(Boffo British TV drama series about the English Civil War): Anybody know a
way to put pressure on the BBC or PBS to get this out on DVD? Lots of
readers remember it being really good. Sample:

"John---I remember this series well. It was quite sympathetic to the
Royalists and (it seems to me) presented the Roundheads as hypocritical
proto nanny statists. There was a scene where one of the Roundheads rode
into a little town on horseback, proclaiming 'I have come to set you free.'
Someone shouted back at him: 'We *are* free. We just want to be left
alone.' My philosophy in a nutshell.---Regards..."

And yes, I am now aware that I was until yesterday the only inhabitant of
Western Civilization who did not know that Jeremy Clyde (the actor who so
superbly played Charls I in BTSD) was one half of the 1960s singing duo Chad
and Jeremy, sort of Peter and Gordon knockoffs.

Surreally entertaining Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee is at it again, this time in an article on the UK’s international role. As usual, her real message is that Britain should integrate itself ever deeper into the EU. Madness? Apparently not. Readers are told this:

“Average wages in western Europe are far higher than ours, their standard of living better, yet we brag about our brief recent economic growth while conveniently forgetting how far behind we remain. Won the war, lost the peace is still true.”

Blimey, crikey, strewth, tear up that Union Flag, scrap that awkward history, is it time for Brits to sign up for that El Dorado across the English Channel? Er, well, no. Indefatigable Toynbee fact- checker Scott Burgess has this to say:

“Polly must have missed the latest report from Eurostat (PDF), which states that "the MS [EU member states] with the highest level of earnings are Denmark and the United Kingdom. If we compare "Average gross annual earnings in industry and services of full-time employees in enterprises with 10 or more employees," we find that, of European countries, only Switzerland, Norway and Denmark have higher earning levels. Indeed, 2001 figures (the latest complete dataset) put UK earnings at 22% higher than the 15 nation EU average. "Far higher," one might even say.”

Ha ha ha.

I note that poor Polly also refers to the UK’s veto-wielding position on the UN Security council as “unearned.” Now, it’s quite possible to argue (I wouldn’t, but it’s at least possible) that the UK should no longer have that role, but to call it “unearned” seems a little hard on the Brits, at least to anyone who recalls what happened between 1939 and 1945. Something, about a war, I think.

Several readers have let me know that I have let Wilson off too easy. They make some good points. For future reference, all criticisms of Joe Wilson should be considered partial, not exhaustive. Anyway, here's one:

You let Wilson off too easy.

Wilson wrote:

"Other inaccuracies and distortions include the suggestion that my findings "bolstered" the case that Niger was engaged in illegal sales of uranium to Iraq."

Wilson is attempting to frame the issue in a completely misleading way that you overlooked and fell prey to.

I don't know of anyone who thinks that Wilson's findings bolstered the case the "Niger was engaged in the illegal sales of uranium to Iraq." What Wilson's findings did, in fact bolster (and not merely fail to debunk) was the case that "Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger." Those are two completely different things. Whether Niger reciprocated has nothing to do with Iraq's intentions. After all, there are sources other than Niger that Iraq could have turned to.

The news that the administration will extend Medicare coverage for certain ‘anti-obesity’ treatments is bad news for the budget (well, we are talking about the Bush administration), bad news for those of us who believe in personal responsibility, bad news for the food industry, and bad news for freedom. Why the last two? Well, by apportioning some of the costs of the so-called obesity crisis onto the taxpayer, the White House is paving the way for food mullahs to argue for ever more regulation of ‘junk food’, portion size and so on. The rationale for such intervention? Well, you heard it in the tobacco wars. If we all pay for obesity (just as we all supposedly paid for the costs of cigarette addiction), the government has some sort of right to tell people what to eat.

Trial lawyers will be thrilled. Perhaps some of them should take Health and Human Services secretary Thompson for a celebratory meal. Low fat, of course.

As he contemplates the wreckage of his presidency, Jacques Chirac is displaying increasing signs of instability. Perhaps the prospect of prosecution (as president he is immune from indictment for, uh, questionable behavior while mayor of Paris) is proving a little unsettling. In any event, restlessness in the ranks of the French right over the failures of his administration, are increasing. Step forward Nicolas Sarkozy.

Now read on. And enjoy.

Joe Wilson responds to the Washington Post today. On the question of whether or not his wife pushed him for the job, he writes:

The decision to send me to Niger was not made, and could not be made, by Valerie. At the conclusion of a meeting that she did not attend, I was asked by CIA officials whether I would be willing to travel to Niger. While a CIA reports officer and a State Department analyst, both cited in the report, speculate about what happened, neither of them was in the chain of command that made the decision to send me. Reams of documents were given over to the Senate committee, but the only quotation attributed to my wife on this subject was the anodyne "my husband has good relations with both the PM (Prime Minister) and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." In fact, with 2-year-old twins at home, Valerie did not relish my absence for a two-week period. But she acquiesced because, in the zeal to be responsive to the legitimate concerns raised by the vice president, officials of her agency turned to a known functionary who had previously checked out uranium-related questions for them. [Italics mine]

This is misdirection. As best I recall, the charge was never that Wilson's wife made the "decision" to send him to Niger. It was that she promoted him for the job which, until recently, he categorically denied (or he made it sound like he was categorically denying it). I'm sure Wilson's telling the truth here. But so what? He can also deny that his wife was the the second gunman on the grassy knoll, and that would be just as relevant. Wilson now makes no attempt here to claim that his wife didn't tout him for the job. That is quite telling.

Wilson continues:

But that is not the only inaccurate assertion or conclusion in the Senate report uncritically parroted in the article. Other inaccuracies and distortions include the suggestion that my findings "bolstered" the case that Niger was engaged in illegal sales of uranium to Iraq. In fact, the Senate report is clear that the intelligence community attempted to keep the claim out of presidential documents because of the weakness of the evidence.

More misdirection. Wilson claimed that he had debunked the Iraq-seeking-Yellocake story. This was the premise for the "Bush-lied" hysteria which ensued. Now he's arguing that his report merely didn't "bolster" the case that Iraq sought uranium. I think he's on thin ground here too. But saying "I didn't bolster the case" is a far cry from saying "I debunked it." It's now pretty clear, in the wake of the British and Senate reports, that the uranium question was an open one. Wilson claimed, or gave the impression, that it was a closed one. Indeed, Wilson freelanced that Bush was a liar about the Yellowcake story when he clearly didn't have all of the facts. That much is still obviously true. Whether or not Wilson's report bolstered the case that Iraq sought Uranium from Niger or not is an important question insofar as it would help demonstrate the degree of Wilson's dishonesty, but not the fact that he has been deeply dishonest.

Also: For a detailed response to Wilson's letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee see Tom Maquire here.

Jonah:

On a quick'n'dirty pass thru the data, I don't see any significance -- I mean, bias towards oldest-sibling in getting to be President.

Just tallying numbers of siblings where known, and ignoring all complications about adoption, half-siblings, etc., we have the following list for the 41 Presidents for whom we have data:

{5,9,11,4,4,2,4,1,7,9,8,8,6,10,2,1,5,1,4,7,8,9,8,4,3,3,7,1,2,1,2,6,8,4,4,6,3
,1,4,1,5}

If we go through and tally whether or not each President was the oldest
among his siblings, we get this corresponding list:

{Y,N,Y,N,N,N,Y,Y,N,Y,N,N,N,Y,N,N,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,Y,Y,N,N,Y,N,N,Y,N,Y,Y,N
,N,Y,Y}

...for a total of 15 Ys.

Now go back to the first list and ask: Suppose a RANDOM sibling, in each of
the 41 cases, got to be President. How many Ys would we expect to get?

So I did this:

---Generate a random integer from 1 to 5. (That is, roll a 5-sided die.)
If it's 1, count a "Y", otherwise count a "N".

---Generate a random integer from 1 to 9. (That is, roll a 9-sided die.)
If it's 1, count a "Y", otherwise count a "N".

---Generate a random integer from 1 to 11. (That is, roll an 11-sided die.)

If it's 1, count a "Y", otherwise count a "N"....(all the way through the 41).

Count how many Ys you got (so this will be some number from 0 to 41).
Now repeat this entire process 10,000 times, noting how many Ys you got each
time.

This gives you a list of 10,000 numbers, each in the range 0 to 41.
When I actually did this, the smallest number of Ys in any of the 10,000
trials was 8; the largest number, 24. Here
http://www.olimu.com/Notes/PresidentialBirthOrder.jpg is the actual
distribution I got.

As you can see, 15 is whack darn in the thickest part of the distribution
(in statistical jargon, around the mode). That's why I don't see any bias.

I conclude that being oldest sibling gives no advantage in the Presidential
stakes.

This is, however, as I said, just a quick'n'dirty first pass at the data.
You can always squeeze a bit more out of data. You could give more weight
to Presidents in earlier times, when families were bigger; or eliminate
female siblings, etc. etc. But I gotta mow the lawn.

This should be more than enough data for the Derb. From a reader:

Name # of Siblings Oldest? Oldest Boy?

G. Washington 5 Y Y

J. Adams 0 n/a n/a

T. Jefferson 9 N Y

J. Madison 11 Y Y

J. Monroe 4 N Y

J Q Adams 4 N Y

A Jackson 2 N N

M Van Buren 4 Y Y

Wm H. Harrison 1 Y Y

J Tyler 7 N N

J. Polk 9 Y Y

Z Taylor 8 N N

M Fillmore 8 N Y

F. Pierce 6 N N

J Buchanan 10 Y Y

A Lincoln 2 N Y

A Johnson 1 N N

US Grant 5 Y Y

R Hayes* (Older bro died when he was 3) 1 N Y

J Garfield 4 N N

C Arthur 7 N Y

G Cleveland 8 N N

B Harrison 9 N N

Wm McKinley 8 N N

T Roosevelt 4 N Y

W Taft* Oldest Surviving 3 N N*

W Wilson 3 N Y

W Harding 7 Y Y

C Coolidge 1 Y Y

H Hoover 2 N N

FDR * 1 half brother 0 N* N*

H Truman 2 Y Y

DDE 6 N N

JFK* 8 N N* (Oldest surviving when elected)

LBJ 4 Y Y

R Nixon* Oldest surviving 4 N* N*

G Ford* (6 half siblings) 0 Y Y

J Carter 3 Y Y

R Reagan 1 N N

G HW Bush 4 N N

W Clinton* 1 half brother 0 Y Y

G W Bush 5 Y Y

From a reader:

Hi Jonah, Why are we not surprised. We have instituted parental controls on access to aol for our kids. I was amused (dismayed) to discover that I could not access NRO (my favorite site) while on their account. I was led to check out a few more sites both liberal and conservative to see which were allowed and which not. This is far from an exhaustive list but gives you the flavor. NRO - no The New Republic - yes Washinton Times - no Washinton Post - yes Heritage Foundation - no Brookings Institution - yes American Spectator - no The Nation - yes Progressive Review - yes New York Review of Books - yes Talking Points Memo - yes Instapundit - yes Michaelmoore.com - yes NY Times (kiddie edition only allowed) NY Post - no LA Times - no Guardian UK - yes Some surprises: Realclearpolitics.com - yes marksteyn.com - yes kausfiles.com - no I think you all at NRO need to complain. Conservative ideas definitely are not harmful to kids. Best regards and keep up the good work.

Several responses:

Jonah, Slow day here at work, so I ran your numbers. Assuming almost half of 43 to equal 21 and about 13 to equal 15, the relationship is statistically not significant (by Fisher's Exact Test). In fact, the p value is greater than 13% (while <5% is usually considered the point of significance). So, while it might be suggestive, you will have to wait until the sample size is considerably larger to see if the apparently higher prevalence of first borns among US Presidents is anything more than random chance.

And...

Jonah, I don't think that stat means much. This is my off-the-cuff, 2-minute so I don't kill too much time version. By the way, I'm an actuary, which means I actually like this stuff. Let's start with simple distribution of family size similar to today's (and I'm estimating here): 1/3 of families: 1 kid 1/3 of families: 2 kids 1/3 of families: 3 kids. From the above distribution, if you select kids randomly, 50% are going to be first kids. There are 3 first kids out of 6 total kids; that's where 50% comes from. Now another question comes into play. When the study says firstborns, does that mean firstborn males only, or firstborn period? If it means firstborn period, then we would actually expect on 25% firstborn males, so your study would be pretty significant. If it means firstborn male, then we would actually expect the number of firstborns to be somewhat higher than 50% (using the above distribution) because a male could be born 2nd and still be the firstborn male. Throughout history, family size has been larger, so these numbers would be reduced somewhat. All-in-all, if it's firstborn period, you've got a significant stat. If it's firstborn male, I think you've got a "doesn't mean much" stat.

And...

Please. While there might be a small statistical variation because families were bigger way back when, I would think that we have not reached a point where the numbers mean anything. I just rolled a dice 43 times. 14 sixes came up. That’s 33% of the time when statistically, the odds are that I’ll roll a six 16.6%. If I roll the dice a thousand times, maybe we’ll see a more even distribution.

I feel cheated. I want back the five minutes I put into this exercise. CNN should be ashamed; this falls under the WGAS banner anyway.

Me: One request: If you disagree with the number crunching on display in these emails, please ask yourself -- before you email me about it -- whether you so passionately disagree that it's worth carrying on this conversation far outside the borders of actually being interesting.

DUBAI: Hundreds of alleged members of Al Qaeda, including 18 of its top leaders, and other terror groups are living in Iran, some under tight security, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Thursday. “More than 384 members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations are present in Iran, including 18 senior leaders of Osama bin Laden’s network,” the London-based daily said, citing a senior source in the Iranian presidency. The Saudi-owned newspaper said the terrorist leaders were living under tight protection, some of them in villas in the Namak Abrud region, near the town of Chalous on the Caspian coast, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Tehran. Others are living in Lavizan, in the north-west of the capital, and which also houses a large military complex, it added. The report could not be verified in Tehran. According to the source, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad convinced Tehran, during his visit to Iran early this month, of the “seriousness” of using Al Qaeda elements in Iran as a card in its policy with the United States. afp

From a reader:

Dunno about Derb, but I think it's statistically noteworthy.

My own subjective but (insofar as I know) unbiased inspection would put the equal-distribution percentage at somewhere around a third. And as the missus pointed out, at least in the 1800's families were routinely larger than merely three kids. That would drag my gut percentage even lower.

But say that in this timespan, 33% of all males are firstborn or only children. The report you cite says "nearly half" so put it around 47%. That makes a firstborn/only male child 14% more likely than not to be president. Not huge news but I'd elevate it to "of interest."

I eagerly await the "real" opinion from Derb. But there's mine.

"We had testimony a couple of months ago from the past president of United, and current president of American Airlines that kind of shocked us all," Lehman told me. "They said under oath that indeed the Department of Transportation continued to fine any airline that was caught having more than two people of the same ethnic persuasion in a secondary line for line for questioning, including and especially, two Arabs."

Wait a minute. So if airline security had three suspicious Arab guys they had had to let one go because they'd reached a quota?

That was it, Lehman said, "because of this political correctness that became so entrenched in the 1990s, and continues in current administration. No one approves of racial profiling, that is not the issue. The fact is that Norwegian women are not, and 85-year-old women with aluminum walkers are not, the source of the terrorist threat. The fact is that our enemy is the violent Islamic extremism and the overwhelming number of people that one need to worry about are young Arab males, and to ask them a couple of extra questions seems to me to be common sense, yet if an airline does that in numbers that are more than proportionate to their number in particular line, then they get fined and that is why you see so many blue haired old ladies and people that are clearly not of Middle Eastern extraction being hauled out in such numbers because otherwise they get fined."

Salvatore: Every major civil rights movement in this country has eventually prevailed. Looking through the prism of history, do you feel that same-sex marriage is inevitable in America as a legal right?

Senator Kerry: I can’t predict what’s inevitable in America. I think it’s important to protect people’s rights. And in my own personal judgment--somebody may deem me wrong, I may be wrong--but my judgment is that balance of respecting rights and tradition--[his cell phone rings.] excuse me one second.

Salvatore: Mrs. Heinz Kerry, is your opinion about same-sex marriage different from your husband’s?

Mrs. Heinz Kerry: I wish there was another word other than “union” or contracts” that signifies such a relationship. To me, a marriage has always been Mom and Dad. On the other hand, you have children who are adopted, and/or are the children of same-sex marriages--moms and moms or dads and dads--and that’s a dilemma. And I’ve been thinking about that. So it should be acknowledging a formality that’s not just a contract. But as a mother, I would like to be able to open my arms to someone that my child or children loved, whether or not they were what I would normally expect them to be. And I would not like to feel stigmatized by my friends. I would like my children not to suffer from it. I’d like them to be as welcome and as happy and as much a member of the family as anyone else. I speak as a mother. And that’s all I think we owe to one another--respect and dignity and civil rights, and peace.

Salvatore: Senator, you were saying?

Senator Kerry: It’s not too dissimilar. Teresa raises an interesting question. Civil union is a way of respecting the rights in the fullest way, providing you have federal assumption. Marriage, in the way we’ve thought of it in terms of men and women, is a way of respecting a traditional value that has great meaning across the country. I’ve thought of it as a fair way of respecting both.

Mrs. Heinz Kerry: The problem is the kids.

Senator Kerry: Sweetie, I understand. But--

Mrs. Heinz Kerry: For a little kid who goes to school and feels like your mom and mom are not married--

Senator Kerry: Yeah, but not all things apply to all people, anyway.

Mrs. Heinz Kerry: No, but something else. Another word. First of all, I don’t think the country is even ready to discuss this properly. It’s foreign to a lot of us. And so for the time being, I would say, absolute civil rights, absolute respect, absolute dignity. And I wish we could find something that held sacred the commitment, in a way that didn’t shake anybody else’s foundation.

Is it me, or don't you think you would have first heard about this from the "Today Show" and not Tech Central Station if it was about Bill Clinton keeping a promise to a wounded soldier? Here's the opener:

This sounds like a scene from some weepy, bad movie.

There's this young Army National Guard sergeant lying in bed at an Army hospital.

He's really down. He lost his right leg to a landmine in Afghanistan. Lot of hustle and bustle out in the hall. Someone's coming to visit the wounded.

Turns out it's the President of the United States.

He stops by the young sergeant's bed. They talk. It's a little awkward. What do you say to a guy that loves to run, loves physical activity, and now his leg is gone from the knee down.

But this sergeant tries to be upbeat and he's been told all about prosthetic legs and he has resolved that, dammit, one day he'll run again.

The President is impressed. Tell you what, he says to the sergeant, let's keep in touch and when you're ready to run a mile I'll run it with you.

Yeah, sure.

But, sure enough, a year and a half later, there's this young sergeant in shorts and an Army windbreaker, running on his prosthetic leg. And running beside him? The President of the United States.....

I confess it took some serious imagination to answer some of these questions! But it was, like, totally cool and I'm, like, way psyched to be a "Mary-Kate." OMG!!!!!

Salon.com has a "defense" of Joe Wilson. For the most part, the piece is a dull, he-said she-said about the controversy so far, generally sympathetic to Wilson, with some sneaky bits hid in the dull prose in order to make them seem more reasonable. For example the author, Mary Jacoby, says "But no sale of uranium ever took place, Wilson reported, and that conclusion is not in dispute." That's true, but Bush never said Iraq purchased the uranium, he merely said Iraq sought it. Wilson said Iraq didn't and that his cryptic sweet-tea swilling conversations proved it. That's the part that's in dispute. Nobody sent Wilson to Africa because they thought Iraq actually obtained the uranium. This is a back-handed way of bolstering Wilson's "credibility" in an area where it was never questioned. Wilson, by the way, also contends that Africa is by and large a very hot contintent with many exotic animals. That conclusion is not in dispute either.

Another minor cheap bit is the author's positive gloss on the memo from Plame touting her husband. Jacoby writes:

The report also quotes an internal CIA memo written by Wilson's wife, Plame, stating: "my husband has good relations with both the PM (prime minister) and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." Based on Plame's internal memo and other evidence, three Republicans -- Roberts and Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Kit Bond of Missouri -- wrote additional views appended to the report, concluding that "the plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested" by Plame.The three GOP senators criticized their Democratic counterparts on the panel for refusing to endorse this conclusion.

In his letter to the committee, Wilson disputed the Republican senators' characterization. "There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip," he wrote. A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment. In an interview, Wilson said that his wife was stating facts about his background, not pushing that he go to Niger.

Two things: First, if I declare I really need a great personal assistant and someone sends me an email saying "My husband can type 150 words per minute. He's very well organized, sharp and has great research skills" -- that would strike me as an effort to push her husband for the job. Second, Jacoby notes that Wilson disputes the memo's significance. What about "the other evidence" used to draw the conclusion Plame touted Wilson for the job?

Anyway, there are a few other clever sentences like that in the piece. But the only truly annoying assertion is in the opening. The author begins:

Choreographed editorials and Op-Ed pieces on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal and National Review and by conservative columnist Robert Novak signaled the revving up of a Republican campaign to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his claims that President Bush trumpeted flimsy intelligence in the drive to invade Iraq.

"Choreographed"? Where does Jacoby get this? Where is the evidence? Consider the irony for a moment. The whole debate about "Bush lied," WMDs, etc. is about whether or not various facts and developments were intentional or not. Were all of the CIA mistakes actually lies? Was every thing which went wrong done on purpose? And here Salon blithely asserts that conservatives colluded to attack Wilson upon the release of this report.

I know, I know, the Salon style manual seems to insist that all inconvenient arguments from the Right are coordinated for maximum effect. Sidney Blumenthal is their Washington Editor after all. But, seriously, where is the evidence for this? As someone fairly deep inside the "right wing attack machine" or whatever those guys call it this week, I can tell you for a fact that I saw no coordination. Most of the reaction was initially driven by bloggers (including yours truly). Salon should know that you can't "choreograph" bloggers. And I defy them to prove that Bob Novak was being choreographed. That's just flatly dumb and defies common sense. Is Jacoby lying on orders from Blumenthal? Or is she simply imagining things? I mean, come on, there is some actual merit to the case that Wilson deliberately lied for partisan reasons about some of the most serious issues imagineable. That's pretty much been proven. The case that Bush lied, meanwhile, continues to fall apart.

UPDATE Jacoby was Wes Clark's press secretary.

He also dipped into Scripture, quoting Matthew. "My faith teaches me, 'Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,' " he said. "Let me tell you where my heart is: it's with the middle class, who are the heart of this country. It's with the working families who built this country.

After his speech to the NAACP, Kerry visited voters on a front porch in the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdowne. At the two-story brick home of Bill and Mary Kay Bowden, Kerry took questions from a crowd of about 100 people gathered on folding chairs in the front yard.

Two neighborhood boys offered their opinions about the war in Iraq, with one calling it evil and the other calling it necessary. Kerry, who voted to give Bush warmaking authority, did not dispute either opinion.

I also watched the Andrea Mitchell report on Joe Wilson and found it disconcerting (the nicest thing I can saw about an Andrea Mitchell report). Ms. Mitchell reported that Ms. Plame was a "covert operative" within the CIA. I don't believe that is true. Ms. Plame was an analyst and and expert in arms proliferation at the time of the Wilson mission to Niger; however, I can concede that at some time in her career she was "covert". For the present, the only thing covert about Ms. Plame, fleetingly, was her sponsoring Wilson for some pool-side tea-sipping far, far away.

Another thing too, Ms. Mitchell wrapped up her report by saying that the Senate report only "adds to the confusion" about Wilson's role (and implicitly, the role of his wife). My take is that the Senate report demonstrates that Wilson's a liar and Plame's to blame. Mitchell, chief NBC correspondent of something, demonstrated that she's still a network toady.

Here is what will happen later this month at the Dem convention:

There will be a groundswell of "draft Hillary" sentiment, but it will be for the Presidential nomination, not VP. She will emerge as the Dem candidate for President for '04. Perhaps with Kerry as her VP candidate, perhaps she'll tap Edwards.

I'm not sure what type of skulduggery the Clinton's and their allies will engage in, but it will be effective, and it will start soon. Perhaps they'll "prove" that Kerry is French.

From Gphiler Eric Spratling:

Jonah, You mention that Kerry (aka "John Kerry President!") is an incedibly boring etc. public speaker. That's true, but a month or two ago I heard a clip of him on the radio, and it occurred to me why his speaking persona REALLY bothers me: He ends *every* *single* *sentence* as if it were an applause line. Seriously. I mean he's trying to deliver each individual line as if it were the rhetorical climax at the end of a huge dramatic build-up. I'd imitate it for you but it's hard to get across in text. If you can stand a geek analogy, it's sort of like the "Death of Superman" comic book issue from back when, wherein every single panel was a full-page spread of Supes and Doomsday clobbering each other (most of them unrelated to the previous one, I might add); it looked pretty but the attempted drama it was going for got old real fast. Anyone can say what they will about GWB's speaking abilities, but, for the zillionth time, I'd rather have an imperfect but genuine public speaker than a phony and demagogic speaker. Oh, spoiler warning for the death of Superman above, by the way.

If you're tired of reading this exchange on federalism and social issues, read my piece today about trial lawyer Fred Baron. My emailer again (whose emails I always appreciate, in case people can't tell from the fact that I'm spending so much time on them today):

Let me just say that I feel strongly that if a state passes a law which seriously infringes upon the rights to life or liberty of free citizens, then the Federal government has an interest in acting. You mentioned child abuse. If a state or states made child abuse legal (or at least decriminalized it), then I would have no problem with the Feds stepping in and saying, "You can't do that." States may have different laws regarding child abuse, but all of them criminalize it and punish offenders in at least a minimally acceptable manner.

Yes, if abortion were only legal in one state, then it might be easier as a practical matter to fight it in that one state. But if the effort were unsuccessful, or if other states started hinting that they, too, would like to legalize it, then an amendment would be in order.

In this case, abortion is legal in all 50 states thanks to the Roe decision. If Roe were overturned tomorrow, it would have the same effect as a constitutional amendment assigning the matter of abortion to the states. We could probably expect that about half the states would then outlaw abortion outright, with a few more severely restricting it. So there we would sit, with millions of babies continuing to be killed. I just don't see this as a tenable position, any more than was the position of those who felt that slavery and Jim Crow should have been left to the states.

My response: The question in our debate has not been whether it would be wrong for the federal government to step in one or more states legalized abortion or child abuse; it has been whether it would be wrong for it not to step in.

Pro-lifers have spent more time and energy over the last 20 years trying to get Roe reversed than trying to pass a Human Life Amendment. The movement is theoretically on the same page as my e-mailer: Most pro-lifers do seem to think that to move away from a constitutional ban, at least as a long-term goal, is a surrender of principle. Practically speaking, the movement has for the most part been trying to get the issue back to the states. (I don't think the campaign for federal and state bans on partial-birth abortion invalidates this point.) I don't think this has been a retreat from principle.

In a post-Roe world, a few states might generally ban abortion, several would generally permit it, and many would regulate it much more than they do now. Pro-lifers would work in those states to get as much protection for the unborn as possible. They might find that calling for a federal constitutional ban on abortion was an important part of their strategy in getting more protection. But while they worked for that long-term goal, they would be trying to ban it state by state. If they were successful in the constitutional campaign, presumably they would first have to be successful in many states.

By the time you could amend the Constitution, you would have to have most states in the pro-life camp already. Maybe--this is a fantastically optimistic projection, but the idea that you would be near ratification of the amendment is fantastically optimistic to begin with--you would have six states left that allowed abortion. Under those circumstances, it might well make sense to have a federal constitutional amendment. It would give the pro-life policy more durability, include those states even if majorities there were recalcitrant, etc. On the other hand, it might still work better to work within those six states. Maybe by that point you would have a consensus in 44 states to ban abortion, but still have many voters there who find the idea of amending the Constitution radical, or don't wish to dictate to other states' citizens; or maybe there would be other factors that made an amendment harder to accomplish. (I'm not saying those voters' judgments would be right.) Maybe, even under those circumstances, it would be wisest of pro-lifers not to go the federal constitutional route, or at least not to put 9/10ths of their energies into that effort.

You could end the day banning abortion in all fifty states; or banning it in the federal Constitution; or just working forever to change the law in those states. Throughout any of these possible future histories, pro-lifers could have done everything in their power at every point to protect unborn life without ever necessarily making a big push to amend the federal Constitution. How best to advance the principle that unborn life must be protected in law is itself a question of prudence, not principle.

If you have any remaining shreds of doubt that Tony Blair's Labour Party is dedicated to unecessary meddling, read this:

"A minister for the Olympics could be appointed as part of the summer reshuffle, to increase London's chances of securing the Games in 2012."

The Olympics are not only dull, corrupt and riddled with hubris, they are a blight on any city on which they descend. If he possessed any commonsense, Blair would appoint a minister to save London from this menace. Meanwhile, Nurse Bloomberg, a man on a mission to make life in New York City as miserable as possible, is doing his best to bring the revolting Olympics spectacle to the Big Apple. No surprises there. Hopefully, neither man will prevail.

Go, Paris, go!

London (CNN) - Another Saudi militant has given himself up, this time in Damascus, according to Saudi security sources. Details are sketchy, but Ibrahim al-Harbi gave himself up to the Saudi Embassy in Damascus today. He is said to have been with bin Laden in Afghanistan after 9/11 but there was little other detail about him.

Two days ago, Khalid al-Harbi surrendered to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. Both men, who are thought to be from the same Saudi tribe but not necessarily closely related, were said to be taking advantage of an offer of amnesty extended by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah last month

My emailer is not giving up that easily: We "let" each state decide how to punish most murderers, but only within prescribed Federal court-mandated parameters. States are only allowed to implement the death penalty because the Supreme Court has deemed that it does not constitute cruel or unusual punishment for certain types of major criminals. Let a state pass a law that allows capital punishment for shoplifting and see how fast the Federal courts stop it!

I admit ignorance on the history of legalized abortion in this country, but I assume from your message that 1960 was the year that a state first legalized abortion. [I just used 1960 because I know all states prohibited abortion at that time, and was too lazy to look up which year the first legalization took place. -- RP] Going with this assumption, then no, the U.S. was not unprincipled from 1889-1960 because n