The high price of animal shelters

Two years ago, our oldest cat died. A year ago, so did our second. Both were elderly; their deaths were sad but not unexpected. They're buried together in the woods in our back yard.

Four weeks ago, we decided it was time to have cats around again. So we visited several local shelters and finally adopted a pair of 3-month-old female kittens: a feisty short-hair calico and an affectionate black domestic longhair with extra toes on its front feet. I'll post pictures later when I get time.

We believe in adopting from shelters rather than buying purebreds for both humanitarian and economic reasons. And while we've always been sort of opposed to declawing -- my wife calls it "cutting off their fingers at the first knuckle" -- we reluctantly decided to have them declawed because we both work and wouldn't be able to spend the necessary time teaching them not to shred the furniture.

What floored me was the cost.

The adoption fee for each cat was $150 plus tax. That included a bunch of veterinary care prior to adoption, plus free microchipping and spaying afterward.

Both had colds -- a common ailment in shelters, where animals live in close proximity to each other -- so a vet visit and some antibiotics cost $50.

Declawing was another $200 apiece -- no charge for the extra toes. They also got their distemper boosters.

So four weeks in, we've invested more than $800 in these two "free" cats.

Declawing was a choice, of course. And the fees in the Twin Cities are far higher than those at shelters out in the country. But that's a staggering amount of money -- and it doesn't even include things like food, litter boxes or litter.

I understand that shelters need to cover expenses, and I don't begrudge them or the vets the money. We love the cats -- even if they keep us awake at night with their playing, or by jumping up on the bed and purring in our ears -- and can afford the cost.

But it has set me to wondering: At what point does the cost of adoption start interfering with their mission to save animals? A lot of families that might otherwise make wonderful homes for abandoned animals simply can't afford to spend that kind of money on a pet. Are the shelters dangerously narrowing their customer base in a pennywise, pound-foolish fashion?

Those thoughts came back to me after reading about research in adoption psychology. This refers to a growing trend among animal shelters to study the psychology of shelter animals, as well as that of people who give up pets and those who adopt them. The idea is to not only match people with compatible pets: the goal includes discovering why owners give up pets (in hopes of reducing the number of abandoned animals) and to develop shelter designs and training programs for abandoned animals that will make them more adoptable. The overall goal: greatly reducing the number of animals euthanized every year.

The article is flawed. It starts out strong, then devolves into a lightweight story about the author's decision to adopt a dog from the shelter he's writing about. But it makes some sobering points:

1. Of the 4 million dogs that enter animal shelters in the United States each year, half are euthanized.

2. The most heartbreaking scene was the description of the shelter's "disposition team", which has the emotionally wrenching job of assessing new arrivals and deciding, on the basis of a few minutes' interaction, which animals get sent to the adoption kennels and which get sent to the canine Treblinka of the euthanasia room.

3. While the main reasons for surrendering dogs are understandable -- biting, aggression, chewing on furniture, inability to house-train, moving, loss of job -- many are downright frivolous and reflect a shocking emotional disregard. Among the examples cited in the article: animals surrendered because they were "boring", or the owners were going on vacation, or the family had bought new furniture and the dog's coloring didn't match.

The most interesting argument the article makes is that pets are being forced to adapt to a changing human culture that they were never bred for. Most dog breeds were developed for specific outdoor purposes: herding, catching rats, hunting. These jobs not only selected for energy and intelligence, but were usually performed in the company of people or other dogs.

But our population is far more urban and suburban these days, and in many families the adults all work -- and work long hours. So those dogs are now forced to endure long days alone in a house or apartment, with the boredom and loneliness relieved only by the arrival home of their humans -- who after a long day of work are often too tired or stressed or busy to deal with the needs of their canine companions.

The article cites some successes -- including one here in Minneapolis, where "socialized" puppies were far less likely to be returned after adoption. Another training program in New Hampshire cut the euthanasia rate in half, while in Ohio an aggressive spay/neuter program has helped cut euthanasia by 40 percent while reducing the number of abandoned dogs by 16 percent.

Still, I was left wondering if there are any real solutions, or if the ethically numbing reality of animal shelters are simply the way things are. As long as adoption is expensive; as long as people have unrealistic expectations of their animals; and as long as substantial numbers of people refuse to have their animals spayed, there will always be more abandoned animals than there are people to adopt them. And that means there will always be disposition teams separating the lucky from the unlucky.

It strikes me that there is plenty of room for either states or private foundations to get involved here. I see a two-pronged approach.

1. A subsidy program to reduce the cost of adoption, thus broadening the base of potential adopters;

2. An aggressive education, subsidy and (perhaps) enforcement program to encourage widespread spaying/neutering of pets. Working with vets, say, to offer pet owners a one-year discount on vet services if they get their pet neutered (with the state picking up most of the difference). Or shelters requiring that anyone dropping off a litter of kittens or puppies must get the mother spayed. Or cities requiring spaying as part of their licensing process except for licensed breeders. The idea is to make spaying the default choice, so that it occurs unless the pet owner is highly motivated to avoid it.

Then, perhaps, shelters can do more of the sheltering part of their job and less of the emotionally numbing work that comes from serving as a triage center for society's carelessness.

Update: Picture of cute kitties added.

pets, animal shelters, politics, midtopia

Republicans claim "meaningful amendments" crown!

We're all of three months into the 110th Congress, so of course it's time to grade the Republicans. At least, that's what House Republicans seem to think.

This is a special sort of report card, in which they choose the categories and introduce them with a self-serving blurb. But what the heck. Here's what they have to say for themselves:

House Republicans have successfully passed more meaningful amendments in the first three months on 2007, than the Democrats were able to pass in the past 12 years. One prominent analyst remarked that House Republicans are creating "a series of substantaive wins" through effective use of procedural rights on the floor.

Wow. "More meaningful amendments." Anyone else impressed? The "prominent analyst," by the way, is lobbyist and conservative Washington Times op-ed contributor Gary Andres.

The ironic thing is that their relative success in this small-bore world can be ascribed to the Democrats not using the hardball tactics employed by Republicans when they were in the majority. Indeed, Andres speculates with apparent glee that the raging GOP success with "meaningful amendments" may lead Democrats to clamp down on that openness. I'm not sure why he considers that a good thing.

Next up: Online communication.

House Republicans are reaching out to the online community more aggressively than ever before; Rep. Cantor is proud to be a part of this effort. In the past three months, House Republicans have held a successful blog row, produced several online web ads, been in constant communication with the blogs, among other ideas. How successful do you feel these efforts have been?

Double wow. I thought we were supposed to be ranking their job performance, not their PR efforts.

Lastly, defining the stakes (or, as the secondary label puts it, "Showing that Democrats are wrong for America"):

House Democrats are making a lot of legislative mistakes; in just their first three months of holding power, they have passed the largest tax hike in American history, failed to fund America’s troops, and increased the federal budget by billions with pork projects. How effective do you feel House Republicans have been in highlighting these errors?

Nah, no spin there. And once again, why are we grading PR efforts?

That, by the way, is it. The entire report card you are encouraged to fill out.

I could tut-tut about this, but really it's the political equivalent of mind candy. And for people with any perspective at all, it would be all in good fun. I'm just not sure the designers of this report card actually have perspective, because they seem so serious about it. It's almost as if they don't realize how ridiculously blinkered they sound.

politics, midtopia

Business backs universal health care

I'm catching up on my reading, and just finished an interesting piece on the prospects for health-care reform.

I've argued before that health coverage needs to be de-linked from employment status. It's both a fairness factor for employees (why should I pay more for worse coverage simply because I work for a small business?) and an economic factor for employers, to whom rising health care costs represent a barrier to hiring and a competitive disadvantage versus foreign companies who bear no such burden.

Now, at last, business seems to be reaching the same conclusion. As Sen. Ron Wyden, a longtime advocate of universal coverage, notes, "The refrain from business was, 'We can’t afford to do universal health care.' Now the refrain is, 'We can’t afford not to do it.'"

Which is why you have the odd spectacle of a union-busting CEO, Steve Burd of Safeway supermarkets, joining former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie to form the Coalition to Advance Health Care Reform, a business advocacy group that will push universal coverage.

One might be forgiven for being skeptical, and think this is just another Orwellian-named group whose actual agenda is to scuttle universal care. But Burd has been walking the walk for a while, giving talks to business groups promoting the idea. And one can certainly see the self-interest involved. The real trick will be in the details. Everybody wants universal care -- but what level of benefits? At what cost? Who pays? And who manages it? Those are the things that will need to be ironed out.

Still, it's good to see the various interest groups starting to line up behind the general idea of comprehensive coverage. It's only a first step, but a very important one.

Burd, health care, politics, midtopia

Republican pessimism for 2008

I've said before that if Bush doesn't do something to make Iraq a nonissue before the 2008 elections, Republicans will be battling Democrats to be the first to string him up.

Now Republicans are starting to make similar noises, openly worrying about the damage Bush and Iraq will do to them in the 2008 elections.

In interviews on Tuesday, the Republicans said they were concerned about signs of despondency among party members and fund-raisers, reflected in polls and the Democratic fund-raising advantage in the first quarter of the year. Many party leaders expressed worry that the party’s presidential candidates faced a tough course without some fundamental shift in the political dynamic.

“My level of concern and dismay is very, very high,” said Mickey Edwards, a Republican former congressman from Oklahoma who is now a lecturer in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “It’s not that I have any particular problem with the people who are running for the Republican nomination. I just don’t know how they can run hard enough or fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Bush administration.”

This on a day when John "Gaffe" McCain is trimming headquarters staff and trying to revitalize his candidacy -- by once again highlighting his support for the Iraq war.

Yeah, that'll work.

The story notes several things working against the Republicans besides Iraq:

1. That Democratic fundraising advantage is huge -- $78 million to $51 million.

2. The spectacle of the GOP frontrunners -- moderates as far as Republicans go -- transparently altering long-held positions in an attempt to appeal to the conservative base.

3. A general exhaustion after eight years of Republican rule.

All of the above is causing more and more people to identify themselves as Democrats. The shine may wear off of that over the next two years, but for now the momentum favors the Democrats.

It also appears that the politics of "wedge issues" may finally be exacting a toll on the party that invented them.

Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said the party’s presidential candidates were being whipsawed as they tried to appeal to conservative voters who have a history of strong views on issues like abortion and gay rights. “These tests are destroying the Republican Party,” Mr. Simpson said.

Lord, one can hope so. Not to see the GOP destroyed, but to see such "tests" abandoned.

Abortion and gay rights, while legitimate issues, are not the sort of issues that are likely to ever be settled at the ballot box, turning as they do on rights rather than statute. Even if you hold strong views on those subjects, you're bound to get tired of having them dragged out time and again and forcing elections to focus on them without ever solving them, while more relevant and substantive -- and solvable -- issues are pushed to the side.

I hope the GOP gets at least some of its act together by 2008. My personal dream scenario would be the Dems winning the White House but losing one chamber of Congress -- say, the House. That would give Democrats control of policy initiatives (not to mention confirmation proceedings), while forcing them to deal with Republicans on legislation -- particularly budget legislation. I think that would be a recipe for compromise, with gridlock as a not-too-bad fallback position.

politics, midtopia

Delegating disaster

The White House is looking for someone to take over responsibility for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

The snark in me is asking "isn't that Bush's job?" But I realize that's unfair. We're talking day-to-day management of the war, which isn't a presidential duty.

No, the real telling thing is that nobody wants the job.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,'" he said.

You don't make general in the military without being able to smell a fiasco from miles away. Not that you really needed a special Spidey sense in this case. Not when the Pentagon is extending the tours of all Army soldiers in Iraq to 15 months, administration supporters like Bob Novak are saying the "surge" isn't working and Bush is preparing to sit down with Democrats to discuss ways to get continued funding for the wars.

What's more interesting is the view expressed by Sheehan, who retired after a 35-year career in the Marines.

"I've never agreed on the basis of the war, and I'm still skeptical," Sheehan said. "Not only did we not plan properly for the war, we grossly underestimated the effect of sanctions and Saddam Hussein on the Iraqi people."

In the course of the discussions, Sheehan said, he called around to get a better feel for the administration landscape.

"There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did," he said. "And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence."

That, folks, is a Marine saying the war was a mistake, Cheney is a problem and we should be looking to withdraw, not get drawn in further.

Maybe Cheney can take the job.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Iraq impasse

As a daylong battle raged in Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods, President Bush invited Democrats to discuss war funding -- even while he was being pressured by a consortium of Republican legislators to reach a compromise.

For Bush, invitations to negotiate have historically been invitations to capitulate. And this time appears to be no different:

"We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill — a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal, and without handcuffing our generals on the ground," Bush said in a speech to an American Legion audience in nearby Fairfax, Va.

On the one hand, Bush extended an offer to meet with lawmakers Tuesday. On the other, the White House bluntly said it would not be a negotiating session.

What exactly is there to discuss, if the precondition is meeting all of the president's demands?

It bears an eery similarity to his diplomatic approach to Syria, Iran and North Korea, where he also demanded that the other side essentially surrender before talks could begin. That produced exactly zero results in those cases -- progress with North Korea was achieved only after the administration relented -- and isn't likely to go over big with Congress, so one is led to conclude that it is an approach carved into Bush's DNA, not one based on real-world experiences.

Indeed, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid quickly rejected the terms.

"What the president invited us to do was come to his office so that we could accept without any discussion the bill that he wants," Pelosi said at a news conference in San Francisco. "That's not worthy of the concerns of the American people, and I join with Senator Reid in rejecting an invitation of that kind."

The Republican delegation, meanwhile, throws an interesting wrench into the works by suggesting that Bush's Congressional support is not as strong as he thinks.

The group includes five Republicans, diverse in geography and ideology: Reps. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, Charles Boustany of Louisiana, Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska, Mac Thornberry of Texas and Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland. Of the five, only Gilchrest broke with his party to support a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Now, Gilchrest says the group will encourage the White House to compromise on negotiations with Syria and Iran and on setting a date for withdrawal from Iraq. And the group has national security bona fides that will help it be taken seriously....

The GOP negotiating team's argument will start with Gen. David Petraeus' public assertion that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily but requires a comprehensive political solution. Part of that includes letting Iraq know the American commitment isn't open-ended, Gilchrest said.

It's unclear how much support the five GOPers have from the rest of their caucus. Other than Gilchrest -- who, if you believe the National Journal rankings, is the fifth most liberal Republican in the House -- the group is moderately to solidly conservative, though they're notably more moderate on foreign policy.

Consider this simple analysis: Thornberry is ranked as more conservative on foreign policy than 73 percent of the House. If the group crafts a compromise that is acceptable to him, it could conceivably be acceptable to those of the same rank or lower -- meaning a veto-proof majority. That's a really simple analysis, of course. Support for timetables is lower than opposition to the war in general, and that doesn't even count the effect of party discipline on voting behavior. But if the group can show it has support among rank-and-file Republicans, Bush will be forced to listen if he doesn't want to suffer a humiliating foreign-policy defeat.

Iraq, Bush, politics, midtopia

Subpoenas for Gonzales

Speaking of subpoenas, the House Judiciary Committee officially subpoenaed Alberto Gonzales for hundreds of as-yet-unreleased documents related to the prosecutor firings.

"We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials," Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the judiciary panel's chairman, wrote Gonzales in a letter that accompanied the subpoena. "Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs."

The Justice Department indicated it may fight the demand.

"Much of the information that the Congress seeks pertains to individuals other than the U.S. attorneys who resigned," Roehrkasse said. "Furthermore, many of the documents Congress is now seeking have already been available to them for review. Because there are individual privacy interests implicated by publicly releasing this information, it is unfortunate the Congress would choose this option."

Gonzales, meanwhile, is still AWOL from his job as he crams like a college sophomore for his upcoming Congressional appearance. One can hardly blame him, but I can't help thinking how all of this could have been avoided if he had devoted a fraction of the effort to preparing for his first appearance back in March, during which he lied -- er, inadvertently said things that weren't true.

Next week should be interesting.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Hypocrisy, Republican flavor

This is funny:

A Republican congressman who issued a large number of subpoenas for Clinton administration officials in the 1990s joined fellow Republicans in criticizing Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman for alleged overuse of subpoena authority....

[Rep. Dan Burton] chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the 1990s, and became famous for issuing a wide variety of subpoenas to Clinton White House staff and other executive branch officials. In a report on the oversight activities conducted to date in the 110th Congress, Burton joined other House Republicans to warn Democrats not to "abuse" their authority.

"The minority is concerned the majority may abuse the deposition authority provided to this committee under the 110th House Rules. The minority also is concerned with the majority's practice of threatening subpoenas to witnesses unless they 'agree' to transcribed interviews," warned Burton with other Congress members.

Dems do the same thing, of course. Indeed, the article sounds a cautionary note for them, from former White House counsel Lanny Davis:

"We complained about Burton’s use of the subpoena power in the 1990s and need to show restraint and not use the same clearly partisan tactics," he argued.

Yep. Tempting as it is to play tit for tat, Dems need to take the high road. They were elected to oversee the executive branch, not bury it in partisan investigations. In the prosecutor case they have come dangerously close to overplaying their hand a couple of times, only to be saved by further White House bumbling. They can't count on getting that lucky all the time. They are probably convinced that the administration is a sea of corruption and vice. But the way to expose that is to find a thread and unravel it, not go on unjustified fishing expeditions.

Burton, politics, midtopia

Padilla loses torture argument

The presiding judge has rejected Jose Padilla's motion to dismiss the criminal charges against him.

federal judge refused to dismiss terrorism charges against Jose Padilla over claims that the alleged al-Qaida operative was tortured in U.S. military custody, removing one of the last major obstacles to the start of his trial next week.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke stressed in a 12-page order filed late Monday that she was not passing judgment on the torture allegations. Rather, she said the effort to dismiss the case for "outrageous government conduct" was faulty on legal grounds....

Cooke said the dismissal motion wasn't backed up by case law and failed on legal grounds because prosecutors aren't using any evidence collected during Padilla's time in the brig.

To rule otherwise would "effectively provide a defendant with amnesty for any uncharged crime so long as the government violated the defendant's due process rights at some prior point," she wrote.

She warned, however, that the issue could return should prosecutors decide to use evidence from Padilla's interrogations.

That makes sense. As I noted previously,
the government's treatment of Padilla has indeed been outrageous. But was it outrageous enough to derail a trial? The judge decided no.

With the last major hurdle out of the way, the trial can proceed. Next up: jury selection. And what a lengthy, tortuous process that will be.

Padilla, politics, midtopia

RNC e-mails itself into trouble

I sympathize with Republicans on this one.

Several senior White House Republicans were given Republican National Committee laptops and pagers to use alongside their government-issued equipment, an effort to avoid charges that government gear was used for campaign purposes.

But recent revelations in the Scooter Libby trial and the fired prosecutors brouhaha suggest that the computers may have been used to keep sensitive information out of official government archives.

"The system was created with the best intentions," said former Assistant White House Press Secretary Adam Levine, who was assigned an RNC laptop and BlackBerry when he worked at the White House in 2002. But, he added, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, last week formally requested access to broad categories of RNC-White House e-mails.

Waxman told the Los Angeles Times in a statement that a separate "e-mail system for high-ranking White House officials would raise serious questions about violations of the Presidential Records Act," which requires the preservation and ultimate disclosure of e-mails about official government business.

It's easy to see how something like that could happen inadvertently. You're e-mailing back and forth during the day -- sometimes official business, sometimes party business. It can be hard to keep things straight, and be rigorous about when to use which e-mail account. I blog under a pseudonym, and there have been several times when I almost sent out a personal e-mail from my blog e-mail address, and vice versa.

It's a problem that's only going to get worse, with the proliferation of instant messaging and text messaging and all the other ways we have of communicating. Someday a war will be started entirely through IM, I'm sure of it, with the final line being "That's it! Look out ur wndw, @zzh@t. Whos laffing now?"

That said, having set up the parallel systems, it was incumbent on the administration to make sure they were used properly. Preservation of government records is no small thing. So at a minimum, the administration was careless and deserves to endure some scrutiny and bad press to ensure they fix the problem.

Worst case would be if they deliberately used alternate e-mail addresses to get around the records laws and try to avoid accountability. That would go beyond careless and into real scandal territory. There's as yet no proof that that's the case, but there is once again enough smoke to warrant an investigation. If nothing else, we want to be sure that the official communications are properly recovered and archived for posterity.

There's a limit to what sort of probe should be allowed, though. Waxman is essentially asking to look at internal RNC communications, which would be like the Soviet Union having a mole in the CIA Director's office. The administration has only itself to blame for muddying the communication waters; but any subpoena request should be narrowly crafted to find only misdirected government communications, and not turn into a license to tromp through the RNC's databases.

politics, midtopia

Yet another Gonzales roundup

Over the weekend, Monica Goodling -- having taken the Fifth to avoid testifying before Congress -- abruptly resigned from the Justice Department, becoming the second high-ranking Justice official to become unemployed over this "overblown personnel matter," as Gonzales first referred to the prosecutor firings.

And Newt Gingrich became the latest Republican to say Gonzales is toast.

The most interesting thing about Goodling's firing -- besides the questions it raises, fair or not, about what she might have had to hide -- is that it highlights a two-pronged administration practice: Prizing loyalty above competence, and relying heavily on Pat Robertson's law school -- a poorly rated evangelical Christian institution -- as a source of those loyalists.

On the one hand, as with the prosecutor firings, the administration has every right to put anyone it wants in appointed posts. But that political power carries with it a public responsibility that the administration seems to have roundly ignored. The problem, as Andrew Cohen succinctly puts it:

There is no longer a meritocracy in place at the Justice Department when it comes to hiring decisions. Where the Department once was staffed by some of the best and brightest lawyers in the nation, now it has become a repository for the Monica Goodlings of the world. If you were a dedicated federal prosecutor, a Bush appointee, would you want some younger lawyer from some fourth-rate law school determining your future? You wouldn't. And yet that's precisely what happened here to our Gang of Eight. They weren't judged by the best and the brightest and the most seasoned and respected attorneys in the nation; they were judged by Monica Goodling, a legal disciple of Pat Robertson.

The fact that the appointees are Christian isn't the issue, although the law school in question does point out the pull that Pat Robertson and his fellow travelers still have on the GOP, to its detriment. Robertson, you may recall, is the caricature who blamed Hurricane Katrina on abortion, suggested that God would wipe out a gay-pride parade and who, along with Jerry Falwell, blamed 9/11 on abortion, feminism and gays. I'm unimpressed by the GOP's continued association with him.

No, the problem here is putting party and politics above all else. There's an old joke about how Republicans rail about government incompetence, and then prove it when they get elected. The Bush administration apparently failed to realize that it was meant to be a joke.

And it may be what led to situations like this:

Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state’s Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.

The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle’s opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson’s “corruption” to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. “It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin,” Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic’s office.

The fear that this sort of thing was commonplace is the main reason the prosecutor firings is a scandal, even though the firings themselves were legal. Gonzales lying to Congress was simply an inept cherry on top.

Coincidentally, here in Minnesota we may have a related development. Three managers in the office of recent U.S. attorney appointee Rachel Paulose are resigning and returning to prosecuting cases, apparently a reaction to Paulose's "abrasive" and "disrespectful" management style -- prompting a senior Justice Department official, John Kelly, to fly in to mediate.

It's a case of "he said, she said" at this point: Is Paulose the problem? Or is it her assistants? That said, it's highly unusual that three of them resigned at the same time -- taking demotions and pay cuts in the process -- when they had no problem working with her predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger.

This could just be a standard, apolitical personnel issue -- the kind that can roil any office regardless of politics or the administration in charge. Paulose's defenders, for example, say the three had problems taking direction from a young woman, which is plausible. But the timing is enough to make you go "hmmm."

Gingrich, Paulose, Goodling, Gonzales, politics, midtopia

No Saddam-Al Qaeda link

So says the Defense Department. Dick Cheney, naturally, refuses to believe it.

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

Cheney really needs to come out of his bunker once in a while. He's become such a caricature that he's not even worth a detailed rebuttal anymore.

Cheney, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Why all the handwringing over Britain and Iran?

The 15 captured British sailors and Royal Marines are home from Iran, and while many people are simply glad to have them back, already the blame and handwringing has begun.

I haven't written about this previously because I had limited time to post, and if there was one thing I was sure of it was that the Brits would be returned home unharmed sooner or later. Iran may be crazy, but they're not stupid. Or is that stupid, but not crazy? Anyway, there was no way they were going to hurt the prisoners, and the whole situation was just one more black eye for Iran, internationally speaking.

However, the reaction in some quarters now that the situation is over just ticks me off.

First, the blame.

Some commentators said the captured personnel must explain the apparently easygoing demeanor with which they admitted entering Iranian waters and made public, televised apologies after their March 23 detention by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

It's perfectly fine to ask questions about how the sailors came to be captured -- that's classic after-action review procedure. But it takes a lot of ignorance -- not to mention a complete lack of empathy -- to question what the prisoners did while in captivity.

During Vietnam, we had a hardline "name, rank and serial number" expectation of our POWs. What we discovered in the course of that conflict is that such an approach merely increased the psychological pressure on our captured soldiers, leading them to endure extremely harsh treatment for no good reason -- they had no sensitive information to protect -- and heaping guilt on them if and when they finally "broke." The result for many returning POWs: a lifetime of physical and psychological problems incurred for zero benefit to our war effort.

Based on those experiences, the U.S. military changed its mindset. When I was in the Army, the guidance was simple: If you find yourself in enemy hands, your sole duty is to survive and return home. Yes, if you have truly sensitive information then you have a duty not to divulge it if at all possible. Other than that, you simply do what you can to get through. If that means cooperating with your captors in transparently coerced dog-and-pony show, so be it. If that means signing "confessions" and telling them anything they want to hear, so be it. You do what you have to do.

There's an additional twist when you consider that the chain of command remains intact during imprisonment. The ranking officers or noncoms in a group are responsible for the well-being of everyone within that group. They set the standard for behavior, and as far as possible make decisions about when and how the group members will cooperate with their captors. That also, of course, makes them susceptible to psychological pressure that takes advantage of that responsibility. I may be quite willing to endure torture without cooperating. But am I willing to let them torture the 18-year-old gunner's mate who was captured along with me? And even if I am willing -- should I be?

As a general rule, no. My only responsibility in that situation is to get me and my troops back home in one piece, both mentally and physically.

So to those criticizing the British captives: knock it off. No harm was done, and be glad you didn't have to walk in their shoes.

Now, on to the handwringing, courtesy of Charles Krauthammer:

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order.

Okay, so he's not really wringing his hands -- though his main alternative would have been to immediately freeze European trade with Iran, a move that would have hurt Europe as well. But he's expressing the general sentiment of the handwringers. To which I have one response:

Give me a break.

This was not a "humiliation" of Britain. Iran seized sailors; Britain and the world denounced it; a few weeks later, Iran released them. Krauthammer sees a quid pro quo, but even if there is one -- and the evidence for that is so thin as to be ghostly -- it's incredibly tiny compared to the harm Iran caused to its own position with the seizure. So Iran proves it can defy the West -- whoop-de-do. Did anyone doubt that? Every time they do that they violate some norm of international behavior, which further isolates them and adds another ring to the target they're methodically painting on themselves.

Honestly, how is Iran stronger -- or Britain weaker -- for this event having happened? Self-serving neocons like Krauthammer claiming it is so does not make it true. With the dust settled, Iran is more isolated, not less. I fail to see how they benefited in any but the shortest of short terms.

So knock off the handwringing and the blame. This was a minor, if dramatic, event in a much larger dance, and it did nothing to change that dance in Iran's favor. It was a move that carried with it a whiff of desperation on Iran's part. The important thing now is to demonstrate how justified that desperation is, by keeping the screws on them to give up their enrichment program.

Iran, politics, midtopia

First rule: Disclose everything

In the "how to avoid charges of a coverup", the first rule is usually "disclose everything." If details start dribbling out from other sources over the course of days, it's going to hurt more than if you just lay everything out up front.

So in that sense, the current tussle over hundreds of as-yet unreleased documents related to the prosecutor firings is another bad step by Justice.

Democratic investigators were upset to learn about the additional batch of records in recent visits to the department, according to a Senate aide who requested anonymity to talk freely about the standoff.

The aide said the Senate Judiciary Committee "has lodged objections several times" about not being given the new documents. They were discovered over the past two weeks as staff investigators for the House and Senate judiciary panels, working in a special office inside the Justice Department, reviewed the censored portions of e-mails and other records that had already been sent to Capitol Hill in redacted form, according to Justice Department and Senate aides.

Another discovery of documents, another chunk taken out of any claim Justice has to the benefit of the doubt. From a damage-control and "restoring trust" point of view, they should just release documents to Congress and let the chips (and blame) fall where they may.

Justice claims the documents relate to personnel issues and it would be a breach of privacy to release them. Congress, on the other hand, understandably doesn't believe a word Justice says these days about the firings.

That said, this latest twist seems to be a bit of Congressional excess. Not only are some of the documents truly personal:

In particular, the official said, one document, several hundred pages long, was an internal administrative review of one of the fired prosecutors and was so sensitive that it would have been entirely redacted if it had been sent to Capitol Hill.

But Congressional aides were allowed to review the documents -- just not make copies or take notes. So it's not as if the contents have been hidden from the people that matter. If there was anything truly explosive in there, you can be sure that would come out somehow.

As long as Justice is letting investigators see the information in question, it doesn't matter if the rest of us find out about it. While Justice should be required to prove that the documents are too sensitive to release, if they can do so then Congress should drop its demands that they become public.

Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee said Gonzales cannot present his department's budget request until he settles the prosecutor flap -- thus raising more questions about whether he can effectively lead the department at this point. One could blame this entirely on the Democrats, of course, and certainly political calculations play into the decision. But the message here is that Congress has lost a lot of confidence in Gonzales, and his continued tenure as Justice head could lead Congress to view that department's budget requests unfavorably. It underlines the potential real-world costs of keeping Gonzales in place if he cannot adequately explain his actions.

Amid it all, another Republican -- Michigan Rep. Vern Ehlers -- says Gonzales should go.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Bush's Congressional end-around

Apparently Kerry won't get his scalp after all. From Fox news (pun intended):

President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress where Democrats had derailed Fox's nomination.

Democrats had denounced Fox for his 2004 donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group's TV ads, which claimed that Sen. John Kerry exaggerated his military record in Vietnam, were viewed as a major factor in the Massachusetts Democrat losing the election.

Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation, Bush withdrew the nomination last month. On Wednesday, with Congress out of town for a spring break, the president used his power to make recess appointments to put Fox in the job without Senate confirmation.

This means Fox can remain ambassador until the end of the next session of Congress, effectively through the end of the Bush presidency.

Okay, my bad; I should have seen that one coming. I just didn't consider that Bush would so blatantly ignore the Congress he has to work with for the next two years. Stuff like this will just make it that much more difficult to get other nominees approved, or get cooperation on the rest of his agenda. If your viewpoint is that Congress wouldn't cooperate anyway, fine. But I'm just not sure that installing Fox as ambassador to Belgium was so important that it was worth the cost.

We can also expect to see this sort of maneuver a lot more frequently in the months ahead, as Bush's term grows shorter and shorter and Congressional Democrats find reasons to drag their feet on many of his nominees, particularly judicial ones, in hopes that a Democrat will win the White House in 2008 and be able to fill those positions.

Is this legal? Yes. Have other presidents done this? Yes. But it's worth noting that the original point of recess appointments was simply to allow the machinery of government to function when Congress was out of session. It was never intended to be a way for the president to simply ignore the confirmation procedure.

Bush is not the first offender, and probably not the worst (though he has used recess appointments at a higher rate than Clinton); but that doesn't mean it's okay. If you respect the respective roles assigned to each branch of Congress by the Constitution, then presidents should only use recess appointments for the originally intended purpose. The equation changes a bit if you have an obstructionist Congress that refuses to confirm most presidential nominees. But that's not the case here.

As noted, the price will be paid politically. Whatever Bush's agenda is for the next two years, I think we can kiss most of it goodbye. Not for this one act, but for the attitude displayed by myriad similar acts over the past six years. Congressional Democrats may be gunning for Bush after six years of being walked on; but Bush is helping them dig his grave.

Update: I failed to point out that Fox wasn't the only recess appointment Bush made. He also made two fox-in-the-henhouse appointments: Susan Dudley, an opponent of government regulation, as White House regulatory czar; and Andrew Biggs, a supporter of Social Security privatization, as deputy Social Security commissioner. The latter appointment was also a direct slap at Congress, since Biggs' appointment had been rejected by the Senate in February.

The link notes that this is apparently the first time a president has made recess appointments during such a short recess, but otherwise this particular power has been broadly interpreted by presidents since the dawn of the Republic.

Congress does have one minor response: They can refuse to pay the recess appointees. But if the appointees are willing to serve for free, there's not much else Congress can do except fume.

recess appointment, Sam Fox, politics, midtopia

Yet another McCain gaffe

Really, I'm not trying to pick on the guy. But he just keeps doing dumb things.

After claiming that parts of Baghdad were safe enough to walk around in, John McCain decided to prove his claim by flying to Baghdad and doing so, touring the Shorja market in the central part of the city.

"Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able to go out into the city like I did today. The American people are not getting the picture of all that is happening here," McCain said.

Wow. A U.S. senator is able to stroll the streets of Baghdad. Are things really that safe?

No.

NBC’s Nightly News provided further details about McCain’s one-hour guided tour. He was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.”

He also arrived in an armored Humvee and wore a bullet-proof vest the entire time. I don't know what American cities he frequents, but I don't think any of that is standard procedure for most places in this country.

Now in one sense, the comparison is unfair, because he's an American VIP and thus a target of high interest to insurgents, and his point was more about what ordinary Iraqis have to deal with. George Clooney needs bodyguards to walk down a street in the United States; you and I don't.

Even by that standard, however, McCain's claims seem more fantasy than fact. Even while he was there, Iraqis disputed his assessment:

Amir Raheem, 32, a floor carpeting merchant at the Shorja market, disagreed with the upbeat assessment of the congressional visitors. "Just yesterday, an Iraqi soldier was shot in his shoulder by a sniper, and the day before, two civilians were shot by a sniper as well," he said.

He said Sunni insurgents routinely clashed with Shiite militiamen or with Iraqi soldiers and policemen in the area. "Everybody closes their shops by 2:30 p.m.," Raheem said.

Although the congressional delegation reported seeing crowds of Iraqis shopping in the market, Raheem said the number represented a sliver of the customers he used to see. "It is not even 10 percent of our work before the bombings, because people are afraid to come," he said.

Worse, he said, the closure of the main street by barriers has affected his business. If it was so safe, he said, "let them open the street, for the market has died since they put them there."

The snipers vacated the area when McCain's security phalanx visited. But the next day, they were back. Residents say they kill at least one person a day, on average.

Snipers: another thing you don't routinely encounter in American cities.

The surge seems to be producing some good results, though much of it is from such heavy-handed measures as barring car and truck traffic from busy streets to prevent car bombings. But McCain's assertions go so far beyond the bounds of what might be considered reality that you have to wonder just how firm is his grasp on that reality.

Iraq, McCain, politics, midtopia

Dems show spine, but judgement is another matter

Ratcheting up the pressure on the White House, Sen. Harry Reid has co-sponsored a bill that would end funding for the Iraq war within a year.

Reid announced that he had teamed up with Sen. Russell Feingold, one of the Democrats' strongest war critics, on legislation to set a deadline of March 31, 2008, for completing the withdrawal of combat forces and ending most military spending in Iraq.

For his part, President Bush blasted the Democratic strategy, even as the military sped up redeployments to Iraq -- an example of how difficult it is to sustain current troop levels in Iraq, much less sustain the entire surge, which is only 40 percent complete at the moment.

Reid is pursuing a two-track strategy here, because Congress is also debating a compromise funding bill in preparation for Bush's expected veto of the recently passed measures. The compromise would dispense with timetables but include nonbinding calls for troop withdrawals to begin.

Republicans call Reid a hypocrite, because in November he said "We're not going to do anything to limit funding or cut off funds" for the war.

Reid, however, has his own explanation:

Reid had previously opposed setting a firm end date for the war, a stance he has backed away from in recent months as others in his party moved to increase pressure on Bush. He officially converted after visiting wounded soldiers last week at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"Talk about a way to be depressed," Reid said yesterday in a talk-radio interview with liberal host Ed Schultz. "The American people, I repeat, have to understand what is happening. It is not worth another drop of American blood in Iraq. It is not worth another damaged brain."

You can debate whether that's a good rationale, but at least he's got one.

And frankly, that's just a distraction. Because this move is a part of the complex dance between Congress and the White House over Iraq. This is, quite simply, an escalation of that dance because Bush has refused to accept the timetables in the recently passed funding bills.

I think it's fair to say that where contrary views are concerned, Bush generally only responds to 2x4s upside the head. With this move, the Dems are contemplating supplying just such a piece of lumber. Bush won't accept timetables? Reid's response is "Fine. No timetables, no money at all."

Is Reid cutting off funds for the troops? He would say no: Congress has passed the necessary funding bills. If Bush doesn't like the strings, whose fault is that? The president would apparently rather not have any funding than have funding with strings attached. That's his choice, but he can't say Congress refused to give him money.

So it's a toss-up who would deserve the blame for a lack of money: Bush for vowing not to accept any strings on the money Congress gives him, or Congress for refusing to give him money without strings. This fight will be won on public opinion grounds: The winner will be the side that the public blames the least.

Constitutionally speaking, I think Congress is in the stronger place here: it's up to them to determine the broad outlines for conduct of the war, and up to Bush to carry out the mission within that outline.

Politically speaking, though, the president might have the upper hand. While Democrats can cut off funding simply by refusing to act, there's not much political support for an immediate aid cutoff. So a funding bill of some sort will be passed. Further, there's probably not enough support in Congress to actually pass the Feingold bill, so Reid's co-sponsorship of it is something of an empty threat. At best it's yet another sign of hardening Democratic resolve on Iraq -- a signal to Bush that there are more and worse fights down the road, and he had better start planning according.

Some side notes:

1. There are infinite wrinkles in this little game. Congress could, for instance, pass a temporary funding bill with no strings attached, allowing the larger ballet to stretch out for months and holding the threat of a funding shutoff as a constant cudgel over Bush's head.

2. I think the $20 billion in pork that went into the funding measures is going to do more damage to the Democrats than whether Harry Reid flip-flopped. I recognize that pork greases the wheels of Congress. But $20 billion was simply a ridiculous amount of money. A couple of billion would have been more reasonable.

3. Political timing plays a role here. Much of what is done now will be forgotten by the time the 2008 elections roll around. And for those elections, both parties in Congress want Iraq off the table. For the Democrats, beginning an exit from Iraq would be a feather in their cap with their antiwar supporters. It would also make the 2008 election more about domestic issues, a perennial Democratic strength. Congressional Republicans, for their part, would like Iraq to be a nonfactor as well. It's a drag on their poll numbers on its own, and also serves as a direct and highly visible link to an unpopular lame-duck president. Republicans will let Democrats take the rap for putting a halt to it, but unless things in Iraq improve rapidly they won't work too hard to thwart the process.

4. Many of the people criticizing the Dems for doing this are the same ones who called the Dems "spineless" and "unwilling to simply yank funding", and called the timetable bills "meaningless" and "symbolic." Note the rhetorical win-win there: If they refuse to pull funding, they're cowards engaged in mere "symbolic" acts; if they pull the funding, they're undercutting the troops, encouraging terrorists and playing politics with our soldiers' lives. The only acceptable course is to keep giving Bush what he wants. Bleh: partisan logic makes me nauseous.

As it turns out, the Dems were not only serious but they have spines as well. Whether that spinage is being used in a good cause is, to me, the proper area for debate. I think as a negotiating tactic, Reid's move is just fine. But I think Bush's surge needs time to show it can work, so any bill that simply yanks funding immediately is a poor idea.

As a compromise, Congress should consider a "clean" bill that funds Iraq operations through the end of summer. That gives the surge time to work, but forces Bush to come back and request another installment after the August recess. At that point we'll have a good idea of whether the surge is working and sustainable, and thus be able to make some hard decisions on continued funding.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

SC shoots down Gitmo appeal

Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from two groups of Gitmo detainees, who were asking the Court for a habeus corpus review of their detention.

Back when the Military Commissions Act was passed, the provision stripping habeus corpus rights from detainees was expected to pose a serious constitutional problem; many observers and quite a few Congressmembers expected the Supreme Court to declare that part of the law unconstitutional. This was supposed to be the case where they did so.

But the justices chose to reject the petitions on narrow procedural grounds, saying the plaintiffs had not yet exhausted all other options.

"Despite the obvious importance of the issues raised in these cases, we are persuaded that traditional rules governing our decision of constitutional questions ... and our practice of requiring the exhaustion of available remedies as a precondition to accepting jurisdiction over applications for the writ of habeas corpus ... make it appropriate to deny these petitions at this time."...

The court also said its decision to stay out of the fight for now does not mean it is rejecting the claims on their merits, just that the timing was not right for the court's involvement now.

Bleh. I understand exhausting options. But by dodging the question, the Court simply delays a resolution. Eventually the prisoners will exhaust other options, and then the case will be back before the Court. If they then shoot down that portion of the act, how would they justify the continued detention of these prisoners in the meantime? Not to mention the limbo the prisoners will be in as Congress and the administration seek to craft some sort of replacement language. If language brought before the Court is clearly unconstitutional, the Court should strike it down -- not leave it operating and causing harm until every other possible remedy is tried. The Roberts Court's impulse to decide cases as narrowly as possible is excellent in principle, but in practice it often seems to delay justice and sow confusion.

That's essentially what Justices Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg argued in their dissent.

I also find this line irritating:

The majority of justices noted the court would be willing to get involved later if the prisoners could show "the government has unreasonably delayed proceedings."

Hello? Many of them have been imprisoned for years already. I understand that the justices are referring to proceedings under the newly passed act, but some sense of urgency would seem to be appropriate here.

With the prisoners in limbo -- at least for now -- is Congress doing anything to fix the Military Commissions Act's more offensive provisions?

Yes.

S576 and HR1415 are the "Restoring the Constitution Act". It tightens the definition of "enemy combatant", requires defendants have access to counsel, excludes coerced statements from evidence, improves the discovery process, gives federal appeals courts (rather than military courts) the authority to hear appeals of tribunal cases, and several other things.

S185 and HR1416 are the "Habeus Corpus Restoration Act." It's very short; it simply restores habeus corpus rights to detainees.

Both are currently in committee in both chambers. We can hope to see them hit the floor for a vote later in this session.

To repeat something I wrote a couple of months ago: Terrorists deserve to be treated harshly. But suspected terrorists deserve rights, including a fair trial; that's the only way we can demonstrate that they are terrorists and thus deserving of punishment. We debase our own principles -- and damage not only our society but our cause -- when we abuse those rights in the name of expediency.

civil liberties, Gitmo, politics, midtopia

Thin on the ground

I'll put up several posts later today, but in general posting will be light this week. It's spring break for my daughters' schools, so I'm going to be home playing with Barbies, going to the zoo and other parental things.

I'll make sure to keep my picks list in the sidebar updated, so feel free to check out the fine posts I've highlighted there. And I'll be back up to my usual posting pace next week.

politics, midtopia

Three senior White House aides leaving

The Wall Street Journal calls it "routine turnover," but the timing is interesting.

Peter Wehner, the head of strategic initiatives, and political director Sara Taylor are expected to be heading for the White House exits soon, according to a person familiar with the situation. Barry Jackson, a longtime aide to Karl Rove, also is thought to be leaving soon.

A WaPo profile of Wehner supports the idea that it's just routine. ""I've been here six years, and there was just the sense that it was time to go. We've been through a lot," Wehner said in an interview. "If you're not going to stay through to the end, you have to figure out when to get off the train."

But while that may be the underlying reason, the particular timing may be due to the fact that being in the Bush administration is just not much fun anymore.

Although none of those leaving says so publicly, it has been an especially exhausting presidency, one in which many on the inside have grown frustrated by the political and policy setbacks of Bush's second term. Some aides look to the remainder of the administration and see more gloomy times.

Barry Jackson has been a subject of scrutiny amid questions about White House officials' heavy use of outside e-mail accounts to conduct politically sensitive communications. And Sara Taylor had at least a guest star role in the prosecutor firings. One of her deputies, Scott Jennings, has a subpoena with his name on it awaiting the outcome of negotiations with the White House over whether and under what conditions he and five other senior aides will talk about the dismissals.

Meanwhile, over in La La Land, Alberto Gonzales again defended his conduct. Stating "I believe in truth and accountability," he said he had not resigned because he was "fighting for the truth."

Hmm. So it was in the service of truth that he lied to Congress? It was because he places truth on a cherished pedestal that he's had to revise his statements several times to account for inconvenient facts? It's because he holds truth (and accountability) dearer than life itself that he has refused to, in fact, be held accountable?

Got it.

politics, midtopia

Religion and politics

They often make strange bedfellows. But some mixtures are more toxic than others.

You've probably heard about James Dobson telling U.S. News & World Report that he didn't think Republican Fred Thompson was a Christian.

That was silly enough. But following Thompson's angry rebuttal, the clarification was even more obnoxious.

Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger said Dobson "use[s] the word 'Christian' to refer to people who are evangelical Christians."

Oh, yes, that makes it all better. In Dobson's formulation, 90 percent of the Christian faith -- Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, what have you -- aren't actually Christian. How charming.

What you might not have heard about was something that took place at the same time: 40 members of Congress calling for a "prayer wall" around the United States.

Mr. Forbes and about 40 other members of Congress from both parties and 19 states will gather outside the Capitol today at noon to issue what they are describing as a call to bring "America back to prayer."

The group has even set up a web site where people can sign up for five-minute slots to pray for the United States.

There's plenty to comment on there. Particularly this:

"If we have several thousand people praying for five minutes for the future of our country, that creates a spiritual fire wall around America that is pretty significant," he said.

"Spiritual fire wall"? Besides sounding goofy, this seems like really bizarre theology, conflating religion with nationalism. What part of the Christian faith would lead one to believe that God would favor the United States over, say, Belgium or Italy or India or Singapore? It's like praying for a sports team to win: it cheapens and distorts the very idea of prayer.

That said, the reaction by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State was completely over the top:

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “Lawmakers should stick to their constitutional duties and leave religious decisions to individuals. Congressional meddling in religion is an affront to the First Amendment principle of church-state separation. Religion is too important to become a political football.”

Their weblog went further, stating: "For lawmakers to call Americans to their knees and insist that religious worship is the only way to solve our many problems is insulting, divisive and, frankly, unconstitutional."

Excuse me?

American citizens don't give up their right to free speech when they get elected to Congress. They are as free as you and me to express their opinion on any subject whatsoever, including belief.

What they are not free to do is use their office to compel compliance, or use the levers of government to promote their faith. But the group has not attempted to do so; they have simply expressed their view that the country needs our prayers.

Americans United is laudably vigilant on church-state separation issues. But their willingness to declare simple speech unconstitutional is, frankly, more violative of the Constitution than the behavior they decry. And their shrillness on this incident suggests a religious intolerance that is the mirror image of what they oppose.

Criticize what members of the Prayer Caucus say. But do not deny them their right to say it.

religion, politics, midtopia

Concealed carry: no big deal

A new study of Minnesota's liberalized concealed-carry law revealed no positive effect on crime.

Violent crime has risen 13 percent in the three years since the law took effect.

Firearm injuries and deaths have doubled.

There was only one instance of a permit holder using the gun under the "lawful and justifiable" provision -- and it didn't involve stopping a crime or self-defense.

So it seems pretty clear that the law isn't helping fight crime. But nor has it turned into the Wild West. Of 42,189 permit holders just 174 have been involved in a crime, only 23 of which involved a pistol. While that debunks the assertion of some supporters that "no permit holder has ever been involved in a crime" -- an assertion that is statistically ludicrous anyway -- it doesn't show rampant vigilantism either.

Whether you think the law is a problem depends on how closely you tie the rising crime and injury rates to the concealed-carry provision, and what weight you give to the various factors. To me, it's mostly a wash. I didn't feel unsafe before the law; I don't feel unsafe now. The most irritating part is constantly being confronted with those big, legislatedly ungrammatical signs warning that Company X "bans guns in these premises." Given the number of such signs, we probably could have saved a lot of money by requiring instead that businesses voluntarily opt-in with a sign that said "Company X welcomes concealed weapons."

gun control, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Meningitis vaccine puts health before profits

It's not as simple as that, but the math is pretty stark. GlaxoSmithKline, which spent decades and more than $400 million developing a meningitis vaccine, expects to sell it only in Africa, and at a price that will never cover the cost of development.

As the story notes, this is not an entirely selfless act. Some of it is PR, attempting to repair the damage done by a lawsuit over AIDS drugs a few years back. Some of it is marketing, establishing a presence in markets where GSK may hope to sell other drugs down the road.

Nor is it a solution to finding cures for "neglected" diseases -- illnesses that occur solely in the developing world, and thus have no rich-nation market that can be charged higher prices to pay for the development costs. Companies cannot be expected to routinely write off $400 million for the global good.

But it is a sign that pharmaceutical companies are waking up to the complex world they operate in, and that profit motive is not the only valid consideration for their research efforts. GSK is doing an extraordinary thing, and millions of lives will likely be saved because of it. Good for them.

GlaxoSmithKline, meningitis, Africa, health care, politics, midtopia

Political profiling?

Somehat apropos to the prosecutor firing flap, a study updated last month by University of Minnesota graduates (and now communications professors) Donald Shields and John Cragan uncovered an interesting data point: The Justice Department has investigated or indicted seven times as many Democratic elected officials as Republicans during the Bush administration. That's out of a pool of officials that is 50 percent Democratic, 41 percent Republicans and 9 percent independent.

Dig a little deeper, and that startling number only holds true for local officials. There's no apparent bias in investigations of statewide and federal officeholders, and overall Democrats get investigated four times as often, not seven.

The researchers postulate that media scrutiny explains the difference. Investigations of prominent officials get attention and thus must be more defensible; investigations of local officials tend to fly under the radar, being covered in a fragmented fashion by local press with no reference to the overall picture.

It would be instructive, of course, to run the same numbers for previous administrations. A certain amount of bias is almost unavoidable, given the political nature of U.S. attorney appointments. But a sevenfold (or even fourfold) difference certainly seems excessive at first blush.

Before jumping all over this factoid, however, perhaps some skepticism of the methodology is in order. David Frum has a go at debunking the study, citing Michael Smerconish, a columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer who claims the "study" was little more than a tabulation of Google search results.

But his criticisms, while worthwhile, don't do a very good job of explaining why an essentially random search method would come up with seven times as many investigations of Democrats as of Republicans. He makes a good case that the methodology probably misses or miscounts cases; he offers no reason to think that those missing cases would involve disproportionatly Republican defendants.

But don't stop there. A much more thorough debunking is available over at Stubborn Facts, including a reply to Smerconish by the study's authors.

All in all, I'd be skeptical of the claims. The methodology clearly has some holes in it, starting with the rather nonrigorous definition of "investigation". That did not stop the authors from making broad claims based on the data, which should raise alarm bells about their credibility -- because either they don't know how flawed the data are, or they don't care. There might be a kernel of something here, but it requires some serious fleshing out and analysis before we can state anything conclusive.

(H/T: The Moderate Voice)

U.S. attorneys, politics, midtopia

Sampson on the spot

This morning I got to watch a portion of the Congressional testimony of Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales. I recommend finding the time to view parts of it yourself, because you get a sense of the actors far better than anything you'll get from a news summary or even a quality blog such as this one.

YouTube has tons of video to choose from.

Sampson came across as sincere and convincing, for the most part, though he seemed like a guy who was given far more responsibility than he could handle. He said "I don't know" or "I don't recall" a lot, but that's normal and prudent. He was particularly convincing when he flatly denied that the firings were related to ongoing investigations or other purely political considerations.

His main meme was clear: the firings were legal, but perhaps poorly handled. And the response to Congressional questioning was totally botched, which was why he resigned.

Fair enough, but there were plenty of troubling details that senators of both parties kept bringing up. Orrin Hatch pitched softballs, but Jeff Sessions sharply criticized the whole affair.

Some of the more notable points raised:

1. While saying the firings were based on performance, he acknowledged that the process was not "scientific nor extensively documented." Which led several senators to ask just what criteria were used to select these particular attorneys for removal.

2. He said Lam was criticized for her lack of immigration prosecutions. Then Sen. Diane Feinstein read a February 2006 letter from the Justice Department praising Lam for her immigration work in (I think) 2005, with prosecutions up three or fourfold and alien smuggling down by half. That said, the letter was apparently describing improvements over 2004. So one interpretation could be that Lam was doing a horrible job in 2004 -- when the firing process was already underway -- and her improved performance in 2005 wasn't enough to save her.

3. Sampson later added that Lam was also let go for her failure to go after gun violations aggressively enough, which seemed like a bit of alternate justification after his initial justification was undermined.

4. He repeated several times, under prodding from senators, that Gonzales said various things that were untrue in previous statements to Congress. On March 12, Gonzales said he was "not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions." But Sampson said he discussed the matter four or five times with Gonzales and kept him informed. And of course there was the Nov. 27 meeting at which Gonzales approved the firing plan. Gonzales said Sampson didn't share information within the department; Sampson said he did.

5. Sampson said the firings were in the works for two years, as they first compiled an initial list and then waited for the attorneys' terms to expire. But then there was this bombshell:

Sampson also revealed that New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias was not added to the dismissal list until just before the Nov. 7 elections, after presidential adviser Karl Rove complained that Iglesias had not been aggressive enough in pursuing cases of voter fraud.

Not only proof of direct and forceful Rove involvement, but a last-minute addition that undermines the "two year" and "for performance" claims -- since they apparently had no problems with his performance up until that point, and it would seem difficult to properly assess his performance given the hastiness of the addition.

6. Sampson even suggested firing Patrick Fitzgerald in the middle of his prosecution of Lewis Libby. One can only imagine what a firestorm that would have caused. Luckily for all of us cooler heads prevailed, in the form of Harriet Miers. But that's saying something, consider Miers was the one who initially proposed firing all 93 attorneys at the beginning of Bush's second term. When she's considered the cooler head, you've got some trouble going.

So what does it all mean?

Sampson made a strong case that the firings were legal and proper, and at least some of them probably were. Kevin Ryan, for instance, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, was a devoted Bush loyalist. His removal, everyone seems to agree, actually was performance-based.

But even that case highlights the political nature of the dismissals, because the administration wanted to keep him on because he was so loyal, despite myriad complaints about his performance.

And at least some of the firings, like Iglesias', seem to have no other explanation than politics.

Sampson made a spirited case defending even that practice, saying "the distinction between political and performance-related reasons for removing a U.S. attorney is, in my view, largely artificial." His general argument: if a U.S. attorney lacks political support or the confidence of the President, he cannot be effective.

Legally, he may be right. So far, Congress has not uncovered any criminal wrongdoing, and I don't think they're likely to. The attorneys do, after all, serve at the pleasure of the president. Firing them for sleazy reasons may be sleazy, but it's not illegal.

But ethically and politically, he's dead wrong. Ethically, the firings have undermined the independence, impartiality and morale of U.S. attorneys as a group -- something the attorneys themselves have been rather pointedly telling Gonzales. Politically it's just stupid, because the defense doesn't satisfy the understandable desire to believe our justice system is impartial. This seemed to be something that particularly incensed Sen. Sessions, who opened his statement by saying that he wanted to make clear the justice system worked and the U.S. attorneys were all fine, dedicated public servants, whatever doubts the current scandal may raise in that regard.

Then there's the little matter of lying to Congress. And on that score, I think Gonzales is doomed. His earlier statements have been almost entirely discredited, and his explanations ring hollow. His main defense is that he has since, uh, "clarified" his earlier statements, and his new version of events comports well with Sampson's. Why he considers that a defense, I don't know. Only the most sympathetic reading of his March 12 comments would lead one to say he was merely imprecise or misspoke. Even conservative bloggers have derided his tortured explication of what he meant by "involved", invoking the dreaded Clintonian "that depends what the meaning of 'is' is."

I've said all along that Gonzales should be fired for the totality of his resume, not the prosecutor firings. The true grounds are incompetence -- both in law and in management -- and a willingness to bless things like torture and "enemy combatant" statuses that are grossly violative of clearly written law and basic human decency.

Initially I was simply amused that a relatively minor flap such as this would be what finally brought him down. But Gonzales exceeded my expectations by choosing to lie. It is a fitting capper to the twilight of his tenure: He will be forced to resign because he managed to take a minor embarassment and turn it into a raging disaster.

Gonzales, Sampson, politics, midtopia