I’ve had some interesting responses to my post on this topic on Friday. Most who wrote seem to favor a fairly strict licensing policy, while one reader notes the following:

“Fortunately, an easy answer to your concern exists: The Ohio voucher statute upheld by the US Supreme Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris required participating private schools agree not to discriminate on the basis of race, religion or ethnic background and not to "advocate or foster unlawful behavior or teach hatred of any person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin or religion." (This was cited by Rehnquist, C.J. in his majority opinion.) “

Maybe, but quite how one polices this is a different question altogether.

The Canadian government is, apparently, looking at plans to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. That's something that's long overdue, but it’s a start. Unfortunately, David Murray, a special assistant in the US Office of National Drug Control Policy has been up to Vancouver to suggest to Canada that it just says no.

According to this report, “Murray said that if Canada moves to decriminalize, more young people will use marijuana, police resources will be strapped, and the most vulnerable minority communities will be the most negatively affected by the increased accessibility.”

The first point might well be true, the second almost certainly is not and, as for the third, well, that’s just plain insulting.

The Chirac implosion continues. His ‘Baghdad bounce’ in the polls was always going to be a trap (how could he back down without destroying the credibility he had won with his new supporters?), but it now appears that he will have to extricate himself from the diplomatic mess he has created against a backdrop of rising unpopularity.

Loser.

“To an imagination of any scope the most far-reaching form of power is not money, it is the command of ideas.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 HARV. L. REV. 457, 478 (1897).

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part: I believe the statute before us is unconstitutional in virtually all of its particulars; it breaks faith with the fundamental principle—understood by our nation’s Founding Generation, inscribed in the First Amendment and repeatedly reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court—that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964). My colleagues’ per curiam opinion and their other opinions ignore the statute’s transparent infirmity and leave standing its most pernicious provisions, apparently on the ground that candidatefocused political speech inevitably “corrupts” the individuals to whom it refers. Their reasoning and conclusions treat a First Amendment with which I am not familiar. See Renne v. Geary, 501 U.S. 312, 349 (1991) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (“[T]he prospect that voters might be persuaded by . . . endorsements is not a corruption of the democratic political process; it is the democratic political process.” (emphasis in original)). Further, the opinions are similarly flawed in their dissection of the statute’s dense and interlocking provisions, upholding a portion here and striking down a fragment there until they have drafted legislation the Congress would never have enacted — all in the name of deference to that body.

One does wonder, however, about the privacy of casino records, especially at a time when Las Vegas is running a series of repellant ads whose theme is "Las Vegas: What happens here, stays here."

This (from an article in the March 10 New Yorker by Gary Shteyngart) is too good not to repeat:

“Sorokin is in his mid-forties, and has a broad face, soft eyes, and a chin that ends in a soul patch. He is not a small man, and, dressed in a T-shirt and beach shorts, he lumbers around like the kind of peaceful, intelligent animal that could grace Canadian currency.”

My campaign-finance guru sends me an analysis of the decision from yesterday:

This decision is a pain. It is very BIG, literally. It tackles big issues. It is long. It is coming at a time when people really need settled rules in order to determine how to proceed. Sadly, in this regard, it is also very muddled, as far as I can tell. It contains few fact findings -- and reasoning that is fragmented among three very different perspectives. Now, the Supreme Court, I suspect, is not in much better shape than if they'd just delivered the documents to it and said "Here." But they didn't. Instead they did apply the law to the record, and the result gives the reformers as well as the plaintiffs sort of half-a-loaf.

Specifics: the ability for party committees to continue to use nonfederal funds for party building, voter registration, get out the vote and voter ID helps alot. It permits parties to do what they are suppose to do, and doesn't move this civic activity into the special interest realm (at least not completely).

The electioneering stuff seems like a big step back from the Buckley express advocacy rule, but I haven't been able to get my computer to allow me to READ that part of the decision yet, so I don't want to be real definitive on that question.

… the Rick Hasen election law blog has some decent analysis on the issues raised by this stupid messy opinion. ...he's electionlaw.blogspot.com.

Czech TV seems to have been celebrating the ‘worker’s holiday’ of May 1st in appropriate style, with a 24 hour special dedicated to the joys of Communist TV: Now, that’s what I call a real Twilight Zone marathon.

Amongst the delights:

“On a 1978 visit to Prague, the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev is shown very obviously drunk during a live broadcast of the presentation of medals to party officials. The producer increased the volume of the Czech interpreter's voiceover in an attempt to mask Brezhnev's slurred speech. But there was nothing he could do to conceal the Soviet strongman's swaying or the serial kissing that followed.”

If I remember correctly, the late, unlamented Leonid Ilyich was also responsible for one of the more amusing moments in the history of British journalism. When, some time after the old tyrant's, er, ‘final’ death, it was revealed that a stroke had left Brezhnev incapacitated for his last couple of years, one of the tabloids ran with this headline:

“Russia ruled by red cabbage.”

I think I'm going to scrap Friday's G-File to write about the Bill Bennett thing on Monday. First question though, do any conservatives out there think this is actually a big deal? I don't mean the politics of it. Obviously this will give plenty of new ammo to Bennett-haters who used to mock only his weight. I mean are any conservatives out there truly, deeply disappointed in the guy?

Karlyn Bowman, who analyzes public opinion for the American Enterprise Institute, has put together a compilation of the results of media polls on homosexuality. The data series for one question casts some light on the controversy about same-sex sodomy laws: "Do you think that homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?" As you'd expect, the trend over time is toward greater support for a live-and-let-live policy. The low point for that policy (in Bowman's series) comes in a 1986 Gallup poll, which had people favoring prohibition by 57 to 32 percent. The latest result in the series: In a May 2002 poll, people favored making "homosexual relations" legal by 52-43 percent.

I was surprised at how high the support for prohibition still is. The 43 percent figure cuts both ways. It may make Sen. Santorum's defenders think that his support for sodomy laws does not, by the standards of public opinion, mark him as an "extremist." But it also suggests that those conservatives who oppose sodomy laws but have not said much about the subject--a group that includes myself--are underestimating the usefulness of speaking up against them.

Bowman tells me that a March 2003 Quinnipiac poll asked if people agreed, "in general," with the Supreme Court decision "that allowed states to make homosexual relations illegal." Fifty-seven percent disagreed with the decision, and 38 percent agreed. The polls on the constitutional and the policy question are thus roughly in sync, which is depressing.

is going to be a full-time job for someone at the campaign. You may recall her response to the anonymous White House aide's remark that her husband "looks French": "They'll probably say he's French, he's Jewish... he's a monkey. I just find it sad." Jay Nordlinger commented on her remarks here and here. Wrote Jay: "Whoa, whoa: Jewish? monkey? . . . The Democrats had an actual Jew on the ticket in 2000. I don't recall my party going all brownshirt on him."

Her spokeswoman, Chris Black, has now responded: "She would be shocked that anyone would misconstrue what she said." The story in the Forward continues: "'Ask the people taking offense what they think she meant,' Black added, accusing them of 'trying to distort' Heinz Kerry's meaning and 'making mischief.' As for 'monkey,' it's a term of teasing Heinz Kerry trades with her grandchildren. Think 'Curious George.'" Okay. . . So she's warning people that the Republicans are going to make sweetly teasing remarks about her husband? That's what makes her sad? I think Chris Black is going to deserve a pay raise by the time this campaign is over.

Xavier, rather like the U.N.'s Kofi Annan, thinks everyone should get along as equals, while Magneto, borrowing a page from some in Washington, thinks because mutants are stronger and smarter than anyone else it makes perfect sense that they rule the world.

I know there's probably not a lot of conservatives in the field of movie critics, but the lefty sneers at Rumsfeld & neoconservatism in reviews of the X-Men sequel seem a little over the top.

From the Boston Globe:

"To do away with mutantkind, the administration has acquired the services of William Stryker, a mutant-hunting, liberal-loathing military vet. He's the heavy here, and Brian Cox invests the part with enough hawkish brio to convince you that he's had more than a sip of Rumsfeld punch."

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

"Representing the forces of human bigotry is a new villain - stocky, pockmarked Brian Cox playing former US military scientist Commander Stryker, the kind of extreme-right mutation you might get if you mated a neo-con with the ghost of General Patton."

Could anyone imagine a reviewer writing, "Stryker's militant use of brute force to eliminate the children who he percieves a threat are eerily reminiscent of the heavily-armed troops raiding the Miami household to grab Elian Gonzalez" or even, "Stryker's wildly aggressive use of flashy, heavily-caliber military-style force against a private residence, based on vague, unspecified threats, makes him a clear reflection of a real world danger - he's the Marvel comic book universe's Janet Reno" ?

From a reader in South Carolina. Note: "BSD" is a Derb-readers in-joke.

As I watched the President speak last night and considered the light years
between his appearance in a military setting and how third world
klepto-crats appear in military settings one thought continually kept coming
to my mind: this is a "BSD" moment!

now that the embedded correspondents have returned home, it also appears that we are also going to have "more of the same" when it comes to the reporting on the effort of America's armed forces still in Iraq. Those who now have their quills in barrels of poison ink have the forum. Expect fewer interviews with heroes -- and more criticism of their commander in chief.

From Reuters:

More than 160 foreign artists and intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, have come out in defense of Cuba even as many of their peers condemn recent repression on the Communist-run island....U.S. singer Harry Belafonte and U.S. actor Danny Glover are also among the personalities who have signed the two-paragraph declaration "To the Conscience of the World" so far....

"A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation among countries," the declaration says, referring to the United States and the war in Iraq. "At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion," it continues....

Fierce criticism of Cuba's moves has come not only from Western government's such as the United States, but also from disillusioned foreign writers and artists, apparently sparking the pro-Cuba drive...At the Thursday rally Castro told critics, particularly on the left, that their words could be used to justify a U.S. invasion. The intellectuals who signed the declaration defending Cuba apparently agree, though they did not specifically express support for Castro's policies.

My name is Tallulah My first rule of thumb I don't say where I'm going Or where I'm coming from I try to leave a little reputation behind me So if you really need to You'll know how to find me.”

Nine Israeli wineries won medallions at the Challenge International du Vin at Bordeaux, France, where wineries from 31 countries submitted some 5000 wines, Israel Radio reports.

Another e-mail worth sharing:

All these people accusing Bush of grandstanding are know-nothing schlubs. Most of what they know about the military they got from watching J.A.G. on TV. I was in the Navy and had occasion to land on the U.S.S. Kennedy once. It was one of the most frightening things I ever did. The pilot literally crashes the plane intentionally on the deck and at the point of impact jams the throttle to full power. A hook grabs a steel cable stretched across the deck and slams the plane down hard stopping it in about 60 feet from a speed of over 120mph. There is this tremendous impact and a huge metallic KA-BLAM!! as the plane comes down. At the same instant your spine is decompressing from hitting the deck the deceleration clobbers you too. The four point restraints cut into your shoulders so hard you wince in pain. As your forehead comes to rest on your chest if feels like your head is going to pop off your shoulders. You then slam back into the seat and immediately look out the window hoping your don't see fire and the flight deck crew running away.
You then say to yourself or out loud, "HOLY-_____!!" and then, depending upon your upbringing, add a religious reference or a profanity to it.
I recall being very happy to get back to my "safe" job; jumping out of helicopters into storm tossed seas at night as a rescue swimmer.
The Secret Service must have gone bananas over this idea and the poor flight crew that flew with the POTUS must have been a nervous wreck knowing that the life of the President was in their hands while they crashed/landed on the carrier. You see, most of the aircraft and crews we lose in the Navy are during carrier take-offs and landings. Here is what the President probably did not know. The very best pilots in flight training get to fly combat jets. The guys who do not finish at the top have to take the remaining flight assignments in the order of their academic standing in flight school. In all likelyhood, the plane he flew in was piloted by a flight crew that did not graduate flight training at the top of their class. Not in the middle of their class either.
Everybody on that carrier gets what the President did. Everybody who ever experienced a carrier landing knows what he did.....What he did was this; He exposed himself to a very dangerous experience to show the troops that he was willing to take risks that they take everyday for low pay. Everybody on that ship got that message. It was meant for them, not us. It was by my measure a damned brave thing to do.

Bush emerged in a green flight suit, carrying his helmet, and shouted to reporters, "Yes, I flew it!" He said he had only steered the plane "straight ahead" and wasn't tempted to try to land it.

Andrea Mitchell commented that the President's connection between an Al-Qaeda cell in Baghdad and the Iraqi regime is shaky at best.

Those we lost were last seen on duty. Their final act on this earth was to fight a great evil, and bring liberty to others. All of you--all in this generation of our military--have taken up the highest calling of history. You are defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope--a message that is ancient, and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: "To the captives, 'Come out,'--and to those in darkness, 'Be free.’”

President Bush on the Lincoln: As of tonight, nearly one-half of al-Qaida's senior operatives have been captured or killed.

Let’s add to this:
From Washington Times this morning:

Terrorist attacks decreased sharply worldwide in 2002 to their lowest level since 1969, the State Department's annual report released yesterday shows, and Secretary of State Colin Powell hailed the war on terrorism for foiling the deadly plots.
"The last time the annual total fell below 200 attacks was in 1969, shortly after the advent of modern terrorism," said Cofer Black, State Department coordinator for counterterrorism.

The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11th, 2001, and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men-- the shock troops of a hateful ideology--gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed they could destroy this Nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.

In the images of falling statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, Allied Forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war. Yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.

Admit it--if you saw Clinton (or Gore) pull that type of stunt on the aircraft carrier you would lambaste them for a) abusing their privileges with the military as their personal playground in a time of war, and b) using the military for extremely cynical political gamesmanship. And you would have been right. Bush is not a fighter pilot. He is the CIVILIAN commander-in-chief of the armed forces, not some wanna-be soldier, which is what he clearly looks like here. Can you imagine Presidents Roosevelt, Truman or even Eisenhower doing this? It's beneath the office and beneath the standard of dignity that Bush himself has placed on the administration of the Presidency. Mark this as the GW Bush Jump the Shark Moment--i.e. the point where administration war hubris started to eat away at real geopolitical gains made by this administration. I have generally supported the President in his tackling of very tough national security issues, but this is clearly shameful (and shameless) grandstanding. Not worthy of the most powerful office in the world.

I must dissent. This looks like a stunt designed to generate campaign advertisement footage. Loyal to the core with GWB, except when he engages in cheap marketing.

David Frum says it's going to be the successor to the war on tobacco. David thinks of snobbery as one of the links between these wars.

But I thought that Michael Greve made a smart point to the contrary a few months ago:

"Widespread speculation that the tobacco settlement might generate copycat campaigns against other industries focused on industries that shared tobacco's injury-inducing characteristics and its ill repute, meaning that no New York Times reporter would go near the products--guns, for example, and fast foods. Both industries, however, have suffered only a few wildcatter lawsuits by cities and private plaintiffs. No organized assault has materialized.

"Instead, the litigation industry has zeroed in on financial brokerage houses and pharmaceutical firms--both of which service the intelligentsia, and the latter of which actually save lives. Neither cultural explanations nor product characteristics appear to explain the litigation industry's choice of targets. Nor does the targeted industries' conduct explain that choice. . . . For an explanation, and for a prediction concerning next-on-deck industries, one must look to the political economy of the matter. First, targeted industries will typically be unable to differentiate their products along jurisdictional lines and to control cross-border arbitrage (meaning the unauthorized sale of products from one jurisdiction into another, with much of the proceeds going to middlemen). Second, targeted industries will tend to be highly concentrated. . . .

"The regulatory ambitions imply that the states and the targeted industry as a whole must be able to reach an agreement.

"That ability rises in proportion to industry concentration. At the time of the tobacco settlement, the four major manufacturers supplied 99 percent of the American market. That enormous concentration made it possible to bring the industry to the bargaining table and to monitor the firms' compliance with the agreement. At the other extreme, the fragmentation of the fast food and snack food industry explains why that otherwise vulnerable sector has so far escaped an organized attack. McDonald's and Wendy's can deal and comply. Thousands of smaller competitors do not, and the business is not amenable to entry controls. The litigation industry's attacks on investment and pharmaceutical firms are effectively a bet that those sectors are sufficiently cohesive and concentrated to cut a deal" (footnote omitted).

From the Media Research Center:

Although the Telegraph began reporting on documents showing Galloway’s payoffs on April 22, it’s been blacked out at ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as CNN, NPR, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. But the outlets most responsible to follow the money trail to Galloway and other anti-war voices are the outlets who promoted them on American airwaves.

• ABC has publicized Galloway the most on American TV, starting on the February 13, 1991 World News Tonight, as he decried the Allied bombing of Iraq. On the August 12, 2002 World News Tonight, reporter John McWethy reported on his Saddam visit: “Galloway, who vehemently opposes U.S. efforts to overthrow the Iraqi leader, said he found Saddam Hussein to be quote, ‘radiating a Zen-like calm.’”

The January 20, 2003 Nightline featured Galloway (see box), and on February 27, Good Morning America co-host Diane Sawyer highlighted a soundbite of Galloway’s House of Commons remarks as “a wake-up call for me, listening about the view of Americans.” Galloway denounced how “this born again, right-wing, Bible-belting, fundamentalist, Republican administration in the United States wants war.”

• CBS: On the August 14, 2002 Early Show, then-co-host Jane Clayson interviewed Galloway, introducing him as “an outspoken supporter of Hussein.” He protested: “I am an opponent of Saddam Hussein, but an opponent also, of the sanctions that have killed a million Iraqi children and an opponent of the United States’ apparent desire to plunge the Middle East into a new and devastating war.” Clayson asked Galloway if “you feel used in any way” by Saddam, to which he said, “no...not remotely.”

• NBC: On September 24, 2002, an “In Their Own Words” segment on NBC Nightly News spotlighted several British leaders debating Iraq, which included Galloway’s take on Bush: “The British people have seen the President, heard the President, and they think they’re estimating him just about right as not a man that we would want to be at the wheel of the car as we drive along the edge of a cliff with ourselves sitting in the back seat.” On February 26, 2003, Nightly News also used Galloway’s “born-again, right-wing, Bible-belting” crack.

No one faults the networks for featuring arguments from British anti-war leaders as Britain debated the war. But the new bribery revelations show Galloway was a tyrant-paid flack, not a sincere anti-war spokesman. Continued silence suggests journalists care more about protecting what’s left of the anti-war activists’ appeal than they do about investigative journalism in the war’s aftermath. -- Tim Graham

Look, I'm just an old M1 tank guy, but trapping the 4-wire is NOT a perfect landing. That pilot is going to be ribbed forever about almost doing a touch-n-go with the POTUS in an eject seat. It looked great to the unschooled eye, but to the guys who drop tail hooks, it was a grade "D". OTOH, our CinC looks just like another fighter jock. Fit, trim, looked like he was entirely in his element. The right man for the right time.

You just can't conceive of how much we love this guy. He commands an unprecedented amount of loyalty and respect among the armed forces. He not only walks the walk, he gets the trap (Navy talk). We don't think of him as a stud; he is so much more than that. He is the guy you hang with in the flight room, the guy you hunker down in the bunker with. He is the commander that is the first on the field and the last off. He is the guy you kneel down and pray with prior to putting your life on the line one more time. He is much more than a stud, he is a fighter jock. There are few in all of the armed forces who wouldn't march into Hell for him.