While driving this afternoon I listened to a liberal talk show on Minnesota's biggest radio station, a longtime DFL bastion. The host agreed with a caller that John Ashcroft had murdered Mel Carnahan (while Carnahan was "way ahead" in the polls--not true, of course). The host then pulled out a list of liberal politicians who had died under "suspicious circumstances" (i.e, plane crashes), which the host attributed to "right wing death squads." It will be interesting to see whether the Democratic Party disavows these nut-jobs--an increasingly important segment of the party--or whether it tolerates them and perhaps, in the end, allows them to take over the party. I'm still waiting for the first "mainstream" Democrat to disassociate himself from this rapidly-spreading variety of hate speech.

I tend to be a pessimist, Rocket Man, and that can get kind of frightening in the world we live in now. So, in order to avoid spoiling anyone's New Year's celebration, I'll abstain from making any predictions. Except for this safe but sad one -- expect even more cynicism and dishonesty from the Democrats in 2003.

Apropos of Deacon's anecdote about George Romney below, the comedian Mort Sahl used to joke that Romney didn't need to be brainwashed; in his case, a light rinse would suffice.

In this Washington Post op-ed piece, Sandy Berger and Robert Gallucci, who helped formulate our failed policy towards North Korea, try to fill the void of advice that Rocket Man referred to when commenting about today's Washington Post report on North Korea. Unfortunately, the Berger-Gallucci piece ends up illustrating why so few of the Administration's critics are willing to offer advice. The two former Clinton aides start with the proposition that our initial task is to close "the serious gap" with South Korea that they say has opened and widened in the past two years. To do this, we are told that we must bow to the South Korean desire to "engage with the North to resolve the confrontation." At the same time, of course, we "cannot reward the North for comtemptuous behavior," including violation of the Agreed Framework that Gallucci negotiated. Thus, we must insist on all sorts of North Korean concessions, including disarmament, an inspections regime, etc. But Berger and Gallucci do not explain why we should expect the North Koreans to yield to our exacting demands, particularly when we must take the conciliatory tone that the South Koreans insist upon. Nor do they explain why the North should engage in any behavior other than the "contemptuous" kind towards a great power that fails to respond forcefully to such behavior.

The Berger/Gallucci piece reminds me of something that happened in the winter of 1968, when I was a freshman at Dartmouth. Republican presidential hopeful George Romney was campaigning in New Hampshire. He was under attack for flip-flopping on the war in Vietnam, especially after he claimed that the Johnson Administration had "brainwashed" him on the subject. In his speech at Dartmouth, Romney admitted that he did not have all of the answers about Vietnam, but claimed that our actions should be guided by several key principles. One principle was that we must make it clear to the world that we will not "cut and run" from Vietnam no matter what. Another principle was that we should make it clear to the South Vietnamese that they must engage in needed reforms if they expect our continued support. Sensing a possible contradiction between these principles, I tried without success to be recognized during the question and answer session following Romney's speech. Later, in the reception line, I asked Romney, "how can you convince the South Vietnamese to undertake reforms they oppose if you make it clear that we will not abandon Vietnam under any circumstances." Romney looked me in the eye and simply said, "you can't." That's also the answer to the question, how can you force the North Koreans to disarm if your approach to the confrontation is governed by South Korea's desire to be conciliatory towards the North.

Daniel Pipes has an educational column on the "religion of peace" that goes a long way to explain the war we are in: "What is jihad?"

Happy New Year to all of our readers from the Power Line gang, and best wishes for the coming year. We haven't yet posted any predictions for 2003; I'm not sure I have any to offer, but if Trunk or Deacon wants to prognosticate a little, now's the time!

Rocket Man, another possible explanation for Mary Sue Coleman's quote is that she is a liberal racist. Certainly, a non-liberal who spoke in such racial-determinist terms would be accused of racism. Indeed, Coleman's quote sounds like a better-dressed version of the statement by the president of Rutgers University, who was condemned, but forgiven, when he basically said that preferences are necessary because African-American kids just can't cut it. What strikes me as truly odd about Coleman's quote, though, is why Coleman thinks her statement, even if true, constitutes a good defense of the racial preferences her university grants. The application process enables colleges to find out where candidates for admission live, who they go to school with, and where their parents work. So why does the University of Michigan need to use race as a surrogate for these things? And how does it justify granting the full 100 points to African-Americans from affluent suburbs whose parents are highly successful professionals? These questions bolster my suspicion that the University is really using race as a surrogate for perceived inability to cut it, per the Rutgers model. In any case, Ms. Coleman might be better advised to let her lawyers do the talking until the Michigan cases are decided.

The always-helpful Kofi Annan says that he sees no justification for military action in Iraq: "[The inspectors] are able to do their work in an unimpeded manner. And therefore, I don't see an argument for military action now." Someday I hope to understand how this whole inspection regime ever made any sense.

Good Lord, that is one of the most astonishing quotes I've ever read! The color of your skin determines where you live, where you go to work, and whom you work with?? Since when? And this woman is President of the University of Michigan. Sometimes I think that academics have collectively taken leave of their senses. How you can be a president of a major university, while exhibiting such a stunning level of ignorance, is beyond me.

Here is one possible explanation for Ms. Coleman's disconnection from reality: perhaps she imagines that the outside world mirrors the world of the university. Within many universities, it is likely true that the color of one's skin can determine where one lives (e.g., a dormitory set aside for blacks) and the people with whom one associates (e.g., black tables in cafeterias). This is due to the regrettable self-segregation that black university students often engage in. But if Ms. Coleman thinks that the rest of the country is as race-obsessed as its universities, she needs to get out more.

Our faithful reader Gary Larson points out that this morning's Star Tribune carries a distillation of academia's higher wisdom on the desirability of racial discrimination. University of Michigan president Mary Coleman explains why the university essentially places black applicants in a category separate from white applicants for admissions purposes: "The color of your skin determines so many important things about your life experience -- where you live, where you go to work and with whom you work. Race still matters in our society. The ideal of colorblindness does not mean we can or should be blind to that reality."

The Star Tribune places this quote under the heading "Color matters" and provides this context: "University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to consider whether or not race-conscious admissions policies at Michigan and other schools are constitutional."

For your information, if I remember correctly, the "colors" that "matter" for admissions purposes (in the preferential sense) at the University of Michigan are "African-American" and "Hispanic"--and the latter is of course not a color at all, but rather a matter of "self-identification."

Diana West's retrospective on 2002 is my favorite of the several I have read: "Questions for reflection on 2002." And in its own way, Rich Lowry's column today performs a similarly valuable service, with roughly equal bite: "Fur hats and other war on terror outrages."

My reaction to the Washington Post article on North Korea was similar to yours, Rocket Man. The Post's experts provided nothing resembling a solution to the mess that President Bush inherited from his predecessor. In assessing the efficacy of the Adminstration's announced policy, one must define what success means. The announced policy is not likely to cause North Korea to disarm. But it might succeed in the same way that our containment policy towards the Soviet Union did. In that scenario, North Korea would have its nuclear capacity, but wouldn't use it. Eventually, the regime would collapse and the peninsula would be re-unified as a capitalist democracy. In my view, though, real success may turn on whether or not we are able to prevent North Korea from selling nuclear technology to our enemies in the Middle East. This will not be easy given the parlous state of the North Korean economy and dictator's natural animosity towards the United States.

The Washington Post consults experts who conclude that the Administration's announced policy toward North Korea of containment through multilateral efforts to exert economic pressure is doomed to failure. This is because 1) other countries, especially China, will not cooperate, and 2) in any event, North Korea is already desperately poor, but Kim Jong's hold on power shows no sign of weakening.

The article is interesting mostly for its account of North Korea's ever-declining economy. As to the futility of the policy of containment, I think the experts are probably right. It is interesting, however, that if you substitute the word "Russia" for "China," virtually the same article could have been written to demonstrate why multilateral efforts at containment, as pursued by the Clinton Administration and advocated by Colin Powell, would not work in Iraq. The experts consulted by the Post on North Korea offer no suggestion as to what would work; here as always, opposing whatever policy is pursued by the Bush Administration is deemed sufficient.

The Washington Post reports, in this extremely interesting article, on American efforts to prevent terrorism in the murky world of maritime shipping. Al Qaeda is currently believed to own 15 or more freighters that sail internationally on unknown missions. A number of al Qaeda maritime plots have been uncovered, and officials have worked to plug gaping holes in our port security. But the difficulty of identifying terrorists in an industry described by a senior government official as a "shadowy underworld," where many sailors are criminals, many more sail under fake identifies with forged papers, ships are frequently renamed and repainted while at sea, ownership is often concealed by layers of fictitious corporations, and many countries "flag" ships about which they know little or nothing, is obvious. One potentially huge development is that last month, we captured Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, described as "a mastermind of al Qaeda's nautical strategy." He is now said to be cooperating with U.S. interrogators.

Mona Charen, in the Washington Times, examines the efforts of the Democrats to "get to President Bush's right on homeland security." She finds these efforts laughable. The Democrats, it seems, want the toughest homeland security measures possible, as long as they offend no civil servant, civil libertarian, pro-immigration lobby, or trial lawyer. Moreover, as Charen notes, even if the Democrats could overcome all of these constraints, "they would remain handicapped on this issue because they don't see the big picture," namely that the war must be taken to our enemies, including enemy states, if we are to be safe here at home. As Charen concludes, "The president has an offense and a defense. The Democrats, so far, have neither."

Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post offers a powerful rebuttal to the claim that the Bush administration's "imperialist" bent brought on unnecessary crises in Iraq and North Korea. Most of the rebuttal consists of the answer by an unnamed senior adminstration official to David Broder's specious question -- why has Bush come to embrace "an almost imperial role" for the United States. Jackson concludes that the conflicts that will shape the winter of 2003 were "mostly inevitable. It's just that, as half a century ago, Americans were slow to understand the threat, and reluctant to take it on -- until inaction seemed the worst choice."

Debka File is reporting that Syria's President Assad, who recently visited London, took away from a meeting with Tony Blair the terms of President Bush's final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. Assad reportedly delivered these terms to Saddam last week. The proposed terms include full disclosure by Saddam of weapons of mass destruction; a temporary suspension of American war preparations; and guarantee of safe passage for Saddam and his family to another Arab country. Debka File says that Saddam was given until New Year's Day to comply with Bush's terms, which were described as non-negotiable. Although most Administration officials reportedly view this final offer as another opportunity for delay and obfuscation, there is some speculation that Saddam's handing over of a list of 500 Iraqi scientists with links to Iraq's weapons programs could have been the down payment on compliance. Also, construction of a large complex on the outskirts of Tripoli referred to as "Saddam City" is said to have speeded up.

Needless to say, we have no illusions about Saddam's trustworthiness. However, he may very well have in mind the examples of two equally sadistic tyrants, Idi Amin of Uganda and "Emperor" Bokassa of the Central African Republic. Both were clearly psychotic (Bokassa, among other things, was a cannibal, while Amin proclaimed himself--among other titles--King of Scotland), but they were also rational enough to realize when the game was up and to prefer exile to death. Idi Amin is still living in comfort in Saudi Arabia. I would not be shocked, therefore, if Saddam, having played out his losing endgame, escapes to Libya leaving his regime to fall without the necessity of a war. This will only happen, of course, if he knows that war and his own death are the only alternatives to flight.

For a glimpse into the sad state of today's Democratic Party, check out Democrats.com. It's all there--the hatred, the bitterness, the lunatic conspiracy theories, the utter absence of any substantive discussion of policy issues. Happy as I am to see them more or less out of power, it is hard to take any pleasure in their decline.

A Muslim terrorist murdered three American doctors in Yemen yesterday; this report is from the Washington Post. The three physicians, two of whom were women, were part of a Baptist-sponsored hospital that provided free medical care to poor Yemenis.

InstaPundit commented this morning that this story highlights, on yet another level, Patty Murray's foolishness. The Islamofascists are not impressed by humanitarian acts. Non-Muslims are targets. Period.

William Tucker takes a look behind one of Time magazine's 2002 whistleblower heroes to find the "Coverup of the year." The appropriate counterpoint comes from a paragon of journalistic excellence, the Wall Street Journal's Robert Bartley: "A few final words as editor."

As is usual with our sampling of the day's best columns, the items above come courtesy of our friends at RealClearPolitics. In updating their site yesterday morning they came across a column in the Boston Globe that they have kindly forwarded to us. Courtesy of RealClearPolitics--and special to the Power Line--is this follow-up to Saturday's 15-hour Hank Williams marathon: "Lonesome Whistle: Hank Williams and the Honky Tonk absurd."

Power Line readers have probably noticed, and may well be irritated by, my occasional attempts to "psycho-analyze" liberals. I admit that the main reason I have continued to read liberal writing over the years is my fascination with the liberal psyche. But psychoanalysis is best left to professionals. With that in mind, I offer the following e-mail we received from Stephen Marmer: "I'm a psychiatrist by trade (almost an oxymoron to be a Jewish psychiatrist in West Los Angeles and a conservative). One of my patients told me today that he just figured out why we have to go to war against Iraq. It is, he declared, because of North Korea. Now that North Korea presumably has nuclear weapons they have a bargaining chip to prevent attack against themselves. We can ill afford to let Sadaam have the same kind of threat.

Why is this remarkable? This reasoning has seemed obvious for months, if not years. It should be clear to all by now, especially after Charles Krauthammer's recent article on the obsolescence of "deterrence."

To me the problem is the inability of those on the left to recognize human evil. They of course do recognize such "evils" as second hand smoke and the potential extinction of an obscure species of gnats. By not recognizing human evil they are able to remain in a state of hopeful optimism about the ability of negotiation, persuasion, and international pressure to force the bad guys to be good. But is there something deeper behind what I regard as self-delusion? I believe there is.

The answer is cowardice, or at least a lack of courage. They don't want to recognize the extent or danger of human evil because a) it would make them feel at risk, and they have an overwhelming preference for comfort, and b) if they acknowledged the threat of evil they would have to take strenuous action against it, which would expose themselves to danger. To face risk and to willingly expose oneself to danger requires real courage. This includes the courage occasionally to be wrong and certainly includes the courage to endure not being liked.

I'm far from certain that this exhausts the explanation of liberal delusion in the face of what is clear to the rest of us as human evil. But I do think it is a small piece of the puzzle."

So do I, Dr. Marmer.

President Bush has hardly put a wrong foot forward in prosecuting the war against terrorism. But Gary Bauer and Morton Klein, writing in the Washington TImes argue persuasively that he will do so if the administration pursues its so-called Middle East Road Map, which lays the groundwork for the creation of a Palestinian state. Bauer and Klein note that if a Palestinian Arab state is created, its borders will be just a few miles from Israel's main airport. Thus, terrorists carrying shoulder-launched missiles will be able to shoot at any plane taking off from or landing at that airport. Bauer and Klein wonder whether the administration really believes that giving a sovereign state to the Palestinians will create a civilized democracy, rather than a new terrorist state along the lines of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya. Perhaps the "Arabists" in the State Department believe this, but it's hard to imagine that President Bush is that naive. I agree with the conclusion of Bauer and Klein: "Terrorists, whether led by Osama bin Laden or Yasser Arafat, should be fought and defeated, not appeased with offers of their own state. To offer the Palestinian Arabs a state after two years in which they have murdered nearly 700 Jews sends a message that terrorism pays. And that is the worst possible message to send at a time when terrorists are threatening America, Israel, and the entire Free World."

Trunk, let me join in commending you for your piece on racial profiling. I agree that the key to understanding this issue is to realize that racial disparities in police street and highway stops reflect underlying racial disparities in crime rates. Critics of racial profiling like to point to disparites in the rates at which African-Americans are stopped in particular jurisdictions or on certain stretches of highway. But these disparities, standing alone, do not demonstrate any impropriety. To create even an inference of impropriety, one would have to show a race-based disparity in the rates at which stops uncover criminal conduct. In other words if only 5 percent of stops of blacks uncover criminal activity, compared to 10 percent of stops of whites, then one might infer that blacks are being stopped too often compared to whites. But the studies I'm aware of do not show such disparities. Instead, they show that, although blacks are stopped more often than whites, the stops of whites and blacks are about equally fruitful. The reasonable inference, then, is that law enforcement is doing its job properly in these cases.

Deacon linked to an article on campaign finance by George Will earlier today; for those who haven't read the full article, I just want to add that, according to Will, the supposedly enormous amount spent on this year's election cycle ('01-'02) is approximately the same amount that Americans spent on pork rinds over the same two-year period. I have seen a number of similar comparisons over the years; for example, Americans spend about as much on Congressional elections as on Barbie dolls. If we ever spend as much on elections (i.e., public policy) as we spend on frozen pizza, I'll be impressed. Until then, spare us the endless nonsense about the "obscene" amounts of money devoted to political campaigns.

The Claremont Institute's Ken Masugi has a far more considered analysis of "Gangs of New York" than I afforded it last Sunday when I was still angry at myself for having gone to see it. Ken's analysis does justice to the film in a way that I did not, and is in any event edifying: "Birth of a Nation?"

Our friends at No Left Turns have identified this article on al Quaeda from this morning's Washington Post as required reading: "Report Says Africans Harbored Al Qaeda; Terror Assets Hidden In Gem-Buying Spree."

Our faithful reader James Phillips of Folsom, California (site of a classic Johnny Cash live album), has written complimenting me on an article I have in the current (January/February) issue of The American Enterprise magazine and asking me to plug it on the Power Line. I have not mentioned the article previously because it is not available on the magazine's Web site, but with the excuse of Mr. Phillips's kind message, permit me to do so now.

The theme of this issue of the magazine is homeland security, and Mr. Phillips commends the entire issue to your attention. My piece--"Better Unsafe than (Occasionally) Sorry?"--addresses the issue of "racial profiling" in the context of the war on terrorism.

Last March I was invited to debate law professor David Harris at two events he spoke at to promote his new book on racial profiling, Profiles in Injustice, that had been published in February. I bought and read the book and researched Harris's related work to prepare for my part in the programs I appeared at together with Harris.

Harris is affiliated with the ACLU which, I discovered in doing the research, has been the moving force behind the lawsuits that made "racial profiling" a national furor in 2000--a furor so great that the New Jersey State Highway Police, for example, entered into a Soviet-style consent decree essentially confessing to misconduct of which they were clearly not guilty. In my reconstruction of the relevant sequence of events, it appeared to me that Harris was the intellectual guru of the "racial profiling" campaign being conducted so successfully by the ACLU.

Perhaps naively, I was shocked by the blatant intellectual dishonesty of Harris's book. The key to understanding the whole "racial profiling" campaign is the reality that racial disparitites in police street and highway stops, criminal arrests, criminal convictions, and incarcerations reflect the underlying racial disparities in crime rates, which are huge. In his book Harris acknowledges the racial disparities in crime rates, but he cites the number of unreported crimes in the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice to assert that the crimes of white offenders are simply unreported and uninvestigated by law enforcement authorities. Harris therefore contends that actual crime rates are equal among racial groups.

On its face this argument might be plausible, although it would strike me as far-fetched, especially insofar as the crimes covered in the National Crime Victimization Survey are crimes of violence. It is somewhat bizarre to suggest that it is a function of law enforcement bias against blacks to arrest and incarcerate violent black offenders, but to let violent white offenders go free, because of course it is largely blacks who commit crimes of violence against blacks and whites who commit crimes of violence against whites.

But having cited the National Crime Victimization Survey to support his thesis that actual crime rates are equal among racial groups, Harris simply omits the inconvenient fact that the Survey data indicate the same racial disparities among the perpetrators of unreported crimes as among reported crimes. In other words, although his book comes dressed in a scholarly apparatus including 30 pages of footnotes, his thesis is made plausible only through his deliberate suppression of the evidence.

Harris completed his book shortly before 9/11 for publication shortly after 9/11, and unfortunately for Harris, he did not rewrite the section of his book addressing terrorism and profiling. In light of 9/11, that section of his book--which mocks the link among Arabs, Muslims, and terrorism--had already been refuted by events by the time the book was published. The folks at the American Enterprise magazine run an excerpt from this section of Harris's book together with my article, and I am not sure which more effectively refutes Harris's thesis--my article or the excerpt from his own book.

The folks at the magazine sent a pre-publication copy of the article to Harris, who promptly sent an e-mail to the editors castigating the article as a "personal attack" on him, full of unspecified errors that he could have rectified if I had ccontacted him (he seems to have forgotten I spent the better part of a day listening to him address the issues he discusses in his book), and asking the editors what they are going to do about the article's "slander" of him. I won't bore you with my response to him, but I will share with you one point I withheld for fear of making him angrier. A professor of law should know that, if it is indeed defamatory, the article constitutes "libel" rather than "slander."

Today the Washington Post tries to go after the Administration on North Korea, with a couple of critical front-page articles. The more negative of the two, by Steven Mufson, begins:

"A veteran diplomat once gave me this advice: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. When it comes to North Korea, the Bush administration appears to have violated this elementary rule of diplomacy again and again."

Mufson blames the Administration for being "obsessed with shredding the Agreed Framework that the Clinton administration had negotiated"--even though this supposed "obsession" was admittedly "not without reason." He criticizes the Administration for wanting to "rip up completely" the Agreed Framework, rather than "look for a reason to reengage North Korea and renegotiate the Agreed Framework."

But why North Korea could be expected to adhere to a renegotiated Agreed Framework when it shamelessly violated the original agreement, taking the U.S. for several billion dollars in aid in the process, is never explained. And, despite his dissatisfaction with every word and deed by the Administration in relation to North Korea, Mufson is obliged to admit: "Could the Bush aministration have handled North Korea in a different way to prevent this turn of events? Perhaps not. After all, North Korea's pursuit of uranium enrichment capabilities predated by a couple of years Bush's declaration that the country was part of the 'axis of evil.'"

I have no idea what tactics are most likely to disarm North Korea and depose Kim Jong. Neither does the Washington Post. Nevertheless, the Post's instinct, here as during the cold war, is to assume that all dangerous actions by hostile dictators are somehow a response to provocation on the part of the United States; and are, therefore, mostly our fault. We can only hope that in the months to come we won't be barraged with articles on the subject of why Kim Jong hates us.

The Wall Street Journal has posted the excellent column by historian Thomas Reeves on the Kennedy family's publicly-funded airbrushing of history and annointment of court historians: "Stop the worship."

George Will reports on a new study by three MIT economics professors that sounds like it has major implications for the debate (judicial and otherwise) over campaign finance reform. According to Will, the study shows that campaign spending as a fraction of national income did not grow during the last nine decades of the 20th century. During this same period, of course, the growth of the regulatory state made government vastly more important as an allocator of wealth and opportunity. Thus, if political contributions are primarily a means of purchasing influence (i.e., rent-seeking) then such contributions should have risen faster than personal income did. The fact that campaign spending remained a function of personal income levels, not total government spending, suggests that the primary reason why people spend money on political elections is the satisfaction of participation, not an attempt to purchase influence. Accordingly, the three professor suggest that "the private benefits bought through the campaign finance system are not an increasing problem for our economy." Will notes that the results of this analysis are consistent with studies of legislative decision-making which show that legislators' voting is almost entirely a function of the legislators' beliefs and the preferences of voters and their party, with interest group contributions having no detectable effect.

Today's Washington Times offers two entirely different perspectives about the Trent Lott affair. Paul Greenberg regrets that Lott is suffering from "acute conspiracy syndrome." He's referring to Lott's claim that he was the victim of a Great Left-Wing Conspiracy, and not just against him but also against his state, his political philosophy, and his faith. Greenberg has no difficulty dispatching these claims. He notes, for example, that no one outdid the conservatives in denouncing Lott's comments, inasmuch as "the Jim Crow system he seemed to be defending was a profound violation of the two pillars of American conservatism," the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Paul Craig Roberts, on the other hand, finds that Lott's fall is a defeat for the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment. He sees Lott as the victim of the political correctness movement or, as he puts, "thought control." Roberts' analysis is at least as off-base as Lott's. Roberts' analogies notwithstanding, Lott has not been prosecuted for a hate crime or persecuted by a university for exercising free speech. The First Amendment protects Lott's right to say whatever he wants to about Strom Thurmond. But when his statements appear to condone segregationist views, those who hate segregation act properly when they repudiate Lott on this issue. And Lott's fellow Republican Senators acted properly when they chose not to be led by someone who seemed to condone segregationist thinking. The decision to replace Lott is no more an affront to the First Amendment than the decision not to make Lincoln Chafee a Senate leader due to his liberal views.

I just caught up with a brilliant opinion piece the Wall Street Journal had buried on its Taste page yesterday: "Kwanzaa, in principle."

Yesterday's Taste page includes two other pieces that are also worthy of your attention: "No more me, myself, and I," and the hiliariously headlined but otherwise enraging "A team named Sioux."

We are now in the third hour of KFAI radio station's incredible 15-hour Hank Williams (Senior) marathon, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of his death. It is glorious. You can listen to it by accessing the station's live streaming via the Internet by clicking here. (Thanks to our friends at No Left Turns for inviting its crew to join the party!)

Yesterday my brother and I took our families (six kids in all) into Philadelphia to see Independence Hall--easily the most historic building in America, birthplace of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution--and the Liberty Bell. Because of reported threats against the bell by terrorists, security in the area is rather tight. We had to go through airport-type screening to get into the historic area, which took a half-hour or more.

It is no surprise, I guess, that patriotism is not only alive but resurgent, but still I was struck by the patience with which visitors waited through security, the rapt attention with which our tour group absorbed every scrap of information about Independence Hall, and the awe with which the tourists viewed the Liberty Bell. "Cool...inspiring," was my 13-year-old daughter's verdict.

Many people do not realize that the Liberty Bell has not always been a famous symbol; until the 1840's it was little known outside Philadelphia. At that time an Abolitionist group, touring Independence Hall (then the Pennsylvania Statehouse), was struck by the bell's inscription: "Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." The universality of the message appealed to the Abolitionists, who adopted it as a symbol of their movement and popularized the bell world-wide. Now the bell is viewed by more than a million people every year.

The bell's message continues to resonate today, of course. I recall that during the 1980's, when Ronald Reagan would hear of someone calling for change, he would sometimes respond: "We are the change." Once again we have an Administration that understands that we are the bearers of the most radical political message in the history of the human race, the only real alternative to our planet's sorry tale of exploitation and abuse: Liberty for all of the inhabitants of the earth. No wonder the terrorists wanted to blow up the Liberty Bell. Its message will be their undoing.

Victor Davis Hanson comprehensively surveys the changes already wrought by 9/11 as well as those to be wrought by American power over the next few months: "Iraqi aftershocks." It is quite a ride, with a stirring conclusion that will get no quarrel from us: "[P]erhaps the queerest phenomenon of all was where real wisdom was to be found in our hour of greatest need...[Not from those who should have been able to provide it.] Instead, a president who supposedly slurred his words and forgot dictator's names sensed the extent and threat of a rare evil, as well as the remedy for its demise that had escaped his supposed betters. And so far that has made all the difference in this strange war."

France is reporting that it has rounded up a group of Islamic terrorists who were planning attacks on the Russian embassy in Paris and other Russian interests in France. Of particular interest is that the terrorists who have been identified are non-Chechans with links to al Qaeda. This appears to confirm several important points: first, the unity between Chechan terrorists and the Islamofascists generally; and second, the lack of any apparent strategic sense on the part of al Qaeda and its allies. If al Qaeda were pursuing a rational plan, it would surely try to isolate the United States and Israel from other western countries, above all their former adversaries like Russia. To attack all of the western countries at once is suicidal, like Hitler's needlessly declaring war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, only worse. I guess that is the bright side of having enemies who are crazy.

Listen if you can: The Twin Cities' best radio station by far is KFAI radio. Its drive-time lineup of rhythm and blues, blues, soul, and American pop shows provides a daily education in American music if not America. Typical of its inspired programming is its incredible 15-hour Hank Williams (Senior) special beginning at 6:00 am tomorrow morning. You can listen to the station FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD through its live streaming over the Internet. Here's the station's announcement of the event:

"Hang on to Your (Cowboy) Hats and Get Ready for a 15-Hour Hank Williams Tribute! This New Years Day marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of the legendary Hank Williams. To commemorate this event, Good & Country [KFAI's weekly country show] will present a 15-hour special on Saturday December 28, 2002 from 6:00 AM-9:00 PM. It will include studio recordings, alternate takes, radio appearances, the complete audio from the Kate Smith Evening Hour shows (March and April 1952) when he was a guest, an exclusive interview with his steel guitar player--Don Helms, insights into Hank Williams in song and story by Hank Williams, Jr., and interview excerpts from those who knew and worked with him during those heady days when Hank Williams turned honky tonk music into a fine art and personalized country music as we know it today. Hope you will tune in and log on."

Don't miss it!

Breaking news in Israel over the past month has included reports of an incredible scandal under the heading of "The Ginnosar File," by journalist Ben Caspit. The report concerns the involvement of a former high-ranking General Security Service official and personal advisor to several Israeli prime ministers in managing Palestinian Authority funds for commissions, while paying kickbacks to well-known individuals. The Middle East Media Research Institute has translated the original bombshell story and related pieces, all of which are included in a package at the link above.

To follow up on the blog below, here's Cal Thomas, in the Washington Times, on why the kinds of concessions to the Palestinians that Ha'aretz says Sharon is contemplating should not be offered. Whether part of the Barak/Clinton "peace process" or a potential Sharon/Bush "road map," this approach is, as Thomas concludes, the path "not to peace but to destruction."

When last I blogged about the upcoming elections in Israel, Ariel Sharon seemed destined to crush his soft-line Labor Party opponent. The smart money still seems to be on a fairly comfortable Sharon victory, but major scandals within his Likud Party have created some uncertainty. Here, the Israeli newpaper Ha'aretz wonders whether there could be a surprise. With polls suggesting that up to a quarter of the electorate is undecided, Ha'aretz thinks there might well be one.

Perhaps as a result of Likud's slippage, Sharon is putting the creation of a Palestinian state on his agenda, as noted in this piece from Ha'aretz. Sharon recently said, "A Palestinian state is not my life's dream, but it's the only realistic way of achieving peace." According to Ha'aretz, Sharon's associates are letting it be known that this sentiment is not a campaign slogan, but rather reflects a plan that Sharon and President Bush have been developing for after the war with Iraq. The combination of pressure from the U.S. and Israel's desperate craving for peace could indeed lead to a renewal of the failed concession-making policy of Sharon's predecessors, after the war with Iraq.

Rocket Man, I'm not aware of a host of talented young writers on the left, although such a cadre could well escape my notice. The New Republic always seems to have some talented 20-something writers. I don't follow them closely, but my impression is that, as a group, they realize there is something wrong with the Democrats, but know they don't want to be Republicans, and haven't a clue as to what else they might become. Thus, again as a group, they tend to sound bright but muddled, kind of like Joe Lieberman.

John Podhoretz has a useful recap on the North Korea mess, and how we got here, in this morning's New York Post: "Crazy Korea 'cures.'"

Trunk, that Michelle Malkin column you linked to isn't just a homer, it's a grand slam. One fact in the column astonished me: Joel Mowbray is only 26 years old. The lovely Ms. Malkin is herself not much older. One more thing we can be grateful for this holiday season is the emergence of a new generation of tough, aggressive, and staunchly conservative journalists--a group of which Mowbray and Malkin are prime examples. May they continue their good work for many years to come. Has a similarly talented group of young journalists emerged on the left in recent years? Not that I know of--one more reason for optimism about the future.

Daniel Pipes finds reason for optimism in the fact that, for the first time in human history, the triumvirate of peace, democracy and free markets are recognized almost world-wide and stand without serious competition in the world of ideas. The chief exception--and, as Pipes acknowledges, a very serious one--is the Muslim world. But compared to the intellectual climate of even thirty years ago, it is hard to avoid agreeing with Pipes's assessment that the current international near-consensus represents a huge step forward.

Michelle Malkin has her own nominee for Whistleblower of the Year, and you won't find his mug on the cover of Time magazine. Michelle modestly avoids any mention of her own bombshell stories this year, but she stands shoulder to shoulder with her own nominee as this year's most valuable reporters--by a country mile.

One of our reader's, Casey Abell, makes the insightful point that Patty Murray could become a victim of what the Weekly Standard calls the "liberal cocoon." Mr. Abell suggests that Murray "may well mistake the mainstream media's acceptance of her moronic remarks for the voice of the voters." If so, she may continue to make "idiotic and repulsive remarks in the future." Thus, "if the Republicans put up a strong candidate against her (the Speaker-slaying George Nethercutt is supposedly interested in a 2004 run) she could get delayed but effective feedback at the ballot box." Comparing Murray's situation to that of Trent Lott, Mr. Abell concludes, "better to take some lumps from the media than a big shellacking from the voters." Personally, I suspect that even Murray will appreciate the need to be careful in the future, but I think the "cocoon" effect may prevent her from realizing that she needs to compensate, if not atone, for her remarks. Thus, a shellacking may, indeed, be in Senator Murray's future. Let's hope so, anyway.

Former White House Counsel and leading conservative lawyer Boyden Gray, in the Washington Times, suggests three domestic initiatives for the Republican Party to focus on. They are: (1) school choice (largely an issue to be pursued at the state and local levels, with assistance from the White House bully pulpit), (2) enactment of a market-based, privately run prescription drug benefit, and (3) reform of the selection and confirmation process for federal judges, along with prompt confirmation of those judges already nominated.

George Will on how President Bush, through the appointment process, is restoring seriousness to the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts. Whether taxpayer dollars should support either of these outfits is a matter of debate. I'm fine with both in theory. But reading Will's account of the two endowments during the Clinton years suggests to me that their potential for mischief may exceed their potential for good.

We need to catch up with Mark Steyn's most recent columns: "One nightmarish lot: Scrood at every turn," "Sheila's seasonal song registry," "Did anyone notice a code was breached?," "Kissinger, Law, Lott: Gone, gone, going," and "A billion here, a billion there..."

John Fund has a terrific column about Governor Jeb Bush's use of the Internet for political purposes: "World Wide Jeb." The column omits any mention of bloggers, but now that we know Governor Bush reads his e-mail, we will do our best to enlist him among our Power Line crew of readers.

The Washington Post has a long and interesting article on the ongoing interrogation of captured al Qaeda operatives. It is generally encouraging: "The picture that emerges is of a brass-knuckled quest for information, often in concert with allies of dubious human rights reputation, in which the traditional lines between right and wrong, legal and inhumane, are evolving and blurred." The Post quotes a former head of the CIA Counterterrorist Center: "This is a very highly classified area, but I have to say that all you need to know [is]: There was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves come off." THe report suggests that a great deal of uselful information has been obtained from prisoners, which no doubt accounts in large part for the difficulty al Qaeda has had in carrying out successful attacks.

I've been traveling today and am with one of my brothers in Pennsylvania tonight and for the next few days. I'll be back posting by tomorrow. I'm hoping to take my kids to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell day after tomorrow.

On a point related to Deacon's below, our favorite Minnesota journalist devotes his column today to the Christian themes of Christmas: "There's no reason to deny Christian themes of Christmas."

Rabbi Aryeh Spero, in the Washingotn Times provides an important commentary on the ACLU's deplorable attacks on Christmas. As a Jew, I am saddened by the disapperance of the public symbols of Christmas from the civic landscape. I have long regretted that American Christians, having created such a tolerant welcoming society for those of other faiths, are, perhaps as an indirect result, deprived of a whole-hearted public celebration of their most holy day. This may not be much of a constitutional argument, but it is how I feel.

Rabbi Spero notes that those most at war with public expression of Christian imagery are in the forefront of demanding public expression and acknowledgement, especially in the public schools, of Islamic symbols and rituals. Spero concludes with this sagacious observation: "One senses the push for things Islamic by those otherwise fighting Christian symbols is because they know the essence of America depends on specific linkage to the Judeo-Christian ethic and, for whatever warped reason, the toppling of traditional Americana is the goal."

Deacon's enthusiasm for Preston Sturges has encouraged me to provide a link to the extremely informative and handsome Official Preston Sturges Website. Like so much on the Web, the site is a sheer labor of love. Cheers!

Trunk, we obviously have shared tastes in movies. I'm a huge Preston Sturges fan. You did omit one of his very best movies from your list, namely "The Lady Eve." "Christmas in July" is the most difficult Sturges film to find, and I was glad that TMC ran it last night. One interesting thing about that movie (and to a lesser extent some of Sturges' others) is the director's obvious affection for capitalism and capitalists. This is not something one finds in very many movies of his generation, or ours.

Yesterday evening Robert Osborn, the dapper primetime host of cable television's Turner Classic Movies, selected three movies as his favorites for Christmas Eve. The first of the three was "Christmas in July," a movie having nothing to do with Christmas.

The film was written and directed by Preston Sturges, a director known for the subgenre of "screwball" comedies that he perfected with "the Sturges touch." He is perhaps best know for "The Great McGinty," "The Palm Beach Story," and "Sullivan's Travels," all of which I have seen and recommend unreservedly.

I had never even heard of "Christmas in July." The film stars Dick Powell as Jimmy MacDonald; Powell is outstanding. But the most striking thing about the film is the comedy; it is hilarious. The opening five minutes (the whole movie is only 68 minutes long) is an intense dialogue between Powell and his girlfriend, full of love and hate, yearning and hostility, hilariously true to life.

The story turns on the Powell character's entry into a coffee slogan contest whose winner is to receive the then life changing sum of $25,000. If he wins the contest, he can afford to marry his girlfriend and have a family. Made in 1940, the film powerfully reflects the Depression era in which Sturges wrote the play on which the movie was based. (The movie is obviously of historical interest as well; in those days, you see, financial considerations exercised a constraint on marriage and family.) The slogan he enters in the contest is "If you can't sleep at night, it isn't the coffee--it's the bunk!" Powell's enthusiasm for the slogan is another source of humor throughout the movie. By the end of the film, the slogan is unforgettable. If you're looking for a movie to entertain you this holiday season, you could not do better than to track down a copy of this masterpiece.

We haven't commented on Time Magazine's silly choice of three "whistleblowers" as Persons of the Year for the momentous twelve months just past. In WorldNet Daily, our friend Hugh Hewitt says all that needs to be said, placing the current farce in the context of Time's decline as an institution.

Merry Christmas to all. I hope Santa was good to our readers.

This morning's Minneapolis Star Tribune features a story titled "Antiwar Voices Rapidly Becoming a Chorus" on the allegedly-burgeoning anti-Iraq war movement. No doubt similar stories are appearing in metropolitan dailies everywhere. This article isn't too bad--it at least acknowledges the existence of a contrary view--but there are two questions that these antiwar protesters are never asked. The first--since this is exactly the same crew who opposed the liberation of Afghanistan--is, now that Afghanistan has been liberated, with generally happy results, have you rethought your opposition to that conflict? The second is, where were you during Kosovo and Somalia? The truth is that most of these people are not so much anti-American as they are anti-Republican. As long as we have a Republican President, they will never support anything he does. And, so long as we have a Democratic press, they will never be called to account for their errors and their inconsistencies.

Meanwhile, as reported by World Net Daily, the newspapers in Murray's home state are slightly more critical, but reserve their harshest words for those who have criticized Murray.

The Washington Post editorializes in support of Patty Murray: "Inept But Entitled to Her Say."

Here's Christmas in Saudi Arabia, courtesy of Best of the Web and the Washington Post:

"At another card shop, an Indian employee reaches beneath the counter to pull out a half-dozen religious and secular Christmas cards, his eyes darting around his empty shop and out the window.

"There would be trouble if caught: 'They ask where you got them,' he says. The ever-vigilant religious police have confiscated cards in the past, he said, and have even been known to haul shopkeepers away to be questioned about where they got such materials."

A very merry Christmas to our friends the Saudis.

The first column Rocket Man and I published under a joint byline essentially resulted from the invitation of Ron Clark, the long-time editor of the editorial page of the Pioneer Press, whom we had called to complain about the enormously successful, seemingly endless serialization of Barlett and Steele's "America: What Went Wrong?" that was then running in the Pioneer Press. Over the past year Ron has been in a fight for his life against daunting odds. His riveting first person account of his illness reminds us of the loss of one of our best friends this year, who twice underwent the treatment protocol Ron describes, as well as of how much for which we have to be grateful: "This holiday season provides special reason for hope."

December 25's Jerusalem Post is full of interesting items. One that caught my eye is by Hollywood screenwriter Jack Engelhard: "The Silence of the Hollywood Lambs." Today's Wall Street Journal also had an interesting column that makes a good companion to Engelhard's, on Sean Penn's trip to Baghdad: "Useful Idiot."

I don't share his taste in charitable causes, but John Berg seems to me an indisputably great American whose story has special resonance at this time of the year. Having survived some close calls during his service as an Army sergeant in the Vietnam war, he has kept the commitment he then made never to have another bad day. I found his story in this morning's Star Tribune business section an inspiration, and I'm sure you will too: "Foxhole Christmas helped shape Wells Fargo VP's convictions."

The Samizdata post on Marxism is fascinating indeed, Rocket Man. The premise of the post seems to be that Marxism is alive and well on college campuses and has not lost very much face despite the collapse of Communism in Europe. But the Economist article from which Samizdata quotes suggests to me that Marxism actually has taken a massive hit and is not stirring many imaginations these days. According to the Economist, his current defenders argue that Marx was "misunderstood" and "was right about far more than he is given for credit for." Just 30 years ago, any Marxist who uttered such sentiments would have been read right out of whatever splinter group he or she belonged to. Marx used to be regarded as a prophet. Marxism was "scientific socialism." Today, even Marx's defenders seem to regard him as a dreamer who had some useful insights considering the times in which he wrote. As to why anyone has any use at all for Marx today, I would suggest that some middle aged professors invested too much in Marxism to walk away from it. And I suspect that those students (very few in number, from what I can tell) who dabble in Marxism do so because they hate capitalism and the United States, and find Marxism a marginally more attractive outlet than the only other ideology grandiose enough to give proper due to their hatred, namely Islamofascism. This is a far cry from the intellectual passion that caused many of the brighest students of the 1930s (and some of the brighter ones of the 1960s) to embrace Marxism as the ideology that correctly explains and predicts everything.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all from the Power Line crew. And a special year-end thanks to all readers who have taken the time to email us. Hearing from readers is one of the most fun aspects of this site. So please keep it up!

A while back, after reading a column by former Israeli Prime Minister Peres on what Israel should do next, I asked whether Neville Chamberlain got to write op-ed pieces after failing to deliver peace in his time. I ask this question again today after reading a Washington Post op-ed by Bill Clinton's advisor on North Korea, Wendy Sherman. It is the Clinton administration's appeasement of North Korea that enabled that dictatorship to reach the point where it poses a nuclear threat to the world. Yet here is Ms. Sherman telling us what we should do next, which turns out to be, essentially, more appeasement.

Sherman uses the recent South Korean election as her pretext to get back into the appeasement-recommending business. She seems alarmed that there is anti-Americanism in South Korea and thinks that we had better heed South Korean calls for discussions with the North if we are to improve our popularity (hence the catchy title "Listen to the South, and Talk to the North"). Why South Korean popularity polls should dictate our response to the threat posed to the region, and to the United States, by North Korean nuclear weapons and terrorism, Sherman never quite makes clear. Equally muddled is her recommendation that we "talk" to North Korea, "even if full-fledged negotiations are premature until North Korea pulls back from its dangerous nuclear path." Apparently, Sherman has in mind a "peace process." But talking to the North Koreans will only convey weakness and the prospect of further appeasement. Moreover, talking to them while refusing to engage in "full-fledged negotiations" (a wishy-washy formulation that, to Sherman, probably means the promise of future concessions, as opposed to immediate capitulation) would likely create increased tensions, since the North Koreans will be expecting immediate concessions commensurate with their status, courtesy of the Clinton administration, as a nuclear power.

Trunk (and Mrs. Trunk) the role of bloggers is being widely recognized in the Lott affair, it seems. Last night on "Hardball" two panelists mentioned bloggers. I believe Tony Blankley and Christopher Hitchens were the two.

As the photograph Rocket Man posted last night suggests, among the many things for which the Power Line crew are thankful this holiday season is the presidency of George W. Bush. Today Rich Lowry contributes a timely appreciation: "The faith-based presidency."

Mrs. Trunk submits for your consideration Michael Barone's retrospective on the fall of Trent Lott: "Showing where they stand." She particularly appreciates his recognition of the role of the bloggers.

Diana West also has an important postscript: "Don't jettison colorblind policy with Lott."

Thanks to InstaPundit for pointing out this interesting Samizdata post on the puzzling question: Why does Marxism still exist? The comments are also worthwhile; I particularly enjoyed the exchange between the factory worker and the ex-factory worker.

In "War and the Fickle Left", Robert Kagan notes that in some prominent instances, today's doves were yesterday's hawks, a change that cannot be explained by philosophy, but only by partisan politics.

I ran across this photo and couldn't resist. Sure, it's premature, but give him another six years, and who knows?

The Washington Post, on an intriguing power struggle/legal issue in Salt Lake City. The Mormon Church purchased a block of Main Street from Salt Lake City, but the City retained an easement permitting public access to the block. Under the terms of the easement, freedom of speech on the block is severely limited. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the City could not permit the Church to limit First Amendment rights on a block that remained a public passage. The Church and the City are now renegotiating. According to the Post, it looks like the City will give up its easement in exchange for Church real estate on the other side of town.

A reader called this case to our attention a few months ago. I asked our man in Utah, the Rocket Prof, for some background. He responded with a characteristically thoughtful analysis plus links to the Tenth Circuit's decision and other relevant material. I concluded that the legal issue deserved more thought than I had time to give it, but I hope to give it the necessary attention, and post whatever I come up with, during the coming holiday week.

USA Today reports on a survey of 58 "top economists"; the headline--"Economists Cautiously Optimistic"--sums up the data pretty accurately. The consensus was that unemployment will drop from 6% to 5.7% by the end of 2003 and the Dow will be at 9550, up 12%, by then. Well, I hope so. But the most interesting result to me was that 85% of the economists polled advocated cutting taxes. That seems like a rather stunning consensus, highlighting the fact that tax-raising liberals are a fringe group, outside the mainstream of economic opinion. You shouldn't expect to read this in your local newspaper any time soon, however.

The Washington Times headline says "France Said Ready to Assist U.S. in Iraq Invasion," but the story is actually more encouraging than that. "Dozens of countries," including virtually all of the NATO nations, are lining up to lend support to a possible war in Iraq, according to an unidentified Administration spokesman. Other news reports indicate that the 101st Airborne, 82nd Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions are all on their way to the Middle East, along with the 1st Cavalry and various special forces units (in addition, of course, to major elements of the Army's V Corps, including the 1st Infantry Division, which are already in Kuwait, along with special forces already in place in Iraq and surrounding areas). These are among the most storied units in our armed forces; presumably the Administration constantly releases reports on our progress in assembling both arms and allies partly in the hope that Iraqis will be frightened into deposing Saddam, thereby saving us the trouble.

The Seattle Times (via Best of the Web) reports that Patty Murray is taking some (but nowhere near enough) heat for her comments in a Washington high school praising Osama bin Laden for building schools, roads and day care facilities--the last of which is particularly astonishing. Murray isn't really backing off; she says that her remarks were "off the cuff," but hasn't disavowed them. Instead, she has criticized what she calls a "right wing media frenzy," apparently referring to the fact that her speech was disclosed by the Drudge Report and has been criticized by conservatives on the internet and elsewhere: "What is important is that we have to have thoughtful debates and discussions in this country and raise questions and answer them without being pulled into some right-wing media frenzy. That is truly frightening to me." So bin Laden is just another humanitarian, but the Drudge Report is "truly frightening." And suggesting that bin Laden's alleged popularity is due to his funding of day care facilities constitutes "thoughtful debate and discussion." A good snapshot of contemporary leftist attitudes.

This editorial by The Washington Times offers more speculation about the debate within the Bush administration on whether to take a stand against the University of Michigan's race-based admissions policies in the two pending Supreme Court cases. The Times suggests that the administration's reluctance to do so may stem in part from the desire to protect the viability of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez as a Supreme Court nominee. The Times notes that Gonzalez has worked hard to "ingratiate" himself with key Senate Democrats. I'm not really qualified to opine with much authority about the politics of this. However, it seems to me that, assuming Gonzalez is going to be the nominee, Senate Democrats would be taking a big risk if they were to treat him like they treated Clarence Thomas simply because the administration opposes racial preferences. Since the Democrats no longer hold a majority, they would have to engage in scorched earth tactics to derail Gonzalez. It's not clear to me that treating the first hispanic high Court nominee this way, based on a Justice Department brief that most Americans agree with, would be smart politics.

Notwithstanding the comments of Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, the word in Israel seems to be that the war with Iraq will be brief. My wife visits her father in Haifa every year, usually during the winter. To plan next year's visit, she is trying to get a sense of when the war will begin and when it will end. The Israelis expect to be attacked again. But, according to family and friends in Israel, the government's line is that the war will start in late January or February and will not last long.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz takes issue with reports in the Washington Post of a split between senior civilian and military leadership over planning for potential war. The Post has said that Wolfowitz is predicting that Saddam will fall almost immediately upon being attacked, whereas military leaders are far less optimistic. In this Post op-ed, Wolfowitz claims that there is no split, and that all concerned recognize that the war could be quite difficult and are planning accordingly. Wolfowitz does state that the risks about what might happen after Saddam is toppled have been exaggerated.

Attentive Power Line readers will probably have noticed that I am from South Dakota, and return there periodically. A few weeks ago, I came across a very fine essay called Dakota Thanksgiving by J. Bottum, books and arts editor for the Weekly Standard. Then, just a few days ago, my brother the Rocket Prof called my attention to this equally fine essay by Mr. Bottum, Dakota Christmas. I can't do better this holiday season than to recommend both of these lovely pieces to you. Whether or not you have any connection to South Dakota, I think you'll like them.

Earlier today, Deacon posted on the latest poll showing President Bush with a 66% approval rating, based largely on the fact that 75% consider him a strong leader. President Bush seems to have confirmed the "use it or lose it" approach to political power. Rather than sit on his high approval ratings, he put his influence on the line to help swing November's election for his party. Having spent a great deal of political capital, he has emerged stronger than ever. The New York Times woke up this morning to find that "President Bush has created one of the most powerful White Houses in at least a generation." While the Times is by no means a sympathetic observer of the Administration, its analysis of the growth of Bush's influence is accurate:

"Mr. Bush's stature was enhanced by the way he led the nation after the terrorist attacks, establishing him as an overwhelmingly popular president. It was that popularity, and an understanding by the White House of the way the attacks had altered the political landscape, that led to the Republican sweep in the midterm election, further enhancing Mr. Bush's authority.

"And it was in no small part the role that Mr. Bush played in driving the Republican victory last November that gave the White House the authority it needed to maneuver over the last two weeks."

Debka File has been almost alone in reporting on al Qaeda's growing collaboration with the Palestinian terrorists. Now Debka covers the attempted assassination of a German diplomat by a combined al Qaeda/al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade operation. According to Debka, "al Qaeda has been badgering Fatah 'Martyrs' to start giving value for the money sent them, i.e., to stage terrorist attacks not only against Israelis but also against the Westerners active in Palestinian areas, many of them on humanitarian missions."

Trunk, you've always had more tolerance for popular culture than I have, but everything I read about "Gangs of New York" sounded awful--interminable violence, with the added aggravation of being anti-American. But then, I'm not exactly the acid test. Unless it's either a kids' movie or an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, I'm unlikely to see it.

I'm deleting my reference earlier today to the new Martin Scorsese film, "Gangs of New York." I went to see it this afternoon, and it's probably a little soon to say it's the worst movie I've ever seen, but--given the talent and money lavished on it--it's definitely among the top ten worst movies I've ever seen. Movie audiences, with a sixth sense I do not fathom, appear to be staying away in droves. Viewing it is quasi-Hobbesian: solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish, but long, long, long. Releasing this sickening movie during the holiday season is itself a travesty. If I had known better, I would not only have stayed away, I would have led an informational boycott against it. If you yourself avoid seeing the movie because of this post, you will owe me more than you can know...but we're always happy to be of service.

George Will writes about the Bush administration's plan to put many government services up for bid, noting the success of this approach with the printing of next year's budget. It is noteworthy that Al Gore's "reinventing government" task force recommended competitive bidding for government printing years ago. The problem for the Clinton Administration was that, because the Democratic Party is utterly beholden to the public employee unions, such ideas could be advanced but could never be put into practice.

This is great: InstaPundit pointed us to President Bush's radio address to the Iranian people. This is exactly what we need to be doing--allying ourselves with the progressive forces in Iran, and broadcasting all the encouragement we can. The Mullahs should ultimately fall without any need for military action on our part, and there is no reason why we shouldn't enjoy warm relations with the next government.

The Washington Post credits Virginia Senator George Allen, son of the legendary Redskins football coach, with a leading role in the overthrow of Trent Lott. Allen will replace new Majority Leader Bill Frist as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. If he's anything like his father, we could see the Republicans obtaining Senate seats for draft picks. For Allen, as for his party, "the future is now."

Sixty-six percent of Americans approve of President Bush's work, according to this Washington Post report on the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. 75 percent of those polled view Bush as "a strong leader." Although Ruy Teixeira, co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority, believes that Bush's high rating for leadership is "narrowly based on Sept. 11 and thus precarious," the Post finds that "the view of Bush as a powerful leader has clearly extended beyond the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks."

The Weekly Standard Web site has posted the holiday gift book recommendations of its editors and writers, and it's a good one: "The Weekly Standard Holiday Reading Guide."

The new issue of the Standard has a fascinating cover story by Andrew Ferguson on the Lincoln assassination conspiracy. The magazine has kindly made the article electronically available: "The Last Battle of the Civil War."

I vaguely remember Karel Capek as the author of a dystopian novel that at one time was lumped together with 1984 and Brave New World as a classic of the genre. Today's Sunday New York Times Book Review has an interesting review of the first-ever biography of Capek with news of a related publishing project devoted to bringing his work out in English: "A Literary Comeback for Karel Capek."

On May 25, 1941, Commander Ian Fleming entered the United States on a secret mission: to encourage the United States to centralize its intelligence operations in a single agency and to help choose the chief of the new agency. Mark Riebling tells the story with great skill in his timely book Wedge: The secret war between the FBI and the CIA. Fleming was a warrior for freedom and a friend of the United States.

Fleming's contributions to freedom continued after WW II with his series of James Bond novels. Although the Bond movie franchise has long since taken on a life of its own, our friend and faithful reader Bruce Sanborn appreciates the political subtext of the films. Bruce's column on the latest entry in the Bond franchise ("Die Another Day") is "The Bond, James Bond." (Courtesy of the Claremont Institute Web site.)

The New York Times is trying to find an angle to attack Bill Frist; its efforts are mainly humorous. Today they played a game of "find the hidden racial slur." If you can figure out what in the following anecdote is "racially insensitive," as the Times characterized it, let us know:

"Also in that campaign, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat from Memphis, demanded that Mr. Frist apologize to African-Americans for remarks that he and a supporter made. Mr. Frist, going to a largely black march against crime, had asked a worker to obtain imprinted pencils to distribute, requesting unsharpened pencils.

'I don't want to get stuck,' he told the aide."

Believe it or not, that is the story in its entirety. If the Times can't do better than that, they're in trouble.

As an addled undergraduate college student in love with the Beatles, the Byrds, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and the Jefferson Airplane, I was instructed by a friend one day in 1972 to sit down and listen to a new three-record album set titled "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" The album was issued under the name of the hippie folk group the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but the album featured the group's legendary guest artists--Mother Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis, Vassar Clements, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, and many others. Like Butch and Sundance being chased by the posse they couldn't shake, I wondered to myself, "Who are these guys?" The music was so American and beautiful, it sounded like it had sprung up out of the soil. Yesterday National Review Online carried Michael Long's fine account of his encounter with the 1972 album and its most recent installments: "Down to the Nitty Gritty."

Victor Davis Hanson returns to first principles in articulating the case for the war on terrorism through a series of questions and answers in National Review Online. To the question of whether we are winning, Hanson answers that "it is not even close so far." With fewer than 100 casualties among American soldiers, Al Qaeda is "about half ruined," the Taliban is gone, Iraq is terrified, and Syria, Libya, and Iran are apprehensive. If we keep our nerve, Hanson says, we will prevail.

If the Republicans decide to take a principled stand against the evils of all forms of racial preferences, this piece by William Bennett can show them how the case should be articulated. As Bennett concludes, "We are all one people, living in one nation, and we need, finally, to act like it."

Rocket Man, interesting speculation on why the Republicans don't take a strong principled stand against racial preferences. I'm not convinced that they are deterred by big business. I don't think the commitment of big business to affirmative action runs very deep, and I suspect that most business leaders would not react one way or the other to a strong Republican stance against preferences. Residual guilt may play a role, although there aren't many Republican leaders left who have reason to feel direct guilt about America's racist past. My guess is that Republicans are deterred by fear of being hammered by the media as racists. Recall the backlash against Lee Atwater for the Willie Horton ad in 1988. A few years later, Jesse Helms ran a powerful ad depicting the effects of racial preferences on whites that received similar rebuke. Jesse could take it, but not many politicians can. Nor, I suspect, do they perceive the need to. Republicans probably feel they can count on the votes of those who oppose racial preferences for minorities without taking a public position, and thus without receiving public condemnation, on the issue.

Bill Frist is a nightmare for the Democrats, but that won't stop them from pounding away on the race issue for the next two years, with plenty of help from the mainstream media. This could be an endless thorn in the Republicans' side, but it could also be an opportunity, if it finally leads the party to take an unequivocal, principled stand on the issue. If the Republicans will simply declare that the government should never discriminate against any of its citizens on the basis of race, they can turn the issue around very quickly. This anti-affirmative action position is morally right, represents sound public policy, and is popular with a large majority of the American people. If the Republicans take a principled stand, they can put the pressure where it belongs, on the Democrats, who would then have to argue in favor of affirmative action, instead of simply denouncing everyone who opposes it as a racist. If the Democrats have to actually sell the argument that opposing race discrimination makes one a racist, they will lose.

Why don't the Republicans do this? Certainly not for fear of losing black votes; they can't do much worse, and taking a principled anti-discrimination stand would, in my opinion, allow them to do better. I think they are deterred more by the popularity of affirmative action in the business world. Big business is heavily committed to affirmative action, and would resent any effort by the Republicans to point out the immorality of this near-universal practice. Some older Republicans may also be deterred by a residual sense of guilt that afflicts both Republicans and Democrats of a certain age. If so, they need to get over it. Black Americans are perfectly competent to compete with Americans of other races, and patronizing them helps no one. On the contrary, it has introduced a corrosive, divisive element into our society that now represents our biggest domestic problem. If the Lott fiasco leads Republicans to finally take a principled stand opposing all race discrimination, it will be a great blessing not only to the Republican Party, but to America.

The London Times reports that, in an apparent change of policy, both the UK and the US have indicated they will begin feeding intelligence to the U.N. arms inspectors to assist their search for illicit weapons: "US officials confirmed that they would begin passing intelligence that will be drawn from the huge American surveillance operation on Iraq from spy satellites, communications intercepts and agents on the ground." I assume the Administration has a plan to bring the Iraqi situation into an endgame, but I have no idea what it is. News accounts suggest that the Administration's public announcements are intended largely to confuse Saddam Hussein. I don't know about Saddam, but they certainly confuse me.

National Review's Joel Mowbray reports on the bungled affair of the North Korean scud missile shipment to Yemen. If Mowbray is right, the State Department is once again the culprit.

Here is Patty Murray's attempt to respond to the controversy over her weird bin Laden/day care speech at a Washington high school yesterday. It is pretty pathetic; it makes no reference to her speech, and therefore would be incomprehensible to anyone who didn't know the story. And it concludes with a swipe at someone, but it is impossible to say who, or what it has to do with her mind-boggling misunderstanding of Islamofascism: "While there are some on the extreme fringes of society who try to exploit fear and uncertainty for political gain, there are many more who understand that the best value of our democracy is the freedom to think and to secure a better future." I guess what she means is that she is just another non-extreme bin Laden admirer, working away to secure a better future. This scandal deserves to have legs; it will be interesting to see whether or not it does.

The Lakota Uprising of 1862 is a major event in Minnesota history. Beginning with a spree killing, the Lakota attacked settlers along the Minnesota River and murdered several hundred whites. The Army ultimately put down the rebellion and captured hundreds of Lakota warriors. Ultimately, 38 of them were hanged by order of President Lincoln. This is usually portrayed as a racist act by the white victors, and Lincoln's role is considered dishonorable. The truth is the opposite: Many more Indians would have been hanged, but Lincoln personally reviewed the transcripts of all of the Indians' military trials--in the middle of the night, during the darkest days of the Civil War--to ensure that no one would be unjustly punished. He refused to allow any Lakota to be hanged unless he was personally convinced by the trial record that the Indian was guilty of either murder or rape of civilians. No one was allowed to be punished for participating in the rebellion or for killing soldiers. Lincoln named the 38 defendants against whom he thought the evidence was compelling, and directed John Pope, the local military commander, to release the others. Pope responded that if he let the Indians go, the settlers would rise up and attack them. Lincoln directed Pope to do his duty and protect the Indians.

Four years ago, the Trunk and I wrote an article about this episode, defending Lincoln and debunking the politically correct narrative. Today my son, who is a high school sophomore, told me that in his American History class, they studied the 1862 uprising, and his teacher used our article as a counterpoint to the PC account in their textbook. She clearly found our article compelling, and told my son she has been using our article as part of her curriculum for the past four years. So, guys, our efforts are not always in vain.

I'm not aware that our article is available anywhere on the internet, but if I can find it, I'll link to it.

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post thinks that, even as Trent Lott "is hustled off the stage," the Republican party remains "haunted" by the states' rights views he and Strom Thurmond share. Dionne challenges "Lott's Republican critics who share his states' rights views on many contemporary matters to explain why states' rights doctrines that were so wrong as a general proposition in 1948 are right today." Although I don't really fit the description of those Dionne challenges, I think I can handle this one. The answer, I suppose, is that states' rights doctrines were not necessarily "so wrong as a general proposition in 1948." That the doctrines were wrong as applied to an issue concerning basic freedoms guaranteed to all citizens by the Constitution, does not mean that they were (or are) wrong when it comes to a host of other issues, such as those pertaining to economic regulation, education, etc.

At the root of Dionne's argument is his view that the federal government is today (as at the time of the 1960s civil rights acts) the "bulwark for individual rights." In support of this view, Dionne notes that "federal law protects the rights of women, the disabled, and members of religious minorities." Of course, these groups, along with racial and ethnic minorities, are protected by the laws of virtually every state, as well. Some states go further than the federal government, some go less far. But, unlike in 1965, there is no great divide between federal civil rights policy and the policy of any cluster of states. Moreover, to the extent that federal law may now go further than the law of a particular state, it is far from clear that, in doing so, the feds are acting as a "bulwark for individual rights." Racial quota programs, for example, do not promote individual rights. Thus, while Republicans will continue to debate the extent to which we should be a states' rights party, I hardly believe that we will be "haunted" by this issue, or by the legacy of Strom Thurmond, Dixiecrat.

Haaretz reports that in the last week, the IDF has captured 108 terror suspects. Yesterday Israeli forces discovered and blew up "as ususually large bomb-making factory" in a house in the Askhar refugee camp. And in the last week, no fewer than eleven suicide bombings have been thwarted by the arrest of the intended bomber. It is hard to know whether to be encouraged by the rounding up of so many terrorists, or discouraged by the large number of Arabs who are willing to blow themselves up in order to murder Jews.

We pounded pretty hard on Trent Lott, but he is by no means the dimmest bulb in the Senate. That honor may go to Patty Murray. Last night I heard about a speech she gave to a group of high school students on Hugh Hewitt's radio show; I couldn't find a link to the article, but this morning it is up on the Drudge Report. Murray's take on events in the Arab world is simply unbelievable:

"We've got to ask, why is this man (Osama bin Laden) so popular around the world? Why are people so supportive of him in many countries … that are riddled with poverty?

    "He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that.

    "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

It is true, I guess, that bin Laden has built some schools, especially in Afghanistan, where the curriculum included bomb-making, assassination, manufacturing and spreading toxins, and so on. But day care facilities? I don't think that in Osama's world, women go to the office and put their children in day care. And Ms. Murray apparently missed the reaction of the Afghan people to our liberating them from bin Laden and the Taliban. I don't recall that a lot of Afghans were mourning the departure of bin Laden and his road-building crews. How can a woman this ignorant be serving in the United States Senate?

Lately there has been quite a bit of commentary on the threat of cyber-terrorism. I'm inclined to agree with Glenn Reynolds: "Most computer-related stuff doesn't work well enough for terrorism to register anyway. Kind of like threatening to cause traffic jams in L.A."

CBS News is reporting that Trent Lott will resign as Majority Leader. Bill Frist appears poised to replace him, and Lott will not quit the Senate. Lott reportedly was given this week as a deadline to resign and still retain a favorable committee assignment.

More on Minneapolis's federal mediation: Today's latest installment is "Mediation will be on hold until at least Jan. 1." Despite the tentativeness of the headline, do not doubt that the mediation will occur. The latest news is that nine new "community representatives" may be added to the existing nine, making the representation "even more diverse": "Two American Indians, and one representative from the African, Asian, Latino and Somali communities...Additionally, an attorney, and a representative each from the Minneapolis nonprofit group The City, Inc., and from the Coalition of Black Churches..."

The time at which Rocket Man and I are scheduled to appear on WCCO 830 AM radio this afternoon with Kim Jeffries has been moved to 1:10 pm. I leave it to Rocket Man to remember to plug Power Line in the 20 minutes we have been allotted.

My friend David Harlow pointed me to this piece in National Review Online by Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity about the Michigan preferential admissions cases. Clegg is reacting to the story we posted from yesterday's Washington Post on the debate within the administration over whether to file a brief opposing the University of Michigan's racial discrimination. Clegg wonders why the administration might think that opposing racial preferences is risky politically. As Clegg notes, such preferences are wildly unpopular among Americans, as has been shown in study after study and confirmed in a number of elections. Clegg also notes that the Lott fiasco might hand President Bush the opportunity to explain why opposing discrimination, be it against whites or blacks, is the right thing to do. Let's hope that President Bush seizes this opportunity.

Here, thanks to Mrs. Trunk, is Ann Coulter on the subject of Democratic nostalgia for Strom Thurmond's pro-Soviet 1948 opponent, Henry Wallace. Coulter's piece nicely supplements the one I posted yesterday by historian Arthur Herman. We can now add Ted Kennedy's name to the list of those who regard the Stalinist sympathizer as a noble "American Dreamer." On a personal note, I would like to add my late trade-unionist father to the all-too-short list of leftists who, as staunch anti-Communists, regarded Wallace's 1948 campaign with nothing but contempt.

Lately a lot of progress in the war against al Qaeda and its allies has been reported. It seems as though nearly every day brings good news, large or small. Here is a report on the arrest of nine terrorists in Pakistan, and here is a report on a bomb accident in Karachi that killed one of Daniel Pearl's murderers and three confederates.

Minneapolis continues the preproduction work on its theater of the absurd federal mediation involving the Minneapolis police and its alleged brutality. Today's installment is "Minneapolis police mediation panel should stay as is, expert says." One of the Star Tribune's several liberal columnists also weighs in with his own utterly predictable contribution, "Like a comedy bit minus the comedy." Grow thinks the problem is that Minneapolis's most notorious race hustler has not yet been cut in on the action.

Latecomers to the predproduction might want to catch up with a few previous stories: "Police-community mediation talks to begin this week in Minneapolis," "Talks on police relations delayed a week," "NAACP demands city fire cops involved in struggle with man who died," and "Federal mediation with police and community up in air." None of the stories contains a fact making out police wrongdoing, and none contains a statement by anyone supporting the officers. The chief''s contribution has been limited to demanding the inclusion of local representatives of the Urban League and the NAACP.

Our friends at the Claremont Institute have put together a marvelous list of recommended books under the heading Symposium: A Very Claremont Christmas. The contributors include our esteemed friends Larry Arnn, current president of Hillsdale College and former president of the institute, Steve Hayward, author of the great Age of Reagan, and Bruce Sanborn, chairman of the institute and connoiseur of the humorous. Enjoy!

I have nothing as powerful as Stanton Brown's commentary to offer regarding the Democrats who are accusing Republican voters of racism, but here are a few observations. First, it seems that most of these accusations are coming from "retired" office seekers, e.g. Bill Clinton and Mario Cuomo. I think their comments reflect the views of their more active Democratic counterparts, but active politicians are understandably relunctant to accuse large chunks of the population of racism. All of this suggests to me that the Democrats may be about to lose much of the benefit that Lott's statement potentially has provided them. Lott's statement did not damage Republicans with respect to the African-American vote, of which Republicans receive, and will continue to receive, only a negligible portion. It might hurt Republican standing with moderate voters, but probably will not if the Democrats overplay their hand with unsubstantiated and slanderous attacks on those who vote for Republicans.

Second, in response to Mr. Brown, I think that people like Cuomo and Levin do believe what they're saying about alleged voter racism (I won't even guess what Bill Clinton believes). But why do they believe it? Perhaps they are projecting their own views upon voters. Jim Sleeper and others have written on the liberal racism that informs much of the advocacy of racial preferences. Occasionally this surfaces, as when the president of Rutgers defended preferences on the theory that, in essence, blacks lack the intelligence to prosper on their own. Alternatively, Democrats like Cuomo may simply find it convenient to ascribe the party's decidedly limited success among whites to the deeply flawed characters of the voters. On this account, the evidence of racism is to be found in voter rejection of Democrats, nothing more. In fact, in a slight variation on this theme, Cuomo himself (speaking on "Hardball") cited as his only evidence that Republicans are closet segregationists the fact that blacks vote almost exclusively for Demorcrats. But of course, one need hardly rely on alleged suspicions of segregationist views to explain why blacks vote for Democrats. The Democratic Party panders to black voters by, among other things, supporting all sorts of preferential treatment for African-Americans.

In any event, the lesson of the Lott affair may be that, if Republicans sometimes talk too stupidly, Democrats generally talk too much. Instead of sitting on the sidelines and enjoying the show, Democrats seem to be lending Republicans a helping hand by inserting into the discussion what Mr. Brown rightly calls the dark side of their souls.

Our loyal reader, Stanton Brown, has passed along the following commentary on what to make of the charge by leading Democrats that Trent Lott's comments reflect a racism common to Republican voters generally. I am posting his comments in their entirety.

"Democrats such as Carl Levin and Bill Clinton have used the Lott story to assert that millions of Republican voters are virulent racists. They don’t just say that these millions of their fellow American citizens are racist. They say that the racism of GOP voters is the determining factor in how they vote! That would be a racial hatred so overpowering that it trumps all of the other considerations and issues upon which a vote may be based. One’s first reaction to this smear is to marshal all of the overwhelming evidence that this obviously not true. But I think it more instructive to look at the dark state of mind of those who utter this slander. They either believe the racist charge or they don’t. Let’s examine both possibilities.

If they know the charge of virulent racism is not true, they are liars of the most despicable sort. For this is precisely the kind of smear, the slanderous Big Lie, that marked the political propaganda of Hitler and his henchmen. This would be the ugly face of evil itself. But let’s be charitable and assume that they really believe the charges they make -- that they honestly believe that millions of their fellow Americans go to the polls and mark their ballots while possessed of a hatred so deep and overwhelming that it completely dominates their thinking. Rejecting all the evidence to the contrary, these Democrats cling to this belief in the vile racism of their fellow citizens. What darkness must lurk in the souls of these Democrats! How repulsed they must be by their country and its people. One cannot help but be struck by how negative their outlook on life must be. Because the kind of racism that they attribute to Republicans is as ugly as it gets. Today, in the modern America of the 21st century, to practice racism is the worst, the most offensive, the most repulsive of all sins.

These are not off-hand, impromptu comments. These assertions of racism are made knowingly and carefully. Against all those who vote Republican. If these Democrats are making them while fully aware they are false, they are truly despicable. If, however, they really believe what they are saying, I think that may be even more frightening. For their hearts and souls must be filled with a darkness and gloom that I can not imagine. To live in an America of such wonderful promise, filled with so many giving and loving people; to live in an America that truly serves as a beacon to the world, a land with a demonstrated track record of inclusiveness and a willingness to strive for a color-blind society …. and to think you see nothing but ugliness and mean-spirited hate in so many people is more depressing than I can contemplate. It must be a very sad and gloomy life.

During my 46 years this nation has come so far in embracing the message of equality. That these political leaders might look out today and see only hatred and vile ugliness reflects only the darkness within them, not the America that really is. For there are none so blind…"

One of the best pieces ever published in the Weekly Standard was a book review by Alvin Felzenberg of a biography of William Lloyd Garrison. The review recounts in brilliant, inspiring detail the role of the Republican Party in advancing the equal rights of black citizens. You might say that it's a true history of the subject, making allowance for its brevity and its focus on Lincon's contemporary rather than on Lincoln himself.

This week the Standard dug into its archives and posted the piece on its Web site. For those, like me, in need of some kind of anger managment therapy in connection with the Lott fiasco, we proudly present Alvin Felzenberg's "Race and Republicans." Rx: Print it out and read it at your leisure. Repeat as needed.

Bill Kristol deploys the following condemnation of Ramsey MacDonald's government by our hero Winston Churchill to withering effect in a Washington Post column this morning: "I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as the 'Boneless Wonder.' My parents judged that the spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing to my youthful eye, and I have waited 50 years to see the Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench." Kristol's column is "Our coy Republicans." (Courtesy of No Left Turns).

National Review Online has just published an electronic version of Byron York's current National Review cover story on how Tim Johnson was elected--or "elected"--senator: "Bad lands, bad votes."

Our friend Steve Hayward also adds some necessary context to the Trent Lott fiasco: "Reagan, Lott, and race baiting".

And Mrs. Trunk submits for your consideration Larry Elder's terrific "A Lott of double standards," as well as Charles Krauthammer's "Lott fiasco exposes conservative split," both courtesy of Jewish World Review.

Morton Kondracke speculates that Tom Daschle and John Edwards may both drop out of the 2004 race. I've never thought much of Daschle as a national candidate, but Edwards, I think, has a lot of potential, despite all the criticism he has taken lately. Kondracke thinks Edwards is well-positioned to be the Vice-Presidential nominee if he stays out of the race.

A US agency has produced a series of television ads to be shown in Arab countries, in which American Muslims talk about their lives here, emphasizing "the freedom and opportunity of living in America, and the respect shown by Americans toward the Muslim faith." The ads won't be shown on Lebanon's national television network, however, since Lebanon's Information Minister has banned them as inaccurate. "This is a political issue and as minister of information, I cannot allow the ads at a time there are reports from inside the United States that refer to pressures being exerted on Arabs and Muslims, including students, after September 11," says the Minister.

Under the headline "Other voices" yesterday's Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial page featured a piece on criminals living in the Twin Cities. The Strib introduces the piece as follows: "Last Friday the Minnesota Department of Corrections sponsored a workshop at the Minneapolis Urban League entitled 'Partnership with Purpose: Breaking the Ice of Recidivism.' Among issues addressed were troubles ex-inmates encounter upon leaving prison -- as well as Minnesota's habit of incarcerating people of color at rates far exceeding their representation in the population."

The Strib refers to the disproportionate incarceration of "people of color" as "Minnesota's habit," striking a theme it has reiterated relentlessly over the past ten years. Minnesota actually has the lowest incarceration rate of any state in the country; in order to be sentenced to prison, an offender must have committed one or more extremely serious offenses. The problem reflected in the Strib's weird formulation is the racially disparate crime rates of those living in Minnesota.

The piece is obviously intended to generate sympathy for the downtrodden black offenders (in hard copy the piece ran with photos of the quoted individuals; they were all black) in our midst, but the truly interesting thing about them is that four of the five of them are from out of state and moved to Minnesota following their incarceration in Michigan, Illinois, and two unidentified states, respectively. I can't ascertain from the text if the one remaining speaker committed all of her numerous offenses in Minnesota; it may well be that she did. But the piece does not even illustrate the false point the Strib intended to make. Rather, it unintentionally illustrates another point, one that has the virtue of being true: Minnesota is a magnet for current and former offenders of color. We know why that is, but it's not a story the Star Tribune has ever had any interest in reporting.

Staying with the always cheerful and upbeat topic of race for a moment, Michelle Malkin reports on a depressingly familiar phenomenon of our times: the hate crime hoax. This one took place at the University of Mississippi; obscene, racist graffiti was scribbled on walls to make it appear that white bigots were at work. In fact, the university's investigation has found that the vandalism was carried out by black students--who, having created their own "evidence" of white racism, then organized a "Say No To Racism" march, demanded more protection against felonious white people, attacked the university's president for not apologizing quickly enough for the purported racial slurs, demanded the establishment of new "policies and procedures" to ensure racial sensitivity, and--well, you get the picture. Now that it turns out the whole thing was a hoax, those demands will march on, oblivious to reality. And the horrific "hate crime" that black groups originally denounced has now been degraded to a "prank" which will result in little or no punishment of those who perpetrated it. I have never seen any meaningful data on how many of these campus "hate crimes" are, in fact, hoaxes, but based on anecdotal newspaper reports, the percentage appears to be very high.

I'm back from a couple of days in South Dakota; not much to report except that I bumped into a lot of Power Line readers there. Turns out that, for one, the judge before whom I argued a motion this afternoon is a reader. This makes me think I should check our archives to see whether I have ever paid adequate tribute to the extraordinary fairness, wisdom and erudition of the South Dakota bench. Probably not...my South Dakota reminiscences have focused more on beer and shotgun stores.

I had hoped that after being incommunicado for two days, I would return to a (relatively) Lott-less world. No such luck. See, for example, this disgusting opinion piece by Jesse Jackson in USA Today titled "Can Lott--and GOP--Change?" Bill Clinton, too, has been denouncing the Republicans as "hypocritical" since Lott merely said publicly what all Republicans say privately. "How do you think they got a majority in the South anyway?" Clinton asks. Think about that for a moment. Clinton, himself a Southerner, believes that the Republicans achieved a majority in his home region by appealing to those who still believe in the Dixiecrat vision of segregation. What a stunning insult to tens of millions of Americans--most of them far better people and citizens than Clinton.

Not to brag or anything, but you heard it here first--even before the BET fiasco had been broadcast, we were already reporting that in his interview, Lott leaped into the arms of affirmative action to save himself from being attacked as a bigot--thereby accepting the liberal premise that those are the options, affirmative action advocate or racist. Once he did this, the party's principled, colorblind position on race matters was fatally compromised. Lott has done incalculable damage through his pathetic attempt to hold on to power for a few more weeks. His demise can't come too soon.

Historian Arthur Herman for National Review Online reminds us that there was a fourth candidate in the 1948 presidential election, the pro-Communist Henry Wallace, who ran as a "Progressive." In my first blog about Trent Lott, I studiously avoided including Wallace in my list of candidates who were clearly better choices than Thurmond. Herman's piece demonstrates what a dangerous candidate Wallace was. Wallace opposed the Berlin airlift and ran on a pro-Stalinist platform developed by the secret Communist, Lee Pressman. Herman's piece also reminds us of the heroic role played by Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey in relation to both Thurmond and Wallace. Humphrey's tough speech on civil rights at the 1948 Democratic convention helped cause Thurmond to walk out and form his own party. Humphrey's tough stance against Communism led him and others to attempt to purge the Democratic Party of Wallace's influence. But not with total success. Indeed, Herman notes that Wallace's reputation among some Democrats remains high. For example, Wallace received high praise from prominent Democrats in 1999, when a room at the Department of Agriculture was dedicated to him. None of these Democrats was called to account for this, as Lott rightly has been for his comments in praise of Thurmond.

Lame duck Maryland Governor Parris Glendening is cementing his legacy as Maryland's worst governor in memory. The Washington Post reports that Glendening has embarked on a last-minute spending spree, notwithstanding that Maryland is in its worst fiscal crisis in years. For example, in negotiations with public employees' unions, Glendening offered to raise wages for state workers by $100 million at a time when most budget experts say the state will be lucky to avoid cutting pay. However, this conduct is nothing new on Glendening's part. According to the Post, when Glendening moved on from his position as Prince George's County Executive, he left his successor with a $100 million shortfall and a binding union contract that required pay raises and prohibited layoffs.

The Washington Post reports that key administration legal and political advisors are split over whether to file a brief in the two Supreme Court cases challenging race-based admissions policies at the University of Michigan. Ted Olson, the excellent Solicitor General, is eager to take a position against the Michigan programs, as is Attorney General Ashcroft, according to the Post. But White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Ashcroft's deputy Larry Thompson (an African-American) are said to favor sitting this one out. In addition, the article suggests that Trent Lott's words about Strom Thurmond may be weighing in favor of not opposing the University's discriminatory admissions policies. Thanks again, Trent. The Post suggests that the issue is likely to be resolved by political advisor Karl Rove. Ouch! I agree with conservative attorney Bruce Fein. Sitting this case out would be a "clear embarrassment," like the Justsice Department saying nothing in Brown v. Board of Education.

Tony Blankley has his own take on Al Gore's departure from the 2004 sweepstakes: "Misjudging Gore's departure." The column is both knowing and funny: "He was a slow moving 6-foot-4-inch human bull's eye wandering through the murderer's row of Washington politics and journalism. Elderly wildebeests on the African savanna provided more evasive targets. But there was something endearingly authentic about his inauthentic efforts to express his newly authentic selves."

Yesterday's St. Paul Pioneer Press carried an interesting account of Senator-elect Norm Coleman's whirlwind thank-you tour around the state on Monday: "Coleman not quite ready for new title." Even though the piece slightly betrays the hostility you would expect from the liberal columnist (Nick Coleman, no relation to Norm) who wrote it, it accurately captures Norm and his strengths as a politician. It also provides the first public glimpse of which I am aware of Norm's active religious faith.

In yesterday's St. Paul Pioneer Press column "Time for Regime Change in Minneapolis," we mentioned the pending federal mediation involving the Minneapolis police. The agreement of the mayor and the chief of police to submit the police to federal mediation has been a source of severe demoralization for the officers, suggesting that the police are a party to a dispute for which they have to answer.

Now a controversy has erupted over the makeup of the parties to the mediation, with the chief insisting on the participation of the Urban League as a party. The mediation set-up, including the secret membership of most of the parties to the mediation, is bizarre beyond immediate comment. One of the few publicly identified "community representatives" elected at a meeting this fall is a leader of Minneapolis Citizens Against Police Brutality, which might give you some idea why the officers aren't too thrilled with the production. Interested readers should consult the stories on it in the Star Tribune yesterday, "Mediation with police will start when community is together," and today, "Community panel involved in mediation still unknown."

Incidentally, Minnesota readers may be interested to know that Rocket Man and I are scheduled to appear and discuss the column on WCCO AM 830 on Friday for the hour at 2:00 pm taking calls with WCCO's Kim Jeffries. We will be preceded on the show by the targets of our column, Mayor Rybak and Chief Olson, who will appear between 1:30 and 2:00.

More on Minnesota's Angry Humorist: The suspect apprehended for planting the fake bomb behind the Minnesota Club in downtown St. Paul prior to an event for Norm Coleman is St. Paul's own "Budget Bob," who virtually left a calling card asking police to pick him up. The St. Paul Pioneer Press has an excellent, detailed story on the arrest: "Fake bomb led police to suspect in case."

A couple years ago "Budget Bob" was mentioned in passing in a Star Tribune story on downtown St. Paul's historic Mickey's Diner, which also played a key part in his apprehension on Monday: "Enjoying a day's work at Mickey's Diner."

No evidence yet whether or not he was inspired by the unfunny one, but "Budget Bob" sounds like the kind of character who has frequently inspired him...

The Washington Post has interviewed an Iraqi expatriate who once worked in Saddam's weapons of mass destructive program. According to this individual, the U.N. team will need a defector if it wants to discover what's really going on in Iraq today. Even taking scientists and their immediate family members out of the country may not do the trick because Saddam can kill their parents, brothers, and sisters. This source believes that the Iraqi government is still developing chemical and biological weapons, and, with practice, has become more adept at hiding the evidence.

John Podhoretz courtesy of Real Politics and the New York Post, also compares Gore to Nixon. Podhoretz thinks that, by 2008, Gore "will be beyond blame" and could well be accepting his Party's nomination for president as part of a Gore-Clinton ticket. It could happen, but I consider it more likely that Ms. Clinton will be on top of the 2008 ticket and that Gore will be on the outside, looking in.

English footballer John Mackie shows how to go about apologizing for offensive racial remarks.

Courtesy of Real Clear Politics, here is Michael Barone, in the Wall Street Journal, on Al Gore. Barone draws the same comparison between Gore and Richard Nixon that I presented, to decidedly mixed reviews, last month. Barone's piece caused me to recall that, despite Nixon's apparent abandonment of politics in 1962, talk persisted during 1963 that he might be the Republican nominee in 1964. This talk ended only after (a) Lyndon Johnson succeeded Kennedy and began to look unbeatable and (b) Barry Goldwater started pulling away from the pack.

Might Gore run in 2004 after all? Certainly it's highly unlikely. But if things go truly badly for President Bush this year, Gore might decide he can win. In that case, all bets are off. Gore could cite the parlous state of the country as a change in circumstances. Relying on polls that might show him to be the choice of grass root Democrats and a probable winner against Bush, he could then re-enter the fray. In fact, Gore's calculus in stepping aside might have been this: in the probable event that Bush can't be beaten, I'm better off out; in the possible event that things deteriorate to the point that Bush can be beaten, I can always get back in.

Here is more (via InstaPundit) on the Swiss voice recognition laboratory that says the recently-released audio tape purporting to be bin Laden is, in all probability, a fake. "The more I work on this, the more I'm confident that it's not him," the institute's director, Hervé Bourlard, says. One odd aspect of the audio tape is its exremely low quality, comparable to recording a voice coming over a walkie-talkie. "The easiest way to fake a voice is to do it with a poor quality recording," Bourlard notes. I have no idea whether using a walkie-talkie to record bin Laden's voice would somehow preserve his security better than other arrangements, and thus could account for the poor quality. (If he really is alive, his associates would presumably prefer to make a better quality recording, if they could.) In any case, I still think he's dead.

Thomas Sowell has another brilliant column on the Lott fiasco: "Lott, race, and hypocrisy." As always, Sowell can make his point with one devastating blow: "That Senator Lott did not step aside himself is a greater disqualification for leadership than anything that he said."

Joel Mowbray of National Review Online on the possibility that Trent Lott will quit the Senate if he is deposed as its Majority Leader. Lott's resignation, if coupled with a switch of party by Lincoln Chafee, would give control of the Senate back to the Democrats. Mowbray believes that Lott may well quit the Senate and Chafee may well convert. Nonetheless, he argues that the alternative, Lott remaining as Majority Leader, is unacceptable.

The Washington Times reports that later today, the Administration will announce plans to begin deployment of a long-range missile defense system by 2004. Watch the Democratic Presidential candidates fall into line to support the deployment. Missile defense has always been popular with the American people, and the arguments against it are weak. The claim that it will never work is instinctively disbelieved by nearly everyone; most people believe, correctly, that American engineers can do pretty much anything. And the claim that it will be "destabilizing" for America to defend itself against incoming missiles is not only wrong but perverse.

Also in the Times is this report on an analysis of survey data by the Center for Immigration Studies, which claims that 60% of Americans--but only 14% of those classified as "elites"--believe that current immigration levels represent a "critical threat to the vital interests of the United States." Likewise, about 70% of the American public say that controlling and reducing illegal immigration should be an important goal of American foreign policy. Interestingly, immigration is the area of foreign policy where President Bush scores the lowest with the American public.

Placing reasonable controls on immigration, like missile defense, is popular, is good public policy, and takes on added urgency from the war on terror. Add a third policy--drilling for oil in Alaska to reduce dependence on foreign supplies--and the Administration could go a long way toward assuring its re-election. Whether the President and Congressional Republicans will take this route remains to be seen, of course. At present, only missile defense looks likely. These are issues where the Democrats could, theoretically, get around to Bush's right. On immigration, in particular, if the Democrats came out for meaningful reforms they could dramatically increase their political chances. But it isn't going to happen. If progress is to be made on these issues, the Republicans will have to lead, as they are now on missile defense.

This morning the Pioneer Press has run a slightly revised and updated version of our column "It's time for a regime change in Minneapolis." Contrary to my assurances to Rocket Man that the Pioneer Press would give the column a less antagonistic headline, this is the first time in ten years that either the Star Tribune or the Pioneer Press has used the title we gave one of our pieces as its headline. (On the other hand, Rocket Man and I deliberated over whether we should retain the word "sicced" in reference to the now-deceased pit bull; that word the Pioneer Press did change, to "let loose.")

As if to put an exclamation point on our notion that the cast of characters running Minneapolis urgently needs to be replaced, last Friday the city adopted an ordinance requiring city contractors to provide "domestic partner" benefits: "Minneapolis requires contractors to provide partner benefits." A few years back the city adopted a measure providing "domestic partner" benefits to its own employees, a measure that was ultimately struck down by the Minnesota Court of Appeals. It seems to me that we should not simply have concluded our column by contrasting Mayor Rybak with Rudy Giuliani; we should also have compared him with Nero, the guy who fiddled while Rome burned.

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."