A Spork in the Drawer

Only this month has the United States started to destroy the deadly mustard gas now outlawed by international treaty. The Army facility incinerates it at the well-guarded desert complex, which was home to 45 percent of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile before destruction began a decade ago.

Eight other U.S. sites stored chemical weapons and are also destroying bombs, missiles, mines and other chemical munitions. At Deseret, 60 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, the weapons are buried below truncated pyramid-shaped mounds.

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

And so good night, and good luck.

In reviewing progress on the three fronts of this war, even the most sanguine optimist cannot yet conclude that we are winning or that we can win without some significant changes of policy.

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.

The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.

[...]

The proposal calls for monitoring "Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international and U.S. national and regional markets media in both Arabic and English." That includes broadcast and cable television outlets, the Pentagon channel, two wire services and three major U.S. newspapers: The Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

Monitors are to select stories that deal with specific issues, such as security, reconstruction activities, "high profile" coalition force activities and events in which Iraqi security forces are "in the lead." The monitors are to analyze stories to determine the "dissemination of key themes and messages" along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative.

The media outlets would be monitored for how they present coalition or anti-Iraqi force operations. That part of the proposal could reflect Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's often-stated concern that the media does not cover positive aspects of Iraq.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions.

[...]

Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."

Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

The effort will continue with other speeches in Washington and around the country, followed by a whirlwind tour of the Sept. 11 attack sites and a Sept. 19 address to the U.N. General Assembly. During a campaign stop in Arkansas yesterday, Bush denied that the efforts are connected to the election campaign.

"They're not political speeches," he said. "They're speeches about the future of this country, and they're speeches to make it clear that if we retreat before the job is done, this nation would become even more in jeopardy. These are important times, and I seriously hope people wouldn't politicize these issues that I'm going to talk about."

Re "Rumsfeld Says Critics Appeasing Fascism," Aug. 30

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's comparison of our enemies in the Middle East to fascist countries of World War II is an interesting stretch.

Real fascist governments have the following characteristics: domination of all branches of government and the economy by a political party; control of news sources via economic relationships and threats of retribution; reliance on a large military to promote national unity and expand global influence; blind obedience to the national leader, and dismissal of any international laws unless they are temporarily expedient.

Insurgents and terrorists are not Nazis. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) is not Neville Chamberlain and Rumsfeld, most assuredly, is not Winston Churchill.

MICHAEL RODDY
Joshua Tree, Calif.

•

Rumsfeld said: "Some seem not to have learned history's lessons." If that weren't such an accurate and tragic truth, it would be funny.

Hey, Don, instead of giving us a world history lesson, why don't you brush up on your own history? In both the American Revolution and the Vietnam War, the country with superior weaponry, technology and resources traveled to a distant land to battle insurgents; both superpowers lost.

The downfall of most world empires doesn't come from conservative or liberal views but from greed and the unwillingness to learn from one's own mistakes. It looks like you're well on your way, Don.

PETE LEWIS
Mission Viejo

•

I must admit that, for once, I agree with Rumsfeld. In his speech to the American Legion, he hinted at a comparison of the current state of American politics to those in Nazi Germany.

We most certainly have a loyal propaganda minister in Rumsfeld. There is certainly a collection of nodding "yes men" in the inner circle.

If only we could find a tyrannical leader who would "stay the course" despite all rational evidence to the contrary, the cast of characters would be complete.

THOMAS SEXTON
Huntington Beach

•

Rumsfeld has it wrong. Those who criticize the administration are not like Hitler's "appeasers." Unless we speak with a loud, clear voice, we are the silent majority that allowed a dictatorship to engulf a democracy.

JULIE ALBERT
Claremont

•

Re "Bush Shields U.S., Cheney Says," Aug. 29

The continual claim by the administration that President Bush's actions have deterred terrorist attacks since 9/11 reminds me of an experiment. I stand in the middle of my frontyard and wave my arms like crazy; a neighbor asks what I'm doing.

"Keeping the tigers away," I respond.

The neighbor replies, "I don't see any tigers."

"Exactly! It's working!"

JEANNE BARNEY
Hollywood

Look, things could obviously be a lot better. But they could be a lot worse too. John Kerry could be president.

Santorum told Pennsylvania Cable Network viewers and a crowd of lobbyists, reporters and insiders that the current war on terrorism is a new front in a conflagration raging since the Crusades. He said the puppeteers were a 1,000-year-plus lineage of radical Shia mullahs trying to overthrow the West.

[...]

“Remember, as I mentioned before, for 1,000 years, the East and West fought, up until 1683, which was the high-water mark of Islam into Europe. It wasn’t in Greece or Turkey; it wasn’t in Italy or Spain; it was in the heart of Europe – it was in Vienna.

“In 1683, not that long ago, the Islamists had surrounded the gates of Vienna and were on the verge of toppling it after a siege; ... but the West united, and led by the Poles, [King] John Sobieski and the Polish Hussars defeated [the Arab forces] in a one-day battle on the plains outside Vienna.

“What was the high-water mark of this 1,000-year war? It was the day before. What was the date the day before? Sept. 11, 1683.”

Then, linking that nearly 323-year-old battle to Sept. 11, 2001, and the war the United States and its allies are now waging to the Crusades, Santorum said of the radical Shia mullahs and their followers: “They know their history; they know what they’re about; and they know what they want to accomplish.”

[...]

If this were The History Channel, Santorum’s yarn would get fiercely debunked. For one thing, those Crusades, the 1,000 years of wars Santorum mentioned, were fueled as much by European invasions and attacks eastward, as by Islamic attacks or incursions westward.

Also, the armies that Sobieski kicked out of Vienna were not radical Islamists led by Shia radicals, but rather the Ottoman Empire.

Hey Commie:

Imagine my chagrin when I used a search engine to find commentary about myself, and there was your shallow, dilettante, asshole self, labeling me a "white supremacist."

Being the shallow, nigger-loving dilettante that you are, you probably DO consider niggers to be your equal (who am I to question this?): Yet, unlike you and your allies, I have an I.Q. in excess of 130, which grants me the ability to objectively evaluate the Great American Nigro (Africanus Criminalis.)

The nigro is 11.5 % of the U.S. population, yet he commits in excess of 55% of all felonies (although felonies are UNDER-represented in the nigro community, where observing the law is considered "acting White!") Moreover, he (or should I say she?)accounts for 48% of all ADC recipients in the U.S. We have spent over $7 TRILLION on "Urban Welfare Spending" since the mid-1960s, (black economists Thomas Sowell & Walter Williams) and the nigro is still as criminal, surly, lazy , violent and stupid as he/she ever was, while his illegitimacy rate is 80% nationwide, and over 90% in the "large urban areas."

By the way, those of us who tried to end forced busing in St. Louis did so because it is a colossal waste and nothing more than a symbolic gesture that has seriously deprived every school district in Missouri that doesn't benefit from a deseg program : It has cost the state of Missouri $3.5 BILLION since 1983, (another $3.5 Billion in Kansas City,) yet, the nigro "scholars" bussed to county schools under deseg "improve less academically than every other category of student in the St. Louis Public Schools," according to the Federal Court- ordered Lissitz Study.

Also, you lying asshole, in the 2003-2004 school year, St. Louis spent $11,711 per nigger -idiot in the public schools, yet, half of all students test at the 20th percentile (or lower) on nationally-standardized tests. (If I were Emperor, I would forcibly hand over you and all your commie apologists for nigro under-achievement to White, working-class parents of public school students, and let them have their way with you...)

Some day, You sanctimonious nigger-lovers will either have to live amongst them ("nothing cures an enthusiasm for integration like a good dose of niggers") or else defend yourselves against them. My guess is that you are such a cowardly and pusillanimous lot of girly-boys, they will kill fuck, kill and eat you just as they do young White males in every prison system in the U.S. That's right: When defending this savage and brutish lot, you must also consider their natural ( or should I say UN-natural) enthusiasm for buggery!

I honestly pray to God that some nigger fucks, kills and eats you and everyone you claim to love!

Earl P. Holt III
4029 Shaw Blvd.
St. Louis, MO
63110-3621

P.S. I dare you to print this e-mail verbatim: You know as well as I do that most people know I speak the truth, and you are a liar and whore who takes to heart Lenin's dictum that "The first duty of the propagandist is to subvert the meaning of words."

When asked about his Connecticut for Lieberman candidacy having a negative effect on Democrats in House races in the state of Connecticut, Turncoat Joe said:

"Well, I guess I should say that they should have thought of that during the primary, but here we are."

Mayor Bob O'Connor, who was downgraded to serious condition on Monday, continued treatment for seizure activity and infection in the intensive care unit yesterday.

State Department investigators have found that the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll, according to a summary of a report made public on Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.

The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, did not meet all the requirements needed to keep his medical license active even though he gave paperwork to Tennessee officials indicating that he had, his office acknowledged Tuesday.

Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, has acknowledged that he was the person whose conversation with a columnist in 2003 prompted a long, politically laden criminal investigation in what became known as the C.I.A. leak case, a lawyer involved in the case said on Tuesday.

An architect of Iraqi descent has said he was forced to remove a T-shirt that bore the words "We will not be silent" before boarding a flight at New York.

Raed Jarrar said security officials warned him his clothing was offensive after he checked in for a JetBlue flight to California on 12 August.

[...]

Mr Jarrar said he was told a number of passengers had complained about his T-shirt - apparently concerned at what the Arabic phrase meant - and asked him to remove it.

He refused, arguing that the slogan was not offensive and citing his constitutional rights to free expression.

[...]

Mr Jarrar later told a New York radio station: "I grew up and spent all my life living under authoritarian regimes and I know that these things happen.

"But I'm shocked that they happened to me here, in the US.

[...]

"We Will Not Be Silent" is a slogan adopted by opponents of the war in Iraq and other conflicts in the Middle East.

It is said to derive from the White Rose dissident group which opposed Nazi rule in Germany.

The young may be understandably incredulous, but the Great Compression, as economists call it, was the single most important social fact in our country in the decades after World War II. From 1947 through 1973, American productivity rose by a whopping 104 percent, and median family income rose by the very same 104 percent. More Americans bought homes and new cars and sent their kids to college than ever before. In ways more difficult to quantify, the mass prosperity fostered a generosity of spirit: The civil rights revolution and the Marshall Plan both emanated from an America in which most people were imbued with a sense of economic security.

That America is as dead as the dodo. Ours is the age of the Great Upward Redistribution. The median hourly wage for Americans has declined by 2 percent since 2003, though productivity has been rising handsomely. Last year, according to figures released just yesterday by the Census Bureau, wages for men declined by 1.8 percent and for women by 1.3 percent.

[...]

But finger a corporation for exploiting its workers and you're trafficking in class warfare. Of late a number of my fellow pundits have charged that Democratic politicians concerned about the further expansion of Wal-Mart are simply pandering to unions. Wal-Mart offers low prices and jobs to economically depressed communities, they argue. What's wrong with that?

[...]

Devaluing labor is the very essence of our economy. I know that airlines are a particularly embattled industry, but my eye was recently caught by a story on Mesaba Airlines, an affiliate of Northwest, where the starting annual salary for pilots is $21,000 a year, and where the company is seeking a pay cut of 19 percent. Maybe Mesaba's plan is to have its pilots hit up passengers for tips.

Labor Day is almost upon us. What a joke.

Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups.

[...]

According to Baum, Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum's point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. "It helped us as much as it helped him," Baum told me. "We got our bona fides." And so did Allen.

[...]

But George Allen's relationship with the CCC is different; it went beyond poses and portraits. In 1995, he appointed a CCC sympathizer, Virginia lawyer R. Jackson Garnett, to head the Virginia Council on Day Care and serve on the Governor's Advisory Council on Self-Determination and Federalism. According to the CCC's Citizens Informer, Garnett delivered a speech before a CCC gathering saying that the Federalism Commission was "created to study abuses by the Federal government of constitutional powers that rightfully belong to the states."

Later that year, Garnett closed the Virginia Council on Day Care after accusing it, as he wrote in a letter to Governor Allen, of attempting to "form the minds of our young children with a radical ideology before they enter public schools." The Virginia Council had aroused Garnett's ire, according to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, for preparing an "anti-bias" curriculum for day care teachers. Allen approved the shut-down.

This is what happens when you let the left run things. We've been beat about the head. There are hungry people everywhere. UNICEF got it all started. We've seen the babies with the extended tummies, the walking skeletons, told that kids can't learn unless they're fed. We've been guilted into pouring resources on the problem. And now, now, the latest crisis is that there is obesity among those who are impoverished. Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. The real bloat here, as we know, is in -- is in government.

Cheney is expected to deliver a 20-minute speech at Offutt Air Force Base that will focus on sacrifices made by troops since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the vice president's office said Monday.

[...]

Security will be tight at Offutt, said 2nd Lt. Matt Miller, a 55th Wing spokesman. Among other measures, security personnel have been instructed to confiscate any liquids or gels from those attending the speech.

The precautions echo those taken at airports after arrests earlier this month in Great Britain of a group allegedly planning to bomb airplanes with liquid explosives.

The only possible solution is a draft, and no one is sending the Duke class of 2008 to die in the sandbox. Just isn't happening. In an era where kids wear helmets to go ice skating and even in peacetime parents oppose enlistment, who would vote for a draft?

So we face a conundrum. And Bush will handle it as he always has, by running. One day, Dick Cheney will be told he is a very sick man, with not much time and that the only way to save his life is to leave the WH. Bush will sadly agree, and pick someone else for them job. No, not Condi Rice. Maybe McCain. maybe Hegel, someone who is palatable.

Then, after a few weeks, when it is clear that the Iraq war is over, Bush, too, will be found to be near collapse, and Iraq will be President Hegel's job. And he will be the one to end the war

When Bush says this will be another president's problem, he is probably right. Only thing is, we're probably not talking 2009.

Adolf Hitler and Russian leader Stalin were possessed by the Devil, the Vatican's chief exorcist has claimed.

Father Gabriele Amorth who is Pope Benedict XVI's 'caster out of demons' made his comments during an interview with Vatican Radio.

Father Amorth said: "Of course the Devil exists and he can not only possess a single person but also groups and entire populations.

"I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler - and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the Devil.

"You can tell by their behaviour and their actions, from the horrors they committed and the atrocities that were committed on their orders. That's why we need to defend society from demons."

According to secret Vatican documents recently released wartime pontiff Pope Pius XII attempted a "long distance" exorcism of Hitler which failed to have any effect.

But citizens have no incentives to make mature decisions in the voting booth.

First, voters are typically asked to decide how to spend other people's money. Just as children have no trouble spending mom's and dad's money, voters have no trouble voting for pet projects to be financed mostly by others.

Second, no single vote decides an election's outcome. So regardless how a voter votes -- regardless how unrealistic or even destructive a voter's wish might be -- the fact that no vote is decisive means that no individual voter incurs any material cost of voting in whatever way strikes his fancy.

As I've written in these pages before, citizens in voting booths are like children on Sen. Santa's knee. Enter the voting booth and vote for the candidate promising the greatest amount of wizardry. Because your vote isn't decisive, you suffer no personal repercussions of casting your ballot to express all sorts of fantasies. Of course, every other voter is in an identical position.

Thus, democratic elections encourage voters to behave irresponsibly, just as sitting on Santa's knee encourages children to rattle off long wish lists of toys. But unlike shopping-mall Santas, voting booths tally up voters' dream-world requests and pass them on to government. Politicians try in vain to satisfy these unsatisfiable requests.

Compare democratic voting with private decision-making. Perhaps a car buyer dreams of owning a car that gets 150 mpg, packs herds of horsepower and is safe as a tank. Automakers will supply such cars to buyers willing to pay the price. But because such cars must be paid for by each individual buyer, no buyer indulges these costly fantasies. Each buyer settles for a less fanciful car because each buyer prefers to save the extra money it would cost to buy the fantasy automobile.

Such rational weighing of costs and benefits is the mark of maturity. Pathetically, democratic voting encourages too many otherwise mature adults to behave like spoiled brats propped on Santa's knee.

Federal authorities have prevented two relatives of a father and son convicted recently in a terrorism-related case from returning home to California from Pakistan unless they agree to be interviewed by the F.B.I.

It is unclear whether the men, Muhammad Ismail, 45, and his son Jaber, 18, have a direct connection to the terrorism case or if they have been caught up in circumstance.

[...]

The Ismails discovered they were on the federal government’s no-fly list of people not allowed to enter the United States after they were refused permission to board a connecting flight in Hong Kong on April 21; they had been trying to return to California after several years in Pakistan, said Julia Harumi Mass of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, who is representing them.

[...]

Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, was questioned by the F.B.I. at the American Embassy in Islamabad, but his father, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, declined to participate, Ms. Mass said. Jaber Ismail has refused further interrogation without a lawyer and has declined to take a polygraph test; Ms. Mass said the men were told these conditions had to be met before the authorities would consider letting them back into the United States.

President Bush launched an initiative this month to combat international kleptocracy, the sort of high-level corruption by foreign officials that he called "a grave and corrosive abuse of power" that "threatens our national interest and violates our values." The plan, he said, would be "a critical component of our freedom agenda."

Three weeks later, the White House is making arrangements to host the leader of Kazakhstan, an autocrat who runs a nation that is anything but free and who has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of pocketing the bulk of $78 million in bribes from an American businessman. Not only will President Nursultan Nazarbayev visit the White House, people involved say, but he also will travel to the Bush family compound in Maine.

As a Kurdish rebel group took responsibility for a string of weekend bombings, a new blast Monday killed three people and injured dozens in the southern Mediterranean resort of Antalya.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that "sound policy decisions" by the Bush administration were the reason the United States had not been attacked by terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001.

Speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention here as the fifth anniversary of the attacks approached, Cheney said that terrorists had mounted successful attacks on targets overseas, including Madrid; London; and Jakarta, Indonesia — but not in the United States.

"No one can guarantee that we won't be struck again. But to have come this far without another attack is no accident," Cheney said, crediting "sound" decisions by President Bush and vigilance by U.S. agencies and the military.

"A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists, an invitation to further violence against free nations, and a ruinous blow to the future security of the United States," he said. "We have only two options in Iraq — victory or defeat."

[...]

But Rumsfeld questioned why people were debating whether or not Iraq was part of the war on terrorism, citing brutal insurgent attacks and statements by terrorist leaders about the central role of Iraq to their cause.

"We should have no illusion … how Iraq fits into the war on terror," Rumsfeld said. "How can so many be debating this issue? It strikes me the answer is there for all to see."

If the sound of one hand clapping is easier to imagine than Mr. Bush consuming existentialist literature, you're not alone.

A week after positioning Mr. Bush as someone who gives plenty of thought to the meaninglessness of human existence, the White House was in the absurd position of vehemently denying a U.S. News and World Report item that the president is, um, partial to flatulence jokes:

"[President Bush is] still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides."

[...]

The list of 60 books Mr. Bush is alleged to have read this year reveals an intellect of Promethean scale and ambition. He's read 10 books more than his chief adviser, Karl Rove, who presumably continues to run the country with Mr. Cheney while Mr. Bush wanders the aisles of Barnes & Noble.

Political fallout continues from the Legislature's infamous 2005 pay raises, as U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum criticized Democrat Bob Casey yesterday for signing four months worth of checks containing the pay boosts for legislators.

[...]

The 16 percent to 34 percent pay raises were finally halted when the General Assembly, under pressure from the public and the media, voted in mid-November to repeal the action it had taken just after midnight on July 7, 2005.

"He sent out the checks with the raise for four months and then he claimed the raise was unconstitutional," Mr. Santorum told a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon here yesterday. "Where was he when it counted? Why didn't he say the pay raise was unconstitutional and refuse to sign the checks?"

Casey campaign spokesman Larry Smar said the state treasurer "was constitutionally bound to sign legislators' paychecks. He was doing his job, and now Sen. Santorum is criticizing Bob for doing his job. He would have been thrown out of office if he had refused to do his constitutional duty."

Mr. Santorum also responded to a written question from the audience about whether he, as a senator, had "voted for a pay raise three times."

What happened, he said, is that three times during his 16 years in Congress he had voted for modest cost-of-living adjustments in congressional pay, about 2 percent each time. He said the congressional COLA was less than a cost-of-living boost given to Social Security recipients in each of those years.

Mr. Santorum said the COLAs for Congress that he supported totaled only 6 percent for the three years, far less than the onetime 16 percent to 34 percent pay raises that state legislators voted themselves in July 2005.

There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design" taught in some US states. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Critics say it is a disguise for creationism.

American aid to Lebanon should be held up until the country agrees to allow international forces to patrol its border with Syria, US Representative Tom Lantos of California said Sunday in Jerusalem.

[...]

Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, wouldn't specify how much money would be under consideration.

He stressed that he would seek to prevent any funds going to Lebanon until it allowed for an expanded UNIFIL presence on the border.

"The international community must use all our available means to stiffen Lebanon's spine and convince the government of Lebanon to have the new UNIFIL troops deployed on the Syrian border in adequate numbers," he said. "To provide aid while allowing a porous Lebanon-Syria border will only invite the repetition of a Hizbullah attack in the future. Hizbullah must not be allowed to rearm."

Noe Lopez-Vilchis, 32, an illegal alien from Mexico, died Wednesday last at Mercy Hospital after almost drowning in the Dormont Pool on the afternoon of July 20. The sense of loss by family and friends is, of course, immeasurable. Calculating the worth of a human life is impossible. The deepest condolences to all who grieve for Mr. Lopez-Vilchis.
But this profound tragedy at least can be an object lesson about the hidden cost of illegal immigration.

Citing a number of sources, the estimated costs of this incident include:

Pool closing, $300

Dormont police, $422

Allegheny County detectives, $428

Medical Rescue Team South (the ambulance), $750

The Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh (nonsurgical critical care bed), $54,000

Allegheny County Medical Examiner (transporting the body and autopsy), $1,540.
The total estimated cost of $57,440 will be paid directly or indirectly by the people in this region.
Taxpayers will be stuck paying for everything other than the hospital cost. And since Mercy does not expect to be reimbursed, that's $54,000 that cannot be spent to care for anyone else. Or to hire medical personnel. Or to purchase medical equipment.

Apologists for illegals argue that the lawbreaking aliens contribute more to society than what they cost. But how long would it have taken Mr. Lopez-Vilchis to earn almost $56,000, let alone pay it back?

What strange compulsion drives such “silly secrecy,” as it is aptly described by officials of the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research library at George Washington University? The archive published a report on how retroactive the administration has become in its obsession with creating secrets out of interesting information. The blacked-out missile and defense policy information dates to the 1960’s. Soviet numbers are left untouched on the open record, while the old American armada is freshly cloaked. What’s next? Classifying Civil War ironclads and cannons?

The missile blackout is the latest symptom of a deepening government illness. National security has become the excuse for efforts to crack down on whistle-blowers and journalists dealing in such vital disclosures as the illicit eavesdropping on Americans. Last spring the director of the National Archives objected to a reclassifying initiative undertaken by intelligence officials that caused 55,000 decades-old pages to vanish from the public record. The process itself was labeled an official secret.

Public recourse has become more difficult: enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act has become slower and more burdensome. The one thing the administration has made no secret is its antipathy to government transparency. The secrecy fixation is a threat to democracy and an insult to honest history.

With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.

[...]

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

[...]

But polls show that Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy by wide margins and that anxiety about the future is growing. Earlier this month, the University of Michigan reported that consumer confidence had fallen sharply in recent months, with people’s expectations for the future now as downbeat as they were in 1992 and 1993, when the job market had not yet recovered from a recession.

[...]

But in recent years, the productivity gains have continued while the pay increases have not kept up. Worker productivity rose 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2005, while total compensation for the median worker rose 7.2 percent, according to Labor Department statistics analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group. Benefits accounted for most of the increase.

“If I had to sum it up,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the institute, “it comes down to bargaining power and the lack of ability of many in the work force to claim their fair share of growth.”

For a party that needs the votes of Wal-Mart's customers, this is a questionable strategy. But there is more than politics at stake. According to a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag, neither of whom received funding from Wal-Mart, big-box stores led by Wal-Mart reduce families' food bills by one-fourth. Because Wal-Mart's price-cutting also has a big impact on the non-food stuff it peddles, it saves U.S. consumers upward of $200 billion a year, making it a larger booster of family welfare than the federal government's $33 billion food-stamp program.

Candidates for public office in Pennsylvania no longer have to sign a McCarthy-era loyalty oath pledging that they are not "subversive."

[...]

The change was ordered after John Staggs refused to sign the oath when he turned in nominating petitions this year and then threatened to sue the state.

"I believe their definition of 'subversive' can really apply to anyone," said Staggs, 59, a Socialist Workers Party member seeking a state House seat. "They want to be able to pick and choose, so they can use it versus people who are challenging the status quo."

The 1951 law describes as subversive anyone who advocates or participates in "any act intended to overthrow, destroy [or] alter" the government.

Over-the-counter 'Plan B' is a hard pill to swallow

Just go out, have sex and forget about the consequences. That's basically the message being sent to the American public with the Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of over-the-counter sales of Plan B, better known as the "morning-after pill" ("Feds Widen Access to 'Pill,' " Aug. 25). What in the world are they thinking?

While it's true that Plan B is a medication that prevents conception, to my mind this form of "emergency contraception" is a moral equivalent of abortion: A couple engages in sexual intercourse, regrets the action and the woman takes steps to stop a pregnancy after the fact.

Ease of purchase and less embarrassment will further encourage more women to consider this method. This will likely account for an increase not only in casual sex but unprotected sex as well. As a result, we can expect to see elevated levels of sexually transmitted diseases including the incurable HVP (warts), HSV (herpes) and even HIV and AIDS.

In fact, just about the only glimmer of rational thought is that women under the age of 18 will not be allowed to buy the pills over the counter. It's good to see that at least a few of those responsible for approving these decisions at the FDA haven't completely lost their minds.


JASON GREINER
Mt. Washington

Jim Bensman thought his suggestion during a public hearing was harmless enough: Instead of building a channel so migratory fish could go around a dam on the Mississippi River, just get rid of the dam.

Instead, the environmental activist found himself in hot water, drawing FBI scrutiny to see whether he had any terrorist intentions.

The case "shows just how easy it is to be labeled a suspected terrorist," he says.

[...]

He urged that the dam be torn out. He said he never mentioned blowing the dam up, though the corps' presentation of possible options included a picture of a dam being dynamited.

The next day, however, a local newspaper reported that Bensman "said he would like to see the dam blown up and resents paying taxes to fix dam problems when it is barge companies that profit from the dam."

Workers at the corps' St. Louis office "took a dim view (of the article) and questioned if it was a potential threat," and a security manager forwarded the clipping to the FBI, said corps spokesman Alan Dooley.

Within days, the FBI had Bensman on the phone, asking whether he was any threat.

After a 30-minute presentation, corps representatives fielded questions and noted comments from residents. Jim Bensman of Alton said he would like to see the dam blown up and resents paying taxes to fix dam problems when it is barge companies that profit from the dam.

In an interview during his flight to Fairbanks, Rumsfeld said he saw no reason for the soldiers or their families to be angry at him.

“I don’t put it in that context,” he said. “These people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they’re doing because they want to do it. They’re proud of what they do. They do it very, very well.”

The motorcycle maker visited soldiers outside Baghdad, Iraq--and is convinced the majority of the U.S. military agree with him.

James says, "Everyone in Iraq knows Bush is a d**khead. He's the boss' kid.

"Everybody I know who has a successful business who has a kid--the kid is always a f**khead. Have you ever noticed that?"

A court in the Polish capital Warsaw on Friday sentenced a 33-year-old man convicted of an anti-Semitic attack against Poland's chief rabbi to two years behind bars, but suspended the jail term for five years. Identified only as Karol G., the guilty party confessed to the attack and expressed remorse. Following Friday's verdict, he was ruled free to leave police custody.

Karol G. had originally faced a maximum prison sentence of up to five years for the racially-motivated attack under article 119 of Poland's criminal code.

The army, the courts, and religion. The keys to the creation of the Roman Empire.

In 21st century America the current government (the presidency and Congress of one party) has taken control not only of defense and military policy, but also military operations. No other administration, including that of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War or Franklin Roosevelt in World War II, has ever done that. The unprecedented imposition of neoconservative ideology on military operations has led directly and inevitably to the debacle in Iraq.

Realistically speaking, the point of this multilateral exercise cannot be to stop Iran's nuclear program by diplomacy. That has always been a fantasy. It will take military means. There would be terrible consequences from an attack. These must be weighed against the terrible consequences of allowing an openly apocalyptic Iranian leadership to acquire weapons of genocide.

The point of the current elaborate exercise in multilateral diplomacy is to slightly alter that future calculation. By demonstrating extraordinary forbearance and accommodation, perhaps we will have purchased the acquiescence of our closest allies -- Britain, Germany and, yes, France -- to a military strike on that fateful day when diplomacy has run its course.

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), once an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq, said yesterday that the Bush administration should set a time frame for withdrawing U.S. troops. He added that most of the withdrawal could take place next year.

Shays, who faces a tough reelection campaign because of his previous support for President Bush's war policies, made his comments after completing his 14th trip to Iraq this week.

[...]

Critics said Shays is significantly modifying his stand because he is facing a tough challenge from an antiwar opponent in a state that has become a center of opposition to the war. "Americans have known for a long time that Iraq was a mess, and the only thing that changed is proximity to Election Day," said Bill Burton, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Three car bombs in Baghdad and a series of bombings and shootings across Iraq killed at least 16 Iraqis and two American soldiers Thursday. The U.S. military said a soldier also was killed Wednesday.

One of the U.S. soldiers killed Thursday died in a roadside explosion south of Baghdad, and the other was slain by gunmen who attacked his patrol, the U.S. military said. The soldier killed Wednesday was involved in a raid south of Baghdad to capture "foreign terrorists," the military said.

[...]

In southern Iraq, British troops pulled out of a base Thursday that had come under frequent attack. They planned to reposition forces along the area bordering Iran to crack down on smuggling.

Camp Abu Naji in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, was turned over to Iraqi authorities, Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a spokesman for British forces, said from Basra. The camp in Maysan province had housed about 1,200 troops.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr painted the British move as the first expulsion of coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.

"This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupier!" said a message from Sadr's office that played on car-mounted speakers in Amarah, capital of Maysan. "We have to celebrate this occasion!"

More important than privacy, though, is the fact that since Bush moved to Crawford from Austin in 2000, shortly before entering the White House, Prairie Chapel Ranch has represented a touchstone for Bush — as fitting for him politically as his work boots and jeans are to the ranch land he is always trying to tame.

Still, he returned to Walker's Point on Thursday for a four-day visit at his parents' home, drawn by family ties and family events into the web of his often-overlooked New England origins, generations deeper than his nearly six decades in Texas.

[...]

Two years ago, during a campaign visit to New Hampshire, his wife recounted a much-told tale about a visit she and the president had paid to Walker's Point a few years before.

"George woke up at 6 a.m., early in the morning as usual, and he padded downstairs for a cup of coffee. And then he went in his parents' bedroom and sat on the sofa and put his feet up," Laura Bush said.

"And all of a sudden, Barbara Bush hollered, 'Put your feet down!' And George's dad said, 'For goodness' sake, Barbara, he's the president of the United States.' And Bar replied, 'I don't care, I don't want his feet on my coffee table.' "

Assault and trespass charges against the estranged wife of newspaper publisher Richard Mellon Scaife have been dismissed.

Ritchie Scaife, 59, was charged in December with trespassing on Mr. Scaife's property on Westminster Place in Shadyside in defiance of a police order.

[...]

On Wednesday, Mrs. Scaife appeared at a preliminary hearing on charges that on April 7 she attacked three employees of her estranged husband, who is the publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

The three said they were attacked by Mrs. Scaife after she saw one of them walking a dog on Amberson Street near another of Mr. Scaife's homes.

She claimed that the dog, named Beauregard, had been removed from her temporary residence by a friend and turned over to Mr. Scaife.

[...]

District Judge Cathleen Cawood Bubash on Wednesday ruled there was no proof of criminal intent on Mrs. Scaife's behalf. She dismissed the assault as well as the trespassing charges.

"They should've given her the dog," Judge Bubash said before making her ruling.

"This is nonsense. I'm not going to participate in this. This is absolute, total nonsense. The case is dismissed. And the other case is dismissed, too."

It may not be over yet, though.

"We're going to review it to see what our options are," Deputy District Attorney Angharad Stock said yesterday.

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

[...]

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets." The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

[...]

Sessoms will join Richmond and Williams in their meeting with Easley today. Sessoms said they would ask for bus driver Delores Davis' immediate termination. Davis, who originates her bus route in Martin, has called Richmond to apologize, Sessoms said. A message left on Davis' answering machine late Wednesday afternoon was not immediately returned.

After Richmond and Williams filed complaints with the School Board, Transportation Supervisor Jerry Carlisle asked Davis to make seat assignments for her passengers, Sessoms said.

"But she still assigned the black children to the back of the bus," she added.

And the nine children had to share only two seats, meaning the older children had to hold the younger ones in their laps.

"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another . . ."

For the second time in three days, The Blade of Toledo, Ohio has locked out members of one of its eight bargaining units, choosing to keep all nine paper handlers off the job early this morning.

Assistant managing editor LuAnn Sharp told E&P the nine-person unit of the Graphic Communications International Union was locked out at 2 a.m. today. The workers are the second Blade unit of the GCIU to be kept off work this week. On Sunday, another nine workers in the GCIU engraver's unit were locked out.

[...]

"We told them we didn't want a strike, we didn't want a boycott, we wanted to talk," Larry Vellequette, a spokesman for the Toledo Council of Newspaper Unions, which oversees several of the paper's unions, said Monday. He could not be reached for comment today.

[...]

Sharp even hinted that the [Newspaper Guild} could face a lockout if it does not come to an agreement in the near future. Although guild representatives are set to meet with management today, Sharp points out that an agreement has yet to materialize.

"There is still the option of a lockout for them," Sharp said about the guild, which represents half of the paper's unionized workers. "It is something we would consider if we can't get an agreement."

Evolutionary biology is mysteriously missing from the list of undergraduate subjects eligible for a US federal grant.

The department of education claims the omission is simply a mistake and insists that US students taking evolutionary biology majors are eligible for the grants. However, the incident has left pro-evolution campaigners wondering whether evolutionary biology was deliberately eliminated from the list by people who find Darwinian evolution impossible to reconcile with their own religious beliefs.

“I have reason to believe there is a serious problem here,” physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, told New Scientist.

[...]

“On its own, it’s not really a smoking gun,” says Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education in Berkeley, California. “But in the context of actions that other people in the federal government have taken, it is suspicious.”

[...]

Two other subjects – Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Technology and Exercise Physiology – are also missing from the list. If the omissions were deliberate, it is unclear why these would also have been left out. Unlike evolutionary biology, these subjects are not typically offensive to anti-evolutionists, says Branch.

Democratic challenger Bob Casey Jr.'s lead over Republican Sen. Rick Santorum remains virtually the same in the latest Daily News poll as it was in May. But with Election Day just a few months away, Casey still hasn't connected with nearly half the state's voters.

Analysts say Casey, the state treasurer, needs to start selling himself, and fast. Of the voters surveyed, 18 percent said they were undecided in their opinions on Casey and 31 percent just plain didn't know enough about him to form an opinion.

The New York Times has restaurant, play and movie critics. Now, there's a critic to help readers navigate the fragrant world of perfume.

[...]

"The creation of fragrance is one of the highest art forms crafted for the senses, the equal of painting for sight and music for hearing, and this column is about treating perfume as the art that it is," Burr said in a statement. "Every other true art has a serious criticism. I believe perfume should as well."

A key House committee issued a stinging critique of U.S. intelligence on Iran yesterday, charging that the CIA and other agencies lack "the ability to acquire essential information necessary to make judgments" on Tehran's nuclear program, its intentions or even its ties to terrorism.

The 29-page report, principally written by a Republican staff member on the House intelligence committee who holds a hard-line view on Iran, fully backs the White House position that the Islamic republic is moving forward with a nuclear weapons program and that it poses a significant danger to the United States. But it chides the intelligence community for not providing enough direct evidence to support that assertion.

The report suggests seven areas in which the intelligence community can improve its analysis and collection of information, and it specifically criticizes the office of the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte. The report says Negroponte needs to "clearly identify his goals for improving Iran-related collection and analysis so members of the Community know what they are supposed to achieve."

John Callahan, a spokesman for Negroponte, said the office is already "taking steps along the lines the committee has recommended and looks forward to working with members and staff to continue to make progress as we address the challenges Iran poses."

Democrats at fault

I strongly disagree with Jim Burn's Aug. 17 letter, "This Administration Vilifies Those Who Seek Change." Mr. Burn criticized Bush administration officials for commenting on Ned Lamont's win over Joe Lieberman for the U.S. Senate nomination in the Connecticut Democrat Primary.

Yet Democrats viciously ridicule Republicans and President Bush every day, often implying that the president is stupid. But when Republicans mildly criticize Democrats, it's a federal offense. Well, I got news for Mr. Burn, freedom of speech is for everyone, not just for Democrats!

Mr. Burn also wrongly accused Republicans of politicizing the war when it is really the Democrats who are playing politics and undermining the president's courageous efforts to fight the War on Terror.

Politically motivated nagging by blowhards like Ted Kennedy and John Murtha to cut and run from Iraq is encouraging the insurgents in Iraq to hang on and wait for U.S. public opinion to change.

If it were not for the Democrats' constant politicization of the war, terrorist activity in Iraq would have subsided by now and many of our troops would be home. Shamefully, the Democrats are putting the lives of our troops at risk.

As local chairman of the party that has controlled this county for over 50 years with policies that have resulted in bankrupting the city and causing several hundred thousand people to leave this area in search of jobs due to that party's anti-business policies, Mr. Burn has little reason to criticize President Bush.

DAVE MAJERNIK
Plum

[Emphasis added.]

“A symbolic demonstration is counter-productive,” counters Dave Majernik, vice chairman of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County. “You’re not stimulating the other side. It’s a smear and a publicity stunt because nothing’s going to come of it.” He says the petition won’t accomplish anything chiefly because the administration hasn’t done anything impeachable. “I can’t think of a better word to say than it’s disloyal.”

It is still August, and therefore not too late for President Bush to have the second half of his medical check-up: psychological testing. After his press conference on Monday in which he kept talking about finishing the job while attacking Democrats for wanting an exit strategy, Bush showed even more telltale signs of a particular kind of mental disturbance which medical professionals call thought disorder.

He may be physically fit to do the job, despite his five pound weight gain. But he is not mentally fit – at least not until he is pronounced so by a group of examining psychiatrists who must do a thorough mental status exam as well as a battery of psychological tests, with special emphasis on his relationship to reality.

[...]

When offered a chance to re-think the Iraq war he becomes obstreperous, using sarcasm to both mask and express his internal rage at being challenged. When back in control he patronizes members of what he calls the “Democrat” party, saying that they are “good people” and that he doesn't question their patriotism. In control he is a poor man’s Cicero, saying what he’s not going to say anyway. Reading between the lines, he calls his critics quitters.

[...]

His ability to dismiss reality is profound – more than the simple method used by his mother Barbara, who said she wasn't going to watch the TV news during the war because watching body bags would spoil her “beautiful mind”. No, he has a rugged inner strength – unless confronted by surprise – that enables him to dismiss and destroy personal perception.

(August 22, 2006) -- With most others in the mainstream silent, I rise here in support of the overwhelming number of press photographers in the Middle East who bravely, under horrid conditions, in recent weeks have sent back graphic and revealing pictures from the war zones, only to be smeared, as a group, by rightwing bloggers aiming, as always, to discredit the media as a whole.

This broad condemnation, and the conspiracy theories, lodged against photographers in war zones -- who are risking their lives while bloggers risk nothing but carpal tunnel syndrome -- needs to be refuted.

[...]

But, in general, the charges against the photographers, and their news organizations, have been hysterical, largely unfounded, and politically driven, while at times raising valid questions, such as what represents "staging."