From a reader:

Jonah

Your reader is correct that government implementation of no-fault divorce the government is just a poor alternative to having government out of business of marriage.

Once you lessen the contract to the point that either party can break the contact without showing fault you have gone most of the way down the path to saying the contact is not binding. In that case, why have a contract?

No fault divorce for couples without children makes little sense but when children are added it makes none.

A government that aids in the destruction of the individual or the family is a government that no longer deserves to exist.

Another view:

Shame on you Jonah!

Of course the government can act to lower the divorce rate; the government
is a major reason the divorce rate is so high in the first place. When
no-fault divorce laws were passed in the 1960s and 70s, they had the effect
of nullifying validly entered contracts. That was when government destroyed
the institution of marriage.

Traditionally, a marriage was an agreement to share responsibilities for the
natural consequence of sex, children, since a woman is made economically
vulnerable by the necessity of raising a child. No-fault divorce freed men
from their side of the bargain. (And of course the propaganda around the
pill meant that sex was disassociated from reproduction.) Today, women are
too scared that they may end up divorced to leave their careers for their
children.

We might never be able to legislate morality in the sense of effectively
banning extramarital sex, but we can certainly establish that a deal's a
deal, and re-establish the legal binding of a marriage contract. It would
probably take a generation or two before women started relying on their
husbands again. And there would certainly be large numbers of Americans who
simply don't care to get married. But it would help.

Dan Marsh
Use it if you want.

From a reader re today's column:

Mr. Goldberg-

After I read the column, I couldn’t help think of an enraged McEnroe screaming, “You cannot be serious!"

The biggest problem I have with Dr. Horn’s response is the statement, “Unless we reverse the decline of marriage …”

Who are the “we” he is referring to? No one in their right mind could possibly think that the government could, by any means, find a way to curtail the rising divorce rate in this country.

I cannot speak to any other faith, but within the Christian community the divorce rate matches the national average, and in some regions it is higher. So, I better not hear of any faith based groups jumping on the band wagon of a similar, nonsensical initiative. All one needs to do is look at the success rate of church based counseling to have a clue as to what a government based service would look like. Remember, in a government based game, God will be nonexistent and therefore the ‘guilt card’ will not be in the deck.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows why the divorce rate continues to climb, and it doesn’t involve the level of ones devotion to the Almighty.

It involves the level of ones devotion to their spouse and their children. I’m sorry, but the high level of devotion required is obviously not priority in the majority of marriages, and who for one minute thinks the government has an answer for that.

My wife and I would love to have a little house out on the prairie, and have Charles, Caroline and the girls over for dinner. Wouldn’t that make things so much easier? Well, it ain’t happening. What can happen is that we continue to work diligently to honor each other and our marriage by honoring the commitment we made 15 years ago within the ever evolving framework of society, and devoting ourselves to the needs of our 4 children.

The bottom line: If you have no idea what it means to truly devote your life to someone, please stay as far away from the altar as possible.

We all know this could never, and should never, be communicated via Washington.

Thanks for your column, and I wish you and your family well on your upcoming travels.

I've gotten about thirty emails on the subject. I haven't read them all yet, but I think I've gotten all the tips I need. Thanks.

Okay, here’s my agenda. On Sunday I go to the Democratic Convention. By the time I get back the wife, baby and dog will be moved out of our house. Sounds like a country music song I know, but in reality we’re evacuating our house because it’s going to be renovated. The frustrating part is we don’t know where we’re going to live -- for up to a year. When I return from the convention, I will pick up the family and we all drive cross-country for the month of August and into September. Cosmo and I will stay in the pacific northwest – with another sister-in-law – while the Fair Jessica and Lucy go to Alaska for a while. I will remain behind to panic about finishing the book. Then at the end of August, I fly back to DC for a conference, then to NYC for the GOP convention, then back to the San Juan Islands. Collect dog, baby, wife and drive back to the East Coast where I will hide in an undisclosed location to finish book before deadline while Jessica looks for a place for us to stay. All the while, I will be trying to meet my quota of G-Files, syndicated columns, London Times columns, CNN appearances and so on.

Some requests and points:

1. Yes, we are aware of the craziness and stupidity involved in various and sundry aspects of all this, including the driving of baby and dog cross-country.
2. I am stunned and Jessica is scandalized by the anti-dog bigotry in the housing and apartment rental market in the greater DC area. More – much more – on that to come.
3. If anyone knows how to find wi-fi hotspots along the major interstates, let me know.
4. In the past I’ve asked for recommendations on food and sights to see before such trips. This year that is largely unnecessary because we really aren’t driving across country as tourists.
5. If anybody hears about house-rental/house-sitting gigs in the DC area starting in September, lemme know.
6. Expect my Corner posting to be odd, erratic and ill-timed.

Update: Item six has prompted an avalanche of wise-ass remarks -- "what else is new?" etc. I will have you people know that my Corner posts are normally very well-timed.

This reader puts the story in a bit more perspective:

Jonah,

I apologize for the anonymity, but as I am a military doc I would prefer to lay a bit low. If you want, I can provide bona fides separately.

However, there are some points of contention regarding the fact impaired New Yorker-via-Reuters story you referenced. I don't have access to the New Yorker article, but have seen it summarized on line. From these, I would like add some facts that make the story pretty dang benign and hardly the shocking waste of taxpayer dollars the spin of the article seems to be. The tenor that Sergeant Baggadonuts and/or Mrs. Major Zotz can just waltz over to the nearest military hospital and get nipped, tucked, vacuumed, or pumped up, is both bogus and irksome. I am a little weary of lies and misdirection regarding the military.

1. The Army, Navy, and Air Force have teaching hospitals.

2. These hospitals have plastic surgery programs.

3. For these programs to be accredited, the residents must perform the same procedures their civilian counterparts perform.

4. To become board certified and maintain currency, military plastic surgeons must perform the same procedures as their civilian counterparts.

4. The article mentions that between 2000 and 2003, there were 496 breast enlargements and 1361 lipos done on "soldiers" (only Army personnel are Soldiers) and their dependents. Assuming they were done at a constant rate, that is a whopping 165 breast enlargements and 457 lipos per year.

5. There are about 1,400,000 active duty military, and about an average of 3 dependents/servicemember. Completely disregarding eligible reserve component personnel and their dependents, as well as eligible retirees, that makes an eligible population of over 4, 200,000.

Do the math, and as you can see, this falls damn short of a cosmetic surgery stampede. Show me any U.S. city of 4.2 million in which the plastic surgeons only do 165 breast enlargements and 457 lipos a year, and I'll show you a town with starving plastic surgeons, or with only one moderately busy. Show me a town of 4.2 million with only one plastic surgeon, and I'll show you a town outside of the U.S. I won't bore you with the hoops and wickets one has to go through to get someone one a rare referral for these or other "elective cosmetic" procedures - trust me, it isn't the same pulling out the Yellow Pages, turning to the physicians pages, picking an ad, and calling up old Dr. Young for an appointment - there has to be some kind of justification other then "I want it".

In addition, as odd as it may seem, military and their dependents do get sick and injured - if a spouse or a soldier needed, for example, a breast reconstruction after mastectomy, I think most sentient persons (I know that whittles the pool down a fair bit) would agree that docs who have actually performed a few cases, even if those were strictly cosmetic, would be preferred over those doing OJT. Same thing goes for nose jobs or any other "elective cosmetic" procedure - the bottom line is that skills maintained by doing these procedures are helping heal servicemembers injured in combat, past and present.

End of rant - your military medicine guy (haven't seen one of those).

I understand the impulse to refer to them as "gobbledygook," as Geraghty does, but I think that's not quite right. If I understand him correctly, he is suggesting that from conception until some future stage of development that he does not specify, there is a human being there who does not count as a person. If you accept a distinction between "human beings" and "persons," which I find monstrous but many people apparently do not, that could make a kind of sense. (I think the distinction would also generate logical consequences Kerry does not wish to embrace.)

I'm also not sure how to square the comment with his earlier statements that he opposes abortion "personally"--why does he oppose it, if it's not personicide?--and that he shares the "Catholic belief" about abortion. Those statements, made earlier this month, were already incoherent: The "Catholic belief" about abortion is that it is unjust, as is its legality, and so he clearly does not share it. I'm left unsure what exactly he thinks is the specifically Catholic view that the law cannot impose: that it's wrong to kill human beings even when others don't consider them to be persons? that they're human beings in the first place? So I'll give Geraghty a verdict of gobbledygook for the candidate's comments as a whole.

There are certainly a lot of follow-up questions worth asking: for example, when does Kerry think personhood emerges?

Kathryn: I'm for the general proposition that our political culture should legitimize the idea that statutes passed by Congress and signed by the president can restrict the courts' jurisdiction. (I've argued this at length in NR over the years.)

I would not have picked this particular issue to begin that legitimation. It doesn't stop the judicial imposition of same-sex marriage in any important respect: State courts can still impose it as in Massachusetts, and federal courts can still use the Fourteenth Amendment in various ways to impose it nationally. Also, I have always thought that it would be much better to begin to make court-stripping less controversial by attaching it to an issue with overwhelming popularity--like the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know House Republicans want to take up court-stripping with regard to the Pledge, too. But giving people the idea that court-stripping is going to be used routinely also doesn't strike me as a smart way to start the campaign for the idea either.

That said, I suppose that if the House were going to take up the issue, I'm glad that it passed, because it may add some momentum to the general cause of court-stripping.

Rolling Stone: Have you seen "Fahrenheit 9/11"?

Clinton: I have. Rolling Stone: What did you think?

Clinton: I think every American ought to see it. As far as I know, there are no factual errors in it, but it may connect the dots a little too close -- about the Saudis and the Bushes, and the terror and all. I'd like to see it again before making a judgment about whether I think it's totally fair.

Bigger Breasts for Free: Join the Army

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has long lured recruits with the slogan "Be All You Can Be," but now soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlargements, on the taxpayers' dime.

The New Yorker magazine reports in its July 26th edition that members of all four branches of the U.S. military can get face-lifts, breast enlargements, liposuction and nose jobs for free -- something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills.

"Anyone wearing a uniform is eligible," Dr. Bob Lyons, chief of plastic surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio told the magazine, which said soldiers needed the approval of their commanding officers to get the time off....

The Western press has been unjust towards Iraq. It has focused only on the dark side, on terrorism, killings, car bombs, the cruel images of decapitation. Some went as far as saying violence was justified because it was aimed at the occupiers. Unfortunately, ordinary people are the ones who paid a high price, Muslims and Christians working for the Americans or finding themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time when some car explodes. The so-called “resistance” hardly ever kills Americans. No! Opposition should mean defending the rights of the people, not killing them. If you strike and kill fellow countrymen and women, you are not a resistance fighter, you are but a destroyer, a bearer of death.

The press has been backward-looking focusing on the negative side of the situation, never talking about the positive things the former provisional council did and the present interim government is doing. No one showed that, despite the political upheaval, the uncertainties and lack of security, schools reopened. Whether primary, high and secondary schools, or universities, the normal academic year ended as one would expect.

Under Saddam there was only poverty. Now the economy is slowly reviving thanks to what the government and the Americans are doing. New building sites are opening, new construction is going on. All this in spite of terrorist attacks. How many people paid in blood their commitment to rebuild Iraq? Italians, Japanese, French, Americans, Koreans . . . No one talks about power plants restarting, oil wells reopening, agricultural programmes being launched, roads being rebuilt. . . that were once filled with potholes.

What can one say about the press and freedom of the press? There are at least 150 daily newspapers in the country. And what about demonstrations? Under Saddam, they were banned . . .

I'm going to read the Opinion Duel this afternoon. But there's one thing Chait's TNR piece (you can get the link through Opinion Duel) that I thought was inadvertantly hilarious was this:

Unlike Nixon, FDR enjoyed unified control of Congress, yet his fellow Democrats were fractious enough to stop him from bullying the Supreme Court. Had those presidents, like Bush, enjoyed the benefits of a subservient Congress and a staff that never spoke out against their excesses, they might have done a lot of damage.

Now Chait's as close we get to a New Deal liberal these days so I'm sure he's being sincere -- even bipartisan. But I love the cavalier implication that Nixon and FDR were prevented from doing a "lot of damage" because their "excesses" were criticized and therefore curtailed. I mean, some of us think that FDR and Nixon did do a lot of damage that we're still dealing with today.

I am shocked and appalled at the silence in the Corner about Opinion Duel. Tell people to go read it!

Andrew McCarthy is absolutely dismantling Jonathan Chait, in the most genial and polite tone. I visualize David Niven standing over a cowering Chait, with a gentlemanly air, pimp-slapping him, over...and over...and over.

From a reader:

Dear Jonah,

I now regret volunteering for a business trip the week of the DNC. Doyle's
is MY BAR. Not as in I own it, but as in I have covered several of the
bar's mortgage payments over the years. It's a great place, and you will
all have a great time, even if it's a Dem bar.

I'm sure many of my homies will be there, and I am going to have one of
them buy you a Jameson on me, in thanks for all of the G-Files and Corner
postings over the years that have helped me avoid doing work.

Also, it would be VERY COOL if at some point in the evening you can give a
shout out to the M.J.'s crew. We're known there.

Slainte!

Longtime Military Guy, The Donovan, writes:

Trivializing the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Bad taste, dude. This coming from a 3-dog family.

But not as bad as what the Senatorial Republicans are doing. (Man, send
someone a little money and they will NOT leave you alone - except NR, of
course). I recieved in the mail the "Senatorial Medal of Freedom" for my
support. Cheesy little thing. All they accomplished was offending me - and
a lot worse than your Cosmo remark did.

It might be all the Purple Hearts in the three generations of soldiery
around here... but aping the Presidential Medal of Freedom like that is just
asinine. Maybe I'm missing something here - but getting a 'medal' for
sending someone a check... well, feh! Oh, they still (even though I told
them) haven't figured out my name isn't really, "The Donovan," that's my
VRWC name assigned by the NRODT subscription department...

Cheers,

The Donovan.

Me: Lighten-up Dono. It was a joke.
Cosmo: Well, it shouldn't have been. If my exploits are ever declassified this Donovan guy will eat his words. Unless, of course, those words are made of ham, or pork, or bacon....

If you haven't seen it yet, Wade Horn of HHS responds on the site today to a Corner post from a little while ago. I'm going to try to pen a response for tomorrow. No matter who you agree with, you've got admit it's nice to know that the administration pays attention to the Corner -- and blogs generally.

Unfortunately, it doesn't pay enough attention. If it did, Cosmo would have received his Presidential Medal of Freedom by now.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich plans to endorse John Kerry for president today, ending his long-shot bid for the nation's highest office only days before the start of the Democratic National Convention.

Kucinich is expected to fly to Michigan for a joint appearance with Kerry, who is scheduled to deliver a speech at a Na tional Urban League conference in Detroit.The announce ment is the culmi nation of nearly a week of talks be tween the Kerry and Kucinich camps that began with a phone conversation between the two candidates late last week.

According to a draft of his remarks obtained by The Plain Dealer, Kucinich will pledge to “do everything possible” to elect Kerry.

Youth conservative movement good says he.

This is what drives me nuts:

It would be unfair, though, to pick on the women who are in denial about aborting "defective" fetuses. At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as "convenience" - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women. Yet in a 2003 survey conducted by a pro-choice group, only 30 percent of women were unambivalently pro-choice, suggesting that there may be an appalling number of women who are willing to deny others the right that they once freely exercised themselves.

As readers around here know, this is an old theme of mine. Still, what Ehrenreich is saying is that women who've had abortions have no right to regret their abortions. Or, rather, they have no right to translate that regret into public policy into "ambiguous" policy preferences. In other words, once you've had an abortion you must remain "consistent" or un-hypocritical by endorsing abortion for others even if you think it was a mistake on your part.

This is monumentally dishonest and more than a bit daft. Where else does Ehrenreich enforce this standard? Should racists stay racist? White people used to have the right to shout the n-word in the faces of black people. Does Ehrenreich -- who I assume supports hate crimes laws -- denounce former racists who would "deny others the right that they once freely exercised themselves"? Does a sexual harasser need to oppose sexual harassment laws lest he be counted as appalling in Ehrenreich's eyes? Since OJ Simpson got away with two free murders, should he believe that everyone should?

Ehrenreich's position is less of an argument than it is an attempt to bully women she deems disloyal.

But what makes it morally more congenial to kill a particular "defective" fetus than to kill whatever fetus happens to come along, on an equal opportunity basis? Medically informed "terminations" are already catching heat from disability rights groups, and, indeed, some of the conditions for which people are currently choosing abortion, like deafness or dwarfism, seem a little sketchy to me. I'll still defend the right to choose abortion in these cases, even if it isn't the choice I'd make for myself.

It would be unfair, though, to pick on the women who are in denial about aborting "defective" fetuses. At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as "convenience" - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women. Yet in a 2003 survey conducted by a pro-choice group, only 30 percent of women were unambivalently pro-choice, suggesting that there may be an appalling number of women who are willing to deny others the right that they once freely exercised themselves.

Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children - the actual extrauterine ones, that is - I was, and remain, a lioness.

Choice can be easy, as it was in my case, or truly agonizing. But assuming the fetal position is not an appropriate response. Sartre called this "bad faith," meaning something worse than duplicity: a fundamental denial of freedom and the responsibility that it entails. Time to take your thumbs out of your mouths, ladies, and speak up for your rights. The freedoms that we exercise but do not acknowledge are easily taken away.

Mind you, I have no idea which article he's referring to:

Jonah -

Flugelbeast! I've been reading your generally great, somewhat acceptable,
occassionally whacked, articles for 3 years. This recent one has made me
determine you are a valuable resource. I disagree with it most ultimately
(Bill and Ted).

Thank you, I think,

Dick

Sandals, Peter, sandals?

Washington, DC - House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) announced today that the Committee intends to investigate allegations that former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, in preparation for 9-11 Commission hearings, took highly sensitive terrorism documents from a secure reading room at the National Archives.

The Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over the National Archives, is the primary investigative committee in the House of Representatives.

"These allegations are deeply troubling, and it's our constitutional responsibility to find out what happened and why," Davis said. "It boggles the mind to imagine how a former national security advisor walked off with this kind of material in his pants, or wherever on his body he carried it. At best, we're looking at tremendously irresponsible handling of highly classified information - some of which, I understand, has not yet been located.

"At worst, his actions suggest an intentional effort to keep critical information away from the Commission and the American public. We are now left wondering whether the Commission, set to release its report tomorrow, had access to all of the information it needed to fully do its job. The American people's faith in our review of 9-11, in our war on terror, in our transparency, is literally at stake in this investigation. It is my hope that Mr. Berger cooperates fully with the Justice Department as its investigation proceeds. Meanwhile, as we continue to afford him the presumption of innocence he deserves, we will fulfill our duty to the American people to get to the bottom of this disturbing breach of trust and protocol."

Speaker Hastert on Congressional Investigation Regarding National Security and Sandy Berger

(Washington D.C.) Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) today made the following statement:

"Like many Americans concerned about our national security, I look forward to learning more from the House Government Reform Committee's investigation into the wayward actions by Sandy Berger. The American people deserve to know why Mr. Berger apparently skirted the law and removed highly classified terrorism documents, purportedly in his pants, from a secure reading room at the National Archives and then proceeded to lose or destroy some of them.

"How could President Clinton's former National Security Advisor be so cavalier?

"Was Mr. Berger trying to cover-up key facts regarding intelligence failures during his watch?

"What happened to those missing documents?

"Whose hands did they fall into?

"What kind of security risk does that pose to Americans today?

"I know Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) will work to get the full truth of what really happened and help all of us better understand why Sandy Berger, a person who should fully understand the gravity and importance of sensitive national security materials, would operate with such overt negligence and apparent disregard for the law."

From a military guy with experiene dealing with classified docs:

There is a worse interpretation than the current one that Sandy Berger took the memos, notes and documents consciously, whether to avoid embarrassment or for whatever reason. What if he is telling the truth? What if he did take the material "inadvertently"? Think about this for a minute. For that to be true, concealing documents and classified notes on his person to take them home must have been a routine, ordinary action. People do not commit felonies "inadvertently" unless they are above the rules (in their minds) and habituated to doing so. For all of his defenders to be agreeing with this defense is truly worrisome since it means they have the same view of how to handle classified material. (Those harsh rules are just because security types are obsessive-compulsives.) Which introduces the next question. What else has been lost and/or compromised over the years of the Clinton administration if this type of information handling was common or at least accepted?

Derb - I'm not trying to pick a fight, honest. But A) CNN is bolstering the sock story and B) keep in mind that he might have hidden the notes in his socks "knowingly" while he was swiping a hundred or so pages of classified memos "inadvertantly" in his leather portfolio. In your experiment, did you stuff 8 1/2 X 11 pieces of paper in your socks? Or did you try smaller sheets from a small note pad?

Also, can someone find the brand of portfolio Berger uses and see how easy it is to accidentally hide a hundred or so pages of paper in one? I'm all in favor of such experiments, but let's stick as close to the scientific method as possible!

Derb - Wow do I think you and your correspondent are wrong. Sure, it's always possible the Corner or NRO has spent too much time on this or that topic (a very common problem in the Corner, hence the anti-Star Trek ban on Madame Lopez). But, A) the Joe Wilson thing is very important because he is -- perhaps second to Howard Dean -- the man most responsible for the "Bush lied about the war" meme. Countless other arguments and half-truths gained credibility by standing on Wilson's shoulders. You may not have the patience to follow the fine print on the Wilson stuff, but that doesn't mean it's not important. Just as I couldn't follow every consonant rich detail of Yugoslavia's implosion, but that didn't mean it wasn't important.

B) If your correspondent's father is an editorial muckety-muck at a "major" daily newspaper and he simply hasn't been following the Joe Wilson flap, I hope his newspaper didn't editorialize about the "16 words" and whatnot last year. Because if he thought that stuff was important when Bush was being called a liar but suddenly has lost interest when the chief accuser has been exposed as a fraud, then shame on that editor.

C) Lastly, since when is the merit of what we discuss around here measured by whether or not "voters" care about it?

My Corner post over the weekend about I/D creep has produced a remarkable response. All over the country, it seems, Methuselahs, geezers, greybeards, crones and miscellaneous other ancients are being carded before they are allowed anywhere near the demon drink. The winner so far? Tom from Wisconsin, the father of a friend of mine. He was carded last year while trying to buy brandy at a Walgreen's in Tucson (who knew such wonders were possible?). Tom is 82.

Still, it could have been worse. The previous day this veteran of the Pacific war was "nearly strip searched" by airport security when his artificial knee set off the metal detector.

The liar (NYC Attorney General, Elliot Spitzer) : "There is no dispute that global warming is upon us and that these defendants' carbon dioxide pollution is a major contributor."

The friend of 'the children' (Iowa Attorney General, Tom Miller): We must act now to protect the beautiful and bountiful Iowa we know today, for our children and grandchildren, and generations to come."

The fool (Nurse Bloomberg, via NYC's lawyer): "The City of New York has joined this action out of concern for the impacts that global warming will have on the City and its residents and as part of the Bloomberg Administration's commitment to maintaining a clean and sustainable New York."

The Munchausen (Vermont Attorney General, William Sorrell): "This suit against the five top producers of CO2 gasses in the United States is an important step toward confronting this major environmental challenge."

The Chicken Little (Wisconsin Attorney General, Peg Lautenschlager) : "The overwhelming scientific evidence now concludes that unabated, the aggravation of global warming by continued carbon dioxide pollution threatens Wisconsin with increased ozone and respiratory illness, more heat-related deaths and ailments, debilitated winter sports and tourist economy, reduced natural fishery stocks, decimated forests, lowered water levels in our Great Lakes that threaten our shipping-dependent industries and intensified catastrophic droughts, storms and floods..."

Washington, D.C. -- In response to the questionable timing of the public release of information regarding the investigation of former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe officially filed a Freedom of Information Act request today for the release of correspondence between the Department of Justice and the White House regarding this investigation.

Below is a copy of McAuliffe¹s official letter of request.

Melanie Ann Pustay, Deputy Director
Office of Information and Policy
Department of Justice
Suite 570, Flag Building
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

July 21, 2004

Dear Ms. Pustay:

This letter constitutes a request under the Freedom of Information Act (³FOIA²), 5 U.S.C. §552, and is submitted on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.

According to recent reporting, an investigation into former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger has been going on for at least nine months, since October 2003. Yet, the criminal investigation only came to light three days prior to the release of a report expected to be critical of the Bush administration¹s lack of focus on the events leading up to the 9-11 attacks. As conservative scholar Norm Ornstein stated, "you can't look at the timing of this with anything but an enormous amount of skepticism." [CNN, 7/20/04]

In light of the seriousness of the possibility that the Bush administration and the Department of Justice have politicized an ongoing investigation, it is imperative that this Freedom of Information request is responded to in an expedited manner.

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552 and the regulations of the Department of Justice, 28 C.F.R. §16.3, I am requesting copies of the following:

Any and all communications relating or referring to the investigation of Samuel ("Sandy") Berger, between, correspondence (including electronic mail) between, memoranda between, phone records of communications between, meeting notes and/or minutes of meetings between, on the one hand, any official or employee of the US Department of Justice AND, on the other hand, (i) the Executive Office of the President or any unit or office thereof (including but not limited to the Office of the Vice President); (ii) any official, employee, or representative of the Republican National Committee; OR (iii) any official, employee or representative of the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign.
This request covers all documents created during the period from and including October 1, 2003 through and including July 20, 2004....
Thank you for your attention to this request.

Sincerely,

Terence R. McAuliffe, Chairman
430 South Capitol Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

The central point we tried to make was that it is impossible to efficiently allocate scarce resources among competing claimants without recourse to market information. Your argument (if we understand it correctly) that, once resources HAVE been allocated among competing claimants, state governments are more efficient managers of those allocation programs than are federal agents may well be correct. It is nonetheless irrelevant to our main argument.

We disagree with you, however, about whether state management of national forests ensures that those "who bear the costs and reap the benefits" of policy decisions are the ones primarily making the decisions. We have two objections.

First, people outside of a state's political boundary often have as big stake in decisions about how natural resources are managed as do people who reside within that state. Non-state residents, for instance, might visit those forests to hunt, camp, fish, hike, or, alternatively, might be willing to pay a great deal to ensure that those resources are left relatively unspoiled by man (witness, for instance, all the environmentalists who never have and likely never will visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge who nonetheless contribute large sums of money to environmental organizations to protect that area from development). Accordingly, leaving decisions about how to manage resources with great cross border appeal entirely to locals would not necessarily ensure that those "who bear the costs and reap the benefits" are fairly represented at all.

Second, political decision-making at the local level strikes us as no more likely to produce sound ecological or economic management of the forests than political decision-making at the federal level. That's because well-organized special interest groups dictate political decisions in all jurisdictions and giving them what they want does not necessarily imply giving the unorganized general public what they want regardless of what level of government we're talking about.

I take it that we all agree that privatization in some form would be the best resolution of the dispute regarding how to manage the national forests. We disagree, apparently, on whether the Bush proposal is a useful "second-best" policy. Our sense is that it might well be IF you think that well-organized special interests at the local level have agendas that better reflect what market preferences for forest resources might be if freely given reign than well-organized special interests at the national level. Because we cannot say with any confidence what market preferences might be with regards to forest resources in general or in particular, and because organized special interest groups will vary in strength from state to state (more Green in California, less so in Alaska), we don't think there's any reason to prefer Bush's reform over the status quo.

I still haven't gotten a single email from someone who regularly deals with classified info who isn't scandalized by this. Meanwhile I get a half-dozen of these every hour or so:

Jonah:

I'm a historian at a govt agency (won't tell you which
one, and don't publish my name please). a) the Reports
can be anywhere from 5-50 pages and b) your readers
are right to be upset about the Berger thing. I'm
furious because i know that i can't get away with
entering or leaving the secure rooms without a
security guard checking EVERYTHING I have - I go a few
times a month and if I ever did this I'd be
disciplined severely, if not outright fired.

You're not allowed to take originals or copies outside
the secure room since COPIES RETAIN THE ORIGINAL
CLASSIFICATION STATUS AS THE ORIGINALS. Anyone with a
security clearance up to codeword (indeed the highest
level) knows that, you're briefed and must watch a
video on how documents need to be protected. So
that's just phony Clinton/Dee Dee Myers talking points
designed to obfuscate the issue (i know that shocks
you). They're also trying to spin the whole thing
about the fact that these were drafts. Historians want
to see how drafts change as they move through the
bureaucracy. So why would he stuff them down his
pants or in his socks unless he knew that his person
wouldn't be searched but his briefcase would be? Did
he or Clinton or Albright say something embarassing in
a post-9/11 world? Like maybe they weren't "obsessed"
with UBL?

And again these reports of concealing documents in
clothing came from the National Archives staffpeople,
who even gave him a break by contacting Bruce Lindsey
(popping up yet again!) before they contacted the FBI
because he did the same thing on more than one
occasion. That's why his "inadvertent" comment is
ludicrous on its face.

A little known codicil in the National Security Act of 1947 would permit Dick Cheney to give Howard Dean, Joe Wilson and up seven other designees a wedgie on the emergency response system created by the FCC and broadcast on all television licensees during prime time.

I oppose an amendment to prohibit desecration to our Banner, for the simple reason that I don't wish to elevate the status of those who desecrate it. Many who do would welcome arrest, so as to validate their martyrdom (as they would undoubtedly proclaim it). I say, let them do their foul performance, that all may see and judge their character. Such will suffice.

It is a repulsive idea. My complaint is that the Congress seems to have been completely taken over by politics. It's mostly the Republicans now as they control both chambers, but Democrats do it too, i.e.. filibustering judges. There seems to be precious little desire to actually legislate. No budgets, no energy bill, fake Medicare bill to provide prescription coverage. If I could, I'd throw the whole bunch out and fill it by national lottery. You're picked, you serve.

The Washington Post reports: "A government official with knowledge of the probe said Berger removed from archives files all five or six drafts of a critique of the government's response to the millennium terrorism threat, which he said was classified "codeword," the government's highest level of document security."

Does anybody know how big these drafts were/are? I mean physically. How many pages do such after-action reports run? Are they bound? Anything longer than a couple pages and I can't believe that you could swipe five or six of them in your leather portfolio unknowlingly -- particular for a lawyer, NSA guy, etc.

Jack Ryan won't get off the ballot because it's too hard.

...is a thankless tree:

TULSA - ... a Tulsa lawyer and environmental activist, died Monday at his home when a tree supporting a hammock fell and crushed him.

UPI is reporting that someone found "nuclear" missiles in Iraq. Um, can we get some confirmation here please?

Baghdad, Iraq, Jul. 21 (UPI) -- Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday.

The official daily al-Sabah quoted the sources as saying the missiles were discovered in trenches near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads," the sources said.

They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in the trenches lying under six meters of concrete and designed in a way to unable sophisticated sensors from discovering nuclear radiation.

Journal has an excellent editorial on the Berger stuff. They flesh out the point I made here yesterday about John Ashcroft's testimony and the particular memos in question:

Written by Richard Clarke for the NSC, the key document was called the Millennium After-Action Review because it dealt with al Qaeda attacks timed for the eve of the Millennium celebrations. In his own 9/11 testimony, Mr. Berger described these al Qaeda plans as "the most serious threat spike of our time in government." He went on to say that they provoked "sustained attention and rigorous actions" from the Administration that ended up saving lives.

But Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has the advantage of having read the document in question, had a different take. In his own 9/11 testimony in April, Mr. Ashcroft recommended that the Commission "study carefully" the after-action memo. He described it as laying out vulnerabilities and calling for aggressive remedies of the type he and the Bush Administration have been criticized for. Mr. Ashcroft further noted that when he took office, this "highly classified review" was "not among" the items he was briefed on during the transition.

Maybe that is because of the potential for embarrassment at the mentality the memo reveals. Mr. Ashcroft testified that the Justice Department's "surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses." The most glaring, of course, were the restrictions on the sharing of critical information between intelligence and law enforcement--even within the FBI itself. This was the infamous "wall of separation" that Clinton Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick instructed the FBI director should "go beyond what is legally required."

From today's vantage we can see the consequences. Ahmed Ressam was one of the would-be Millennium bombers whom the French had identified to U.S. intelligence agencies as an al Qaeda operative planning to attack America. But the "wall of separation" meant that when an alert U.S. customs officer stopped Ressam as he tried to enter the country from Vancouver, the Justice Department had no idea who he was. This helps illuminate the claim made in the missing memo, according to Mr. Ashcroft's testimony, that our success in stopping these 1999 attacks was a result of sheer "luck."

Assuming Mr. Ashcroft's characterizations under oath are true, it would explain why Mr. Berger's "inadvertent" actions seemed to zero in on the various drafts of this review. Sources tell us that Archives staff noticed documents missing after one of Mr. Berger's visits. After gently raising the issue with him, they were shocked to have him return other documents they hadn't even noticed missing. The result was that the next time Mr. Berger went to the Archives, the documents he was given were all marked.

Mr. Berger attributes the disappearance of this classified information to the kind of "sloppiness" that comes from reviewing "thousands of pages of documents." But it strikes us as amazing that mere sloppiness could account for how Mr. Berger seized on the same memo during two different visits.

Admittedly, I write this after 5 Scotches on a Tuesday night. BUT

Thanks

You are truly doing a fine job.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - After launching two wars, President Bush said on Tuesday he wanted to be a "peace president" and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being lawyers and weak on defense.

We have lots of military and defense industry workers as readers (and we like having them!), so it should be no surprise that I'm hearing from so many people who've dealt with classified materials in the past or currently. What's interesting is that these readers are -- to a person -- more furious about the Berger story than almost any other reader. It seems that the more you know about how these things work, the less plausible Berger's explanations are. Something to keep in mind throughout the day's coverage.

Yesterday I chastised Josh Marshall for suggesting the only possible explanation for the leak was Republican skullduggery. I also suggested that this had a bit of the stench of a Clintonian "pre-emptive" leak. After all, the Clintonites have much of the spin machine back together (Lanny Davis runs a media crisis practice these days so it would be nice to know who's on retainer and who's not). They all have the same talking points and canned outrage about the same things, etc. Anyway, here's another tidbit as to why it's not absurd to think this was a Lanny Davis special. The fellow who broke the Berger story was John Solomon. And According to Davis, Solomon was "the most fair" reporter he knew because Solomon was willing to take so many items from Davis. For example, from an April 12, 1999 article by Howard Kurtz:

In "Truth to Tell," out next month, Davis argues for "good," factually based spin over "bad," deceptive spin -- but concedes that some of his spin was "so transparent that it is amazing that we thought we could get away with it."....

Davis coins the marvelously bureaucratic phrase "deep-background private placement" to describe negative stories about the White House that he leaked to put the least damaging version in play. Davis's favorite outlet was the Associated Press, not only because it is "notoriously fact-oriented and fair" but because once a story was on the wire, such newspapers as The Washington Post and New York Times "would not be inclined to give it front-page play."

Another White House favorite was the Wall Street Journal, because political news "usually got placed on the back page of the front section, which often diminished the impact of the story." And Davis liked the Los Angeles Times because the "major national daily newspapers resisted repeating stories broken by an 'out-of-town' newspaper."

Thus, Davis called the reporter he deemed most fair, the AP's John Solomon, with documents suggesting that Clinton had made fund-raising calls from the White House residence. The leak occurred on July 3, 1997, so the story would get lost on the Fourth of July holiday.

Instapundit has the relevant statute covering Berger's behavior.

But let me also add that I do doubt this will all come to a major scandal. I'm not positive of that, but that's my gut feeling. I do think it's a pretty hilarious story as pure Washington mayhem goes, which probably explains my enthusiastic blogging on it today.

My guess is that this will all boil down -- ironically for a Clinton scandal -- to Berger's pants. I just listened to David Gergen on CNN say that all Berger did was fold some notes up and put them in his pockets. Case closed. No harm, no foul. Now, of course, Gergen has nothing to base that on except for what his friend Sandy Berger and Berger's PR team tell him. He wasn't at the national archives, he isn't privy to the investigation etc. But if Gergen's version -- which may be the correct one -- wins, this story will go away, and pretty quickly.

However, if it turns out to be the case that Berger did in fact stuff items down his pants -- or in his sock/pant-leg -- then no amount of spinning will make Berger's actions seem trivial. Yes, I understand his argument. He says he "inadvertantly" stole the important things while he "knowingly" snuck out the unimportant things. But this sounds a bit like a cop saying he illegally took notes on evidence pertaining to another case in the property room and while he was stuffing those notes in his pants he accidentally stole a bag of cocaine. The story may be true, but it's just too plain fishy.

Again, I doubt Berger would go to jail or anything like that, but if that's what he did (and some reports have it that played fast and loose with the rules more than once) then he will deserve much of the grief he gets.

I see (Via Andrew Sullivan) that Josh Marshall really has the Dem's talking points. He writes:

The most obvious, and probably the only, explanation of this leak is that it is intended to distract attention from the release of the 9/11 report due later this week. That would be yet another example of this administration's common practice of using the levers of executive power (law enforcement, declassification, etc.) for partisan purposes.

Now, it's certainly defensible to say that this is the "most obvious" explanation. But it is flatly ludicrous to say that this is probably the "only" explanation. Berger is a Clinton alum. So are his chief spinners, including Lockhart and Lanny Davis. Davis's rule -- he even wrote a book on this -- is to dump damaging info at the best moment possible. I know several Republicans who think this Berger leak is a classic Lanny Davis move. Berger's in trouble. The news is going to come out eventually, perhaps during a much worse moment during the presidential campaign. Why not leak it now and say that the Republicans leaked it in order to distract from the 9/11 report? The Clintonites were brilliant at this sort of pre-emptive spinning.

Now, I don't think this is the most probable explanation either. But Marshall has a remarkably annoying habit of thinking that the only explanations for anything are rooted in the evilness of Republicans. What's annoying isn't that instinct, mind you, it's the way he makes it seem like he's not being partisan so much as high-minded and sophisticated.

Also, can we please get a little less haughtiness about the White House using its powers for partisan advantage from defenders of the Clinton administration -- which filed criminal charges against the travel office and routed immigrants straight off the boats and into the voting booths?

From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg:

Back in the very early 80s, I worked for a short while in the vault in the
Northrop engineering library in El Segundo, CA. Sometimes engineers screwed
up and threw Secret or Top Secret files, papers, reports into "burn barrels"
which were only supposed to be used for Confidential (low level gov't
clearance) or Northrop Private (personal payroll & health insurance stuff).

Despite having been briefed & re-briefed on this stuff, and presumably
despite their stratospheric I.Q.s, they somehow didn't get the concept that
every Top Secret document had a control number, and could only be destroyed
by authorized people who did all the paperwork to document the destruction.
When confronted regarding their mistake, they invariably went into
free-fall panic, especially if they were foreign-born. The usual procedure
after a screw-up was that the person responsible was team interviewed
(always intimidating) and of course the incident would be noted in their
personnel file.

Other than the burn-barrel mistake, another situation which came up
frequently was the reassignment of personnel from project to project, with
Secret and Top Secret documents checked out by former team members turning
up missing when the project ended sometimes years later.

I don't buy Sandy Berger's story at all. I was required to go through
Secret and Top Secret documents page by page to make sure no pages were
missing. Each paragraph was marked as to the material contained in that
paragraph (Confidential, Secret, Top Secret), and it was also necessary to
check the classification of each and every paragraph to make sure that the
classification of the document as a whole represented the highest
classification of any paragraph within the document.

Nobody who worked with classified documents would think that he could take
documents out of a secured room without SIGNING for them in the presence of
the document custodian for that room. Nobody with familiarity with Top
Secret documents would ever assume that there were lots of extra copies of
those documents, and that if the original were lost, it could easily be
replaced. It is not permitted to make any photocopy of any Top Secret
document, since that would obviously destroy the utility of assigning a
unique number to each copy.

The fact that the man was stuffing papers down his pants and into his socks
should tell you all you need to know about mens rea. He knew that if he
asked permission to take ANY piece of paper from that room that the answer
would be no. And what's worse from my point of view, he didn't give a damn
if the document custodian took the blame when documents came up missing.
Screw the little people. This guy deserves to be in prison far more than
Chuck Colson ever did.

Don't use my name. Love your stuff.

As to the symbolism, so far as I am concerned, the sort of people often pictured burning the flag are frequently, and ironically, a good advertisement for America. Anything those types hate that much must be a good thing.

I was afraid the sock part was too good to be true. The Berger team is denying it, which doesn't mean it's not true of course. From CNN:

In a statement issued late Monday, Berger said the removal of those papers was unintentional. But law enforcement sources told CNN that some of the papers he is said to have taken from the National Archives were stuffed into his socks as well as other parts of his clothing.

That allegation drew sharp responses from two of Berger's associates. President Clinton's former spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said Berger "categorically denies that he ever took documents and stuffed them in his socks.

"That is absurd," said Lockhart, who is now advising Berger. "And anyone who says that is interested in something other than the truth."

Of course, being cleared of the sock-stuffing is not exactly getting cleared.

John - Au contraire . Haven't you heard about Sandy's new endorsement deal? Unsightly sock bulges are a thing of the bast with the Sand Burglar 2000.

I'm thinking of how I would try to debate Lanny Davis on TV about the Sandy Berger deal. Maybe it would go something like this?

LD: "...he's a man of impeccable integrity..."
JG: "He had classified documents in his pants and his socks."
LD: "...I've known Sandy for twenty years and....
JG: "Socks."
LD: "he has worked tirelessly for peace ...."
JG: "Pants."
LD: "He...."
JG: "Socks."
LD: "Nevermind."

Some readers have written to say that maybe the news reports mean "pockets" when they say "pants." Maybe. But it's now being reported that Berger shoved the stuff in his socks.

His socks.

So whatever explanations Berger might have, let's bury any notion that he did this accidentally. The man was in a secure, guarded room with the highest security protocols. He's a former National Security adviser and he's a lawyer himself. You don't put classified documents in your socks by accident.

Also, he says he "knowingly" took the notes but "inadvertantly" took the classified documents. That's certainly possible, but would you take that kind of parsing from your kid, let alone a former National Security adviser?

And again, whatever his state of mind was, he had documents in his socks.

Went on a Fox News show called "Hannity and Colmes" to promote the new book.
Mrs. Buckley suggested afterwards that my oratorical metabolism, uncompensated by gesticular flourishes, seemed phlegmatic compared to masters Hannity and Colmes. She recommended an aperitif in the Green Room before Hardball.
Posted by WFB 6:35pm July 20, 2004

Spent the morning at the NR office followed by lunch at an Indian food restaurant called "Curry in a Hurry" at Lowry's suggestion. Some have questioned handing over the NR reins to someone so young but they forget I began National Review at a younger age. Lowry's choice in restaurants does give me pause though... Posted by WFB 11:15am July 12, 2004

The thought of Catholic politicians who openly controvert Church teaching receiving at the communion rail is reminiscent of the bride who, expert in matters carnal and caught in flagrante delicto with the postman, still chooses the whitest white in wedding apparel. The small hypocrisy of the shade of gown pales before the taking of Communion, so the bishops must untangle a twisted skein given the on-going, unrepentent nature of the sin. The bedlamitic uncle in this attic appears to be the fact that John Kerry could not successfuly export his odious views on human life issues but for the enabling votes of millions of Catholics, begging the larger issue of an apparently new thing - the wholesale disregard the majority of Western Catholics have shown towards the Magisterium in their discarding of Humane Vitae and support for pro-choice political candidates.
Posted by WFB 2:12pm July 11, 2004

Received a call from Don King, the fight promoter, regarding a possible allumette-vers le haut between myself and Gore Vidal. I replied in the negative.
Posted by WFB 3:01pm July 9, 2004

(Okay, ok, so I have too much time on my hands).

Another view:

Hi Jonah,

There is a possible, relatively innocent, explanation of why Berger stuffed his notes in his pants or jacket. I have been to lots of classified meeting (work as a DOD contractor) and have taken notes. The usual procedure is to hand in your notes to the security officer on the way out. He reviews them and classifies them, if appropriate. If the notes contain secret material, they are made into a new secret document with a sequence number and scary red cover. If, as I often do, you have “mentally redacted” the secret stuff while you were writing, the notes are unclassified. For example, someone in the meeting says, “Our agent in Beirut, Ahmed bin Adhem Finster, informed us of the pending attack”. You write: “An agent informed us of the attack” – that wouldn’t be classified. If you wrote the guy’s name, or perhaps even just the location, it would be.

OK, back to Berger. He may have mentally redacted the notes, and said to himself “Dammit, I used to be NSA; I know there’s nothing classified in these notes, and I don’t want to wait a week while somebody reviews them. I’ll just smuggle them out right now.” Definitely against rules, but not sinister. On the other hand, it’s very hard to see how he could have “inadvertently” removed the classified documents themselves. You’d get shot for that where I work.

From a reader:

Jonah --

Another point on "Sticky Fingers Sandy:"

Berger and his henchmen Lanny Breuer and David Gergen (two unlamented names from the past) have been arguing that Berger only took copies of a report on Clinton's handling of al-Qaida, the original of which still rests safely in the Archives. But it looks from press reports as though among the documents Berger took, including those he conveniently "discarded inadvertently," were actually early drafts of the report. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040720/D83U6TIO0.html

Drafts are not the same as copies. These earlier drafts obviously discussed the Clinton Administration's response to terrorism differently -- and perhaps less favorably, given intervening events such as 9-11 -- than the final version. Drafts often include material that for various reasons may be removed or redacted from the final. The information in these drafts that did not make it into the final report may be critical to the 9-11 Commission's findings, and to an accurate historical judgment of Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts, such as they were. Yet this critical information has now been lost "incidentally," due to nothing more, we are told, than Mr. Berger's "sloppiness" with classified documents.

This is all so reminiscent of the Clinton years -- travelgate, filegate, Whitewater billing records, etc. -- we were always told to believe that lost, misdirected, and stolen documents were merely "innocent snafus" that just coincidentally may have worked to shield the Clintons from blame or indictment. And the media dutifully complies.

From the transcript:

Bill Hemmer: The question: Did Iraq seek uranium in Niger at any point?

Wilson: The article that I wrote was based upon a briefing, based upon documents that purported to be a memorandum of agreement covering the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq. I went out there. I came back. I concluded that such a transaction was highly unlikely as I wrote in my article.

Now, let me just suggest, with respect to the British report, on October 2nd of 2002, the deputy director of Central Intelligence told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that one place where he believed the British stretched beyond where we would stretch is on the points where Iraq was seeking uranium from African locations.

On October 6th, the director of Central Intelligence called the deputy national security advisor and told him the president should not be a fact witness on the issue related to Iraq attempting to purchase uranium from Africa because the reporting was weak.

That was confirmed in a fax the same day to the National Security Council, which also added, this is one of the two issues where we differ with the British.

All this was in 2002, three months before the State of the Union address.

Sigh. Again, Wilson's misdirecting. Nobody said a "transaction" took place. Wilson, on the other hand, claimed to have "debunked" the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium.

Very addictive stuff from the badger people.

You know, I re-read the AP story and I think Joe in Detroit has a point. Here's the AP:

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said. [Italics mine]

I guess I skipped the lead too quickly before; "knowingly"!?! He did have criminal intent. Period. He's confessed to a crime. Can you imagine the scandal if Dick Cheney had done something like this? There's be immediate calls for impeachment. Jonathan Chait would get another 2,000 words on why Bush should be burned at the stake. Etc.

Another view:

Jonah, People don't innocently or "inadvertantly" stuff secret, classified documents down their pants and walk out of secure environments and not have criminal intent. Joe Detroit

No, that's not what happens when you mix Viking raiders and America's most prestigious golf tournament. It's the title of Roger Kimball's new book. I've been leafing through it and plan on quoting it at length in my book. I see that John Miller has a Q&A with the man himself on NRO today. I just wanted to say it really is a great read so far. I also wanted to say that publishers who send me good books might expect to be rewarded with favorable mentions -- at minimum -- in the Corner. Publishers who send me paperback re-releases of Gynecologist to My Soul or How To Make Money with Lint will not get favorable mentions anywhere.

Following up on yesterday's column on youth politics, here is a passage I found by Michael Oakeshott on the subject:

"Of the many entailments of this view of things that might be pointed to, I will notice one, namely, that politics is an activity unsuited to the young, not on account of their vices but on account of what I at least consider to be their virtues.

Nobody pretends that it is easy to acquire or to sustain the mood of indifference which this manner of politics calls for. To rein-in one's own beliefs and desires, to acknowledge the current shape of things, to feel the balance of things in one's hand, to tolerate what is abominable, to distinguish between crime and sin, to respect formality even when it appears to be leading to error, these are difficult achievements; and they are achievements not to be looked for in the young.

Everybody's young days are a dream, a delightful insanity, a sweet solipsism. Nothing in them has a fixed shape, nothing a fixed price; everything is a possibility, and we live happily on credit. There are no obligations to be observed; there are no accounts to be kept. Nothing is specified in advance; everything is what can be made of it. The world is a mirror in which we seek the reflection of our own desires. The allure of violent emotions is irresistible. When we are young we are not disposed to make concessions to the world; we never feel the balance of a thing in our hands - unless it be a cricket bat. We are not apt to distinguish between our liking and our esteem; urgency is our criterion of importance; and we do not easily understand that what is humdrum need not be despicable. We are impatient of restraint; and we readily believe, like Shelley, that to have contracted a habit is to have failed. These, in my opinion, are among our virtues when we are young; but how remote they are from the disposition appropriate for participating in the style of government I have been describing. Since life is a dream, we argue (with plausible but erroneous logic) that politics must be an encounter of dreams, in which we hope to impose our own. Some unfortunate people, like Pitt (laughably called "the Younger"), are born old, and are eligible to engage in politics almost in their cradles; others, perhaps more fortunate, belie the saying that one is young only once, they never grow up. But these are exceptions. For most there is what Conrad called the "shadow line" which, when we pass it, discloses a solid world of things, each with its fixed shape, each with its own point of balance, each with its price; a world of fact, not poetic image, in which what we have spent on one thing we cannot spend on another; a world inhabited by others besides ourselves who cannot be reduced to mere reflections of our own emotions. And coming to be at home in this commonplace world qualifies us (as no knowledge of "political science" can ever qualify us), if we are so inclined and have nothing better to think about, to engage in what the man of conservative disposition understands to be political activity."

Attention everybody. I have seen the JibJab.com "This Land" spoof. I posted it in the Corner over a week ago. And yet every day I get at least 10 emails from people with subject headers like "Urgent! Must See!" You know I like seeing the funny stuff, but this one I've seen. Thanks.

I will be very shocked if it turns out that Berger had criminal intent when he took those documents. But it is worth calling attention to the fact that the "after action" notes and memos were among the most controversial documents relating to the Clinton Administration's handling of the war on terrorism. The Clintonites insisted that skill and diligence foiled the millennium terror plot. Others have argued it was more like dumb luck. Moreover, the policy prescriptions coming out of that episode were not heeded, according to John Ashcroft. Here's what Ahscroft said about it in his prepared remarks before the 9/11 Commission:

Finally, the Commission should study carefully the National Security Council plan to disrupt the al Qaeda network in the U.S. that our government failed to implement fully seventeen months before September 11.

The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 -- with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government.

In March 2000, the review warns the prior Administration of a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here.

Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls.

These are the same aggressive, often criticized law enforcement tactics we have unleashed for 31 months to stop another al Qaeda attack. These are the same tough tactics we deployed to catch Ali al- Marri, who was sent here by al Qaeda on September 10, 2001, to facilitate a second wave of terrorist attacks on Americans.

Despite the warnings and the clear vulnerabilities identified by the NSC in 2000, no new disruption strategy to attack the al Qaeda network within the United States was deployed. It was ignored in the Department's five-year counterterrorism strategy.

I did not see the highly-classified review before September 11. It was not among the 30 items upon which my predecessor briefed me during the transition. It was not advocated as a disruption strategy to me during the summer threat period by the NSC staff which wrote the review more than a year earlier.

I certainly cannot say why the blueprint for security was not followed in 2000. I do know from my personal experience that those who take the kind of tough measures called for in the plan will feel the heat. I've been there; I've done that. So the sense of urgency simply may not have overcome concern about the outcry and criticism which follows such tough tactics.

I am aware that the issues I have raised this afternoon involve at times painful introspection for this Commission and for the nation. I have spoken out today not to add to the nation's considerable stock of pain, but to heal our wounds. This Commission's heavy burden -- to probe the causes of September 11 -- demands that the record be complete. Our nation's heavy burden -- to learn from the mistakes of our past -- demands that this Commission seeks the whole truth.
May this Commission be successful in its mission. And may we learn well the lessons of history.
I thank members of the Commission for their service and for the opportunity to testify today.

I will be doing a lot of flying over the next few months, and I will act--without apology or shame--as the Jacobsens acted on their flight. As much as possible, I will be aware of what's going on in front and in back of the planes I ride. I will pay attention to detail. I will remember faces and gestures and odd objects. I will write things down. I will pester the flight attendants, discreetly, if I witness anything of concern. I won't hesitate to contact authorities if my gut tells me that danger is imminent. And I will be prepared to fight for my life.

Bottom line: I will not be lulled by the fashionable apathy of the blind. And I will not be cowed by the politically correct protestations of the dumb.

To those who shrug that "nothing happened" and that this is "not news," I say: Wake the *%&^#@ up and stop acting like 9/10 sheeple. Better a false alarm than a flaming plane.

From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg --

My wife & I were at the Linda Ronstadt performance in question, at the Aladdin in Las Vegas, and quite frankly, Aladdin President Bill Timmins' account of what happened is complete crap. There was mixed booing and cheering at Ronstadt's pro-Michael Moore comment, and that was about the extent of the "bedlam" that supposedly broke out. I saw no posters being torn down or cocktails being thrown in the air, and if people stomped out of the theatre unhappy, it was because 1) that was the last song Ronstadt performed; it was her encore; and 2) she mainly sang her standards repertoire, with the Nelson Riddle orchestrations, and a large part of the crowd wanted to hear more of her rock-'n'-roll stuff; she got the biggest round of applause for doing a lackadaisical run-through of her version of "Blue Bayou."

Frankly, my suspicion is that Timmins is way overdramatizing what happened, in order to justify giving Ronstadt the boot. It simply wasn't that big a deal.

(Best said in comic book guy voice of course)

Ramesh - Yeah, I know. I've only seen the last five minutes of that show. But countless Simpsons fans told me when it first appeared and again today that it was awful. I take their word for it.

Personally, I despise the Robert Altman homage, "22 Short Films About Springfield." But I know many Simpsons fans will disagree.

Lost in the cheering over the John Edwards pick and the cacophony following President Bush's refusal to speak at the NAACP convention this past week were reports that Bush might have been right after all when he said that Iraq had sought uranium for nuclear weapons. Bush was forced to back off the assertion, made in his 2003 State of the Union speech, after Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador to the West African nation of Gabon, concluded that it was highly doubtful that any such Iraqi effort to buy uranium ever took place….

Why were the media so willing to believe Wilson when he was an obvious Democratic partisan? He not only worked for the National Security Council in the Clinton White House, he also is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic presidential campaign of John Kerry. Why, indeed?

Several readers didn't get the reference. The Plow King V. Mr. Snow Plow thing is from the Simpsons. Click here or here. Or just Google it.

Excellent point, from a reader:

I still haven’t forgiven her for supporting Barney’s Plow King over Homer’s Mr. Plow……and the song was full of personal attacks:

When the snow starts a-falling

There's a man you should be calling

That's KL5-4796

Let it ring!

Mr. Plow is a loser

And I think he is a boozer

So, you'd better make that call to the Plow King

Linda Ronstadt did the same thing at Wolf Trap earlier this month. I guess she thought annoying much of her audience was her civic duty.

The biggest excitement of the night, by a long shot, came when Ronstadt then dedicated her encore of "Desperado" to filmmaker Michael Moore, kick-starting a boo-cheer competition throughout the venue that drowned out her singing and left grown-ups in tuxes and evening gowns yelling at each other on their way to the parking lot.

When will entertainers learn that significant numbers of people do not want to pay money to hear their opinions? As Laura Ingraham says, "Shut up, and sing." From the AP

LAS VEGAS - Singer Linda Ronstadt not only got booed, she got the boot after lauding filmmaker Michael Moore and his new movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" during a performance at the Aladdin hotel-casino.

Before singing "Desperado" for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about President Bush.

Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air.

"It was a very ugly scene," Aladdin President Bill Timmins told The Associated Press. "She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose."

Timmins, who is British and was watching the show, decided Ronstadt had to go — for good. Timmins said he didn't allow Ronstadt back in her luxury suite and she was escorted off the property.

Ronstadt's antics "spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it," Timmins said. [There's more...]

Despite everything, Love believes her predicament is the result of a coordinated financial, legal and personal smear campaign. In a recent interview with London's Sunday Telegraph, she was asked if she bears any responsibility for her current problems.

"The last thing I want to say is, 'I'm a victim', but I am. I believe it's a trickledown from Bush ... I should have done an audit. I should have done face-time with people. That is true. But did I bring it on myself? I don't think so."

Kevin Drum points to story which says the mass graves in Iraq don't have nearly as many corpses as we've been told. I hope there's more to this story, but if there's not Drum really does have good reason to be complaining.

Here's the whole item from Roll Call:

Reynolds Dares Pelosi to Bet Job Whoever Fails in ’04 Should Quit By Chris Cillizza Roll Call Staff July 19, 2004

In a gambit that dramatically sharpens the rhetoric in the fight for House control, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) will pledge today to resign his leadership post if his party loses the majority in November — on the condition that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) do the same if the circumstances are reversed.

This reader from Purdue makes a very good point:

Jonah,

I agree with you that the Conservative movement needs to make no concessions to or "special attractions" for young conservatives. My favorite quote - a
paraphrase from one of your G-Files - is that "In conservatism, the first
consideration of an action should be inaction."

On the contrary however, the Republican Party should make special effort to
attract young people - particularily young conservatives and LUGs (the
Libertarian ones, though personally I think attracting some of the better-
looking Lesbians would also liven up the party). On my campus, which I think
is typical of many midwest campuses, the majority of the student population is
conservative. The problem is that so many students fear joining the Republican
party because of the negative media portrayal. In the words of Peter Griffin
(Family Guy) "Hey look Lois, it's the two symbols of the Republican Party: An
elephant and a fat white guy afraid of change!"

At any rate, I would love to see a G-File on how the GOP can attract these
young conservatives (and perhaps convert some LUGs) in the 8 months you have left as a "youth." At any rate, I have great hope for my generation fixing the mess that the Baby Boomers left behind. Also, I much prefer "Millenial"
to "Gen Y" - we may not be united politically but there are still a lot of common events that bind us together.

From a friend who just saw the latest DNC ad:

I just watched the new DNC web ad called "safer," which says we're not safer. Anyway, the ad is amazingly dishonest. They quote Bush saying Bin Laden has been marginalized and that he doesn't worry about him too much. Then they say he's flip-flopped because they quote Ashcroft saying Al Qaeda is planning new attacks. Bush was saying he isn't that worried about Bin Laden specifically, that he's been personally marginalized, and that must be true to a great extent because if he were coordinating attacks, we'd be able to find him through sat phones etc. When has the admin ever said Al Qaeda wasn't a threat? Might be worth noting in the Corner...

From a reader:

Sub: "Why Jonah Should Never Run for Office"

From a future edition of New York Times

New York July 20 -- "I despise youth," wrote political candidate Jonah Goldberg yesterday. In a screed demonizing efforts to encourage young people to vote, Goldberg also said that youthful voters want anyone over 35 to be, "... twirled around the ceiling of a big stadium and then blown-up to the cheers of younger conservatives."

Etc.

President Bush has his words misused like this every day.

Dale Switzer (use my name or not, at will)

Youth-a-palooza. Note: Nothing I say in this column about the problems with young people should be seen as an argument against inviting me to speak on college campuses. I suppose it would be more in my interest to suck-up to the college market. But hey, I'm just keeping it real.

Instapundit has a round-up or at least a round-up of round-ups.

The debate about Lord Butler’s report has taken a large space in both, the western and Arabic media. As most of you probably know, Iraqis care more about the results of operation Iraqi freedom rather the causes and whether these were legitimate or not.

Because Iraqis have a lot to deal with regarding their daily life needs and the fact that we’re not a major player in international politics, it becomes understandable that they pay less attention than the rest of the world to the legal complexities of the war and most of them see this war legitimate simply because it lead to their solvation and freedom.

You cannot tell a man that saving him and his family from torture, humiliation and death was a mistake and it should’ve not been done because it’s illegal. This is almost an insult to Iraqis to hear someone saying that this war was illegal. It means that our suffering for decades meant nothing and that formalities and the stupid rules of the UN (that rarely function) are more important than the lives of 25 million people.

Matthew Continetti has a very nice, very thorough debunking of Wilson. Best one I've seen in print -- i.e. on paper -- so far.

Which two? For 11th grade reading:

Grapes of Wrath
Invisible Man
A Prayer for Owen Meany
An American Childhood
The Bean Trees
My Antonia
Beloved
Farewell to Arms

Any preferences amongst the crew at National Review?

If abortion were connected to actual women--people like my friend Amy Richards, who had an abortion at 18 and a selective reduction last year when she found she was pregnant with triplets, or Nancy Flynn, who was a single mom finishing her BA at Cornell when she had an abortion and who told me she would "never have been able to have the rich life I've had and help my son as much as I have if I'd been the single mother of two children"--perhaps the mounting restrictions wouldn't pass so handily. To paraphrase the late poet Muriel Rukeyser: What if women told the truth about their abortions? Even if the world didn't split open, this paralyzing issue might.

The subsequent firestorm caused the White House to retreat prematurely with: "the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address."

That apology was a mistake; Bush had spoken the plain truth. Did Saddam seek uranium from Africa, evidence of his continuing illegal interest in a nuclear weapon? Here is Lord Butler's nonpartisan panel, which closely examined the basis of the British intelligence:

". . . we conclude that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that `The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

Sounds about right, from a reader:

Jonah --

In Joe Wilson's letter to the Senate Committee (as
opposed to the letter to the Post, which is much less
detailed), he insists that what looked like his wife's
promotion of his candidacy was actually her
concurrence to someone else's suggestion. That may
actually be technically true, but it doesn't matter.
The issue was: why did Novak's sources out Plame? The
most plausible reason was to explain how Wilson got
the job, which is relatively innocent. Wilson
insisted that couldn't be right because his wife
wasn't involved -- it had to be something more
sinister, like revenge. But whether or not Plame
actually mentioned Wilson's name first, it sure must
have looked like she was involved to Novak's sources.
So the relatively innocent reason for outing is still
the most plausible, and Wilson's insistence that she
was not the prime mover is irrelevant if not
disingenuous.

According to the New York Times , Tommy Thompson’s decision to fatten up big government with a tasty slice of the war on obesity is already attracting potential diners to the trough:

“… commercial programs are considering what the Medicare change might mean for them. Dr. Stuart Trager, the medical director for Atkins Nutritionals, said, "We will pursue having the Atkins nutritional approach become a therapeutic option that is reimbursable."

Will this be how your tax dollars are put to work?

Here’s a thought-provoking, and, in its conclusions, undeniably troubling, article by Will Cummins in the Sunday Telegraph, written in the aftermath of two by-elections in the UK. This extract is particularly striking:

“What was fascinating about Thursday's by-elections in Leicester South and Birmingham Hodge Hill was the extent to which the candidates of Britain's main parties were prepared to appease the singular agenda of what has come to be called "the Muslim vote". (In both constituencies, Muslims form roughly 20 per cent of the electorate, within an overall minority population of 30 per cent.) In Leicester South, the tribunal before which the intrepid candidates satisfied the Faithful was the "Friends of Al Aqsa" committee. They were questioned on the three issues that meant most to Muslims in this very deprived ward. Not health, transport or crime but "Palestine", "Iraq" and "faith [read Muslim] schools". Yvonne Ridley, the candidate for George Galloway's Respect party, was at something of an advantage here, having been converted to Islam and kidnapped by the Taliban.”

What do Britain’s political parties think they are doing?

Here’s some entertaining science reporting from today's newspapers:

“Nicotine could soon be rehabilitated as a treatment for schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, as well as hyperactivity disorders.”

And then there’s this:

”Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.”

Incredibly, the Senate, which was, I naively believed, controlled by the GOP, has voted to subject tobacco to the FDA.

A dreary ‘Republican’ by the name of DeWine (R-Ohio) (he’s the lead sponsor of the bill along, revealingly, with Ted Kennedy), claims that “a lot of lives will be saved”. Over at Reason, Jacob Sullum isn’t so sure.

Interestingly, a number of Republicans only signed up for this mess as part of a deal that included $12 billion in spending on a bailout for tobacco growers.

Big government meddling and big government spending - all in one fat package.

Thanks for nothing, Dr. Frist.

Thanks to the reader who wrote to me highlighting the fact that Colorado is the only governmental entity ever to reject the five ring horror show better known as the Olympics, after voters wisely rejected a bond issue to finance the proposed hosting of the 1976 winter games by Denver.

In the unfortunate event that New York City is ‘awarded’ the 2012 Olympics, the electorate should follow this splendid example.

Here’s Mark Steyn on British plans to make it a criminal offense to incite ‘religious hatred’, whatever that might be.

“…Isn't that pretty much how it's likely to go once David Blunkett's new protection for Islam is in place? If you're the "moderate" Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, you'll be invited to speak at the "Our Children Our Future" conference sponsored and funded by the Metropolitan Police and the Department for Work and Pensions. But, if you express concern about ol' Mullah Moderate, an Islamic lobby group will file an official complaint about you.”

Read the whole thing (but you know that already). The piece also includes some thought-provoking comments on Islam from Winston Churchill, written just over a century ago, including this:

“No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith… raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

You can agree with that type of analysis, or disagree, but you should not be able to threaten prosecution to those who make it.

Incidentally, those inclined to see those Churchill’s words as simple, and archaic, bigotry should note the dig about Christianity and science: old Winston was not a man who was easily pigeonholed.

The UK controversy is also interesting in the context of the way in which such matters are handled in the US. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is an official creed in the US, a bland ecumenicism that insists that (in public statements, at least) everyone should ‘respect’ the beliefs of everyone else. This is something that goes far, far further than merely respecting the right of others to hold those beliefs (a respect that defines the freedom of religion that is, quite correctly, a cornerstone of American liberty).

If some religious fundamentalist happens to believe that those who disagree with him are destined for a toasty afterlife that is his right – and it’s his right, and maybe even his moral obligation, to say so out loud. It makes no sense for such a believer to claim to ‘respect’ the differing beliefs that, according to his faith, lead to eternal damnation. Equally, it is everybody else’s right to say that our fundamentalist’s faith is complete nonsense, and wicked to boot. That’s called religious debate, and it’s healthy, something that people once understood in this country.

These days, by contrast, such frankness is frowned on. It’s insensitive, we are told, boorish, or worse. To take one trivial example, whenever (as occasionally happens) I write something unflattering about Wicca, a ‘religion’ so absurd that it makes creationism look like rocket science, there are always a few people, not all of them witches, who e-mail me with the (entirely accurate) complaint that I don’t “respect” the Wiccan creed. Well, that’s just too bad. It would be much more interesting if such correspondents could write explaining why I was wrong. Revealingly, they rarely do. In today’s America, false ‘respect’ is better than honest discussion.

What a shame.