Meanwhile, a former subordinate of Bolton's offered to provide information to the committee about the way she said that Bolton treated her in the early 1980s, when they both worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Lynne D. Finney said Bolton had bullied her and tried to have her fired when they clashed over U.S. policy on the distribution of infant formula in developing countries — an issue that was then highly visible and politically charged.

Finney said she was working as a USAID attorney and had developed relationships with foreign officials at the United Nations. She said that in late 1982 or early 1983, Bolton called her into his office and told her to use her influence to persuade the United Nations to ease a policy that restricted the marketing and promotion of infant formula in developing countries.

Finney objected, saying that she could not, in good conscience, push for such changes, because she believed that the improper use of formula in poor countries was jeopardizing the health of babies.

"He shouted that Nestle was an important company and that he was giving me a direct order from President Reagan," she wrote in the letter. "He yelled that if I didn't obey him he would fire me."

When she persisted, Finney said, "he yelled that I was fired."

Finney, who lives in Utah and is a writer, lecturer and psychotherapist specializing in childhood trauma, declined to be interviewed for this article. She stated in her letter to Boxer that she cared about world peace and wanted to help defeat Bolton's nomination.

Bolton has declined to respond to allegations, saying it would be inappropriate while the committee considered his candidacy.

But a State Department official, who asked to remain unidentified, said Finney's account was "full of erroneous information and inaccuracies." He said the Reagan administration had stopped trying to overturn the U.N.'s rules on baby formula after it lost a vote by a wide margin.

He said that the State Department had "talked to a number of people who were there [in the USAID] at the time, and they have no recollection of these events, as described."

A number of people have written in to ask why I have had nothing to say on the obesity warriors’ rather awkward numbers problem. Too busy laughing, that’s why, but here and here are some wise comments from the good people at TCS.

Last night’s dinner – crispy pork belly in a rather good Austrian restaurant downtown, tomorrow’s breakfast – apple-cured New Hampshire bacon. Now if I could only find a nice Scotch egg in this town happiness would be complete.

In appearance Cameron Diaz is someone lovely enough to make me believe – if only for a second – in ‘intelligent design’ - but even those most inclined to give her the benefit of every doubt have to contend with the sneaky, troubling, suspicion that she is as dumb as a particularly stupid rock. First there were those ‘rape’ comments during the election, and now there is this:

“The 32-year-old Diaz, who earns a reported $20-million a movie, boasted that the cow-dung slathered walls of a Nepalese village hut were "beautiful" and "inspiring," and she called the primitive practice of "pounding mud" with sticks to construct a building foundation "the coolest thing."

There is something rather disgusting about the richest of the rich world rejoicing in the primitive squalor from which mankind is – all too slowly – emerging. There is also something profoundly condescending and, at its root, maybe even racist, in the way that Diaz (and, read the terrific article on all this nonsense here, Drew Barrymore too) appear to imagine that the third worlders trapped in desperate poverty do not share in the material aspirations of the more fortunate portions of humanity.

And as, for those ‘spiritual’ values that Diaz purports to find in picturesque hellholes such as Bhutan, I suspect that, given the chance, most of those bowers, scrapers and chanters would be pleased to junk their shamans, temples and priests in favour of running water, electricity and decent education.

And they would be right to.

Via Radley

One of the defining characteristics of Britain’s disastrous Blair years has been the way in which in so, so, so many areas, it is impossible to decide whether the Labour government policies are staggeringly incompetent or deliberately malign.

There’s no better example of this than in the field of immigration. Under Blair, Britain has quite simply lost control of its borders. Quite rightly, the Conservatives are making this an issue in the upcoming election (the UK votes on May 5th). Handled correctly, this is an issue that may well resonate with the electorate, and that’s why the inaccurately-named Independent is trying to conjure up a Tory split over immigration.

Read the article, and see what you think, but it is striking that the dissident Conservatives chosen to comment are a clown (Michael Portillo, who is, good riddance, finally stepping down as an MP) and a loser (Steve Norris) on the left of the party. We also learn that the boss if the Confederation of British Industry is concerned by Howard’s stance, but as his only interest lies in supporting the immigration of helot labour, it should, like the corporate cronyism that underpins President Bush’s laughable immigration initiatives, be ignored.

Could a miracle be about to take place in France? Although many knowledgeable folk remain doubtful that the EU’s squalid ‘constitution’ will really be voted down in the land of crooked Jacques this May 29th, the latest polls are very encouraging:

Even the slavishly pro-Brussels Guardian is reporting this:

"A poll for the free newspaper Metro by MarketTools research group yesterday showed 62% of people who have decided how to vote will reject the treaty in France's May 29 referendum, four points up from the previous 58% high in a survey by the BVA agency released on Thursday."

Meanwhile, Luxembourg’s prime minister, the evocatively named Jean-Claude Juncker, has proved that, contrary to the rumours, that dour bunch of eurocrats, placemen and rentiers located down in the Ardennes really do have a sense of humour. He’s saying that the EU will “continue to develop” if the constitution is voted right (true enough, alas), but that the process will slow down and that as a result “we would lose two decades, during which certain parts of the world would move ahead by adopting Europe's model, while others would catch up with us."

Quite why anyone else should want to adopt “Europe’s model,” which is best seen as the Ford Pinto of economic management and the Rolls Royce of corruption, is beyond me.

Juncker didn’t explain either.

I just got back from a press conference with Jeb Bush and the rest of the Presidential delegation.

An Italian journalist asked about Dowd's column ("in your newspaper, the New York Times..." "I would just like to make it clear that it is not MY newspaper")

Jeb said that Dick Cheney should be proud to be compared to Pope Benedict, and Pope Benedict should be proud to be compared to Dick Cheney.

I meant to say this the other day but didn't get around to it: I think David Brooks is fundamentally correct in saying that our politics won't get less bitter until Roe is overturned. For one thing, I suspect its overturning would make it much easier for politicians who were pro-choice-with-real-restrictions or pro-life-with-real-exceptions to succeed, because activists on both sides would be fighting real policy battles.

(I think, however, that to lament, as Brooks does, the way that Roe has poisoned the judicial-confirmation process is to view things from the wrong angle. If the Court is going to exercise this kind of power, it's appropriate for people to do what they can to influence it and make it the object of a political struggle.)

Ann Althouse argues that Brooks is wrong: Overturning Roe would just re-allocate the bitterness in American politics, giving more of it to pro-choicers. "Ironically, if, after all these years, social conservatives finally gain a majority on the Supreme Court that is willing to overturn the precedent, it will activate political liberals and libertarians. And one thing they will want is their majority back on the Supreme Court."

Althouse is certainly correct that pro-choice unhappiness would increase after Roe's demise. But let me try to offer, at least, some qualifications to her conclusion.

1) The familiar point about the Supreme Court and the politics of abortion is that any move it makes in one direction activates the losers and makes the winners complacent. Thus Roe massively enlarged the pro-life movement and Webster revitalized the pro-choice movement. But if Roe ended, pro-choice activation would, I think, not likely be matched by pro-life quiescence. There would be too many state (and federal) legislative battles to fight, and nobody on the pro-life side would think their work done. I think there is reason to think that a lot of the energy on both sides would shift away from the Supreme Court by necessity.

2) Am I making Althouse's case for her in predicting a lot of legislative "battles to fight"? I don't think so. In a lot of places, you'd have state laws that restricted abortion a lot more than it is restricted today, but not as much as pro-lifers (like me) would like. So hard-core partisans on both sides would be unhappy. But hard-core pro-lifers--let's say, people who believe that abortion should be outlawed in all three trimesters except when rape, incest, or the continued survival of the mother are involved--would be less unhappy than before. And while people who want abortion to be legal in all three trimesters for any reason would be more unhappy than before, there aren't many of them. You can get majorities of the public to endorse something very close to the hard-core pro-life view, but you can only get in the low 30s with the hard-core pro-choice view (and even that's stretching it). Public policy on abortion would be closer to median-voter sentiment. And the sense of the law's illegitimacy would be much harder for the losing side of any battle to maintain (as Brooks points out).

3) Our assumption has so far been that Roe dies in one decision. What if it dies incrementally? Maybe the Court will give back legislative authority one trimester at a time, as its composition slowly changes. That scenario would of course involve continued attention to Supreme Court confirmation battles while the dying took place, but would also change the way the legislative and electoral politics played out--and I think the change would make the Brooks thesis look stronger.

Two weeks ago, I posted that there appeared to be at least 50 votes for ending filibusters against judges--the so-called "constitutional" or "nuclear" option.

The votes aren't there any more.

The vote count was based on private communications, not public commitments, and some of the senators have shifted. The fallout from the Schiavo intervention and from Tom DeLay's remarks about judges have contributed to the shift, and so has the disagreement among Republicans about what the "constitutional option" should entail.

Today's comments from the vice president on the subject of the Senate and judges in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association:

. . . To build a stronger, better America for the next generation, we must also uphold the values that sustain our society -– limited government, personal responsibility, free enterprise, reverence for life, and equal justice under the law. And in this second term, President Bush will also continue nominating federal judges who faithfully interpret the law, instead of legislating from the bench. (Applause.)

Staffing the federal courts is one of the most important responsibilities of any President, and is given to him directly by the Constitution. To fulfill that responsibility, President Bush has submitted the names of superbly qualified nominees for the federal district and circuit courts -– men and women of experience who meet the highest standards of legal training, temperament, and judgment.

The United States Senate has also the responsibility, under the Constitution, to advise and consent to judicial nominations. To win confirmation, a nominee needs only a simple majority of senators voting.

For more than 200 years, the Senate has exercised this responsibility by voting either to confirm or reject nominations sent up by the President. Recently, however, a minority of senators has turned away from two centuries of practice and begun filibustering judicial nominees. The filibuster, of course, is a procedural device used to kill legislation by insisting on unlimited debate. The only way to stop a filibuster is by a super-majority vote of 60 senators. Employed against a judicial nominee, the filibuster effectively prevents an up or down vote on the Senate floor, even if a majority of senators have indicated support for the nomination.

During the 108th Congress, 10 of President Bush’s judicial nominees were filibustered. I see one of them, retired Judge Charles Pickering, is here with us today. (Applause.) I want to thank Judge Pickering for his many years of service to the United States of America. His nomination, and the others that were filibustered, were not held up for a lack of support. On the contrary, each one of them had majority backing and would have been swiftly confirmed by the full Senate, if only given that chance.

These nominations were held up strictly for partisan political reasons, in an astounding departure from historical precedent. Until recently, not once in the history of the United States had a group of senators ever used the filibuster to block a judicial nominee having majority support in the Senate.

This year President Bush’s judicial nominees include seven who were filibustered in the last Congress. Two of them, Terrence Boyle of North Carolina and Patricia [sic: Priscilla] Owen, Texas, have been waiting almost four years for an up or down vote. And very soon the Senate will face an important decision. If a minority of members again chooses to filibuster judicial nominees, then the majority may choose to institute a rule change to ensure that the nominations go to the full Senate. Let me emphasize the decision about how to proceed will be made by the Republican leadership in the Senate.

But if the Senate majority decides to move forward, and if the issue is presented to me in my elected office as President of the Senate, and presiding officer, I will support bringing those nominations to the floor for an up or down vote. (Applause.)

On the merits, this should not be a difficult call to make. First, the Senate has full authority to set its own rules, and it is perfectly legitimate for the leadership, backed by a majority, to restore traditional practice. And let me emphasize that -- to restore traditional practice.

Second, the Majority Leader, Senator Frist, has made clear that any action would be limited in scope, in no way altering the customs of debate or the availability of the filibuster where legislation is concerned.

Third, I believe there is an important principle at stake. When senators filibuster a nominee who has clear majority support, they are, in effect, trying to establish a 60-vote requirement for confirmation. A simple majority is what has been required for confirmation throughout our history. A filibuster of judicial nominees is, as a practical matter, an attempt to limit a President’s ability to appoint judges who have majority support in the United States Senate.

In short, there is no justification for allowing the blocking of nominees who are well qualified and broadly supported. The tactics of the last few years, I believe, are inexcusable, particularly when you’re dealing with men and women of the caliber of those nominated by George W. Bush. By any standard of judicial merit, they are fully qualified to serve. And by any standard of fairness, they deserve a vote in the United States Senate. (Applause.) . . .

Via Julian Sanchez, I see that Matthew Yglesias is arguing that it's just to guarantee that Social Security benefits keep up with wages rather than prices: "As general living standards improve, so do one's reasonable expectations of what constitutes a dignified retirement." That seems to me to be true.

But today's level of taxes is not capable of generating benefit levels that keep up with wages. To the extent the program is redistributive, maybe that point doesn't matter: You could just raise taxes on the rich to fund those benefit levels. But it would not make sense to raise someone's taxes in order to keep his own benefit levels high. Most people would, I'd guess, prefer to keep their taxes low and invest the difference rather than to pay more taxes to see their benefits rise.

I agree with a lot of his column today--which is no surprise, since I think he's one of the best, maybe the best, of the big-time conservative columnists. But the column displays two flaws--one characteristic, one not. The uncharacteristic flaw is a kind of logical sloppiness: Judicial independence, judicial supremacy, and the separation of powers are all treated as the same thing, and the same, uncomplicated thing at that.

The second, characteristic flaw is the dismissal of opposing points of view as "deranged" (sometimes synonyms are used). Conservatives usually (and wrongly) overlook this habit of Krauthammer because his targets are usually on the Left. "The non-deranged way to correct the problem [of judicial excess] is to appoint a new generation of judges committed to judicial modesty." Well, it is a non-deranged way to try to correct the problem. But one could reasonably conclude from 35 years of attempting to apply this solution without much success that something more is needed. I think that there are certain favorable conditions at work now (e.g., a large supply of Federalist Society types) that have not been in place in the past, so a good-appointments strategy might work better than it has in the past. But I don't think it's deranged to think that structural solutions might also be worth considering, whether term limits or jurisdiction stripping or something else.

First of all, who's lighting the chimp's cigarettes?

Second, given the horrific strength of chimpanzees discussed around here not too long ago, does forcing him to go cold turkey really sound like the best idea?

Note how the first paragraph calls into question the judgement displayed in the second. From some guy named Walter C. Uhler:

But, rather than address my criticisms directly, two editors ridiculed Z Magazine and anyone who would write to or for it. Yet, America's most brilliant and formidable intellectual, Noam Chomsky, routinely contributes to Z.

Thus, the rightward drift and accompanying deterioration of the Inquirer proceeded apace. Now, its Commentary page regularly features Op-eds by Jonah Goldberg, a syndicated right-wing lightweight with little of importance to say.

Of course this guy will eat his words should he read my opus on the

Cookie Monster!

I'll be speaking there on April 26th. It is open to the public.

Details:

Time: 7:00 PM
Room 3-115 of the EE/CSCI building on Washington Ave.

Map here
Topic: Enviro stuff and porn (ok, no porn).
Host: CFact.

My apologies, I was speaking in shorthand when in reality Godwin's law means something quite a bit different. In my defense, I can't count how many times I've seen my original usage of Godwin's law used conversationally on the web. From a reader:

Jonah,

Godwin's Law does NOT say that the first person to mention Hitler or the Nazis "loses." It says (per Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law): "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

And another reader:

Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Dougie thus fulfilled this prediction in rather record time...

USENET newsgroup tradition has it that the first flamer to hurl the
"Nazi" label automatically loses the argument. So there.

Via Instapundit, who notes that this time, it seems, France is in favour of pre-emptive war.

Most readers have agreed that my "dumb emailer" was indeed dumb. But a few folks have accused me of violating "Godwin's Law" which says that the first person to make allusions to or accusations of Nazi-like or pro-Hitler tendencies automatically loses. A few others said I'm simply wrong when I write that the "notion of 'all morality' being 'relative to context' is thoroughly and entirely consistent with Nazi philosophy."

I plead not guilty on all counts.

First of all, Doug-the-dumb-emailer was the one who broke Godwin's law from the outset by calling me a "closet facist." [sic] I was merely pointing out the irony of his position.

Second, I'm not behind schedule on a book about fascism because I haven't been doing my homework. Of course the notion that morality is contingent on context is central to Nazi philosophy. Johann Gottfried Herder, the intellectual father of Volkish nationalism (but a decent guy), argued that morality is geopgraphically and ethnically specific. When Alfred Baeumler adpated Nietzsche to the Nazi cause much of his argument hinged on the notion that Christianity wasn't a "universal" faith but a "Mediterreanean religion of salvation" which was entirely "alien to and far removed from [Nietzsche's] Nordic attitude."

This is a point, by the way, I think Andrew Sullivan got wrong in his recent criticism of Michael Novak. And since it's been bugging me, I'll tell you why.

Sullivan argues that the appeal of Nazism and Marxism weren't relativistic. But relativism doesn't solely mean the individual defines his own truths. It also means that individuals and groups can disregard external notions of authority and universality -- moral or legal -- to further their own conceptions of good and evil. This is what Julien Benda was referring to in his Treason of The Clerks when he complained that for the first time in memory, philosophers had sided with Socrates' killers.

The Communists believed that killing inconvenient peoples for the good of the party was entirely justified. The Nazis believed killing inconvenient peoples in the name of the volk was entirely justified. Both movements argued that morality for Communists and Nazis ("workers," "the proletariat," Aryans whatever) was different than morality for outsiders and therefore lying, cheating and stealing were justified by their group defined morality. How Andrew can call it a "big stretch" for Novak to suggest Marxism and Nazism were a product of the moral relativism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is beyond me.

A couple times a day I get this sort of thing out of the blue:

You, an apparent closet facist, suggesting balance is like the conclave having voted--not for Pelosi--but for Christopher Hitchens.

Off course you would defend, by all accounts, to use
your vacuous phrase, an ignorant regressive as Pope.
Do you, as does Ratzinger, know that all homosexuals
are intrinsically evil?

Since it's not nature, then it must be nurture. Do you
believe the professional lesbian child of the Cheneys
as well as the ordinary lesbian of Alan Keyes must
have grown up in the bosom of intrinsically evil
families?

Speaking of genes, is your seemingly constant lying,
both by omission and comission, a genetic defect or
learned behavior? The American media, not liberal, but
actually conservative, is, contrary to your assertion,
in this case correct. The fact is that the majority of
American Catholics want priests be able to marry and
have children and want women to be able to serve in
the clergy. Do you just make up data as you go along
to fit your lame story line?

You also forgot to mention a mere continent--Europe,
where Catholism is quite weak. You and Ratzinger act
like metaphysical morons, if you don't realize that
all morality is relative to context.

Sorry, I don't have time to teach you anymore tonight.
I must polish my Volvo.

Doug

Me: The stupidity speaks for itself. But I will just say that the notion of "all morality" being "relative to context" is thoroughly and entirely consistent with Nazi philosophy.

nobody has asked this yet, but, whenever you walk down a hotel lobby, can you please tell me what you might find to pick up and throw at someone? Was it a room service tray? Soap off the maid's cart? A chocolate mint? Townsel has never detailed what was thrown at her. All these details from her, except what was thrown. Curious, to say the least.

From a reader:

I was an intern for Denny Hastert when the Republicans first took over in ‘95, and because Denny was the Chief Deputy Majority whip, he was in the Capitol pretty much all the time with the leadership and its staff while (we) his staff stayed in Rayburn HOB. Well, I can remember on more than one occasion people being on the phone with our seemingly teddy-bearish, behind-the-scenes, now-Speaker, and let me tell you: he could tear people a new one; I witnessed 30-year-old LAs weeping, and I mean shaking, snot-flowing, bawling, at the end of a phone call, or guys looking white after having been eviscerated from across Independence Ave. With all my friends doing similar internships at the time, this seemed standard fare. It's politics for cryin' out loud, and frankly I think this "he said not nice things to me and is a big-meany-stupidhead!" is embarrassing for Democrats and just further emasculates their image. You Rule, Thor! (I figure I just upped my chances of getting posted) Loyal reader, Bill

2. IBTCI Moscow office was in a huge room on the first floor of the Aerostar hotel with a large number desks for American and Russian staff members working on multiple projects. Aerostar, a very large hotel with well lit large corridors and hallways, was a hub of many activities involving other Americans and foreigners as well. So, I personally see no scenario of any lonely encounter between Mr. Bolton and Ms. Townsel.

3. Immediately after my Moscow oversight visit, IBTCI asked me to go to Bishkek in response to the concerns and complaints received regarding how Ms. Townsel was handling her role as the Chief of Party on BTCI's USAID project in Kyrgyzstan.

4. I had very limited background on the Bishkek project before I went there, but during my audit of the operations in Kyrgyzstan, I found many weaknesses in the way Ms. Townsel was handling financial, personnel and other project-related matters. In response, Ms. Townsel also made some complaints about with IBTCI. I realize back in 1994, running a huge project in the remote city of Bishkek was challenging for all contractors including IBTCI. But the important thing is that I was in Bishkek for quite a few days and spent much time with Ms. Townsel every single day and she discussed a number of small or big things but not once did Mr. Bolton's name come up.

5. Due to the gravity of some of my findings, Mr. Bolton was requested upon my return to help formalize IBTCI's report to USAID in his capacity as outside counsel to IBTCI. The report was no doubt a scathing rebuke to Ms. Townsel. As a professional manager, I was extremely disappointed at Ms. Townsel's her lack of good judgment and serious irresponsibility; but I have not held before nor hold now any ill feelings towards her. I also remember that as counsel to IBTCI, as horrified as Mr. Bolton was at my findings, he did not make it his personal issue. However, I had a distinct reading of how embittered Ms. Townsel had gotten.

Is at it again (nod to Instapundit):

During a state visit to China, French Premier Raffarin threw support behind a law allowing China to attack Taiwan and continued to push for a lift of the EU arms embargo.

At the outset of a three-day visit to China, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he supported Beijing's "anti-secession" law on Taiwan, and vowed to keep pushing for an end to an EU arms embargo that could open the door for Paris to sell weapons to the Asian giant.

Raffarin also signed or finalized major business deals with Beijing valued at around $3.2 billion (2.4 billion euros).

Appearing to put his government at odds with the European Union, Raffarin said at the outset of the three day visit that Paris had no objections to the anti-secession law.

"The anti-secession law is completely compatible with the position of France," he said in a joint press conference with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao

I've received another document which reveals that Henry Kissinger was far more of a hugger than we ever realized! I guess critics of detente should shut up now.

I've received a document from a reliable source which proves that Prince Metternich was a real bear to the staff. He would often grill his foreign ministry officials about intelligence reports, often standing there in his tunic with his hands on his hips and demanding to get better answers to his questions. On another occassion he followed a contractor across the lobby of the Cafe Sacher demanding better terms. He also once cancelled the office softball game for no good reason. Clearly this is a blow to the historic standing of his diplomacy from which it will never recover. We can never look at the Holy Alliance the same way again.

Holy warriors

Cardinal Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency by tipping the Catholic vote. Can American democracy survive their shared medieval vision?

By Sidney Blumenthal

During the lunch, I remember Ms. Townsel complaining about conditions on the Kyrgyz project as well as the support she was receiving from IBTCI though no mention was made of Mr. Bolton attacking her.

Mr. Bolton could have met Ms. Townsel in the IBTCI office though I have no recollection of any specific encounter between Mr. Bolton and Ms. Townsel. I do remember that when Mr. Bolton and I were not attending meetings, he spent the majority of his time in his room, writing the Healthy Russia document. If Mr. Bolton had done any of the things Ms. Townsel has accused him of, those of us in the IBTCI office would have known about it due to the close quarters in which we worked. I personally have no memory of any such incident occurring during my stay in Moscow nor would I have forgotten it if it had occurred.

From a reader:

Jonah,

I saw your posting about Couey. I know there was a
lot of wailing that its hard to track sex offenders
because they move after they register. No one
appeared to have a solution, though.

My solution is not pretty, but then again, neither are
the consequences of doing nothing. I propose
standardized facial tattoos for all convicted sex
offenders. This is a brutish, but I think elegant,
solution to identifying dangerous people who might
wish to harm your family. I got the idea from the
Scarlet Letter and William F. Buckley's "abandon all
hope ye who enter here" tattoo for diagnose HIV
patients.

The tattoo may be removed if the offender is
exonerated. And of course, a stiff fine for any
tattoo artist who illegally removes a sex offender
facial tattoo.

You can post my name if you wish- I am not ashamed.
Perhaps I should be, but I can't quite manage it.

Alan Scanio

I still don't get it. Are we to believe that successful diplomats always treat the staff nicely? Senators are known for their decorum towards each other. However, last time I checked, some of them can be real jerks to their staffers or to government functionaries. Does that mean they shouldn't be Senators? Does anyone think Bolton is going to scream at the foreign minister of China on the floor of the General Assembly simply because he's known for yelling at fellow bureaucrats when he needs to get results? What, precisely, is the connection? What, exactly, is the concern?

Again, I'm not defending being a jerk to your subordinates. If he is, shame on him. But it sounds like he's more of a skull-cracker to get results. And, whatever he is, it is a new and absurd standard to say that a government official has to play nicey-nice on the staff in order to be confirmable.

When: April 23rd at 2:30.
Where: The McLean Hilton (Tyson's Corner Hilton)
7920 Jones Branch Drive,
McLean, Virginia 22102
R.S.V.P: To reserve seats call 703 255 2632 and say you are a friend of ours.

I will not get baited into another Me Vesus the Libertarians moment (partly because I sincerely doubt this guy speaks for that many libertarians). Basically this guy's argument boils down to why I'm not a "rational libertarian" as he defines the phrase. And, on that score, he's obviously correct. Anyway, from a reader:

You say you could never be "convinced" that heinous
criminal x should not be executed.

To a rational libertarian, that's pretty much like
saying you can never be "convinced" that the round
pegs go in the round holes and the square ones go in
the square holes: it's a matter of categories and
what is, or is not, a proper role for the State.

Government is not in the retribution business. It
exists to grant and withhold liberties from
individuals. A killer -- whether he kills one 99-year
old rapist or 10,000,000 infants -- can be dealt with
simply by removing his liberties, i.e., locking him
up. Society has no claim over the killer's autonomy
and existence except to ensure its own safety.

Anything more is sheer emotionalism, mob rule,
booga-booga tribalism, etc. Which you seem very much
to favor. I don't. But then, I have no problem with
showing hard-core porn on Saturday morning TV, if
that's what the market wants.

WASHINGTON – Nearly four years after she was first nominated by President Bush to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to send the nomination of Justice Priscilla Owen to the full Senate. The committee voted 10-8 along party lines.

A producer from a National Public Radio show "On the Media" called me up recently to tell me that [a style manual] ... many journalists around the country call on when writing their stories is dictating that journalists stop using the word fetus and replace it with the term unborn child. This producer asked me if I thought this was political, and when I said, "Of course it's political," she debated me. We've heard this phrase unborn child so much that it's physically changing our brains. Also, the word fetus has been demonized, even though it is a technical, scientific term. The right is so successfully framing this issue that a term representing a political agenda is becoming the "neutral" or "objective" word that journalists are supposed to use in their stories.

The right has been on this for the last 40 years; they understand and pay attention to the way the mind works. They play the journalists right now. Many times, journalists don't even know that they are promoting the right's language. They see it as neutral and repeat it over and over -- "tax relief, " "partial-birth abortion." The right has come up with a whole list of values and language about those values, so that their spokespeople can use it over and over again and get the media to use their language over and over again, and to ask their questions. Until we hear it all so much, have it reinforced in so many ways, that it physically changes our brains. There is nothing neutral or objective about that. People talk about a "competitive marketplace of ideas." The notion that there are all these equally weighted, neutral ideas floating about out there, from which people will choose their views and opinions. It doesn't exist. The right figured out how to physically change our brains, and the left is only beginning to recognize this very basic fact of cognitive science.

I found this interesting:

As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith (the Holy Office) since 1981, Ratzinger has been treated as a kind of grand inquisitor by the media. This is based on the “persecution” of a handful of theologians, most famously Hans Küng. In reality, this persecution amounted to a change of job title: Küng could no longer call himself a professor of Catholic theology, but continued to teach exactly the same things at the same university.

I once discussed Ratzinger with Küng, his Swiss contemporary and arch-rival. While admitting that the new Pope was a clever man, Küng insisted that he had done great damage to the Church. But Küng believes that all the great world religions essentially teach the same, which is manifestly incompatible with Catholic doctrine. I came away with the impression that of these two brilliant theologians, it was Küng who had succumbed to the temptation to think he knew better, while Ratzinger had submitted to the authority of the Church. Ratzinger is no inquisitor, but Küng is a heretic.

And so when he described himself on the balcony yesterday as “a simple and humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard”, there was no false modesty.

This reader's letter reminds me why the Vatican City PD have never been featured on "Cops."

Jonah, My eldest brother is a Jesuit priest and did an assignment in the Vatican a few years ago. He told us many interesting things about the experience, including that there is a law in Vatican City (and maybe also in Rome proper) against impersonating a priest or nun. "Fr Guido Sarducci" was arrested once for violating this law - the cops noticed him because he was wearing sneakers instead of black patent leather shoes.

The power of the Corner. From a reader:

When you click on the Guido Sarducci video clip on the page you linked to, you get a notice that it's unavailable due to sudden demand. The power of the Corner strikes again!

"If I could strike the words 'choice' and 'abortion' out of the lexicon of our party, I would," he said. "The debate and the difference between the parties is we believe a woman has a right to make up her own mind about her health care, and they (Republicans) believe that (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay and the boys in Congress should be making up that woman's mind."