Air Force and other government agencies; apparently, it is secretly owned by bin Laden supporter Qasin al-Kadi, a Saudi. According to Debka File, Ptech is suspected of being al Qaeda's "back door to top U.S. secrets." One thing I don't understand: Why Customs?

Paul O'Neill and Larry Lindsey have resigned. Given the simultaneous resignations, it seems safe to assume that they were fired. It will be interesting to see whether these firings are merely cosmetic, or whether the President intends a change of direction on the economic front. My guess is the former. PoliPundit notes that these firings are nicely timed to be eclipsed by a big news day tomorrow.

Diana West has written the first column I've enjoyed reading on the faux scandal of Augusta National: "Feminist slice." As you can tell from the headline, the column is about the attempt to make a feminist issue out of Augusta National's membership policy, but Ms. West gets off some good lines even before she warms to her topic: "I wish Hootie continued strength of stomach to withstand the feminist attack on himself and his beleaguered band of brogue-wearing brothers. The sanctity of the all-male club is not only of great import to the poor dears, it's a point of high principle to those who prize liberties great and small. Even so, the right of 300 high and mighty men to enjoy their putting in privacy (sans women) tends to get lost when the whole world is smoldering, bursting and imploding in jihadist warfare."

The reporting of Stephen Hayes on our engagement with Iraq has been excellent, so we want to make time today for his Weekly Standard preview article "Wolfowitz Talks Turkey." (Courtesy of RealClearPolitics.)

You would not forgive us if we did not add Charles Krauthammer's weekly WaPo column to our ongoing debate on the appropriate (true, ironic/diplomatic, or hypothetical) characterization of Islam: "Violence and Islam."

To pick up this morning where Rocket Man left off last night, we submit for your consideration John Podhoretz's column "Wildly Wrong in New York City."

The New York Times is pleased to announce that all but one of the 1989 Central Park jogger-rapists are about to be set free. The remaining question, apparently, is how rich their lawsuits against the local and state authorities will make them. "Their only crime was being black and Latino teenagers in Central Park," says one of their lawyers. The re-evaluation of the youths' convictions stems from a confession by one of the rapists that he acted alone. That rapist--Matias Reyes--is already serving a life sentence, so his purported exoneration of his confederates will cost him nothing.

The normally sensible Glenn Reynolds seems to have bought the "exoneration" theory hook, line and sinker. He views the conviction of the rapists as "a tremendous miscarriage of justice," and bemoans the fact that while the rapists will be "happy to get on with their lives," they can never be compensated adequately for "what they went through." Some would say, of course, that it was the jogger--beaten, gang-raped and left for dead-- who could never be adequately compensated for what she went through. Reynolds acknowledges that some skeptics have questioned the revisionist approach to the rapists' convictions, noting Ann Coulter as one who argued that "the Central Park joggers [sic] are criminals even if they aren't guilty of the rape in question."

This is simply bizarre. Read Ann's column here, and judge whether she is arguing that the convicted rapists are guilty of some other, unspecified crime. Also, judge for yourself whether they are guilty of this crime, as their juries unanimously found.

The release of the Central Park rapists will be a grotesque miscarriage of justice. Beyond the injustice of the individual case, it also raises this question, which has been lurking in the background now for some years: Why have liberals seemingly become tolerant of rape? Being against rape would seem to be a core "women's issue." Yet, when it became reasonably clear that Bill Clinton was a rapist, his feminist support never wavered. Likewise, in this case, the New York Times--so fanatically devoted to "women's issues" that it has made a crusade out of getting women admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club--blithely passes over the plight of a young woman, abused and left for dead, her skull crushed and three quarters of her blood spilled, to celebrate the impending release of those who attacked her. Here is another case: Robert Fisk's latest column in the Independent. Fisk criticizes the recently-published British dossier on Saddam Hussein because it includes the revelation that Saddam employs men for the specific purpose of raping the wives, sisters and daughters of his political enemies. Now, mind you, Fisk doesn't criticize that revelation because it isn't true. On the contrary: he says that he himself has been inside a "raping room" in Iraq which had "women's underclothes still lying on the floor." What, then, is his complaint? He whines that the world has known about Saddam's "rape squads" for the last ten years, and therefore, "what are we doing rehashing the story all over again?" It is time for the rape victims to get over it. Including, I guess, those who were raped yesterday.

I don't really know what to make of this, except to say that it is one more way in which liberals are becoming unhinged. And if a woman is in danger of being assaulted, she had better hope there is a conservative around. We know where we stand on rape.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has been getting abused by his readers for misreading Ann Coulter's column and defending the rapists, and is retreating.

In only its second year of publication, the Claremont Review of Books goes from strength to strength under the inspired editorship of Charles Kesler. It has become a sound conservative counterpart to the New York Review of Books. The Review's winter issue is now available online and the issue is a cornucopia. Let me start by recommending two pieces, with more to follow later: Steve Hayward's "Reagan's Triumph" and Angelo Codevilla's "War At Last?" Enjoy!

I had wanted to link to Laurie Mylroie's column in the Jerusalem Post a few days back and forgot to do so. Now you need to go through a cumbersome registration procedure to get to the column. Laurie Mylroie is the author of The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks. The book, published a year before 9/11, was an awesomely astute account of the terrorist war conducted by Saddam Hussein against the United States evidenced in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Mylroie's column is a concise account of her thesis that the 9/11attacks and the war in which we are now engaged feature Iraq as our key antagonist. Given the importance of the subject and the timeliness of the column, even though written for an Israeli audience, I am accordingly taking the liberty of pasting in the column verbatim below:

Another mistaken 'conceptzia' BY LAURIE MYLROIE

Al-Qaida has struck again, or so it seems. "A virtual enemy," as a Clinton administration official describes it, al-Qaida is everywhere and anywhere. It is no less a threat than it was a year ago, according to CIA director George Tenet although the Taliban are defeated; al-Qaida's leadership is dead or on the run; and more than 3,000 others have been detained. "You see it in Bali. You see it in Kuwait," Tenet affirmed. And now, presumably, we saw it in Mombasa.

US government officials recently stated that missiles shot at an Israeli passenger plane were linked to a failed al-Qaida attack on an American fighter jet in Saudi Arabia. But does this idea that al-Qaida is acting alone really make sense? Not at all.

The Clinton administration "spun" America's terrorist problem when it re-emerged in February 1993, with the bombing of the World Trade Center, one month into Bill Clinton's first term in office. New York FBI believed that was a "false flag" operation run by Iraq, working with and hiding behind Islamic militants.

But Clinton did not want to hear it (he thought he took care of the problem slyly if the FBI was correct when he hit Iraqi intelligence headquarters several months later). So his administration claimed a new terrorism had emerged, consisting of "loose networks" of Islamic militants, unsupported by states.

Israel might have recognized this for the dangerous misconception it was, were it not for the unrealistic expectations that set in regarding the "peace process" when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister. Already then, a new "conceptzia" had begun to blur Western vision.

"Conceptzia" was the term coined by the Agranat Commission to describe the intelligence failure that led to the surprise of the Yom Kippur War. As a friend at Tel Aviv University explained, "It is much more than a mistake." It is a fundamentally flawed understanding of events that prevents one from seeing what is before his eyes.

The new conceptzia is easy to explain. By the mid-1990s, the notion had taken hold that the US had decisively defeated Iraq in 1991 (in fact, many, including prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, were appalled when the US ended the war with Saddam in power).

Then following Iraq's defeat, so the conceptzia goes, a new threat emerged the spread of Islamic militants after the 1992 collapse of the communist regime in Afghanistan. Thus, the two threats, Iraq and the spread of Islamic militancy, are separated in time and space.

BUT THE Gulf War never really ended. The two phenomena the ongoing war with Iraq and the spread of Islamic militancy existed at the same time, the 1990s, and in the same space, the Sunni Muslim Middle East. Did they merge?

That is an important question, which almost no one asks. But it would seem they did. Consider Egypt, a key member of the anti-Iraq coalition. Without Egyptian backing, the Arab League would never have voted to support Iraq's ouster from Kuwait, as it did in August 1990.

Egypt seemed to have beaten back its post-Afghanistan Islamic challenge by 1997. On November 17, however, more foreign tourists were killed in one day in an attack at Luxor than were killed during Egypt's entire post-Afghan Islamic insurgency.

The attack occurred as the first crisis over UNSCOM ended. More crises would follow, as Saddam deliberately moved to end weapons inspections. When the next crisis began in early 1998, Egypt, through the Arab League, took a strong position that it not be resolved by force. No major terrorist attack has occurred in Egypt since.

What happened at Luxor? If Iraqi intelligence joins with an indigenous militant group, isn't the ensuing attack likely to be far more lethal than what that group might do on its own? Of course. Recently, I discussed this with the distinguished historian Bernard Lewis, who concurred. The subtle hints that Iraq was involved in Luxor were missed by those who jumped to the conclusion the militants had struck again, but not by the Egyptians.

A major debate rages in Washington as to whether Iraq supports al-Qaida. As Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland wrote, "The links become clear with a little digging. You miss them only if you have a strong need not to know." The attacks on tourists in Bali and Mombasa come as momentum builds for war with Iraq. As one US official, part of the new Bush team, noted, their main purpose is "to divert us from the war on Iraq.... Terrorism is an instrument of state, not a wildcat NGO."

The conceptzia needs urgent reexamination. If Israel accepts and endorses an erroneous explanation for this terrorism, that will only increase the risk more will follow.

A reader has pointed us to one of the dumbest columns I've ever seen. It's by one Diana Griego Erwin in the Sacramento Bee. It's titled--believe it or not--"What Do the Terrorists Want? The White House Hasn't Asked."

Ms. Erwin begins: "I feel like an idiot." From there on it's all downhill.

She telephoned the White House, the FBI and the State Department and said: "Has anyone asked what they want? You know, the terrorists who are out to kill innocent Americans? What do they want? To stop this, I mean." Well, I think what they actually want is to kill us. Apparently she thinks they're a blackmail ring. To their credit, all of the officials Ms. Erwin talked to responded appropriately. The White House blew her off. The FBI said its job is "protecting United States citizens from terrorism," not asking what those who want to harm Americans want. And even the State Department seemed to find her question "loony," Erwin says. The State Department official she spoke to said: "What do the terrorists want? No, ma'am, that's not a question we ask. We are out there combating terrorism. We don't ask them what they want."

These lukewarm responses might have caused Ms. Erwin to rethink her approach to terrorism, but they didn't. "Surely there is something better than addressing violence with violence. What do the terrorists want of us, anyway?" The problem, as Ms. Erwin sees it, is not the terrorists' homicidal impulses, but our unwillingness to talk: "Apparently we're not as adept at asking questions, building bridges or seeking resolutions to address why so many people the world over despise us. We react. We militarize. We kick butt. Talk? No, ma'am, we don't talk."

Remember, Ms. Erwin, that feeling that you are an idiot? Sometimes even a liberal needs to listen more to her feelings.

Alan Dowd of the Hudson Institute on the address President Bush should deliver shortly after December 8 when he finds the Iraqi declaration not complete and credible. Courtesy of National Review Online.

The editors of the National Review on why President Bush must act against Saddam Hussein soon after Iraq makes its December 8 declaration.

Via PoliPundit, the latest Louisiana poll indicates that President Bush's visit had the intended effect in boosting Terrell's support.

The Times-Picayune reports that "the gloves are off" as Suzanne Terrell and Mary Landrieu head into the final 48 hours of their Senate campaign. No kidding. There is lots of talk about the negative campaigns being run in this race, but as usual, the negative ads deal with the opponent's record. The issue, it seems to me, is not whether they are negative, but whether they are accurate. The latest Republican radio ad features a Bill Clinton sound-alike praising Landrieu for voting for taxpayer-funded abortions, needles for drug addicts, and the closing of military bases.

Andrew Sullivan has much more on the sad condition of the New York Times under Howell Raines.

Michael Fumento is an outstanding science writer who lost a lot of weight by changing his diet after studying food and diet health issues. He wrote an excellent book about those health issues entitled The Fat of the Land. (His first book was The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, a book that remains a timely classic of its kind.) This morning Reason has posted Fumento's column on the Atkins diet: "Hold the Lard!" (Courtesy of RealClearPolitcs.)

Mrs. Trunk submits for your consideration Michelle Malkin's current column recounting the recruitment of a retarded (and probably illegal) immigrant for one of those new, improved airport baggage handling positions that are to protect us from the bad guys: "Dumbing down national security."

In FrontPage Tammy Bruce has a good column fairly describing the current status of Tom Dashcle and Al Gore: "They're Melting!" And Lowell Ponte has an extremely harsh column about Mary Landrieu that to me seems both warranted and entertaining: "The Pathetic Case of Mary Landrieu."

Studies in liberal governance: National Review's Jay Nordlinger has an interesting New York Post column about the imposition of the party line on the pages of the New York Times: "Raines' Party Line." William Tucker also lays out the fiscal facts regarding New York City's municipal workforce, suggesting that the city is verging on implosion: "The City Payroll Cri$i$."

It looks like I spoke too soon on the issue of voter fraud in the South Dakota Senate race. The Washington Times reports that Republican poll workers have signed affidavits alleging serious irregularities on Indian reservations, including voters being paid to vote for Tim Johnson; voters giving multiple names to poll workers until they came across one who hadn't already voted; and organizing rides for voters from within the polling place. Three Indians have signed affidavits saying they were paid $10 apiece to vote for Johnson. Johnson's campaign manager has refused to comment, and says he won't respond unless van drivers alleged to have paid voters sign affidavits admitting that they did so. "Three people claiming to have been paid [in affidavits] isn't good enough for me to comment." It looks like this story isn't going away after all.

The South Dakota newspapers aren't reporting anything on this yet, and the incoming Republican Secretary of State had no knowledge of the investigation. So I assume this operation is being carried out by the national party.

Real Clear Politics has collected the post-election polls on President Bush. The numbers continue to hold up amazingly well: consensus approval 66%, well over a two to one ratio between approval and disapproval. Which shows that President Bush did not hurt his standing by jumping into the partisan fray, and probably helped it.

The Pew Research Center has published a survey of citizens of 44 countries, addressing their attitudes toward their own governments, the state of the world generally, the United States, the Iraq situation, and other matters. The Washington Post headlines its article on the survey "Poll Finds World Doubts U.S. Motives In Iraq." The Post account also highlights a "rising tide of anti-Americanism," while acknowledging that a majority of citizens of most countries view the U.S. positively.

The Pew Center's summary is available here; a complete copy of the report can also be downloaded.

Putting aside methodological issues, which I haven't tried to evaluate, the survey contains some interesting data. As to the Post's headline--"world doubts U.S. motives"--this is based on a question asking whether the U.S.'s use of force in Iraq (which, of course, hasn't happened yet) is explained by the American belief that Saddam is a threat, or by the fact that the U.S. wants to control Iraqi oil. But this question was asked in only five countries, apparently, so the headline "world doubts U.S. motives" should more properly be "certain European countries doubt U.S. motives." You can look at the poll results, but it is fair to say that citizens doubt U.S. motives to the extent they have been warned to do so by their governments.

The more interesting Iraq data relate to the respondents' own perceptions of Saddam's regime. Notwithstanding their evaluations of our motives, large majorities in all of the countries surveyed--the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Turkey--with the exception of Turkey, agreed that Iraq poses a great or moderate danger. Likewise, when given the choice between "Saddam must be removed" and "Saddam can be disarmed," substantial majorities in most of the countries surveyed (and pluralities in all) said that Saddam must be removed. In Germany, where anti-American demagoguery has been most pronounced, 75% said Saddam must be removed, while 19% said he can be disarmed. Apparently very few advocate leaving him alone.

The basic question of pro- versus anti-Americanism is, as always, complicated. It is true that pro-American sentiment in most of the countries surveyed has dropped somewhat in the past two years; this is hardly surprising in view of the current polarizing crisis. What is striking is how pro-American the world, generally speaking, remains. The "rising tide of anti-Americanism" has caused the U.S.A.'s favorability rating to slip from 83% to 75% in Great Britain; 76% to 70% in Italy; 86% to 79% in Poland; 77% to 72% in Japan; and so on. Oddly, our favorability rating has risen slightly in France, from 62% to 63%. And the people of Uzbekistan are heroes: 85% approve of the U.S. And in Russia, 61% now have a favorable view of the U.S., compared to 37% two years ago.

There are many more interesting nuggets in the report. On the whole, however, it certainly does not support the negative spin that media outlets are likely to put on it over the next few days.

Former DFL member of the Minneapolis City Council corroborates our column on the murder of Tyesha Edwards in every significant respect in this morning's Star Tribune: "A new shot in the heart of the inner city."

Jonathan Turley has a column in the Los Angeles Times this morning on the two University of Michigan cases that are now before the Supreme Court. The amazing thing about the column is that it fairly describes the racial discrimination practiced by the undergraduate school in its admissions program: "Back to the admissions morass." (Courtesy of RealClearPolitics.)

D.J. Tice's column on Minnesota election law should be considered in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal's editorial: "McCain-Feingold, RIP."

In his weekly column the invaluable D.J. Tice of the St. Paul Pioneer Press discusses the criminalization of politics under Minnesota law: "Criminal charges against candidate show foolishness of state election laws." Doug disregards the critics who fear that rough-and-tumble democracy may become addictive; he's in favor of outright decriminalization.

Has there ever been a political columnist like Mark Steyn? The Rocket Prof is incredulous that we missed Steyn's latest. The Rocket Prof correctly points out that it's a great one: "The UN's foray into Saddamasochism."

According to the New York Times, Paul Wolfowitz was unable to secure agreement to the desired level of cooperation from the Turks and they are conditioning their cooperation on another United Nations resolution: "Turkey saying no to accepting G.I.'s in large numbers."

Below we link to a Joel Mowbray column and a New York Post editorial suggesting that the final reckoning with Iraq is near. Michael Kelly's weekly column also gathers the evidence: "Countdown to trigger day."

The current issue of Esquire magazine has been in the news because of an article quoting University of Pennsylvania Professor and former Bush administration faith-based organizations czar (I forget his formal title) John DiIulio saying critical things about Karl Rove. The issue also runs the results of a survey of the magazine's readers--one of those surveys whose only value is of the entertainment variety--that includes a list topped somewhat surprisingly, given the readership, by Bill Clinton: the most loathsome living American. This morning's Washington Times has the story: "Reagan is greatest living American."

This morning's Washington Times seems to have the good stuff.

Deacon previously noted the EEOC's latest nightmare lawsuit, and the Times runs an excellent editorial on it: "Jackbooted liberalism, EEOC-style."

The Times also carries Steven Zaks's excellent column meditating on the language appropriate to the reality of the war against Israel: "Suicide, homicide, or genocide?"

The Times also carries Joel Mowbray's account of the meeting of President Bush's war cabinet yesterday: "Bush war cabinet close to decision." This morning's New York Post runs a closely related editorial: "Saddam's final days."

Wes Pruden of the Washington Times weighs in on the debate over whether President Bush is overdoing it in his praise of the Muslim religion. Pruden agrees with Rocket Man that "President Bush has good and sufficient reasons of realpolitik" to distance himself from the sentiments of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in this matter, and for not wanting "to concede the obvious, that the war on terrorism is a clash of civilizations." But Pruden believes that Bush has gone too far in his courtship of "bad" Muslims such as "the representatives of oleaginous regimes whose state-owned television stations and newspapers call relentlessly for Muslims to kill Christians and Jews." Thanks to my friend Craig Harrison for calling this piece to my attention.

I agree with you completely about Grant, Rocket Man. Another book that shows the admirable qualities of Grant's presidency is The Reconstruction Presidents by Brooks Simpson. Simpson is also working on a several volume biography of Grant. I don't think he's reached Grant's presidency yet, and I have not read what he's come out with so far. But his book about how Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, and Hayes dealt with reconstruction is quite worthwhile.

President Bush was in Louisiana today stumping for Suzanne Terrell. The Washington Post covers his trip. The Post's focus is on the relatively small amount of money raised by the President's visit (and visits by other Administration officials). In fact, with the election on Saturday, fund raising is secondary at best. The significance of Bush's visit is that Terrell receives the enthusiastic endorsement of a very popular President--who also happens to be an old friend. We think it will put Terrell over the top.

I am in South Dakota on business. Over the past several weeks, a number of readers have asked for our assessment of the Thune/Johnson Senate race, won by Johnson on the basis of last-minute ballots from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There has been a great deal of suspicion about this election, especially because irregularities in the absentee ballot and voter registration processes came to light prior to the election. I believe a couple of Democratic operatives are being criminally prosecuted as a result of fraud committed in those processes. However, the insiders I talk to here are convinced that the votes that swung the election to Johnson were legitimately cast by actual people. Because of the pre-election irregularities, the election itself was supervised pretty closely, and Republicans here seem to be convinced that the reservation votes were legitimately cast. This probably explains why Thune did not pursue a recount.

Hey, Trunk, if we're going to do seasonal book lists as many magazines do this time of year, let me add a couple of comments. First, if you're going to read American history, you can't do better than Shelby Foote's three-volume masterpiece, The Civil War.
Second, I happen to be a huge Ulysses Grant fan. I am currently reading the new Grant biography by J. E. Smith. It is exceptional, and unique in that it rehabilitates Grant's reputation as President. In truth, Grant was an excellent president--both successful and highly popular. His reputation has been unjustly sullied by generations of Democrat historians, largely because of his vigorous efforts to defend the freed slaves in the South. Smith has gone far to repair this injustice.

Seablogger has posted an extremely interesting comment on "The Silence of the Liberals," our column regarding the murder of Tyesha Edwards. Seablogger's comment is posted as "Murderapolis."

Rick Atkinson is the former Washington Post reporter who left the grind of daily journalism behind to answer a calling as a military historian. Atkinson won a Pulitzer Prize for a series he wrote for the Post on the West Point class of 1966. He turned the series into an outstanding book, The Long Gray Line. The book is full of unforgettable stories of the men of the class of '66, through Vietnam and after. I believe the class suffered the highest number of casualties of any West Point class; it is a class full of heroes, dead and alive. The book made an indelible impression on me.

Inspired by the likes of Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote and their multivolume histories of the American Civil War, Atkinson has now undertaken a three-volume history of the American Army in the European theater during World War II. The first of the projected three volumes has just come out, An Army at Dawn. Today's OpinionJournal carries Max Boot's review of the book, "Sometimes victory comes hard." I believe I posted the review when it was published in the Weekly Standard, but if you haven't previously read it, please take a look. In any event, the book would make a perfect holiday gift for fans of American history--at least for those who haven't already obtained their World Famous Nixon/Elvis T-Shirt from the Nixon Library Museum Store.

Having mentioned Bruce Catton, I would like to add a note regarding Catton's three-volume history of the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. That series concludes with his Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Stillness at Appomatox. I only thought to read that book because I heard David McCullough say during the course of a C-Span interview that he had been given the book as a gift when he graduated from Yale in the early 1950's. He said that he had been so bowled over by the book that he traced his interest in writing history to his having read that book. I read the book about six years ago, and it is indeed an unbelievably powerful book.

The book tells the story of Army of the Potomac during the final year of the Civil War. By the time I finished it, I felt like I had lived and fought alongside the exhausted survivors of the devastating battles of that final year--emotionally spent, grateful to be alive, distraught over the carnage. What an utterly beautiful work of popular history it is.

Joshua Muravchik gives President Bush his due as a visionary foreign policy leader in the lead article of the new issue of Commentary: "The Bush Manifesto."

To paraphrase the Robert Frost poem, John Podhoretz's column this morning has given my heart a change of mood: "What Hawks Fear." As a movie fan, Podhoretz notes that Hans Blix is reprising the role of Inspector Clouseau--inverting the Marxist dictum, farce repeating itself as tragedy.

FrontPage carries Walter Russell Mead's evaluation of Victory, the book by Peter Schweizer that argues Ronald Reagan brought a lifetime's reflection to his efforts as president to topple the Soviet Union: "Ronald Reagan--Star Warrior."

Our friend and faithful reader Kirk Kolbo is the lead attorney for the student plaintiffs in the two racial discrimination cases brought against the University of Michigan, one against the university's undergraduate school and one against the law school. Each case involves an admissions program that is geared to produce specific percentages of admitted black and Hispanic students--quotas in all but name, all of course in the name of "diversity."

The story of the treatment of these cases in the United States Court for Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is almost unbelievable, a story of political shenanigans that is a scandal and disgrace unto itself.

The news of the day is that 25 years after the Bakke case, the Supreme Court has accepted the Michigan cases for review and will decide the constitutional issues raised by what travels under the name of "affirmative action" in the university setting. We extend our sincere thanks to Kirk for getting this issue back in the Supreme Court and congratulate him on achieving the professional dream of a lifetime.

One thoughtful discussion of these developments is Detroit columnist Thomas Bray's piece this morning on the OpinionJournal Web site: "Bakke to the future."

More on Minnesota's angry humorist: Mark Jorgensen is a Power Line reader and graduate student in the University of Minnesota Department of Sociology. Mr. Jorgensen's message reveals that no publication is too small to spike a column that treats a liberal icon with irreverence. Mr. Jorgensen writes us as follows:

"I have been an avid reader of your blog ever since Hugh Hewitt recommended it last winter. I followed your coverage of the
Keillor-Coleman issue with interest. Keillor's partisan behavior was nothing new. If you recall, when the Republicans won back the House in 1994 Keillor felt compelled to say some critical things in several venues. One affected performance was on 'Face the Nation' in early 1995. And those familar with Keillor, his politics, and his public and private history were never surprised at any of this -- the guy can be nasty.

"When Keillor returned to Minnesota in 1993 I wrote a satire about him and his homecoming and submitted it to the Minnesota Daily. It was initially accepted for publication on the op-ed page and even had a publication date. It never ran. I was subsequently given a run-around for the next several weeks. Among the reasons I was given were: the op-ed editor left, they lost it, and finally,after re-submission, that it wasn't topical and no one listens to Prairie Home Companion anymore. Only the latter was somewhat plausible. In short, they did not want to publish it.

"As the Minnesota Daily before and after this episode has had nothing but favorable coverage of Keillor, I considered my experience simple censorship. Should you be interested, I am sending the satire as an attachment."

We are interested and thought you would be too. Mr. Jorgensen's column follows:

Frog Returns to Lake Wobegon

Garrison Keillor is back to stay, he says. He resumed hosting the Prairie Home Companion at the World Theater in St. Paul last October. It was inevitable, you know. All that talk from 1985 to 1987 about how he might, and then did, leave Minnesota for other parts because the local press was invading his privacy was a useful contrivance for him. At the time he needed to provide us, and maybe himself, with a palatable reason why he would leave home, kin, friends, and adoring fans. So because he values his privacy he spends most of the last seven years living in the New York City media spotlight. Right.

Don't get me wrong. I think Garrison Keillor has immense talent as a storyteller, writer, and humorist. But he also has an immense ego. Now, ego is not a bad thing. We all carry one around with us. Its just that Garrison's started to swell back in the early 1980's. In the early years of Prairie Home Companion (PHC), from a radio show in 1971, and then a live performance in 1980 from the World Theater in St. Paul, it had an eclectic and devoted following. Many in the audiences at the World Theater in 1980, the Orpheum Theater in 1984 and 1985, and then back to the remodeled World Theater in 1986, were people with emotional and cultural connections to the 1960's. Now 60's people had no special gift for recognizing Garrison's talents, but we did seem more receptive to them. Of course, people of all ages and histories could be found among the fans. They were all people who enjoyed PHC as good, basic entertainment.

Then, in the early 1980's that began to change. I date the change from 1983. Some say sooner, some later. A new type of fan increasingly turned up in the audience at the World Theater. The original fans began to be displaced by the urban-rural "chic" types -- they were strictly urban folk but they affected a laid-back country style of manner and dress. They weren't called yuppies then, although many of them fit the label. For them being a fan of Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion was a mark of status, cultural sophistication, and down-home wholesomeness. Many of the original fans began to fall away as the new audience grew. As these "beautiful people" of the Twin Cities grew to admire Garrison, he grew to admire himself and "his" talent. So began a great love affair. Garrison, you made a recent admission that you now realize how important a good supporting staff is for creating the final product. Many of us knew this back in 1984-85, as you felt you were outgrowing us.

Now it is a fair thing for any man or woman to see how far their talent might carry them. Leaving us was OK, Garrison. You didn't have to make excuses. The general timing coincided with your marriage to the Danish woman, Ulla Skaerved, the "great love of your life." That was almost coincidental. The big show about going to live in Denmark was too much, though. You could never fit in Denmark -- its too small for you. There is no need to take swipes at Denmark to justify divorcing it and your soon to be ex-wife. No, much of your last seven years was spent in New York City. That was the focus of your time and energies. Many of us think there can't be two simultaneous great love affairs in your life, anyway.

You were busy during that time in New York City. You wrote books and articles. You hosted the American Radio Theater, a PHC sibling. And you traveled. You did a lot of other things. Now New York City was good for you, for a while. You were fêted and you were celebrated. New York City has celebrities for every taste, and a taste for every celebrity, for a while. It didn't last for you, however. You became just one of many with names and talents, although you did have more staying power than most.

You also bumped up against the present limits of your talents. It can be a humbling, even painful experience, to find you're not as brilliant and creative as you thought. And many a writer does go into a slump at some time, too. You were no exception. The jokes are not as funny; the stories not as entertaining; the scripts a bit stale.

The world changes, too. Tastes change and long-time fans listen less frequently, or not at all. A younger audience may not be out there to replace those falling away. More music in the new PHC program will only delay the growing recognition that you are not the same, and neither is your audience, as in the golden years of the 1970's and early 1980's. A change of scenery may be a false panacea.

But you, a home-grown Minnesota boy, weren't cut out for that New York scene for long. Neither was your ego. Its the old story, you can be a big frog in a small pond, or a small frog in a big pond. Its all kind of relative. Well, you chose the small pond, or lake, rather than the big one. We forgive you for leaving us. Welcome back, Garrison. (For those of you who haven't taken in the Prarie Home Companion at the World Theater, you best do it while you still can.)

I posted earlier on the Washington Post's paean to the "growing" antiwar movement. This article on something called the "IndyMedia Center" conveys a sense of how pathetic the antiwar movement is here in Minnesota. I'd guess it isn't much better elsewhere. The author describes picketing a local television station with "Say No War With Iraq" signs. The demonstration wasn't too successful: "Turnout was low, only three people showed up--which may have been due to the fact that it was at noon...." The demonstrators' patience was rewarded, however, when something sinister happened: "Oddly enough, while the three were outside protesting, a US soldier in full battle camouflage and wearing a black beret exited the KSTP building...Unfortunately this reporter was unable to snap a photo of him while directly in front of the KSTP building, but he did get a couple photos of him walking to his car....It is unknown what the soldier was doing at KSTP, and this reporter will draw no conclusions without further information. However, it was quite a striking image to see: as three people stand protesting the pro-war bias of the corporate media, they see a soldier exiting a corporate media outlet."

Both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post consider Robert Redford's opinions about energy policy to be newsworthy. Redford says: "If you are worried about getting oil from an unstable Persian Gulf, consider the alternatives: Indonesia, Nigeria, Uzbekistan." Um, last time I checked Alaska was pretty stable.

John DiIulio, a Democrat who briefly headed the Bush administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, gave an interview to Esquire Magazine in which he purportedly blasted the Bush administration for excessive attention to politics and claimed that Karl Rove exercises undue influence. This interview has gotten a great deal of publicity over the last couple of days; this Washington Post article is typical. Now, DiIulio has denied that he made any such statements to the Esquire interviewer.

The latest Louisiana poll, as reported in the Times-Picayune, has Suzanne Terrell and Mary Landrieu in a dead heat.

Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity on the latest abusive lawsuit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and why President Bush needs to appoint a General Counsel who will help prevent such suits from being filed. The suit is against a restaurant that requires its employees to speak English while on the job unless a customer cannot speak English. It does so because it has had morale problems when Navajo workers talk about other employees (who constitute a minority at the restaurant) in the Navajo language. The policy does not constitute employment discrimination in any normal sense, and Clegg points out that courts consistently reject the convoluted theory under which our government tries to twist these facts into a theory of discrimination. Maybe the suit was filed because it's the end of the year, when the EEOC tends to file more frivolous lawsuits than normal in order to meet litigation quotas. More likely, the EEOC really wants to limit the freedom of businesses to impose reasonable employment requirements, especially ones that can be viewed as promoting national cohesion. In either case, Clegg is right -- it's past time for President Bush to appoint a General Counsel for this out-of-control agency.

The Cato Institute's Doug Bandow offers his views on U.S. relations with the Saudis in this piece from National Review Online. Bandow believes that, while "Washington may not be able to force Saudi Arabia to accept political or religous freedom, it can insist that Riyadh cooperate to turn off the financial spigot for terrorists. And the U.S. must do so even if it means loosening the two governments' friendly embrace." Bandow argues that fear of losing Saudi bases should not be a concern because we should withdraw our troops from the Kingdom in any case once the situation in Iraq is resolved. Bandow then devotes most of his piece to arguing that, as an economic matter, our need for oil is not a reason for treading lightly with the Saudis either. Bandow does not think we should treat the Saudis as enemies. Rather we "simply should reorder our priorities, accepting a cooling of the relationship if that is the only way to halt terrorist funding."

One of the authors of Fraterslibertas heard the Trunk on the radio this morning talking about "The Silence of the Liberals," i.e., their silence regarding gang violence in Minneapolis. He says the Trunk "more than held his own;" his only complaint was that he forgot to plug Power Line. The show lit up the telephone lines like few topics they've ever had. Callers included the head of the state's Gang Task Force--who reported that Minneapolis had recently reduced its team of dedicated gang officers from nine members to two--and a Minneapolis City Council member, both of whom supported Scott. The Trunk will no doubt post an update later on; for now, it looks like the publicity Scott has given this issue through Power Line and his piece in the St. Paul Pioneer Press has launched a real debate on a topic that until now has been shrouded in silence.

The British government has released a dossier on Saddam Hussein's systematic use of torture, rape and murder to suppress opposition to his regime; the London Times reports here. The full dossier--which is horrifying--is available here in PDF format.

Andrew Sullivan notes that the New York Times, which has repeatedly savaged and ridiculed Matt Drudge, is now advertising on the Drudge Report. That's true; they are also advertising on National Review Online. Rather ironic, but if you advertise, I guess you have to go where the readers are.

By the way, Sullivan has also noticed the pathetic response of the Miss World organization to the Muslim riots in Nigeria, which we posted on last week. I think Andrew is a Power Line reader.

Wishful thinking from the Washington Post: "Antiwar Effort Gains Momentum." The "growing" antiwar movement is the subject of this WaPo puff piece, which, however, supplies no evidence that the movement is growing at all. And, while the Post's subtitle breathlessly announces that the "Growing Peace Movement's Ranks Include Some Unlikely Allies," the article itself confirms that the "peace movement" consists of exactly the same tired, old faces that emerge every time armed conflict occurs--the National Council of Churches, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and so on. One new group is the main focus of the article: Mothers Against War. ("I said that all mothers should automatically be against war," the group's founder says. "It was against their nature to be violent instead of nurturing.") This new group, however, turns out to be the same as the old group, as the Post admits that most of its members are "grandmothers in their seventies." What unites these various groups is, as always, their fond memories of VietNam. The military, having less fond memories of VietNam, has taken great care that no subsequent conflict resemble VietNam in any respect. But the "antiwar movement" is still hoping for a return to its glory days.

Mickey Kaus on John Kerry: "The man's an animatronic Lincoln. There's a metal plate in the back of his head -- under all the glued-on 'hair' -- that they open up and stick screwdrivers in when he gets back to his office...." You too can enter MK's "Kerry Mystery Contest": What is it that makes so many people dislike Kerry so intensely? (Courtesy of RealClearPolitics.)

The Onion reports that the work of Harvard's Center For The Graphic Depiction Of The Human Sexual Act has resulted in a breakthrough. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but in the event that you are interested in the full story, click here.

Rocket Man has now posted the "Proud friend of Israel" flag along with the American flag and other identifying tags along our left margin. One reason we are proud to be Israel's friend is that we think the United States has no more unqualifiedly pro-American ally in the world than Israel. On average, it is more pro-American than most American states.

We have therefore frequently addressed the misguided State Department tergiversations regarding Israel's efforts to defend itself from the homicidal mania that it confronts up close every day. Max Boot has an important column this morning that explodes the whole State Department line distinguishing the war against Israel from the war against the United States: "A Single War." Great quote: "If we are ever to defeat [our enemies], we must see them as they see themselves. If we do, we'll realize that the Israeli conflict is not a 'distraction' from the war on terrorism - it is the war on terrorism."

Studies in liberal governance: Related to the shibboleth of "affordable housing"--the subject of D.J. Tice's Pioneer Press column of this past Wedneday--is the whole phenomenon of "homelessness." Saturday the Star Tribune carried a page-one elegy lionizing one of the "homeless" Minneapolitans whose presence contributes daily to the deterioration of the city's life: "Though homeless, metro man left a richness with others."

This morning the New York Post carries an absolutely devastating account by William Tucker documenting the insatiable demand of the "homeless" population for housing that is supplied to meet it and that expands in response to the perverse incentives of New York's social welfare system: "A Homeless Crisis."

The best piece I found in today's Washington Post (George Will's column excepted, of course) is this one by Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It criticizes the State Department's $15 million campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. Satloff's main target is the speakers program. It seems that most of the speakers the State Department is selecting to address the Muslim world either ignore the real issues and offer mere fluff about shared values, or they actually criticize U.S. policy. According to Satloff, "we too often have exported our loudest critics, with an official stamp of approval, rather than dispatching experts who could -- heaven forbid -- present robust explanations of our policies." One suspects that some in the State Department who dispatch the speakers are themselves critics of some of our policies. In any case, Satloff gets it right, I think, when he concludes, "The battle for hearts and minds begins with respect. Our current public diplomacy respects neither the citizenry it claims to represent nor the Arabs and Muslims it is designed to impress. As such, it is doomed to fail. If we change that dynamic, we stand at least a chance of winning this fight."

This Washington Post piece by Ralph Peters, a retired Army analyst argues that Islam's future will be decided on its frontiers, especially in places like Pakistan, India, Indonesia and (yes) Detroit. Peters finds reasons for hope in the populous and expanding frontiers of the Muslim diaspora.

The Washington Post's Jim Hoagland weighs in on the debate over Saudi Arabia. Hoagland concludes that "to survive in the 21st century the Saudi rulers must actively help put the extortionists and terrorists out of business rather than fund and shield them." To that end, "Americans need to be honest with themselves and the Saudis about what has been going on and how it needs to change."

Rumors are circulating that one of the Kenya suicide bombers has been identified as al Qaeda's top operative in Africa. If true, this would have important (and positive) implications. We haven't been able to pin this down yet, but will keep looking for information and will post it if it materializes.

The Straits Times reports that Australian Prime Minister John Howard has provoked controversy in Asia by saying that he would order pre-emptive attacks against terrorists in other countries, if necessary to protect Australia from attack. Howard also indicated that he believes international law should be revised to authorize such pre-emptive attacks: "The body of international law has to catch up with the new reality [of terrorism]." Howard's comments were quickly denounced by Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Since the Sari Club bombing, events in Australia and Indonesia have provided an interesting parallel to post-September 11 events in America.

More on Fox News: Today's New York Times has an interesting and surprisingly favorable piece on Fox News in its Week in Review section: "Fox News moves from the margins to the mainstream."

For Power Line readers in the Twin Cities, the Trunk will be on KSTP radio, AM 1500, in a half hour (1:07 p.m. CST) to talk about his article, "The Silence of the Liberals," which appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press this morning (see our link below). The article is creating a considerable stir locally. The Trunk will also be on Ron Rosenbaum's "Morning Spin" show tomorrow morning during drive time; that is also on AM 1500.

In connection with our deliberations over Fox News, our friend, former Claremonter, and superb Reagan biographer Steve Hayward has suggested that we take into account his piece from last June: "Out-FOXing the Media."

I sense that, as between Rocket Man and Deacon, Mark Steyn probably agrees with Deacon's statesmanship: "Are we serious yet?" I don't know who's right, but it's another column not to be missed.

Rocket Man, I agree that we can't fight the entire Arab world at once. The question of whether we should pretend that a given Arab state is our friend is another matter. In the case of the Saudis, our position should be that they are our friend only to the extent that they assist our side, and only our side, in the war on terrorism. If President Bush has adequately communicated this to the Saudis, and is prepared to act accordingly, then I don't have a problem with his policy towards Saudi Arabia.

As to Islam, I agree that if it improves our security to keep saying that Islam is the religion of peace, then Bush should keep saying it. However, I'm not convinced that making this statement over and over improves our security. It's probably okay to have said some nice things about Islam at the start of the war on terrorism. But I'm concerned that constantly repeating them will be viewed in the Islamic world as a sign of weakness and fear. That seems to me at least as plausible as the notion that repeatedly describing Islam as a religion of peace will help make it so. In addition, something is lost when the American people (the ones who take Bush's statements at face value) are presented with a rosier view of Islam than the facts justify. Since I doubt that, on balance, we are gaining anything from Bush's misleading pronouncements about Islam, I would prefer that he stop making them.

Don't miss Mark Steyn on the euro-Canadian anti-American "psychosis" manifested by the persistent refrain that President Bush is a moron. To fully appreciate the piece, add Glenn Reynolds' gloss from InstaPundit:

"Actually, it's an example of successful propaganda. Recognizing that these folks care more about feeling good about themselves than about actual accomplishments in the real world, Bush has given them a way to do just that, while he occupies himself with, well, the real world. It's brilliant: Everybody's happy. Sure, American dominance over the world continues to grow, but the Euros secretly like that -- it's certainly better than taking responsibility for the world themselves, and it allows the luxury of sounding dire warnings from the sidelines that no one is expected to take seriously or actually act upon. Like any shrewd negotiator, Bush has figured out how to give the other guy what he really wants, while still getting his way."

George Will blasts away at the McCain-Feingold First Amendment Revocation Act. The first legal challenge to the patently unconstitutional "campaign finance reform" statute begins Wednesday in the District of Columbia.

The Washington Post has an interesting post mortem on Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's loss to Bob Ehrlich in the Maryland Governor's race. The article focuses on recriminations among the Democrats; the conflict is principally between those who blame the unpopularity of outgoing Governor Parris Glendening, and those who blame Townsend's campaign manager and, more broadly, her rather inept campaign. There is almost no reference to issues, and no reference at all to the broader context of the election, which left many disapppointed Democrats in its wake. This is, it seems, the most common Democratic response to their recent defeats: We don't need to change, we just need to run better campaigns.

Tyesha Edwards, Minneapolis's 11-year-old murder victim, was buried yesterday. Both the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press carry stories on her funeral, and they are both worth reading. The Star Tribune story is "Tyesha is remembered as call goes out to end the violence" and the Pioneer Press story is "Peace for Tyesha."

In the Star Tribune story Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak suggests that public officials will have more to say regarding the murder in coming days: "After the service, Rybak would say only that the same vigilance that people saw as investigators worked with the community to find Tyesha's killers will continue on a broader scale. 'People will have plenty to say in the days to come,' he said. 'Today is about Tyesha.'"

The Pioneer Press also carries an updated version of our column on the murder of Tyesha Edwards: "Minneapolis has allowed itself to become a haven for gangsters."

Deacon, I think there is a close relationship between the two stories you've just posted on. It seems to me that, viewing the war in a broad context, the Administration is guided by two basic principles: first, we cannot make war on the entire Arab world, let alone the entire Muslim world, simultaneously. If the war becomes Us vs. the Muslims (or the Arabs) it will be immeasurably harder to win. Second, no matter how successful we are in suppressing the immediate terrorist threats, the world cannot have peace in the long term unless Islam is reformed. I think these two principles--both clearly correct, in my opinion--influence everything the Administration does in the war.

I certainly do not believe that Islam is, at present, a religion of peace. On the contrary, I think it has been the source of much violence. But it is important, maybe essential, for our future security that Islam become a religion of peace, like Christianity and Judaism. So when President Bush keeps talking about Islam being peaceful, it is not because he is too dumb to notice that it is not peaceful at present, nor is it because he wants to be our theologian in chief. It is because he recognizes that we must do all we can to encourage the reform of Islam, and toward that end, the official position of our government must be that, in its essence, the Islamic faith is peaceful--even though the "real," peaceful Islam may not yet exist. So, as a matter of descriptive accuracy, I agree that Islam is not now a religion of peace; but as a matter of government policy, I think President Bush is right in taking the position that it is in essence, and must become in practice, a religion of peace.

Likewise, everyone knows that the Saudis are the prime financers of Wahhabism and terrorism; so why continue to pretend that they are our friends? Because we cannot fight the entire Arab world at once. We must prioritize our targets, and begin by destroying those who are most dangerous to us. We must also take the position that various Arab countries are our friends, no matter how suspicious of them we may be. The Saudis pose no independent threat; they support terrorists because they are being blackmailed. Unlike Iraq, they will never use weapons of mass destruction to shelter terrorists. So they can wait. Once al Qaeda has been destroyed and the Iraqi and Iranian regimes have been deposed, what happens in Saudi Arabia will be more or less irrelevant. In all likelihood the Saudi royal family will be overthrown, but either way, events in Saudi Arabia will not compromise our security.

What these two issues have in common is that it is not the job of the President to go around accurately describing the world. That is the job of a pundit. The President's job is to use all the means at his command to pursue objectives that will assure the country's security. If it furthers those objectives to take the position that Islam is a religion of peace, or to assure the Saudis that we value their friendship, so be it.

Here, courtesy of FrontPage Magazine, is a story from World Tribune.com about how the Saudis are still sending tens of millions of dollars to Al Qaeda. According to this article, the CIA has tracked the flow of funds from 12 Saudi businessmen into Al Qaeda and has provided the names to the Saudi government. However, the Kingdom took no action.

The Washington Post seems to take pleasure in reporting that "President Bush finds himself in a rare disagreement with conservatives in his party over his efforts to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that is not responsible for anti-American terrorism." Perhaps we can find a middle ground here. President Bush may have had good reason to make conciliatory statements about Islam in the past. But it seems to me he has made enough of them. Pat Robertson is right -- "Bush is not elected as theologian in chief." Perhaps it is time for him to stop opining on whether, or to what extent, is a peaceful religion. As to the merits of the case, I concur with the comments of Norman Podhoretz that appear at the end of the article.

I did not know until moments ago that Mark Steyn has a website: Steyn Online. Steyn has to be the world's most prolific, and funniest, political commentator. (Minnesota's Unfunny Humorist should take a lesson from him.) Check out Steyn Online.

I spent some time this morning cruising my usual news sources, but it's a pretty slow day. So rather than post on anything in particular, I want to recommend that you read Tim Blair. Tim is one of the best of the bloggers and is one of the leaders of the good fight in Australia. Check him out; he begins today by deconstructing the ravings of an Australian lefty. Funny how hard it is to tell their lefties from ours.

I know what you mean, Trunk. It drives you and I both nuts.

The Weekly Standard out this morning has a fascinating report by Stephen Hayes from the front lines of the Landrieu-Terrell race: "The Battle of New Orleans." The article contains a couple extremely harsh quotes from Terrell and her campaign attacking Landrieu. Hayes asks Terrell about each one, and she sounds remarkably reasonable and undefensive.

With respect to the publicized remark she made, in the course of a televised debate, about Landrieu's abandonment of her faith, for example, Terrell says: "Maybe it's an inappropriate comment. I don't know. But as a practicing Catholic, I just don't understand how she can reconcile being a Catholic with her support for federal funding of abortions on overseas military bases, or with distributing morning-after pills in school."

With respect to a fire-up-the-troops statement by one of her supporters suggesting that the race pitted the "righteous" versus the "wicked," Terrell says: "Well, you know, people have the right to characterize how they see it. There are major differences between Mary and I, big philosophical differences. I think people see things based on their own philosophies and their own view of life. I say what I believe, and even if people disagree with my philosophy, I think the voters know I'll work hard to promote Louisiana and Louisiana values."

My only quarrel with Terrell is her failure to use the objective form of the first-person pronoun, a kind of educated illiteracy that drives me nuts. In all other respects I think God's on her side.

Who the heck is Amir Taheri? All I can tell you is that he is the author of one brilliant column in today's National Post: "France must choose sides." (Another one we would have missed but for our friends at RealClearPolitics.)

The Jerusalem Post's editorial reflection on Thursday's attacks is a model of civilized deliberation: "Two attacks on freedom." (Courtesy of our friends at RealClearPolitics.) It would be piling on to ask you to compare and contrast it with the Star Tribune editorial on Tyesha Edwards' murder, but that is your assignment for today.

Mark Steyn's most recent National Post column coincided with Thanksgiving and we somehow missed it. But we wanted to see what he had to say about Morongate, and he didn't let us down: "All the Liberals have to offer are loose lips." Need I say that it is outstanding? (Thanks to the chairman of the Claremont Institute for the tip.)

Soul music fans of my age are familiar with Johnnie Taylor (not to be confused with Little Johnny Taylor), "the philosopher of soul." He was the artist who sang 1968's chart-topping rhythm-and-blues smash "Who's Making Love." But far and away his biggest success was 1976's across-the-board number one "Disco Lady," the first single ever certified platinum (which at the time meant sales of over two-million copies). (Thanks to the All Music Guide entry on JT for refreshing my recollection.)

Not to be confused with the wonderful Johnnie Taylor (or Little Johnny Taylor) is the convicted mass murderer John Taylor who shot up the Wendy's in New York City. This morning's New York Post carries William Tucker's irrefutable column on the wisdom of putting him to death: "Johnny Taylor should die."

Rocket Man, those of our readers who do not actually read the Star Tribune editorial you write about can have no idea how much pain you endured on their behalf. For myself, I thank you for withstanding the pain necessary both to read and to make sense of what the editorial is saying. I can't get much beyond the editorial's self-parody of liberal nostrums; you make much more sense of it than I could have.

But it is worth our attention. In 500 words the editorial distills the essence of nonsense that has brought Minneapolis to the verge of ruin. The Star Tribune editorial board has deliberated on the murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards and suggests the road to recovery begins with a viewing of "Bowling for Columbine." Amazing!

Many of you have read the Trunk's brilliant column on the recent murder of an 11-year-old girl by Minneapolis gangsters, "The Silence of the Liberals." Tomorrow morning, the Minneapolis Star Tribune weighs in with an editorial on the same topic. The editorial starts relatively well, but predictably veers leftward. In the Strib's view, the gangsters are apparently the real victims:

"But what next? How to prevent some of Tyesha's classmates from turning into those sullen young men standing around street corners with no jobs except selling drugs, with no greater ambition than to shoot guns at rival gangsters in a kind of nihilistic child's play?"

How indeed? The average citizen would no doubt assign law enforcement a prominent role in preventing young men from "shooting guns at rival gangsters." Law enforcement, however, is never mentioned by the Strib. Instead, the newspaper blames Tyesha's murder on......Ronald Reagan. You think I'm kidding?

"Minneapolis citizens, from City Hall to the kitchen table, must resolve that the downward spiral of the 1980's will not resume, that the heroic and successful work of rebuilding Powderhorn and other inner-city neighborhoods will continue."

This verges on the mind-boggling. The murder victim was not even born in the 1980's, and it is not clear what this reference is supposed to mean. In the last twenty years, it would be hard to think of a single Minneapolis politician who been elected without the Star-Trib's endorsement. The city's government has been exclusively in the hands of liberal Democrats throughout that time. City, county, state and federal spending on social programs has increased steadily. So what on earth is the Strib tallking about?

Of course, Minneapolis has experienced a "downward spiral" since the 1980's. The downward spiral has involved a welfare/crime explosion and has been the direct result of Minnesota's decisions to 1) pay far higher welfare benefits than surrounding states, and 2) refrain from punishing criminal activity wherever possible. These decisions have resulted in a rapid influx of welfare recipients and criminals (typically, the boyfriends of welfare recipients)--a fact which every resident of Minneapolis knows, but which the Strib never hints at.

But the Strib isn't quite done. It also suggests that :

"Another constructive step would be to visit the Lagoon Theater in Uptown Minneapolis or the Southdale Center in Edina to see Michael Moore's powerful documentary film 'Bowling for Columbine.' Whether or not you like Moore's slant on politics, and despite his rather loose way of dealing with fact, the film overall is a gripping indictment of the fear and paranoia that produced and sustain America's gun culture."

Even the Strib recognizes that Moore is a liar. But never mind, see his movie anyway. It's against guns. Of course, the gangsters who murdered Tyesha weren't "fearful" or "paranoid." Those terms would describe the law-abiding citizens who cower indoors to avoid the gangs. (That didn't save Tyesha; she was shot inside her own home.) The gangsters are loose and confident, secure in the knowledge that Minneapolis' civic authorities are--if not precisely on their side--certainly not anxious to do anything that would interfere with their fun.

Fortunately, the Minneapolis Police Department--which knows perfectly well who the gangsters are--arrested the murderers before policemen had an opportunity to read the Strib's editorial. Otherwise, they might have been watching "Bowling for Columbine" instead of checking their own arrest warrants, which, coincidentally no doubt, included two of the murderers.

I am delighted to find a column that expresses my own total disdain for the United Nations, not in some crackpot publication, but in the New York Post, an organ that is within shouting distance of the mainstream press. Andrea Peyser's column "How Dare the UN Ask Us For Money" is terrific.

Great quote: "Next month, the 191-nation General Assembly, which held 'debates' - their word - on terror after the 9/11 attacks, will formally approve its request for the [$1.3 billion] loan [to renovate the UN's New York headquarters]. So when the United Nations comes begging, I hope officials, here and in Washington, do the right thing: Dump the United Nations in the river."

I think Fox tilts conservative even in its regular news shows. I don't watch enough news on the liberal networks provide a fully informed comparison between the Fox tilt and that of those networks. My sense is that the "tilt quotient" is about the same, but that the other networks put on a veneer of fake objectivity that Fox is less inclined to bother with. Referring back to Rocket Man's initial observation as to why Gore and Daschle have lashed out at the media, I think an additional motive may be to reduce the influence of Fox. I suspect that, unlike the Washington Times and many of the conservatives on the radio, Fox has a strong following among "swing" voters and moderates. They probably find it more interesting and entertaining than the news on other networks and don't feel it is any more biased. It is important for liberals to overcome that perception, and I suspect they are trying to do so by associating Fox with Limbaugh and the Washington Times.

I think Fox is balanced, but then I'm a conservative. The main people at Fox are conservatives--Brit Hume, Tony Snow, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly (admittedly, more a populist than a conservative). I think Fox tilts subtly to the right, much as CBS tilts to the left due to the fact that pretty much everyone there is a liberal.

Update: This is the Norm Coleman billboard in St. Paul that was defaced Wednesday night. See our post below.

Am I alone in thinking Fox News is actually fair and balanced? I think the distinction between it and the other outlets is that it not only holds itself out as being so, but actually is.

Good theory, Rocket Man. I suppose that, from the standpoint of Time, CBS, and some newspapers., the risk in taking off the gloves is that they will lose readers/viewers. I don't think the liberal base as a whole is interested enough in the news to sustain these media outlets in the style to which they have become accustomed, if they move to the left. They've already gone about as far as they can go. The Washington Post, I think, is an exception, but the Post seems pretty comfortable with where it is, being taken seriously by all of the players here in Washington. As to the networks, there may be room for one of them to move left. When I was more naive, I half expected one of the then-big three networks to start offering objective to mildly right-of-center news because it would have been such an obviously shrewd move. It never happened, and Fox exploited the vacuum. Right now, if one of the networks moved fairly hard left, it might find a niche (although not as cushy as the one Fox has) and could perhaps differentiate itself nicely from the other two networks (actually, for all the attention I pay to network news these days this might already be happening). But the underlying problem for the liberals won't disappear. Their constituents can't really sustain their media heroes. Just ask Phil Donahue. And, in the current war climate, their media heroes have great difficulty appearing heroic.

There has been a lot of head-scratching over what Tom Daschle, Al Gore, Paul Krugman and others have been trying to achieve with their attacks on "right-wing media bias" as exemplified by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the Washington Times. I actually don't think it's too mysterious. For years, Republicans have attacked the obvious liberal bias of the mainstream media, with great success. Organizations like the Media Research Center track and expose the left-wing orientation of the network news shows and other news outlets; writers like Bernard Goldberg have achieved best-seller status with books like Bias; and, most important, lively alternative media have developed to fill the vacuum left by the mainstream newspapers, magazines and television networks, all of which are liberal. First, conservative magazines like National Review and others sprang up. While far smaller in circulation than Time, Newsweek, and so on, they are much sharper in their analysis and have had an impact far beyond their circulation numbers. Next, talk radio developed. Once the medium was liberated by the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, conservatives came to dominate talk radio, which became an essential source of strength for Republican and conservative candidates. This was memorialized in 1994 when the newly-elected Republican House majority gave Rush Limbaugh a present--I think it was a gavel--that said, "Majority Maker." More recently, the internet became another source of conservative strength. With zero barriers to entry, liberal websites and blogs are welcome, but are gratifyingly few in number and popularity. Finally, Fox News came along to challenge the hegemony of the liberal networks; see my post below on Fox's increasing domination of the cable news market.

How does this relate to the attacks by Daschle et al. on "right-wing bias?" Are they trying to intimidate or influence all of these conservative news sources? Of course not. The Democrats understand that their monopoly on the news is gone and isn't coming back. What frustrates them is that "our" news sources are aggressive and openly partisan, while "their" news sources--the mainstream media--are shackled by their pretense of objectivity. It frustrates the Democrats that they don't get full value from their control over networks like CBS, magazines like Time, and newspapers like the Washington Post, because those sources are not as aggressively liberal as Fox News, the Washington Times and Rush Limbaugh are conservative. (There are, of course, aggressively left-wing journals like Nation, but no one reads them.) So I think the Democrats' real purpose here is to encourage "their" media to take the gloves off and become more openly liberal, following the model of the New York Times. If that happens, the Democrats believe their dominant media position will be restored. That's my theory, anyway.

Coincidentally, we blogged on the danger posed by shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons a few days ago. The New York Times has more on this threat. I really don't understand how the terrorists managed to miss the Israeli airliner yesterday, given the reported ease of hitting large, hot, slow-moving commercial airplanes on take-off or landing.

Mark Steyn in Jewish World Review is also less than sanguine about our progress in the war against Islamofascism. Steyn complains, for example, that the war against Iraq "keeps getting deferred, to the point where it's beginning to look like the Bush version of the Soviets' endlessly rolled-over Five Year Plans." He concludes with this wish: "Next, Ramadan, when the traditional calls for a bombing pause are issued, let's hope there's some bombing to pause."

This Jerusalem Post editorial on yesterday's terrorist attacks is an interesting counterpoint to the optimistic piece by Tim Hames in the London Times that Deacon linked to earlier today.

The Washington Post has a good article on the Paradise Hotel bombing, from the perspective of the Kenyans who worked there. Their admiration for the hotel's owner, an Israeli, is touching.

The hate campaign against newly-elected Republican Senator Norm Coleman continues. I have a feeling this could get very ugly; Garrison Keillor may have been only the beginning.

No wonder Al Gore and Tom Daschle are so anxious to bring down Fox News, along with other independent news sources. The latest Nielsen ratings show Fox as the number one prime-time cable network. Fox's prime-time viewership is up 17% over a year ago, while the Democrats' network, CNN, is down 31% and MSNBC is down 43%. Fox now has four of the five top-rated cable news shows, with O'Reilly and Hannity & Colmes ranking first and second.

Diana West of the Washington Times on attempts to describe Thanksgiving "as a time when families get together to celebrate their traditions and their heritage."

Don't miss Frank Schaeffer's "Thanking Our Troops" from the current Frontpage.

City Pages is a Minneapolis-based "alternative weekly" like the Boston Phoenix. A reader has kindly sent us a piece from the current issue on the Star Tribune's Minnesota Poll: "Poll Axed." (The reader, going under the nom de cyber "Lawdog" that he he earned in the Army's JAG Corps, turns out to be my colleague Peter Swanson, whom we thank for the tip.) The piece itself is completely clueless, but it's worth taking a look at to see what Rob Daves, the Minnesota Poll's director, has to say following the election in which his poll seemed to perform particularly poorly.

According to Daves, he did a fine job during the recent election season, including his final pre-election poll that showed Mondale leading Coleman by five points, although Coleman won by three: "Rob Daves, director of the Minnesota Poll, says he thinks his poll was accurate--at least within the 3.2-point margin of error. 'I'm convinced that the polls done late in the election were pretty good. What they showed, taken in total, was an incredibly volatile electorate. And if you've got a volatile environment, then a poll is just a snapshot in time,' says Daves."

The final pre-election Pioneer Press poll conducted by the Mason-Dixon polling organization covered the same period of time as the Minnesota Poll, but showed Coleman leading by six points, a result that was actually within the margin of error compared with the election-day results. The Minnesota Poll results and the Pioneer Press poll results cannot both have been accurate "snapshots," can they? As between the two, the Pioneer Press poll seems to have taken the accurate snapshot. But Daves never finds any ground on which to question his methodology or his results. The guy is impenetrable.

Faithful readers will recall that we tried to blow the whistle on this operation in "The Trouble with Star-Trib Poll."

A Swiss laboratory claims that the audio tape recently aired on Al-Jazeera is not the voice of bin Laden.

As expected, Haaretz reports that Ariel Sharon has won an easy victory against Benjamin Netanyahu in the Likud primary.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian poll says that 76% of Palestinians now support efforts to achieve a cease-fire with Israel. This is not based on newfound moral principles, apparently, as 53% support attacking Israeli civilians and 90% support attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza strip. The pollster interprets the results as indicating that "despite the fact that people still believe the intefadeh has been good, most believe that it is time to return to the peace process...." One is tempted to label this attitude as delusional, but it is worth remembering that if the Labor party were in power, the Palestinians' strategy of killing hundreds of Israelis, and then cashing in through negotiations, would work.

In the conflict between Nigerian Islamofascists and the Miss World pageant, I was naturally prepared to take the side of the pageant. Like Bret Stephens (see Deacon's post below), I have a healthy regard for the "prurient center." So I thought I would check the official Miss World site to see what the pageant has to say about being driven out of Nigeria, and about the hundreds of Christians and others who were murdered by marauding Muslims. To my astonishment, this is how the Miss World pageant responds to those events:

"The Miss World Organisation and all of the Miss World contestants were shocked and deeply saddened by the appalling comments made in the Nigerian Newspaper 'This Day' that led to such a tragic loss of life.

"Miss World brings together young women who are from many faiths.

"The views expressed in this article were offensive to all of us and caused considerable anguish, for all the Miss World contestants, crew and staff. Our deepest sympathies are extended to all those people who have been affected."

Affected, apparently by the "offensive" article, not by bloodthirsty rioters. All blame is assigned to the "This Day" reporter, who is now missing and whose fate is unknown. (The Muslim government of the state where the rioting took place called for her murder.) The Miss World people make Quisling look like a hero by comparison.

A couple days ago I tried to express my indebtedness to the Claremont Institute and my appreciation for its outstanding flagship publication, the Claremont Review of Books. I also posted my favorite review from the current issue that is available online (I understand the new issue is in the mail), Steve Hayward's review of the third volume of Robert Caro's gargantuan biography of LBJ, The Master of the Senate. Steve himself is the author of The Age of Reagan, the audacious life and times of the Gipper that will do for Reagan and conservatives what Schlesinger did for Roosevelt and liberals with The Age of Roosevelt. The first volume of Steve's projected two volumes came out in September 2001, and got a little lost in the news at the time, but the book is terrific and will be around for a long time. I mention Steve's book because in it he traces "the collapse of the old liberal order" to LBJ and the Great Society. Hayward on Caro is the review I wanted to read, and the Claremont Review delivered it.

I heard on the news this morning that The Master of the Senate has been awarded the National Book Award (or whatever it's called now) for nonfiction this year. So once more once, Hayward on Caro: "The Making of LBJ."

Here's the Fox News report on Al Gore's attack on the media that I mentioned late last night. It's worse than I thought. Gore says there's a conservative "fifth column" within the journalistic ranks, similar to the subversive journalists in the 1950s who injected pro-Communist reporting into the mainstream media. Anti-communism is always welcome, even if it comes decades late from Al Gore. But what foreign interests, I wonder, does Gore think Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are promoting? Limbaugh has this exactly right when he says, "[the liberals and the Democrats] had a free run for all those years with the mainstream press. . . and those days are over." No wonder Gore and Daschle seem to be suffering a meltdown.

Good posts from Nugent and Greenberg, Trunk. Both have made their contributions to our bounty, Nugent with songs like "Cat Scratch Fever" (I hope my memory is serving me well on this one) and Greenberg with his early warnings from Arkansas about "Slick Willie." Here is a more pedestrian, but still worthwhile, piece on what we have to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. It's from Donald Lambro of the Washington Times, who is thankful that "Al Qaeda terrorists are being killed or captured in growing numbers, the economy seems to be stabilizing, the bulls are back on Wall Street, and Congress is away for the rest of the year."

Two more terrific Thanksgiving columns to gild Ms. Kathryn's lovely lilly below: "America Rocks,"by Ted Nugent, for which we thank OpinionJournal, and "It's time to stop, look around and count our blessings," by Paul Greenberg, for which we thank the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Bret Stephens of the Jerusalem Post delivers this critique of postmodern feminism in the form of an update on the Miss World beauty pageant. After the violence in Nigeria, the pageant moved to London. Feminists there were appalled. They concurred with the Muslim clerics who saw the pageant as "commercial sex trading." They even found logic in the slogan used by many Muslim rioters, "Down with Beauty." Observing all of this, Stephens wonders "if bikinis are repressive, what then is liberating? One answer, of course, is modesty both in dress and manner, long the approach of Orthodox Jewish women and now enjoying something of a culture vogue in the U.S. A better answer -- something you'd think the feminist politburo would have thought of already -- is choice itself: the choice to wear bikinis, or burkas, or something in between." Stephens concludes that it is the rejection of choice that the feminist and Muslim critiques of beauty pageants have in common. Then Stephens gives us this gem of a line: "Between the extremes of antediluvian Islam and postmodern feminism, it's a good thing the prurient center holds."

Happy Thanksgiving to all from the Power Line crew.

On September 11 of this year, my six-year-old daughter watched a television program commemorating the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks. It seemed to be largely about the Religion of Peace, and she found it unsatisfactory. She said, "They should have used my Pledge of Allegiance book," and disappeared into her room for a while. When she returned, she had painted an American flag. Here it is; I thought it symbolizes pretty well what we at Power Line are thankful for this year: our country, our children, and our ability to raise our children in freedom.

Another terrorist outrage in Israel: Three gunmen opened fire on a Likud Party office in Beit Shean; the office was crowded with Israelis who were voting in the Likud primary, and four were killed. A witness described the scene: "I opened the window and I simply saw the terrorist standing, smiling, laughing and shooting in all directions....People were fleeing and falling."

The beautiful Michelle Malkin, an incandescent conservative who has said nice things about Power Line, offers a prayer for Thanksgiving. Michelle shares our taste in music:

"O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, we thank you this day for 'Proud to Be an American' and 'These Colors Don't Run,' for 'Let Freedom Ring' and 'Of Thee I Sing,' for 'Every Heart Beats True' and for 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.'

And in military units:

"For Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars, for Green Berets and Gold Stripes, for the 10th Mountain Division and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, for the KC-130 Crew and the 101st Airborne Division, for the soldiers and SEALS and special forces who made the ultimate sacrifice this year, and for all who continue to protect and to serve, we give thee praise."

We're thankful for people like Michelle Malkin, who fight passionately and uncompromisingly for freedom and justice.

David Horowitz's online magazine FrontPage has picked up our latest column: "The Silence of the Liberals." The Claremont Institute published and distributed the piece for us yesterday, and the folks at FrontPage must have thought highly enough of it to pick it up for their own publication. We are proud of the piece and hope you find it of interest. The piece is scheduled to appear in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Sunday, and we will post it one more time when it appears in the Pioneer Press.

We should add that we are a little late in expressing our gratitude to the Claremont Institute's invaluable Glenn Ellmers for editing the piece, and for our friend and Claremont Institute chairman Bruce Sanborn in expressing his enthusiastic support for our written work. But today is Thanksgiving, and we owe them our thanks.

While the New York Times reports the commencement of weapons inspections by the UN team in Iraq with a straight face, I think the New York Post gets a little closer to the mark in "UN Weapons Hunt Farce." For comparative purposes, the Times story is "Unhindered by Iraq Officials, Arms Inspectors Visit 3 Sites."

The latest al-Qaeda attacks targeted an Israeli-owned hotel and airliner in Kenya, the latter through the use of what must have been some kind of missile or rocket propelled grenade. The best accounts of the attacks at this time are in the Jerusalem Post: "Three Israelis among eight killed in twin Kenya terror attacks." The Post happened to have reporter Kelly Hartog on the scene, and she filed her own first-hand report: "'Post' editor's firsthand report of carnage at Kenyan beach hotel." The Post also has a separate story on the attack on the plane: "Arkia passenger: We heard an explosion on the left side of the plane."

Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows a thing or two about terrorism, and the Post has a separate article with his reaction: "Netanyahu: attacks are grave escalation of terror against Israel."

The Post's most recent updates report that two suspects have been apprehended: "Kenyan police arrest two suspects in connection with Mombasa bombing," and "Two of three attackers identified as an Egyptian, and a Kenyan Muslim."

I've just heard on Fox News that Al Gore has alleged the existence of a vast right-wing media conspiracy. The epicenter, apparently, is Republcan National Committee headquarters, where conservative talking points are developed. The Washington Times, Fox News, and influential talk show hosts then dutifully repeat the talking points. Next, I suppose, the bloggers chime in. But the best part is Gore's claim that all of this is the product of "post-modernism" and its hand-maids "narcissism" and "nihilism." Gore has promised to explain this intriguing claim in a future interview, presumably after whoever fed him this line has briefed him more fully. For a better understanding of the concepts he is tossing around, Gore could read my FrontPage Magazine piece, in which I argue that Clinton and Gore are both post-modernists, although Clinton is by far the superior one. In fact, Gore's latest bit of whining, though post-modern in a way, falls far short of what one would expect from Clinton (Mrs. Clinton is another matter). Stripped of its pseudo-intellectual content, it sounds a lot like another bitter politician's lament to the media, "You won't have Nixon to kick around."

I confess that I have not yet read Al Gore's new book, Joined at the Heart. Of course, I'm not alone. Al and Tipper's study of American family life currently ranks #1,018 on Amazon's bestseller list. And I have to suspect that most of those sales are institutional--gray-haired librarians in birkenstocks ordering copies for high school kids, and so on. It's hard to imagine a lot of actual people buying this book and reading it. Despite the Gores' massive media push and whatever institutional sales they can muster, it is heartwarming to see their book languishing far behind G. Gordon Liddy's When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country, #95, and of course Bob Woodward's Bush at War, #2. It is also fun to read the Amazon reviewers' comments on Joined at the Heart: "Poor Al, another blockbuster fizzled. I hope this guy can find employment somewhere." And: "Absolute nonsense! I tried very hard to finish this book but it was impossible! It would surely be a violation of the Geneva Convention to require anyone to read it." Most revealing, however, is Amazon's listing of other books bought by the people who purchased Gore's latest. This list is interesting because it is computer-generated rather than subjective. The books most commonly purchased by buyers, in addition to Woodward's book about the war, were Paul Begala's It's Still the Economy, Stupid: George W. Bush, the GOP's CEO; The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, by Joe Klein; Vincent Bugliosi's The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose our President; and Jews for Buchanan: Did You Hear the One About the Theft of the American Presidency?, by John Nichols. In other words, the only people who actually shell out money for Al Gore's book are embittered, hate-filled, over-the-top, partisan Democrats. This doesn't bode well for Gore's effort at reincarnation.

Victor Davis Hanson on the latest conceit of the European eilites -- America as "hyperpower" and President Bush as Caesar. Hanson notes that ours is "a funny sort of empire." We haven't annexed anyone's soil since the Spanish-American War. When we have overthrown the likes of Noriega, Milosevic, and Mullah Omar, we have replaced them not with legates or local client kings, but with elected leaders. And, "instead of the much-rumored pipeline we supposedly coveted in Afghanistan, we are paying tens of millions to build roads and bridges so that Afghan truckers and traders won't break their axles." This article makes it clear that the criticism we are hearing from Europe is not friendly, or even rational. It is, in Hanson's words, the product of jealousy and envy on the part of "post-heroic and bored elites." As such, it should be ignored, as should the institution that does the bidding of these jealous and envious elites, namely the United Nations.

Ann Coulter contemplates the Religion of Peace: "Beauty Pageants Can Be Murder."

Michael Kelly's weekly column today also merits your attention: "Giving thanks for the truth." Kelly recounts a telling anecdote deriving from his lunch with a vacuous Clinton administration foreign policy official who sounds like Sandy Berger but obviously could have been many others. (Courtesy of our friends at RealClearPolitics.)

Mark Steyn's latest is a romp through James Bond movies that never were but should have been: "The Spies that Bond us."

Speaking of Saddam Hussein, Debka File reports that Saddam is negotiating with Osama bin Laden to join Osama in the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula in the event of war. Skeptics question whether Saddam is still capable of living in a tent and riding a camel. I have gone back and forth on the reliability of Debka File during the last year, but right now, they're looking very good. Their analyses and predictions have been turning out well in recent months. So I am inclined to take this report seriously.

The London Times, citing an Arabic-language London newspaper, quotes an unidentified but "senior Iraqi official" to the effect that Iraq has used chemical weapons on several occasions, and will use them again in the current crisis if hard-pressed. This contradicts the heretofore official Iraqi position that it possesses no such weapons. My sense is that after more than twenty years of rule by the psychopathic Saddam Hussein, there are no normal, competent people left in the upper reaches of the Iraqi government. How could there be? So contradictions of this kind will abound until Saddam is finally overthrown. Hopefully soon.

No, Deacon, you're not. I read Rawls' Theory of Justice many years ago, but as I recall his theoretical construct, it was infinitely malleable. The conclusions he deduced from it depended entirely on his empirical assumptions. When he wrote his book, circa 1970, one could argue--as he did--that socialism or a liberal welfare state offered the best prospects for at least some members of any society. Thirty years of experience have dispelled that illusion. We know now that liberalism allows the rogues among us--Bill Clinton, Terry McAuliffe, whoever--to prosper, but its consequences for the most vulnerable are catastrophic. See our posts below about the eleven-year-old Minneapolis girl killed in the crossfire of rival gangs.

D.J. Tice's St. Paul Pioneer Press column seriously examines one of the reigning shibboleths of local politics and the welfare state: "affordable housing." His column is "It's not a housing shortage--it's an income shortage." Extending the theme that Doug touces on here, I wish some public official would advise folks who cannot afford to support a family not to get married or have kids. I hear that in the old days that was the rule of thumb and that such advice was unnecessary.

The Star Tribune's latest report on the murder of Tyesha Edwards identifies the three suspects and their gang affiliations: "Three charged with killing 11-year-old in Minneapolis."

Earlier today, Trunk discussed Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a book that was all the rage during his college days. In 1971, when Rocket Man and I were the pride of Dartmouth's philosophy department, a very different book was causing a stir. It was John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. Rawls died on Sunday, and the eminent University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein filed this appreciation with National Review Online. As I recall, the leading members of the Dartmouth philosophy department had reservations about Rawls' book, but those who knew the man had the greatest respect for him. This is about where Epstein comes down too. But he finds much more merit in the book than one would expect a conservative like Epstein to discern in a work that defends the welfare state and supports the redistribution of income. Epstein argues that Rawls' theoretical construct (the notion of impartiality, whereby the political philosopher must view matters as a disembodied spirit who has equal care and concern for the welfare of all individuals) actually supplies a strong intellectual foundation for a classical liberalism (as opposed to the modern welfare state version), with strong property rights and limited government. I'm not qualified to opine with much authority on Epstein's thesis. But it does strike me that what Epstein says of Rawls is true of much of modern philsophy. Often, the leading lights adopt, develop, or refine a particular approach (pragmatism, utiltarianism, or whatever) and develop a plausible construct for propounding theories of justice, morality, knowledge, etc. They then seem to pour their political prejudices into their construct and end up with some sort of trendy liberal/radical prescription. One thinks especially of the leading modern pragmatist, Richard Rorty. Am I being too cynical in thinking that the philosophy usually ends up being window dressing for the politics?

Rocket Man, I wouldn't know where to start in interpreting this AP report and what might be behind it. As far as who is "moderate," that's always in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. Which, of course, is why it's better for news agencies not to dole out this "accolade." In any event, I think the most objective analysis of Israeli politics right now would have to deem Sharon the moderate. He takes a tough line on terrorism, but says he conditionally supports the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. Thus, he stands between the Labor Party, whose leaders want to start making new concessions to Arafat even as the terror continues, and Netanyahu, who claims he will expel Arafat and never agree to a Palestinian state.

The Associated Press reports that Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's PLO deputy, has released a transcript of a meeting he had last month with Fatah members. Abbas is quoted as saying that the last two years of attacks on Israel have been a mistake: "What happened in these two years, as we see it now, is a complete destruction of everything we built."

The Associated Press, like Reuters, constantly imbues its purportedly factual reporting with a liberal perspective. If you read to near the end of this article, you will see that the AP describes Likud's competition in the upcoming election as "the moderate Labor Party." From a purely neutral and factual perspective, it would be more accurate to refer to "the deeply deluded Labor Party." Suffice it to say that you won't be reading about "the moderate Likud Party" in the AP's news reports.

Real Clear Politics has the latest polls on the Terrell/Landrieu race. They are all over the map, and it is not clear that any of them are especially reliable. I continue to think that Terrell will win; her main risk was that voters would size her up as a lightweight, and that doesn't seem to have happened. Also, as of November 17, campaign finance disclosures indicated that Terrell had twice as much money in the bank as Landrieu--a surprising position for a challenger to be in. If the race is close, President Bush's visit on Tuesday should put Terrell over the top.

The Claremont Institute has published our column on the murder of Tyesha Edwards in Minneapolis this past Friday, "The Silence of the Liberals." If you have had any interest in our previous posts on this subject, please take a look and let us know what you think.

This piece from the excellent Tony Blankley in the Washington Times is called "Nix Blix." The article isn't really about the Swedish diplomat per se. Rather, it's about how, in this dangerous world, we need to "get about the business of killing our enemies." In this regard, though, Blankley finds Blix to be a "lethally foolish little man." According to Blankley, "the problem is not that [Blix] is not a premier member of world's diplomatic corps -- it's that he is." Blankley is confident that President Bush will ignore "fretting diplomats" like Blix and he takes the occasion of the coming holiday to be thankful for Mr. Bush. We can also be thankful for journalists like Tony Blankley.

Calev Ben-David in the Jerusalem Post on how most Israeli's have "learned to stop worrying and love Ariel Sharon." As Ben-David notes, Sharon, once the biggest risk-taker in Israeli politics is now correctly perceived as the most reassuring figure on the political landscape. Sort of like that "ignorant cowboy" George W. Bush.

The great Hugh Hewitt has again done us the unbelievable kindness of linking to us in his new WorldNetDaily column: "My name is Hugh, and I'm a talk-show host..." Hugh's readers and listeners (like us) are a fantastically loyal bunch; we can see the referrals rolling in to our site already this morning. We are deeply grateful to Hugh for his support. In real life, as on his show, he is a remarkably generous man, not quite like anyone we have ever met before in his position.

Deacon's brilliant "The Cheating Heart of the Democratic Party" is still available under the "Recent Articles" posted on FrontPage. Deacon, I think they like your piece; it is listed second right after yesterday's symposium that you wrote about. The column's pride of place among the featured pieces has been taken by another brilliant piece, Professor Steven Plaut's "When a 'terrorist' is a 'militant' and why."

Here's the Star Tribune's full story on yesterday's arrest of the suspects in the murder of 12-year-old Tyesha Edwards: "Several people arrested in killing of Tyesha Edwards." The Minneapolis police seem to be familiar with the friends of the suspects: "The shooting of Tyesha involved the Rolling 30s Bloods and Family Mob gangs, whose members are mostly concentrated in south Minneapolis, authorities said."

This morning the Star Tribune editorial page brings us DFL consultant Randy Schubring on Senator Wellstone. Schubring is inspired by the fact that on the day before he died Senator Wellstone recommended James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men to a reporter covering him: "A final assignment from Prof. Wellstone." Talk about a time warp! We are now entering Mister Peabody's famous "wayback machine" from the incomparable "Rocky and Bullwinkle" show of our youth.

On this trip back to our youth with Mister Peabody and his pet boy Sherman, the Power Line trio recalls the iconic sixties paperback version of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as one of the accessories we displayed prominently in our college room to exhibit our deep soulfulness, especially to visiting members of the opposite sex. We seem to recall that Agee idealized the poor Southerners he covered on assignment from Fortune, bathing them in poetic prose that was the perfect accompaniment to Walker Evans' hagiographic photographs. In Agee's prose, those poor people somehow never got around to rendering their views on social issues where they may have departed from the views of Manhattan liberals, and in Evans' photogaphs, those were the cleanest poor people in the history of the world. I give Evans' photographs the edge in realism, but Schubring's view of the book has made him weepy again about Senator Wellstone. It's made me weepy about my lost youth.

More on Minnesota's Angry Humorist: The Star Tribune is only a couple weeks late joining the fun, but this morning they let Gary Larson, one of the unfunny one's University of Minnesota classmates, observe that the unfunny one has gone off the deep end, seething with hatred of us Lake Wobegoners who made him rich: "Tantrum shows disain for Minnesotans." Larson notes that the unfunny one will be 72 when Senator-elect Coleman completes his second term.

FrontPage Magazine's symposium on Europe is well worth reading. The issue is whether there is a coming "clash of civilizations" between America and Europe. For what it's worth my take on this is as follows: (1) there is no impending clash in the strong sense -- intense mutual hatred, warfare or the constant threat of warfare, etc. but (2) a major rift is developing and it will get worse if America remains true to its values. The rift is the result of a European project that is socialist and internationalist in character. It is the internationalist quality that is problematic. If Europe wants to be socialist, that's bad news for Euopeans but no major concern of ours. But, perhaps sensing that a pacifist/socialist Europe cannot effectively compete with the U.S., the Europeans want to dictate to us on issues ranging from air pollution control to the death penalty. Most of all they want to constrain our military power and they want us to submit to their version of international law. If we resist this package (and it is far from clear that we will -- we probably won't if the Democrats obtain control), then the rift will grow and, though not amounting to a clash of civilizations, will be quite significant. It should not, however, impede our efforts in the real clash of civilizations -- the one with the Islamofascists. The Europeans will have plenty of incentive to cooperate in exchanging intelligence and (as long as we retain control of our own foreign policy) we will be able to do the real fighting with or without the Europeans. Our key allies in the fighting will be non-western European nations. And the key battleground in our rivalry with the old western Europe will be the new eastern Europe. In the short term, we should at least hold our own in the struggle for those "hearts and minds" (see the photos that Rocket Man posted this weekend of President Bush's trip to Eastern Europe). In the long run, Europe has the advantage if it can make its socialist project succeed. But in the long run, it is doubtful that this project will succeed. As most of the FrontPage symposium members agree, the EU process will be a bumpy one, and even if it goes smoothly the resulting bloated socialist monolith is unlikely to deliver well enough to sustain itself over the long haul.

In the second year of its return to life, the Claremont Review of Books has become my favorite periodical publication, period. The Review is published by the Claremont Institute and shares the central aim of the Institute--the restoration of the founding principles of the United States to their rightful place in our public life. (Our friend and faithful reader Bruce Sanborn is the chairman of the Institute.) As a publication, the Review aims to play roughly the same role for the conservative movement today that the New Republic did for the progressive movement in the early twentieth century. The Review is edited by Professor Charles Kesler, preeminent professor of political science of the younger generation of philosphically oriented scholars. Charles teaches at Clarmont McKenna College and is a fellow of the Institute.

Much of the Review's fall issue is now available online at the Web site of the Claremont Institute. One of my favorite pieces in the issue is the estimable Steve Hayward's review of Robert Caro's current installment of his LBJ biography: "The Making of LBJ."

Minnesota Republican Governor-elect Tim Pawlenty has named a 16-person transition team full of friends of ours. The St. Paul Pioneer Press account is particularly astute: "Pawlenty fills transition team with moderate, conservative Republicans." The article notes the connections of several of the transition team members to Minneapolis's conservative think tank, the Center of the Amerian Experiment. Rocket Man is the immediate past chairman of the Center; both he and I are current members of its board. Mike Wigley, a member of the transition team who is a Center board member with us and who is also a member of the board of the Minnesota Taxpayers League, is simply a ferocious, take-no-prisoners conservative stalwart and advocate of limited government. He is only one of the sixteen, but on average, and despite the tenor of the Pioneer Press account, this is a very conservative transition team. May it be an omen!

More on the Wellstone death rally: The St. Paul Pioneer Press carries the AP's interesting retrospective on the Wellstone death rally: "Wellstone memorial was political theater almost from the start."

We are delighted to report that the Minneapolis police have made arrests in connection with the murder of 12-year-old Tyesha Edwards. The Star Tribune has posted its account as "Police make arrests in Tyesha Edwards shooting." We have written a column prompted by the Edwards murder that is critical of the mayor, the chief of police, the Democrats who have ruled Minneapolis for the past 20 years, and the Star Tribune, all of whom have remained silent as gangs have taken over poor Minneapolis neighborhoods such as the one in which Tyesha Edwards lived. At this moment, however, we offer the Minneapolis police our thanks for their dogged legwork in tracking the suspects down and our sincere congratulations for what appears to be the prompt apprehension of the individuals involved.

In addition, there is this Washington Times editorial on the Louisiana Senate race. The Times makes the essential point that Mary Landrieu's voting record is not that of the "independent voice for Louisiana" she claims to be. Unlike her colleague Senator Breaux, Landrieu consistently votes with Tom Daschle and against President Bush. And, though she is certainly independent of the president, she is quite dependent on the trial lawyers, and they in turn can depend on her. It is the job of Landrieu's opponent, Susan Terrell, to expose Landrieu's liberal record to the voters of Louisiana. Terrell seems to be doing an effective job of this. In doing so, she opens herself up to charges of "negativity." But that is a price well worth paying, given the dynamics of this race.

In contrast to the Post, the Washngton Time's editorial section is, as usual, full of valuable material. For example, here is Frank Gaffney's fine piece about Saudi Arabia. As Gaffney explains, whatever was the case with the Saudi ambassador's wife, there is simply too much Saudi money being funneled into the Islamofascist cause. Gaffney cites the following ominous enterprises that benefit from Saudi largesse: prison recruitment programs aimed at transforming American felons into radical Islamists; recruitment of Wahhabist chaplains into the U.S. military; Wahhabi indoctrination efforts on more than 500 college campuses; and the pursuit of a virulently anti-American agenda in U.S. mosques. As Gaffney concludes, "with friends like Saudi Arabia, who needs enemies?"

There's not much of value in the Washington Post's editorial section today, although Trunk and Rocket Man may want to take a shot at this latest attempt to wage class warfare by our pet target E.J. Dionne. And the letters section contains this from Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League about Egyptian television's anti-semitic blockbuster. The Egyptian Ambassador apparently has claimed that the show contains only a few anti-semitic references. Foxman refutes this rather lame defense.

I know I should be happy today, what with FrontPage publishing my piece (thanks for all your help, Trunk). However, it's hard to stay upbeat after reading Amir Taheri's piece for National Review Online about French anti-Americanism. The depressing thing is not the anti-Americansim, it's the fact that we have permitted a knee jerk anti-American nation to influence our approach to Iraq. In the past, I have suggested that France is to the war on Islamofascism as India was to the Cold War -- a sanctimonius irrelevancy. It's time to recognize that fact and take away France's seat at the table.

David Horowitz's terrific online magazine FrontPage features a brilliant column by our own Deacon--"The Cheating Heart of the Democratic Party." It is this morning's must-read column, although it appears on FrontPage in impressive company including columns by Daniel Pipes and Ronald Radosh as well as a symposium with Angelo Codevilla, Radek Sikorski and Joel Mowbray. Great quote: "[K]ey Democratic leaders now regard issues and rules not as serious things in themselves, but as playthings to be manipulated almost without limit for political purposes. It is not so much that the Democrats try to hide the ball; most politicians do that. Rather, for the likes of Clinton and Gore, it is not clear that there is any ball to hide."

The appropriate soundtrack with which to read Deacon's column is of course the Ray Charles crossover smash of Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart." Great line: "Your cheatin' heart will tell on you."

William Safire on the contest between Sharon and Netanyahu for leadership in the Likud Party. The winner of that contest will almost surely win the general election in January and lead Israel for the next few years. Safire clearly likes both but prefers Sharon. I'm inclined to agree. I like Netanyahu's harder line, but trust Sharon more. Keep in mind that Natanyahu wasn't such a hard-liner when he was in power. By all accounts, Sharon is well ahead. Here, the Washington Post reports that Netanyahu is trying to close the gap by comparing Israel's death rate from terrorism during his years in power with the rate under Sharon. This strikes me as a fairly misleading comparison for the reasons stated in the article.

After a not very glorious first two years, the Administration seizes the free-trade high ground with a dramatic proposal for all WTO countries to eliminate tariffs on manufactured goods by the year 2015. Can they pull it off? I don't know, but no one is doing very well betting against President Bush these days.

Late last night I saw what must have been the second debate between Landrieu and Terrell (it's not the case that someone from Power Line is always awake; it just seems that way). I must say that I thought Landrieu did well in that debate. She is more telegenic than Terrell and is a more confident speaker. Terrell comes across as far more negative, but I suppose that's normal in her role as the challenger. It certainly doesn't bother me and I have no idea of how it's playing in Louisiana -- it probably depends on whether Landrieu is well-liked. I think she's reasonably popular, that it is President Bush who's making Terrell a viable challenger. In that case, there may be a downside in going too negative. On the issues, neither one was blowing the other away, as far as I could tell. On the plus side for Terrell, she held her own and certainly did not appear to be in over her head. She also made what I thought was the most telling point of the debate when she said that Landrieu's voting record (measured on some unspecified percentage scale of liberalness) was much closer to Kennedy's than to Breaux's. If that's the one thing voters remember from the debate, and it could be, then Terrell will be in good shape. Landrieu seems to have distilled her message into the following: I will often side with Bush on particular issues, but I'm not going back to Washington to support Bush; I'm going back to be an independent voice for Louisiana. In this way, Landrieu gives voters a reason to vote for her instead of Terrell without appearing to be liberal or hostile to the president. Assuming that voters overlook Landrieu's apparently liberal voting record, the success of this message probably depends on just how popular Bush is in Louisiana. He's obviously popular, and if he's popular enough, Landrieu's message may defeat her.

Mark Steyn's latest is "A bombing pause--for 12 months?"

Michael Ledeen describes the "potentially earth-shaking events in Iran" over the last week. Ledeen notes that "Last Friday something like half a million Iranian citizens took to the streets to demonstrate their disgust with the regime of the Islamic Republic....Contrary to what little you have been able to read in the popular press, these demonstrations were not limited to Tehran, but spread all over the country, with amazing results." Ledeen thinks the Mullahs' regime may be close to collapse, and is impatient with the Administration for not doing more to help liberate the Iranian people. I agree with Ledeen that events in Iran are promising, and to some degree I share his impatience. But, while there are obviously good reasons to go after not only Iran, but also Saudi Arabia, North Korea and other states, I think the Administration is right to knock them off one at a time. The alternative, I guess, would be to launch an across-the-board assault on the Arab world, together with other non-Arab terrorist sponsors. This seems like a poor idea. While impatience is understandable, I see no reason to assume that the Administration is indifferent to events in Iran or anywhere else.

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria on "why it's now or never with Iraq." Zakaria shows just how bad the U.N. resolution is. It is not enough to go to war, under the resolution, if Saddam Hussein makes a false or incomplete declaration regarding his weapons of mass destruction. Iraq must also fail to "comply and cooperate" in the inspection process through which the U.N. tries (but maybe not that hard) to find the weapons about which Saddam will have lied. So if Iraq does well enough in the cat and mouse game established by Colin Powell and the U.N., our standing to protect our national security interests will be compromised. Even if President Bush is able to make things come out right in the end, it is most discouraging that we have enlisted in the process Zakaria describes.

The Terrell/Landrieu race is heating up; today's Times-Picauyne story, reporting on the candidates' latest debate, is headlined: "Latest Debate Smacks of Brawl as Landrieu, Terrell Go On Attack." They're not kidding: Terrell's introductory statement blasted Landrieu as ineffective and accused her of voting with Ted Kennedy. Landrieu countered by expressing outrage at Terrell ads attacking Landrieu for buying a mansion in Washington, saying--in what seems to be a non sequitur--"I can't believe the negative campaign she has run about a working mother trying to be with her children when she is a mother herself." Terrell concluded with these comments on abortion: "I'm 100 percent pro-life. As a practicing Catholic, I did not leave my faith, as did Mary Landrieu." The Times-Picayune reports that Landrieu appeared "stunned." Well, one good thing is we shouldn't hear any more from feminists about how politics wouldn't be so nasty if there were more women involved.

Roll Call reports that Democratic Kentucky Congressman Ken Lucas is talking to Dennis Hastert and other Republicans about switching parties.

Jules Witcover of the Baltimore Sun covered politics during Nixon's pre-presidential days. He finds similarities and differences between the Nixon of that time and the Al Gore of today. Witcover's theme is one that I mentioned briefly when I first compared the two -- the post 1960 Nixon was cautous and highly disciplined, whereas Gore claims he is going to throw caution to the wind. I don't actually believe Gore will do any such thing, but I also doubt that he is capable of the kind of self-discipline Nixon was able to exercise.

This, folks, might ruin your day. A writer in Salon (via FrontPage Magazine) details the threat posed by shoulder-fired infrared-guided missiles, which can easily shoot down American commercial airliners. I had been vaguely aware of this threat, but had not realized that since the 1970's, shoulder-fired missiles have already hit at least 42 civilian aircraft in various countries. Some possible defenses exist, but at present, American civilian airliners are completely defenseless. The FBI has been warning against this danger since last May. According to this report, a recent CIA intelligence briefing advised top military and Administration officials "that terrorists have likely smuggled shoulder-launched missiles into the United States in recent months."

Studies in liberal governance: This morning's Star Tribune carries another story on the murder of 12-year-old Tyesha Edwards. The mayor feels the family's pain: "Mayor consoles Tyesha's family as police seek clues."

Oops. Now lawyers for September 11 victims are alleging that Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi Ambassador, had at apartment in Washington, D.C. which was occupied in 1997 by one Mansour Majid. Majid then allegedly moved to Dearborn, Michigan, where he roomed with three men who were convicted of terrorist activity last August. They may have been part of a sleeper cell. Now, it is possible that Majid was a police informant rather than a terrorist sympathizer. It is also likely that his connection with the Princess was coincidental. Actually, I suspect that a high percentage of Saudi nationals living in the U.S. could be shown to have this kind of indirect connection to terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. It probably doesn't take six degrees of separation to get from a Saudi princess to al Qaeda. Whether this is a vindication or an indictment of the Saudis, you can judge.

Yesterday's Los Angles Times carried Professor Shlomo Avineri's "A Haunting Echo." Professor Avineri is a renowned teacher of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I received a copy of his piece by e-mail via Laurie Mylroie's Iraq Newsletter. I am unable to link to the piece and am therefore taking the liberty of pasting it in below:

JERUSALEM -- Let me start on a personal note: Three of my grandparents perished during the Holocaust in Poland. This is why I find it an unspeakable obscenity that my three grandchildren, who live in Jerusalem, may one day be exposed to gas attacks by Iraq -- they have already been issued gas masks. I am not alone among Israelis in having such feelings.

Together with strategic considerations, thoughts like mine are ever present as Israelis contemplate the complex prospect of a U.S.-led military strike against Iraq.

During the Gulf War of 1991, Israel experienced 39 missile attacks by Iraq. So it's not surprising that today, most Israelis are deeply ambivalent about the prospects of military action against Saddam Hussein. On the one hand, they feel deeply threatened by Iraq and its development of nonconventional weapons. The elimination of a bloody and aggressive dictator like Hussein from the neighborhood would make Israel more secure, and so there is an almost unanimous support in Israel for toppling him, by force if necessary.

On the other hand, Israel knows that if a military campaign is undertaken, Hussein may respond, once again, by launching missile attacks against the Jewish state.

Israelis understand the reluctance to go to war; it should always be the last resort. There is sympathy here for a Europe which, devastated twice by wars in the last century, prefers negotiations to force. Even German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's stated refusal to join a United Nations-sanctioned action against Iraq is, paradoxically, understood by many Israelis. They may criticize the political wisdom of such a stance, but they also believe a pacifist Germany is better than a belligerent one.

Ultimately, though, Israelis cannot forget what happened when a brutal and megalomaniacal dictator was ignored for too long during the last century. Hussein is obviously not Hitler, but there are some haunting parallels that cannot be overlooked. European appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s is today viewed almost universally as a strategic mistake and a morally bankrupt act.

Perhaps we should examine the lessons.

Imagine Europe in 1936. Nazi Germany had not yet attacked any country, but Hitler had:

* violated the Versailles Treaty, which limited Germany's military capabilities, and started rearming on a massive scale;

* publicly committed himself to reversing the territorial losses of Germany in World War I;

* reoccupied the demilitarized Rhineland, in blatant contravention of international agreements signed by Germany;

* abolished the democratic structure of the Weimar Republic and banned all political parties except his own;

* thrown tens of thousands of opposition members, Jews, Gypsies and gays into concentration camps;

* expelled Jews from public service, the professions, universities and schools and confiscated much of their property.

But because Hitler had not yet attacked any foreign country, his treatment of Jews and others was deemed an internal matter. Europe -- and the League of Nations, which Germany had in the meantime left -- ignored the catastrophe that was brewing. We now refer to that willful blindness as appeasement.

Imagine what might have happened had Britain and France followed a different path and launched a military strike against Germany, with or without a League of Nations mandate. Hitler's Germany, not yet the military power it would become in 1939, would have been quickly crushed. In the process, of course, numerous innocent Germans would have been hurt or killed, but Germany's later aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, which caused huge numbers of casualties, would never have happened. There would have been no World War II, no Nazi occupation of Europe, no Holocaust. Last and perhaps not least, some 12 million ethnic Germans who were expelled after 1945 from Eastern Europe would still live today in their ancestral lands.

Declaring war on Hitler's Germany in 1936 would have been the correct course of action, morally and strategically, for the European powers. European pacifists would have opposed military action, but they too would have been spared the agonies of the following years and of a devastating world war.

In a way, Hussein's record today is worse than Hitler's was in 1936. Hussein has already invaded two of his neighbors (Iran and Kuwait), attacked Israel with missiles and used poison gas against his own population. His treatment of the Iraqi Kurds is much worse than Hitler's treatment of the Jews was by 1936. And Hussein may possess weapons of mass destruction Hitler hadn't dreamed of. With all the understandable reluctance to launch a war, shouldn't Europe -- and the rest of the world -- be considering these parallels? Wouldn't the world be a better place today if the international community in 1936 had possessed the will to stop Hitler?

The question of what happens in Iraq after Hussein is legitimate, but it should not be used as an excuse for inaction. When Britain declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939, had the British planned for a "post-Hitler" Germany?

Would President Franklin D. Roosevelt have believed that U.S. troops would still be stationed in Germany 60 years after the U.S. entered the war?

Wars are unpredictable, even for the victors, and therefore should be waged only if all other avenues have been exhausted. But all who condemn the 1930s appeasement of Germany should reflect long and hard on whether a failure to act today against Iraq will one day be viewed the same way.

If Hitler had been stopped earlier, my three grandparents -- and numerous uncles, aunts and cousins -- would not have perished in the gas chambers. That's my personal story. But the "if only" that stems from the 1930s appeasement extends to tens of millions who lost family members, both civilians and soldiers, who might have been spared. A world without World War II would have been a better place. A world without Hussein will ultimately be a safer place, regardless of how he is brought down.

Stephen Schwartz is the guy we want to read on the latest revelations regarding high-level Saudi complicity with our enemies: "The real axis of evil."

The Washington Times reports that, in the wake of this month's elecoral victories, the Administration will introduce legislation accelerating the scheduled tax cuts, expanding IRA and 401(k) plans, and providing additional incentives to business investment. All of this will be billed as a stimulus package to boost economic growth. I think this is great on public policy and fairness grounds; how much it will boost the economy is debatable. But economic growth is almost sure to accelerate some time in the next eighteen months in any event, and these measures, even if their contribution is marginal, will allow the Administration to garner some of the credit. And it is absolutely necessary for the Administration to be seen as making a major effort to support the economy. If they are able to include drilling for oil in Alaska, they will be doing about all that can be done.

National Review Online's Rod Dreher reports that a California-based Muslim legal group has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Bar requesting disciplinary action against Alan Dershowitz. The essence of the complaint is that Dershowitz advocated war crimes in an op-ed piece in which he supported leveling Palestinian villages known to have harbored terrorists, after giving residents 24 hours to evacuate. Dershowitz denies that the Geneva Accords prohibit what he's advocating. However, it is not unlikely that the International Criminal Court would disagree if a case involving Israel were before it. Dershowitz proclaims, reasonably enough, that he is not frightened. He notes that the "Massachusetts bar lives by American law, not by Islamic law." However, the issue down the road is going to be the extent to which American institutions, including the Massachusetts bar, live by American law or by international law. If international law gains a foothold here, a future Dershowitz may have cause to be less sanguine.

Thomas Edsall of the Washington Post delivers one of the more thoughtful pieces I've seen on the "serious structural ailments" of the Democratic party. He identifies three main fault lines: (1) erosion of support among women due to concerns about terrorism and Republican gains on issues like education, (2) new tensions between black and white Democrats, this time pitting public-sector blacks and Hispanics against well-educated whites, (3) inability to connect with a cohort of 18-34 year-old voters who tend to be libertarian and favor the Republican approach to school choice and Social Security. Edsall does not anticipate the kind of pitched battle for the soul of the Democratic Party that we have seen in the past. Instead, he believes that we may simply see increasing defections among the ranks.

Shortly after the arrest of the D.C. area snipers, Rocket Man wrote that, next time, the police work will have to be better. Apart from that comment, there has been little public criticism of our local police chief, Charles Moose. However, here, a Maryland criminologist named Susan Paisner, writing in the Washington Post finds much to criticize in the Moose-led investigation.

Rocket Man, the person here in Washington whose opinion I trust most about the Senate (a former high-level staffer) says that Landrieu is a lightweight who has never created a "Senatorial" impression here. If Terrell is turning out not to be particularly lightweight, one can understand Landrieu's frustration. I don't know much about Terrell, but as far as I'm aware she has made it without the kind of assistance Landrieu received from her powerful political family.

Rocket Man, I enjoyed your blogs from last night about Kennedy and Nixon. As to Nixon's liberal domestic policy, I believe, based on what Leonard Garment and others have said, that Nixon didn't care much about domestic policy. He saw himself as a world figure and just wanted to do well enough in domestic affairs to stay in office, thereby maintaining his position as the primary actor on the world stage. The three liberal domestic programs we've been discussing -- wage-price controls, affirmative action, and guaranteed annual income -- can all be viewed as short-term measures to avoid problems (e.g., inflation and race riots) that could have hurt Nixon's political standing. That said, I don't think that Nixon saw any of these programs as particularly harmful. As I recall, Nixon had some involvement with wage-price controls during World War II and considered them an acceptable anti-inflationary approach in war time. As to affirmative action, Nixon's confidants have said that he imposed this program on the building trades in order to drive a wedge between two Democratic constituencies, blacks and unions. Historians agree that this was his motive. I've never been completely convinced. however, because it was the union members whose votes Nixon wanted most, and they presumably were less likely to vote for Nixon by virtue of his administration's imposition of quotas. And I agree with Rocket Man that Nixon had genuine sympathy for African-Americans and might well have thought that forced integration of the building trades was a valid measure at that time. Thus, the conventionally accepted story of Nixon and affirmative action may not be completely true. But I think it's true in spirit. Whatever Nixon did in the area of domestic policy was more likely to be motived by pure politics than by anything else.

Lately we've heard more from the Administration about disarming Iraq and less about regime change. I understand the forces pushing in that direction, but it would be a tragedy if Saddam Hussein were allowed to remain in power. In this article in yesterday's Toronto Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente describes the horrific reality of life in Iraq, through the eyes of an escapaee from Saddam's prisons. Colin Powell needs to read this. Warning: It is not for the faint of heart.

I didn't see the Terrell/Landrieu debate on CSpan, but PoliPundit did. He says that "Unlike her performance on Meet the Press, Terrell seems to be sure of herself. She's confident, holds her own against Landrieu and looks Senatorial." Maybe that explains Landrieu's post-debate meltdown. PoliPundit has much more interesting commentary.

One of our faithful readers is a California resident who recently visited the Twin Cities and has written us regarding the items I've posted on Minneapolis's gang presence. Deleting only his kind words about the Power Line, I'm posting his message in its entirety as follows:

"Concerning the comments of the Trunk concerning the silence as to gang violence in the Twin Cities. I live in central California in an area with alot of gang activity. One of the things that identifies gang members is the colors and markings of their clothes, mainly black, red, or blue. Many companies are selling hats in these colors. The L.A. Dodgers hats are blue, but recently, they have been coming out in a red style.

"Two weeks ago I was in the Rosedale Mall in the Twin Cities, and happened to be in a sporting goods store that specialized in hats and jerseys. I was shocked at their new line of hats that represented the gang lifestyle, i.e. black with an 'N' on the front or similar designs. When I asked the clerk if she knew she was selling gang style clothing, she denied it and told me that they didn't have any gang problems in the cities.

"As a high school teacher, it bothers me that companies look to make a fast buck selling kids this kind of merchandise. The bad news for you is that if I could tell that the merchandise was being marketed to gangbangers, then you have a very serious problem in your area. A few years ago didn't they call it Murderapolis? [As noted by the New York Times, they did indeed, and will again.--ed.]

"Next time you are in a local mall, go in and check out what items are being sold in the sports apparel section. If you see a Twins hat in black, then they are in on it too."

Don't know how we missed Mark Steyn's latest: "Hey, Roeper! I was right." (Courtesy of our friends at RealClearPolitics).

When it broke, we posted on the story about the Saudi princess, wife of the Ambassador to the U.S., who paid $2,000 a month into the bank account of a man who later gave financial assistance to two of the September 11 hijackers. Over the last day or two, this story has been the occasion for considerable hysteria in the blogosphere, as various critics have excoriated the Administration and the FBI for not pursuing this money trail aggressively enough, and, more generally, for defending the Saudis as our allies when in fact, as everyone knows, they are the prime financial supporters of Wahabbism and their money has funded various terrorist groups and causes, both directly and indirectly. This morning the Saudi princess' generosity was discussed on various news programs; here, the Toronto Star reports on anti-Saudi comments by John McCain, Joe Lieberman and others made earlier today.

As to this particular incident, the princess claims that she supported a large number of Saudi people and causes; here, she was aiding a Saudi woman living in America who asked for her help paying for medical treatment. Two thousand dollars a month sounds like a lot for medical treatment; then again, the Saudis have a lot of money. My guess, for what little it's worth, is that this particular trail won't lead anywhere. If the Saudi royal family wanted to aid terrorists, it would be hard to think of a worse way than to have one of their own--the wife of the U.S. ambassador, no less--write easily-traced checks, even to an intermediary. (Of course, she could be a renegade al Qaeda supporter operating independently of her husband and the Saudi government, but this seems highly unlikely.) More broadly, this episode may be useful in keeping the pressure on the Saudis until their turn comes, probably several years from now. This is most likely what McCain et al. had in mind.

Trunk, thanks for posting Schickel's piece about Sam Fuller. Schickel is right that Fuller was a great critic of middle-class hypocrisy, and never more so than in The Naked Kiss, which I consider his best film. However, Fuller was no Hollywood leftist. In fact, he delivered a superb anti-communist film during the 1950s with Richard Widmark and Thelma Ritter. I don't remember the name of the movie, but it has a great scene where Ritter realizes that this man she liked is a communist. He says, sneeringly, "What do you know about communists?" Ritter replies, "Not much; I know I don't like them." Unlike so many in Hollywood at that time, Fuller stood up for the common sense of the American people and was never ashamed of our perceived lack of sophistication.

The Indonesian police (with help from the Australians) are rounding up the Bali bombers, and in the process are gaining a great deal of information about their operation, especially since the leader of the group, Imam Samudra, was captured. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that bin Laden videos and tapes have been found in the plotters' homes. More troubling is the claim by Samudra that one of the bombs--the one that destroyed Paddy's Irish Pub--was not a car bomb, but was carried by a suicide bomber. Indonesian authorities say that the forensic evidence seems compatible with this claim, and are carrying out DNA tests and other investigations to try to verify it. Although there have been many bombings by Indonesian Muslims in recent years, none have been carried out by suicide bombers. Indonesian and Australian authorities are expressing great concern about the possible spread of this tactic outside of the Middle East.

One more shaft of sunlight to pierce the weekend darkness: Hey, it's the holiday season. Some Web site--I believe it may have been the fine folks at No Left Turns--steered me to the site of the The Richard Nixon Library Museum Store. I have never seen a museum store quite like it, one with a great sense of humor. The humor is especially evident to me in the World Famous Nixon and Elvis T-shirt, the one that (according to the museum store) caused the media to go wild when they introduced it.

After reading the Times-Picayune article on the aftermath of the Landrieu/Terrell debate, I would say Landrieu can see the handwriting on the wall and is becoming unhinged, like a number of other Democrats--Tom Daschle, Bill Moyers, Garrison Keillor et al.

The fallout continues from Friday's Powderhorn Park neighborhood murder of the 12-year-old caught in the crossfire of a couple of Minneapolis's finest gangbangers. The Star Tribune devotes more page-one coverage to "Friends and family gather to mourn and remember Tyesha" while the St. Paul Pioneer Press story "My heart was just torn apart" is relegated to the paper's metro section. Although both stories place the murder in the context of neighborhood crime, the great silence in these stories is the transformation of Minneapolis into a haven for gangbangers, a transformation that the city has silently and passively endured.

Before "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers," the best movie ever made about World War II was Sam Fuller's The Big Red One. If you've never heard of Fuller or The Big Red One, please take a look at the review of Fuller's posthumous autobiography (sort-of) A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking. The review is from the Sunday Times Book Review and is by the film critic Richard Schickel: "From Tabloid to Celluloid."

Matt Drudge has posted an interesting account by the Times-Picayune of Saturday's debate taped for broadcast today between Mary Landrieu and Suzi Terrell: "Candidate debate has unfriendly end." I leave the interpretation to Rocket Man.

And here is one last photo from Bush's trip, showing him addressing the crowd in Bucharest with the Romanian and American flags on banners around the square.

Analysis of President Bush's trip to Eastern Europe has been spotty. Here, the New York Post offers a concise and positive summary of the President's accomplishments over the past five days.

On its Web site, the New York Times carries a package on President Bush's speeches in Lithuania and Romania yesterday that includes Elisabeth Bumiller's story on them, the full text of the Bucharest speech, and a one minute video excerpt of the Bucharest speech. One click takes you to the package under Bumiller's story, "Bush appeals to new allies on Iraq plans."

According to Bumiller, in Bucharest Bush spoke to "tens of thousands" of Romanians and, according to me, he gave an eloquent, moving speech that expresses the heart of the man and his statesmanship. Do take a look.

George Will sees a sunny future for the Republicans in the Senate.

As to Kennedy, I think on the whole he was a good President. I also think it is fortunate that he served for less than three years. That, really, is the remarkable thing about Kennedy--how short his presidency was, for all that has been said and written about it since. I read somewhere, long ago, that had Kennedy not been murdered, his administration would surely have come crashing down in scandal. I think that is right. With his poor health, his reliance on multiple drugs and shady physicians to get through each day, his extraordinarily indiscreet sexual escapades--multiple nude women in the White House swimming pool, minutes before his wife arrived on the scene, with the Secret Service telephoning warnings to clear out the girls--a disaster was sure to happen sooner or later. And in the 1960's such a scandal would not have met with the sympathetic reception that Bill Clinton got in the 1990's. So my assessment of Kennedy is that he was a pretty good although not especially interesting President, but it is a good thing that he was President so briefly.

I agree that there is a psychological kinship between Nixon and Gore. I think it is this: both are (or were) by nature private, closed-in people who had difficulty relating easily to others and were therefore fundamentally bad politicians. But both were more or less consumed by a craving for acclaim or approval that could only be satisfied by the Presidency. This obsession drove both to overcome (more or less) their lack of natural political ability, but in the course of doing so they exposed themselves nakedly and rather clumsily to the public, so that watching them was often appalling, like a train wreck in slow motion. By rights, Al Gore's career should be over, but I wouldn't bet a nickel against him; like Nixon, he will persevere and he may yet be rewarded.

Nixon was probably an opportunist in some ways, but I wouldn't be so sure he didn't believe in affirmative action and a guaranteed income. He once told an interviewer (during his wilderness years) that his mistake was starting out in politics as a Republican; he should have been a Democrat. I think he may have justified both of these policies on pragmatic grounds; quotas as the most direct way to help minority groups for whom he felt genuine sympathy, and a guaranteed income as a way to abolish, with one stroke, the whole welfare system whose effects he rightly considered to be harmful--doing the maximum practical good for poor people at the least possible cost. (Nixon knew that we spend far more money on poverty programs than it would take to "abolish" poverty if the same money were simply given to poor people, and he had no attachment to social workers.) What I find harder to understand is how he justified price controls, since he had some understanding of economics. But Nixon came of political age in an era that is now long gone, when a fierce anti-communism was often