A few days ago the New York Post ran a large front page photograph of Lance Corporal James Miller, a marine now fighting in Fallujah. It’s a terrific picture. You can see it here. Observant types will note that this particular marine has a cigarette in his mouth. The photo’s caption? “Marlboro men kick butt in Falliujah.” Well, it was the New York Post.

Here’s how some readers responded:

“How many kids trying to emulate heroic U.S. soldiers in Iraq will choose to slowly commit suicide as a direct result of your ill-conceived Marlboro pandering? Be a responsible part of the community instead of simply leeching off it 25 cents at a time.”

“How much did Phillip Morris pay for the front cover advertisement? Thank you for continuing to encourage the development of cancer.”

“I was shocked to see the front page of your newspaper. Showing a GI smoking and portraying it as being cool is disgusting, to say the least. First of all, you are promoting smoking, even though it is a health hazard. Secondly, our brave men and women are fighting a tough war in Iraq, and to show them as you did does not do them justice. Maybe showing a Marine in a tank, helping another GI or drinking water would have had a more positive impact on your readers. Smoking should be outlawed, not endorsed.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake.

As for the Marine, a laconic, low-key type seemingly rare in today’s America. "If you want to write something,'' he told a reporter later "tell Marlboro I'm down to four packs, and I'm here in Fallujah till who knows when. Maybe they can send some. And they can bring down the price a bit.''

And when his time in the Marines is over: "When I get out, I just want to chill out a little bit…Go back to my house, farm a little bit, do some mechanical stuff around the house and call it a day. Oh, and, as a LA Times reporter notes, there’s just one more thing: "I'll just sit on my roof and smoke a cigarette.''

Come home safely, Lance Corporal.

The generally mutton-headed Prince Charles can usually be relied upon to be on the wrong side of almost every issue, but on this topic he has a point. Whatever happened to, well, mutton? Once a great treat, it now seems to have vanished from British dinner tables. Now there's a campaign to bring it back. The British Academy of Culinary Arts (oh, stop laughing, Lopez) seems to be heavily involved in this effort. Its website has more details:

"Mutton is defined by the National Sheep Association as an animal over two years of age (in its third spring) and with four broad teeth. Careful rearing, post-slaughter handling and particularly traditional hanging (for at least two weeks) helps mutton achieve its unique mix of flavours. Once a great British favourite, mutton is characterised by its intense taste and complex meat texture. Long slow cooking allows flavours to develop further but it can also be cooked rapidly where the capabilities of the chef allow."

Mouthwatering.

The last time, I enjoyed this meat of kings (or, it seems, princes) was nearly twenty years ago on a hill in Scotland – gray meat, between two slabs of gray bread, eaten amid the gray glories of a gray winter landscape as the rain lashed down.

It doesn’t get better than that.

Good recipes can be found here.

With shortness of breath. This is all that's on FoxNews.com right now:

Vice President Dick Cheney (search) was taken to a hospital on Saturday after he complained of shortness of breath.

"On the recommendation of his doctors, the vice president is going to George Washington University Hospital (search) for some tests," spokesman Ken Lisaius said. "He experienced some shortness of breath Saturday morning and has had a bad cold, which could be the cause for the shortness of breath."

The vice president, 63, has had four heart attacks (search) and several surgeries for cardiac ailments.

President Bush was notified, Lisaius said.

Cheney's cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, was to oversee the tests.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

With more than a dozen arson attacks on mosques and churches now reported the news from Holland continues to be bleak, and so, if people pay attention to what some on the multiculturalist side of the fence are saying, may be the prospects for free speech. Here is Ismael Taspina, the director of eight Islamic schools in Holland. The Guardian notes that Taspina accepts that “freedom of speech may be very well,” but then quotes him thus:

"When we have all these different backgrounds, maybe we should have limits on what you can say.”

Now, Taspina is the director of an Islamic school that had, disgracefully, just been burnt down, and, perhaps he was, understandably enough, just caught up in the emotions of that horrible moment, but he is, I suspect, far from alone in his opinions.

“Anglosphere” author Jim Bennett once wrote, “that the deliberate abandonment of assimilation reinforces the lesson that of democracy, immigration and multiculturalism, we must pick from any two.”

Are the Dutch in the process of finding this out?

Hey K-Lo!

The Corner beat the websites of Fox News and MSN.com for posting the verdict soonest.

First, it must be noted that Specter's claim to have supported every Bush nominee isn't entirely true. It's only true that he supported CLOTURE on every Bush nominee. But, unless I missed something, he never promised to support Bill Pryor on final passage; indeed, reading between the lines, it was easy to take his hint that he actually would oppose Pryor on final passage. (Again, this bears checking out; Specter may have quietly changed his tune during a later cloture vote.) Meanwhile, he quite publicly gave succor to those who were pushing some of the trumped-up charges against Pryor, especially the bogus charges on RAGA, which Specter said were troubling. And, if memory serves correctly, there were other nominees that Specter never committed to supporting on final passage (although I didn't pay quite the attention to later filibustered nominees that I did to Pryor, so, again, this might require a fact-check).

Second, it seems to me that, in light of Frist's speech last night, conservatives should demand that, if the GOP senators refuse to block Specter for the chairmanship outright, they should at least block his ascension unless and until he commits not just to voting against a filibuster, but to SUPPORTING ANY RULES CHANGE that would end filibusters of judicial nominees. In other words, even if it comes to the so-called "nuclear option," Specter should commit to supporting it, and thus killing the filibusters altogether. If he won't make a firm commitment on that front, he should not be chairman.

Finally, back to the reasons to oppose Specter as chairman regardless: The one argument I haven't seen made is that it is absolutely crucial to keep a solid, conservative staff on the Judiciary Committee. The chairman controls the staff. If Specter becomes chairman, I guarantee he'll purge the staff of its conservatives (not that the whole existing staff is conservative, by the way, but it's at least semi-conservative right now) and replace it with a staff full of Specterites. That will matter not just for processing nominees, but for oversight and drafting of all manner of legislation, from tort reform to the Patriot Act to.... well, you know what Judiciary handles…

From a reader:

Dear Jonah, I've been following for a while your continuing thoughts of the moral roots of American order. They are not only welcome; they are correct. Where reasonable people do not agree about human ends and purposes, there is no possibility of real democratic discussion. (Most contemporary political philosophy is premised squarely on the explicit denial of just this. See Rawls, Habermas, etc.) I write, however, simply to point out a book on the subject that you may not have read. John Courtney Murray's *We Hold These Truths* is a locus classicus on the issue, and no thoughtful conservative (or American!) can understand American order without understanding the substance of Murray's argument. I respectfully suggest a discussion in The Corner on the perennial philosophy of Fr. Murray. I'm certain that Ramesh has something typically smart to say on the matter. K-Lo too. And add Fr. Rutler, if he's still around.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club has a really outstanding post about the problems and challenges a society faces when its democratic apparatus loses the moral superstructure it was originally housed in.

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. As Wretchard notes, America's founders took it as a given that the larger society had the sort of moral controls and institutions necessary for a healthy society. The machinery of the American democratic system was largely -- though certainly not entirely -- amoral. This tracked the consensus of the Scottish -- i.e. the good -- enlightenment as opposed to the French Enligtenment. Whatever the faults and horrors of the French Revolution, the one thing they understood was that most people want their governments to reside within their moral universe rather than without. Even today the French are very comfortable using the State as an instrument of culture and values in ways that still cause hissy fits here in the US.

For good or ill, I've become increasingly convinced that it is impossible in the modern age to keep the state from falling into the hands of those who want to use it toward moral ends (Sorry my anarcho-libertarian friends). People who are driven by moral passions and missions are simply more likely to do the hard work necessary to wrest control of the levers of government. This needn't be scary or bad and it can be great. But it is a fact. Which mean a society -- not just its government -- must be very, very concerned about the sorts of citizens it creates. In Holland, as Wretchard notes, radical Muslims could win the battle if for no other reason they care more about winning than the, until recently, self-indulgent, spoiled and lazy Dutch who've taken the tolerance and decency of their system for granted.

Anyway, read the post. We'll chat about all this more later.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time writing about Yassir Arafat. NRO’s coverage has been great and I don’t think I have anything particular to add about the evilness of the guy. I don’t like him. You don’t like him. We don’t like him.

But it is worth noting a supreme irony of the international left's love for the Palestinian cause.

Arafat was a nationalist, a bloody, cruel, vicious, jingoistic, deceiftul nationalist in the classic tradition of nationalist tyrants. This is indisputable. But most of the time, pro-Arafat types have tried to shade this fact in nuance. They much prefer calling him a "symbol of Palestinian national aspirations" or the "national ideal." Only this week have I heard him called a "nationalist" with much regularity.

But here's the irony: the left loathes nationalism. It despises it and curses it at every opportunity. It is the source or symptom of everything bad and archaic in American society, according to the Left. George Bush is denounced as a nationalist by the guys at the ironically named magazine, “The Nation." Nationalism was the historic, existential, enemy of Communism (or so we we’re told) and so its place in the pantheon of human evils is irrefutable (or so we’re told). And yet, these same people love Palestinian nationalism and forgive mass murder in its name, even as they -- with a straight face -- denounce Israel’s self-defense as runaway nationalism.

I understand that this is all rationalized in various academic "theoretical" disciplines, like post--colonial studies (AKA how to waste your parents money at college) as well as the usual anti-imperialistic poses. But at the end of the day the left tries to hold two nearly irreconciable convictions simultaneously. On the one hand they say nationalism in the West is an impediment to achieving universal brotherhood and all that jazz. And on the other hand they celebrate Yassir Arafat -- and others of his ilk -- as a hero for galvanizing nationalistic passions against the West.

Of course, one way to reconcile the two positions is to simply assume the Left merely objects to nationalism when it strengthens the West and loves it when its hostile to the West.

Apparently your colleagues did not know that Joan, Arlen's wife, at one time was a leading baker of specialty cakes throughout the general Philly area. A client of mine ( a competitive baker) called her the Queen of Tortes.

After she went into politics she dumped the tortes, but still gives out the occasional recipe. See and look at the bottom for the ascription.

K-Lo - Yeah lots of folks have emailed me about the Six Feet Under thing. I consider HBO to be a bit different than normal TV. Why, just the other night I caught an episode of The Sopranos where Tony counselled a young stripper-prostitute to have an abortion. Of course, she was beaten to death by another mafioso by then end of the show, so his advice was moot.

But your raise the other aspect of all this. On dramas -- as opposed to sitcoms -- when on ocassion someone does have an abortion it's always an agonizing decision. I'm sure this is very close to the reality as I would assume that the vast, vast majority of women who have abortions aren't necessarily chipper about doing it. That said, you'd think feminists would be more furious about it. Because when the writers invest so much drama and morality into the decision and the act they of necessity inflate the controversial status of abortion. Culturally and politically that strengthens the hand of those who think the government at least has the right to regulate the issue, if not necessarily ban the practice. The safe, legal and rare crowd would be far more helped if, on occasion, TV could portray instances when an abortion is a no-brainer decision -- and I mean circumstances other than those when an alien impregnates a woman so as to propagate his species and destroy humanity.

Meghan's piece is really good, but she leaves out a whole other area: TV's treatment of abortion. I always think it's somewhat hilarious on shows like Friends and going back through countless others to Murphy Brown when the single pregnant woman anguishes about whether she's going to keep her baby. I don't mean to say that such pretend anguish doesn't capture a certain reality, and a very sad one. But at the end of the day -- or often at the end of sweeps week -- the woman always says "it's my choice, I'm keeping the baby." Or, they'll have a scene where the woman gets a sonogram and she realizes she loves the baby and again she'll say "it's my choice. I'm having this baby."

And, the moment the women decide to have the baby, the fetus is automatically discussed as if it were a complete person worth talking to, reading to, singing to etc. The implication here, of course, is that if Rachel or whoever had simply chosen not to have the baby, that choice and that choice alone would have been enough of an abracadabra to metaphysically transform the fetus into nothing more than a lump of cells or the inconvenient consequence of a one-night-stand not worth reading to at all.

But -- and here's the funny part -- they never choose the abortion. It's so unbelievably predictable in show after show. Unless there's a miscarriage, the woman always "chooses" to have the baby and that choice makes the fetus into a baby. The ontological status of the baby itself has nothing to do with it. Of course, one reason this is so is that abortions are a major bummer, particularly for a sitcom. And another is that pro-abortion groups are placated by these meager nods to choice, while prolife groups would scream bloody murder if a family hour show treated abortion like an opportunity for whacky hijinx. Still, I'm sure the producers and scriptwriters have struggled with this for a long time and if they could come up with a way to write about getting an abortion as an uplifting experience or even an uncontroversial decision they would have by now. But they can't even on eat-your-spinach liberal shows like "Judging Amy" or "Boston Public." And I think that alone says something.

Given what a towering source of anguish abortion has been for the country, both before and after Roe, it is surprising how seldom Hollywood has taken up the subject. Until this latest litter of flicks, the only prominent one was "The Cider House Rules" (1999), in which Michael Caine played an abortionist-as-hero. (Hollywood loved that one: two Academy Awards!) What is striking, but not surprising, about films that do tackle abortion is how the "products of conception" end up having no claim on the audience's sympathy. They're like so many extraneous scenes left on the cutting-room floor. Perhaps expending screen time on what--or who--might have been would clog the narrative, and anyway, what a drag.

Better to touch on the melancholy and physical suffering of the adults. Better yet to cast any such suffering in solipsistic terms that will be pleasantly painful for the audience while not forcing anyone to think too hard about what, exactly, was aborted. Thus the new Alfie, jogging to keep warm as he waits outside the clinic, muses: "I find myself having regrets. Here's another kid you'll never get to know--your own." I, me, mine, you, and yours but, er, what about the kid?

K-Lo, what was notable about Frist's speech was what he DIDN'T say. He decried the filibuster as a threat to the separation of powers, he did so only in the context of the Senate's constitutional advice and consent role. I realize that some on the right agree that the filibuster is unconstitutional; others do not. But in front of the most favorable audience he could ever find for the topic, Frist never once spoke of the first principles of judicial nominees and the judiciary we are fighting for. For him, the filibuster was just an inside baseball problem, and his entire discussion of separation of powers never touched on the real separation of powers issue - we want judicial nominees who know the limits of the judicial power and the left wants nominees who are willing to usurp legislative and executive functions. He refused to go near it.

Few people care about the Senate's traditions or the inside baseball of the filibuster as Frist wants to talk about it. IMHO, joined by many better writers on the topic, this is why the Senate lost the 108th Congress battle over nominees, and doesn't bode well for either getting a better chairman than Specter or getting a better judiciary. Frist did indicate, without stating explicitly, that the filibusters won't continue. At least at our table, after his speech, we debated whether he meant he had extracted concessions and was putting a good face on them, thereby claiming a win without actually having to put through a rule change, so the Dems could always start up again.

On the inside baseball front, Frist did not say that the filibuster rule would be modified either (1) to force an actual and complete halt to Senate business, like the old days or (2) to have 'sliding' votes to end it - although he described this option in detail as the Frist-Miller resolution of last Congress. Frist discussed the "200 year tradition" of the filibuster without ever mentioning that the modern version is a far cry from what was used in decades past. I think Estrada would be on the DC Circuit right now if the Senate had a real filibuster rule, not the "double tracking" or whatever they call it that is in use now. If, and I think only if, the filibuster actually forced the Senators to sit and listen to the phonebook for hours, then people might care - because no budget would get passed.

But as it stands, and as Frist presented it, the Republican Senate leadership isn't willing to stop navel-gazing and talk about the underlying issue of what judges should and should not be confirmed as so well described by Andy McCarthy and others. God forbid we lose the White house - they will confirm anyone the Democrats ever send over as a matter of Senate principle, instead of rejecting judicial activists as a matter of Constitutional principle.

Have none of you heard of the famed legal reformer Franz Sacher? Without his heroic efforts we wouldn't even have heard of the Sacher Torte.

Note: Don't ask me, look it up.

Must be moonlighting:

Missing Smoke Detectors Cause 70% of Home Fires

On Mars.

Via the Speculist - and the Instapundit who is, ludicrously, blaming Halliburton. As everyone knows, it is the Martians' unilateral failure to ratify Kyoto that is to blame.

I’m a Vietnam vet—like Senator Kerry, I served in country only briefly, in my case six months—today will be my best Veteran’s Day ever. In about three hours I will pick up my son at the airport; he’s home for Thanksgiving from Iraq. Back to Camp Liberty on the 27th; he tells me that he was treated royally in the Dallas Airport—AA sent him to the first class lounge. I’m so happy for him and all the other servicemen and women today—I believe they are beloved by everyone but Ted Rall.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan praised Arafat's struggle to win international recognition for the Palestinian cause, as he ordered flags to fly at half-mast at the United Nations.

From a reader:

Isn't life interesting?

George W. Bush removed Saddam Hussein, who funded the murderous suicide bombers of the PLO, a group headed by Yassir Arafat, who recently died in France, a country that also sheltered murderer Ira Einhorn (they do seem to be good at that sort of thing), who was allowed to escape in part because of a ridiculously low bail negotiated by his attorney Arlen Specter, to whom Bush can deny chairmanship.

Where's Kevin Bacon when you need him?

This reader pinch-hits for Ramesh:

Jonah --

I was interested to see your recent comment in the
Corner:

"But it seems to me as a matter of both politics and
theory that raising tax rates in exchange for tax
simplification shouldn't be ideologically verboten.
The obvious argument is that by closing loopholes,
reducing the corrupting power of politics in tax
policy, eradicating inefficiencies and rationalizing
the whole system you will make the economy more
efficient and productive. Therefore if the price of
achieving this comes in the form of marginally raising
rates, it might well be worth it. For example, I would
gladly pay, say, $500 dollars more a year -- even
above what I might save from firing my accountant --
in exchange for removing the worry and hassle of tax
time."

I agree with you in theory. Here's the problem,
though -- Reagan agreed to just such a deal in 1986,
with the result that lots of deductions were
eliminated to broaden the tax base and rates were
significantly reduced. Unfortunately, when the wheel
turns and the politicians (usually the Ds, but not
always) want to raise taxes, they'll jack the rates
back up but won't restore the lost deductions -- which
is exactly what happened in 1990 (aka the tax bill
that probably lost GHW Bush the 1992 election).

Broadening the tax base in order to reduce rates would
truly be a wonderful thing, but since base-broadening
tends to be a one-way ratchet (at least as far as the
middle class taxpayer is concerned), the merits of the
strategy could be seriously questioned on a practical
level.

Love your stuff!

Best regards,

Keith

From a reader:

Jonah, Your column about how the interests of conservatives and the those of the Republican party are sometimes not congruent is on target. But the Arlen Specter controversy represents more than a conservatives versus Republicans food fight. Elevating Specter to chairman might damage the political fortunes of the Republican party if Specter wants to play the role of the heroic moderate who saved America from an extremist right-wing President and US Senate in his final years as a US Senator. It's hard to get inside the mind of a US Senator who voted against Bork but came to the defense of an embattled Clarence Thomas. But consider that Specter's vote against Bork (fall of 1987) was soon after Specter was reelected in 1986, while the Thomas vote was just before Specter's 1992 reelection effort (fall of 1991). Thus, even a Republican party hack might fear a Specter chairmanship where Specter would be given a louder megaphone to chastise the Republican party's "turn to the far right."

From

Page Six (link via Drudge):

November 11, 2004 -- VINCENT D'Onofrio, the star of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," passed out while shooting the hit TV series yesterday morning — prompting insiders to gossip that the actor is "losing it."

"Ever since John Kerry lost the election, [D'Onofrio] has lost his [bleep,]" said our on-set insider.

"He has been getting into fistfights with people, and when he passed out today, we all thought he was faking it. But then he insisted they call 911."

An ambulance raced to the Queens studio, where paramedics found nothing wrong with the gifted actor, who became a star in 1987 with his searing performance as a misfit Marine in "Full Metal Jacket."

Tensions on the "Criminal Intent" set are running high. "No one thinks Vincent will last for much longer," the insider said.

"He is so hard to work with — a total freak. He constantly complains about the scripts and has held up production a lot."

D'Onofrio, a big Kerry supporter, was said to be devastated over President Bush's re-election. "When PAGE SIX [last week] wrote about 'Law & Order' putting up signs forbidding political discussions on set, it was funny," our source said. "Those signs were put up because of [D'Onofrio]."

About a month before the election, D'Onofrio "insisted" on putting up anti-Bush posters and fliers, "and would attack anyone who disagreed with him," the spy added.

In response, "Law & Order" producers posted signs banning political discussions or anything else that would impede work on set, implying that D'Onofrio had held up taping of the show with his political zealotry.

D'Onofrio's co-stars, Kathryn Erbe, Jamey Sheridan and Courtney B. Vance, are said to be fed up with his antics.

"No one — and I do mean no one — talks to him anymore," the insider added.

A rep for the show insisted there had been no "fistfights."

D'Onofrio does not have a rep. But show creator Dick Wolf said via a rep: "The stress of being the first among equals on a one-hour television drama is the most exhausting job in show business. Hours are long and stress levels are high.

"Any actor who has been in Vincent's position knows how tough it is. It is unfortunate that Vincent's health has become the topic of gossip and speculation under these circumstances."

Iris Chang -- who Ramesh and I got to know on a junket a few years ago -- has apparently killed herself.

She was an impressive and decent person and I'm grateful to have gotten to know her. Really just awful news. Prayers and best wishes to her family.

Ramesh (and other econ policy guys): I understand that raising taxes is bad in most cases according to "conservative" economics (I use quotation marks so as to include all of the various subgroups on the right when it comes to economic theory).

But it seems to me as a matter of both politics and theory that raising tax rates in exchange for tax simplification shouldn't be ideologically verboten. The obvious argument is that by closing loopholes, reducing the corrupting power of politics in tax policy, eradicating inefficiencies and rationalizing the whole system you will make the economy more efficient and productive. Therefore if the price of achieving this comes in the form of marginally raising rates, it might well be worth it. For example, I would gladly pay, say, $500 dollars more a year -- even above what I might save from firing my accountant -- in exchange for removing the worry and hassle of tax time.

I do understand that since tax simplification would -- in theory -- boost economic productivity and therefore boost tax revenues it wouldn't necessarily be, uh, necessary to raise taxes in exchange for simplification. But politically it might be. In order to get some Democrats to agree, they might demand a hike in tax rates for the top 1% or some such.

Anyway, I guess the question is, is there an accepted answer about where the tradeoff point lies? What's the conventional wisdom on the cost-benefits? What say you Ponnuru?

Note: For the record, I think Ramesh hates it when I ask him these questions publicly in the Corner. But I'm just trying to create a dialogue as the college administrators say.

Kathryn -- A bunch of readers have made the same observation. Again, I don't have a big dog in this Specter fight and I like and respect Hugh Hewitt but it does seem that he's making his arguments from a Republican perspective more than a conservative one (Recall during the debates his certainty that Bush won the day). It would be better for Republicans not to feed on a pro-choice moderate, says Hewitt. Better for who? Ask conservatives.

This in itself opens an interesting point about the discussion of all this outside our own internecine battlefield. For example, Josh Marshall's reading of all this, last time I checked, seemed to be that the White House had clamped down on Specter. But from the folks I've talked to around the Bush administration, none of those guys want Specter to go and basically wanted to give him a free pass. Or at least they didn't want to make a big fuss. If they ordered Specter to recant it was so he could keep his Chairmanship.

Further on the left, there seems to be a real inability to differentiate different segments of the right, inside and out, of the Republican Party. Every Christian conservative who says something impolitic is speaking the language of George Bush's true self and everything that happens in the Republican Party is done deliberately and with foresight by Karl Rove. It just doesn't work that way. Lots of conservatives -- including many I disagree with -- have adversarial relationships with the Republican Party. People seem to forget how much Poppa Bush resented the conservative base of the GOP.

ARAFAT'S LEGACY IS PALESTINIANS' ACCEPTANCE OF PRINCIPLE OF COEXISTENCE WITH ISRAEL -- ANNAN

New York, Nov 11 2004 1:00AM

Reacting to the death of President Yasser Arafat, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said President Arafat will always be remembered for having led the Palestinians, back in 1988, to accept the principle of peaceful coexistence between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

"By signing the Oslo accords in 1993 he took a giant step towards the realization of this vision," a spokesman for Mr. Annan said in a statement issued in New York. "It is tragic that he did not live to see it fulfilled."

"Now that he has gone, both Israelis and Palestinians, and the friends of both peoples throughout the world, must make even greater efforts to bring about the peaceful realization of the Palestinian right of self-determination," the statement said.

"Deeply moved" by the news of the Palestinian leader's death, the Secretary-General conveyed his condolences to President Arafat's wife Suha and his young daughter Zahwa, and to the Palestinian people.

For nearly four decades, the statement stressed, President Arafat had "expressed and symbolized in his person the national aspirations of the Palestinian people."

2004-11-11 00:00:00.000

From a reader:

Hi Jonah,

I agree that Arafat was a bad man, and when I heard he was dying,
I was glad. But that fact in itself causes grief: that there would
be someone so bad that I would wish him dead. I'm a Christian, and
I believe Arafat's in hell right now, and that also makes me sad.
He could have chosen differently and he and the world would have
been better off.

Obviously, my remorse knows bounds. My sadness has a bottom. Words are more than adequate to express my grief.

He was a gangster and a terrorist, as I'm sure we'll hear countless times here and elsewhere in the days to come.

Nothing wrong with all of that. The world is a better place without that carbunkle on humanity and it is fine to say so. I think Palestinians can have a bit of free pass this week as they express remorse because, right or wrong, Arafat was a symbol of hope for many of them. All's the greater the tragedy.

But no one else really deserves anything like a free-pass. It will be interesting to see how the news of Arafat's death serves as a dye-marker (die marker?) for others around the world and here in America. How someone with even a scintilla of objectivity could grieve for this man is beyond me. Sure, you can be misinformed and grieve for the Palestinian people if you think this is bad news for them (it's not). But to grieve for the man, to mourn his passing, is an act of staggering ignorance and moral surrender. Shed no tears for this man if you care about mankind.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041111.html

Office of the Press Secretary
November 11, 2004

Statement by the President

November 10, 2004

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

The death of Yasser Arafat is a significant moment in Palestinian history. We express our condolences to the Palestinian people. For the Palestinian people, we hope that the future will bring peace and the fulfillment of their aspirations for an independent, democratic Palestine that is at peace with its neighbors. During the period of transition that is ahead, we urge all in the region and throughout the world to join in helping make progress toward these goals and toward the ultimate goal of peace.

In subsequent years, guerrillas from various Palestinian factions hit the headlines with hijackings, bombings and assassinations, most notably the kidnapping and killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Arafat refused to discuss such attacks, though he has always denounced terrorism as a tactic. Whether or not he was personally involved remains a matter of conjecture.

A less interesting email in response to same column:

You don't know what you're doing. If you aren't concerned about the way Bush is attempting to break down the barrier between church and state in order to propagate his own sectarian evangelical BS, you're missing a few screws. The core of his neoevangelical crowd is about an intolerant as any group in America. As a Jewish American you ought to be embarrassed to be defending these medieval lunatics. You're evidently a gambling man. You know these people have nothing to do with your own beliefs. They just happen to overlap -- in a few key areas -- for now. You're playing with fire. And I promise you you'll get nice and toasted one day if you keep it up. Just keep defending these loopy freaks. It will catch up to you. p.s. I assume you know what I mean. If not, do the research. And take off the painted-over goggles for God's sake. You've got to figure out who your true friends are.

Now that's an interesting email, in response to Monday's G-File:

Dear Mr. Goldberg, We must rescue Bryan in the Scopes trial from all the lies arising from that work of fiction--Inherit The Wind. Bryan won fair and square, i.e., he outsmarted Darrow, and in a way that should make all us right wingers proud. The evidence is in the actual court transcript.

Bryan went back and read Darrow's summation in the Leopold-Loeb
trial. Darrow pleaded for their lives by suggesting that the University of
Chicago was partially to blame by exposing the poor lads to library shelves
of books by NIETZSCHE! His teachings were swallowed by the boys and drove
them to murder poor Bobby Franks. Well, Bryan argued, in few of that
argument, why couldn't the state of Tennessee elect to protect younger
children from the dehumanizing teaching that men are descended from apes,
and therefore liberated from Bible morality. Bryan was not against
evolution as a capitalist tool, but as an instrument of Godless
amorality. AND he beat Darrow fair and square with Darrow's own words!

Hello from Camp Fallujah!

I thought I would write to everyone so that the only information you get isn't from the Communist News Network. For security reasons, they shut down the internet for a while and they still have the phone center closed so I can't call for awhile. When I get an opportunity, I will phone some of you and let you know in person that I am OK.

Much of this is excerpted from a letter I wrote to [name deleted] earlier. If you get a chance, please give her a call. The appliances have been rebelling as usual. It seems that whenever I deploy a major appliance decides to act up. I am not sure why. I don't think that the appliances were abused or had any sort of developmental problems. But for some reason, they get together, draw lots and one decides to have a major meltdown. I think we will have to be like Woody Allen and have a meeting of all the appliances to lay down the law. Anyway, the dryer decided to overheat and without [name deleted] noticing that something smelled funny we might have had a major fire.

As you can imagine we have been quite busy. If you look at the news it is generally pretty accurate about casualties from what I can tell. The ER docs and surgeons have been extremely busy in the last 2 days. I have been helping [name deleted], the ER doc with doing triage and managing pt flow as I don't have that many patients. I did see several in the last couple of days and business is starting to pick up, but I anticipate that my real busy time will be after all this latest battle is over. I did see an interesting pt with multiple concussions today and have admitted him to the ward to observe so I am contributing to the cause. ....

As you can imagine, life here is quite intense recently. There is a lot of outgoing artillery fire and the fight is moving closer to us as it progresses. You shouldn't worry though because we are well protected and there are multiple perimeters around us.

I don't know whether I have told you this before, but there are a lot of former interns who rotated with me here. They are both physician assistant students and battalion surgeons. It is kind of fun to see them and rewarding to work again as a team.

Today, I took a shower, changed underwear, socks and uniform and feel like a new man. As I was walking from the shower trailers today, I had a little laugh to myself about the pervasiveness of Disney in our lives. I was humming the song from Beauty and the Beast, "I'll be human again. I'll be human again."

Casualty flow has been pretty steady today. Not like yesterday, but still some significant stuff to deal with. My two roommates are the two general surgeons and they are really nice guys. I feel kind of bad that they are up most of the night sometimes while I get to sleep through the night and have regular hours. Even so, in a short time my time will come and they will be goofing off so we will see how that goes.

I have two psychologists working here. [Name deleted] is from San Diego and he is fairly newly licensed. [Name deleted] is from Okinawa and she is still doing post-doc hours. They are very good and I enjoy working with them. I have been trying to get out and be more integrated with the medical staff and I think this will pay off later on. We have three psych techs. They are each characters in their own right. All of them have a ready supply of quotes from movies to fit the occasion. I feel my age when I have no clue what they are referring to. This is a pretty good crew and when we get time, I hope to impart a little of my experience to them. It will be interesting to see what happens when this recent push is over.

Today, we had a rather touching moment. November 10th is the Marine Corps Birthday. Around mid-morning there was the sound of bagpipes in the triage area. A Marine in cammies, flak and kevlar played amazing grace and the Marines hymn. It wasn't the best bagpipe playing I've heard, but it was fitting. We all stood at attention. When he was finished we applauded and then went back to work. The corpsmen painted a large piece of plywood red and then lettered in gold, "Happy 229th Birthday Marines." It is a great bunch of folks here.

I have to say that on a day like today, the Marine Corps Birthday, I have never been more proud to be a Navy Medical Officer. We are doing the most important thing that we can do, which is to provide the best possible treatment for our Marines, soldiers and sailors who have been wounded in battle. It is pretty amazing that anyone who makes it to us alive has survived. Anyway, I just want you all to realize that our guys are doing a great job.

I am hoping the demolition will be complete soon and they can get started on building the new Fallujah Walmart.

Semper Fi guys,

It's also well worth asking whether Belgium (a country that sent 'observers' to the US elections) is, in any real sense of the word, a democracy. It doesn't seem so. And if that's case, what is it doing in the EU, an organization that likes to boast that it is a club of democracies.

Time, I reckon, to throw Brussels out of Brussels.

As always, thank you so much for all that you do. I couldn't find an email addy for McCarthy so I just thought I'd pass the kudos along to you. The article he wrote on Roe/Specter today was STELLAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been saying the same thing ever since I read Bork's first book much to the consternation of my Con Law prof. in undergraduate school. The clear distinction on original intent and the whole "living Consitutiton" notion supported by Specter and the Libs.

Who can be the first to email me a PDF or other electronic version of a Time magazine article from March 13, 1972 by Melvin Maddocks titled "The New Cult of Madness"?

Winner receives a coveted National Review no-prize and thanks in the Corner.

It is Gonzales. And Tim, as for that Stephanopolous thing, I think the way to parse Steph's meaning in the first part -- as close to forced out as possible in this administration -- is thus "Ashcroft wasn't forced out but he should have been."

As for Ashcroft being essentially white, isn't the more damning implication that Stephanopolous thinks there's something essentially Hispanic or African-American? Isn't that a racial stereotype? Same point as yours, but no liberal cares about stereotyping "angry white males."

From a reader:

Ashcroft is from my home town, Springfield, Mo. He is a square and a dork but is also a real stand up guy. He is the guy, of course, who got beat by the dead Mel Carnahan. In that race, Ashcroft refused to campaign after Mel died. that bit of gallantry almost surely cost Ashcroft the race.

I have grown to admire Ashcroft over the years. He has been stoically steadfast in his defense of America. He has been treated so unfairly and yet he never complained, he just kept doing his job. He is a quiet hero.

Matt Ygelsias has a generally sensible and wise post about the need for Democrats to come to grips with the reality of the war on terror. But he also writes this:

"When the Cold War ended, the Republican coalition collapsed rather spectacularly, and Bill Clinton was swept into office with a historically low share of the popular vote. With national security back on the agenda, even the collapse of Ralph Nader's support wasn't enough to give the Democrats a majority."

How did the Republican coalition collapse spectacularly? Bush I lost in a squeaker largely because Ross Perot was in the race as a fiscal conservative. Bill Clinton ran as a moderate, pro-death penalty, anti-welfare candidate in 1992 who often ran to the right of Bush on foreign policy (remember "butchers of Beijing" and all that?). Of course, he was more than a little dishonest in his campaign because when he got in office he tried to govern from the left -- gays in the military, Hillarycare etc. When he did this, that "collapsed" Republican coalition retook the House and the Senate. Bill Clinton then tacked to the right on domestic policy signing on to a Republican Budget and a Republican Welfare reform bill. Clinton ran in 1996 against a decent man but a terrible candidate. Nevertheless Clinton championed small-bore issues which were largely culturally conservative and certainly small-c conservative (school uniforms, the V-chip, seat belts on busses). In his second term he did almost nothing of historical note except diddle an intern and lie under oath about it and go to war without UN approval (something anti-Iraq war liberals saluted at the time). In 1998, Congressional Republicans had a setback because of impeachment, but they didn't lose the House. Meanwhile, 2000, 2002 and 2004 were all very good years for the GOP.Of course, '02 and '04 were post 9/11 but throughout the 1990s the GOP increased its control of state legislatures, state houses and the Congress. So again, I ask, what exactly was this spectacular collapse Yglesias is talking about?

The next AG?

As I mentioned in today's USA Today piece, Bush picked up an enormous number of votes from Orthodox Jews on election day. Orthodox Jews have been trending more conservative, politically for a while (as Peter Beinart noted in this interesting op-ed before the election). But, even so, few could have predicted this much of a gain. Figures on what Bush got in 2000 vary -- from as low as 29% to as high as 40% (and remember Lieberman was on the Democratic ticket). In 2004 Bush got 69% of the Orthodox Jewish vote, which apparently helped Bush in certain areas of Ohio and Florida.

From what I hear, one person who deserves an enormous amount of the credit for these gains is my very old friend Tevi Troy. A policy guru on the campaign and before that in the White House, Tevi also worked tirelessly reaching out to the Jewish community as a liaison. Bush's victory has many and morre obvious authors of course (Though wouldn't it be fun to watch the reaction in certain quarters -- Middle Eastern, Liberal Jewish, paleo-whatever -- if Bush's margin were attributable to the Jewish vote?). But this is an important trend -- Orthodox Jews are only about 10% of the Jewish population, but they are the fastest-growing segment because they have so many kids -- and Troy played an enormously important part in accelerating that trend.

Update: Ahem, the trend I was referring to here wasn't the increase in the Orthodox population, but in its Republican vote. Though Tev is a good family man.

American soldiers looking for payback. I'm not sure the author intended this to be wholly flattering, but this is the sort of attitude I think many of us want for the tip of the foremost spear in the arsenal of democracy.

That's what lot's of boys (and I'm sure a quite few girls) said this morning when they saw this story in today's Washington Post about the scramjet. Here's the opener:

HAMPTON, Va. -- They call it a "scramjet," an engine so blindingly fast that it could carry an airplane from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in about 20 minutes -- or even quicker. So fast it could put satellites in space. So fast it could drop a cruise missile on an enemy target, almost like shooting a rifle.

Next week, NASA plans to break the aircraft speed record for the second time in 7 1/2 months by flying its rocket-assisted X-43A scramjet craft 110,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean at speeds close to Mach 10 -- about 7,200 mph, or 10 times the speed of sound.

I have a piece in USA Today, uh, today.

I've been pretty silent about all the resignation stuff all week because I was under a gag-order from the Fair Jessica (Note to new readers: TFJ is my bride (who I started wooing through the G-File) and she was an aide and speechwriter for the AG since before 9/11).

Anyway, Jessica's pretty bad about keeping me in the loop about this sort of thing. During the early days after 9/11 she was really mum about all the cool stuff going on. The underground complexes, secret spy satellites, James Bond-like technology, the secret army of US-trained ninjas and all of the other stuff she refused to confirm or deny existed as I imagined them. But I did know a bit earlier than the press that Ashcroft was resigning. I'm probably going to write a syndicated column about the guy. But in short I really do think he did a heroic job as AG and that while he may never be the official spokesman for Club Med Cancun, he's a decent man who did a hard job extremely well and got unfairly vilified for it by an entire political class more interested in scoring cheap points than in discussing the facts -- or improving our security.

As for The Fair Jessica, I guess she'll be out of work come January. I don't want any of you mega-billionaire corporate CEOs or top-tier politicians, desperately in search of speechwriters or ghostwriters to worry about it. National Review pays us more than enough to keep our baby in burlap with enough left over for bus fare to the soup kitchen.

[Today is]the 229th birthday of the finest fighting force on the planet... and America's force of choice in the battle for Fallujah.

Anyway, on November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress met and passed the following resolution - in secret - thus establishing an American Marine Corps (based on the Royal Marine Corps model):

Resolved: That two battalions of Marines be raised consisting of one colonel, two lieutenant colonels, two majors & other officers as usual in other regiments, that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken that no person be appointed to office or enlisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea, when required. That they be enlisted and commissioned for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress. That they be distinguished by the names of the first & second battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered a part of the number, which the Continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of. Semper Fi

The gospel-singing son of a minister, Ashcroft is a fierce conservative who doesn't drink, smoke or dance. His detractors said he gave religion too prominent a role at the Justice Department — including optional prayer meetings with staff before each work day. He has also been a willing lightning rod for critics who said his policies for thwarting terrorists infringed on the rights of innocent people.

I like this email:

Let's see, we have scores of Baptist Hospitals, Method Hospitals, Jewish Hospitals, Catholic Hospitals, etc., etc.. Each of these have 'outreach' programs both here and in the most dismal places on earth, staffed with dedicated medical doctors and nurses. Where oh where are the Atheist's hospitals, or soup kitchens? I, perhaps somewhat leaning to your ideology, am not so religious... but I am married to one of the most delightful, beautiful and dedicated Catholics on this earth. I delight in her absolute faith, her praying, her laughter, her zest for life, her acceptance of those of lesser faith (like me), her tolerance. All which seems so absent from the liberal atheist.

I’ve been meaning to respond to Hugh Hewitt’s arguments for a Specter chairmanship, but he has been a bit of a moving target. In his latest posts, he seems to have abandoned the curious view that the principle of seniority in the Senate is some ancient conservative principle, the characterization of the anti-Specterites’ objective as a “putsch,” and the thought that the history of the Roman republic tells us something about this debate. What remains are the ideas 1) that it would be better to extract commitments from Specter to fight any attempts to filibuster conservative judges than to remove him because 2) liberal Republican senators would vote against any such judge in revenge if Specter is ousted. (He has also argued that they would vote against changes in the Senate rules concerning judicial confirmations for the same reason.) And 3) passing over Specter would supposedly endanger Rick Santorum’s re-election in 2006.

The likelihood that Specter will make solid commitments to conservatives seem to me to get higher the more heat he takes now—which may be why Rove is watching this debate rather than intervening in it. If he wants to pull Specter right, that is, Hewitt should be lending his voice to the anti-Specter chorus rather than criticizing it. I don’t believe that it’s true that Senator Collins and company would be less likely to vote for a Bush nominee if Specter loses this fight, and Hewitt provides no reasons for thinking that they would.

Santorum is in a delicate position. It is wisest to assume that he’s going to have a tough re-election fight in 2006. Right now, he has a problem with the base over his support of Specter in the primary this spring. He can’t come to Specter’s defense without making that problem worse, and he can’t throw his colleague overboard either. If Santorum doesn’t play a leading role in dumping Specter—and he won’t—I doubt he’ll pay a price for its having happened. If Specter stays and derails a conservative nominee to the Supreme Court, he’ll pay a huge one.

Finally, let me say a word in defense of Lara Jakes Jordan, who reported Specter’s comments on judges last week for AP. (As you will recall, Specter compared Roe v. Wade to Brown v. Board of Education and advocated a pre-emptive surrender to liberal filibusters.) Hewitt bashes her for (liberal) agenda journalism. Maybe she is a liberal. But her write-up of Specter’s comments was good reporting. And while her reporting of Santorum’s remarks about sodomy, bestiality, and assorted other topics last year may have had a slant, the remarks were newsworthy—and the controversy they created would have happened even if a conservative reporter had done the story. We discredit our own honorable argument about the media’s bias if we resort to it every time a Republican gets himself in trouble with his own words.

THOMAS OLIPHANT Why the Specter flap matters By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist | November 9, 2004 WASHINGTON MY FIRST reaction to news of l'Affaire Specter was bemusement -- a classic example of post-election, multisided bloviation. ADVERTISEMENT Upon reflection and a little reporting, I've decided that the assault from the right on the Pennsylvania Republican senator just elected to a fifth term is in fact serious, revealing, and possibly an early indicator of the latest attempt by conservatives -- after a generation of false starts -- to actually govern the country. The knee-jerk thing would be to come to Arlen Specter's defense while he is under assault by forces normally characterized by people of my bent as primarily loony. Bad idea. For one thing, Specter is not worth defending; at best he is relentlessly quirky, at worst opportunistic. For another, in this formative, postelection period, it is more useful to understand the forces that instantly became so furious at him last week. The flap directly involves an ancient goal of conservative politics -- reshaping the federal judiciary. Orrin Hatch of Utah is about to cease being chairman of the Judiciary Committee -- through whose portals all judicial nominees must pass -- because of one of the lingering inanities of the brief Newt Gingrich era: term limits. By seniority, Specter is next. Specter faced a primary opponent to his right ideologically and then a moderately demanding general election. With the votes behind him, he opined that future judicial nominees by President Bush who clearly do not favor abortion rights as embodied in Roe v. Wade are likely not to be confirmed. That is not exactly what he said, but I am positive that is all he meant. He made no threat or promise involving his own behavior. It is clear, however, that in classic Specter fashion, he was declaring himself a player. On the right, Specter's comment was taken as a threat. The ensuing furor produced a flurry of "clarifications" by Specter, all designed to assure conservatives that as chairman he would do nothing to retard the confirmation process of any Bush nominee. None of those statements has quieted the furor. The Bush White House --which could stop the whole thing quickly and decisively if it wished to -- has decided to let Specter twist a bit longer. This is in part punishment and in part to see just how deep the furor's roots are. The same attitude has been taken by the Senate Republican leadership (notably the majority leader, Bill Frist, and his second-in-command, Mitch McConnell), who could also have stopped all this quickly. ... With Chief Justice William Rehnquist's health in doubt, the sense of urgency is only increased. That's why l'Affaire Specter is important. Actually achieving results will take old-fashioned party discipline. Whether to try to impose it is the issue here, and a lot of Republicans much more important than Specter are involved. Conservatives have won elections; some of them now want to actually change things in this country.

Mr. McClellan, the White House spokesman, cited Mr. Rove's comments today and emphasized that Mr. Specter had given assurances that judicial nominees would get "up or down votes" rather than be stymied by filibusters. But Mr. McClellan, given the opportunity, did not offer a ringing endorsement for Mr. Specter, who has also annoyed the White House by differing with some of President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics. Should Mr. Specter be denied the chairmanship, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona would be next in line. But Mr. Specter still seems to have a good chance of winning the chairmanship given the Senate's traditional respect for seniority.

I've followed the dialogue over the last few days. Based on the commentary, here's a suggestion: POST A LIST OF SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, POSED DIRECTLY TO SENATOR SPECTER, WITH A CALL FOR HIM TO HOLD A PRESS CONFERENCE ( NOT AN INTERVIEW) TO ANSWER THEM BEFORE HE ASSUMES THE CHAIRMANSHIP. For example:

Senator Specter,

1. If your philosophy concerning judicial nominees is applied to the replacement for Justice Rehnquist, won't that necessarily move the Court TO THE LEFT? If so, does that bother you?

2. Can you name ONE Supreme Court Justice who was appointed by a Democratic President AND IS ALSO a middle of the road non-ideologue?

3. What EXACTLY was you rationale for opposing Robert Bork?

4. Do you think our tort system needs reform? Will you support the President's tort reform initiative?

5, Do you think that your track record is subject to the SAME SCRUTINY received by judicial nominees?

6. What is your connection to the Kerry/Specter election signs? Do you know who produced them? What do you think of those signs?

…The goal is to SQUEEZE HIM so that even if he eventually becomes the Chairman HE'S ON RECORD with respect to the questions our concerns.

Dear Rod,

If it weren't that (1) a copy of your article "Cultural conservatives actually represent the norm" appeared on a fascist Christian website called Virtuosity, and (2) that you are in Dallas, Texas, I would have thought you had lost your critical thinking skills, a.k.a "losing your mind." But, I feel better now to realize from where you speak: the land of the biggest kooks and nuts on the right, the home of G.W. Bush, our Bible-believing president, and god only knows how many other crackpots.

Yes, the people you glorify, the so-called "norm" folks may have been shuttled to the polls this election by the Karl Roves and Dick Cheneys, but you folks will not win this cultural battle. Common sense, critical thinking, the demise of Christianity in this world, and the other reactionary notions that you pull off will, for a time, rule the headlines, but Buster, the gains made, as you relate the figures, in the last forty years are going to win the day, and radical humanism and radical humanitarianism will triumph. Just look how far we have come with abortion and gay rights, especially the right to marry a member of the same gender if one wishes to do so.

Get a life, pal, and look at the Sun!

"Hi John, I'm a Brit who has settled in the United States (Los Angeles no less!). I read your article “Afterthoughts” with great interest. I am a member of the Conservative Party in the UK and have been for 15 years... and your line: 'I do fear that this country might be made unfit to live in, as the country of my birth has been, by a misguided and corrupt humanitarianism, sentimental wallowing in past wrongs both real and imagined, and class and race resentment petted and nurtured by opportunistic tax-eaters' struck a chord. The ills in Britain are far deeper and more profound than many people realize. Britain seems to have entered, some time in the mid-1960s, a period of social and moral decline that has continued unchecked by Thatcherism, New Labour, entry to the European Union and any other political development. It really is a country unfit to live in or raise children in, which is why the birthrate is so low, the population is ageing so fast, and so many people feel that their generation should not create the next one.

The contrast between America and Britain could be best illustrated in a conversation I had with some Brit friends who I met up with recently. We were discussing the upcoming presidential campaign and the political issues of the day. They were mystified that abortion was in any way a political or moral issue. hadn't that argument been resolved long ago, and wasn't abortion OK? They were fatalistic as to the deeper meaning of a declining and ageing population (“but what can be done about it?”) And they were largely dismissive of the effect of Christianity on America, as if Christianity were some kind of social mistake or aberration that Europe had thrown off but America still laboured under.

Whom do I blame? Well I would start with the Anglican Church which has since the mid-20th century shown nothing but cowardice in the face of shrill atheism, feminism and liberalism. In trying to retain its membership, it has compromised its principles and now it has lost both….

The Conservative Party also has to take a considerable blame. It has abandoned most of its Judeo-Christian roots and is trying to build an ideology anew based on... well its not quite sure, which is why its agenda is a ragbag collection of populist policies and vague promises to cut taxes. Compared to the Republican party, which bases its agenda in American Judeo-Christian values and builds its policies up from that base, the Conservatives have no foundation, no moral compass from which to operate. The Labour party has a moral compass in its Socialist roots, and even though this is a deeply flawed base, at least it has one which is recognizable to the electorate.

Quite simply, America is a better country.

From a reader:

Your column of Nov. 8 calls Paul Krugman "a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column." I was wondering, when you go on to compare Maureen Dowd's columns to vomit, do you think that perhaps anyone might be justified in calling you a whining self-parody of a hysterical conservative who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column?

You criticize Democrats for calling Republicans ignorant. Is not your
entire column calling Democrats ignorant? Look at your language —
Democrats "fail to understand," they "never actually learn about"
something, Maher is "mindless." President Bush admits that he doesn't
read newspapers, and more than 70 percent of his supporters believe
that Saddam Hussein supported al Qaeda. When Democrats call Republicans
ignorant, they're not just being hysterical.

At times in my life I have been both radically conservative and
radically liberal. I now see extremely good ideas on both sides. I
value The Nation for challenging my conservative assumptions, and I
value The National Review for challenging my liberal assumptions.
Please, you can help the cause of conservatism so much more if you stop
whining and projecting hysteria onto others and root it out in
yourself. Appeal to my reason instead of venting your emotion.

Okay, she's bitter and cranky and takes cheap shots. But underneath all that Katha Pollitt understands something so many other leftists don't: the American people don't like leftist politics and they only like certain parts of liberal politics. Of course, they don't love conservative politics either, because they don't like politics period. Anyway, an excerpt:

The logic of the "Left Is More" position seems to be this: What people really want is a Debs or La Follette who will smite the corporations, turn swords into plowshares, share the wealth and banish John Ashcroft to a cabin in the Ozarks. But since the Democratic Party denies them their first choice, they will--naturally!--pick a hard-right warmaker of staggering incompetence and no regard for either the Constitution or the needs of the people. Better that than settle for a liberal centrist who would only raise the minimum wage by two dollars. In other words, these proto-progressives will consciously choose the greater evil out of what--spite? pride? I scorn your half-measures, sir! Keep your small change!

This makes no sense to me as an explanation of the recent election. It doesn't explain, for example, why Republicans gained in both House and Senate. It doesn't explain why Californians rejected a referendum to amend their three-strikes law so that twice-convicted felons wouldn't get twenty-five years for shoplifting, or why Arizonans voted solidly to bar undocumented aliens from obtaining a wide range of essential public services and to require public servants to report them if they try. It doesn't explain why the Kansas school board is once again a chorus line of creationists.

A friend of mine on the Hill just sent me this notice:

Cancellation

To all those planning to attend the Saturday night Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce
Springsteen, Barbara Streisand, Dixie Chicks, and Dave Matthews Concert
hosted by Michael Moore on the White House lawn are hereby notified that it
has been cancelled.

God Bless America!

The Iraqi Army units supported by the US forces are pushing forwards towards the city centre of Falluja.

Heavy bombardments on the sites of the insurgents continued overnight and this morning.

Residents who managed to escape earlier mentioned very important developments. The terrorists forced some of the residents of Falluja to give their houses and other properties to the insurgents. The other important thing is the use of the residents as a human shield but some insurgents escaped to other areas.

The insurgent fighting is becoming weaker while the US/Iraqi forces are a mile away from the centre. There are important targets that the insurgents may defend them fiercely.

The major insult has yet to come!

Yes, the joke's been circling the internet in one form or another, but it is getting to the point where you could see a film short with Ahmed Queria and Mahmoud Abbas carrying Arafat's body around French high society and getting into all sorts of wacky hijinks.

When he pitches face-first into the hors d'oeuvres Abbas says "Don't mind him, he just really likes the paté."

You can fill in the rest.

I haven't seen it yet. I haven't seen Team America or any other movie I've really wanted to see in months either (baby+book = no movies for Jonah).

However, the storyline of The Incredibles got me thinking. I do love this idea about Kerry running again. Apparently there's a movement afoot for Gore to run again as well. That got me thinking, maybe the Dems should field an all-has-been primary: Dukakis, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, McGovern and Carter could all run. I'd even throw in Pat Schroeder, Jesse Jackson, Doug Wilder, Feraro et al. Wouldn't that be fun?

Rich - That's kind of funny because I saw an interview with a Marine yesterday on Fox in which he very matter-of-factly said the insurgents "don't know what's coming..." he then trailed off for a second and then said, "Hell's coming."

I got a chill.

Kerry might run in '08:

While Senator John F. Kerry is "profoundly disappointed" with losing his presidential race last week, it is "conceivable" he will run again in four years, his brother and political confidant, Cameron F. Kerry, said yesterday. ADVERTISEMENT

In the meantime, the former Democratic nominee will work through the Senate and perhaps a newly formed political action committee to ensure that Democrats have a superior ground organization in 2008, his younger brother said.

"He's in a position of national leadership," Cameron F. Kerry told the Globe. A Boston lawyer, the younger Kerry said he spoke with his brother several times in person and by phone about the senator's political future since the candidate conceded defeat Wednesday. "He's going to exercise that role and be a voice for the 55 million people who voted for him. The position he's in gives him a bully pulpit."
He added, "One of the things that John brings out of this campaign is a tremendous number of people have gotten organized, and that's something we've got to build upon."

Asked whether that might include another run for president, the younger brother replied: "That's conceivable. . . . I don't know why that [last week's loss] should necessarily be it. I think it's too early to assess. But I think that he is going to continue to fight on for the values, ideals, and issues this campaign is about."

In yesterday's (shockingly popular G-File; thanks for the kind notes btw) I discussed Bill Maher's season finale which I had the misfortune of watching. I didn't have room to get into it in the G-File (Kathryn has a rule that no columns can be longer than the "M" section of the St. Louis phone book) but DL Hughley was one of the guests on the panel. I kind of like him in movies. Who can forget his seminal performance as the voice of the gadgetmobile in Inspector Gadget 2?

But he really was a caricature on the panel. He offered one of the most popular table-thumpers in black lefty politics. I'm paraphrasing of course but he said something to the effect of "We keep hearing about how there's so much work to be done for blacks [or on race], but what I want to know is when the f*** are we even going to get started?"

Um, where do Brown v Board of Ed, the desgregation of the Armed Forces, the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts, the 1968 Fair Housing Act, affirmative action, the EEOC, massive donations to the United Negro College Fund, historic black homeownership, countless black CEOs, and -- oh yeah -- the Civil frickin' War fit into a worldview which says we haven't gotten started yet?

After more than half a century of escalating judicial activism -- judges imposing their own beliefs instead of applying the law -- our country is at a crossroads. There is an opportunity -- one that may not come again in this generation -- to make judicial appointments that will restore the rule of law…. .…The real question is not what Senator Specter says now but what he would do as chairman of this key committee that judicial nominees pass before during the confirmation process. That committee has become a place for character assassination against judicial nominees who believe in adhering to the written law… ….Senator Specter has been one of those to whom what matters is not a judicial nominee's qualifications but how they are likely to vote on abortion, anti-trust laws, or whatever…. …Senator Specter is also one of those people who is often wrong but never in doubt. He has mangled the meaning of such basic concepts as "judicial activism" and "original intent." It would be a tragedy for him to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he could mangle nominees and in the process mangle the Constitution of the United States.

Shrum said of the campaign's decision to emphasize a final-week revelation about missing explosives in Iraq: "There wasn't disagreement inside the campaign about that. So if it was a mistake, it was a mistake that we all share responsibility for."

PELOSI: And we have to define what values are. Values are, of course, being persons of faith and family and love of country. They also are about ministering to the needs, as it says in the Gospel of Matthew, of the least of our brethren.

So we have to grow the middle class and expand it. We have to protect the environment, which is God's creation. We have to meet the needs of the American people. We have to reach to a higher purpose, and I believe we have that opportunity now.

DOBBS: Minority Leader, I'm just -- I'm just a simple fellow, secular as I can be. Are we going to hear every politician now, because of exit polls, start couching every issue in moral or religious terms?

PELOSI: I believe that you will see more of that, but I quite agree with you, that we have to get to the issues that are the role of government. I think on the values side, the so-called religious issues side, we have to enlarge that issue, because what we're in danger now in our country is the blurring of the issue of church and state. But I as a devout Catholic was concerned when bishops -- some bishops, not all bishops said that it was a sin to vote for John Kerry. That's absolutely wrong. And that -- our own Constitution is at stake if they think that they can blur the issue of church and state.

So I think that, as President Kennedy said when he ran in 1960, imagine then, they didn't want religion to have a strong role. At that time, he said, "The issue is not what church I believe in, the issue is what America I believe in." And that's where we have to take this issue.

Dear Friend of Choice,

Please help to counter the anti-choice activist groups efforts to derail Senator Arlen Specter from becoming Judiciary Committee Chair.

Please forward this alert on to friends of yours that want to have federal and Supreme Court Justices that are going to be fair and uphold the current law of the land on a woman's right to choose!

In other words, Justices in the tradition of Anthony Kennedy, or Sandra Day O'Connor who wrote the majority opinion in Casey vs. Planned Parenthood (1992) where she said that "in order for women to participate equally in today's society a woman must have the ability to control her own body"... rather than Judges like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is a moderate, pro-choice supporting Republican in line for the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Last week he "bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation," reports the AP.

Specter helped defeat President Reagan's nomination of the rabidly anti-choice Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and of the anti-choice Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship. Specter called both nominees too extreme on civil rights issues. Sessions later became a Republican senator from Alabama and now sits on the Judiciary Committee with Specter.

The anti-choice activist groups are having a cow. The Concerned Women for America sent out an alert, urging people to call and email Republican Senators asking them to prevent Specter from being chair of the Judiciary committee...

I am part of the America that did not give President Bush a mandate to do anything, let alone push through a conservative agenda that feeds on fear and a go-it-alone notion that if the U.S. ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. ...

So what do those of us who opposed the President do now?

Even though he ran on a platform of fear, we must not be afraid. We must resist the Bushies' Christian jihad that could lead to an America that not just our European friends, but we ourselves no longer recognize.

Arlen Specter makes me optimistic. A Republican who is set to take over the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he's telling the Bushies that he does not want to see judicial nominees who are extremists from the right.

I don't blame Dems for trying to diminish or discount the possibility of a Bush mandate (Josh Marshall calls the idea "silly"). I think you can make a pretty good case for Bush's mandate for several reasons. But here's how I see it. The media, academia, the Democrats, Hollywood, the UN, France and the entire international community threw every single thing at Bush and the American people still preferred him in record numbers. John Kerry himself said if you elect Bush you'll get "More of the same." Everybody and his brother said that this was referendum on the incumbent. The American people heard this and not only re-elected Bush, they elected a bunch more Senators and Congressmen to help him with his agenda. That sounds to me like a mandate.

Nevertheless, I think there are good contrary arguments. The one thing I ask, however, is that when you hear the contrary arguments ask yourself whether Marshall or Al Hunt or the sillier lefty blogs wouldn't be insisting that Kerry had a mandate if Kerry had won. And keep in mind that would have been a much harder case, since all Kerry basically did was say a vote for him was a vote against Bush.

He noticed the Salon interview over a
week ago.

From a reader:

That was quite a fine piece of popular moral theologizing hidden in your "Sore Loser Party" column today, Jonah. If morality does not have a transcendent foundation, then it is all about power -- or expedience. A rampantly immoral society is a poorly functioning one. As Diane Keaton told Woody Allen, "If everyone went to the same restaurant on the same night and ordered blintzes, there'd be chaos."

From a reader:

Okay, you guys finally got me. I subscribed to National Review yesterday.

I have been reading the Corner and the Kerry Spot for months and I thoroughly enjoy myself every time I check in. Indeed, you made Election Day bearable, just by breathing a little sanity into the discourse. (Okay, you and the Fox News Channel.)

By the way, I subscribed as part of a school fundraiser. My kids flog magazines every year to finance an eighth grade trip to Washington, DC. The reason I mention this is that I’m sure I’m not the only Corner reader with kids in the magazine sales fund-raising business. To anyone else out there feeling the pressure to buy something (anything) to support the cause, remember, there are better choices than People and Time.

Okay, this article isn't for everybody and I don't reccomend it to those "values voters" among you who don't enjoy long discussions of, um, unconventional sex i.e. buggery. In fact, you should stop reading here.

Nevertheless, Salon has an interview with a woman who's written an "erotic memoir" about her experiences acting like Yassir Arafat's bodyguard on a saturday night. Hundreds of encounters. Disgusting personal habits. Detailed descriptions of how she likes it, who she's liked it with etc etc etc etc. She even explains that even though she's an atheist this approach to "romance" gave her, uh, a back door route to the divine.

I'm sorry to be even as graphic as this. But you can't get the joke unless you know how detailed her exposé is. In the middle of the inerview she's asked:

Q:At the end of your book, you have only had anal sex with one other man. Now, years later, have you had other anal relationships?

A:I would rather not talk about my personal life.

No...we wouldn't want that. Let's not delve into this woman's personal life, that would be wrong. Where on earth could the interviewer have gotten the impression that this woman wanted to discuss her personal life?

From a reader:

My son recently returned from Fallujah. He's a Marine that was attached to the group now invading. When we discuss the upcoming battle, he expresses regret that he was unable to extend his tour long enough to be "in it" as he puts it. He also relishes the possibility that he'll return there in May or June. His opinion of the struggle?..."We're doin' it right over there. Don't believe everything you hear". Don't lose sight of the big picture.

From a reader, about the Butterfield headline:

It does not surprise me that the liberals see no correlation between crime going down and more criminals behind bars. Liberals also believe that gun control laws will keep guns out of the hands of criminals,…. because criminals would never dream of breaking the law.

Ramblin' and rolling G-File is up. FYI.

Our favorite headline returns again:

Despite Drop in Crime, an Increase in Inmates By Fox Butterfield

The number of inmates in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell.

[Note: If you just arrived, you may not know that Fox Butterfield has been writing this story for years, ever since the crime rate started to drop. Butterfield remains flummoxed by the possibility that filling prisons (AKA the bad people place) causes a drop in crime.]

There's a very easy way to settle the question. Have the hospital give a press conference and have the doctors explain what is wrong with him. If the doctors are remotely ethical and honest (not a huge if, but a significant one) the press and the medical community will be able to weigh the evidence themselves. Answer the question: If he doesn't have it, what's wrong with him?

I'm not very invested in this assault and I don't know if the fight against Specter is winnable. Indeed, I'm fairly skeptical since the one thing we know about Specter is that he's an amoral survivor. Specter represented Ira Einhorn to further his political career for Pete's sake. And he got away with it!

But Specter is worthy of our scorn. If conservatives fail to knock him out, it's not like he'll hate conservatives any less. And the rest of the committee and caucus will be put on notice that undue deference to Chairman Specter is not in their interests. And, if conservatives win, they win. Specter will want revenge of course. But I'm sure he wants that anyway already. And if he's not the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee he'll have less power to inflict it.

At the end of the day, a bad day for Specter is a good day. So give 'em hell as far as I'm concerned.

Specter has been feuding with fellow Republicans in Pennsylvania for years. He feared that the moderately conservative Richard Thornburgh would give him a primary battle in 1986. In 1994, he supported solidly conservative Rick Santorum's successful challenge to Senator Harris Wofford, but only after trying to persuade Senator John Heinz's widow, Teresa, to seek the nomination. (Teresa Heinz is now married to Democratic Senator John Kerry.)

Howard Kurtz on the battle to define the meaning of the election. This is as good a spot as any (since Kurtz quotes me) to clarify and expand my position. I wrote a syndicated column which was perfectly caught up in the momentary hubub about the values issue turnout. I just re-read it and don't disagree with anything I wrote. However, I do think the values thing was overblown. The data don't show that it was as crucial as people thought at first. But, I think part of the hysteria was the result of liberals soothing their bruised egos by convincing themselves Republican voters are barbarians. I would have no problem with the moral values factor being exactly as important as, say, Maureen Dowd fears it is. I just think that's a hard case to make. As David Brooks noted on Saturday and James Q. Wilson notes today.

That puts Frist, who has been criticized for his management of the judicial confirmation debacle, on the spot. He is considering asking the full Republican Conference to waive term limits for Hatch. The majority leader also may let Hatch keep his chairmanship temporarily to handle any immediate Supreme Court vacancy. Frist could mobilize a majority of the Judiciary committee's expected 11 Republicans in the new Congress to breach seniority and bump Specter.

From Reuters:

Arafat Wife Deputies Plotting to 'Bury Him Alive'
Mon Nov 8, 2004 06:23 AM ET

By Wafa Amr

PARIS (Reuters) - Yasser Arafat's wife accused Palestinian leaders on Monday of plotting to "bury him alive," but they decided to go ahead with a visit to the critically ill Palestinian president at a French military hospital.

There is – or was – going to be a public debate in London on the health effects of passive smoking. Not now. Defenders of the notion that passive smoking does indeed have the noxious consequences so often claimed for it proved strangely reluctant to participate. The excuse given was, in essence, that they did not want to dignify the skeptics with a reply.

Perhaps.

More likely that they recognize that trumpeting the supposed dangers of passive smoking is about politics not science, and simply cannot withstand critical scrutiny.

Their silence is thus prudent - and telling.

The best argument for his staying on is his seniority, which puts him in line to be the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that capacity, he would be in a position to block some of the ideologically extreme federal judges likely to be nominated by President Bush in a second term, some of them for the Supreme Court. Before the Post-Gazette editorial board, he promised that no extremists would be approved for the bench. (Emphasis mine.)

>Chief political adviser Karl Rove said Specter has assured the president that he would make certain all of Bush's nominees receive a prompt hearing and an up-or-down vote by the full Senate.

"Senator Specter's a man of his word. We'll take him at his word," Rove said on "Fox News Sunday.)

Yes, really. As this critic would seem to agree, Quelqu’un M’a Dit, a new album from France I bought today from the too often reviled Barnes & Noble is terrific, and delightfully reminiscent of that old Paris of legend, of cigarettes, zinc and interminable conversation.

John Miller can relax, however. The singer, Carla Bruni, is Italian.