Does the Beltway create an IQ suppression field?

What other explanation for Dan Froomkin's piece today?

The traditional media has been slow to come to grips with the American public's distrust and dislike of President Bush -- sentiments clearly reflected in opinion polls dating back well over a year.

Almost alone among the network newscasters, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is channeling that sensibility. Channeling it -- and amplifying it.

Slow to come to grips with it? They created it. The "traditional media" has been more nakedly partisan in its attacks on Bush and the war than it's ever been toward any politician in my lifetime with so little basis for its bias.

And to praise Olberman's pretentious, pompous, unending bloviations is practically an admission that you know nothing about good writing yourself. Olbermann obvious thinks he's reading pearls of rhetoric, but his pieces are trite, overheated and way overwritten. If he weren't so egotistical he'd see that himself. He's a self-parody! I'm no great stylist, but if I were on television, I'd be editing and trimming my comments before reading them on-air. Olbermann is a good sportswriter, but that comes from his sense of irony, which curiously gets jettisoned when he tries to be serious. Then he's only tendentious and boring.

Through the kindness of a subscriber, we have the gist of David Brooks' column in which the popularity of The Vagina Monologues with liberals is juxtaposed to their righteous indignation over Foley's IM dialogues. I've never seen TVM, but I've read enough to get the idea. It's like an encounter group for frigid women.

What a hammer blow! Too bad the Times won't let that one through the fence, but it's out anyway, and it will be repeated endlessly to demonstrate the outrageous hypocrisy of Democrats over the Foley Scandal.

Foley should have written a play, left Congress and outed himself. He'd be a celebrity and liberal hero today, and performing The Phallic Monologues around the country.

Don't believe that explanation at the top of the page.

Here's what "Anchoress" really means. Original sin? Don't be silly. Sex is ordained by the Almighty within marriage.

It's crying time again . . .

The LATimes is not a safe liberal. I guess that's enough to brand him a "right wing hatchet man."

Rich Lowry notes the ironies of the Democrats becoming so bluenosed over "inappropriate" sexual interests, even without any actual sex. He observes:

No one will believe that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is going to be more suspicious of what gay congressmen are doing with the male pages — as some Democratic rhetoric implies — than Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Of course, it doesn’t take a puritan to object to a 52-year-old man luring a 16-year-old into cybersex. But this is all the more reason to reconsider the broader sexualization of teens in our culture. Britney Spears was the country’s hottest sexual commodity at age 17, but at 25 is considered over the hill. In the nation’s schools, sex education tends to encourage (“safe”) teen sexual activity, with little thought given to the fact that sexually active teens might well find sexually predatory adults (straight or gay) as their partners rather than other teens. In more than half of teen births, the father is an adult.

The point about how sexually savvy teenagers have become has been occurring to a lot of us since the report that Foley was lured into his lurid IMs as a prank. As that sinks in, I don't think people will blame Republicans for the decline of moral values regarding sex.

Congressman Chris Cannon made the same point, but not very artfully and is getting hassled for making excuses for Foley. Of course, Foley really has no excuse, but it does make the "victim' seem less like a victim than at first.

Fox News is ten years this week. I really don't know what the significance of that is.
Roger Ailes, who had discovered the vast conservative hunger for someone to give their point of view on the news when he put Rush Limbaugh on radio. He then did the same, with the help of Rupert Murdoch, on television. Nothing has so enraged the left for a long time than the loss of its monopoly on news. And the past 6 years haven't been a particularly golden ages for media objectivity and fair reporting, as the MSM has practically thrown off all pretense of being nonpartisan.

But I think that the invention of blogging is a far bigger deal than Fox News Channel. Mostly Fox isn't too different from CNN, except that it makes more of an effort to tell both sides and challenge the leftward spin of many of its guests. I don't think Bill O'Reilly or Hannity & Colmes have greatly elevated the medium. I prefer Brit Hume's show to all others news coverage, but the whole concept of 24 hour news coverage is really kind of mindnumbing. When they can come up with correspondents who can report on their various beats without repeating them 12 times a day, it will be more valuable. Until then, I only need an hour's worth.

The blogosphere is a different story. It's like have millions of correspondents and commentators bouncing ideas and tidbits of facts off each other. Most of it is recycled, but who would be able to scan so many news sources and so many different kinds of spin, hilarity, sarcasm and weirdness daily? It really does make life richer.

Peter Beinart should find better causes. When he angrily accused the White House of dishonesty over the Niger Uranium claim, I thought he was pretty arrogant. Now, being so indignant over the cancellation of what sounds like an effete and weird production of an obscure opera strikes me as rather odd. While "free speech" has come to mean saying outrageous things just to rub them in the faces of others, it can now result in riots, bombings and deaths. OK, we shouldn't knuckle under to manipulated Arab rage, but I'd rather have a better cause than what sounds like a pretentious and annoying production and a few gratuitous and some not very clever cartoons.

And it's not as if liberals in Academia really believe in freedom of speech anymore. They just have different codes of what is and isn't permissible (Obscene now refers to corporate profits and defense budgets rather than the sexually prurient, for example). Use the "n-word," advocate homemaking or invite Ann Coulter to speak on campus, and you're likely to spark riots by liberal activists. Maybe we should rid ourselves of these prejudices and denials of freedom, before we start lecturing Germany on freedom of speech.

He writes:

Partisan militancy may be necessary to combat Republican power. But it cannot define what it means to be a liberal in the United States today.

Is there Republican militancy? It sounds like an oxymoron, like the image of Republicans staging protests in Florida over the recounting crisis in 2000, which tickled David Brooks at the time. Militancy doesn't really describe conservatives except the white supremacists who aren't really conservative as much as fascists. Republicans I know tend to see politics more as a means to keeping government from getting out of hand more than as a means to grasp power. It's more like we organize and vote to prevent Democrats from adopting total socialism. "The power of the Republicans" just doesn't sound all that ominous, knowing that if they are real conservatives they'll cut taxes and try to slow down the growth of government or turn it back. Of course, they haven't been able to do much of that due to the amount of spending required by entitlement programs. We seem to be a nation split down the middle, fighting over its soul. It's enormously difficult to really do much about programs so loved by Republicans. You need 60% majorities in Congress, and even then, you'd have trouble because so many people have a stake in the status quo. That ominous power of the Republicans isn't so much a threat as an obstacle in the path of the socialist dreams of the left, eliminating poverty and nationlize health care, neither of while really appeal that much to tax payers. It's one thing to pay payroll taxes with the expectation of support when you retire and quite another to pay taxes to support people who don't seem to really want to do much to help themselves. Of course there are poor people who need help and would help themselves if they could. But making charity a legal entitlement just doesn't make sense to most of us.

The double standard.

James Taranto:

Imagine if Republican activists had gotten wind of Jim McGreevey's homosexuality before he announced it, and had threatened to "out" him in order to hurt Democrats. One suspects the likes of [Mike] Rogers would have viewed such Republicans as antigay bigots, or at least as panderers to bigotry. But how is what Rogers was proposing to do--expose a gay member of the opposite party in order to hurt that party--any different? (There is nothing in Rogers's blog entry to suggest he was aware of Foley's penchant for congressional pages or anyone who actually was underage.)

Rogers would presumably say that Foley was fair game because he supported policies Rogers thinks are antigay, such as the Defense of Marriage Act. In other words, antigay means are acceptable in the pursuit of pro-gay ends. This is a paradox of identity politics: Politics very often ends up trumping identity.

Certainly on the left it does.

It's fine with Democrats if you're gay, but if you're also a Republican, you'll be mau-maued, as will all your friends.

The Extortion Defense

Ramsey Clark is arguing that Saddam should not be executed because his tribe of Sunnis would seek revenge. Hasn't he been paying attention? The streets are already running with blood, and I would have no problem with the Shiites destroying his tribe if it tries to avenge this creep.

Masterpiece of Understatement

Dan Henninger obverves:

There is much in American life that doesn't seem "obvious" anymore. Call it the transgendering of reality.

This compulsion to ambiguity is the reason that both the politicians and the reporters writing about the Foley affair have been describing what the congressman did as "inappropriate."

I think it's sinking in that Foley is not known to have actually touched any of the boys he wrote to. There may still be evidence out there, but if they have it and are holding it to release in the future, it could blow back on the media and the Dems. Foley is already being investigated. Such a revelation would simply seal his fate, not create a shockwave like the original story did. A lot of young people accustomed to late night talk show humor are rolling their eyes over the fuss being made.

Lindsey wearing thin.

Byron York (subscription only) reports that Lindsey Graham is driving conservative activists in South Carolina away.

I think he has the John McCain disease.

At the peak of the detainee standoff, the state GOP headquarters in Columbia received between 150 and 200 e-mails — quite a large number — blasting Graham, and also McCain. State officials hadn’t received so many angry messages since conservative activists accused the Senate leadership of backing down on the “nuclear option” in the standoff over the president’s judicial nominees. People say they’ve gotten tired of what one of Graham’s colleagues in Washington called “The John and Lindsey Show.”

Like McCain he's so anxious to appear fair and reasonable that he acts like a prima donna, always having to be coaxed to support his party. That would be fine, if he kept his negotiations private. But he doesn't.

I suppose he's just a PR hog or hoping to become a national player, but I've lost a lot of my respect for him, especially when he opposed giving cover to our interrogators on the basis that our troops might be mistreated.

The Geneva Conventions only work because we are a superpower. People who fear being tried as warcriminals after they lose the war follow the rules. Until that looks like a real possibility, our enemies aren't phased by international law.

I became a grandfather for the first time about three weeks ago, and the reality of that new face and the anticipation of watching him grow and discover life was impressive in its intensity. I printed the pictures my son sent and put them into my screensaver. My heart melts as I look at them, and after a week to 10 days, I'm jonesing for new ones. This is why God revealed computers and the internet. What a rush!

All of the love I have for the memories of my kids growing up comes in like a tide when I see that face, the tiny hands, the utter peace of his face asleep and the curious, appraising expression on his face as he takes in this new world he's in. I can't imagine what it will feel like to see him smile and hear him chuckle, but I know I won't ever get enough of it.

Another Strawman

E. J. Dionne demolishes another straw man, stating that Republicans don't have a monopoly on "family values." Of course, nobody would be so stupid as to claim that they do, or that all Republicans live up to their ideals. But they don't accept excuses and sophistries the way the Democrats do. They would never settle for anything less than resignation for behavior like Clinton's, Studds' and others. The arguments made to enable Democrats to cling to power are like a list of fallacies. The ones that annoyed me most during the Monica scandal were the "private behavior," "just sex, just a man," and "you're not being bipartisan" arguments.

I think that Democrats really feel the moral differences, and respond to them as if Republicans were claiming that their behavior is totally pure. This is a puerile view of religion. Most religious people understand that humans are sinful and that religion is a way of encouraging them to repent and sin no more and offering them redemption. Yes, many religious people are judgmental, but not so much of ordinary sinners as of leaders who are expected to set examples. They are forgiving of the penitent, but realize that forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean you don't have to live with the consequences of your actions. They know that God forgives the penitent, not sins clung to, rationalized and hidden from. His healing comes from the admission of sin, undergoing the pain of that admission and not repeating the sin, in other words, growth and improvement. Of course, not all Republicans are religious. An awful lot of libertarian Republicans reject religion. Barry Goldwater certainly wasn't what people think of as religious. He hated what he saw as holier-than-thou attitudes and religious values intruding into political ones.

Advocates of traditional morality aren't necessarily motivated by a desire to condemn others. I believe in the so-called "family values" because they do a better job of creating and preserving a healthy society, by instilling responsibility, respect for law and others' rights, a work ethic and a sense of personal honor that is the basis for honesty. I don't believe in "victimless crimes" except for someone who takes nothing from society and contributes nothing to it, and such people are pretty hard to find. Even the Unabomer had to go to town occasionally.

The Blather

ABC News, apparently unsatisfied with bagging Foley is still after Haster. Three more former pages have come forward with stories about contacts from Foley which are stomach-turning. Why only now? Hey, instant fame, baby! Foley is a creep, but that's not news. The report that Hastert knew Foley was gay doesn't necessarily put him on notice that Foley was a virtual predator. I say virtual because we haven't heard anything that indicates that he actually had physical contact with these kids. Until there's such proof, he's still not in the same league as Studds and Crane. ABC is taking the position that Hastert should have started a criminal investigation as soon as he heard about the first few emails, which were innocuous, because he knew Foly was gay. If he had, would ABC have congratulated on his foresight or called it harassment and a witch hunt?

The ABC blog calls itself The Blotter. It's certainly intent on blotting out people's careers, but not if they're Democrats.

The price of fame

Bill the blogger who revealed Jordan Edmund's identity, which he discovered through ABC's website. It's a fascinating bit of internet sleuthing. Who knew there was a webpage about page alumni? I'm not so sure that's a good idea, but it's been taken down now.

Anyway, Bill's last post is as follows:

I turned the comment off because someone is trying to bring one of my children into this. My son is a MINOR unlike Jordan Edmund. I have been on several radio shows this morning, including Glenn Beck. If you would like to help me you can please click the Make a Donation button on the right side bar. The hate mail has been pouring in and a lot of threats have been made. I can take the heat, but my family is very nervous.

Yikes! I hope I never post anything so explosive here. I don't think I need to worry though.

We're all waiting for Jordan Edmund to tell his story now, but he's wisely consulted an attorney.

The Mouse Takes the Cheese. The Cheese hires a lawyer.

Why does a victim need a lawyer? Well, as Drudge is reporting, the former page who traded IMs with Foley was baiting Foley, "punking" him in currentspeak. How did they end up in the hands of Democrats and ABC news. That needs to be explained. The kid has hired an attorney, possibly, I suppose, in case he gets accused of libel, slander or violating Foley's privacy, or to sue Foley. Or maybe to negotiate a book deal. Whatever.

The Oklahoman is reporting:

A former U.S. House page working on the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Rep. Ernest Istook may be a part of the scandal involving former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, The Oklahoman has learned.

It confirms much of what Drudge said, but doesn't say how the IMs got into the hands of bloggers and Democrats. However, there's a sidebar about William Kerr whose blog is the first to name Edmund. I think the kid did a public service, but he should have met with the Speaker ASAP when the scandal broke. How did he record these IMs? How did they get into the hands of the Democrats and ABC. More to come, I'm sure, but if I were Brian Ross and had been used in a political stunt, I'd tell everybody who my source is, but Ross probably won't.

Also, someone has been misleading the press with reports that the Republicans have seen internal polls predicting 50 losses in the House. That is being flatly denied by Ken Mehlman, who should know. Fox News reported the fake story, which is at the top of Memeorandum.com

Resigning is not an option.

This is exactly why Dennis Hastert shouldn't resign. First, it looks like a guilty plea when he's not guilty and second, it won't stop the attacks from people who only care about exploiting this scandal to return the Democratic majorities in Congress.

It's a favorite political tactic to start investigations and hold hearings which keep scandals in the public eye, regardless of whether they uncover anything or not. Sometimes, as in the Iran-Contra scandal the congressional rush for hearings results in prosecutions being short-circuited. To get their testimony, the Congress granted immunity to a number of witnesses.

Harold Meyerson in the linked column singles out one particularly foolish statement by Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois that the entire page program be scrapped. So Meyerson takes it as an admission that they can't protect the pages put in their trust and proceeds to pummel Republicans with it. The real reason for this situation isn't the weakness of the leadership, but the power of the gay rights movement, which would raise hell if they started checking up on every member or aide rumored to be gay. Foley was not IMing with current pages, but with boys who had moved on. The one with whom he famously had "internet sex," which isn't really sex, but team masturbation, was over twenty. Why the Gay community isn't screaming about a Constitutional right to have internet sex, is probably because they haven't realized that is was between consenting adults. Who once were gay teens, are now gay men, so there's no statutory internet rape.

The Washington Post also features a remembrance by Joe Califano which it links to with the title "When the House Was Clean" which is misleading. The actual title of Califano's piece is "When the House could clean itself" and it is much fairer than the link title suggests:

what the response of the leadership reveals about the rancid state of partisanship and the consequent decline of the House of Representatives. Speaker Dennis Hastert presides over a legislative body so infested with mistrust that it doesn't even have a functioning ethics committee. Since the House is incapable of washing its own dirty laundry and policing itself, the speaker has to turn over that responsibility to the attorney general and the executive branch of government.

He describes how Tip O'Neill was able to deal with a similar scandal by publicizing it and turning it over to the ethics committee because the Minority Leader Robert Micheal joined with him in doing so.

Assistant Deputy Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani was the point man for the Justice Department and its grand jury investigation of the charges. We agreed to exchange all relevant information and that there would be no leaks. Allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use were raw meat for a voracious, scandal-hungry Washington press corps, and Giuliani and I came across rumors and fragments of information about many members of Congress. We shared them all with each other, and there were no leaks from him or me.

The leaking has become so routine that not even a Grand Jury investigation can be kept secret, and it would be ridiculous to ask Nancy Pelosi to join in a call for a bipartisan investigation without either side trying to gain political advantage from it, especially when Hastert had nothing more to go on than a few unseemly emails asking for photos and birthdays. It's a sad measure of the acceptance of deviant sexual interests and practices that such inquiries now are considered creepy. Every child growing up in the past 20 years has been carefully taught not to talk to strangers and to be suspicious of any grownup acting too friendly.

Even as they belittle the calls from the religious right to return to the days when you didn't see sex acts depicted on prime time programs like Law and Order, Criminal Intent and seduction and adultery in Desperate Housewives. The Democrats have embraced hostility toward religious sensitivities, gay rights, abortions, etc. and broadcast television is being prodded all the time to become more like HBO with its popular R and X rated programming.

That's why it's so disgusting to see these people who have helped make any questions about a person's sexuality as unacceptable as taping his telephone calls, now pretending to be such straitlaced opponents of the slightest sexual irregularity, particularly the Minority Leader who points out that she is a "mother and grandmother" as if she were representing a district from Iowa instead of the San Francisco area.

That lying drunk Bushhitler shouldn't call us names.

President Bush is out campaigning against the Democrats. He cited Nancy Pelosi who has said that this election should "not be about national security." He went on:

I strongley disagree. The security of this country comes first. I give the leader some credit. Given her party's record on national security I can see why she feels that way, I wouldn't want to be talking about that record either.

Pelosi responded as one above the fray:

It's so beneath the dignity of the Presdident of the United States to accuse a member of Congress or anybody to be soft on terror. He can say all he wants. I'm a mother and a grandmother and I'm here to protect the American People. I'm ashamed of the President for using that kind of language.

Has she ever rebuked her own party for the acid they throw at Republicans? If so, I haven't heard it. After years of the left demeaning Bush with personal innuendo, accusing him of lying, and mishandling the war and demanding that we accept defeat and abandon our Iraqi allies, and claiming that we're no safter now than before 9/11, he responds in kind an he's the one who has lost dignity. The Democrats have sold themselvesto George Sors who is absolutely opposed to the GWOT. After 9/11, if you still don't see a need to fight back, then you're either ignorant, stupid or just not very concerned about national sccurity.

And you can't very well say that we're still in danger and then oppose efforts to to fight the terrorists too.

Tom Maguire:

Does anyone seriously think that the Democrats can position themselves as the party of sexual restraint? The party that will be tough on gay men, straight men, or anyone else who gives off even a whiff of impropriety?

Please - this is not a bidding war the Democrats can win and I am reasonably certain that, after years of "sex is a private matter", it is not a war the Democrats want to start. That said, there is an election to be won, so for the next few weeks we will hear about sixteen and seventeen year old "children". And following the election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will lead a crackdown on racy talk from and amongst Congressmen, their staffers, the interns, and the pages. Every rumor will be investigated promptly and thoroughly, and no PC will be left unseized. Whatever.

When are Republicans going to figure out that you have to separate scandals into what is justified, telling Foley to resign, and what is just their opponents trying to exploit it, the calls for Hastert to resign? They have to learn that this kind of stuff is SOP for the media and the Democrats and prepare for it. No matter what happens, what sleazy charge is made or secret is revealed, Republicans must not allow themselves to be hounded into a trap like calling for Hastert's resignation. This sort of thing happens and you can't always prevent it, although I do think that Hastert was let down by some of his aides, but you don't have to perform Sepuku to prove your honor. William Jefferson and Bob Menendez are both getting the benefit of the doubt. If they were Republicans you can bet you'd be hearing more about them in the press and one if not both would have resigned already.

The fact that there's a predictable chorus of condemnation shouldn't force you into giving in to hypocrisy, lies and innuendo. A lot of conservatives want to dump Hastert because he objected to the search of Jefferson's office, but he was defending a principle, not covering for Jefferson. Instead of forming up a circular firing squad, Republicans need to first find out all the facts they can, make sure that they don't get suckered by the slow leak of details by the media, and take appropriate action without getting rattled into trying to prove your honor to people who don't really care about honor or fairness.

While I'm on the subject, why can Frank Lautenberg get new ballots, and DeLay and Foley's replacement candidates have to run anonymously?

Internet Sex

ABC is dribbling out its coverage of Foley a tidbit at a time. Today's headline is that he had "internet sex" while awaiting a House vote. I suppose that's supposed to be like Bill Clinton being serviced by Monica as he discussed matters of state, but we have the Blue Dress for that.

What I don't understand is how ABC authenticates these IMs. Wouldn't it be pretty easy to make up such an exchange?

Republicans Need to Emulate the Ents

The Ents in the Lord of the Rings saga were treeherds, moving intelligent beings who cared for the forests. When they went to war, they were mighty. In the scene where they arrive to tear down Sauruman's tower, a dam is burst and the area is flooded, but the Ents hold their ground and are not washed away, but win the battle.

The Democrats and the media have unleashed a flood of attacks on Republicans. We need to stand our ground and stand tall like Treebeard and his friends, not scatter like scared chickens. Foley has resigned. The Democrats, as usual, are trying to assign blame and smear all Republicans for not acting when they really had inadequate evidence to destroy a man's career.

One other thing, how were these IMs validated? Who knew about them and when? How were they preserved and by whom? How do we know that they weren't embellished by whoever gave them to ABC?`

Murtha on film in Abscam Sting

The film of John Murtha expressing a willingness to to take bribes during the famous ABSCAM operation by the FBI in which a number of Congressmen were convicted of privacy.

Of course, Alan Colmes calls it a smear and "swiftboating." I wonder what he thinks about the accusations against George Allen of using the "N word" back in college. All this shows is that what goes around comes around. There are plenty of scandals in both parties. The people complaining that the war in Iraq is a distraction seem to be counting on using Foley and Woodward to distract us from the real issue, whether to win the war on terrorism or stick our heads back in the sand.

Fooling us twice?

Pull out of Iraq. Send troops to Sudan.

Cal Thomas examines cases similar to Foley's, and the hypocrisy of the left:

Behavior once thought shameful is now paraded openly and promoted proudly to sell books. Former New Jersey Democratic Governor James McGreevey tours the talk show circuit. His presence dares anyone to question the legitimacy of his dumping two wives and having sex with men. He apologizes for his extramarital sexual relations and for putting people on the state payroll that didn't belong there, but he has no intention of changing his behavior.

Bill Clinton has recovered from sex with an intern in the White House and impeachment. He doesn't suffer for having practiced aberrant behavior. Few see him as having disgraced himself. Clinton takes in six figures on the lecture circuit and enjoys rock star status wherever he goes.

Former Congressman Gerry Studds (D-MA) may have started this decline (or did he merely reflect declining morality?). Studds had an affair in the early '70s with a 17-year-old male page. Studds was censured by the House in 1983, but famously turned his back to the Speaker in an act of disrespect and rejection of the judgment by his colleagues. He refused to resign and was re-elected to several more terms. A homosexual organization donated $10,000 to his campaign.

Rep. Daniel B. Crane, (R-Ill) had an affair more than two decades ago with a 17-year-old female page. After apologizing, he said he hadn't violated his oath of office, hoped his wife and children would forgive him and announced plans to run for re-election.

We all have what theologians call a "fallen" nature and no one should judge himself (or herself) morally superior to others. But that does not mean the standard for "right" behavior should be eliminated simply because many appear unwilling to conform to that standard.

In his classic, "The Abolition of Man," C.S. Lewis observed three generations ago that we are engaged in a type of tragic-comedy: "we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible... In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

Scandal? Disgrace? I think not. Foley and others could only be so labeled if popular culture condemned, rather than promoted, immorality.

He's right. Foley doesn't deserve defending, but it's a symptom of the low level to which public standards have sunk.

The AP reports that 25 detainees being held in Afghanistan have filed for writs of habeas corpus in U. S. Courts. The danger here is the invitation to federal courts to extend their jurisdiction beyond the borders country and into the conduct of warfare. It sounds absurd, but SCOTUS has done a lot of absurd things.

Foley is an alcoholic and is checking into rehab. Alcoholics should have it tattooed on their foreheads and never be allowed buy or receive liquor. Of ccourse, that wouldn't stop most of them, but I might reduce the incidence of people doing things like sending lecherous messages to teenagers, driving drunk, driving off bridges or legislating while under the influence.

Which reminds me to ask why it is that Patrick Kennedy and his father clearly drink too much while their party is constantly callin George W. Bush and drunk and drug abuser?

You can vote Democrat this year, ,

but don't brag about it! Nobody has told me how anything will be better if we hand power back to the Dems. Instead of worrying about how many politicians have been disgraced, I'd be worrying about how many more are still covering up.

How long, oh, Lord?

Its been six years since the liberals began this temper tantrum. The media have corrupted themselves in their eagerness to torpedo George Bush, and are now so blatantly partisan there is scarcely any claim to being objective or fair any more. They all accept that their role is to paint the government as corrupt and evil all the time. And the government, no matter which party is in power, obliges them by serving up creeps like Randy Cunningham, William Jefferson, Mark Foley and The Big Enchilada, Bill Clinton.

The lobbyists inhabiting capital enrich themselves on political influence, giving gifts and corrupting well-meaning politicians after a few terms in office. Washington has become the Babylon of our age.

There are still good men and women there. We're not yet as Sodom, but anyone who professes religious values is now under assault in the name of the First Amendment. Good is called evil, and evil is, even when not called good, is at least given the benefit of the doubt. The problem is that when we excuse too much, the average sinks, and we tolerate much worse than we should.

As the Wall Street Journal puts it:

Yes, Mr. Hastert and his staff should have done more to quarantine Mr. Foley from male pages after the first email came to light. But if that's the standard, we should all admit we are returning to a rule of conduct that our cultural elite long ago abandoned as intolerant.

And it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Grandpa, how big your teeth are!

The photo of "Jimmy" Carter accompanying this link is just creepy when you remember the hateful things he has said and his arrogance. More than Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, this is the kind of religiosity that endangers this country, because he sees no barrier to imposing his personal religious vision on the world. What is it about Democrats that makes them think that when they're out of office they're still entitled to butt into national policy? George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford have kept a low profile, but Carter and Clinton can't seem to help trying to make life harder for their successors. Clinton's rant last weekend may have roused the Angry Left, but I find it hard to believe that he helped Hillary's chances. More than anything else, his performance served to remind us of his finger wagging denial of having sexual relations with "that woman. Ms. Lewinsky" and his ludicrous "what the meaning of 'is' is," equivocation on video.

The outraged liberals may hate George W. Bush, but they have yet to produce a leader who has the slightest idea of where he or she would lead us. Their philosophy seems to be "Elect us and we'll wing it from there." This is, after all, the party that voted for the war, before they were against it, and who now want us to believe that Bill Clinton took the Al Qaeda threat seriously.

Pathology

Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen!

The more we deny that evil exists and that we need to resist it and repent of it, the more violence will plague us. Some among us scoff at religion and are angry whenever anyone says that we must resist evil, but the rise of anger, contention and bitterness is a symptom of the loss of the Light of Christ.

It is not judgmental to warn someone that there's a bridge out ahead. In fact, if we see danger and fail to warn we incur judgment. My heart aches for the families of these children in Pennsylvania. It aches for the grief of all the innocent victiims of terrorism and suicide bombers. We have been sold a false idea that we are not to judge anyone as evil, but Jesus didn't teach that the way it is believed by so many. He did not justify moral equivalence.

The Lesser of Two Evils

The Wall St. Journal editorial board blasts the Republicans in Congress:

The 109th Congress has gone home to fight for re-election, and the best testament to its accomplishments is that very few Republicans are running on them. They're running instead against the peril to the country if the Nancy Pelosi Democrats take power.

We'll know in six weeks if this liberal fright mask is enough to save the GOP majority, but it's not too soon to say that Republicans in the 109th have been a major disappointment. The best thing about this Congress is that by doing little at least it did little harm. But despite their best chance in 50 years to reform the creaky institutions of the welfare state, Republicans couldn't maintain the unity or discipline to achieve nearly any of what they promised in 2004.. . .

[N]one of [their accomplishments] excuses the more fundamental problem, which is that too many Republicans now believe their purpose in Washington is keeping power for its own sake. The reform impulse that won the House in 1994 has given way to incumbent protection. This is the root of the earmarking epidemic, which now mars every spending bill and has become a vast new opportunity for Member corruption.

Ouch!

Frist and Hastert are just not effective leaders, but it's a real condemnation of the Democrats to see that Pelosi and Reid are the alternatives.

Paranoia Time!

Time Magazine is muttering darkly about the Republicans' secret weapon, under a photo of a pile of cash being emptied from a bucket. I wonder how much all the media attacks and the PR blitz we're seeing now until November 8 would have cost the Dems to buy? The Republicans can't command the resources of the major dailies, Time, Newsweek, ABC, CBS and NBC. They have to pay for time just to be allowed to answer all this slime.

If the Dems lose again, it will be because they've offered nothing as an alternative other than more investigations and a return to Clinton's anti-terror efforts. But if negative campaigning works, they've got this one in the bag.

The timing of the revelations about Congressman Foley was chosen for political effect. Real Scandal - Fake Blog sure suggests that there's more going on here than disinterested activism.

We shouldn't really need one, but the Blue Dress for 9/11 has turned up.

Isn't there something a little hypocritical about a network whose biggest hit show is called Desperate Housewives, making a huge deal about a sex scandal? I'm not defending Foley, but I wonder how this would have been played if he'd been a Democrat.

Pathetic

Foley on Film: "If I were one of those sickos, I'd be pretty nervous . . ."

But read the comments. Democrats are throwing stones, hoping to win the election before their own house gets smashed. Over the years there have been a lot of politicians unmasked, yet everytime one of these scandals happens the opposite party is just shocked. Shocked! If it turns out that this has been known by the left and timed to hurt the Republicans, well, I won't be shocked.

The ultimate fallout will be that they'll start measuring Congress' approval ratings in negative numbers. Before you start exploiting something like this, maybe you ought to think of the good of the country.

Too much partisanship?

The Palestinians are fighting against themselves, over Hamas' failure to pay government employees. They don't need their own state. What they need is turn their backs on terrorists.

Mitt Watch

The Times of London:

Although McCain remains the clear favourite to win the 2008 nomination, the search is on for a Republican who can unite the anti-McCain wing of the conservative movement.

Romney, whose Massachusetts state is usually a bastion of East Coast liberalism, is considered to be the coming man. At the party he beamed at John Fund, a staunchly right-wing writer for The Wall Street Journal, who had just written about how Romney was “wowing” social conservatives.

The clean-cut governor spent last weekend at the Family Research Council summit in Washington, the spiritual home of Christian “values voters” who provided the bedrock vote for Bush in 2004. Romney is a Mormon, which was once thought to be an insuperable barrier to winning evangelical support. “Everyone I talked to said they didn’t have a problem with it,” one attendee said.

Romney also benefits from chiselled good looks, delegates noted. “Many people say he certainly looks like a president — a sort of cross between Ronald Reagan and John F Kennedy,” swooned Genevieve Wood, founder of the conservative Center for a Just Society.

I don't buy all this hype about McCain. He's alienated too many conservatives with his poor judgment and self-righteous cockiness. Romney is his is own best weapon. He just flat out impresses people, and he can attract Democrat votes, even in Massachusetts.

It's Official

Republicans are running on national security. Democrats are running on Woodward's latest book and a scandal over some sordid emails. As usual, they're demanding investigation, but not into Foley's actions, but into whether Dennis Hastert knew about the emails before the story broke.

To show how sharp the press is in this country, this astonishing report that Florida Republicans are angry over Foley's "'hypocrisy.'" Here's another scoop, Republicans everywhere are angry and not just over his hypocrisy.

Sexual harassment in Saudi Arabia.

Richard Clarke, about the only one besides John O'Neill who came through The Path to 9/11 looking heroic, says we're too focused on assigning blame. But the Bush Administration isn't the one who brought it all back. That honor belongs to Bill Clinton's blowout on Fox News Sunday.

I agree with Clarke that we're too concerned with the past, but when the Senate voted to authorize war against Saddam, there was no controversy. It was only when the Democrats needed an issue for the 2004 election that the absense WMD became such a big deal. It allowed those who had voted for the war to claim they'd been snookered, but common sense tells us that Saddam had ample time to move his stockpiles before we were ready to go. It shouldn't have surprised anybody that his illegal weapons weren't there when we arrived. The U.N. inspectors hadn't found them, either. What the left fails to acknowledge is that Saddam had the capacity to rebuild the nerve gas weapons at any time he felt free to do so, and that if he had been given more time, he surely would have been free of U.N. sanctions.

The Democrats still don't admit that Bush has nearly destroyed Al Qaeda as a force, and that terrorism isn't confined just to Afghanistan. The terrorists might have been totally discredited now, but for the hope and encouragement given them by our own media and the loony left. Clarke should know better than to try to blame this on the war in Iraq.

Nice guys finish second.

As much as I admire President Bush's determination to promote civility, it was good to hear him speak out about the party of Roosevelt and Truman becoming "the party of cut and run." After years of letting personal vilification go unanswered, he is finally giving it back, if mildly.

When I read this piece by Ed Koch, particularly his observations on Hugo Chavez' boorish speech to the U.N. and the reaction to it, I began to realize why it felt so good to hear Bush speaking out. Koch writes:

What offended me even more than Chavez's ludicrous remarks were the responses of the U.N. delegates. No one stood up and told Chavez that he was out of order and demanded that he stop or sit down. They should have told him he was a disgrace to the U.N. Instead they are reported to have applauded this monster and laughed with him, instead of at him. The Times reported: "So while there was official outrage over Mr. Chavez calling Mr. Bush 'the devil,' there was also a lot of applause and giggling, from dignitaries including the president of the General Assembly herself, Haya Rashed al-Khalifa of Bahrain, who was caught chuckling from her seat on the dais behind Mr. Chavez.

Where was the official outrage, and why was Chavez not rebuked while he held the platform? Many of the countries whose delegates were amused by his vitriol receive their sustenance from the U.S. We feed their people and provide much of their medical care. Many expect the U.S. to protect them from attacks from other countries, and some of them are even formal allies. Yet none of them walked out to show solidarity with us. The two nations not in the chamber when Chavez took the dais were the U.S. and Israel. We should forever remember the craven behavior of those who stayed and cheered."

This is what "sensitivity" and liberal correctness get us. Contempt. We have overlooked the true nature of most of the regimes who rule over the Third World and made a religion of dialog. No matter how badly they treat their own people or how corrupt they are, we treat them as honored guests. After all didn't we all learn in school that being judgmental of other cultures is almost as bad as genoncide? Thus we have become complicit in their corruption by our failure to object and do something about it.

Bloggers can post all they want about the irrationality and vicious disinformation which have seized the left and most of the mass media, but none of us has a bully pulpit to compare with the President's. Part of leading is pointing out the errors and false paths along the way. Indeed, this is a large part of reason Republicans are on the defensive. They have lost The Hammer, Tom DeLay, who was highly partisan but who recognized that the way to win is to fight fire with fire. His enemies used the courts and his connections with Jack Abramoff to force him to the sidelines. His own party was so skittish and nervous about being called corrupt that they allowed him to be driven from the stage. No fond reminiscences and war stories will be told about him, like other of the effective House and party leaders. Only Democrats are allowed that honor.