Where's the truth in Iraq?

One of the ongoing themes in the Iraq debate is the argument that the "true" picture of life in Iraq is not reaching Americans. Either it's better than portrayed (the prowar argument) or worse (the antiwar argument). Any report one way or another is dismissed either as biased in its own right, or simply "missing the bigger picture."

Some examples of the whiplash of conflicting reports:

Bush's recent trip to Iraq. On the one hand you have people hailing Bush's recent trip to Iraq as a sign of the improving security situation, since he was able to fly by helicopter over Baghdad to reach the Green Zone. The last time he visited, he landed and stayed at a military base.

Critics point out that we are in the midst of an offensive to "retake" Baghdad, 3 years after the end of the invasion, which certainly doesn't imply progress. And Bush didn't even tell the Iraqi prime minister he was coming, which certainly doesn't imply trust.

But then we get reports of coalition forces handing control of parts of Iraq over to Iraqi forces, which indicates that the security situation is improving.

Ignoring the good news. Reporters are criticized for not covering "good news", while others counter by pointing to the high death toll among journalists in Iraq, and note that if Iraq is so dangerous reporters can't leave the Green Zone, that says all we need to know about the security situation.

There's probably some truth to the "not reporting good news" argument, for a couple of mundane reasons: the inability of reporters to get out and witness such occurrences, and the fact that a school opening simply isn't as interesting or important as the ongoing violence. Reconstruction statistics tend to get reported as roundups, with such things as "3,000 schools have been renovated in the last year", rather than as 3,000 separate stories. It's fair to say that that lessens the impact of the good news.

But such complaints need to be taken with a grain of salt as well; a raw number like "3,000 schools renovated" or "100 playgrounds have been built" doesn't say much about what is meant by "renovated", doesn't say whether a playground is actually used, and doesn't mean anything unless we have some context: how many schools are there?

Last year a reporter (CNN, I think; the story has aged off the Web) traveled to several of these "renovated" schools and found that many of them had been superficially repaired but lacked supplies or electricity or functioning toilets or many of the other things one needs to have a working school.

Also last year, the New York Times did a short piece on a playground in Baghdad. U.S. troops spent $1.5 million in 2004 building it in a nice spot along the banks of the Tigris. A year later the playground was abandoned, the grass dead, because it was simply too dangerous to go there. But I'll bet that playground is still listed among successfully completed reconstruction projects.

We have undoubtedly renovated a substantial number of schools, and repaired a substantial number of sewer lines, and rebuilt a substantial number of electrical systems. But what that number is, and what it actually means as far as the quality of life in Iraq, is far more complicated than the bland "renovated schools" count suggests.

And here's another thought: you may think the media underreports the good news, but they also underreport the bad news. There's only so much space in any given newspaper or so much airtime on TV. The vast majority of photos never get seen by the vast majority of people, who also are not confronted with the vast majority of daily outrages. They, too, get aggregated into statistics. If you want a taste of just how much bad news you're not bombarded with each day, check out this site.

Economic measures. These are things like electricity and oil production, both of which have struggled to reach prewar levels. That may sound like we're not doing well, despite pouring billions into reconstruction. But the insurgency has diverted much of that spending to security, and it's difficult to increase electricity production when insurgents keep blowing up power lines and distribution stations. On the other hand, our inability to establish a secure environment is the reason the insurgency is able to do so much damage.

The fact is that Iraq is not one place, but multiple places. Outside of the Sunni Triangle, there is not much of an insurgency. What you do have, though, is sectarian violence, including Shiite death squads and security forces infiltrated by militia members. And in all places violence and corruption make rebuilding difficult.

Within the Sunni Triangle, the insurgency makes meaningful reconstruction especially difficult. But that just highlights one of the main criticisms of the occupation -- that it was poorly planned, and we've never had enough troops to do the job properly. Which is why we find ourselves retaking the same cities again and again, and spending more on providing security for construction projects than we do on the actual construction.

Is Iraq getting better? In places. Is it getting worse? In places. Is it safe and secure? Not even close, unless you're a Shiite in a predominately Shiite area or a Sunni in a predominately Sunni area. And that will remain the case until we have enough boots on the ground -- coalition or Iraqi -- to reestablish the governmental monopoly on violence that is essential to a secure state.

terrorism, reconstruction, security, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Found: Missing idiot

And his name is Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga. He appeared on "The Colbert Report" last night. Crooks and Liars has the transcript:

COLBERT: You have not introduced a single piece of legislation since you entered Congress.

WESTMORELAND: That's correct.

COLBERT: This has been called a do nothing Congress. Is it safe to say you're the do nothingest?

WESTMORELAND: I, I, ..Well there's one other do nothiner. I don't know who that is, but they're a Democrat.

COLBERT: What can we get rid of to balance the budget?

WESTMORELAND: The Dept. of Education.

COLBERT: What are the Ten Commandments?

WESTMORELAND: You mean all of them?--Um... Don't murder. Don't lie. Don't steal Um... I can't name them all.

That last exchange is lovely because he's a co-sponsor of various bills letting the Ten Commandments be displayed in government buildings. To find the text of the bills, check Thomas for "Ten Commandments" or specifically H RES. #214 and H CON. RES. #12.

He also was caught distributing auto-industry talking points verbatim to colleagues under his own letterhead, without attribution.

Georgia, Congress, Colbert, Westmoreland, politics, midtopia

Supreme Court approves no-knock searches

I generally consider myself a civil liberties partisan. I'm a free-speech fanatic, and my main objections to Gitmo, warrantless wiretapping and the like all have to do with civil liberties.

But I have a hard time getting worked up about yesterday's Supreme Court ruling.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices....

Dissenting justices predicted that police will now feel free to ignore previous court rulings that officers with search warrants must knock and announce themselves or run afoul of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

A lot of observers are saying this strips an essential protection from citizens, but I just don't see it. The police have a search warrant, so they've already satisfied the main Constitutional requirement. All this ruling says is that they don't have to knock and then wait 15 to 20 seconds before barging in.

The specifics of this case aren't particularly interesting, either.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said Detroit police acknowledge violating that rule when they called out their presence at a man's door, failed to knock, then went inside three seconds to five seconds later. The court has endorsed longer waits, of 15 seconds to 20 seconds.

"Whether that preliminary misstep had occurred or not, the police would have executed the warrant they had obtained, and would have discovered the gun and drugs inside the house," Scalia wrote.

His point is that inability to use evidence is too high a price to pay for such a minor misstep.

He's right. It's like throwing out a case because prosecutors failed to dot an "i" or cross a "t".

There are a few side risks that need to be addressed, even though I don't consider them reason enough to oppose the ruling:

One is that police will take this as a blanket invitation to break in first and apologize later. That's a reasonable concern; a search warrant should not come with the additional extrajudicial punishment of having to pay for a new door after the police knock it down. But that concern can be addressed separately, and probably will be; expect a small wave of lawsuits that will spell out the boundaries of police behavior now that this ruling is law.

Another risk is more civilian-police violence, as a search that might have gone peacefully turns violent when a surprised homeowner resists the intrusion. That risk and a desire for good community relations may become the main check on police overaggressiveness in this new environment. But it bears watching.

As a side note, much of the uproar came about because the decision overturns 90 years of precedent. Perhaps liberals can now start complaining about "activist judges". At the very least I hope conservatives will shut up about it.

searches, Supreme Court, civil liberties, politics, midtopia

Hamas offers, then rejects, renewed truce with Israel

You read that right.

What actually happened is that the Hamas-led Palestinian government offered to restore the truce. But later Hamas militants rejected the idea, saying it did not speak for Hamas-the-movement.

I think the Palestinians are now learning the frustrations of dealing with an organization that has a growing separation between its political and military wings, just like the Irish endured with the IRA and Sinn Fein. People always suspected Sinn Fein was colluding with the military wing, but in the end it turned out that Sinn Fein didn't exert as much control over the military side as people thought. That made ending the conflict in Northern Ireland more difficult, since Sinn Fein couldn't guarantee it could deliver on its agreements.

Let's hope that doesn't foreshadow events in Palestine.

Meanwhile, as if to demonstrate how surreal the Palestine/Israel relationship can be, we get this story from the Washington Post:

Israel is unlikely to target Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh despite recent threats to kill leaders of Hamas if the Islamic group resumes suicide bombings, a senior Israeli defense official said on Friday.

This undoubtedly makes Palestinian legislators a bit more willing to attend Haniyeh's next parliamentary address....

Israel, Hamas, Palestine, politics, midtopia

Flag desecration goes to Senate floor

On an 11-7 vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the flag-desecration amendment and sent it to the full Senate.

Fatuous quote of the day:

"If we can protect the bald eagle, another symbol of our nation, from killing, I think we ought to be able to protect our flag,'' said Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn.

What a ludicrous analogy. Prevent Flag Murder! Save The Flag From Extinction!

Some opinions:
Chicago Tribune: "It's Flag Day and that can only mean one thing, congressional Republicans and Democrats are using the day as an opportunity to essentially say to each other 'my patriotism is bigger than yours.'"

Detroit Free Press: "The best tribute that Old Glory could be afforded on this Flag Day would be for Congress to leave intact the freedoms for which it stands."

Wisconsin State Journal: "Without such free speech, a democracy cannot function or become better. And without democracy, the flag would represent ideals far less inspiring and far less worth fighting for."

Paul McMasters: "To raise a symbol above the reality it stands for would be unwise, unnecessary and ultimately un-American."

May sanity prevail in the Senate. And if you haven't yet, write your Senators.

freedom, flag desecration, flag burning, free speech, politics, midtopia

Democrats vote to boot Jefferson off committee

The Democrats know a looming embarassment when they see one:

Democrats voted last night to strip Rep. William J. Jefferson (La.) of a plum committee assignment while he is embroiled in a federal bribery investigation.

The 99 to 58 vote followed weeks of public and private wrangling, as Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) sought to take a strong election-year stance on ethics, while Jefferson's allies -- mainly fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus -- protested that he was being singled out for unfair treatment.

The party vote to remove him from the Ways and Means Committee is nonbinding, so if Jefferson refuses to step aside the next step would be to a vote of the full House to force him out.

Normally I'm an "innocent-until-proven-guilty" kind of guy. But what's at stake here is a committee seat, not jail time. And committee members serve at the pleasure of their caucus. The caucus is not legally required to show cause before displacing one of their members; all it takes is a vote. Committee seats are a privilege, not a right.

Besides, the evidence against him is pretty compelling, including a former aide who has already pled guilty and implicated Jefferson. And who can forget the $90,000 in his home freezer?

Jefferson has one valid point: that there is no rule requiring him to give up committee assignments.

He noted that he has not been charged with a crime, and that "historically, even when a member of Congress has been so charged, he or she steps aside from a committee or subcommittee chairmanship, but not from the committee itself."

Fair enough. But on the other hand, why must we have a rule for every little thing? Rules help establish consistency in treatment of members, but they aren't a prerequisite for action.

Pelosi has a political motive, of course. She wants to use Republican corruption as a weapon in the November elections. And to do that she needs to cleanse her own house of embarrassing examples. So Jefferson can justifiably feel that he's being sacrificed on the altar of Democratic ambitions.

But in the end, that's just too bad. His citation of historical behavior ignores the fact that historically, "ethics" and "Congress" have not been favorably linked. Pelosi appears to be in the middle of redefining Congressional ethics. Even if her motives are far from pure, that's a good thing. And if it means members that are heavily implicated in a bribery scandal have to temporarily give up committee seats, I'm okay with that.

Pelosi, Jefferson, corruption, politics, midtopia

Midtopia in mourning

I won't be posting much until later today, because this morning we had to bury our cat. She was 14, and basically stopped eating two weeks ago. There was nothing the vet could do that didn't involve surgery.

She's the third pet we've had to put down in recent years, and the last animal connection to our post-college days.

She died peacefully, while I held her. We buried her this morning in our back yard, next to our other cat. We're down to one animal now, our dog. Hers may be the only dry eyes in the house today.

death, pets, midtopia

The Zarqawi windfall

Putting aside the usual caveats that "body count" is not a good way to measure success, the death of Zarqawi has given U.S. and Iraqi troops at least a temporary edge against insurgents.

American and Iraqi forces have carried out 452 raids since the June 7 airstrike on al-Zarqawi, and 104 insurgents were killed in those actions, said U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell.

The nationwide raids led to the discovery of 28 significant arms caches, Caldwell said.

He said 255 of the raids were joint operations, while 143 were carried out by Iraqi forces alone. The raids also resulted in the captures of 759 "anti-Iraqi elements."

A lot of the raids were apparently based on documents found in the ruins of Zarqawi's safe house, as well as information gathered but not acted on during the hunt for Zarqawi.

That's good news, tactically speaking. At the very least Zarqawi's group will be off-balance for a while as they try to reorganize. Whether it translates into a strategic advantage depends on how deep a blow these raids represent.

The more explosive news might be the discovery of a document that appears to show the insurgency is weakening.

The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the militants' financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks....

According to the summary, insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits. To give new impetus to the insurgency, they would have to change tactics, it added.

There's no independent verification of the document's veracity. Criticism has focused on two things: how closely the document mirrors U.S./Iraqi talking points, and the absence of typical resistance language.

The language contained in the document was different from the vocabulary used by al-Qaida statements posted on the Web. For example, it does not refer to the Americans as "Crusaders" nor use the term "rejectionists" to allude to Shiites.

Much of what is in the statement from al-Rubaie echoes results that the U.S. military and the Iraqi government say they are seeking. It also appears to reinforce American and Iraqi arguments that al-Qaida in Iraq and its operatives are a group of imported extremists bent on killing innocent civilians.

The fact that it was the Iraqi government, not the American military, that released the document also raises a flag. I don't think the Pentagon would outright fabricate a document like this; I'm not so sure the Iraqi government has such qualms.

So for now I wait for further analysis and verification. The full text of the document is here.

Zarqawi, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

A doublespeak form letter from Mark Dayton

I am mightily disappointed in our soon-to-be-ex-Senator.

After writing yesterday's post on flag-burning, I sent an e-mail to Mark Dayton asking him to reconsider his support for the flag-desecration amendment.

Today I got this form letter reply:

Thank you for your letter concerning flag burning. I am a proud
cosponsor of legislation to create a Constitutional Amendment to ban the burning of the flag. In supporting this Amendment, I am not seeking to compromise or sacrifice the basic and essential freedoms of the First Amendment, which the United States Supreme Court has interpreted to include the burning or desecration of the American flag. However, in acknowledging and respecting the complete and essential protections of the First Amendment, I seek to place the American flag, the great symbol of our country, our freedoms, and our great democracy above our individual political protests.

I was dumbfounded. The first two thirds of the letter pays lip service to the First Amendment, and even acknowledges that the Supreme Court has said the First Amendment protects flag burning. But despite "respecting the complete and essential protections of the First Amendment", he goes on to say "I'm going to outlaw flag burning anyway."

This is not an explanation. It is doublespeak.

I am sorely disappointed in Sen. Dayton.

Minnesota, free speech, flag burning, politics, midtopia

Immigrants are out of luck

A judge in Brooklyn ruled this week that the government can hold noncitizens indefinitely for a variety of reasons.

A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation. The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government.

It's true that noncitizens have fewer rights than citizens, and can be rounded up for infractions that wouldn't even justify fining a citizen. That's life; they are guests in our country, and guests can be held to higher standards or kicked out on a whim.

But for our own sakes we should have some sort of standard for such punishments. They should not be arbitrary, or subject to economic, religious or racial prejudice.

Where I have a major problem is the "hold them indefinitely" part. If we're going to take away someone's freedom, it's incumbent on us to process them as quickly as possible. Noncitizens deserve "speedy trial" protections -- or their administrative equivalent -- just as citizens do.

At least the judge said it's not okay to abuse them while they're being held indefinitely:

But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson's decision requires top federal officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, to answer to those accusations under oath.

That's a start, I guess.

Attorneys for the immigrants vow to appeal the ruling. But I think the judge is correct on the law, even if higher courts narrow its applicability. That means any remedy will ultimately rest with Congress -- and the mood there is not very receptive to noncitizen rights at the moment.

It's too bad that, in the name of security, we appear to be abandoning basic principles of fairness, humanity and justice. Noncitizens may not have as many rights as citizens, but it is still incumbent on us to treat them right -- because that is the American thing to do.

terrorism, civil liberties, security, immigration, politics, midtopia

John Gunyou for governor!

John Gunyou is, IMO, a Minnesota treasure. His talent for deflating demagogues with actual facts -- drawing on his 30 years of experience in running city governments -- brings a sober moderation to some potentially inflammatory debates.

I've written before about the Taxpayers League and the low-tax religion. In a column in today's Star Tribune, Gunyou tackles the two at once.

We've been thinking that we need to invest even more resources in road maintenance and traffic control. Silly us. We should be tackling those problems like the Taxpayers League would.

So here's what I came up with: inverted speed bumps. Rather than patch potholes, we should embrace them as traffic control devices. That way, we could forgo the expense of road repair AND cut funding for public safety. And the true genius is, we'll save more and more money every year as our roads continue to deteriorate and motorists are forced to drive even slower!

Why, there's no limit to this kind of creative thinking. Here's another one: perpetual student teachers. Indentured servitude was good enough for our founding fathers, so why not use it from preschool through grad school?...

Or how about random drug dispensing? If we mixed in cheap placebos with the real pills, prescription drugs would be far more affordable, pharmacists wouldn't have to decide who they want to serve, and we'd cull the herd of costly sickos. OK, this one needs a little more work, but you get the concept.

With a little creative thought and courageous political leadership, it really is possible to get something for nothing. The Taxpayers League was right all along.

Gunyou for governor!!

taxes, Minnesota, Taxpayers League, gunyou, politics, midtopia

Flag-burning amendment on the front burner?

The Senate is one vote away from passing a Constitutional amendment outlawing desecration of the flag.

I'm appalled. I didn't much care about this when it stood little chance of passing, considering it yet another wedge issue designed to distract us from actual important things. But this thing might actually pass when it comes to a vote in a couple of weeks.

Here's what supporters say:

"The American flag is a unique symbol that should be protected," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chief sponsor.

To which I reply: "And what do you think makes it a unique symbol?"

I didn't join the Army to defend a piece of cloth; I joined the Army to defend what that piece of cloth represents. And what it represents is individual freedom, including freedom of speech -- which includes moronic things like burning flags.

When protesters burn American flags -- something that, by the way, happens exceedingly rarely in this country -- they mostly demonstrate what idiots they are. But they also demonstrate the fundamental vitality of this country. In this country you can burn the flag and nobody will arrest you; that stark fact is part of what makes America a great nation.

Some people want to change that. We're going to stomp all over the meaning of the flag in order to protect the physical structure of the flag. Which just makes the flag more worthy of burning, not less.

Totalitarian countries place symbols on legal pedestals, because there's no other way to inspire reverence for them. Free countries let their symbols earn respect, and recognize that freedom includes the freedom to spit on the symbols of that freedom.

The only people desecrating the flag in any meaningful way are the ones who support this amendment. I'm ashamed to report that that includes both Minnesota senators. Norm Coleman (an amendment co-sponsor) I can understand; he's a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. But I'm extremely disappointed in Mark Dayton. He should know better. A lot better.

For a whole lot more on flag burning, including essays and a legislative and legal history, go here.

Update: former Sen. Bob Kerrey (a Vietnam vet) feels much the same way.

freedom, flag desecration, flag burning, free speech, politics, midtopia

Quick response at Gitmo

In the aftermath of the deaths of three inmates at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the Bush administration.... kicked reporters out.

Reporters with the Los Angeles Times and the Miami Herald were ordered by the office of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to leave the island today.

A third reporter and a photographer with the Charlotte Observer were given the option of staying until Saturday but, E&P has learned, were told that their access to the prison camp was now denied.

Despite the timing, the Pentagon said the expulsions were unrelated to the deaths.

A Pentagon spokesman, J.D. Gordon ... asserted that the move was related to other media outlets threatening to sue if they were not allowed in. He did not say why, instead of expelling the reporters already there, the Pentagon did not simply let the others in, beyond citing new security concerns.

Security concerns? I understand having to develop tighter controls over the detainees in the aftermath of the suicides. I don't see how that involves kicking out reporters. The pressure from other news organizations does create a dilemma -- how to decide who to let in? How to manage them once they arrive? -- but those are solvable.

Kicking out the reporters just makes it look like we're trying to hide something. That's just compounding the PR damage that began with the "PR stunt" explanation for the deaths.

Investigate the deaths. Report the findings. And let reporters cover the whole thing. Only with transparency can we dispel suspicions about what happened at Gitmo.

Oh, and shut the Gitmo facility down. Not because of the deaths; but because it's a legal, moral and PR disaster.

Update: David Ignatius says much the same thing.

suicide, terrorism, Guantanamo, Gitmo, politics, midtopia

Getting personal

I hadn't really given the theft of identity data from the VA much thought. Oh, it was an example of bureaucracy at its finest, but those are a dime a dozen. I also wasn't too worried personally, because my service was more than a decade ago and I haven't had any contact with the VA since then.

So it was a bit of a jolt a couple of days ago to get a letter from the VA warning that my name was among the 26 million stolen.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, since the lost database included information on veterans discharged after 1975. But since I have never used VA services, I sort of assumed my file would be in a dusty backup server somewhere.

I'm not particularly worried, though. There's no evidence that the database has been cracked, for one thing. For another, I've dealt with identity theft before. It's a pain in the butt -- the credit bureau bureaucracies rival the finest government and military organizations for sheer complexity and Catch-22 insanity -- but it's not a life-or-death situation. And the "do not blindly extend credit" notes in my file from the last episode should make it harder for thieves this time around.

As a side note, it's always eery how the Army can track me down, despite years passing and multiple moves. In this particular case they sent the letter out through the IRS, so that's no mystery. But if you ever want to see Army Intelligence in action, just try to hide when the personnel office wants to find you.

military, politics, midtopia

Israel didn't cause beach deaths?

As I mentioned yesterday, there was some evidence that Israeli artillery did not cause the Gaza Beach explosion last week.

That is now solidifying into the official Israeli position.

ccording to the findings, expected to be formally released on Tuesday, shrapnel taken from two wounded Palestinians who were evacuated to Israeli hospitals showed that the explosives were not made in Israel, IDF officials said.

Moreover, the investigation noted the absence of a large enough crater at the site of the explosion, as would be expected if an IDF shell had landed there.

The third observation casting doubt on the possibility that IDF shelling was the cause of the Palestinian deaths was that the IDF had accounted for five of the six shells that it fired in the area before the explosion and the shell that was unaccounted for was fired more than 10 minutes before the blast that killed the Palestinians.

The IDF report speculates that the explosion was caused by a Palestinian landmine, placed on the beach to keep sraeli commandos from coming ashore there.

This is not conclusive proof, and will likely be dismissed as propaganda in much of Palestine. Indeed, Human Rights Watch disputes the IDF conclusions:

Human Rights Watch said its investigation of the incident came up with opposite conclusions in almost every case.

The group said most of the injuries to the dead were to the head and torso. A Human Rights Watch spokesman said that would be consistent with an incoming shell, not a bomb buried in the ground.

Human Rights Watch also said the crater was consistent with a 155 mm artillery shell.

They can't both be right. But this should at least cause people to step back from the barricades and down from the podiums, and wait for more facts to come to light before assigning blame and stoking passions.

Gaza, Israel, Palestine, politics, midtopia

Rove won't be indicted

Looks like Truthout was just plain wrong:

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has told White House aide Karl Rove that he does not expect to seek charges against him in connection with the CIA leak case, Rove's lawyer said today.

In a statement this morning, Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said that Fitzgerald "has formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges" against Rove.

"In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation," Luskin said in the statement. "We believe that the Special Counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct."

That leaves just Lewis Libby on the hotseat. The White House breathes a small sigh of relief, though it's a sign of the difficulties they're in that "relief" is defined as "only one White House insider charged."

Does that end the buzz? Hardly. There's plenty of room for speculation, because somebody outed Plame. As Fitzgerald has noted, Libby being charged with cover-up crimes -- and nothing else -- indicates the the coverup was successful.

So unless something explosive comes out of the Libby trial, this is probably the end of the legal side of the Plame case. But it does not exonerate the White House, or Rove, or Cheney -- it simply fails to convict them. The only other hope for clarity lies in Fitzgerald's final report. It will detail what he knows and what he doesn't know, and why he chose to charge Libby and no one else. At that point we'll be able to judge the clarity or murkiness of the accusations and the defenses.

Libby, Rove, Plame, politics, midtopia

Good news, bad news on Palestine

Follow the bouncing ball....

On Sunday, one of the co-authors of a Palestinian "prisoner's covenant" withdrew his support for the proposal, which implicitly recognizes Israel. Abdel Khaleq Natche accuses President Mahmoud Abbas of using the issue for political gain.

But on Monday the Hamas-led Palestinian Parliament decided not to derail Abbas' referendum on recognizing Israel.

With its 69-6 vote, the parliament delayed a showdown with the moderate Abbas until June 20. Lawmakers said the move was to give negotiations between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement a chance to succeed.

It's a reprieve, not a resolution. But at least Hamas is taking steps to head off a confrontation. I just hope Abbas doesn't respond by canceling the referendum. The Palestinian people deserve a chance to be heard.

What chance is there of that happening? For the pessimistic, today's International Herald Tribune carries an opinion piece saying Abbas' attempt is doomed.

Abbas has committed a tactical blunder, for he has practically eliminated the already desperately narrow space for compromise in future peace negotiations with Israel. Referenda are supposed to approve peace deals; they are not made in advance of peace negotiations to tie the hands of the negotiators....

The flaws in Abbas's initiative stem not only from his wrong assumption that he can reconcile his domestic needs with his peace policy, but also from the weaknesses of the "prisoners' covenant." The covenant simply falls short of meeting the requirements of the international community for Hamas to be granted international legitimacy. It contains no explicit recognition of Israel, it does not advance a commitment to stop violent activities, and it does not endorse existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

In other words, even if Hamas accepts the covenant, Israel won't. So it's a recipe for stalled peace talks.

I think that's unduly pessimistic. Getting Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist would be a huge step. The rest can follow once that hurdle is crossed. But it's an excellent reminder of the difficulty and complexity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Throwing everything into doubt is the recent explosion that killed several beachgoers in Gaza. Palestinians are furious, blaming Israeli artillery. Israel has apologized even while it investigates the cause.

Around the time of the explosion, Israel was firing artillery toward a known rocket-launching point used by Palestinian militants. I question the wisdom of directing artillery fire at a target within a few hundred meters of a crowded beach, but the details are sketchy at the moment. In any case, it seems clear that Israel was not deliberately targeting the beach. And there appears to be some evidence that whatever caused the explosion, it was not as simple as an errant artillery shell. It might have been an old dud round, or even a Palestinian weapons cache.

Such murkiness surrounds much of what happens in Palestine. But what is clear is that the incident has enraged many Palestinians. The ultimate effect on relations between Israel and Palestine depend on how deep that outrage runs, what the ultimate cause of the explosion turns out to be and what intemperate acts are committed in the meantime.

Update: Speaking of intemperate acts, hundreds of Fatah gunmen have attacked government buildings in retaliation for an attack by Hamas gunmen.

The security men shot out the windows of the parliament building before storming the two-building Cabinet complex, where they smashed furniture, destroyed computers and scattered documents. No casualties were reported.

The mob then set fire to one of the Cabinet buildings, gutting the building's fourth floor. When a fire engine approached the scene, one gunman lay on the road in front of it, preventing it from reaching the building....

The rampage followed an earlier attack by Hamas gunmen on a Preventive Security installation in Gaza. The attack set off daylong clashes that left two people dead and 14 wounded.

Looks like today definitely falls into the "step backward" category.

Israel, Abbas, Hamas, Palestine, Gaza, politics, midtopia

NSA spying goes to court

Today a judge will hear arguments in an ACLU lawsuit against the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program.

The suit in Detroit, like one filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights, asserts that the NSA's eavesdropping program has violated free-speech and privacy rights and has had a chilling effect on the communications of potential surveillance targets.

The major problem with this suit will be the Catch-22 of "standing". Before a plaintiff can sue, they usually have to show that they were affected by the behavior in question, or that they're otherwise qualified to speak for affected parties.

The problem is that the NSA (for obvious reasons) has refused to say who it is monitoring. So a judge may dismiss the suit because the ACLU cannot show it is affected.

The ACLU is trying to get around that by saying the mere existence of the program affects it:

None of the plaintiffs have offered proof they were spied on. Rather, they maintain that the simple existence of the program has impeded their ability to perform their jobs as journalists and lawyers.

"The program is causing concrete and specific injury to plaintiffs and others," the ACLU said in a motion in March, asking U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor to declare the program illegal and to order its immediate halt.

A brief by Ann Beeson and other ACLU attorneys said the program was disrupting plaintiffs' ability "to talk with sources, locate witnesses, conduct scholarship, engage in advocacy and engage in other activity protected by the 1st Amendment."

The ACLU attorneys contend that because President Bush and several Cabinet members, including Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, have publicly acknowledged the existence of the program, Taylor has sufficient evidence to rule on the legality of the program without further fact-finding.

It's worth a try. It seems to me, though, that in important cases like this there should be available a broader form of standing, one that allows a court opinion to be rendered without requiring proof that the plaintiff has been specifically targeted. It would be a class-action suit of sorts, following the logic that "we're all affected by this program, either directly or indirectly, so we all have standing to question it."

Meanwhile, Arlen Specter is keeping the issue alive in Congress, threatening to subpoena phone company executives if the administration doesn't start cooperating.

"If we don't get some results, I'm prepared to go back to demand hearings and issue subpoenas if necessary," Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter told CNN's "Late Edition."

Tough words, and it goes nicely with his assertion that there is "no doubt" the program violates FISA -- which should be blindingly obvious. I approve of his proposed solution: that Bush let the FISA court decide if the program is constitutional. That addresses both security and constitutionality concerns.

But since Bush has not traditionally liked restrictions on his ability to do as he pleases, and since he has asserted the "inherent authority" to conduct such surveillance, I don't expect him to suddenly submit to the judiciary's authority.

If that happens, I expect Specter and others in Congress to hold the administration accountable. The country is not served by Congress rolling over, or shrugging and saying "well, we tried." One way or another, the legality of the NSA program needs to be settled. And if the administration is unwilling to cooperate in that endeavor, then it is time for Congress and the courts to exercise their constitutional obligations and begin acting like the "checks and balances" they were designed to be.

Update: The Washington Post covers the hearing.

eavesdropping, terrorism, Specter, NSA, politics, midtopia

New concerns about Iran's secret nuclear program

United Nations inspectors are raising fresh concerns about a secret Iranian nuclear program.

Fresh evidence has emerged that Iran is working on a secret military project to develop nuclear weapons that has not been declared to United Nations inspectors responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme.

Nuclear experts working for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna are pressing the Iranians to make a full disclosure about a network of research laboratories at a secret military base outside the capital Teheran.

The project is codenamed Zirzamin 27, and its purpose is to enable the Iranians to undertake uranium enrichment to military standard.

The evidence is not conclusive yet. But let's connect some dots.

Suspicions have been growing that Iran has a secret military nuclear research programme since UN inspectors discovered particles of enriched uranium at a research complex at Lavizan, a military base on the outskirts of Teheran, in 2003.

The Iranians agreed to allow IAEA inspectors to visit the Lavizan complex but then razed it to the ground before the inspectors arrived.

Gee, that's not suspicious at all. Next dot:

The Zirzamin 27 operation is thought to be being supervised by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards under the direction of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran’s Modern Defensive Readiness and Technology Centre, a top-secret military research site.

Why is this peaceful program being run by the military in a top-secret facility?

One more dot:

According to reports being studied by IAEA officials, scientists working at Zirzamin are required to wear standard military uniforms when entering and leaving the complex to give the impression they are involved in normal military activity. They are only allowed to change into protective clothing once inside the site.

Special attention has also been given to developing specialised ventilation systems to make sure no incriminating particles of radioactive material are allowed to escape.

A top-secret facility that is going to great lengths to hide what they're doing.

Why would Iran do that if their goal is the legal development of civilian nuclear power?

These allegations are as yet unproven, so don't jump to conclusions just yet. But the weight of evidence is against the Iranians. Their behavior simply doesn't square with their claims of peaceful and legitimate intentions.

Update: On the optimistic side of the ledger, Iran has formally accepted parts of a Western diplomatic offer. It was a very qualified acceptance, but depending on how the details shake out it could be the start of a productive agreement. The big questions will revolve around enrichment programs and fully revealing whatever secret efforts it is pursuing.

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Media finally picks up Coulter story

And Ann Coulter finally responds to the charges -- on Hannity and Colmes.

COLMES: You're talking about godless liberals not having values, not being values people. In light of that you've been in the news a little bit lately, accused by election supervisor Arthur Anderson in Palm Beach of voting in the wrong district and not answering a registered letter that they sent to you. And they say that you might have committed a felony. So could you address those charges and tell us what happened?

COULTER: I think the syphilis has gone to their brains.

COLMES: Is that what it is?

COULTER: Yes.

COLMES: Did you knowingly vote in the wrong district?

COULTER: No..... No. I live in New York. And I'm not going to tell you anymore about where I live, Alan. ....

COLMES: You didn't knowingly walk into the wrong district?

COULTER: Correct.

COLMES: And did you -- is there a reason you didn't respond to the authorities when they sent you a registered letter?

COULTER: This is all false, I'm telling you. You've got -- I mean, the "Treason Times" may hate America, but they're at least accurate. When you go to the bush-league newspapers, you get all the venom of the New York Times, but they're all retarded.

Perhaps we can add "paranoid schizophrenic" to Ann's curriculae vitae. She certainly seems detached from reality, considering the documentation supporting the allegations against her: Palm Beach property records, voter-registration forms and voting records.

Meanwhile, the Palm Beach Post has editorialized on the topic, and a crime blogger has weighed in on the evidence -- and found it pretty solid. Beyond voter fraud in Palm Beach, Coulter may also be guilty of falsely claiming a homestead exemption, and of voting in two places at once -- the second location being New Canaan, Conn.

Perhaps Coulter will become known as the Leona "taxes are for little people" Helmsley of politics. One can only dream.

Palm Beach, Coulter, politics, midtopia

Three deaths at Gitmo

After four years of being jailed without charge, and multiple attempts by various prisoners, three inmates at Gitmo finally succeeded in hanging themselves over the weekend.

That might be controversial enough; I'll get into the basic implications of the deaths a little later. But the U.S. stoked the flames of world outrage by dismissing the suicides as a "good PR move."

The suicides by hanging of the three men, two Saudis and one Yemeni, on Saturday sparked renewed calls from foreign governments and human rights groups for the military facility to be closed or moved.

About 465 foreign nationals are being held there without charge, some for almost four years. Yesterday, however, Colleen Graffy, a senior State Department official, dismissed the suicides as a “good PR move to draw attention” and “a tactic to further the jihadi cause”.

The camp commander described the men as dangerous extremists would go to any lengths to become martyrs. “They are smart, they are creative, they are committed,” Rear Admiral Harry Harris said. “This was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

I cannot imagine a dumber thing for us to say. There may be a kernel of truth there, the idea that some extremists are willing to die in order to advance their cause. But all the suicides do is call renewed attention to the embarassment that is Gitmo. The real damage is that the "They died? Oh well" response suggests to the world that we couldn't care less about prisoner rights or safety. It suggest that we follow certain guidelines for prisoner treatment not out of conviction but because we are expected to.

To our credit -- though too late -- cooler heads quickly backpedaled from those initial remarks:

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson, speaking to BBC radio, distanced himself from the statements.

"I wouldn't characterize it as a good PR move. What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life. Because as Americans, we value life, even the lives of violent terrorists who are captured waging war against our country," he said.

In the aftermath of the earlier statements, Stimson's remarks sound like so much spin.

On the one hand, it's possible to read too much into the "PR stunt" line: that defense was offered by relatively junior officials, and then contradicted by more senior officials.

But it reveals an attitude held by at least some of the people responsible for guarding and protecting prisoners and waging the fight against terrorists. It also seems to expose a curious laissez-faire attitude on the part of the Bush administration's publicity machine. When something as momentous as three prisoner deaths occur, why did they leave the response to such junior officials? Especially junior officials who had apparently not been briefed on what to say? Where was Bush? Where was Rice? Where was Rumsfeld?

Other than the damage done by such rhetorical foot-shooting, what do the deaths mean? Well, I've long said that Gitmo is an indefensible legal and moral catastrophe, and argued that the prisoners either need to be charged with crimes, labeled as POWs or released. I've also said that the existence of Gitmo does us more harm than good, and should be shuttered for that reason alone.

The deaths don't change that. They may highlight the unAmerican injustice going on there; they may speak to the increasing hopelessness of the prisoners; they may (and have) fueled renewed outrage and pressure to close the facility. But Gitmo should never have been opened for the reasons it was, or operated in the manner it has been. No amount of "humane treatment" makes up for creating a deliberate legal limbo in which human beings can disappear for years at a time. No amount of "administrative review" makes up for such clear proof that the rule of law is only for those people that we say it's for, rather than a deeply held principle that we apply to everyone accused of wrongdoing.

The deaths don't change the debate. They simply point out, in ever starker terms, what made Gitmo a bad idea in the first place.

Shut it down.

Stimson, , Harris, terrorism, Gitmo, Guantanamo, politics, midtopia

Hamas urges "unity"

Hamas, faced with a deadline today to accept Israel's right to exist, called off its truce with Israel and urged that a proposed referendum be called off:

Haniyeh called for Abbas to back down for the sake of Palestinian unity.

Unity; that's a good one. Note to Hamas: Unity is easy to achieve. Simply respect the will of the people as expressed in a referendum.

Abbas brushed off the request, and is expected to make a Saturday announcement establishing a referendum on July 31.

In yet more evidence of Hamas' troubled position, there's this gem:

Haniyeh said [the referendum] had "no legal and constitutional basis" and urged Palestinians to stop debating the issue.

"Please, folks, just shut up and stop putting us in a tight spot."

Seriously, folks, if this works and Palestine formally recognizes Israel, Abbas may deserve a Nobel. This is gutsy politics. Self-interested, true, but game-changing.

Palestine, Hamas, Abbas, politics, midtopia

Zarqawi 0, 500-lb. bombs 1

As everyone in the world undoubtedly knows by now, a couple of F-16s took out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the al-Qaeda licensee al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The bombing of the house Zarqawi was hiding in also killed his spiritual advisor, Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, plus three women and three men. Initial reports that a child was killed appear to be incorrect.

This is unequivocally good news. It does not justify the invasion of Iraq, nor is it likely to have a major effect on the insurgency. But Zarqawi was a fanatic and extremely violent opponent, willing to murder civilians and foment civil war in his efforts to drive out foreigners and Shiites alike. The world is a better place without him in it.

On a practical level, this is a morale boost for our forces. Whatever disruption his death causes will affect the foreign jihadi arm of the insurgency -- the one largely responsible for suicide attacks and indiscriminate attacks on civilians. And the nature of his death -- an attack guided by intelligence from members of the insurgency -- will have those jihadis looking over their shoulders, wondering whom they can trust and if they're next.

Contentions that Zarqawi is merely a symbol or a product of American propaganda are partially correct, in that he had waning influence among the native Iraqi insurgency. But such criticism ignores two things: his direct involvement in some of the bloodiest acts of violence, and his role in stoking sectarian war -- a legacy that will long outlive him. The LA Times has a good exploration of that legacy here.

Goodbye, good riddance. Let us hope his unmourned death changes things for the better in Iraq.

terrorism, Iraq, Zarqawi, politics, midtopia

Estate tax stays unrepealed

The fight's far from over, but for now the Republicans are unable to permanently kill the estate tax.

Voting 57 to 41, with only a few lawmakers crossing party lines, the Senate was three votes short of the number needed to end debate on the bill, dooming it on procedural grounds. The vote all but killed hopes at the White House and among Republicans on Capitol Hill of eliminating the tax on large estates, which under current law would be phased out by 2010 but would return in 2011.

Republicans are now debating whether to give up on their goal and attack Democrats in the coming midterm elections as obstructionists on a measure that they say has considerable support, or settle for a bipartisan measure that would stop short of eliminating the tax entirely.

I strongly encourage the Republicans to try the former route. That way they can make political hay out of it and see how far they get. More importantly, it would eliminate any chance that the repeal passes this year.

Let me repeat my main point regarding the tax: If you're going to eliminate $100 billion a year in tax revenue, there are all sorts of better things to spend that money on -- fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, for example. Better yet, keep the tax and pay down the deficit.

Tangentially, Bill Frist is now for 0-for-2 an the wedge issue votes -- estate tax, gay marriage -- that were supposed to grease the skids of his presidential campaign. Maybe he'll realize that voters are far more concerned about real issues -- as nicely spelled out by Molly Ivins.

estate tax, Frist, Ivins, politics, midtopia

Delay goes bye-bye

In a development overshadowed by Zarqawi news, Tom DeLay gave a fiery resignation speech on the floor of Congress yesterday, presaging his formal resignation today.

"Given the chance to do it all again, there's only one thing I'd change," DeLay said in a defiant retirement speech on the House floor. "I'd fight even harder."

Fight even harder for what? Raw partisanship? $490,000 in personal payments from lobbyists? Turning K Street into an arm of the GOP? The rebukes by the House ethics committee?

Yeah, lots to be proud of there.

It's also interesting to note that DeLay is moving his official residence to Virginia -- an acknowledgement that he hasn't been a Texan for a very long time. This is a common occurrence among long-tenured politicians, who spend more time in Washington than "back home". But at a time when the GOP still tries to style itself as the "outside the beltway" party, it's past time to recognize that their leadership, like the Democrats', is very much inside the Beltway.

Meanwhile, Texas Democrats have sued to keep DeLay on the ballot, despite him moving to a different state.

That may sound silly and unsporting at first glance, and it is. But it's part of a complex dance initiated -- unsurprisingly -- by DeLay. By resigning in June rather than earlier Delay gets a chance to choose his successor, rather than leave it to the vagaries of the primary process. So he's trying to game the system.

The Democrats are gaming it right back, saying Texas law does not allow the Republicans to replace him on the ballot unless he clearly is unqualified to hold office. At the very least the lawsuit delays the naming of a replacement, which robs the eventual GOP candidate of crucial time for campaigning and fundraising.

That may be good political strategy, but the Dems should drop the suit. The GOP ought to have the right to run anybody they wish; the primary is a party function, not an order that must be followed. And who knows when the Democrats will find themselves in a similar situation?

Goodbye to Tom DeLay, and good riddance. But let the contest to replace him be fair and open.

Tom Delay, Texas, politics, midtopia

Another reason I'll vote for Ramstad

I've posted before about why I like my Representative, Jim Ramstad, despite his being associated with a Republican Party that I think deserves to lose big in November.

Well, here's one more reason.

When Minnesota Republican Jim Ramstad heard that a friend in a drug-induced state had been in a late-night car wreck, he did what he said any friend in recovery would do: He reached out to help.

The friend was Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the Kennedy family scion from Rhode Island. After a high-profile political dust-up in Washington, Kennedy underwent 28 days of treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where he was released last week.

Ramstad visited him four Saturdays in a row, and agreed to sponsor Kennedy's recovery, accompanying him to recovery meetings and staying in regular contact.

Why? One reason is that Ramstad has been there:

t's the same way Ramstad recovered from alcohol addiction 25 years ago, after he woke up from an alcoholic blackout in a jail cell in Sioux Falls, S.D.

But it goes beyond that:

Ramstad has also stuck up for Kennedy politically, warning Rhode Island Republicans and others that calls for Kennedy's resignation would be a "slap in the face" of all recovering addicts like himself.

Kennedy plans to stay in office and face the consequences of the legal case before him. Ramstad has offered to be at his side during the judicial proceedings.

Amen.

drug abuse, addiction, Kennedy, Ramstad, politics, midtopia

Aargh

One of the biggest news event of the Iraq war happens yesterday, and Blogger is down during my posting window. There are no words to describe that sort of frustration.

Everything seems to be working now, so let's get started.

politics, midtopia

Bilbray wins in San Diego

The GOP candidate narrowly won the race to replace disgraced Rep. Randy Cunningham.

Lobbyist and former representative Brian Bilbray squeezed out a victory over Democrat Francine Busby in the heavily Republican district in San Diego County, but only after the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent about $5 million and the Republican National Committee (RNC) helped organize a voter turnout operation staffed by more than 150 to 200 volunteers.

With more than 90 percent of the vote counted, Bilbray had 49.5 percent to Busby's 45 percent. The special election was the marquee contest on a day when eight states held contests, including notable gubernatorial primaries in California, Alabama and Iowa and Senate primaries in Montana and New Jersey.

The slim margin of victory is notable, because the district was considered safely Republican before Cunningham's resignation and the GOP's national troubles.

I had a separate problem with Bilbray: he's a living example of the revolving door between Congress and lobbyists. But apparently that didn't faze San Diego voters.

Elsewhere, disgraced former Judge Roy Moore lost his gubernatorial bid in Alabama. Wait, was that a tear in my eye? Nope, my mistake.

Busby, Bilbray, San Diego, politics, midtopia

Estate tax still on the table

Seanate majority leader Bill Frist, his presidential aspirations in tatters and aflame, has been trying to resurrect his hopes by addressing such pressing issues as gay marriage and the estate tax.

The former is doomed to defeat, as even supporters acknowledge, which exposes the "red meat for the base" motivation behind bringing it to the floor for a vote. But the latter is still alive.

GOP leaders on Tuesday put abolition of the federal estate tax on the Senate's election-year agenda as other senators weighed ideas to shrink, but not erase, the tax.

President Bush's tax cuts eliminated the estate tax in 2010, but that temporary law expires, and the tax comes back to life, one year later.

I always admired this cute provision, designed to mask the budget implications of repealing the estate tax while increasing the political pain of letting it be restored. It has done one thing, though: it's forcing Congress to find a more palatable permanent fix.

At least the discussion is moving away from outright repeal and toward some sort of compromise:

Kyl told other GOP senators Tuesday that common ground might be found by increasing the size of an estate exempt from taxation to $5 million per person or $10 million per couple, according to GOP aides familiar with the proposal speaking on condition of anonymity while negotiations continued.

His idea would tax estates between $5 million and $30 million equal to the top tax rate for most capital gains. The remainder of the largest estates would be taxed at 30 percent, those aides said.

That's better than an outright appeal, but I still have two reservations. One, how much will this reduce tax collections? And two, my main philosophical objection remains. Why this tax cut, and why now? There are at least two budget problems more pressing than the estate tax: the Alternative Minimum Tax, and the yawning budget deficits. The estate tax cut will make solving the other two even more difficult, and that just reveals majorly screwed up priorities. However unfair you think the estate tax is, the AMT is even more unfair. And on a purely practical level, the AMT increasingly affects people who need the money, unlike the estate tax. And the deficit is a bouquet of dead roses that we're passing on to our children, regardless of their ability to pay.

Congress needs to prioritize, and shelve the estate tax until they address more pressing concerns.

Update: As expected, the Senate has rejected the gay-marriage ban.

gay marriage, estate tax, Frist, politics, midtopia

Abbas give Hamas more time

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave Hamas more time to respond to his demand that it recognize Israel's right to exist.

Abbas had set a Tuesday deadline for Hamas to embrace the manifesto on Palestinian statehood but delayed a showdown after what officials said were appeals by Arab leaders. Abbas gave Hamas another 48 hours.

I hope this is just a breathing space, and not a sign that Abbas may back off from his threat to call a referendum. The threat was a bold move, designed to shift the debate and try to resolve the growing crisis within the Palestinian Authority; Abbas cannot afford to have it exposed as a bluff -- or worse, to show that he can be cowed.

on the positive side, while some Hamas-Fatah fighting continues, Hamas has agreed to pull its private militia off the streets of Gaza.

Of course, it did the same thing last week and the militia remained. So time will tell if they mean it this time.

Abbas, Hamas, Palestine, politics, midtopia

It just might work

Words are cheap, of course, but Iran has reacted somewhat positively to a package of incentives designed to get it to give up its nuclear ambitions.

The package, agreed on in Vienna on Friday, includes specific rewards to Iran like new commercial planes and light-water nuclear reactors if it suspends enrichment and reprocessing activities while talks over the deal are continuing, the officials said. But it does not say just how long the suspension would last, they added.

The United States gave crucial heft to the package by offering to remove certain economic sanctions against Iran that date from more than two decades ago, and to talk directly with Iran if the country agrees to an enrichment freeze.

It's always kind of irritating to reward a country for behaving badly, but the proposals here are reasonable. The question now is whether Iran is willing to give up its enrichment program under any circumstances, or whether this is simply another stalling tactic.

I hope it works; I've got my fingers crossed and everything. But it's far from a done deal.

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Brokeback Mounties

Sorry, couldn't resist the play on words.

A couple of gay Canadian Royal Mounted Policemen are getting married, a first for the storied force.

When the two constables become the first male Mounties to marry each other, the grumpiest witness-from-afar might well be Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The planned union of Jason Tree and David Connors in Nova Scotia on June 30 has cast a spotlight on Harper's pledge to his conservative backers to try to roll back same-sex marriage laws.

Harper's misgivings aside, this is just one more example of the inevitable tide of equal rights for homosexuals. Canada has same-sex marriage and it hasn't wrecked the country; Massachusetts has same-sex marriage and the state is doing just fine, thank you.

I respect people who truly, thoughtfully think homosexuality is a sin. But that's a personal value, like deciding to be a vegetarian or a pacifist. Religious belief is not sufficient basis for denying basic rights and privileges, just like it would be wrong for vegetarians to use the law to compel the rest of us to be vegetarians, too.

Good luck to the two Mounties, and may the day quickly come when no one feels that someone else's marriage is any of their business.

Canada, Mounties, gay marriage, politics, midtopia

Abbas-Hamas showdown

A week ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas challenged Hamas to accept a statement implicitly recognizing Israel.

Yesterday, Hamas refused.

Today, Abbas vowed to push ahead with a referendum -- a referendum that Hamas is likely to lose.

We're headed toward some type of resolution here -- be it Abbas backing down, Hamas backed into a corner by voter-approved recognition of Israel -- or civil war.

Abbas, Hamas, Israel, Palestine, politics, midtopia

We don't need no stinkin' Convention

The much-anticipated new Army regulations on interrogation are due out soon, and apparently they're going to decide to ignore the Geneva Convention in some cases.

The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

The decision could culminate a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed. However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the Defense Department officials acknowledged.

Good for the State Department. They understand something that the Pentagon apparently does not: that moving away from the Geneva Convention as the basis for prisoner treatment will be a gigantic PR disaster and eventually lead to problems when our own troops are captured. As the story points out:

President Bush's critics and supporters have debated whether it is possible to prove a direct link between administration declarations that it will not be bound by Geneva and events such as the abuses at Abu Ghraib or the killings of Iraqi civilians last year in Haditha, allegedly by Marines.

But the exclusion of the Geneva provisions may make it more difficult for the administration to portray such incidents as aberrations. And it undercuts contentions that U.S. forces follow the strictest, most broadly accepted standards when fighting wars.

"The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people," said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School. "Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire."

And all for what? Do they really think that "humiliating and degrading treatment" will lead to intelligence breakthroughs? The example cited -- questioning a suspect's manhood -- sounds benign enough, but doesn't really justify a wholesale exception to the Conventions. The collateral damage done just isn't worth the intelligence advantage gained.

It's a tough job, trying to draw a clear bright line through the murky business of interrogation. But abandoning even part of the Conventions is the wrong way to go. Humane treatment of prisoners is just one more way we distinguish ourselves from our enemies; by abandoning that practice, we take one more step down the road of becoming that which we fight.

Geneva Convention, terrorism, interrogation, Pentagon, torture, politics, midtopia

The low-tax religion

Gov. Tim Pawlenty got enthusiastic support from Minnesota Republicans in his bid for a second term, easily snagging the party's nomination.

I don't mind Pawlenty running again. He's been a modestly competent governor, and his refusal to renew his "no new taxes" pledge shows he's capable of learning. Although the opening of his speech gives me pause for its raw partisanship:

"I can tell you what your worst nightmare is," he told the 1,072 delegates. "It's one of the big-spendin', tax-raisin', abortion-promotin', gay marriage-embracin', more welfare without accountability-lovin', school reform-resistin', illegal immigration-supportin' DFL candidates for governor who thinks Hillary Clinton should be president."

Retch.

That aside, what bothers me is all the self-congratulation over lowering Minnesota's tax burden.

The delegates jumped to their feet and cheered again when he cited a report that showed Minnesota's tax ranking has fallen to 16th-highest in the nation, the lowest in 50 years.

What they're referring to is this report, issued last week.

I don't like paying more taxes than necessary. But I'm really getting irritated with the belief among some conservatives that low taxes are some sort of absolute good in and of themselves. They're not. Taxes serve a purpose, providing important societal services that for one reason or other don't lend themselves to privatization. Low taxes are great if it means we're providing those services efficiently; low taxes are a problem if it means we're providing those services shoddily or not at all.

To see what that means, just look at what the lowest-tax states in the union are: In order, they are Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. Those states, not coincidentally, also have some of the worst public-school systems, fewest services, and the most social problems.

Do we really want to turn Minnesota into a northern version of Mississippi, simply so we can "enjoy" low taxes? I sure don't.

In the late 1990s, my wife and I lived in Florida. Florida brags about not having an income tax, but the state doesn't run for free: the trade off is that just about every government service comes with a fee or is funded out of property taxes -- one of the most regressive taxes available. That combined with a large retiree population means education spending, for example, doesn't really come close to matching needs. The result is overcrowded and underfunded schools. My wife and I looked around, and vowed not to have children as long as we lived in Florida. And we didn't.

High taxes are not an absolute good; they can be wasteful and, when they get too high, become a drag on the economy. But low taxes aren't an absolute good, either: they can exacerbate social disparities, increase crime and shortchange entire generations of citizens.

I've lived all over the country, and found that I prefer high-tax, high-service states: they're simply better places to live and raise families thanks to the investments they make in their citizenry. And I encounter far less of the "I've got mine" attitude that can be prevalent in low-tax states, especially retiree havens like Florida.

Thus the real question is not "how high are my taxes?" It's "what are we getting for the taxes we pay?" Taxes are too high if we're not getting enough bang for our buck, or we're paying for things that we as a society don't want; taxes are too low if we're not getting the services and social investment that we want.

So let's have a discussion about what we're willing to pay for and what we're not. But please, let's get away from the "low taxes are always good" religion. They're not, and phrasing the argument so simplistically can do real damage to the long-term quality of life here in Minnesota.

Pawlenty, tax burden, taxes, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Coulter hires lawyer for vote-fraud case

After ignoring a letter from authorities asking her to explain why she voted in the wrong precinct earlier this year, Ann Coulter has hired a high-powered lawyer to handle the case.

The attorney from the Miami-based Kenny Nachwalter firm is no stranger to Palm Beach voting. Marcos Jimenez — who was, along with the more famous Olson, one of the lead attorneys who fought for George W. Bush's side in the 2000 presidential election snafu here — was assigned to Coulter....

"Mr. Jimenez asked us to send him all the correspondence we sent Ms. Coulter," deputy dlections chief Charmaine Kelly said.

Now that Coulter has lawyered up, there will be another delay in the ongoing saga.

Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson gave Coulter until April 30 to explain what happened, but she has yet to answer his registered letters. Now with Jimenez, Kelly said, officials will wait "a few more weeks" before starting a procedure that could strip Coulter of her right to vote here and refer the case to State Attorney Barry Krischer for possible prosecution.

So to recap: After voting in the wrong precinct Coulter ignores queries from Palm Beach authorities until they threaten to sanction her, and then hires a lawyer to handle things.

The fun continues.

Palm Beach, Coulter, politics, midtopia

Privacy is a basic human need

Bruce Schneier at Wired magazine has a must-read discussion of the need to protect privacy.

Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

That's just a taste. Read the whole thing.

civil liberties, privacy, politics, midtopia

The next step in judicial conservatism

.... is to re-argue case law that has been settled for more than 100 years.

Well, actually, it's not so much re-arguing as simply ignoring precedents that one doesn't like.

In a debate with powerful echoes of the turbulent civil rights era, four Republicans running for Alabama's Supreme Court are making an argument legal scholars thought was settled in the 1800s: that state courts are not bound by
U.S. Supreme Court precedents.

The Constitution says federal law trumps state laws, and legal experts say there is general agreement that state courts must defer to the U.S. Supreme Court on matters of federal law.

Yet Justice Tom Parker, who is running for chief justice, argues that state judges should refuse to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedents they believe to be erroneous. Three other GOP candidates in Tuesday's primary have made nearly identical arguments.

"State supreme court judges should not follow obviously wrong decisions simply because they are 'precedents,'" Parker wrote in a newspaper opinion piece in January that was prompted by a murder case that came before the Alabama high court.

Yeah, why, if everybody followed precedents you'd have... uh... a consistent body of law.

It might dismay you to learn that Parker currently sits on the Alabama Supreme Court. But it will surprise you not at all to learn that Parker is a former aide to Roy Moore, who was forced to resign as Alabama's chief justice in 2003 over a Ten Commandments monument he had secretly installed in his courthouse.

Loons.

Tom Parker, Roy Moore, Alabama, law, politics, midtopia

"A reckless abuse of power"

This one was a bit surprising.

The Justice Department recently subpoenaed the notes of reporters at the San Francisco Chronicle, as it attempted to identify whoever leaked grand jury testimony to the paper.

I've discussed before why the government should be cautious when it comes to trampling on reporter-source confidentiality. But what's interesting about this case is the source of the criticism: the former chief spokesman for Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The former spokesman, Mark Corallo ... said Mr. Ashcroft's successor, Alberto R. Gonzales, had acted improperly in issuing the subpoenas.

"This is the most reckless abuse of power I have seen in years," Mr. Corallo said in an interview. "They really should be ashamed of themselves."

The subpoenas, part of an effort to identify The Chronicle's sources for its coverage of steroid use in baseball, would not have been authorized by Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Corallo said. "You just don't ride roughshod over the rights of reporters to gather information from confidential sources," he added.

I'm not the only person who was surprised by the source of the criticism, and observers were quick to note the significance:

Specialists in journalism and First Amendment law said that Mr. Corallo's statement was itself significant evidence of a shift.

"This illustrates in an unmistakable fashion," said Mark Feldstein, director of the journalism program at George Washington University, "that the Gonzales Justice Department has moved so far away from the mainstream of established legal opinion and case law when it comes to press freedom that even judicial conservatives are disturbed by it."

I would not have believed it possible, but in Alberto "torture memo" Gonzales, Bush managed to find someone even more hostile to civil liberties than Ashcroft. That's quite an achievement.

Corallo, civil liberties, Ashcroft, Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Third party fever

There's been a lot of talk lately of Unity '08, an Internet-based third-party effort being organized by moderates from both major parties, including such names as Hamilton Jordan, former Maine Gov. Angus King, and others.

But now even Peggy Noonan has gotten into the act.

The Perot experience seemed to put an end to third-party fever. But I think it's coming back, I think it's going to grow, and I think the force behind it is unique in our history.

Noonan is a reasonably sharp political observer, so the fact that she's taking this seriously is enough to make me sit up and take notice, and to believe that Unity and the other centrist-moderate initiatives will find traction in the next two years.

Of course, she tries to co-opt the trend to her own ends. When laying out the polarization she sees -- not between parties, but between Washington and the rest of the country -- it turns out that what American yearns for is -- surprise, surprise -- Reaganite conservatism. So in the end perhaps she doesn't take the third-party trend seriously at all, and simply sees potential usefulness in harnessing anti-incumbent rage.

Still, her column lends credibility to the third-party effort. I have a hard time believing a third party will succeed until we give them a fair shot with instant-runoff voting, but I will happily be proven wrong if it means moderates reclaim control of national politics in 2008.

Unity08, Noonan, third party, politics, midtopia