ABC runs a report showing the names and faces of two CIA contractors who may have had a role in the waterboarding of KSM and Abu Zubaydah. The network apparently outsourced this report to a freelancer named Matthew Cole, whose record in Nexis includes just three bylines -- two stories for Salon (one of which about "how Bush administration aid to Pakistan helps fund insurgents who kill U.S. troops"), and one for the San Jose Mercury News just two days after 9/11 reporting "anxiety about a backlash" among Muslims, who assure the reporter that the attack "has nothing to do with Islam."

In other words, Cole is a left-wing partisan with questionable reporting chops. This is obvious from the quality of the story tonight. Cole repeats the now throughly debunked claim that Zubaydah and KSM were waterboarded 83 and 183 times respectively. He posts video of the two refusing to answer questions in what is staged as a faux perp walk with no discernible news value other than to portray them as criminals. And, most amazingly, Cole indicts the two men for not having any experience prior to their work for the CIA -- as though being "previously involved in the U.S. military program to train pilots how to survive behind enemy lines and resist brutal tactics" isn't relevant.

ABC's conduct here, exposing two men who will now become obvious targets for terrorists and left-wing extremists, is deplorable. Will the Obama administration investigate who leaked their identities? Or is it now open-season on Americans who were only doing what their government asked of them in order to protect their country from attack?

There have been at least two noteworthy pieces of Gitmo-closing news in the past 24 hours.

First, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee today that as many as 50 to 100 Gitmo detainees cannot be tried but are too dangerous to be released. The implication being that the Obama administration will continue to detain them. Gates asked: “What do we do with the 50 to 100 -- probably in that ballpark -- who we cannot release and cannot try?” That's still an open question, Gates said, but he's requested an additional $50 million in funding for the facility, just in case it is needed. But Gates recognized that most communities won’t want former Gitmo detainees jailed near them.

“I fully expect to have 535 pieces of legislation before this is over saying ‘not in my district, not in my state.’”

“We’ll just have to deal with that when the time comes,” Gates said.

Second, on the other side of the Atlantic, Attorney General Holder told reporters that the Obama administration has approved 30 detainees for release. This includes the 17 Uighur detainees as well as 13 others. (See here for a summary of the Uighurs’ story.) Over at the Corner, Andy McCarthy runs down the pertinent questions with respect to these 30 detainees, including: “What are the standards used by the administration to ‘clear’ an enemy combatant for release?”

This question is particularly important because we know the Obama administration has cleared a known al Qaeda doctor named Ayman Batarfi, who has ties to the terrorist group’s anthrax program, for release. Besides the 17 Uighurs and Batarfi, what other detainees have been cleared for release?

Putting Holder’s comments together with Gates’s remarks we are left with a few questions. There are reportedly 241 detainees left at Gitmo. If 30 detainees have been cleared for release, and another 50 to 100 are too dangerous to be released but cannot be tried, then we are still left with somewhere between 111 and 161 detainees. What will come of them? How many of those detainees will the Obama administration try in court? Will the majority of them ultimately be released as well? Is the Obama administration attempting to get European nations to take them?

Likely Illinois Republican senatorial candidate Mark Kirk has a strong showing in an early poll.

Remember how zealous Republicans abandoned relentlessly campaigned for Specter in 2004?

Fred Barnes' Election Day prediction that we were in for a "lurch to the left" is unfortunately looking on target.

A Quinnipiac poll shows that "American voters oppose 55 - 38 percent a law in their state allowing same-sex couples to marry, but support 57 - 38 percent allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions."

Aide on Obama's advance team believed to have swine flu. Do you have swine flu? Take this test to find out.

Miss California featured in marriage ad:

J Street has drawn a line in the sand: you're either with the President or against him. There's only one problem. J Street, accidentally one imagines, have put themselves in the against him camp. Ami Eden has the story at JTA, where he notes a statement the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian group put out today in response to a bipartisan push for tougher sanctions on Iran, specifically a bill introduced in the House today by Reps. Sherman and Kirk:

On Iran, the President is promoting tough, direct diplomacy to address concerns over their nuclear program, support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and threats against Israel. The President has made clear that the diplomatic road ahead will be tough -- but the chances of success won't be helped by Congress imposing tight timelines or a new round of sanctions at this moment.

Yet, just this week, the Orwellian-named "Iran Diplomacy Enhancement Act" was introduced in the House -- a bill that in reality does nothing to "enhance diplomacy" but instead imposes further sanctions on Iran, directly undercutting the President's diplomatic message.

As Eden says, "The only thing Orwellian here is J Street's implication that lawmakers are undercutting the Obama administration by pushing for sanctions." Indeed, President Obama has been clear that he favors tougher sanctions on Iran in conjunction with direct diplomacy. Further, similar legislation (which we've covered here and here) has been introduced in the Senate with a long list of Democratic co-sponsors including Senators Bayh, Lieberman, Boxer, Cardin, Feingold, Klobuchar, Landrieu, Menendez, Mikulski, Murray, Schumer, Stabenow, and Wyden. That bill (referred to as Bayh-Kyl) empowers the president to impose sanctions on anyone helping Iran import refined petroleum products.

That legislation will be mirrored in the House by a bill that's likely to be introduced this afternoon by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Berman and Ranking-member Ros-Lehtinen and which will incorperate the Sherman-Kirk legislation.

Does J Street mean to imply that all these Democrats are "directly undercutting the President's diplomatic message." Apparently so. The legislators are described in J Street's email as the president's "opponents," who "are trying to rally Congress to thwart his agenda." Except the White House does not oppose this legislation. Neither does the State Department. The only group that does oppose this legislation is J Street, which at this point would be indistinguishable from an arm of the Iran Lobby if one existed.

As Ami Eden sees it, "J Street is the one undermining Obama's Iran policy."

If her interruptions interview of Liz Cheney about interrogation wasn't enough to show her true colors, she was just on MSNBC fretting about just how loyal a Democrat Arlen Specter might be.

Interviewing Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell about whether he had made a deal with Specter to clear the Democratic primary field for him, O'Donnell used David Broder's Specter column as a jumping-off point:

So, once again, Specter is likely to reap political rewards from his maneuvering. But the Democrats should be open-eyed about what they are gaining from his return to his original political home.

Specter's history shouts the lesson that he will stick with you only as long as it serves his own interests -- and not a day longer.

O'Donnell: "So, Governor, why should we clear the field for him if he's about political opportunism?"

At the risk of offending Native American tribes of the Central Algonquian language family, "Who is this 'we' you speak of, Kemosabe?"

Rendell assured the impartial reporter that Specter could indeed be counted on to vote for much of Obama's agenda (whew!), and that he had made no deal with Specter about clearing the field. "If he had asked, I would have said, 'I'll do my best,' but Arlen Specter didn't make a deal."

As Goldfarb noted earlier, Obama said last night that he "was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, 'We don't torture' "

We asked Richard M. Langworth, editor of the Churchill Centre quarterly Finest Hour and of Churchill by Himself, an annotated collection of 4000 Churchill quotations, if he could find this quote. Here's what he had to say:

The word “torture” appears 156 times in my digital transcripts of Churchill’s 15 million published words (books, articles, speeches, papers) and 35 million words about him—but not once in the subject context. ...

Churchill spoke frequently about torture, mostly enemy murders of civilians. His daughter once told me, “He would have done anything to win the war, and I daresay he had to do some pretty rough things—but they didn't unman him.” But if Churchill is on record about “enhanced interrogation,” his words have yet to surface.

The nearest I could come to his sentiments refers not to terrorist fanatics but to prison inmates. In 1938, responding to a constituent who urged him to help end the use of the “cat o’nine tails” in prisons, Churchill wrote: “the use of instruments of torture can never be regarded by any decent person as synonymous with justice.”

If that line appeals to Mr. Obama, he can certainly use it with confidence.

It seems that one of the most important parts of Arlen Specter's deal to change parties is the assurance that he won't face a Democratic primary next year. Specter's votes for Justices Alito and Kennedy, his opposition to Card Check, the support he has received from people like George Bush and Rick Santorum -- all make him more vulnerable in a Democratic primary. And at least one heavyweight Democrat -- Representative Joe Sestak -- is not ready to rule out a primary against Specter.

And while Democratic Senators ought to be basking in the glow of their presumed 60-seat majority, it seems that backbiting rules the day instead. Senior Democrats are angry at Specter and Reid:

"I won't be happy if I don't get to chair something because of Arlen Specter," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who sits on the Appropriations Committee with Specter and is fifth in seniority among Democrats behind Chairman Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Sens. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Tom Harkin (Iowa). "I'm happy with the Democratic order but I don't want to be displaced because of Arlen Specter," she said.

One senior Democratic lawmaker told The Hill that the Democratic Conference will vote against giving the longtime Pennsylvania Republican seniority over lawmakers like Harkin, Mikulski and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) when they hold their organizational meeting after the 2010 election.

Specter was elected in 1980, and under his deal with Reid would jump ahead of all but a few Democrats when it comes time to dole out committee chairmanships and assignments.

“That’s his deal and not the caucus’s,” the senior lawmaker said of Reid’s agreement with Specter...

Several Democrats believe they did Specter a favor by allowing him to join their caucus and give him a chance to run as a Democrat in 2010.

“He was a cooked goose,” said the senior Democrat. “He was going to lose to [former Rep. Pat] Toomey [R-Pa.] and we were going to beat Toomey. We did him a favor by allowing him to remain in the Senate.”

Less than 24 hours after Specter announced his party switch, Democrats have already begun to grumble loudly, exchanging phone calls to complain about Reid’s gambit, said one participant.

The dispute over Specter's seniority makes it harder to eliminate primary opponents -- and not just because some Democrats Senators may be angry with Specter over his seniority claims.

Most Democrats seem unable to imagine a day when Republicans again compete on a level playing field with Democrats. In a state like Pennsylvania -- which has trended blue -- few are likely to believe that a competitive Democratic primary threatens their hold on Specter's Senate seat. For senators who see Specter as a threat to seniority, the obvious answer would be to encourage a primary challenger. After all, if any Democrat will beat any Republican in that race -- as Democrats seem to think -- then a freshman Democrat Senator is far preferable to a Democratic Senator Specter.

A lovely moment, and glimpse inside the audacity of the Obama communications shop, at the press briefing just now.

Jake Tapper pointed out that travel-industry officials had characterized Vice President Joe Biden's comments about swine flu and public transportation as "fearmongering." Biden made the comments on NBC's "Today" show this morning, prompting a federal-government backtrack that looked like a Moonwalk convention.

"I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places right now," Biden said. "It's not that its going to Mexico, it's that you are in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes, it goes everywhere through the aircraft. That's me."

Tapper asked for clarification and whether there would be an apology from the administration for Biden's comments. Robert Gibbs responded with a reiteration of the president's standard talking points— "I think what the vice president meant to say was," there's cause for concern, but not alarm, people should wash their hands, etc.

Tapper interrupted, saying, "With all due respect, that's not even remotely what the vice president said."

"I'm telling you what he meant to say," Gibbs said, sounding peeved as the press corps laughed somewhat incredulously. He added that, "if people felt unduly alarmed for whatever reason, we would certainly apologize for that."

Another reporter asked Gibbs if "we would certainly apologize for that" meant he was actually apologizing, and Gibbs referred him to the statement from the office of the vice president, which is notably without apology:

"The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways," said Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander.

"This is the advice the vice president has given family members who are traveling by commercial airline this week. As the president said just last night, every American should take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flu: keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough; stay home from work if you're sick; and keep your children home from school if they're sick," she said.

I'm assuming the White House will now be giving the administration credit for another "profuse" apology from the White House for scaring the mess out of people, for the second time this week.

In the coming months, with little fanfare, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna will select a new Director General for the organization. This person will play an integral role in international efforts to curtail the nuclear weapons ambitions of countries such as Iran. Current IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s term ends at the end of 2009 and during several rounds of voting by the IAEA’s Board of Governors last month, neither of the two leading candidates -– Japan's Yukiya Amano and South Africa's Abdul Minty -– were able to muster enough support. The Obama administration reportedly favored Amano in the first round of voting. It should have been an easy choice because South Africa -- and Minty personally -- has a long history of opposing U.S. and Western positions in international fora. Given the deadlock in March, the field has now widened, with Spanish, Slovenian, and Belgian candidates joining the race. The next round of voting will take place in June.

This may all seem like a meaningless fight to head an obscure UN agency’s bureaucracy, but the United States has much at stake in who wins. During his three terms in office since 1997, ElBaradei has been an outspoken opponent of many U.S. policies, including the invasion of Iraq. After he and the IAEA won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, ElBaradei’s practice of opining on matters outside the IAEA’s ambit only increased. In an interview several weeks ago with Roger Cohen of the New York Times, ElBaradei referred twice to Vice President Cheney as “Darth Vader,” described U.S. policy toward Iran under the Bush administration as “a combination of ignorance and arrogance,” and argued that the United States needed to talk to Iran with “every grievance on the table.”

What have been ElBaradei’s achievements other than pleasing the Nobel Committee? North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) under his watch, and two weeks ago the Hermit kingdom again kicked out IAEA inspectors from its nuclear facility at Yongbyon and announced it was restarting its nuclear program. The IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s pre-2003 covert nuclear weapons program has essentially stalled and instead of accurately reporting Iran’s refusal to cooperate, ElBaradei has consistently been an advocate for a political solution rather than pressing the Iranians. When Syria was discovered to be building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance in violation of its NPT commitments, instead of expressing concern about Syria’s actions, ElBaradei questioned the evidence and criticized the United States and Israel for not informing the IAEA about the reactor before Israel destroyed it in September 2007.

Why care about who replaces ElBaradei? One key reason is that if the Obama administration, in its fervor to engage Iran, decides to allow Iran to retain a limited nuclear program under enhanced international scrutiny, it will be the IAEA that will be called upon to ensure that Iran’s activities remain peaceful. It is unclear if the Obama administration will go down this slippery slope to an Iran with nuclear weapons, but if it does, the only thing standing between the civilized world and a nuclear-armed Iran will be the IAEA unless the United States or Israel takes military action. It is thus essential that the next IAEA Director General not be a shill for Iran but be willing to carry out the IAEA’s mission even when it upsets Iran and its allies on the Agency’s board.

During his April 5 speech in Prague, President Obama called terrorist acquisition of a nuclear weapon “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” The Obama administration has until now supported Amano only quietly in Vienna, adopting the State Department’s traditional reluctance to speak forcefully in support of a candidate for an international position (with the convoluted logic that if the United States is vocal, all of America’s enemies will support someone else –- as if they would support our preferred candidate anyway). The bureaucrats at State should heed the President’s sense of urgency about the threat of nuclear proliferation and make every effort to ensure that Amano or another suitable candidate is elected Director General of the IAEA. Otherwise, we will end up with another ElBaradei clone who will spend the next four years criticizing U.S. policy and supporting the serial violators of the NPT rather than holding them accountable.

President Obama invoked Winston Churchill last night as an example of a leader who refused to resort to torture no matter the threat. Obama said he "was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, 'We don't torture,' when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat."

Ben Smith says it's not so clear cut:

A reader points out, though, that that's a seriously contested claim. The Guardian published an article in 2005 on the alleged torture of German prisoners in the "London Cage" between 1940 and 1948.

The paper described the facility as a "torture centre" and quotes one detainee -- an SS officer -- alleging "that he was doused in cold water, pushed down stairs, and beaten with a cudgel. Later, he says, he was forced to stand beside a large gas stove with all its rings lit before being confined in a shower which sprayed extremely cold water from the sides as well as from above. Finally, the SS man says, he and another prisoner were taken into the gardens behind the mansions, where they were forced to run in circles while carrying heavy logs."

As far as I'm concerned the Guardian is no more credible than a veteran of the SS, which is to say not at all. I don't believe Churchill ordered the torture of Germans captured on the battlefield, but these were uniformed combatants, and what could they possibly have told their captors anyway -- there's a bunch of planes headed to London tonight? When Germans or their agents were caught operating without a uniform, they were turned or shot -- no trial, no habeas, no nothing.

But let's not pretend that Churchill wasn't responsible for policies that Jon Stewart and Andrew Sullivan would consider war crimes. Churchill oversaw an area bombing campaign that killed tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of civilians, and was carried out by a man commonly referred to as Butcher Harris. He authorized that campaign despite his serious reservations about the methods being employed or the effect it would have on the outcome of the war, and he subsequently made Harris a baronet as a reward for the services he'd rendered.

Wars are messy, and in just 100 days Obama is already responsible for the deaths of more than a few civilians resulting from the targeted assassinations of al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish magistrate who launched an investigation of six Bush administration officials, has also begun investigating Israeli officials for just such targeted assassinations as part of the Gaza campaign. Garzón at least seems to believe that all state-sanctioned violence is criminal. Obama would have us believe it's only criminal when Bush sanctions it.

The vice president's foot-in-mouth disease is flaring up again.

Tom Harkin is not pleased.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, wants you to believe there is nothing to worry about in Pakistan and his country is taking the fight to the Taliban. And everything would be fine if the U.S. would just give Pakistan more money and weapons and stop being so critical of his countries efforts fighting the Taliban. And how dare we question his country's resolve?

Meanwhile, the Pakistani military and the interior minister boasted on April 27 that its operation in Dir was a wild success and the Taliban was dislodged from the district.

But, as mentioned the other day, when observing military operations, it is critical to take Pakistani government and military official's statements with buckets filled with salt.

Today, three days after Pakistani officials lauded the success in Dir, the BBC reports that much of Dir is still under Taliban control. Even the locals know their government isn't being straight with them:

The government's writ seems non-existent for nearly 20km from the southern tip of the district. Between the southern town of Chakdara and the village of Talash, we encountered very little traffic, most of which was outbound, carrying displaced families.

At a couple of points we negotiated road blocks apparently set up by the police during the preceding weeks, but there were no policemen to be seen. And no army or paramilitary troops.

A senior official in Timergara, requesting anonymity, said the area east of Chakdara-Talash sector, which links up with the Kabal sub-district of Swat, is controlled by the Taliban.

"They also sometimes set up checkpoints on the main road to check vehicles," he said. Many people are afraid that a Swat-like situation may emerge in Lower Dir, involving fighting without end.

"When the government announced the end of operations yesterday, we were hopeful that things will get back to normal," says Haji Anwaruddin. "But now we know they are bluffing. They want the world to know that fighting has ended when it hasn't. I think we are in for a long haul."

From an email floating around the Hill:

During his 100-day commemorative press conference last evening, President Obama criticized the enhanced interrogation techniques because he asserted, without any empirical support, that “we could have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques.” In further detail, he then claimed that “the public reports and public justifications for these techniques . . . [don’t] answer the core question, which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques.”

In actuality, the OLC memos the President released publicly do answer that core question specifically, as they reflect the CIA position “that [the CIA] would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including KSM and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques.” Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, CIA Senior Deputy General Counsel, from Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, pp. 8-9, dated May 30, 2005 (released Apr. 16, 2009).

Tonight President Obama said he was "absolutely convinced" that he had made the right decision in putting an end to the use of the harsh interrogation techniques employed by the Bush administration. After eight years of President Bush, it certainly is refreshing to have a leader who doesn't let himself become entangled by complexity and nuance but instead has absolute certainty in the righteousness of his own decisions. Obama said that "we could have gotten this information in other ways -- in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are." Maybe, but we'll never know. And if there is another attack on this country, we'll never know whether a more aggressive interrogation approach might have averted it.

Obama's supple mind is still capable of nuance and complexity though, as evidenced by his answer to a question about abortion. Obama said abortion is "a moral issue and an ethical issue" and that women "struggle with these decisions each and every day." Our president is clearly troubled by abortion, but not so troubled he would outlaw the practice. Instead the president wants "to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies."

There's a striking contrast between these two answers. Perhaps Obama ought to try and think of waterboarding like he thinks of abortion -- as something that ought to be kept safe, legal, and rare. A last resort when all else fails. Unfortunately, he's now painted himself into a corner on the issue. Polling seems to indicate that the American public believes waterboarding is torture and also that it was justifiable. The president doesn't have the luxury of holding such a contradictory position.

One thing that is certain: Obama's answers weren't nearly as weak as the questions that prompted them. Jeff Zeleny embarrassed himself and his paper when he asked Obama what was the most "enchanted" moment of his first 100 days. I was unable to see whether the question was read out of a My Little Unicorn notepad. Readers of the New York Times may wonder why the Obama administration approved a dramatic reenactment of the 9/11 attacks using real fighter planes and a lifesize 747. They won't find the answer in tomorrow's paper, though they'll be delighted to learn that "the ship of state is an ocean liner; it's not a speed boat."

In other words, Obama wants credit for closing Gitmo even though there's only one less prisoner there than when he was inaugurated and his administration has no good answer for what to do with the rest. Obama wants credit for his handling of the economy even though the economy contracted at a worse than expected 6.1% in the first quarter of this year. Obama wants credit for rejecting the false choice between our security and our ideals even though you only get credit for that if your policies keep the American people safe.

Update: Full transcript here.

First, the earth moved briefly when the words "Bush administration" and "good job" came out of Barack Obama's mouth in the same sentence. Apparently he's finally inherited something he likes—stockpiles of Tamiflu and the infrastructure to deal with a pandemic.

From now on, we're calling this sucker H1N1 flu, not only because it totally rolls of the tongue, but because calling it "swine flu" is "not fair to Missouri's hog farmers," according to Sen. Claire McCaskill.

The NYT turned into a beauty pageant judge. "What enchants you?"

Obama obfuscated for 5 minutes before answering Jake Tapper's question, but eventually and mercifully used just seven words to wrap things up: "I do believe that it is torture." He also asserted that vital information for preventing terror attacks could have been gleaned from hard-boiled mass murderers through other means, the guidebooks for which are hidden in the sugarplum grove at the foot of the gumdrop tree in the Mythical Forest of Prosperity from which Obama's domestic plans come. Convenient!

Speaking of terror attacks and simulations thereof, the president declined to take his $21.5 million worth of prime-time TV coverage to say, "Hey, sorry for using Air Force One to re-create 9/11. Mix-up at the office." No reporter in the room availed himself of the opportunity to ask Obama about the $329,000 terror attack run-through, surely figuring that it was totally worth it for the "investment" in lowering future health care costs by making New Yorkers sprint through the streets in gut-wrenching panic.

Luckily, now that he's president, momentary upticks in violence in Iraq don't mean that the U.S. should run for the hills or that the nascent political system is on the verge of utter collapse.

"Civilian deaths, incidents of bombings … remain very low relative to what was going on last year," Obama said during a prime-time news conference on his 100th day in office. "You having seen the kinds of spikes that you were seeing for a time. The political system is holding and functioning in Iraq."

Obama is full steam ahead on immigration reform, and Johnny Mac is gonna be his First Mate! Coming by the end of 2009, he claims. He did concede that he and Napolitano have a duty to make the American people sure that border security can happen before delving into a guest-worker or amnesty plan, lest the voting public not believe in their promises. I'll give him credit for saying that. It would have been easier to call everyone with an issue "racist." Presumably, that's Plan B, after he reverses on border security....

...just the way he reversed on the Freedom of Choice Act, of which he said on the campaign trail: "First thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." Sorry, Planned Parenthood!

U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday his position on abortion rights has been consistent but the Freedom of Choice Act is not among his top priorities.

See? Consistent!

Speaking of border security, Obama didn't entirely close the door to closing the border with Mexico to prevent swine H1N1 flu spread, but said he's "consulting daily and sometimes hourly with public health officials who recommended against it." He added:

"From their perspective it would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out. We already have cases in the United States."

To which I say, OMG did Barack Obama just call immigrants horses? How insensitive!

Barack Obama is also "gravely concerned" about the Pahkistahn government (and its inability to deliver health care?), but feels it is cahpable of keeping dahngerous nukes out of the hahnds of deprahved terrorists who would wish to do us dahmage. Also, the caht saht on the maht.

And, finally, remember to wash your hands!

So, was it worth $21.5 million? (Fox broadcast could not be reached for comment, but if could have been, it would have said, "suckahs!")

Fred Barnes on Specter's defection.

Bipartisanship you can believe in: 53 senators--all Democrats--vote for Obama's budget; 43 senators--including Democrats Bayh, Byrd, Nelson, and Specter--vote against it.

Obama clears 13 more detainees for release.

AP: Obama disowns deficit he helped shape.

House passes "hate crimes" law.

Watch the entire Cliff May v. Jon Stewart debate on interrogations here.

Another Specter quote to add to the file:

“The only check and balance in America today are the 41 Republican Senators who can talk and filibuster. Otherwise, the White House, the House of Representatives [will] be a streamroller.”

“If there’s a Democrat in my place, then they’ll have anything they want,” Specter continued, speaking of the Dems. “It will be a bulldozer.”

It comes at about the 5:50 mark. Cliff May asks Stewart whether Truman's use of the atomic bomb was a war crime, Stewart ruminates and then responds with an unequivocal "yes." He's certainly not the only American who would take that view, but it's a useful reminder that the most vocal and popular criticism of the Bush administration's war on terror policies comes from people who, if they were being as honest as Stewart, would also judge Lincoln (suspension of habeas), FDR (internment), and Truman (use of nuclear weapons) as war criminals or tyrants or worse.

Stewart repeats the charge again later in the interview, but you have to wonder whether this was one of the rare times that he just got outmaneuvered on his own show. Serious people have debated Truman's decision for 60 years, but even those who disagree with that decision rarely describe it as "criminal." And if it was criminal, whatever crimes the left alleges of President Bush seem pretty trivial in comparison.

Barack Obama took a few moments at a town hall in Missouri today to address the 300,000 activists who showed up at Tax Day Tea Parties across the nation, protesting out-of-control spending and a growing deficit piled on by the new administration. With his signature eloquence and respect for opposing viewpoints, he both wooed his critics and lauded an American system that makes it possible for them to criticize him:

"You did it because you know in your hearts that at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – we cannot afford to keep doing what we've been doing. We owe our children a better future. We owe our country a better future."

"Psych! You did it because you're bunch of lunatic right-wingers who don't know what's good for you. Have you ever read 'What's the Matter With Kansas?' Highly recommended."

"For two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive."

"You are nothing like those people."

"We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more."

"And, I inherited it all, and therefore have a mandate to make anything I complained about on the campaign trail demonstrably worse. Like, the deficit!"

"These are the policies I will pursue. And in the [years] ahead, I look forward to debating them with [you].

But what I will not do is suggest that the [you] take your positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism."

"I will, however, suggest that you take your positions because someone on Fox News told you to. Let's face it, you 'bitter clingers' have always been too myopic and small-minded to make decisions in good faith."

"Behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes."

"Unless you disagree with me, at which point you cease to be decent, generous or compassionate. Sorry. Sucks for you. Better get to uniting!"

"You are tired of being disappointed and tired of being let down. You're tired of hearing promises made and plans proposed in the heat of a campaign only to have nothing change when everyone goes back to Washington."

"About that. That position only had validity under my predecessor."

"Back when I said, 'What began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest - Yes. We. Can.'"

"I did not mean you. You most certainly cannot."

"To those people 'who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.'"

"This time is not different."

"There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President... I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."

"Unless I'm making references to tea bags, 'cause that's been cracking me up ever since I saw it on Anderson Cooper!"

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices."

"And, I laugh at them, openly. Mwahahahahaha!"

"Let me be perfectly clear. We were the ones we had been waiting for."

"Not you. Please, shut up."

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained a letter now circulating among members of the Senate and calling for Secretary Gates to maintain production lines for both the F-22 and the C-17 "until the final publication of the next Mobility Capability Study and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review." The push back is being orchestrated by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and while the letter is still circulating for signatures, I'm told that Senators Inhofe, Bennett, Chambliss and several Democrats have already offered their support.

The letter warns against an overcorrection in favor of counterinsurgency and urges Gates not to jeopardize America's "air hegemony" by ceasing production of two aircraft that provide critical airlift and air-to-air capability:

However, just as our nation made a strategic error in permitting our ability to successfully prosecute counterinsurgency campaigns to wither and atrophy after the Vietnam War, we must not make a similar mistake and undermine two of the unique foundations of our nation’s military strength: hegemony of the air and our unprecedented airlift capability. As you correctly stated this January, “our military must be prepared for a ‘full spectrum’ of operations, including the type of combat we’re facing in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as large scale threats that we face from places like North Korea and Iran.” Therefore, we are concerned the termination of production of the F-22 does not appear to be supported by any analytical study commissioned by the Department of Defense or the Air Force. In addition, though the decision to end production of the C-17 at 205 aircraft was supported by the 2005 Mobility Capability Study, this Study was criticized by the Government Accountability Office for underestimating our nation’s future airlift requirements. We are also unaware of any risk assessment that has been performed based on the Combatant Commanders’ requirements as to the decision to cease procurement of the F-22 and C-17.

Regarding the F-22, unclassified extracts of the Air Force’s Sustaining Air Dominance Study state “180 F-22s was not enough” and the Department of Defense’s TACAIR Optimization study concluded the procurement of additional Raptors “was the best option.” On April 16th, these conclusions were reinforced by the comments made by General Norton A. Schwartz after the F-22 procurement termination was announced. General Schwartz stated that “243 [Raptors] is the military requirement.” This appears to be in direct contradiction to your statements on April 6th and 7th that there is no military requirement for more than 187 F-22s.

With the exception of the Joint Strike Fighter, which has a global, rather than domestic, constituency, no DoD program has quite as much Congressional support as the F-22 (there are contracts for the program in 48 states). It remains to be seen whether opposition in Congress will be sufficiently motivated and organized to push F-22 back into the budget over the objections of the administration, but members seem finally to be getting their act together after Gates announced the cuts at the beginning of their Easter recess.

The full letter follows after the jump...

The Washington Post published one of its trademark editorials this morning ("Keeping the Polls Open") about a Supreme Court case that may decide the fate of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires 16 Southern states to obtain approval from the Justice Department before altering statewide and local voting procedures.

Yes, says the Post, Barack Obama is now president of the United States, and "thousands of African Americans ... serve in public office at all levels. Section 5 is indeed a powerful and intrusive tool ... [but] Section 5 is, sadly, still relevant and necessary today."

Really? At the time, the states in question objected to Section 5 for two principal reasons: First, it arrogates to the federal government power over voting procedures, which should be left to the states; and second, it singles out 16 Southern states for punishment when there are clear, historic patterns of racial discrimination in other parts of the country.

Three times in the last 44 years Congress has renewed the Voting Rights Act, partly because to let it lapse would appear to acquiesce to conditions (not to mention political leaders) that have been gone for a generation, but largely because Section 5 nicely confines itself to close supervision of those 16 Southern states--and nowhere else.

It is difficult to know what the Supreme Court will decide, but if Congress is determined to retain the Voting Rights Act, why not fairly extend the provisions of Section 5 to all 50 states? Or put another way: Why renew a law that applies to the Mississippi and Alabama of a half-century ago when Congress could extend its purview to discrimination in, say, today's Illinois or Rhode Island or New Jersey or Michigan?

As Israel celebrates its sixty-first year of existence, it marks a growth spurt as well: its population has risen from 7.3 million a year ago to 7.4 million today. The breakdown: 75.5 percent Jews; 20.2 percent Arabs; 7.5 percent foreigners.

Again: 20.2 percent of the citizens of the Jewish state are Arabs. This is in stark contrast to Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, which is nearly Judenrein. In fact, while Israeli pressure has helped helped prevent some prosecutions of East Jerusalem Arabs for selling real estate to Israelis, it is an act of treason for a Palestinian to sell a Jew land in the West Bank. The punishment is death by hanging, and that sentence was handed down yesterday by a PA court to a Hebron man, though it will be up to Mahmoud Abbas to decide whether the execution is carried out.

If this seems extreme, it is nevertheless an improvement over the days when Arafat roamed the land, and people who sold land to Israelis—“collaborators,” as they were called—were simply murdered.

How's this for synergy?

You know, maybe the American Prospect is right, after all. This guy's sounding awfully reasonable...

I think I just spotted part of Obama's $100 million in savings. Is there a line item for scaring the mess out of New Yorkers traumatized by 9/11, 'cause I think we can let that go:

President Barack Obama ordered a review of a publicity-photo shoot with one of the planes that serves as Air Force One that cost taxpayers $328,835 and caused a furor in New York City.

Obama said it was a "mistake" that he was not made aware of in advance, and that he's "furious" about it, which has prompted the media to be very generous about crediting him with "profuse" apologies (apparently, in the Age of Obama, apologies don't even require the word "sorry") and make a curious distinction between the "federal government" and the Obama administration, which one suspects would not have been made in the Bush years. (In other news, George W. Bush apologized profusely for the federal government's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, saying he was not informed of possible problems before they happened, and that it was a "mistake" that will "never happen again," prompting the press to lambaste FEMA's failures and laud Bush's attempts to get to the bottom of the problem.)

Federal agencies apparently knew the flight would cause panic and yet instructed law enforcement and public officials to keep it a secret.

John McCain, whom Rush Limbaugh was inviting to leave the party yesterday, is pushing the administration on the issue:

“The supposed mission represents a fundamentally unsound exercise in military judgment and may have constituted an inappropriate use of Department of Defense resources,” Senator John McCain of Arizona wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Here's the breakdown of how your tax dollars were spent:

That includes $300,658 for the larger plane, which flew a three-hour mission, and about $28,178 for the F-16 jets, which flew 1.8 hours each, Stein said in an e-mailed statement.

The total includes fuel used in flight, fuel used to power ground equipment used to prepare the aircraft, and ground maintenance, Stein said.

That's President Obama's description of his economic team's philosophy in this fascinating interview with the Times's David Leonhardt. Run, don't walk, to read it.

Two takeaways. In the first, Obama describes his touchstone for economic policy:

[D]oes it allow the average American to find good employment and see their incomes rise; that we can’t just look at things in the aggregate, we do want to grow the pie, but we want to make sure that prosperity is spread across the spectrum of regions and occupations and genders and races; and that economic policy should focus on growing the pie, but it also has to make sure that everybody has got opportunity in that system.

This is a president concerned with distributive justice to a great degree. And big government is the means by which he can try to achieve his desired distributional outcomes.

In the second takeaway, Obama relates the heartbreaking story of his grandmother's final days:

I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn’t have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life — that would be pretty upsetting. ...

So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here. ...

Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

What's going on here? To me, Obama is laying out the intellectual case for health care rationing while acknowledging the potential human costs of such a policy. He's saying that, in order to contain costs, under a universal health care program his grandmother might have been denied that hip replacement, or forced to pay for it herself. This is the natural consequence of a universal policy, which would bankrupt the country without some form of rationing care - or put another way, some form of making care more expensive for those the government chooses not to treat for financial reasons. On the actual rationing mechanism, Obama punts, saying that "an independent group" should make recommendations.

In his column last week, Krauthammer anticipated Obama's argument:

In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.

Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research"? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is "best practice" for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others.

It is estimated that a third to a half of one's lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain's National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective -- and if you're old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements.

Rationing is not quite as alien to America as we think. We already ration kidneys and hearts for transplant according to survivability criteria as well as by queuing. A nationalized health insurance system would ration everything from MRIs to intensive care by myriad similar criteria.

"Social Security used to be the third rail of American politics," Krauthammer concludes. "Not anymore. Health-care rationing is taking its place -- which is why Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow."

Tomorrow may come sooner than you think.

(1) Michael Barone analyzes Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic party and concludes: "When [Winston] Churchill left the Liberals, they had led governments for 16 of the preceding 18 years. They never did so again. A party in decline should adapt its basic philosophy to new policies and positions in order to win over voters, rather than stand on principle and expel heretics."

(2) According to the pool report, the vice president of the United States, Joseph Biden, visited Texas yesterday and concluded: "You Texas guys are ugly as hell, but your women are beautiful."

(Incidentally, according to the Houston Chronicle, Biden also remarked that, since his audience included some Pakistani Americans, he'd have to answer their questions or "there'll be a Pakistani revolution." Stay classy, Joe.)

The New York Times reports:

President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan announced on Wednesday that Beijing officials had dropped their objections to Taiwan’s participation as an observer at a United Nations body, a step forward in Taiwan’s effort to win greater international recognition....

Mao Qunan, the spokesman for China’s Health Ministry, said in a statement that the World Health Organization had invited Taiwan to participate next month.

He added, “The current arrangement reflects our overall concern and good will toward Taiwan compatriots and this promotes the cross-straits relationship and the peaceful development of relations.”

I was in Taiwan last week and had the chance to meet with several officials from the ruling KMT. They were hyping the WHA decision as a major test of their policy of engagement with the mainland. Their willingness to stake their own credibility on the result strongly implied that they already had some indication of which way the decision would go.

What might strike Americans as begging for crumbs at the table -- observer status at one international institution -- will be played in Taiwan as a major diplomatic victory for the KMT. Of course the question is, why the sudden flexibility from Beijing? The answer: the Communists will give the KMT and President Ma whatever they want so long as it helps keep the pro-independence opposition, the Democratic Progressive party, out of power.

The U.S. Department of Defense is delighted to see the Pakistani military -- or at least the poorly trained Frontier Corps -- take on the Taliban in Buner and Dir, two districts neighboring Swat, where the Taliban run the show. The DoD "hopes for sustained effort" by the Pakistani military against the Taliban, according to an article released at the military website DefenseLink:

Defense leaders are “clearly pleased” to see the Pakistani military take action against increasingly emboldened Taliban forces, and have offered additional support if Pakistan’s government will accept it to promote a sustained effort, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and others have expressed “a very real concern” about the eroding security situation in Pakistan in recent weeks, Morrell told reporters.

“They and others in this building were clearly pleased to see the Pakistan military take the initiative over the past couple of days and push back against the militants who had been encroaching ever further toward Islamabad,” he said.

Taliban forces have moved in recent weeks from the Swat Valley into the Buner and Dir districts. But in recent days, Pakistani ground troops and heavy artillery have moved into the region to assault guerilla hideouts, with Pakistani jets and helicopters attacking Taliban positions from overhead.

“We think the military operations that are under way in Buner and Dir districts are exactly the appropriate response to the offensive operations by the Taliban and other militants over the past few weeks,” Morrell said. “And so we are hopeful and encouraging of the Pakistan military that they are able to sustain these operations against the militants and to stem this encroachment on the more populated areas of Pakistan.”

I've tracked the Pakistani military operations against the Taliban for years. The Pakistani military declares victory after each operation, yet curiously the Taliban move closer and closer to Peshawar and Islamabad and gain more and more ground (see here for a list of the Pakistani military "victories").

Perhaps this time will be different, and the Pakistani military is serious about this very real threat. We certainly hope so. But is the recent past is any indicator, the military will declare victory in a few weeks or months, then a "peace agreement" will be reached with the Taliban. And the Taliban will continue to take over more territory.

Everyone and their momma is running for senate in Pennsylvania. Pick a party, any party!

Morality and interrogation.

Chris Buckley: "Enough with the torture sanctimony, huh?"

Pakistan clamping down on militants.

U.S. military to Taliban: "No poppies for you."

Carter totally wants to get back together with Assad.

It warms my heart that there are men like this at Harvard.

Progressives once again intent on depriving poor people of economic choices.

Goolsbee vs. Obama on government funding of R&D.

Behind the Pulitzer Prize, a political agenda at the NYT.

First, some credit to President Obama. The AP reports:

Australia announced Wednesday it will increase by almost one half its troops in Afghanistan to about 1,550 as part of the U.S.-led surge of international forces to bolster the faltering fight against Taliban insurgents.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has mostly played down prospects of increasing Australia's commitment against Afghan insurgents since taking office in 2007, said he had been persuaded to increase the deployment during discussions last week with President Barack Obama.

As far as I can tell this is the first tangible diplomatic success for the Obama administration. It only took 100 days. The Australian troops will be used to train the Afghan National Army and provide security for upcoming elections. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that American troops will be pushing into the country's most hostile provinces (Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul) with the aim of eradicating the country's poppy crop -- the primary source of funding for the Taliban insurgency.

Through extortion and taxation, the Taliban are believed to reap as much as $300 million a year from Afghanistan’s opium trade, which now makes up 90 percent of the world’s total. That is enough, the Americans say, to sustain all of the Taliban’s military operations in southern Afghanistan for an entire year.

“Opium is their financial engine,” said Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, the deputy commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan. “That is why we think he will fight for these areas.”

Tom Donnelly questioned the wisdom of the Obama administration's counternarcotics strategy here when it was first reported. As he noted at the time, the most vocal critic of the Bush administration's counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan was Richard Holbrooke, who now has oversight of Afghanistan as Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke said it was the "most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years," and that "It hasn't hurt the Taliban one iota because whatever money they're getting from the drugs trade, they get whatever they need whether we reduce the acreage or not."

If the media can stop fawning over Holbrooke long enough, they might want to ask him what he thinks of this strategy.

HT: FPI Overnight Brief

I've read that 100 days is about 1/14 of President Obama's first term. So look on the bright side: only 13/14 left to go!

What to say about Obama's presidency thus far? He has continued or expanded many of the policies of the late Bush administration, in both domestic (bailouts) and foreign (Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorist surveillance) policy. The changes he's made from Bush mainly have to do with social and environmental policy and a tonal difference in presidential diplomacy. And he's had his first misstep. His decision to release Bush-era memos on interrogation created a political firestorm that had the president backing away from any prosecutions or independent commissions in the space of one week.

Obama has signed one major piece of legislation: the stimulus. But how big an achievement is that? Getting Congress to spend money is like getting a wino to drink. It's easy. In foreign policy, Obama has been all talk and no cattle. He went to Europe and spoke boldly about nuclear abolition and the need for global stimulus and more troops in Afghanistan. He got nothing. He went to Trinidad, where he yukked it up with Hugo Chavez and sat in silence while Daniel Ortega blamed all of his country's problems, including the weather, on the United States. Obama spoke of a new era between the United States and Cuba. The Cubans have given him nothing. Iran and North Korea? The same.

Maybe the president's outreach to America's adversaries will pan out. Probably not.

Obama's largest accomplishment in these 100 days, it seems to me, is getting liberals to feel better about their country. There's no need to link to the numerous over-the-top assessments of the president's greatness to demonstrate how thrilled the opinion-making class is over Obama. Believe it or not, that does count for something. It speaks to a renewed faith in America's capacities that, for the last eight years, was sorely lacking among the people who write our newspapers and magazines and produce our television and cinema. Notice that there's been a jump in the number of people who think the country is headed in the right direction, a jump that's almost entirely attributable to a huge increase in the number of Democrats who think so. This is proof positive, incidentally, that the right track / wrong track number should be junked. All it is, is a reflection of partisan sensibilities.

The polling reveals some fascinating divergences. Here's the best way to put it: More people approve of Obama personally than approve of his presidency, and more people approve of his presidency than approve of his major policies. For example, in the WSJ poll only 38 percent say the stimulus is a good idea, a slim majority approves of a cap-and-trade plan, a majority says Obama was wrong to release the Justice Department memos, and a majority opposes investigating Bush officials involved in interrogation policy. Other polling has shown that the public is outright opposed to the bank and auto company bailouts.

But, hey, he's popular, right? Everything's fine. Of course, Obama's popularity is about average when compared with his predecessors. That's a C grade. But let's make it a C+ for style and effort.

Joe Biden has been pressuring Arlen Specter to switch parties for six years, FOX News’s Major Garrett reports: “I have been working on [Specter's party switch] in earnest for the past four years and double time for the past 100 days [as vice president],” the vice president said yesterday. Well, gee, how persuasive is that? Six years is almost as long as Jacob labored for Rachel. If only Biden had known that all he needed was a serious challenger and Specter poll numbers in the toilet! Be careful what you wish for, though. After all that labor, it was Leah Jacob got . . .

Joseph Abrams reports for Fox:

The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world.

It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves.

A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face -- not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment."

"The water was poured 183 times -- there were 183 pours," the official explained, adding that "each pour was a matter of seconds."

Consider this a Fox counterattack after today's front-page New York Times story by Brian Stelter tracing an allegedly misleading account of the CIA's interrogation of Abu Zubaydah as it reverberated through the media. That story paid particular attention to the role Fox played in repeating a 2007 ABC report that Zubaydah quickly broke after being waterboarded for just 35 seconds. Stelter's story included the misleading figure that Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times but according to Abrams, Zubaydah himself told the Red Cross he was waterboarded "no more than ten times," which probably means a good deal fewer than 10 times.

Given these numbers, there's no obvious reason to doubt the statements made by John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who was the source for the ABC report. It is not hard to imagine that the CIA, having already subjected Zubaydah to one waterboarding session that produced valuable information, would subject him to four or five more just to see what else came out.

We can't know for sure without more information about the interrogation, but supporters of investigations and prosecutions and truth commissions should be asking themselves what will most disturb the American people if this information does emerge -- that Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed were dunked a few times, or that valuable information was gained from those interrogations and now the Obama administration and their advocates in the media are hanging patriotic Americans out to dry for doing what was necessary.

Allahpundit: FAA memo: Feds knew Scare Force One would cause panic

On a 65 to 31 vote, the Senate confirms tax delinquent and darling of partial-birth abortionists Kathleen Sebelius as HHS secretary.

Could high unemployment numbers drag Obama down?

Pew: Half of U.S. adults have switched religions. Presumably they all weren't motivated by fear of losing a Senate primary.

Former U.S. ambassador Mary Ann Glendon declines Notre Dame award because the university will honor Obama at commencement.

Ramesh Ponnuru:

When Jim Jeffords became an "Independent" in 2001, Specter wasn't happy. He said, "I intend to propose a rule change which would preclude a future recurrence of a Senator's change in parties, in midsession, organizing with the opposition, to cause the upheaval which is now resulting."

You can find a full transcript if you follow the link.

Between Arlen Specter, swine flu, and runaway trucks, it’s hard to remember those quaint issues of yesterday like Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon. Nonetheless, they still are – and a few people are still trying to stop them.

The Bayh-Lieberman-Kyl legislation was introduced today with a quarter of the Senate onboard as original cosponsors, and the rest coming up fast.

News on the legislation, which would impose new sanctions to exploit Iran's dependence on imported gasoline and other refined petroleum products, here and here.

Cosponsors include:
Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN), Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Kit Bond (R-MO), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Richard Burr (R-NC), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), James Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Patty Murray (D-WA), James Risch (R-ID), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), John Thune (R-SD), David Vitter (R-LA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). And Senators Ensign, Bunning, and McCain signed up this afternoon…

The boss says Specter's defection is good news:

I wonder if today’s Arlen Specter party switch, this time to the president’s party, won’t end up being bad for President Obama and the Democrats. With the likely seating of Al Franken from Minnesota, Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate, giving Obama unambiguous governing majorities in both bodies. He’ll be responsible for everything. GOP obstructionism will go away as an issue, and Democratic defections will become the constant worry and story line. This will make it easier for GOP candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balance in Washington -- and, meanwhile, Specter’s party change won’t likely have made much difference in getting key legislation passed or not. So, losing Specter may help produce greater GOP gains in November 2010, and a brighter Republican future.

Plus, now the Democrats have to put up with him.

Fatah Party member Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority, and "peace" partner extraordinaire—or, otherwise put, chief administrator of the corrupt and useless body that is “governing” parts of the West Bank and will continue to do so until the inevitable Hamas takeover relieves it of its duties—announced yesterday he has no use for Israel’s insistence upon being acknowledged as a Jewish state.

A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? . . . You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly. . . . Name yourself, it's not my business. . . . All I know is that there is the state of Israel, in the borders of 1967, not one centimeter more, not one centimeter less. Anything else, I don't accept.

Of course, nobody, apart from Condi Rice and maybe Hillary Clinton, will be shocked to learn there is resistance going on here. To begin with, calling Israel a Jewish state is not compatible at all with articles 12, 13, 22, or 25 of the Fatah Constitution:

Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.

Article (13) Establishing an independent democratic state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands, and Jerusalem is its capital city, and protecting the citizens' legal and equal rights without any racial or religious discrimination.

Article (22) Opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine, as well as any project intended to liquidate the Palestinian case or impose any international mandate on its people.

Article (25) Convincing concerned countries in the world to prevent Jewish immigration to Palestine as a method of solving the problem.

Nor does calling Israel a Jewish state comport with Abbas’s real position on the outlines of a Palestinian state—which, though perhaps unstated to the English-speaking world, is perfectly delineated by the map he is holding in the photo below—which is to say, something encompassing the entire state of Israel:

And, finally, calling Israel a Jewish state would put paid to the “right of return” issue that has been primer inter pares among the stumbling blocks along the road to “peace.”

Those of us in the Cheney-Hayden-Mukasey, pro-reasonable-interrogation, anti-making-mock-of-those-who-guard-us camp, might wish to remind our fellow citizens:

The OLC memos reminded their recipients that torture is illegal, and conscientiously advised their recipients how to carefully conduct enhanced interrogations without crossing the line to illegality. Excesses by interrogators would probably have been more likely, not less, if the memos had not been written.

So surely we should call the memos the anti-torture memos.

You know you're in trouble when you start a sentence with "as bad as the Nazis were." Another sure sign you're headed in the wrong direction is when you must stipulate from the outset that you don't know what you're talking about, as in "I'm no military historian, but..." Today Christopher Orr, the New Republic's online movie critic, managed both tricks in just one paragraph:

I am no military historian, but it's my understanding that many armed conflicts that we might consider pre-civilized concluded with just this kind of slaughter (and pillage, enslavement, etc.), and that the widespread recognition of civilized rules of war has saved literally countless lives. As bad as the Nazis were, I think it's unequivocally a good thing that we were not forced to depopulate Germany. The reason we weren't was that Germany surrendered, and the reason Germany surrendered was its well-placed faith that we wouldn't depopulate (or torture, enslave, etc.) the nation anyway.

Did the Germans surrender because of a "well-placed faith that we wouldn't depopulate (or torture, enslave, etc.) the nation anyway"? That certainly doesn't jibe with my understanding of the end of the Second World War. Berlin fell on April 30, 1945, after Soviet troops captured the Reichstag and Hitler committed suicide. It was another week before Jodl and Doenitz made the German surrender official. Orr is making some larger, convoluted point that decency and adherence to the rules of war incentivize surrender and saves lives in the process, but the Germans had no reason to think that the Soviet Union would be merciful in victory -- and obviously it wasn't. Orr must be thinking of the Morgenthau Plan, but the fact that the U.S. was considering a de-industrialized Germany as one possible post-war outcome meant that the Germans could not have had any such "well-placed faith" in Allied benevolence. The Germans surrendered because the war was over -- and the Russians tortured and enslaved them by the thousands anyway.

Surely there is a movie that could help Orr better familiarize himself with this history. Downfall, perhaps?

The New York Sun is back, or at least the editorial page is. The editors write in response to Ross Douthat's first column in the Times:

“Cheney for President” is the headline today over the first column by the New York Times’s newest op-ed regular, Ross Douthat — a delightful debut suggesting that, as Mr. Douthat puts it, “both the Republican Party and the country would be better off today if Cheney, rather than John McCain, had been a candidate for president in 2008.”

Well, the left laughed, along with a number of Republicans, when The New York Sun suggested exactly that — more than two years before the Times. “Cheney’s Chance” was the headline over a New York Sun editorial that was issued on April 4, 2007 and argued for all the talk about Mayor Bloomberg, Vice President Gore, Senator Thompson and Speaker Gingrich, the one “who who would bring the most to the race is Vice President Cheney.”

If you need something to lift your spiritsl, read the original Sun editorial arguing for Cheney to run in 2008.

HT: Kate Klonick

Joe Torsella, the current front-runner for the Democratic Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, has vowed not to step aside and let Specter have the Democratic nomination. Unless he pulls a Specter and changes his mind in two weeks to serve his political ambition, that could make things slightly more interesting in '10:

"I decided to run for the United States Senate from Pennsylvania for one simple reason: I believe we need new leadership, new ideas, and new approaches in Washington," Torsella, the former head of the National Constitution Center, said in a statement sent to CNN. "It's become obvious that the old ways of doing business might have worked for the special interests, but they haven't worked for the rest of us.

"Nothing about today's news regarding Senator Specter changes that, or my intention to run for the Democratic nomination to the Senate in 2010 - an election that is still a full year away."

The state party powers that be are hoping he'll figure out how much support they're throwing behind their preferred candidate, who is still registered as a Republican, and drop out. After all, the One is backing Specter enthusiastically, because nothing says "change" and "new politics" like a guy who's willing to change parties to make sure he has a new lease on his political life after he's displeased the people who got him elected.

Robert Gibbs indicated at the press conference today that Obama's support for Specter will include campaigning and raising money for him, even in the primary, so Joe Torsella will quickly be crushed under the hope and change of a six-term incumbent Republican.

Update: Looks like Rep. Joe Sestak, whose name had been bandied for possible entry into the Pennsylvania senate race, is not anxious to indicate he's gonna lay down for Specter:

"This shows the principle rule of politics: tomorrow is always another day — as today was. This may be good for Arlen, politically; however, two key questions need to be answered. First, after 31 years in the military, I learned that you run for something, not against someone. Arlen has made a decision to leave a race because he could not win against someone. What needs to be known is what he is running for. Second, I watched then-Gov. Clinton and then-Sen. Obama take a leadership position in the Democratic Party and shape it. The leadership that would have been most impressive would be if Arlen had used his role to reshape the Republican Party that he said he had entered when it was a "big tent," but now is leaving because it has gotten too small. In short, I believe that the principles of what he is running for and his commitment to accountable leadership are questions that still need to be addressed."

Sestak, a retired two-star admiral who beat Rep. Curt Weldon in 2006, became a darling of the 'Net left during his run for Congress, as one of the handful of veterans who made support for withdrawal from Iraq a talking point of their campaigns. It was not his Iraq stance that won him the seat, as the FBI raids of Weldon's daughter's home (the agency was investigating whether her lobbying firm had improperly benefited from Weldon's influence), defeated the incumbent. But Sestak proved to be a formidable fund raiser and good candidate, despite his political inexperience.

TPM wrote about the Sestak senate possibility earlier this month:

He told Roll Call back in December that he wasn't interested in running for Senate. But, obviously, a lot's changed since then--including the size of his campaign war chest. He's raised more than a half million dollars this year alone, and sits on over $3 million worth of loot. And, as of now, he'd only have to defeat one Pennsylvania Democrat--businessman Joseph Torsella--in the primary.

I put the question to his staff this morning and...well, all I can report is that his communications director didn't immediately stand by his statement from December. More to come hopefully, and in the mean time, keep your eye on the Sestak bubble.

Shame if he had all that money and no one to use it to beat up on.

With Arlen Specter's defection and Al Franken's expected win this summer, Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate for first time in 30 years.

According to Senate.gov, Democrats have held 60 or more seats in the Senate during two periods since there have been 50 states in the union: 1959 to 1969 and again from 1975 to 1979.

When Clinton came into power, Democrats had 57 seats but lost one in June when Kay Bailey Hutchison won a special election in Texas.

Michael Steele readies for a fight:

Some in the Republican Party are happy about this. I am not.

Let’s be honest-Senator Specter didn’t leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.

Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.

Keystone Republicans want their money back:

"I, like many of my fellow Pennsylvania Republicans, took Senator Specter at his word when he said that he would not switch parties, and I believe he owes every Republican who has supported him over the last three decades an apology," said state GOP chairman Rob Gleason in a statement.

David Frum says we should have made an honored place for men like Specter in the Republican Party:

Let’s take this moment to nail some colors to the mast. I submit it is better for conservatives to have 60% sway within a majority party than to have 100% control of a minority party.

Club for Growth doesn't mind batting Specter around on any occasion:

"This cynical play for political survival calls into question whether Pennsylvania taxpayers can believe anything Arlen Specter says. If his only principle is personal ambition, can he really be trusted with the serious issues that face our country?"

"The Club for Growth PAC enthusiastically endorsed Pat Toomey for Senate in Pennsylvania when Specter was pretending to be a Republican. Club members will be even more committed to Toomey's candidacy now that Specter has revealed his true identity."

You're killin' me, Joe:

"I enthusiastically welcome my good friend Arlen Specter into the Democratic caucus. It will be very good to have the company of yet another independent minded Democrat in the caucus!" he said in a statement.

Joe Klein can't believe that the editors of the Los Angeles Times would allow someone as "overwhelmingly limited" as Jamie Kirchick to criticize Barack Obama in their pages. In particular, Kirchick's limitation seems to be a failure to grasp the moral imperative that all nations be treated equally:

...much of the rest of the world came to see American exceptionalism as a belief that we can make our own rules, make exceptions, as it were. We could unilaterally decide to make war in Iraq, withdraw from the global warming negotiations, allow India and Israel to abide by one set of rules when it came to nuclear proliferation and Iran to another.

Imagine that: one set of rules for democratic allies like India and Israel and another set of rules for the authoritarian, repressive, revolutionary regime in Tehran. I'm surprised Klein didn't single out the outrageous double standard the United States has applied in Korea. By Klein's logic, why should the North be subjected to sanctions and intimidation from the imperialist swine in Washington while the South receives direct military support?

Human Events is reporting it. Filibuster-proof majority, here we come. As if we didn't pass enough the first 100 days.

The statement:

"I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election."

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

Update: Flashback to March 17, 2009:

“I’m staying a Republican because I think I have a more important role to play there,” he said. “I think the United States very desperately needs a two-party system. … And I’m afraid that we’re becoming a one-party system, with Republicans becoming just a regional party.”

April 9 in Newsweek, via Jim Geraghty:

"I'm a Republican and I'm going to run in the Republican primary and on the Republican ticket." Good to know his word is his bond.

Will the Democratic establishment clear the way for him in the primary?

Sure, President Obama got his own Very Special Issue of Amazing Spider-Man, but last week the boss appeared (off-panel) in the latest issue of Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina (issue #41, for those of you keeping score).

For those who don’t follow such things, Ex Machina is a series about an NYC civil engineer, Mitchell Hundred, who undergoes a freak accident which gives him the power to communicate with (and control) machines. In the Ex Machina universe, Hundred is (more of less) the only superhero. He becomes a vigilante and, after meeting with only modest crime-fighting success, decides to un-mask himself and use the ensuing publicity to get elected mayor of New York. The series is mostly about Hundred’s term as mayor with the occasional bits of super-herodom sprinkled in.

In the current issue, Mayor Hundred holds a press conference to announce that he’s (a) not seeking reelection and (b) instituting a massive tax increase—a 20 percent raise on property taxes, a surcharge on incomes over $200,000, with the top local rate bumping all the way up to 16 percent, and other assorted tax hikes. The mayor defends himself by quoting Adam Smith and claiming that capitalism is “a system I happen to firmly believe in . . . no matter what William Kristol may write about me.”

It’s not a criticism of Ex Machina (a very good book, if not quite as great as Vaughn’s best work in Runaways) to note that Mayor Hundred is a common kind of political figure: He declares, over and over, that he’s uninterested in partisanship or politics or ideology. He ran as an independent and says that he’s simply interested in solving problems--doing what works.

The thing is, like most post-partisans, what “works” for Mayor Hundred is mostly a mélange of liberal politics—astronomical taxes, the unilateral implementation of gay marriage, medical marijuana—with the occasional dash of libertarianism thrown in. Hundred is an interesting character, but his goo-goo pursuit of “unity” and post-ideological technocracy may not be such a great strategy in the real world.

The NYT assures us that Obama was "incensed" over yesterday's incredibly bone-headed idea to buzz the Manhattan skyline with a 747 and several F-16s, momentarily freaking out New Yorkers in a fashion reminiscent of Mohammed Atta. CBS says he was "furious."

He should be, since the orders came right out of the White House, from White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera (and were apparently uninherited from Bush). The Washington Post today wrote that the "White House later issued a profuse apology over the incident."

Really? Is there something I'm missing because this is the only apology I've seen, and it came from Caldera himself, in a somewhat understated statement:

"Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused."

It's amazing what passes for "profuse" apology these days. Gibbs said little about it in yesterday's press briefing, saying he was "working on other things," and Obama has yet to address it. One suspects that, had this happened on Bush's watch, the aggressive genuflection required by the press to qualify as "profuse apology" would have made a Weeble jealous (no matter how good his wobble).

Watch the two videos below and decide whether Obama shouldn't use part of his self-lauding 100 Days Celebration Presser to offer a little more profusion to the people of NYC. He knows well how his mere presence heals souls and calms worries. He has a gift, as he would say.

Check out the view around :40 in this one:

And, here's the view from the ground. Horrifying:

H/t Allahpundit, on the videos.

New York Times reporter Brian Stelter puts on a clinic this morning with a front-page story about John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who claimed in a 2007 interview with ABC (available here) that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Kiriakou also claimed that Zubaydah broke after just 35 seconds, and "from that day on he answered every question." That statement seems at odds with recently released documents showing that Zubaydah was "waterboarded" at least 83 times over the course of one month (the number refers to each application of water, not the number of sessions, which were limited to two a day and five days out of every 30).

Rather than report out this discrepancy by interviewing people familiar with the events (a little something those of us in the journalism business call journalism), Stelter's piece, headlined "How '07 ABC Interview Tilted a Torture Debate," traces the effect Kiriakou's comments had on the debate over waterboarding -- something only a New York Times reporter with a login and password to Nexis could do. The piece sheds no new light on the interrogation of Zubaydah and fails to offer any insight into the apparent contradiction between Kiriakou's original statements and the new documents, but Stelter aims to undermine the argument that waterboarding works by casting doubt on the credibility of a key witness and embarrassing ABC for having contributed to the defense of the Bush-era tactic. In this he certainly succeeds.

For those who actually wanted to know what happened in Abu Zubaydah's interrogation -- whether waterboarding worked, whether he broke quickly, whether he subsequently offered information that disrupted a future attack -- you'll have to wait for the truth commission.

Quoth Allahpundit:

Next Obama "photo op": An unannounced overflight of Pearl Harbor by 200 or so unmarked fighter/bombers.

Jamie Kirchick writes in the Los Angeles Times:

At a stop on his grand global apology tour this spring, President Obama was asked by a reporter in France if he believed in "American exceptionalism." This is the notion that our history as the world's oldest democracy, our immigrant founding and our devotion to liberty endow the United States with a unique, providential role in world affairs.

Rather than endorse the proposition -- as every president in recent memory has done one way or another -- Obama offered a strange response: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

This is impossible. If all countries are "exceptional," then none are, and to claim otherwise robs the word, and the idea of American exceptionalism, of any meaning. Besides, American exceptionalism is demonstrable -- Cuban journalists, Chinese political dissidents, Eastern Europeans once again living in the shadow of a belligerent Russia and, yes, even some Brits and Greeks look toward the U.S. and nowhere else to defend freedom.

Kirchick says that Obama's endless apologies on behalf of the American people, their government, and their history are "paving the way for America's decline," but we need to remember that our President is a citizen of the world -- and a post-American world at that. The only thing genuinely exceptional about this country was our willingness to elect Barack Obama, our decision to choose change and hope over fear. For some people, that was the first time they were really proud of their country.

With Iran sanctions legislation pending in Congress, Iran’s nuclear program continuing to draw headlines, and U.S. Iran envoy Dennis Ross headed to the Persian Gulf to attempt to assuage concerns about negotiations with Iran, the folks at AEI have set up a useful website for tracking the latest news: IranTracker.

It provides informationn on Tehran’s relationships with Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran’s nuclear program, foreign relations, the basics of how the Iranian regime functions, and in-depth analysis on issues such as the role of the Revolutionary Guards in Iranian politics, among many other topics. Whether you're an uninformed liberal blogger or a New York Times columnist on deadline to file your latest piece of propaganda on behalf of the regime in Tehran, IranTracker is worth checking out.

Seriously, White House? "It's so stupid because they tell you about every fire drill, but they didn't tell us about this."

But don't worry. Obama is reportedly "incensed."

Oddly enough, the WSJ is the only paper giving this colossal blunder front-page treatment. Update: I meant to add an "online version front page" stipulation to this, as that's all I'd seen. NYT and other New York papers did run it front-page in print, thank goodness. Sorry for the mistake.

"This is impossible. If all countries are 'exceptional,' then none are, and to claim otherwise robs the word, and the idea of American exceptionalism, of any meaning."

The Cheney 2012 bandwagon continues apace, in the pages of the New York Times.

Administration that buzzed the Manhattan skyline with Air Force One tailed by F-16s without informing the public will totally protect you from swine flu. Do not worry.

Bush preparations for the outbreak are now bearing fruit.

Michelle Malkin spots an intellectually honest Daily Kos diarist schooling his buddies.

99 dreamy days for the left.

Hillary Clinton, second coming of GWB: "There is no sense in negotiating an agreement if it will have no practical impact in reducing emissions to safer levels."

Surprise! UN's fecklessness could be as contagious as swine flu. Wear a mask, WHO.

A majority of Americans (55%) say that the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques was "justified," which according to the nattering nabobs of the net-left means that more than half of all Americans are un-American torture apologists. I was struck by a line in Paul Krugman's column last week that seemed to capture the left's total disconnect on this issue. Krugman said that "never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for" as the Bush administration had with its treatment of captured terrorists. It's a ludicrous statement, and probably offensive to many Americans who have a history of enduring far worse at the hands of the federal government (blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Mormons, Indians, etc. etc.), but it almost certainly represents the tone of any potential government inquiry into the matter -- a course supported by 51 percent of Americans according to Gallup.

Democrats don't seem to understand they're playing with fire. The White House has already lost control of the debate over this issue -- nearly the only issue where President Obama is at odds with the public. If an inquiry is launched, the victims of Bush administration cruelty, the faces of Dick Cheney's crimes against humanity, will be Khalid Sheik Mohamed and Abu Zubaydah. For some reason Democrats think that Americans will rally to defend the basic human rights of these terrorists. It's the first time in a long time that Democrats seem to be the ones in a cocoon, while Republicans seem well in touch with the American people. Like Noemie Emery says: "let the hearings begin."

More on interrogations from Jennifer Rubin and Paul Mirengoff.

BBC: Spain's jobless rate soars to 17%

Allahpundit: Left: Republicans love swine flu or something

CNN Poll: Obama more popular than his policies

Low-flying plane causes scare in NYC. Update: It was a photo-op for Air Force One.

Harry Reid turned his Searchlight on Barack Obama in 2006, he says in a new epilogue to the paperback version of his 2008 auto-bio, The Good Fight, and, listening to the senator from Illinois speak, he was struck by the Obamic brilliance. But more wonderful still was the modesty of The One:

“‘That speech was phenomenal, Barack,’ I told him. And I will never forget his response. Without the barest hint of braggadocio or conceit, and with what I would describe as deep humility, he said quietly: ‘I have a gift, Harry.’”

That kind of humility can put a tingle in your brain.

Joementum delivered a speech at AEI this afternoon previewing new bipartisan legislation for tighter sanctions on Iran specifically targeting the country's dependence on imports of refined petroleum products. The full text of the speech is after the jump, but the key excerpt:

To be clear, I am not opposed to talking to the Iranians. But engagement is a tactic, not a strategy—and what we need is a multi-pronged, explicit strategy that employs all of the elements of our national power and that ties together multiple lines of operation, including direct diplomacy with the Iranians, into a coherent plan of action for the months ahead, that has goals, schedules, rewards, and punishments.

One component of such a plan must be a clear and credible set of benchmarks, milestones by which we can measure Iranian behavior, and an explicit timeline by which the Iranians understand that we must start seeing results. By developing and building consensus around such a metric of Iranian behavior, the Obama administration can make clear that it does not view engagement as a process without end, but rather as a means to a clearly identified set of ends that benefit both countries and their people....

With the goal of giving President Obama the authority to impose precisely such sanctions, a bipartisan coalition of Senators, organized by Senators Evan Bayh, Jon Kyl, and me, including Barbara Mikulski, John Thune, Russ Feingold, Susan Collins, Barbara Boxer, Jim Risch, Chuck Schumer, and several others, will be introducing new sanctions legislation in Congress tomorrow.

Specifically, our bill will amend the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act to allow the President to sanction foreign companies that are involved in the sale of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran, or that provide insurance or shipping for the delivery of these products to Iran, or that assist Iran in maintaining its own refineries. The logic behind our approach is simple. Although blessed with immense oil wealth, Iran—due to the economic mismanagement of its leaders—lacks the capacity to meet its domestic demand for gasoline and other refined petroleum products. As a result, it must rely heavily on imports for as much as 40 percent of its gasoline needs.

During last year’s campaign, President Obama repeatedly expressed interest in using Iran’s dependence on foreign gasoline as leverage in our nuclear standoff. However, under current law, the President’s authority to do so is ambiguous. Our legislation would eliminate this ambiguity.

No raise for you, Teleprompter:

Laying his plan for a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed in his prepared remarks – before realizing he’d already introduced them, earlier in his speech.

“In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here,” Obama said, pausing for several seconds as he looked at the prompter. “Go ahead. Move it up. I had already introduced all you guys.”

Luckily, his Teleprompter could be reached for comment:

I cannot believe the level of incompetence I have to deal with on a daily basis. If it isn't the cold hand of my operator, it's Big Guy not moving his lips fast enough to keep up with my text...

Would it be possible to blame President Bush for this too?

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune conducted a new poll last wek:

Franken’s favorable rating of 47 percent just before the election has dropped to 43 percent in the current Minnesota Poll. Forty-eight percent said they had an unfavorable impression of Franken, while the remainder said they didn’t know or refused to answer.

Coleman’s favorable rating of 46 percent on the eve of the election has fallen to just 38 percent now. Fifty-five percent said they have an unfavorable impression of him.

A prototype of the Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flanker exploded during take-off at the Komsomolosk-na-Amure Aviation Production Association’s (KNAAPO) Dzemgi flight test aerodrome on 26 April. Spokesmen for KNAAPO told Russia’s Novosti news service that the fighter caught on fire and burst into flames during this test of the aircraft’s take-off regime at 0955 hours Moscow time (1755 hours in Komsomolsk).

In the cockpit was Yevgeniy Frolov, one Sukhoi’s most experienced pilots who has been with the Su-27 program since its inception in the 1980s. He managed to eject safely before the aircraft exploded. “The aircraft was engulfed in flames while it was still on the ground,” said a Su-35 programme spokesman. “Frolov did not even have time to get the aircraft in the air.”

Su-35 programme representatives told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the crash was the fault of one of the NPO Saturn 117S engine’s PMC units and not a failure of a fuel pump, as had been previously reported. “One of the engine’s control systems failed and the engine was working at only 93 per cent power,” said the representative.

This crash comes at a bad time for Russia’s military aircraft industry, which has had strong export sales for almost two decades but has seen those orders fall off as of late. Also, the poor performance of Russian air forces in the August 2008 incursion into two separatist provinces of the neighboring nation (and former Soviet Republic) of Georgia has raised questions about the current state of Russian defense aerospace technology vis-à-vis Western weapon systems.

Su-35 program managers state that the loss of this aircraft and its equipment are “regrettable,” but that “this is small compared to the cost represented by the recent loss of a [Lockheed Martin] F-22, which costs almost US $400 million.” One of the many costly on-board systems lost in this explosion was only the second flying, operationa model of the NIIP Irbis-E radar set, the most advanced to date for any Sukhoi fighter aircraft

The Super Flanker had been a contender in the Força Aérea Brasileira (Brazilian Air Force or FAB) fighter competition here in Brazil, but was dropped in favor of contenders from Europe -- the French Dassault Rafale and Sweden’s Saab JAS-39 Gripen -- and the U.S. Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Sukhoi had projected as many at 160 Su-35 sales as possible follow-on orders to existing Su-27 and Su-30MK fighter model customers like India and China, but these and other smaller-scale customers have yet to commit to the program.

Russia’s defense industry has been hit by rising labour costs that make the price tags for weapon systems as high as their Western counterparts, eroding one of their chief advantages. Other Russian defense firms have been hard hit by the international financial crisis and the lack of credit available from Russian financial institutions, which in turn cuts off the delivery of components and other critical materials from suppliers. This has had Rosoboronexport, the Russia arms export agency, stating that some export orders may not be filled on time this year.

The plan for this Su-35 prototype was for it to be put through its initial paces at KNAAPO and then flown in a demonstration flight in time for the traditional Communist (but still celebrated in the New Russia) May Day holidays this coming weekend. How much of damper this will be on the holiday plans of Russia’s defense industry officialdom -- and how much of set back this loss is for the Su-35 program -- remains to be seen.

You can rename an “F” whatever you want—call it an “A” if you like—but guess what? Nobody’s gonna be fooled. Especially not the failing student whose history you think you are rewriting by calling his “F” an “H.” That’s “H” for “Held.” School districts all over the country are experimenting with this sort of thing in an effort to lower the dropout rate, reports FOXNews.com.

Sherri Johnson, director of programs for the National Parent Teacher Association, said school districts should consider any measures possible to stop low-performing students from quitting school.

“What an ‘F’ says is that you just don’t get it,” Johnson said. “But what if the child gets pieces of it but they haven’t mastered everything? Or perhaps that ‘F’ says you failed three tests but not necessarily failed the entire skill.”

With an “'H”' grade rather than an “'F,” she continued, students and parents alike get another opportunity to learn the lesson plan and hold schools more accountable.

Okay, so make that “H” for “Hugged.” Not “Hoodwinked,” though. For, as many parents are forced to learn—and any decent teacher should know, as well—children, no matter their ages, are perfectly aware when they’re being lied to. And that’s a lesson they just don’t want to be taught.

Politico's Patrick O'Connor has a story up today on the early delays in climate change legislation in the House. O'Connor quotes John Dingell, who was unceremoniously pushed aside as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year, calling for a more transparent regulatory scheme:

"Nobody in this country relaizes that cap and trade is a tax, and it's a great big one," Dingell said at a committee hearing last week. The former chairman backs some form of a direct carbon tax that other moderates prefer over the market-based system.

Waxman, and his allies in the environmental community, argue that a direct tax on carbon emissions or the commodities that produce them, like oil and coal, would prove ineffective at limiting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

There's a reason Dingell and other moderates -- as well as many Republicans -- prefer a direct carbon tax, and it's not because such a tax would "prove ineffective at limiting carbon dioxide." Quite the opposite, a direct tax would be far more difficult for the oil and gas and coal industries to manipulate. It would also make it possible for citizens/voters/taxpayers to see just what the cost of saving the planet really is, and allow them to do their own cost-benefit analysis.

A few years ago the New York Times offered this more accurate assessment of what motivates opposition to a direct carbon tax: "Supporters of a cap-and-trade program argue that explictly raising carbon taxes high enough to make a serious dent in the output of global warming gases would be politically impossible." It's not that a tax would be ineffective. It's just that if people had any idea what this was all going to cost they'd never sign off on it.

Following in the footsteps of reform-minded Dartmouth alumni who have won insurgent campaigns for governing boards in Hanover, two Harvard alumni, Harvey A. Silverglate and Robert L. Freedman, are running their own campaign to bring "change" to Cambridge this year.

At Minding the Campus, Silverglate describes his and Freedman's uphill battle:

I joined with Harvard College (Class of 1962) alumnus Robert L. Freedman of Philadelphia, and we - one political liberal and one political conservative - launched a joint run as petition candidates for Harvard's Board of Overseers. The Board is one of Harvard's governing bodies, second in power only to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, a self-perpetuating body of six lifetime members plus the president of the University. (In an oddity of history, the Board of Overseers, although an older body than the President and Fellows, is less powerful.)

Freedman and I secured the signatures of over 250 alumni on our respective nominating petitions and, according to the clear rules, we had to be, and were, placed on the Overseers ballots. Mailed in early April to Harvard's approximately 340,000 living alumni, the ballot contained a total of eight officially nominated (by the Administration-friendly Harvard Alumni Association) candidates, plus Freedman and me, for six places open on the 30-member Board.

Unlike Dartmouth before its Board's machinations to change the rules, petition candidates have not fared well in Harvard's recent history. In fact, two decades have passed since a petition candidate last gained an Overseers seat. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu undertook a petition candidate's run in 1989 on a platform calling for Harvard to divest from securities of companies that did business with South Africa, then governed by an all-white apartheid government. He won a seat. Two years later, a recent Harvard Law School grad named Barack Obama secured a petition place on the ballot, also on a divestment platform. By then, however, the university had changed the election rules ever so slightly... but importantly. When the ballot appeared, all of the officially named Alumni Association-nominated candidates were listed at the top of the ballot, and Obama was listed at the very end, in the "petition candidate" category. Alumni in a hurry would not likely get to the end of the ballot before exercising their allowed number of votes. Obama lost. (Presumably, a decade and a half later, Obama had learned how to protect himself from ballot manipulation by entrenched authority! Harvard, it seems, offered useful lessons for later dealing with Chicago-style politics!)

... just as I completed the first draft of this blog entry, I received in the mail my May-June 2009 issue of Harvard Magazine, the university's self-proclaimed independent bi-monthly for alumni. I turned to the "John Harvard's Journal" feature that appears in every issue. There I found a "Cast Your Vote" admonition, followed by a note that "the official candidates' names appear in ballot order below, as determined by lot." And, indeed, all of the official Harvard Alumni Association nominees are listed. Then there is the afterthought: "In addition, two alumni have qualified to run as petition candidates," and Freedman and I are listed. Suffering the same treatment accorded Obama, we were not included in the lottery that determined the order in which the official candidates were listed; we followed at the end of the bus.

As Silverglate notes, ballots were mailed out in early April. They must be returned by high noon on May 29 to be counted in the election.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair gave an important speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week. Everyone should read it. And while you print it out, you might as well print out Blair's March 18, 2003, speech to the House of Commons arguing for the deposition of Saddam Hussein and his July 18, 2003, speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on the war on terror and the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom. Taken together, these three speeches are the best guide to Blair's world view. And they establish him as one of the most important political figures of the (still young!) twenty-first century.

Choice cuts from last week's speech:

The struggle faced by the world, including the majority of Muslims, is posed by an extreme and misguided form of Islam. Our job is simple: it is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating the extremists who don't. But it can't be done without our active and wholehearted participation.

It is one struggle with many dimensions and varied arenas. There is a link between the murders in Mumbai, the terror attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempts to destabilise countries like Yemen, and the training camps of insurgents in Somalia.

It is not one movement. There is no defined command and control. But there is a shared ideology. There are many links criss-crossing the map of Jihadist extremism. And there are elements in the leadership of a major country, namely Iran, that can support and succour its practitioners.

And:

The ideology we are fighting is not based on justice. That is a cause we can understand. And world-wide these groups are adept, certainly, at using causes that indeed are about justice, like Palestine. Their cause, at its core, however, is not about the pursuit of values that we can relate to; but in pursuit of values that directly contradict our way of life. They don't believe in democracy, equality or freedom. They will espouse, tactically, any of these values if necessary. But at heart what they want is a society and state run on their view of Islam. They are not pluralists. They are the antithesis of pluralism. And they don't think that only their own community or state should be like that. They think the world should be governed like that.

And:

'Look there are people in this world who are crazy,' a friend said to me the other day, 'leave them to be crazy.' Except the problem is that they won't leave us in the comfort of our lives. That's not the way the world works today. The Holy Land, that from Tel Aviv to the River Jordan, could fit within a small US state, is many, many thousands of miles from here. But, whether there is peace there or not, will affect our peace.

"[I[t is time to wrench ourselves out of a state of denial," said Blair, who concluded his speech thusly: "We have to rediscover some confidence and conviction in who we are, how far we've come and what we believe in. By the way, I think this even about the economic crisis. It is severe. It's going to be really, really hard. But we will get through it and not by abandoning the market or open economic system but by learning our lessons and adjusting the system in a way that makes it better. But, on any basis, this system has delivered amazing leaps forward in prosperity for our citizens and we shouldn't, against the gloom, forget it."

There's a school of thought that says Republicans should look to the Tories for lessons on how to recover lost power. Perhaps so. But if you are trying to find a language for your convictions, a way to explain why it's necessary to fight jihadism and expand the democratic capitalist realm, look to Blair.

Is Rudy Giuliani about to make the same mistake that doomed his 2008 presidential candidacy? Jacob Gershman reports in this week's New York that Giuliani hasn't declared his intention to run for New York governor in 2010 because, according to some advsiers, he "has to lull the Democrats into thinking he’s not going to run, so they don’t dump [incumbent Gov. David] Paterson and put Andrew Cuomo up instead, who would be a lot harder to beat." Giuliani is waiting until the moment is right.

Recall the 2008 Republican presidential primary. The frontrunner for most of 2007, that fall Giuliani decided not to pursue a full-on assault against rival (and friend) John McCain that could've driven the Arizona senator out of the race. Instead, the former New York City mayor adopted a late-primary strategy that banked on a victory in Florida to spur him to the nomination. It was a novel gambit, but it was also going to fail. Victory in the early caucuses and primaries - Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, chiefly - is what gets candidates the party nod. Giuliani hadn't learned from the history of failed rope-a-dope, late-primary-dependant campaigns. Thus he was doomed to repeat those failures.

Paterson, who became governor in March 2008 when Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, is exceedingly unpopular. The most recent Quinnipiac University poll has his disapproval rating at a horrible 60 percent. The poll shows that Giuliani would beat Paterson if the election were held today, 53 percent to 32 percent.

But the Quinnipiac numbers make things complicated for Giuilani, because they also show that he would lose a contest against New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo by 17 points. There's speculation that New York Democrats could dump Paterson in favor of Cuomo, or that Cuomo could challenge Paterson in a primary. Giuliani probably doesn't want to start a losing battle with Cuomo. He's hedging.

That might be a mistake. According to Gershman, former congressman Rick Lazio, who lost to Hillary Clinton in the 2000 Senate election, has expressed interest in claiming the GOP nomination for himself. The longer Giuliani waits to declare his intentions, the more time Lazio has to establish himself as the Republican gubernatorial frontrunner. Lazio reportedly has already met with former governor George Pataki (who, interestingly, made a recent visit to Iowa).

The notion of replacing Paterson with Cuomo may be overblown. Despite being unpopular, the governor has important ties to the New York Democratic machine. And party elders could be loath to shove the state's first black governor aside for a non-minority candidate. Even if that does happen, the political climate in 2010 could still make things difficult for Cuomo. Giuliani has an opportunity to lead a Republican revival in the Northeast - the first step to returning the party to majority status. Why not seize it?

Henry Waxman (anthem below)* is so passionate about saving us, and our tainted air, from ourselves that he will brook no opposition. Every cause needs its Savonarola (Republicans=evil Medici)—why not our melting globe?

Yet do we sense a blackening effluence emanating from the pure, unstained wholesomeness of his commitment to a clean cool planet? Why, yes we do: Mr. Waxman is engaging in some serious greenhouse-gas cattle trading in order to get his global-warming package through Congress. The scourge of polluters is offering Democratic lawmakers, who have thus far been reluctant to sign on, “allowances” on carbon dioxide emissions in exchange for their votes on the bill. Well, “That is what the Republicans are saying,” Mr. Waxman sniffs, “but that is not accurate.” But Democrats, like Gene Green of Texas, whose districts house some of the worst-offending oil refineries, confirm he's wooing them: “We’ve been talking,” Green said, referring to a meeting he had with Waxman on Tuesday night. “To put together a bill that passes, they have to get our votes, and I’m not going to vote for a bill without refinery allowances.”

*I won’t be acrimonious

Or even sanctimonious:

I’ll show you Waxish charity

And okay your refinery.

(Dissent is inadmissible

But trading is permissible.)

Emissions will be tolerated

As soon as I’m remunerated.

It’s not your cash I’m craving though:

Your vote will be the quid pro quo.

No worries! I approve of this,

And thus it’s not felonious!

Over the weekend I caught the latest episode of the FX series Rescue Me, which features a discussion of PNAC, the defunct think-tank at the heart of so many conspiracy theories about the Bush administration. The scene features one of the show's characters explaining that 9/11 was an inside job -- with PNAC pulling the strings. Except for that one minor inaccuracy, it's actually a pretty good primer on what PNAC was all about.

He's 1-for-11 on his promise to put bills online for five days before signing:

President Obama promised on the campaign trail that he would have the most transparent administration in history. As part of this commitment, he said that the public would have five days to look online and find out what was in the bills that came to his desk before he signed them. It was his first broken promise, and it's the promise that keeps on breaking. He has now signed 11 bills into law and gone, at best, 1 for 11 on his five-day posting promise. The Obama administration should deliver on the Web-enabled transparency he promised and post bills for five days before signing.

To the thrill of technology and transparency advocates, candidate Obama promised sunlight before signing: "As president," his campaign website said, "Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

But nine days after taking office, he signed a bill into law without posting it on Whitehouse.gov for five days. Since then, 10 more bills have become law over the president's signature, and only one has been posted online for five days — and that was for five days after it cleared Congress, not after formal presentment. Two bills have been held by the White House for five days before signing — but they weren't posted online!

This is (perhaps the only) one of Obama's campaign promises I was excited about seeing him follow through on. Given that "good government" reforms are a crowd-pleaser with the general public, and this is a fairly simple one, I thought he might actually do it. No such luck. Apaprently, all but one of the bill signed into law thus far have been "emergency" legislation, including the one that sat around while Obama was on a weekend trip to Chicago:

The Recovery Act was not treated as emergency legislation by Congress or the president. Congress waited three days after its Friday passage to present it to the president, and he enjoyed a weekend visit to Chicago before signing the bill four days after it passed (one day after presentment).

The Recovery Act certainly could have benefited from more thorough examination. The provision that allowed AIG executives to collect millions of dollars in bonuses was one of those last-minute amendments that a regularized, mandatory public review process could have caught.

There's hope that the White House may follow through on the policy eventually, but it does us significantly less good if it comes after Congress has spent trillions and fundamentally changed the energy and health-care marketplaces. The way this is proceeding, it's almost as if Obama has something to hide...

Aside from the cheap shots at Palin, this is a pretty good alternative history. Just imagine:

But as his presidency nears the 100-day mark, nothing better symbolizes McCain's man-in-the-arena emulation of TR than his impromptu mid-February flight (the White House press corps was given 45 minutes' notice before departure) to Johnstown, Pa., in the midst of a protracted showdown with Congress over the stimulus package. Fulfilling his oft-repeated campaign pledge to make the authors of earmarks "famous," the president stood in the eerily empty main concourse of the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport on a Friday afternoon and mockingly declared: "This isn't an airport in need of stimulus money. This is a museum of wasteful government spending."

Asked about his testy relations with Congress during his lone prime-time press conference (which scored near-record low ratings) in late February, McCain retrieved one of his musty jokes from mothballs as he cracked, "To quote Chairman Mao, `It's always darkest before it's totally black.'" The beleaguered McCain congressional relations team printed up T-shirts, which they still periodically display on trips to Capitol Hill, with the inscription, "Is it totally black yet?" It is ironic that McCain, the first president elected directly from the Senate in 48 years and a legislator known for his willingness to work with Democrats in the quest for compromise, is well on his way to becoming the most veto-prone president since Harry Truman, casting 13 during his first 14 weeks in office.

In case you missed it yesterday, Jordan's King Abdullah appeared on Meet the Press where he accused the United States of engaging in torture and praised Barack Obama for the transparency with which his administration was dealing with Bush-era interrogation techniques. Gregory, to his credit, notes that Jordan doesn't just torture its own dissidents, but also warehoused U.S. detainees as part of the rendition program. That program began under President Clinton and continues under President Obama. Which is to say, while Obama invites criticism of U.S. policy from the leaders of countries that engage in real torture, he will also continue to ship terrorism suspects to those same countries for further interrogation and detention.

Leon Panetta, who was involved in the Clinton-era formulation of rendition policy and will oversee those same efforts for the Obama administration, told Congress that he "will seek...assurances that [detainees] will not be treated inhumanely." And as King Abdullah just assured us, Jordan does not engage in torture. Problem solved.

The entire column is a simultaneously smart and emotional appeal to the British government to avoid punishing wealth creators, but this is the most important sentence:

So, I beg readers not to confuse overpaid bankers with the rest of Britain's entrepreneurs.

Indeed, that is exactly the confusion those who propose soaking-the-rich-to-recovery seek to encourage. The Obama administration and its ideological British brethren would be more than happy if taxpayers saw only a universe of AIG bonuses and Wells Fargo get-aways instead of, say, Gail Johnson, a small-business owner who started "a chain of preschools and after-school programs that accommodate sick children so working parents can keep their jobs."

In a typical year, Johnson's federal tax bill would be about $120,000. But starting in 2011, the higher marginal rates would add about $13,000 a year, Hurst said. Capping the value of itemized deductions at 28 percent would add another $10,000, for a total increase of $23,000.

And Johnson's tax bill stands to grow dramatically if Obama were to revive a plan to apply Social Security tax to income over $250,000 instead of capping it at the current $106,800. Because Johnson is an employee and an employer, she would have to pay both portions of the tax, Hurst said, tacking another $30,000 onto her bill.

Or, James Duran:

James Duran owns a human-resources company in Silicon Valley and is president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in California. He supported Mr. Obama, but is worried about the tax proposals. He has laid off some employees in recent months and has been wondering how he can fund an extension of those workers' health-care benefits.

Mr. Duran said he and his wife earn about $400,000 annually, but "I'm barely getting by." They have high property and state taxes, as well as college tuition and savings to cover. "I'm an Obama man, but this side of him is a difficult pill for me," he said.

Or, Jim Murphy:

Other business owners are also nervous. Jim Murphy, president of EST Analytical in Fairfield, Ohio, which sells analytical instruments to environmental testing labs and pharmaceuticals, said his company is struggling in the sluggish economy. But if profit returns to pre-recession levels -- about $455,000 -- Murphy said his accountant estimates that Obama's proposals could add $60,000 to his $120,000 tax bill.

"The misconception is that guys like me take [our profits] and put it into our pockets," said Murphy, who employs 47 people. "But the money the company earns in a given year is used to buy additional inventory so we can grow and hire." A 50 percent tax increase, he said, would be "really painful."

Or, Webber's entertainment contractor in Britain:

Last Thursday I met with a thirtysomething guy. I absolutely depend on him in a highly technical area of theatrical production. For legal reasons he has to employ himself through his own company. Under the new tax regime, he will have to pay 13.3 per cent to employ himself before he pays himself anything. And then he will have to pay 51.5 per cent on what's left.

This is a guy at the cutting edge of his profession who works all over the world. He is in demand in every major territory where entertainment is produced. He has a young wife and two children. Last Thursday he told me that he and his wife had decided that the UK was no longer where they wanted to live.

His wife thinks the State education system is inadequate. And she fears that a bankrupt Britain will increasingly be a worse place in which to live as the horror of our present financial mess hits us all in the solar plexus.

He says that he is young enough to set up shop somewhere else. The new tax rates were the final straw. These talented young people know they will make it impossible for them to educate their kids privately in the UK.

Even if talented people who are creating wealth do not outright flee a country, they will almost certainly stop creating jobs and endeavor to stay below Obama's dreaded $250,000 ceiling instead of growing. Unfortunately, liberal disdain for such wealth-creators (inexhaustible resource that it is) will not help the economy, so I'd rather have the jobs.

As Pakistan wrestles with the Taliban takeover of large swaths of its territory and the encroachment on Islamabad, its Inter-Services Intelligence agency tells us that Osama bin Laden is dead.

President Asif Ali Zardari said Monday that Pakistani intelligence believes Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead but acknowledged they had no evidence.

"The Americans tell me they don't know, and they are much more equipped than us to trace him. And our own intelligence services obviously think that he does not exist any more, that he is dead," Zardari told reporters.

"But there is no evidence, you cannot take that as a fact," he said. "We are between facts and fiction."

Zardari was responding to reports that Pakistani Taliban in the troubled Swat valley have said they would welcome bin Laden if he wants to visit the former Pakistani hill resort which is now in the hands of Taliban.

"The question is whether he is alive or dead. There is no trace of him," the president said.

If you can't trust the ISI to give you accurate information on al Qaeda and the Taliban, who can you trust? Considering the ISI orders suicide attacks on embassies in Kabul, supports terror attacks on major cities in India, and conducts resupply missions to Taliban forces as they fight U.S. soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, who else is better suited to know the inner machinations of al Qaeda?

The timing of this report is interesting, given the pressure being placed on Pakistan to tackle the Taliban sanctuaries that have blossomed in the northwest. U.S. officials have also been highly critical of the Paksitani Army and the ISI. Pakistan's military and intelligence services clearly are looking for ways to deflect criticism and divert attention from the collapse in their country.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration, already on treacherous political ground because of its outreach to traditional adversaries such as Iran and Cuba, has opened the door a crack to engagement with the militant group Hamas.

The Palestinian group is designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization and under law may not receive federal aid.

But the administration has asked Congress for minor changes in U.S. law that would permit aid to continue flowing to Palestinians in the event Hamas-backed officials become part of a unified Palestinian government.

Obama has said in the past that he "will not negotiate with terrorists like Hamas," and that we "should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements." Would Hamas join a government that recognized Israel's right to exist, or renounced terrorism, or accepted a two-state solution? Not likely, but Obama was never a big believer in preconditions. Maybe that's why Hamas endorsed him in the first place.

Several data points suggest appointed Colorado senator Michael Bennet is headed for some rough political sledding as he approaches his first statewide election next year. Bennet was appointed by the state’s Democratic governor to fill the seat vacated when President Obama picked Colorado senator Ken Salazar for his cabinet.

First there was this news report that only 10 people turned out to one of his recent events in the state.

Next, Public Policy Polling (Democratic firm) released the results of this survey saying Bennet is not off to a great start when it comes to voter support.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com agrees Bennet is a bit shaky.

He wrote this recently on his website, handicapping the Senate election environment:

Bennet risks squeezing himself by being too far to the right of the primary electorate, while still being too far to the left to placate religious conservatives in Colorado Springs and Grand Junction. Moreover, as he's never run for public office before, there is no guarantee that he'll prove to be a competent candidate. Colorado is the one state, aside from Connecticut, where Democrats could potentially improve their lot with a primary challenge.

Republican electoral strategist Jim Ellis, who writes for Prism Information Network, reached a similar conclusion in an email he sent out last week.

With approval and ballot test numbers such as those rendered in this latest PPP study, it is evident that the Colorado Senate race will move up on the GOP priority list and again lead to Democrats questioning both the President for removing a strong Senator from a politically marginal state, and Governor Ritter for appointing an untested replacement. While the two selections may certainly achieve various policy goals, they appear to have opened the door for a strong political challenge that otherwise would have been avoided.

Given recent political trends in the state, and depending on whom Republicans nominate, Colorado could become one of the most competitive Senate races in 2010.

Ha! Barack Obama finally learns how to tell a joke.

The "citrus plot." Blame it on the juice.

Jimmy Carter writes an op-ed. No good can come of this.

Are you ready to ration!?!?

Britain's entrepreneurs vote with their feet.

The Democratic scandal scorecard.

Dear Barack Obama: How many times must I tell you never to entrust anything to the political skills of Nancy Pelosi?

Swine flu emergency declared. Don't worry...Napolitano's got this.

The not-so-wealthy rich we're soaking.

Marc Thiessen has a very thorough and important post at NRO pushing back against claims that the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and KSM didn't break up a terror plot in L.A.:

In his post, [Timothy] Noah calls the West Coast plot “Thiessen’s claim” and Andrew Sullivan calls it “Thiessen’s LA Tower Canard.” What these two fail to appreciate is that the story of how enhanced interrogation broke up the West Coast plot is not my story — it is the official position of the intelligence community.

In my Washington Post piece, I was citing the very documents which President Obama released, which quote the CIA saying that interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ to ‘use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” The memo released by Obama goes on the explain that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’”

Read the whole thing.

In a powerful op-ed in today’s Washington Post, the former House intelligence committee chairman and CIA director slams the administration and his former colleagues on the Hill:

I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage.

. . . Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

. . . The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

Read the whole thing here.

Sam Stein: Kerry: Detainee Photos Could Be Terrorist Propaganda, But Truth Is Important

Jay Cost: Does Jon Stewart Influence Public Opinion?

David Freddoso on budget reconciliation.

Ed Morrissey: Video: Frank in 2005 — Bubble? What bubble?

Rasmussen: Pennsylvania Senate Primary: Toomey 51% Specter 30%

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson likely to vote against Dawn Johnsen.

Gingrich v. Waxman

Never mind pressing Israel for concessions in pursuit of “peace.” The Palestinians themselves are incapable of making the necessary concessions to one another to provide the Israelis with an interlocutor. “The past week has seen an escalation in the confrontation between Hamas and Fatah, both in words and deeds,” reports the Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh. “Relentless efforts by the Egyptians to end the Hamas-Fatah rift have failed to produce positive results, leaving the Palestinians with two separate entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

Fatah and Hamas spokesmen continue to voice pessimism regarding the prospects of ending the split between the West Bank and Gaza. Echoing the pessimistic tone, a Fatah official in Ramallah said that the Palestinians will have to live from now on with the fact that they have two “mini-states.”

Exactly. The only two-state solution in their immediate future is the one they already have: alas for their poor citizens, one is a hell-hole in Gaza run by a bunch of terrorists, and the other an unstable mess in the West Bank run by a bunch of corrupt dodderers.

Of course, everyone’s first choice for president in 2012 is Dick Cheney. But Liz Cheney’s boffo performance yesterday in the lefties’ den, MSNBC, defending sensible interrogation policies in the war on terror, surely puts her in contention for the runner-up position.

Ben Smith digs up an amazing video from the Obama archives: Samantha Power appealing to the Armenian community on behalf of her candidate in February 2008. Power praises Obama's "forthright statement" on the Armenian genocide, tells us he's never afraid to "call a spade a spade" and assures us that that Barack Obama is "a person who can actually be trusted."

"Take my word for it," Power says as she personally vouches that he will follow through on his pledge.

Both the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times are reporting that the Obama administration may be preparing to release as many as seven Uighur Gitmo detainees into the U.S. The LA Times reports that the release plan is being considered despite the objections of the Department of Homeland Security. Why?

It turns out other nations are not so keen on taking Gitmo detainees and the Obama administration sees the Uighur detainees as a bargaining chip. The proposed quid pro quo works like this: The U.S. takes in some Uighur detainees and other nations see this as a sign of good faith, so they agree to take in other detainees. An anonymous official explained it to the LA Times this way:

"It is kind of hard to tell other countries you would like them to accept some of these guys from Guantanamo if you are not willing to accept them."

So, in the name of Gitmo diplomacy, the Obama administration may now free detainees in the U.S. that the DHS thinks are potentially dangerous. Such are the perils of trying to appease world opinion without understanding the potential ramifications for America’s security.

During his first week in office, President Obama ordered Gitmo closed by January 2010. This put the U.S. on the clock to find a home for detainees the Obama administration does not want to try or otherwise detain. But, the president signed this order before he or his advisers even had a good understanding of who was being held at Gitmo. Thus, President Obama ordered the creation of an inter-agency review board to review the detainees’ cases.

This review board reportedly found that at least some of the Uighurs are dangerous, but the Obama administration may be preparing to ignore its conclusion. The prudent course would have been for the board to complete its work on all of the detainees before putting an expiration date on Gitmo, and for the Obama administration to actually listen to its concerns about detainees it has investigated. But, in the name of currying world favor, Obama wanted to order Gitmo’s closure quickly, and he may now be willing to ignore his own board’s concerns to see that through.

Inadvertently, President Obama has exposed the hypocrisy in world opinion, particularly European opinion, which he was trying to appease. The Obama administration thought that the world would applaud his plan to close Gitmo. It did, sort of. But at the same time the European nations that decried the existence of Gitmo for years, and portrayed its inmates as innocent goat herders, decided they were not going to make it easy for Obama to close the facility. They want the U.S. to take some detainees to spread around the risk –- after downplaying the risk the detainees posed for years.

From a press release:

“Earlier today, I called and congratulated Scott Murphy on a hard-fought contest and wished him well as the next Congressman of the 20th Congressional district. I also expressed my willingness to work with him to ensure that the families of Upstate New York are not left behind as our nation strives for economic recovery.

“This was a close campaign every step of the way. Ultimately, it became clear that the numbers were not going our way and that the time had come to step aside and ensure that the next Congressman be seated as quickly as possible. In the interest of the citizens of the 20th Congressional district and our nation, I wish Scott the very best as he works with our new President and Congress to address the tremendous challenges facing our country.

So Obama has broken another campaign promise. As a candidate, Obama pledged in no uncertain terms to call the Armenian genocide just that. The statement that appeared on his campaign website:

"The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence...America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides."

Maybe. I'm not sure Obama hasn't done the right thing by breaking this promise, again, and instead calling it an atrocity in a statement today. I wish he'd break a few others. And nobody believes that the Obama administration will respond forcefully to all genocides. He was clear during the campaign that he wouldn't keep U.S. troops in Iraq even if his withdrawal came at the cost of genocide. Still, there is always a price to be paid for this kind of thing, and according to one source that price is being paid by Philip Gordon, who was nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Gordon could fairly be called a Turkophile, if that's a word. I'm told that one Republican senator has put a quiet hold on the nomination at the behest of the Armenian lobby and in response to Obama's utterly predictable betrayal -- a betrayal made annually by presidents of both parties on April 24 for a very long time, though few had gone quite so far as Obama in promising to recognize the genocide as such.

If Gordon doesn't make it through confirmation, I wonder if he'll issue a statement blasting the Armenian lobby for character assassination -- and whether the left will accuse Armenians of dual loyalties.

The most ethical Congress ever combined with the most transparent White House in history are making deals to pass a fundamental reshaping of the American health care industry before any of us get a look at it:

Top Democrats on Capitol Hill have reached tentative accord on a budget blueprint that would ensure President Barack Obama's health-care initiative cannot be filibustered in the Senate, congressional aides said...

Top lawmakers are working on legislation to widen access to health care, covering the 46 million Americans not now covered by insurance. The initiative is a top Obama goal, and Democrats in the House and Senate are vowing to begin moving legislation this summer.

However, the measures are controversial. They come with big potential price tags, and potential business mandates on insurance coverage that could prove costly.

Passage would be particularly difficult under normal Senate rules, which would require support from 60 senators in order to block a likely filibuster delay from Republicans. And many Republicans are already threatening to filibuster, especially if the legislation creates a public health plan that competes with private insurers. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) is hopeful of reaching bipartisan accord on health. But if he fails, the just-negotiated budget would allow Democrats to overcome a filibuster because it puts health care under a procedure called "reconciliation," which protects it from procedural delays and means it requires just 51 votes to pass.

Yes, let's make sure that sucker sails on through without any consideration of unintended consequences, without reading the bill, without proper rules for spending money or proper oversight. That worked so well with TARP. And, at an possible $1.5 trillion cost over 10 years, the opportunities for fraud and waste will be ever so much larger! Full steam ahead!

Secretary of State Clinton yesterday issued a warning to Israel: negotiate “peace” with the “Palestinians” or risk losing the support of the Arab world in your efforts to counter the Iranian threat. At the same time, she suggested the Obama administration’s diplomatic outreach to Tehran was the proper antidote to a “failed Bush administration policy”:

"We tried the policy of total isolation for eight years,” she said in a rising voice, “and it did not deter Iran one bit. The nuclear program has continued unabated. They weren't supporting Hamas before. They are supporting Hamas now.”

Several problems arise: First, Bush-Rice/Olmert-Livni efforts (to name only the most recent) notwithstanding, there is no peace for Israel with people who to this day do not recognize her right to exist. Second, Arab states have as much to fear from Tehran’s nuclear and hegemonic ambitions as does Israel, and this will be so whether the-peace-negotiations-that-never-end continue to be forced upon the Israelis or not. Third, if she and the rest of the Obami believe there is consensus in the Arab world on any subject whatsoever, they have some lessons still to learn. “The problem of the Arab world is not that its leaders do not meet,” editorialized Tareq al-Homayed in London’s Al-Sharq Al-Awsat after the recent Arab summit in Doha,

The problem is [the way in which] they meet. This is clear from all the summits that have taken place until now, for what is agreed upon is never implemented, and the suggestions always repeat themselves. . . . In light of what we have heretofore seen, I think that the Arab summits should [always] be held at the Cairo headquarters, each of them chaired by a different Arab country, on a rotating basis. This, in order to avoid ineffective competition and unwanted invitations. . . . The trustworthy and faithful [leaders] find themselves facing leaders that say [things] but do not act on them, and who lead our region from one disaster to the next.

And, finally, while our secretary of state is studying up, here’s something else she might usefully learn: contrary to her assertion, the Iranians have been supporting Hamas since at least the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000. You remember that, don’t you Mrs. C.?

The New Jersey governor's race is heating up. This week's Quinnipiac poll shows the top two Republican candidates, ex-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie and ex-Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan, defeating or tying incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine. Corzine's disapproval rating is at a whopping 54 percent. The poll has Christie beating Corzine 45 percent to 38 percent. Lonegan ties Corzine at 41 percent each.

The thing to note about this poll is that Lonegan has been gaining ground. New Jersey's GOP primary is June 2, and the favored candidate is Christie, a tough-on-crime GOP moderate in the Rudy Giuliani mold. Christie has the Jersey GOP establishment's backing, but Lonegan, his top opponent for the nomination, is a pro-life movement conservative who's popular among the state's social conservative activists. Just how conservative is Lonegan? Joe the Plumber will appear at one of his fundraisers in May.

In a March Quinnipiac poll, Christie crushed Lonegan, 40 percent to 19 percent. But those numbers have tightened: in the latest poll, Christie bests Lonegan 46 to 37 percent. So Christie's lead has gone from 21 points to 9 points in one month.

The latest issue in the race is the New Jersey ACLU's attack on Christie for authorizing tracking people through their cell-phones without a warrant. The practice, which is legal, began in the aftermath of 9/11, months before Christie became U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in January 2002. Documents reveal that the U.S. Attorney's office submitted 79 successful applications for tracking the cellphone info. Sixty-six resulted in criminal prosecution.

The ACLU gambit probably helps Christie since it allows him to speak to his record as the prosecutor who helped unfoil a plot to attack Fort Dix. Lonegan has sided with the ACLU on this one, advocating on behalf of privacy rights, prosecutorial restraint, and limited government. We'll see in a month whether this tack works and Lonegan continues to whittle down Christie's lead. And in June we'll know for sure which man will have the dubious honor of facing Corzine's millions in negative advertising this fall.

Update. An earlier version of this post stated that Christie is pro-choice. In fact, he's said that he's pro-life and supports parental notification and a ban on partial-birth abortions.

As they like to say in Minnesota, uff-da this sure has been a long recount, and it just got a little longer. Oral arguments for the supreme court appeal will begin on June 1, which is later than the Franken campaign requested. So there won't be a Senator Franken until this summer at the earliest. Shucks.

Franken currently leads Coleman by 312 votes. I doubt that Coleman will be able to make up the difference in his appeal, which rests mainly on the argument that there were different standards used to count absentee ballots, and, therefore on equal protection grounds the court needs to count roughly an additional 4,000 rejected ballots.

The first problem is that the supreme court is unlikely to rule in Coleman's favor. Aside from the substantive arguments against Coleman's appeal, Coleman isn't facing an unbiased court. Two Republican-appointed justices have recused themselves. In what appears to have been a masterful stroke of simple partisan genius, the Democratic secretary of state Mark Ritchie chose these two justices and two left-leaning lower court judges to count disputed ballots in December. The ballot-counting was mostly fair, but Ritchie certainly must have known that the Republican appointees would have to recuse themselves during any appeals thereafter.

In a shocking turn of events, The Nation magazine's liberal editor has joined nefarious corporate backers and Fox News' dishonest trumpeters in giving credence to the utterly inauthentic, "Astroturf" Tax Day Tea Parties, which drew 250-300,000 protesters on April 15, around the country.

At the Nation's assessment of Obama's first 100 days, held at the Washington Hilton Wednesday, panel moderator John Nichols offered a derisive aside about conservatives in a question for Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel. "They're holding tea parties," he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand, which elicited a light smattering of giggles from the audience.

vanden Heuvel could have easily grabbed the baton and run with it, regaling her sympathetic audience with tales of Dick Armey orders from on high, delivered to seething crowds of racist "teabaggers." To her credit, she didn't. Instead, she gave a nod to the idea that the media (which she pegged as naturally sympathetic to such right-wing movements) unduly promoted the events, but added this:

"I think we need to think hard about these tea parties. You had people in the streets. You had thousands of people in the streets."

She likened these "glimpses of discontent" to the "politics on the street" of another economic downturn— the Great Depression. There was a hint of warning and worry as she told progressive activists, somewhat unfamiliar with operating in a more sympathetic capital, that they still have to "find sources of power outside Washington to bring to bear on Washington," implying that the tea parties had done just that.

Nichols echoed her muted concern later in the panel as he voiced annoyance that "conservatives are now considered the populists," and editorial board member Deepak Bhargava went farther in his assessment of the progressive posture in the age of Obama power:

"I think we have an organizing problem... We will get exactly what we organize for and not an iota more," he said, decrying both the tendency to act as cheerleaders for Obama or to make the progressively perfect the enemy of Obama's good.

Going forward, there's great uncertainty about what the Tea Party movement can achieve (although they're already showing results in some states). But if even Nation editors are conceding the basic authenticity and potential power of the tea parties, and using them to remind progressives of their responsibility to organize effectively, isn't the case closed on whether the movement matters?

Following up on Joe Klein's statement against interest yesterday regarding the apparently tenuous position of Jim Jones as National Security Adviser, Laura Rozen also hears that Jones isn't exactly meshing with the rest of the Obama team:

Several sources have in recent weeks described Jones as having a problematic tenure at the NSC, a subject that no one there has wanted to discuss or would provide comment on.

The peg for Rozen is another attempt by Jones to redraw the world map in a manner more to his liking. You'll recall the Washington Post profile of Jones shortly after the inauguration in which Jones said that one of his priorities was to see that maps were "redrawn to ensure that all departments and agencies take the same regional approach to the world."

That project ran into stiff opposition from other departments, but Jones continues in his bureaucratic battle, this time expanding the portfolio of General Doug Lute, the Bush administration's surprisingly low-key and successful war czar, to include the same territory covered by CENTCOM. Rozen says "It is not clear what Lute's expanded portfolio means for the senior staff who had already been appointed to run regional directorates that it includes." I'd be more curious what this move means for, and to, Richard Holbrooke, who seems far more competent than Jones at the skills required for bureaucratic maneuver warfare -- and who had already marked off Southwest Asia for himself. Holbrooke may have antagonized Jones when he rolled him on the Iraq ambassador issue, but if Jones is in trouble it hardly seems wise for him to poke Holbrooke in the eye.

Or is it possible that Holbrooke is the one fueling the rumors about Jones being in trouble in the first place?

HT: Michael Crowley

When you rely on somebody named "emptywheel" for your news, you're unlikely to get a straight story. But when emptywheel "reported" that KSM had been waterboarded 183 times, he/she failed to convey what precisely that meant.

In response, Cliff May reports the rules of waterboarding:

According to two sources, both of them very well-informed and reliable (but preferring to remain anonymous), the 180-plus times refers not to sessions of waterboarding, but to “pours” — that is, to instances of water being poured on the subject.

Under a strict set of rules, every pour of water had to be counted — and the number of pours was limited.

Also: Waterboarding interrogation sessions were permitted on no more than five days within any 30-day period.

No more than two sessions were permitted in any 24-hour period.

A session could last no longer than two hours.

There could be at most six pours of water lasting ten seconds or longer — and never longer than 40 seconds — during any individual session.

Water could be poured on a subject for a combined total of no more than 12 minutes during any 24 hour period.

To call this torture, particularly when done to an individual like KSM, diminishes the very real torture employed by the regimes that U.S. troops have toppled and the rogue states like North Korea and Iran that continue to violate basic human rights.

Is the most ethical Congress ever obstructing global warming skeptics?

The Roxana Saberi effect.

Larry Summers hears lullabies when the president speaks.

Is Glenn Beck right? 30 percent of Democrats prefer socialism.

Taking the terrorists' word for it.

Blagojevich flies.

Can you hear me now? I'm calling from Mt. Everest.

Reid backs Bybee. MoveOn will be upset with you, Harry.

Prince George's County officials making "tough choices" that Obama's not making.

"So sleep deprivation is torture, but killing is not?"

On the front page of today's Washington Post we can see the outline of what may become a devastating narrative for the Obama administration and the left. Yesterday's brutal attacks in Iraq, which left more than 80 dead, are tied directly to President Obama's push for a hasty withdrawal:

Two large suicide bombings Thursday renewed fears among Iraqis that Sunni insurgents are regaining strength and lethality as the U.S. military has started disassembling its massive wartime architecture....

The violent campaign coincides with plans for a U.S. pullback. The first deadline in a phased American withdrawal agreed upon by Iraq and the United States comes this summer, when combat troops are supposed to move out of urban areas. Top U.S. commanders have recently said the Iraqi government may ask them to keep American forces in cities in northern Iraq -- where the insurgency remains entrenched -- beyond the summer deadline. In Baghdad, the military has closed some inner-city bases and small outposts, but appears intent on keeping American soldiers at urban facilities shared with Iraqi troops well beyond the summer.

These small outposts and inner-city bases were at the core of the surge strategy that routed al Qaeda from everywhere but Mosul and a few other areas in the north of the country. Now as those bases are being dismantled, the violence is returning. Obama and the Democrats assured the American people that a withdrawal would hasten national reconciliation in Iraq -- that the only way to get results from Iraqis was to make clear to them that American troops would not remain in the country indefinitely, or even for much longer than it would take to get them and their equipment out of the country. That theory is now being tested, and the early indicators are not promising.

From page 242 of his book: "After we received written Department of Justice guidance on the interrogation issue, we briefed the chairman and ranking members of our oversight committees. While they were not asked to formally approve the program, as it was conducted under the president's unilateral authorities, I can recall no objections being raised."

Captain’s Log, Stardate -313696.7861491628 (Earthdate April 21, 2009),

Starship USS Too Many Red Bulls:

Met today with UFOlogists from the Paradigm Research Group (PRG) in the National Press Club’s First Amendment Room. Our subject: We Are Not Alone. Addressing the gathering were three powerful speakers:

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell, our sixth moon-walker, who said, "We are being visited. . . . It is now time to put away this embargo of truth about the alien presence. . . . All of a sudden, when I began to realize the UFO phenomenon and alien visitation was real, I thought, ‘OK, we're not alone in the universe.’ That's pretty big news for we humans."

PRG founder Stephen Bassett, who warned, “If it does not disclose, by the end of May -- this is not a threat or anything, you don't threaten the United States government, they're heavily armed . . . the PRG has an enormous and substantial network, and quite a bit of documentary evidence connected to this, particularly politically . . . and we are going to be extensively putting that out to the media, and we're just going to make it as difficult on them as possible.”

And “alien-implant researcher” Roger Leir, who “told the group that ‘multimillions’ have been abducted worldwide, and some have been implanted with strange, tiny devices used to monitor or control. . . . Holding court afterward, the doctor said the devices are similar to how we humans ‘tag’ animals. Tagging ‘about 15 percent of the species results in enough didactic knowledge to satisfy the curiosity of whoever put 'em in.’”

All three very convincing. Why will no one listen?

The Washington Post's front-page report on internal deliberations over the release of the top-secret memos detailing Bush-era interrogation techniques notes that one of the Obama administration's primary motivations was entirely political:

A source familiar with White House views said Obama's advisers are further convinced that letting the public know exactly what the past administration sanctioned will undermine what they see as former vice president Richard B. Cheney's effort to "box Obama in" by claiming that the executive order heightened the risk of a terrorist attack.

If President Obama and his aides were confident that the decisions they'd made regarding the detention and interrogation of high-value terrorists were correct -- that they had, in fact, made America safer and that the American public shared their disdain for the aggressive tactics approved by the previous administration -- the release of these memos would have been viewed as an unnecessary distraction. Instead, the Obama White House feared that criticism from Dick Cheney, a man the left considers so toxic as to be an albatross around the neck of the Republican party, was so dangerous that it had to be countered with the release of memos that posed not only a political risk to their own administration but also a national security risk to the United States.

In the event, the American public seems to take a Cheneyesque view of the document dump. Rasmussen reports that 58 percent of Americans "believe the Obama administration’s recent release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangers the national security of the United States." That means that Cheney already boxed in the Obama administration, prompting an overreaction that has turned the debate over detention policy into a runaway train. A public that seems to adore this administration is, on this issue, firmly against it.

The strategy of "boxing in" a political opponent requires that your opponent holds an untenable position -- that the only way for him to get out of the box is to move to your more responsible position, at which point he can be accused not only of being wrong, but of being naive and indecisive. Cheney is now asking for the release of additional memos showing the fruits of the harsh techniques his administration employed in it's considerably less apologetic war against al Qaeda. The box is closing even tighter.

But Cheryl Gay Stolberg reports that "even some Republicans say they wish the former vice president would disappear."

Among them is Meghan McCain, the daughter of the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, who appeared Thursday on the ABC show “The View.”

“You had your eight years,” Ms. McCain declared. “Go away.”

Whatever Dick Cheney is doing is clearly working, and Republicans should probably disregard any political advice offered by guests on "The View" and repeated by the New York Times.

At the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fielded questions from three congressmen who asked her about abortion.

New Jersey representative Chris Smith asked Clinton about her praise of Planned Parenthood founder and eugenicist Margaret Sanger at a Planned Parenthood awards banquet in Houston last month. He also asked her if "the United States' definition of the term reproductive health or reproductive services or reproductive rights includes abortion?"

Clinton punted on the Sanger question and instead offered a full-throated defense of international abortion rights. Clinton answered Smith's question about the "reproductive health" terminology directly, saying that "reproductive health includes access to abortion." While this isn't news, it does shed some light on President Obama's assertion in 2007 that "reproductive care" is "at the heart" of his health care plan.

When it was Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry's turn, he followed up on Rep. Smith's Sanger question:

Your remarks last month, when you called Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, a person whom you enormously admire, were stunning to me. Margaret Sanger clearly embraced bigotry and racism. She advocated for the elimination of the disabled, the downtrodden and the black child. In one of her writings, she said, "Today eugenics is suggested by the most diverse minds as the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems." I don't believe these ideologies have a place in our pluralistic society. And you went on to say that you will use American foreign policy in your position to further reproductive rights, which includes abortion, across the globe.

Madame Secretary, I don't believe we should use American foreign policy to export abortion. This will undermine, in my view, our foreign relations in many areas throughout the world, including Latin America and Africa and among Muslim peoples. Promoting the international abortion industry is an imposition of our own woundedness upon others. Abortion has caused tremendous grief in this society, and its export I believe will be seen as a form of neocolonialism that is paternalistic and elitist and an assault on the dignity especially of the poor and vulnerable. I believe women deserve better, women throughout the world deserve better.

In Clinton's response, she compared her admiration for Sanger to her admiration for Thomas Jefferson:

Well, Congressman, let me say with respect to your comments about Margaret Sanger, you know, I admire Thomas Jefferson. I admire his words and his leadership and I deplore his unrepentant slaveholding. I admire Margaret Sanger being a pioneer in trying to empower women to have some control over their bodies and I deplore statements that you have referenced. That is the way we often are when we look at flawed human beings. There are things that we admire and things we deplore.

Lest we forget, Clinton didn't just say she found a few things to admire about Margaret Sanger. She said she admired "her vision." Margaret Sanger's campaign for contraception and abortion, as Sanger admitted, "is practically identical in ideal with the final aim of Eugenics." They were methods to achieve her ultimate aim.

As for Jefferson, he opposed slavery--as both John C. Calhoun and Abraham Lincoln argued in their own times. The primary principle that animated his political thought, his vision, is the "self-evident" truth "that all men are created equal." The fact that he continued to own slaves until his death in 1826 is in many ways a contradiction of his political vision. It can be attributed partly to the selfishness described by Jefferson himself in his Notes on the State of Virginia, that "no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him." It can also be partly attributed to Jefferson's prudential judgment that a gradual emancipation combined with colonization would be preferable to the immediate emancipation of millions of free blacks into a virulently racist society. In any case, Clinton's comparison here doesn't hold up.

There was a bit of good news from the hearing, as Clinton reaffirmed her longstanding opposition to forced abortion and forced sterilization in China.

When she was asked a follow-up question by Rep. Smith, Clinton called the imbalance between girls and boys "a ticking demographic bomb that is going to explode within their society." Smith questioned Clinton about the administration's decision to send $50 million to the United Nations Population Fund, which has cooperated in the past with China's program of forced abortions and sterilizations. Clinton's response leaves room for hope:

I don't believe that there is any grounds for our being connected to any policy that supports [forced abortion or sterilization]. But I will look into the point that you made.

Headlines from Drudge:

URGENT: OBAMA GRACES COVER OF 'TIME' [FOR 13TH TIME IN PAST YEAR]...

JOE KLEIN DECLARES 'OBAMA AT HIS BEST'

EXCLUSIVE PHOTO ESSAY! SEE OBAMA MOVE CHAIRS AROUND! ..GAZE AT JFK... THROW FOOTBALL

Next week's cover?

The New York Times has an interesting update on the Yemeni detainees at Gitmo today. It turns out that the Obama administration took a second look at Yemen and did not like what it saw. Thus, for the time being, it looks like the Yemeni detainees will not be returned to their native country, which is home to an increasingly strong al Qaeda network and a duplicitous government that frequently sides with the jihadists while trying to play every party (including America) off one another for its own gain.

As Steve Hayes and I reported (see here and here), the Obama administration’s first inclination was to repatriate a “majority” of the Yemeni detainees to their home country. That does not appear to be happening any time soon. The Times reports:

“We’re at a complete impasse,” said one American official who is involved in the issue, speaking without authorization. “I don’t know that there’s a viable ‘Plan B.’ ”

If you want to know why Yemen is so problematic, all you have to do is read the bizarre news coverage coming out of the country yesterday. The Yemen Observer, which is controlled by President Saleh’s regime, published the complaints of current Gitmo detainee named Abdul al Salam al Hilal (his name is given as “Abdul Salem al-Heelah” in the piece). Al Hilal complained to his family that a deal for his and his fellow Yemenis’ freedom had stalled. Al Hilal’s family dutifully passed these comments onto the Observer: “If Yemeni Government and Obama come over to tell me about their promises, this will never change anything in my situation. They just talk,” al Hilal said.

Why did the Yemen Observer run al Hilal’s comments? Who knows? But here is where it gets strange.

Al Hilal was a member of Yemen’s Political Security Organization (PSO), an internal security arm that reports directly to President Saleh. At the same time, al Hilal was an al Qaeda operative. According to the government’s files, he used his position within the Yemeni government to curry favors for al Qaeda terrorists like getting them out of prison. He also facilitated their travel around the world.

In the summer of 2000, al Hilal visited the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan. The center is a known hotbed for Islamic extremism. Italian authorities caught al Hilal on tape saying the following:

“Well, I am studying airplanes! If it is God's will, I hope to bring you a window or a piece of a plane next time I see you. …We are focusing on the air alone. ... It is something terrifying, something that moves from south to north and from east to west: the man who devised the program is a lunatic, but he is a genius. It will leave them stunned. ... We can fight any force using candles and planes. They will not be able to halt us, not even with their heaviest weapons. We just have to strike at them, and hold our heads high. Remember, the danger at the airports. If it comes off, it will be reported in all the world's papers. The Americans have come into Europe to weaken us, but our target is now the sky.”

It is no wonder that the Italian press has reported that al Hilal had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. He made the comments cited above to a senior Egyptian al Qaeda member more than one year prior to the attack.

In any event, al Hilal wants his freedom, and for some reason the state-controlled newspaper was willing to run his protests yesterday. But it gets even more bizarre.

We also found out yesterday that al Hilal’s sons were killed in a grenade “accident.” Jane Novak, your source for all things Yemen, tells me that this account says the boys--aged 9 and 11--were at home playing with a grenade that went off.

Sound suspicious? Of course it does. So, what is going on here? Who knows? But this whole incident underscores that dealing with Yemen’s government is like sticking your hand into a basket of enraged cobras.

At least the Obama administration has made the right choice for the time being. There is no reason to repatriate dozens of Yemeni detainees, who are a threat to international security, into this mess.

Remember the near-revolt at the State Department when then-Secretary Rice announced that diplomats might be compelled to take assignments there in late 2007? Here is what a senior diplomat said at the time. Note his revulsion in being deployed to a war he doesn't believe in:

"Incoming is coming in every day, rockets are hitting the Green Zone," said Jack Crotty, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces. [...]

"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment," Crotty said. "I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"

"You know that at any other (country) in the world, the embassy would be closed at this point," Crotty said to loud and sustained applause from the about 300 diplomats who attended the meeting in a large State Department auditorium.

Fast forward to today, when the U.S. wants to execute a civilian surge in Afghanistan to accompany the military surge. Guess what? The more things change, the more things stay the same. State and other civilian government employees don't want to go to Afghanistan, which we are told is the good war, the war that everyone supports, the real battle against al Qaeda:

The Obama administration is finding that it must turn to military personnel to fill hundreds of posts in Afghanistan that had been intended for civilian experts, senior officials said Wednesday.

In announcing a new strategy last month, President Obama promised “a dramatic increase in our civilian effort” in Afghanistan, including “agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers” to augment the additional troops he is sending.

But senior Pentagon and administration officials now acknowledge that many of those new positions will be filled by military personnel — in particular by reservists, whose civilian jobs give them the required expertise — and by contractors.

But unlike the kerfuffle over Iraq, which was characterized as being related to political opposition to the Iraq war, today's civilian surge fiasco is being blamed on a lack of resources:

The shortfall offers more evidence that the government’s civilian departments have not received enough money to hire and train people ready to take up assignments in combat zones. Unlike the armed services, nonmilitary agencies do not have clear rules to compel rank-and-file employees to accept hardship posts.

Of course the burden to make up for the shortfall of civilian volunteers falls on our soldiers, and in this case, our reservists, thanks to our elite's unwillingness to shoulder a small fraction of the burden of the so-called good war.

That's what we ought to call the men and women who interrogated the worst of the worst. For those most committed to the ridiculous crusade for terrorist rights, "enhanced interrogation" is not only immoral and illegal, it's ineffective. That argument, like Khalid Sheik Mohamed, doesn't hold water. Obviously it works sometimes, and there are plenty of senior officials, including both the current and former DNI, who have said as much. More responsible critics are satisfied to argue that the technique is illegal. Maybe they're right, but there are plenty of lawyers, and at least one Supreme Court Justice, who will argue the other side of that. It's not clear the United States government can prosecute a lawyer for holding a minority view, let alone convict an American hero for dunking a terrorist responsible for the murder of thousands. If they want any chance at getting twelve guilty votes, they'll have to hold the trial in Berkeley, which will at least make things easier on Professor Yoo.

As to the morality of the methods used, I don't see anything immoral about smacking around a terrorist or making him sit in the cold or dunking him in the water, but you can argue it either way. Still, I wonder why the same people squealing about the alleged moral indignity to which these monsters were subjected are the same people who want the government to keep morality out of their bedrooms and doctors' offices. Why should the government be forbidden from making a moral judgment about gay marriage or abortion but compelled to make a moral judgment about the treatment of terrorists plotting to murder Americans citizens?

The left will probably get their show-trial out of all this, and not because the Obama administration has any deep conviction on this issue. They seem to have bungled the thing so badly as to have completely lost control. Now the American people will get to see what national security means to the Obama administration: the prosecution of Bush administration officials who kept this country safe, and the release of detainees who tried to destroy our way of life. It's terrible for the country.

I can already see the political ads questioning these decisions three years from now, but then again I've been told Obama's election means the end of the old way of politics that had partisans question the decency and patriotism of their opponents. So maybe those ads will never see the light of day -- much like the American heroes whom the left would lock up simply for asking what they could do for their country.

Nancy Pelosi refuses to shut the door on the idea of impeaching Judge Jay Bybee, who gave the CIA the green light on enhanced interrogation in 2002.

Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said lawmakers must determine whether Mr. Bybee lied during his 2003 confirmation hearings, which won him a lifetime appointment to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"I would not call for his impeachment without knowing what the facts are," Mrs. Pelosi said. "But I do think that the legal opinions, as we are learning now, that were issued by the [Justice Department's] Office of Legal Counsel did not serve our country well and were not based on our country's values."

"In terms of his particular situation, I think the important place to look is what he said about that at the confirmation hearings," Mrs. Pelosi told reporters at a breakfast round table hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Do Pelosi and her cheerleaders on the Left really want to open the door to impeachment of judges? I know quite a few activist judges whose lives could become somewhat less comfortable thanks to activism by conservatives if they see any potential on that front.

First, they were tricked into war, and now we find they were tricked into accepting enhanced interrogation techniques they found morally unacceptable and worthy of criminal prosecution for those who devised them.

Oops! But if Hoekstra has anything to do with it, the play-dumb Democrats will be revealed. Now that Obama has opened the door to prosecution of those who advised on the interrogation techniques, Hoekstra would like to make the attendance of the Congressional interrogation briefings as transparent as the techniques themselves now are:

I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Fox reports there may have been as many as 30 of those briefings since 2002, and Hoekstra argues a list of briefings will show Democrats were made aware "early and often."

The first such briefing dealt with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the Al Qaeda operations chief who ran the training camps in Afghanistan where the Sept. 11 hijackers were trained. Sources said California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, now the speaker of the House, attended the meeting with then-Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla. (who later became CIA director), and she did not raise any objections.

Obama is reportedly not in favor of a truth commission on this subject, but the far Left can take heart. If you don't like Obama's opinion, just wait 24 hours. That usually works.

Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for June and which will essentially be a showdown between Hezbollah’s patrons in Damascus and Tehran and a coalition of pro-Western—or at any rate anti-Iranian—actors including Saudi Arabia, will likely hinge on who among the crowded field of foreign backers now pouring money into the country in support of candidates pays voters the most.

“Votes are being bought with cash or in-kind services,” reports the New York Times. “Candidates pay their competitors huge sums to withdraw. The price of favorable TV news coverage is rising, and thousands of expatriate Lebanese are being flown home, free, to vote in contested districts.”

Walid Maalouf, a banker who worked briefly as a diplomat while living in the United States, is running an independent campaign on a shoestring budget, barnstorming from town to town in his mountain district. He says most people in the villages tell him he is the only politician who bothers to visit them. They are grateful, but he does not offer cash or patronage, and they are unsure what to think of him. Recently, Mr. Maalouf said, he was trying to explain to a village leader that he should think of candidates as employees, not patrons — someone they would hire to represent them effectively in the government. “He looked at me,” Mr. Maalouf recalled, “and then he said, ‘Go back to America.’ ”

This would be the stuff of comedy, if it weren’t such a tragedy, especially with Hezbollah poised to win a majority.

Porter Goss, former CIA Director and past chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, blasted the Obama administration for releasing Justice Department memos on harsh interrogation techniques. “For the first time in my experience we’ve crossed the red line of properly protecting our national security in order to gain partisan political advantage,” Goss said in an interview.

Goss, a former CIA operative, has made few public comments since leaving his post as DCI in September 2006. In December 2007, he told a Washington Post reporter that members of Congress had been fully briefed on the CIA’s special interrogation program. “Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,” Goss told the Post. “And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.”

In a letter to his intelligence community colleagues last Thursday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair described those briefings. “From 2002 through 2006 when the use of these techniques ended, the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Executive Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques.”

That passage from Blair’s letter – along with another confirming that the interrogations produced “high-value information” that provided a “deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization attacking this country” – was dropped when language from the letter was released publicly. A spokesman for Blair attributed to the omission to normal editing procedures.

In an interview this morning, senior Bush administration official accused the DNI of “politicizing intelligence” by attempting to hide his judgment that the program had produced valuable results. This official also accused the Obama administration of double standards, citing its professed belief in transparency and its unwillingness – at least so far – to declassify memos that demonstrate the value of the interrogation techniques Obama has banned.

Other Republicans have pointed out that with the exception of Blair, the Obama administration has defended the policies using political figures – like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod – rather than top national security advisers.

“You can imagine what it would have looked like, if on a sensitive intelligence matter involving the CIA and this controversy, if we sent Karl Rove out to do this briefing. And that’s in effect what’s happened here,” says a high-ranking official from the Bush White House. “And I assume that’s because they saw it primarily as a political issue – because it’s being debated inside as a political issue –because it’s about appeasing the left, whose support they sought during the campaign. And Axelrod is more of an expert on that crowd that anybody else. It also says to me he was in all the meetings where they were debating this question – whether or not Obama had better go forward with some kind of investigation.”

The official was referring to an article by Politico’s Mike Allen, in which Axelrod characterized Obama’s move as “a weighty decision.” Axelrod added: “He thought very long and hard about it, consulted widely. … He’s been thinking about this for four weeks, really.”

Allen later reported that Axelrod made the comments during an interview he and others at Politico conducted for another article. Axelrod, Allen wrote, gave he and his colleagues a “preview of the decision on the memos.”

This New York Times article sympathetically conveys the argument that because their staff could not be briefed, “few lawmakers are equipped to make difficult legal and policy judgments about secret programs.” My experience with highly classified programs such as this is that even within the executive branch, few officials at the staff level outside of the intelligence community are given access to this information, so you probably could make the argument that the policymakers were at the same disadvantage as members of Congress, having to rely on a handful of lawyers at OLC for legal opinions.

Also, how ridiculous is Pelosi’s statement that she recalls being briefed but that she didn’t think the methods would be used?

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who in 2002 was the ranking Democrat on the House committee, has said in public statements that she recalls being briefed on the methods, including waterboarding. She insists, however, that the lawmakers were told only that the C.I.A. believed the methods were legal — not that they were going to be used.

In addition, former Senator Bob Graham, who famously keeps a journal about every detail of his life can’t remember whether he was ever briefed.

Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, who was committee chairman in 2002, said in an interview that he did not recall ever being briefed on the methods, though government officials with access to records say all four committee leaders received multiple briefings.

As if the "teabagging" jokes weren't bad enough, there's this from Larry King.

The national media is all about staying out of people's bedrooms, unless the bedroom belongs to a Palin.

When Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano's left-wing screed Open Veins of Latin America last week, Obama laughed it off, saying, "I'm a reader." Let's hope Obama also reads Alvaro Vargas Llosa's takedown of Galeano. Llosa: "Everything that has happened in the Western Hemisphere since the book appeared in 1971 has belied Galeano's arguments and predictions."

After sitting through Sandinista strongman and Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega's 50-minute diatribe against the United States, Obama said, "I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old." Maybe he'll ignore the loony left thesis of a book written when he was 10?

Politico reports:

“If you criminalize legal advice, which is basically what they're going to do, then it has a terribly chilling effect on any kind of advice and counsel that the president might receive,” McCain said during an interview on CBS’s “Early Show.”[...]

McCain compared the potential prosecutions with the actions of “banana republics” that “prosecute people for actions they didn't agree with under previous administrations.”

“To go back on a witch hunt that could last for a year or so, frankly, is going to be bad for the country, bad for future presidents — precedents that may be set by this, and certainly nonproductive in trying to pursue the challenges we face,” he said.

McCain, Lieberman, and Graham sent a letter (reproduced in full after the jump) to Obama yesterday:

In the most daring piece of journalism since FDR was elected, Joe Klein writes about how Obama is the greatest president since Caesar and has accomplished more in his first 100 days than God did in seven, but amidst the fawning and preening and numerous synonyms for stupendous comes one interesting tidbit:

Gates is considered a major success within the Administration, as is the straight-talking Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. There is some concern, however, about National Security Adviser James Jones, who is still adjusting to civilian life after a brilliant career in the military.

When Obama first picked Jones, there were a lot of questions about whether a former four-star could make the adjustment to what is, essentially, a staff position. Then Jones went off to the Munich security conference -- a job typically reserved for the SecDef -- when many thought his time would have been better served working; he gave a ridiculous interview to the Washington Post prattling on about how he would have the last word with the president on any major security issue; and he got rolled on the selection of Zinni to serve as ambassador to Iraq. The question is: how bad must things be for Jones if Joe Klein feels compelled to write something that even indirectly reflects poorly on President Obama?

A new AP survey finds that despite worries about jobs, job losses, the economy, and the federal debt, Americans are feeling good about the president and the direction of the country: 64 percent of those polled approve of Obama's job performance, down just slightly from 67 percent in February, and 48 percent say the country is headed in the right direction, up from 40 percent in February. And the AP’s crack team of reporters make sure we get the good news:

Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future. . . . [M]ost Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington. . . . Nobody knows how long the honeymoon will last, but Obama has clearly transformed the yes-we-can spirit of his candidacy into a tool of governance. . . . Obama is not the first president who sought to tap the deep well of American optimism — the never-say-die spirit that Americans like to see in themselves.

Wait a minute—am I hallucinating? Or is this supposed to be an opinion piece? Not until the bottom of the report do we learn that “Of those who say the country is on the right track . . . 73 percent are Democrats, 17 percent are independents and 10 percent are Republicans.” Never mind—we’re happy as hell, and we’re not gonna be negative any more!

Gasp! David Paterson is just as bad as Miss California!

Another tan, Republican silver fox may want to run for president. Mitt Romney, call your barber.

Creeping protectionism.

TARP is "inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse, including significant issues relating to conflicts of interest facing fund managers, collusion between participants, and vulnerabilities to money laundering."

Awesome: Strong banks will only be allowed to pay back TARP funds if the administration believes it's in the "national economic interest."

Great TV: Blago eating bugs?

Obama deserves a "bravo" for blatantly ignoring several of his economic campaign promises.

What Earth Day means to me.

I.F. Stone, Soviet agent—case closed.

From yesterday's energy committee hearing:

SEC. LAHOOD : Mr. Chairman, I have a letter here from John M. Reilly correcting the statement that they made -- and it's a letter to the Republican leader -- which has a much lower cost per family. And if it's possible to have this put in the record -- if not, I'll distribute it to the committee -- but it is a corrective letter which states correctly the right information.

REP. WAXMAN: Without objection --

REP. SHIMKUS: With the right to object, Mr. Chairman.

REP. WAXMAN: The gentleman --

REP. SHIMKUS: Just, sir, if my former colleague can do that, I'd like the article from The Weekly Standard that debunks those numbers also included into the record.

REP. WAXMAN: Without objection, we'll take both documents and put them in the record.

Bill Sweetman reports at Aviation Week's Ares blog that U.S. demands that the Netherlands uphold their obligation to purchase two Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft this year may well bring down the current government. The Defense Minister has made his case to the Dutch Parliament in favor of the purchase, but the opposition is threatening a motion of no confidence over the matter. One MP critical of the purchase is quoted mocking the defense minister: "We are not speaking with the Secretary of State for Defense, but with a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin."

All of which leads Sweetman to ask:

Who is providing adult supervision in the USA? Does President Obama know that the government of a loyal ally could be dissolved, because of US insistence that they buy two test aircraft? Who has decided that de Vries shouldn't be provided with an exit option, rather than being forced to sell the JSF to an increasingly skeptical Parliament? Someone has, but whether that is Obama, Secretary Gates, the program office or someone in between is not clear.

The decision to close down the F-22 program could be seen as an effort to keep the far more costly Joint Strike Fighter program from collapsing under its own weight. Now that JSF will be the only fifth-generation fighter aircraft in production, the Obama administration really can't afford to let it fai -- apparently even at the expense of bringing down an allied government.

The St. Petersburg Times Politifact reported last month that the Republicans were telling a "Pants on Fire" falsehood by claiming that cap and trade would cost the average household $3,100 per year. MIT professor John Reilly, whose study the GOP used to make its estimate, told Politifact that the cost would be $215 per year.

Today, I reported that Reilly admitted that he made a "boneheaded mistake in an excel spread sheet", and, therefore, the cost would be $800, nearly four times more than Politifact reported.

What's more, Reilly's estimate jumps to $3,900 per household when you include the $3,100 that the average household would have to pay in higher energy prices due to cap-and-trade. Reilly believes that because the government will be 'returning' that $3,100 per household to the economy--whether through rebates or government programs, it matters not--it doesn't 'cost' the average household anything. Politifact apparently accepts this odd reasoning.

Here's how Politifact's editor Bill Adair responded this evening to another email asking if he would correct his false report:

Hey John.

Thanks for your interest in that item. I haven't had a chance to read your story. I'll take a look in the next few days.

Bill Adair

His email signature contains the Politifact motto: "PolitiFact: Journalism that tells the truth".

Perhaps Adair should add "when we get around to it" to the end of the motto.

Update: Adair emails:

Hey John -

We take questions of accuracy seriously and reviewed this one when you first approached Alex Lane. At that point, we didn't see sufficient evidence to run a correction. But I was planning to look into it further.

That was last weekend. On Monday, we became a little distracted by other events and I had to go to Florida for a couple of days. I am trying to catch up on several hundred e-mails that came in before yours. I'm also going to be off for a long weekend that was planned long ago.

I will review our story, the MIT study and the EPA study and see if our story warrants an update or a correction. But I thought your posting last night was unfair and a cheap shot.

Bill Adair

Washington Bureau Chief, St. Petersburg Times
Editor, PolitiFact.com

For the record, I first emailed Adair and his reporter with information reported in my article on April 15 and April 16.

Congressman Pete Hoekstra writes in the Wall Street Journal:

“It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002. We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses. . . . I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Read the whole thing here.

NY-20 seat's a goner--Democrat Murphy takes 365 vote lead.

MoveOn.org wants Obama to take the scalps of Bush administration officials behind the interrogation memos.

Hillary Clinton v. Congressman Fortenberry on eugenicist Margaret Sanger.

Ace has a must-watch Earth Day appropriate video to watch.

Duncan Currie: "Robbing Bismarck to Pay Boston"

And a special message from Barack Obama:

Henry Waxman: "I also want to warn you that as hard as we've been working, the pace is going to accelerate over the next four weeks."

We better get to reading, as the U.S. Congress prepares to pass yet another gigantic overhaul of fundamental American systems really, really fast. This time, they're regulating energy consumption. You know, energy: the basis of all industry, the very engine of a productive society, the thing that moves your Cheetos, lights your cubicle, and warms your children.

The bill has been up for discussion in the House Energy and Commerce Committee today, and Waxman and Co. are vowing to ram it through the Congress before the percentage of people who believe global warming is a serious problem created by man (and therefore worth risking the basis of our economy) drops below the current, modest 34 percent.

Obama administration officials are going out of their Orwellian way to call the bill an "economic boon" and a "jobs bill," despite the fact that it taxes the very basis of modern society.

There is wide disagreement on how much the bill would cost American taxpayers, with the EPA providing a rather small number, buoying Democrats:

According to Lisa Jackson’s number-crunching crew at EPA, households would pay between $98 and $140 a year through 2050 for overhauling the country’s energy landscape. Economy-wide, the impacts also seem pretty modest. It will take until 2030 for the national GDP to reach $22.6 trillion; if cap-and-trade is passed, that will just take three months longer.

That's somewhat lower than the $215-per-household number touted by liberal bloggers and arrived at by MIT professor John Reilly, who took issue with Republicans using his study to claim a $3,100-per-household cost:

According to an MIT study, between 2015 and 2050 cap and trade would annually raise an average of $366 billion in revenues (divided by 117 million households equals $3,128 per household, the Republicans reckon).

Too bad Reilly himself seems to have miscalculated the cost by about $600, and likely much more, according to an interview conducted with THE WEEKLY STANDARD's John McCormack:

During a lengthy email exchange last week with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, MIT professor John Reilly admitted that his original estimate of cap and trade's cost was inaccurate. The annual cost would be "$800 per household", he wrote. "I made a boneheaded mistake in an excel spread sheet. I have sent a new letter to Republicans correcting my error (and to others)."

While $800 is significantly more than Reilly's original estimate of $215 (not to mention more than Obama's middle-class tax cut), it turns out that Reilly is still low-balling the cost of cap and trade by using some fuzzy logic. In reality, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.

The $800 paid annually per household is merely the "cost to the economy [that] involves all those actions people have to take to reduce their use of fossil fuels or find ways to use them without releasing [Green House Gases]," Reilly wrote. "So that might involve spending money on insulating your home, or buying a more expensive hybrid vehicle to drive, or electric utilities substituting gas (or wind, nuclear, or solar) instead of coal in power generation, or industry investing in more efficient motors or production processes, etc. with all of these things ending up reflected in the costs of good and services in the economy."

Read John's whole report on this.

The GOP message so far on this is muddled, but economic dire straits understandably make Americans wary of hiking taxes on...did I mention energy is involved in everything you buy?

But as Democrats charge forward, Republicans have yet to produce an energy plan. Boehner told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he thinks the Republicans will produce a plan on climate change, but he offered no details about what it might be or when it might come. Boehner has tasked Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence’s American Energy Solutions working group with working out the details of the Republican alternative.

House Republicans are focusing on the costs of a cap-and-trade system, warning that the new regime would raise regulatory costs on businesses and increase energy prices, particularly for consumers in the Midwest.

In a briefing with reporters Tuesday, Pence called the Democrats’ proposal “a declaration of economic war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill.”

The ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), made similar points in his opening statement Tuesday.

“How many businesses have folded, or will fold, because of skyrocketing energy prices?” he asked. “How much higher must unemployment creep before we realize that we are sabotaging our way of life in the name of carbon dioxide?”

I'm thinking a simple "here they go again" message would work with a bailout-weary public, and the 648 pages of climate bill are surely home to a thousand data points to bolster it. Let's get to reading. We'll likely be far ahead of most of Congress.

Nancy Pelosi knew three years ago her fellow California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman was being wiretapped by the NSA and didn’t lift a finger to let her know. "When you are briefed on something, it isn't your information to share with anybody else," she says. "Even if I wanted to share it with her, I would not have had the ability to share it with her." Make that Catfight, Round Two. Hisssss!

On Monday night, former vice president Dick Cheney said on Fox News that he had "formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions."

But the next day, "An intelligence source familiar with the situation" told the Washington Post's Greg Sargent that "The agency has received no request from the former Vice President to release this information."

Sargent concluded that "it seems fair to assume for now that the only target of this request was the Fox News television audience."

But in a followup post, Sargent reported:

Turns out Cheney made the request through the National Archives, a spokesperson for the archives confirms.

That means that we may, in fact, see the documents that Cheney claims will demonstrate that the Bush torture program collected a whole bunch of useful intelligence, though it may take awhile.

National Archives spokesperson Susan Cooper confirms that Cheney did submit a request for unspecified documents on March 31st. Cooper said that the National Archives had asked the relevant agency — she wouldn’t say which one, but there’s little reason to doubt that it’s the CIA — for the relevant documents this morning.

Here's hoping Sargent doesn't rely on this "intelligence source" in the future.

And get yourselves criminal lawyers who have some experience with political persecutions. For no one, Attorney General Holder warns the memo lawyers, is above the law. Oh yeah, except for certain tax evaders, FALN terrorists, and, of course, Marc Rich.

The Obama administration is going to press ahead with efforts to broker an agreement between Israel and the “Palestinians” that will include a “two-state solution.” There’s nothing new about this, of course--Bill Clinton pursued the vision of two states, “Palestine” and Israel, living side by side in peace, unsuccessfully, as, equally so, did George W. Bush. Leaving aside the question of whether in fact a state peopled by members of Hamas, the PLO, and Fatah would live in harmony with a Jewish state next door, the “Palestinians” face another problem: The state their “leaders” have actually embraced for them is that of victimhood, the condition in which they have presented themselves to the world for the 60-odd years of Israel’s existence. Their recent history of upping the ante after each Israeli offer of more--more concessions on land, more concessions on settlements, more on the status of Jerusalem--has secured the statelessness and immiseration of their people for a long time to come. Now, in an amazing display of honesty that aired on Al Jazeera in March, chief negotiator Saab Erekat admits as much:

On July 23, 2000, at his meeting with President Arafat in Camp David, President Clinton said: “You will be the first president of a Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders -- give or take, considering the land swap -- and East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state, but we want you, as a religious man, to acknowledge that the Temple of Solomon is located underneath the Haram Al-Sharif.”

Yasser Arafat said to Clinton defiantly: “I will not be a traitor. Someone will come to liberate it after 10, 50, or 100 years. Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah.”

In November 2008 . . . Olmert, who talked today about his proposal to Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas], offered the 1967 borders, but said: “We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage, and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.” Abu Mazen too answered with defiance, saying: “I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine -- the June 4, 1967 borders -- without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.” This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign.

And they’re right. How much easier it is to retail the fantasy of pushing Israel back to its pre-1967-War borders and proclaiming Jerusalem their own capital than to begin the tremendously difficult work of state-building. And how much more profitable, too, to carry on lining their pockets and bank accounts with the proceeds from their welfare-addicted hat-in-hand importunings of foreign governments.

Another one of those "tough choices"— paying out $5.7 billion of your money to increase "vounteerism." Hmm, volunteering for money? Where I come from, they call that "working:"

AmeriCorps offers a range of volunteer opportunities including housing construction, youth outreach, disaster response and caring for the elderly. Most receive an annual stipend of slightly less than $12,000 for working 10 months to a year...

The bill also ties volunteer work to money for college.

Yep, that's a lot like working, but isn't it nice that the Left gets to use taxpayer money to fund the moral superiority of its youth army? That kind of smugness don't come free, people! Sure Americorps kids are getting paid to do work, just like the rest of their 20-something brethren who are holding down private-sector jobs, actually contributing to the economy, and actually volunteering in their spare time (like, the free, selfless kind of volunteering). But now, thanks to the Obama administration, far more 20-somethings can avoid actually contributing to the economy or actually volunteering, all with the imprimatur of Obama's new national service program, at the low, low price of $6 billion.

The bill also stipulates that "service learning" will be mandatory in secondary schools, and that the youth corps may get keen uniforms to wear!

One wonders why the Obama administration feels the need to subsidize an activity Americans engage in freely and enthusiastically every day? Perhaps because it knows $6 billion is worth it to subsidize any number of left-leaning non-profits and political pursuits posing as public service? These two areas sound particularly promising for malfeasance:

*$10 million a year from 2010-2014 for a new “Volunteers for Prosperity” program at USAID to “award grants to fund opportunities for volunteering internationally in coordination with eligible organizations; and

*Social Innovation Fund and Volunteer Generation Fund-$50 million in 2010; $60 million in 2011; $70 million in 2012; $80 million in 2013; and $100 million in 2014.

There's precedent for such abuse, of course:

* The Los Angeles Times reported that, in 1994, AmeriCorps funded a project that used the program's recruits to protest legislation designed to put violent criminals in prison for life after a third violent crime.8

* In 1995, AmeriCorps gave a large grant to an advocacy group called ACORN (Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now). AmeriCorps recruits were assigned to lobby for legislation, collect dues, register voters, and participate in political demonstrations. After its activities came under scrutiny by AmeriCorps' own Inspector General, the ACORN Housing Corporation was forced to return a $1.1 million grant.9

* Although federal agencies can no longer receive AmeriCorps grants, local subgrantees of federal agencies can still qualify as AmeriCorps sites. In the past, AmeriCorps recruits have been tasked to the Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Legal Services Corporation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. AmeriCorps placed nearly 3,000 of its first 20,000 recruits in such federal agencies.10

For a little perspective on the "new era of responsibility:"

$5.7 billion. That's 57 times the amount that Obama is asking cabinet secretaries to cut from the federal budget, as a symbol of his administration's commitment to fiscal responsibility.

For more perspective, a friend in Fairfax County, Va. sends word that the local school system will be adjusting its bell schedule to save money in a tough budget year. Projected savings? $4.6 million, in one county, in just one school system. You'd think Obama and the Democrats could wring a little more than $100 million from the entire federal budget, huh?

But hey, volunteers don't come cheap these days.

Update: Hey, for all those grandparents out at the tea parties last week, protesting the fact that your children and grandchildrens' futures are being spent away, take heart. Look what's in the national service bill!

People 55 and older could earn $1,000 education awards by getting involved in public service. Those awards can be transferred to a child, grandchild or even someone they mentored.

$1,000 bucks? Sweet! Future, redeemed.

(1) Pew poll master Andrew Kohut studies the commonalities between Ronald Reagan's and Barack Obama's approval ratings and concludes: "[T]he most important lesson for Barack Obama is that the public will be patient with their new leader in his dealing with an inherited problem — as long as things do not get substantially worse on his watch."

(2) Henry Kissinger looks at our inability to change North Korea's behavior and concludes: "In a world of multiplying nuclear weapons states, it would be unreasonable to expect that those arsenals will never be used or never fall into the hands of rogue organizations. A new, less universal approach to world order would be needed. The next (literally) few years will be the last opportunity to achieve an enforceable restraint. If the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia cannot achieve this vis-à-vis a country with next to no impact on international trade and no resources needed by anyone, the phrase "world community" will become empty."

(3) Vice President Joseph Biden watches students perform the roles of "Dirt," "Rain," "Roots," and "Trees" at a tree-planting ceremony and concludes: ""Great job, trees. Dirt, you did a good job."

Ya don't say: "President Obama promised CIA officers that they won't be prosecuted for carrying out lawful orders, but the people on the firing line don't believe him."

Miss California: One of us.

The U.S. Army vs. Ashton Kutcher? Some will be disappointed this is a Twitter contest, not a live-fire exercise.

Greatest hour of TV ever?

"The administration needs to tell the American people what it plans to do with these men if they close Guantanamo."

Congress will pass legislation to further ruin economy by year's end, Pelosi vows.

Cheney pushes for declassification of CIA memos about interrogation successes.

“Oh, gee whiz, isn't that great? Barack Obama and his administration are no longer going to ask our guys tough questions when they are captured. Now, maybe we won't behead their people when they capture them.”

“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

"It's a good time to be an entrepreneur."

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writes on Obama, the CIA and the memos in today's paper. His column will be the most important you read all day. Ignatius, who is extraordinarily well-sourced at the Agency, writes that the consequences of the release have been swift and damaging:

President Obama promised CIA officers that they won't be prosecuted for carrying out lawful orders, but the people on the firing line don't believe him. They think the memos have opened a new season of investigation and retribution.

The lesson for younger officers is obvious: Keep your head down. Duck the assignments that carry political risk. Stay away from a counterterrorism program that has become a career hazard.

Obama tried personally to reassure the CIA workforce during a visit to Langley on Monday. He said all the right things about the agency's clandestine role. But it had the look of a campaign event, with employees hooting and hollering and the president reading from his teleprompter with a backdrop of stars that commemorate the CIA's fallen warriors. By yesterday, Obama was deferring to the attorney general whether to prosecute "those who formulated those legal decisions," whatever that means.

More:

Obama seems to think he can have it both ways -- authorizing an unprecedented disclosure of CIA operational methods and at the same time galvanizing a clandestine service whose best days, he told them Monday, are "yet to come." Life doesn't work that way -- even for charismatic politicians. Disclosure of the torture memos may have been necessary, as part of an overdue campaign to change America's image in the world. But nobody should pretend that the disclosures weren't costly to CIA morale and effectiveness.

And then, more consequences:

One veteran counterterrorism operative says that agents in the field are already being more careful about using the legal findings that authorize covert action. An example is the so-called "risk of capture" interview that takes place in the first hour after a terrorism suspect is grabbed. This used to be the key window of opportunity, in which the subject was questioned aggressively and his cellphone contacts and "pocket litter" were exploited quickly.

Now, field officers are more careful. They want guidance from headquarters. They need legal advice. I'm told that in the case of an al-Qaeda suspect seized in Iraq several weeks ago, the CIA didn't even try to interrogate him. The agency handed him over to the U.S. military.

Agency officials also worry about the effect on foreign intelligence services that share secrets with the United States in a process politely known as "liaison." A former official who remains in close touch with key Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan warns: "There is a growing concern that the risk is too high to do the things with America they've done in the past."

If Obama means what he says about protecting the CIA workforce and its operational edge, he must give up the idea that he can please everyone on this issue. He should recommend limits on any congressional inquiry and resist demands for a special prosecutor. Instead, he should push the White House's preferred alternative -- a commission that can review secret evidence behind closed doors, then report to the nation.

Ignatius seems to think that all of this damage is worth it. I think he's wrong. But his reporting on the consequences of the release is a valuable contribution to the debate.

Last night, several news outlets reported that Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair contradicted claims from the White House on enhanced interrogations. Blair, in a letter to his intelligence community colleagues last week, wrote: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country." When the DNI released parts of Blair's letter as his public statement on the subject, that sentence was cut.

So you have the Director of National Intelligence acknowledging that "high value information" came from the now-banned techniques, contra his boss, and then hiding that intelligence assessment from the public. This from the self-described most transparent administration in history.

Smells like a scandal, no? The DNI's office apparently thought so and put out a statement to clarify Blair's position -- explaining why the assessments were cut from the public statement and backpedaling from his claim that the techniques were so valuable. (The DNI's office claims assessment were cut for space -- an odd explanation since such statements are released on the internet or over email. And Blair now says that because we don't know if we could have gotten the information using other methods he favors ending the techniques.)

So how did the Washington Post report it? Under the headline "Intelligence Chief Says Methods Hurt U.S." The story, written by Joby Warrick with an assist from Karen DeYoung, glides past the controversy by the conflicting statements and relegates to a mere footnote the fact that the DNI cut the discordant assessments from its initial public statement.

The Obama administration's chief intelligence officer has told the White House that harsh interrogations of suspected al-Qaeda officials produced "valuable" information, but he added that it is impossible to tell whether the same intelligence leads might have been obtained using less controversial methods.

In any case, the damage to the country's image caused by the use of waterboarding and similar techniques exceeded any potential benefit, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said.

"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances," he said in a statement yesterday, "but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means."

It's not until the last paragraph of the story that readers learn that "the memo that circulated last week among Blair's staff included language that was not in a public statement released the same day, the Associated Press reported last night."

An Associated Press story opened this way: "The Obama administration's top intelligence official privately told employees last week that 'high value information' was obtained in interrogations that included harsh techniques approved by former President George W. Bush." After a brief chronology of the events of the past week, the story noted that continued: "In a public statement released the same day, Blair did not say that interrogations using the techniques had yielded useful information. As word of the private memo surfaced Tuesday night, a new statement was issued in his name that appeared to be more explicit in one regard and contained something of a hedge on another point."

The Post spent years writing about the supposed "politicization of intelligence" during the Bush years -- often despite the fact that bipartisan panels looking into the subject had gutted those claims. Those stories were, often as not, splashed across the top of the newspaper.

The Post reporters plainly read the AP's more straightforward reporting of the story, since their story referenced the AP piece. So why did they Post downplay Blair's assessment and shrug off the fact that he attempted to bury it? And why, too, didn't the Post press the DNI's office on its laughable explanation for the omissions or scrutinize the flawed reasoning behind Blair's repacking of his original claim?

It would be nice to know.

Rich Lowry: "The Case for the ‘Torture Memos’"

Mitch McConnell slams Obama on Gitmo.

McCain v. Minuteman

Diane Feinstein's husband's firm cashes in on financial crisis.

No, Ruth Marcus, Sarah Palin is not pro-choice on abortion.

On the first day of the Durban II Conference, I interviewed a member of the Cuban delegation to the conference about human rights. Here are a couple of the excerpts. A link to the full interview is below.

Jamie Weinstein (JW): Do you think they should have exchange of ideas in Cuba? Do you think they should open up the press?...

Cuban Rep (CR): Yea, yea. All the time. We are open to, because we have to improve our difficulties…

He then backtracks and claims the U.S. media was controlled by President Bush.

Towards the end of the interview I ask him what policy differences he has with Fidel Castro.

JW: What are the polices that you think Fidel Castro, during you life time, has done that are negative? You might agree with him mainly, but give me a few of his negative polices.

CR: Negative polices?

JW: Yea

CR: [Unintelligible]

JW: About Fidel Castro.

CR: I cannot tell you.

JW: You can’t think of any. [Sarcastically] He’s just that good.

CR: [Serious] He’s good. [...]

JW: You’re telling me you cannot think of any difference? Is that right?

CR: I don’t have any difference.

You can watch the entire interview here (part 1) and here (part 2).

One good indication that something is worth a read is when it's cross-posted at two highly-trafficked sites at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Such is the case with Adam Baldwin's account of his participation in Ride2Recovery -- the Texas Challenge. (Huffington Post and Andrew Breitbart's "Big Hollywood."

Baldwin, who currently co-stars in NBC's "Chuck," completed the entire 350-mile ride from San Antonio to Arlington, Texas alongside more than two dozen "wounded warriors" -- soldiers injured in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Vietnam. (My story on the ride is here.) The soldiers clearly enjoyed their time hanging out with a Hollywood star (most remember him as "Animal Mother" from "Full Metal Jacket.") But that was only the case because Baldwin, who really is one of Hollywood's good guys, took the time to listen to their stories, to laugh at their jokes and, in the end, just to be one of the guys.

In his article, he challenges his fellow actors/actresses to participate in another on of the Ride2Recovery rides. Maybe I'm just a skeptic but I doubt he'll have many takers. Which is too bad. As Lucas Goedert, a soldier with severe back/spinal cord injuries, put it: "They're the ones missing out."

Well, there's at least one young, charismatic leader in Washington who is actually willing to make "tough choices" and go through the budget instead of just talking about it.

Congress might want to take a gander at D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's budget when it reaches the Hill for approval in June, for some lessons in restraint. Fenty's proposed budget does quite a bit of what Obama promised to do with the federal budget, but hasn't. (Although the city council and Congress will still have the opportunity to stuff it full of unfunded unicorns before final approval, so don't count on it staying this way.)

He's targeting more than 1,600 jobs, many of which were ill-scrutinized additions to the work force during boom times.

In a $5.4 billion spending proposal for fiscal 2010, Fenty (D) laid out a plan to lay off 776 employees and further reduce the workforce through attrition and elimination of vacant jobs. The cuts are spread throughout city agencies, including 250 positions in the public schools, 240 in the mental health department, 138 in public works and 118 in the finance office.

So, Fenty has made the very tough choice to lay off roughly 2 percent of the D.C. public workforce to meet budget requirements, while Obama makes the tough choice to give lawmakers 90 days to cut his budget by a whopping .003 percent. As Greg Mankiw reports, that's rather small potatoes (or, should I say "tall lattes"?):

To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year--approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year.

Fenty's cuts have put him at odds with labor unions, who demanded they be involved in the budget to dictate suggest "alternative spending cuts." Fenty's office has refused to bow, almost as if they're standing up to the powerful special interests that have had too much influence in Washington for too long, right Obama?

Mayor Fenty is also actively looking for redundancies and inefficiencies. Why, it's almost like going through the budget line-by-line:

As an example, Tangherlini said, the city has separate fleet maintenance departments to repair vehicles for the fire and public works departments when a single unit would do.

He's rewarding performance (in public charter schools, which added 17 percent enrollment, and will see 8 percent more funding) over failure (in public schools, which lost enrollment and will lose funding accordingly).

He's also raising fees on parking meters and business registration, which has him taking heat:

Brown also called the proposed fee hikes tax increases. Fenty, who pledged during his mayoral campaign that he would not raise taxes, declined to characterize the increases as such.

"From my perspective, taxes are being raised," Brown said.

Now, I'd prefer to see fiscal discipline come through cuts rather than tax hikes, but the fact that Fenty is making good-faith efforts to sacrifice some government largesse makes his tax hikes more palatable than the sacrifices Obama will ask of Americans without having sacrificed any of his own priorities.

He's even managed to cut the overall size of the budget, compared to last year, by five percent— the first such decrease in a decade. Remember that "net spending cut" Obama promised?

But one of Fenty's tough choices has put him in the cross hairs of one of the diverse city's minority constituencies. It's hard to cut government spending or services, period. But when government spending and services have been sliced and diced to validate the voters of countless minority/interest groups— a practice to which liberals are particularly prone— it becomes even harder to make rational decisions about which services are truly necessary.

In this case, Fenty wants to combine the D.C. Office on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs with the Office of Community Affairs, saving $300,000. Right now, the Asian and Pacific Islander office staffs seven and has an annual budget of $1 million for assisting the city's Asians—about 3.2 of the city's population—navigate bureaucracy. Utterly oblivious to the irony of piling on a new bureaucratic entity to solve the problems caused by past piled-on bureaucracy, Asians and Pacific Islanders and their advocates are predictably asking why Fenty hates Asians:

But activists contend that the office, which has seven employees and a budget of about $1 million, would be swallowed by the larger agency, which focuses on aiding seven constituent groups, including youths and gays and lesbians. There's no guarantee the community affairs office would focus on helping Asians, they said.

The Asian affairs "office staff that has been built up over 20 years has specific functions with areas of the community that have not been reached out to," said Wylie Chen, acting chairman of the Committee on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs, which advises the mayor's office. "If they eliminate positions, these groups will not be supported by the District."

An office for veterans, a constituency that is actually owed special attention from the government for their service, would also be folded into the Office of Community Affairs, while the Office of Latino Affairs would remain autonomous. It was inevitable that Fenty would face protest letters and gatherings of Pacific Islanders after making this decision, and it's honorable that he made it nonetheless.

Every interest group will argue its case to the Mayor in the face of cuts, and the liberals on his city council will castigate him for heartlessness, but none of them are dealing in reality. Fenty is acting refreshingly grown up about what the city faces in the absence of magical gumdrop forests that yield happiness for all interest groups at no cost to taxpayers. Fenty said of his proposed budget, in his State of the District speech:

"To keep the District's finances strong, we will continue to make critical choices about how to spend your tax dollars...These choices won't be easy, and they won't always be popular. . . .We've got to do more with less."

They sound just like Obama's promises, only so much less empty.

Update: Below the fold, my graphic interpretation of the Obama budget:

In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations today, Sen. Lieberman called for a significant expansion of the Afghan military:

“Most important of all, what is needed is an immediate commitment to a significant expansion in the end strength of the Afghan National Security Forces, in particular the Afghan National Army. In September of last year, the Bush administration belatedly agreed to double the Afghan army to 134,000 soldiers by 2011—a goal that the Obama administration has since reaffirmed. Unfortunately, this is still too little, too late. No less than a total Afghan security force of 425,000 to 450,000 is needed, including an Afghan National Army that is at least 250,000 strong. It is only when Afghan forces reach those numbers that the ratio of security personnel to population will achieve the level necessary for success in counterinsurgency. Some have suggested that we should first reach our goal of 134,000 soldiers by 2011, and then reassess whether further growth is needed. This would be a grave mistake in my view and a perpetuation of the Bush administration’s incrementalist approach in Afghanistan. Given the country’s population, size, geography, and security environment, it is apparent that a 134,000-strong army will be insufficient to the country’s needs. There is nothing to be gained from postponing a recognition of this reality. On the contrary, given how long it takes to recruit, train, equip, and mentor additional Afghan forces, President Obama and our allies need to commit now to a significant expansion in the Afghan National Security Forces, in order to begin reaping the benefit of a larger Afghan army by the end of his first term.”

Full speech after the break:

Fox News:

President Obama left open the door Tuesday for charges to be brought against Bush administration lawyers who justified harsh interrogation techniques, though he continued to argue that CIA agents who used those tactics should not be prosecuted.

The president showed wiggle room on the issue as he faces calls from Democratic lawmakers and organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union to support such charges. Asked about the possibility of prosecution related to the interrogation program, the president deferred to Attorney General Eric Holder.

"With respect to those who formulate those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws," Obama said, as he finished an Oval Office meeting with visiting King Abdullah of Jordan. "And I don't want to prejudge that. ... There are a host of very complicated issues involved there."

CNN's Ed Henry asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs about the claim that the Obama administration "selectively declassified" some of the Justice Department memos in order to avoid disclosing information demonstrating that the interrogations produced valuable intelligence. (See here for background.)

Good question.

Gibbs first responded: “I would suggest that you contact the CIA."

When reporters told Gibbs that this effectively means that the documents will remain under seal, he said:
"They’re not going to give them to you. They’re coincidentally not going to give them to me.”

Maybe not. But they'd give them to the president. And the president, of course, can declassify and release the entire memos if he chooses.

The most transparent White House in history is choosing to keep them hidden.

Gavin Newsom could be governor.

Yesterday, Jed Babbin at HumanEvents.com reported that there is some tension within the Obama administration over how to handle the seventeen Uighur detainees held at Gitmo. Reportedly, the inter-agency review team President Obama authorized has concluded that the Uighurs are too dangerous to release into the United States. However, high-level officials in the Obama administration have previously said that they wanted to free the Uighurs on American soil and even give them assistance to adjust to their new lives. According to Babbin, some Obama officials are not too happy with the inter-agency review board’s findings, as it gets in the way of their release plans.

There was another twist in the Uighur detainees’ story yesterday as well. The U.S. Treasury Department designated Abdul Haq, who runs the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (“ETIP”), a terrorist. The Treasury Department’s designation came less than one week after the UN itself designated Haq a terrorist with ties to Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, or the Taliban. The ETIP and its predecessor, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (“ETIM”), are quite obviously terrorist organizations as they openly brandish al Qaeda’s flag. But there has been some denial with respect to their mission and activities. Some prefer to pretend that the detainees are simply opposed to China’s repressive regime, and, therefore, the ETIP/ETIM’s obvious jihadist bent is often overlooked. This has been a consistent theme in the press’s reporting on the Uighur detainees. (See a more complete rebuttal to this line of argument here and here.)

Treasury’s designation should clear up any confusion about the ETIP/ETIM. But, this causes some additional problems for the Obama officials that want to release them. All seventeen of the Uighur detainees are alleged to have been members or associates of the ETIP/ETIM. And there is strong evidence, including the detainees’ own admissions, that they were in fact affiliated with the organization.

And here’s an additional problem for the Obama administration: A number of the Uighur detainees held at Gitmo have openly admitted that Abdul Haq ran the terrorist training camp they attended in the Tora Bora Mountains. Time and again the detainees admitted that they were personally trained by either Abdul Haq or his former partner in crime, Hassan Mahsum, who was the leader of the ETIM before he was killed in Waziristan in 2003.

How, then, can the administration contemplate releasing detainees into the U.S. who have admitted they were trained by a designated terrorist?

My friend Juan Williams gets righteously angry about just the right thing today— the Obama administration's killing of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship. Where's the hope and change, and the promise to do what works for kids?

In a politically calculated dance step the Obama team first indicated that they wanted the Opportunity Scholarship Program to continue for students lucky enough to have won one of the vouchers. The five-year school voucher program is scheduled to expire after the school year ending in June 2010. Secretary Duncan said in early March that it didn’t make sense “to take kids out of a school where they’re happy and safe and satisfied and learning…those kids need to stay in their school.”

And all along the administration indicated that pending evidence that this voucher program or any other produces better test scores for students they were willing to fight for it. The president has said that when it comes to better schools he is open to supporting “what works for kids.” That looked like a level playing field on which to evaluate the program and even possibly expanding the program.

But last week Secretary Duncan announced that he will not allow any new students to enter the D.C. voucher program. In fact, he had to take back the government’s offer of scholarships to 200 students who had won a lottery to get into the program starting next year. His rationale is that if the program does not win new funding from Congress then those students might have to go back to public school in a year.

He does not want to give the students a chance for a year in a better school? That does not make sense if the students and their families want that life-line of hope.

Duncan's decision, of course, is calculated to make it much harder for voucher supporters to argue for a program that's already being dismantled. Duncan also made his decision to bar new students from the program after all of the deadlines for other options, such as switching to charter or out-of-area schools, had passed, thereby trapping students in the very schools they were trying to escape. Leave it to a Democratic administration to find a way to give these kids even fewer options than the public school system allows them to have.

But the fight is not over. Sens. Lieberman and Collins wrote a letter to Duncan asking him not to suspend the program until after Lieberman's committee has had a chance to hold hearings on the program and Congress has considered its reauthorization:

By preventing new scholarships from being awarded, you are effectively ending a program before Congress has had the opportunity to consider reauthorizing it. Therefore, we respectfully request that you consider reversing your decision.

As we noted in our letter to you, the future of the OSP is presently under consideration by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. We will be holding hearings on the program in May, and Majority Leader Reid has promised floor time to consider a reauthorization proposal. We respectfully request that you refrain from implementing significant changes to the program until we have an opportunity to review the program's results, hold public hearings, and have a thoughtful debate about the future of the program.

Yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman said the following about the release of the interrogation memos on Fox News's "On the Record":

"I thought release of the memos was a bad idea. ... It wasn't necessary. It just helps our enemies. It doesn't really help us. Again, the president can decide what tactics he wants the CIA or the military to use on people we capture, suspects of terrorism. But to let our enemies know what we are going to do or not do, that's not a good idea."

This is rather extraordinary.

The Obama administration -- the self-declared most transparent administration in history -- has released interrogation memos that included descriptions of the valuable intelligence obtained by using coercive techniques. But while Obama advisers thought it appropriate to share detailed descriptions of those techniques with the world -- and with the terrorists who might one day be subject to them -- these same advisers blocked the release of the information these interrogations provided. They weren't subtle. All of this information came in the same set of documents.

"But just as the memo begins to describe previously undisclosed details of what enhanced interrogations achieved, the page is almost entirely blacked out. The Obama administration released pages of unredacted classified information on the techniques used to question captured terrorist leaders but pulled out its black marker when it came to the details of what those interrogations achieved."

Barack Obama has made two mistakes: 1) such blatant politicizing of intelligence, and, 2) thinking he can get away with it.

This is Obama's arrogance at its worst. The president and his advisers seem to think that because the world loves him -- and because he remains popular here at home, too -- his decisions will escape serious scrutiny.

This should be the end of the Obama honeymoon. The country has debated the politicization of intelligence for the last seven years. In that time, we have probably never seen such a clear example of that phenomenon. And though most reporters would surely agree with Obama on enhanced interrogation, they cannot give him a pass on this. It should be a very, very uncomfortable day for Robert Gibbs today.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has formally requested that information from the interrogations be declassified. Early signs from the Obama administration indicate that they will be unlikely to do this. Why? That's unclear. But Obama officials don't think they have to worry. Why? Obama is really, really popular.

This comes from Mike Allen's must-read Playbook this morning:

Cheney made the request in late March, while researching his memoirs. The CIA has not yet replied, but that’s not surprising given the complexity of the request. In coming days, Cheney can be expected to argue that the Obama administration's publication of other files last week is a precedent for release of the memos he wants. Cheney contends that the information he seeks does not pose a threat to anyone, nor to intelligence sources and methods. Obama supporters say privately that Cheney would be better off lying low for awhile – that he’s not going to win a fight with one of the most popular people in the world.

What is the Obama administration's substantive response to Cheney's request?

The president might refer back to a memo he wrote on January 21, 2009, the day after he was sworn in. Obama pledged to run an open government, one that favors transparency as its guiding principle. He wrote that "executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public."

After all: "The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears."

Good point.

President Pin-Up of the Oddly Shaped Pectorals

Eugene Robinson slaps Obama on Chavez and Ortega.

Paul Krugman slaps Obama on his fiscal discipline.

"Imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year--approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks."

Three issues that keep us up at night.

UAW standing in the way of Fiat's takeover of Chrysler.

Heavy is the head that wears the conservative crown.

The Twitter revolution that wasn't.

$4.1 trillion.

In a rage, he pens a blistering piece about the dismantling of the D.C. voucher program:

The National Education Association and other teachers’ unions have put millions into Democrats’ congressional campaigns because they oppose Republican efforts to challenge unions on their resistance to school reform and specifically their refusal to support ideas such as performance-based pay for teachers who raise students’ test scores.

By going along with Secretary Duncan’s plan to hollow out the D.C. voucher program this president, who has spoken so passionately about the importance of education, is playing rank politics with the education of poor children. It is an outrage.

Yes it is. This unconscionable, indefensible decision to deprive poor minority children of any chance to escape the ghastly conditions and even worse teaching offered up by the District of Columbia public school system--which will not affect Mr. Duncan’s own children, or Mr. Obama’s, or the children of the “38 percent of the members of Congress [who] made the choice to put their children in private schools”--is, as Williams eloquently puts it, a “sin against our children.”

"I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country,” he said in an interview with Sean Hannity last night. "I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was."

Watch the whole thing here and here.

AP:

The Senate also voted 73-17 to end a filibuster — and allow a vote this week — on the nomination of Christopher Hill to be ambassador to Iraq. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., was critical of Hill's performance when the diplomat was the Bush administration's top negotiator with North Korea.

CNN on the most under-reported Obama administration snafu to date:

Chris Hill is slowly overcoming GOP opposition that has delayed his nomination as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, but it's still unclear why the Obama administration revoked the offer they gave to someone else first — General Anthony Zinni.

Zinni told CNN Monday he hasn't been given any explanation about why the offer he got in January for the post, which he accepted, was abruptly taken back.

Zinni confirmed in an e-mail that he was asked to take the job by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and even congratulated by Vice President Joe Biden. But then, the offer was revoked and extended to Hill — a development Zinni says he heard on the news.

C.J. Chivers continues to provide excellent reporting on the war in Afghanistan for the New York Times. Last week, Chivers wrote on the "Good Friday" U.S. ambush of the Taliban in Korangal Valley, and today he follows up with a report on the Taliban's ambush of a U.S. platoon in the same region.

The headline says it all.

Earlier today, Pakistan's prime minister said the situation in Swat is "returning to normal," despite the fact that four members of the security forces were kidnapped, and the cleric that the government negotiated the peace deal with called the Pakistani government illegitimate and advocated for Islamic law nation wide.

As if on cue, the Taliban gave Prime Minister Gilani another reason to reconsider his statement. Muslim Khan, the spokesman for the Swat Taliban, invited Osama bin Laden and others terrorists to shelter in Swat. "Osama can come here. Sure, like a brother they can stay anywhere they want," he said. "Yes, we will help them and protect them."

Khan also admitted to an alliance with other international and Pakistani terror groups:

The Taliban spokesman counted among his allies several groups on U.N. and U.S. terrorist lists: Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for last year's bloody siege in Mumbai, India; Jaish-e-Mohammed, which trains fighters in Pakistan's populous Punjab province; the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; al-Qaida, and the Taliban of Afghanistan.

"If we need, we can call them and if they need, they can call us," Khan said.

The Pakistani government's reaction was predictable: shock and outrage, and even an empty threat:

"We would have to go for the military operation [if Osama shelters in Swat]. We would have to apply force again," said Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira. "We simply condemn this. We are fighting this war against al-Qaida and the Taliban."

The Pakistani Taliban have been clear about their loyalties to the Taliban and al Qaeda. The government knows exactly who they are dealing with, so the charge that they are fighting the Taliban in Swat rings hollow.

The Chicago Tribune reports that "Illinois is getting more stimulus money for road and bridge projects than any other state, federal and Illinois officials have said."

Now, I know what you're thinking: a Chicagoan president plus a Chicagoan chief of staff plus a Chicagoan Illinoisan Transportation secretary equals lots and lots of money for Illinois. But isn't it about time that you follow Obama's "demand that you shed your cynicism"?

Via Hot Air, the White House press corp calls out Obama on his budget cut stunt (fast forward to the 1:21 mark in the video if you're pressed for time):

David Rivkin and Lee Casey: "The Memos Prove We Didn't Torture"

Jennifer Rubin on Obama's projection of weakness toward Iran.

Do you now, or have you ever, opposed gay marriage? The politicization of the Miss USA pageant.

The case for a 99 percent estate tax: CNN reports on Meghan McCain's Daily Beast column (yes, it's really come to this), in which the former presidential candidate's daughter writes that she totz finds it "creepy" that Karl Rove follows her on Twitter.

Gingrich on Obama and Chavez:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Yesterday, former CIA director Michael Hayden put to rest the notion that harsh interrogations 'didn't make us safer':

The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work. The president's speech, President Bush in September of '06, outlined how one detainee led to another, led to another, with the use of these techniques.

President Bush's September 2006 speech may be found here.

Here's the excerpt to which Hayden referred:

Within months of September the 11th, 2001, we captured a man known as Abu Zubaydah. We believe that Zubaydah was a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden. Our intelligence community believes he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained, and that he helped smuggle al Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan after coalition forces arrived to liberate that country. Zubaydah was severely wounded during the firefight that brought him into custody -- and he survived only because of the medical care arranged by the CIA.

After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared his hatred of America. During questioning, he at first disclosed what he thought was nominal information -- and then stopped all cooperation. Well, in fact, the "nominal" information he gave us turned out to be quite important. For example, Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- or KSM -- was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and used the alias "Muktar." This was a vital piece of the puzzle that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM. Abu Zubaydah also provided information that helped stop a terrorist attack being planned for inside the United States -- an attack about which we had no previous information. Zubaydah told us that al Qaeda operatives were planning to launch an attack in the U.S., and provided physical descriptions of the operatives and information on their general location. Based on the information he provided, the operatives were detained -- one while traveling to the United States.

The Europeans who declined to boycott the Durban II racism-fest now expect credit for walking out when Ahmadinejad launched into a tirade calling for the eradication of Israel. "We don't want to repeat what happened in Durban [I]” pronounced France's UN ambassador Jean Baptiste Mattéi. “It's not against the conference, but we cannot share the views expressed by Ahmadinejad. We wanted to make this clear."

Too right! After all, what happened in Durban, as President Obama somewhat understatedly put it, was that "folks expressed antagonism toward Israel in ways that were oftentimes completely hypocritical and counterproductive."

Geneva
Before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the stage and spouted his racist drivel at the UN Durban II Anti-Racism conference, I got a preview of what was to come while interviewing a delegate at the conference who is a part of an Iranian NGO.

The self-proclaimed Tehran University Professor of International Law told me that, thankfully, the Islamic Republic does not have any problems with racism and discrimination.

“Actually in Iran, fortunately, it is the idea of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Because I am doing law I know about the Iranian constitution. It is anti-racism so there is no possibility according to Iranian law to get any kind of discrimination so it is part of the Iranian constitution. “’

But what about, for instance, government persecution of homosexuals and people of the Bahai faith?

“We are in a democratic community,” he said. “The Iranian people have decided according to their discretion to have some, a kind of, I mean a limitation on some activities. If this is the law, we are under the law. So it is the law.”

But can’t a law decided by “the people” be racist or bigoted?

“It is the kind of punishment according to Iranian law that is under the discretion of the people.”

He then compared Iran’s persecution of homosexuals to America’s targeting of drug traffickers, saying, “Anything against the health of people according to our view is against humanity.”

As you might imagine, this NGO member feels right at home at Durban II and believes that “As far as I have seen…the draft of the conference it is exactly according to Iranian idea.”

For good measure, the good professor told me that “Israel is a kind of artificial state” and Zionism is racism.

“We believe that Zionism is a kind of racism so it should be out of the whole world,” he told me.

He noted, however, that this does not mean he is against Jewish people. Phew.

Check out the full video of the interview here for more outrageous statements.

Jamie Weinstein is a syndicated columnist with North Star Writers Group.

Later this year, the United States will join other U.N. members in negotiations in Copenhagen to update the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gas emissions. While the Obama administration says it is devoted to the treaty, reaching an agreement will be difficult. One of the most contentious issues facing negotiators is who goes first on greenhouse gas reduction.

There's an assumption on the part of many that the developed nations should go first, since they are wealthier and emit more -- at least right now. But AEI scholar Kenneth Green points out that the advanced West has been more 'responsible' than the third world -- adopting environmentally-friendly capitalist and pluralist reforms before undertaking industrialization. As a result, they hit their peak periods of greenhouse gas emission while their populations were comparatively small. Further, they created social welfare programs that enabled them to reduce population growth -- another factor which limits their overall production of greenhouse gases.

Green argues that the less-developed countries by contrast, are basically trying to act as 'free riders:'

Developing countries, by contrast, were not willing or able to muster the political will to adopt democratic-capitalist institutions. The leaders of developing countries, chose, with the tacit or overt agreement of their populations, communitarian, fascist, dictatorial, or other social institutions that perpetuated a reliance on large, extended families and thus rapid population growth, while retarding economic growth and suppressing people’s desires for environmental protection.

Thus, in the thousand-year scheme of things that is climate change, the developing countries, by deferring development until their populations were vastly larger than those of the developed world, will have a vastly larger impact on the world’s ecology and (if man-made GHGs really have a potent and deleterious ecological influence) the world’s climate.

Looking back 300 years from now, the initial pulse of GHGs from the developed world will pale in comparison to the titanic flux of GHGs (and other conventional and water pollutants) that the developing world will emit as it develops. And, unlike the developed world, which largely completed development before there was even a small understanding of the risk of climate change or air pollution, the developing world is polluting with the full knowledge that their emissions can cause environmental damage, harm existing populations, and burden future generations.

This is more than just an academic argument. The U.S. is a responsible actor -- probably the world's most responsible actor -- in terms of leading the world to become more environmentally aware, and creating the wealth to tackle environmental problems. Why then should Americans disproportionately bear the burden of tackling the extremely-costly 'global warming challenge?' Further, is it even possible to do anything about the 'problem' if we look the other way while the world's biggest offenders get a pass and make the problem worse, at precisely the time the world is trying to fix it?

The global-warming alarmist community has argued that we're in a sinking boat and we need to start bailing. But what hope is there for our boat if the advanced west is bailing with a teaspoon while less-developed countries are hauling in water by the bucket? There's no point to a costly agreement that rewards the worst offenders and does nothing to solve the 'problem.'

Rasmussen reports:

While half the nation has a favorable opinion of last Wednesday’s events, the nation’s Political Class has a much dimmer view—just 13% of the political elite offered even a somewhat favorable assessment while 81% said the opposite. Among the Political Class, not a single survey respondent said they had a Very Favorable opinion of the events while 60% shared a Very Unfavorable assessment. One-in-four adults (25%) say they personally know someone who attended a tea party protest. That figure includes just one percent (1%) of those in the Political Class.

I suppose I'm a member of the "Political Class." But, lest people think my friend Scott Rasmussen's survey respondents speak for me, I should note that--unlike 99% of Scott's Political Class respondents--I know several people who attended tea party protests, and--unlike 100% of Scott's respondents--I have a very favorable opinion of the events.

Are we melting? Or are we freezing? I need to know what supplies to buy.

Rasmussen:

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans have a favorable view of the “tea parties” held nationwide last week, including 32% who say their view of the events is Very favorable.

Thirty-three percent (33%) hold an unfavorable opinion of the tea parties according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.

While half the nation has a favorable opinion of last Wednesday’s events, the nation’s Political Class has a much dimmer view—just 13% of the political elite offered even a somewhat favorable assessment while 81% said the opposite. Among the Political Class, not a single survey respondent said they had a Very Favorable opinion of the events while 60% shared a Very Unfavorable assessment.

One-in-four adults (25%) say they personally know someone who attended a tea party protest. That figure includes just one percent (1%) of those in the Political Class.

Not only do Pakistani leaders often make statements on the security situation that contradict the reality on the ground, they make them at the most ill-advised times. Take Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani's statements about Swat, the district the government recently turned over to the Taliban after allowing them to enforce their radical brand of sharia.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Monday that the situation in Swat was returning to normal and no one including the US should be worried about that.

Gilani made his statement just one day after Sufi Mohammed, the leader of the pro-Taliban front group that has demanded the enforcement of sharia in the Swat Valley, put his finger in the eye of the government for caving. Sufi is telling the Pakistani government it must halt all activities by the secular courts in Swat and that decisions made by his Islamic courts cannot be challenged by Pakistan's government. And if his demands aren't met within four days, "The government will be responsible for all the consequences if our demands are not implemented," Sufi threatened. He also described democracy, which is the political system employed in Pakistan, as "system of infidels."

As if on cue, today the Swat Taliban kidnapped four members of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary police force. If 'returning to normal' means that Swat continues to fall further under the grip of the Taliban, then Gilani is 100 percent accurate.

"Donkey Ball Stubbornly Holds On Despite Criticism" is the boss's favorite New York Times story of the past six months. You'll want to read the whole thing.