October 2002 Archives

Afghanistan's Minister of Foreign Affairs writes on the Washington Post's op-ed page of his hope that the Afghan people will not "become victims of neglect and policy shortsightedness again."

The Kremlin continues to censor news accounts of the recent Moscow hostage crisis.

While Russian President Putin has left with no choice but to order special forces to storm the theater in which Chechen rebels held hostages, his secrecy since has been a fatal blunder. Perhaps literally.

Freedom Research Foundation Jack Wheeler is quite certain that the Russians used a "synthetic opiate called etorphine." If that proves true, Putin's problems will grow because there is a quick antidote doctors could have used to save lives had they known.

Of course, that could explain why the Russian government has clamped down on information. But the truth will come out. Which is why it would be wise for Putin to release all of the information he has now.

New leaders have emerged in the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. They are the ones who are behind the recent surge in Al Qaeda activity. The Washington Post's Susan Schmidt and Douglas Farah profile those who have filled Al Qaeda's leadership void.

No, the war with terrorism remains unfinished despite our government's preoccupation with other subjects.

Perhaps we should put to rest the myth that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) remains a brilliant political thinker.

On Sunday, Gingrich attacked Mondale for supporting Social Security privatization world wide. Now, stop there for a second. Gingrich supports this Social Security reform, so it is just a teensy bit hypocritical. (Aside: This isn't the first time for the former Speaker, of course. See also: promoting a family values agenda while dating a staffer.)

Worse, there is no truth to the charge. Newt, you may want to doublecheck the opposition research you are handed next time. That would be before you make a fool of yourself on Meet the Press.

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire has links to stories worth reading.

The CIA thinks: There's no Saddam/al-Qaida link.

Rumsfeld thinks:
We need a new CIA.

This big headline on the Slate web page aptly sums up Fred Kaplan's examination of the vital bureaucratic intelligence battle now underway in Washington.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) has now decided that Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt must go. Unlike many of his colleagues, Sarbanes had not previously called for Pitt's resignation.

Now, as Sebastian Mallaby explains, Sarbanes feels he must go public with his dissatisfaction. The last straw was Pitt's capitulation to accounting lobbyists on the appointment of the chairperson of the new audit oversight board.

As Mallaby writes:

The rap against Pitt used to be that he opposed serious audit reform, even though Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and other scandals made the case for reform obvious. But now the rap has gotten worse. As well as holding damaging but honest views, Pitt's sincerity must be doubted. If Pitt won't take Sarbanes's advice, President Bush needs to replace him.

Nat Hentoff recaps some of Attorney General John Ashcroft's recent rhetorical and substantive excesses.

The Washington Post's Guy Gugliotta and Gary Matsumoto report on the front page that leading scientists and biological weapons experts express doubts about the FBI's theory about last year's anthrax letter terrorism.

The FBI continues to believe that a single American scientist (Dr. Steven Hatfill) is behind the attacks. But, as Gugliotta and Matsumoto note:

These sources say that making a weaponized aerosol of such sophistication and virulence would require scientific knowledge, technical competence, access to expensive equipment and safety know-how that are probably beyond the capabilities of a lone individual.

As a result, a consensus has emerged in recent months among experts familiar with the technology needed to turn anthrax spores into the deadly aerosol that was sent to Sens. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) that some of the fundamental assumptions driving the FBI's investigation may be flawed.

"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."

Rep. John Sununu (R-N.H.) faces two formidable opponents in his Senate race. First, he's running against popular Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D). More interestingly, Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) is getting a measure of revenge for Sununu's victory over him in September's primary.

It's not just that Smith is doing absolutely nothing to help Sununu. Smith's grassroots network is also working to stick it to Sununu and the GOP establishment.

Boston Globe columnist Thomas Oliphant explains:

Someone must have told Junior that if Smith got rolled in the primary he would submit meekly, perhaps take a patronage job and get with the program. That someone was wrong.

Last week, Smith was in San Francisco rooting for the Giants in the World Series. He had nothing political scheduled over the weekend. He has nothing political scheduled next week, when President Bush may make one final attempt to gin up turnout for Junior. And that is only the tip of an unusual, typically New Hampshire iceberg. In addition to Smith's deft distance from the Junior juggernaut (he ''endorsed'' Sununu and then took a powder), there are three, separate operations underway to promote a write-in effort on Smith's behalf.

These are not committees that exist only on letterheads. They have raised money, put up signs, bought advertisements, and made a case that the cabal promoting Sununu should not be rewarded. Their efforts are not being taken lightly by the establishment.

Cynthia Tucker thinks people should be concerned about the White House disinformation campaign about Saddam Hussein supposed ties to the September 11 terrorist attacks. She explains the problem:

Do you believe that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the terrorist atrocities of Sept. 11? If you do, you have a lot of company: About two-thirds of Americans, according to a recent Pew Research poll, believe Saddam is linked to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

That's not surprising. The Bush administration has worked very hard over the last several months to convince Americans that Saddam is linked to the assault that killed more than 3,000 people last year. They've succeeded despite what ought to be a very difficult obstacle:

There's absolutely no proof that it's true.

Retired San Jose Police Chief Joseph D. McNamara argues that the recent sniper case illustrates why officials should give the public more information about such investigations.

After all, as the Washington Post reported, the key piece of information that led to the capture of the snipers -- the vehicle and license plate tag -- was made public through a leak and not an official announcement. McNamara writes:

Yet the basic lesson remains: The public has a right to know. The old police mythology of withholding information is more likely to impede than aid in solving crimes. An informed, law-abiding citizenry is policing's most valuable asset.

Thomas Friedman sees hope for the Arab world in Bahrain's election, the first in the Arab gulf region where women were allowed to run and vote.

David Broder memorializes the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) with a story that illustrates why so many people from all political parties respected him. Broder writes:

The diminutive Minnesota Democrat, dressed in a rumpled suit he had brought from his old life as a Carleton College professor, and I were seated opposite a tourist family also headed from the Hart Senate Office Building to the Capitol. "Hi," he said to them, "I'm Paul Wellstone," omitting the title almost any of his colleagues would have used. "Where are you from?"

They gave their home town and asked, "Do you work here?" He laughed, and said, "Yes, but not as hard as most people. I'm a senator."

The White House is continuing to stonewall over the release of documents to Congress. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) continues to demand the background information the Bush Administration used to justify easing pollution rules on older coal-fired power plants.

This is just one of many examples of this White House's penchant for secrecy and dismissal of the necessary legislative oversight functions.

The Washington Post reports that former Vice President Walter Mondale is leaning toward running for the Senate. Mondale would replace the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), who died in a plane crash on Friday.

Minnesota election law allows a replacement at this late date. I think, however, that state legislatures throughout the nation should look closely at their election statutes. Many remain confusing or contradictory.

It would also be better if, in the event of death or incapacitation of a candidate, the election were postponed for a month. Election reform is about more than ballots or machines. It is time to make sure that the laws which govern our elections make sense and have clear contingency plans.

We've ignored their warnings before. Now former Sens. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) are leading another commission that is warning us again about the danger we face from terrorism.

From the press release issued yesterday by the Council on Foreign Relations:

A year after 9/11, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic attack on U.S. soil, concludes a blue-ribbon panel led by former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart-co-chairs of the now famous Commission on National Security that warned of such a terrorist attack three years ago.

The Independent Task Force, which came to this sober conclusion and which makes recommendations for emergency action, included two former secretaries of state, two Nobel laureates, two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former director of the CIA and FBI, and some of the nation's most distinguished financial, legal, and medical experts. One of the country's leading authorities on homeland security, Council Senior Fellow Stephen Flynn, directed the Task Force.

If the nation does not respond more urgently to address its vulnerabilities, the Task Force warns, the next attack could result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to our lives and economy.

The Instapundit links to a Damian Penny post about tonight's non-coverage of the end of the Moscow hostage crisis. Penny is angry, and he should be. He writes:

So, in the capital of the world's second leading nuclear power, hundreds of people are being held hostage by terrorists who are almost certainly connected to the people who murdered 3,000 civilians on 9/11. As we speak, the final showdown between security forces and the terrorists may be beginning. And what are the 24-hour news channels showing?

NBC News is reporting that:

Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., was killed along with seven other people, including his wife and daughter, in the Friday crash of a small plane...

Update: Minnesota E-Democracy has created a memorial tribute web page to help people share their "prayers, tributes, and stories about Paul, Sheila, and Marcia Wellstone and campaign staff Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic and Mary McEvoy."

Another Update: As you would imagine, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire is on top of the story. Goodard has links to some of the best memorial comments and some of the early speculation about the political fallout from this tragedy.

The White House announced late yesterday that the federal government ran a $159 billion deficit in the fiscal year that ended on September 30 (the national debt, remember, increased by $420 billion). The brief era of surpluses, as long expected, is now officially over.

Here's the news, though. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels actually uttered a fiscal truth yesterday. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank quotes him:

"It's now clear that the unexpected surge in revenues toward the end of the last decade was temporary, and that revenues are returning to historic levels for reasons unrelated to legislated changes," he said in a statement. "At the same time, unexpected new defense and homeland security spending is needed to protect America from new threats."

But the White House used that temporary surge in revenues to justify its 10-year tax cut package. Granted, few people were pessimistic at the time. But now we know that the fiscal good times are over.

So, can we now expect the "political adults" in the White House to follow their budget director's logic and seek to review -- and repeal -- the tax cut package that was based on unrealistic assumptions that have proven false?

Of course not. In fact, you can expect the White House to continue to push for making the tax cut package permanent.

That plan, of course, violates one of the most fundamental rules of politics and life: "If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging."

I hope we can find some way to take away the White House's fiscal shovels.

Timothy Noah reports that the Chronicle of Higher Education has purchased the assets of the late Lingua Franca. That means the essential Arts & Letters Daily returns tomorrow...

James Pinkerton explains that this is not the first time North Korea has emerged as a threat but been ignored because our nation's leaders had other priorities.

Steve Chapman does not like lame duck Congressional sessions. He wants to know why we continue to wait until January to seat the new Congress when transportation and communications advances mean that new Representatives and Senators could take office soon after the election.

When the republic was founded, the president wasn't sworn in until March, which was a concession to bad roads and slow travel. In 1933, the Constitution was amended to mandate the installation of the president and Congress in January, reflecting the better transportation of the rail age.

By now, though, the two-month interval is as obsolete as a steam locomotive. We know almost all the results of the election within hours of the last poll closing. The winners could be in Washington the following day. Acquainting newcomers with their new responsibilities might take a bit longer, but there is no reason members of Congress should continue wielding power for weeks after their successors have been chosen.

The Arizona Republic argues that Americans need to apologize and take notice of the loss our Australian allies suffered in the terrorist attack in Bali a couple of weeks ago.

The paper notes that, when considering Australia's smaller population, that their loss is comparable to what we suffered on September 11, 2001.

Immediately after the Bali bombing, President Bush sent word to the Australian people that we shared their grief. But our people really weren't paying attention.

An American media obsessed with the Beltway sniper and the impending invasion of Iraq failed to appreciate the import of the Bali bombings or the magnitude of Australia's loss. We Americans did not step forward and show genuine friends the support they deserved.

Australians have proved their loyalty to this nation over and over these past 100 years. They were our allies in World War I, World War II and the Gulf War, among others. They fearlessly declared their support after Sept. 11. They deserved better than they got from us after Bali.

The Boston Globe reports that Clean Elections public campaign financing is working in Maine and Arizona. The paper wishes it had a fair chance to work in Massachusetts.

In Maine and Arizona, Republicans and Democrats running as Clean Money candidates are enjoying not having to spend more than half of their time dailing for dollars. As the Boston Globe notes:

While there are dissenters in both states, the system is endorsed heavily by those who know it best - the candidates. In Arizona, the proportion of all candidates choosing to run under Clean Elections has grown from 26 percent in 2000 to 59 percent this year. The corresponding figures for Maine have also doubled, from 33 percent to 66.

The Washington Post suggests that President Bush might want to get serious about auditing reform by seeing that a reformer gets named to head the new audit oversight board.

President Bush, who signed the reform law in July saying that "the era of low standards and false profits is over," should pick up the phone and urge those Republican commissioners to back Mr. Biggs's candidacy. Otherwise he will be siding with the vested interests that aim to prolong the sickness in our system of capital allocation. Does he really want this country to emulate Japan?

White House advisor Karl Rove would like Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) to do some joint appearances with the man who defeated him in the primary earlier this year, Rep. John Sununu (R-N.H.).

Smith, however, is not playing along. He even declined one of politics ultimate perks: a ride on Air Force One.

Worse, he isn't doing anything to stop a write-in campaign on his behalf. If that effort costs Sununu only a couple thousand votes, that could provide the winning margin to Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) in a tight race.

While I cheer the arrest of suspects in the Beltway Sniper case, a much larger story is brewing in Moscow today. (Not that you'd know it from watching the wall-to-wall sniper coverage on television today.)

The hostage situation in Moscow appears to be deteriorating. This is a shocking event that will force Russian President Vladimir Putin to retaliate with overwhelming force.

The impact will reverberate well beyond Chechnya and Russia. Perhaps our media could find a few moments to squeeze in some coverage of what is happening in this Moscow theater.

Jules Witcover reports on the very close New Hampshire Senate race between Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) and Rep. John Sununu (R). Both Shaheen and Sununu are competing to associate themselves with some of President Bush's policies. (Shaheen says she would have voted for Bush's tax cut and the Iraq use of force resolution.)

Witcover notes that after all of the jockeying:

In the most recent poll by the University of New Hampshire, Ms. Shaheen had a narrow 47 percent to 44 percent lead over Mr. Sununu among all voters, but she led decisively among political independents, 49 percent to 34 percent. That strength, and her organization after six years as the state's chief executive, counters Mr. Sununu's association with Mr. Bush and makes this race a toss-up going down to the wire.

Larry Eichel says that control of the Senate remains the election's main event. For example, Eichel notes that Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor would like to step down when Republicans have control over who replaces them.

That is one of the reasons why both parties will fight hard over the final 13 days of this campaign for each of the toss-up races.

The San Jose Mercury News never really believed President Bush was serious about dealing with corporate corruption. So, the paper does think it is suprising that:

...Bush now is trying to chip away at that law. He's using the oldest trick in the politician's book: cutting from the budget money needed to enforce the law.

Congress made sure "under God" stayed in the Pledge of Allegiance before it left town to campaign. But it did not pass 11 of the 13 required annual appropriations bills needed to fund the government. David Broder is unimpressed.

Tony Blankley tries to figure out what is behind the different talking points about Iraq policy emanating from the White House.

Over the last few days, Colin Powell, Ari Fleisher and President Bush have been telling our dear friends and constant allies at the United Nations that we were giving diplomacy a chance, while simultaneously suggesting to Americans that surely we would soon be going to war. But unlike the politicians prior to 1837 who took the precaution of riding down the road a few miles before contradicting themselves, Team Bush is saying different things right here in Washington. They are hoping only part of what they are saying will be heard up in New York, and the other part only in the rest of America. Given the lunacy of the times, it just may work.

Taegan Goddard has created a new political Blog Scan feature for his Political Wire blog. Political blogs (including this one) will be pinging this new site with our political stories. As Taegan notes, this will prove to be "one of the fastest ways to see what the political blogosphere is writing about."

According to the latest Public Policy Institute of California poll, Gov. Gray Davis (D) leads Republican Bill Simon by a 41-31 margin. Seventeen percent are undecided.

The fact that Davis remains in the low 40s means that Simon still (unbelievably) has a shot to win this race.

As they say, stay tuned.

Tax cuts for the rich are apparently a higher priority for the Bush Administration than providing health care and proper benefits to our veterans. More misguided budget thinking from this hawkish White House.

Arianna Huffington thinks it is time to use the government's drug war advertising techniques to bring attention to how our national gasoline addiction financies terrorism and despotism around the world. She writes:

Scott Burns, co-creator of the "Got Milk?" campaign, already has two ad scripts ready to go.

The first one feels like an old Slim-Fast commercial. Instead of "I lost 50 pounds in two weeks," the ad cuts to different people in their sport utility vehicles: "I gassed 40,000 Kurds," "I helped hijack an airplane," "I helped blow up a nightclub," and then in unison: "We did it all by driving to work in our SUVs."

The second ad, which opens on a man at a gas station, features a child's voice-over throughout: "This is George." Then we see a close-up of a gas pump. "This is the gas George buys for his car." Next we see a guy in a suit. "This is the oil company executive who makes money on the gas George buys." Close-up on Al Qaeda training film footage: "This is the terrorist organization supported by money from the country where the oil company does business." It's followed by footage of 9/11: "We all know what this is." And it closes on a wide shot of bumper-to-bumper traffic: "The biggest weapon of mass destruction is parked in your driveway."

There are 14 days until the election. Ask your candidates about it.

Paul Krugman notes that the Bush Administration has already given the business lobby a huge early Christmas gift. The White House has decided not to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission at the level promised with the passage of the corporate reform bill in July. Krugman concludes:

The bottom line is that you shouldn't worry about those TV images of men in suits doing the perp walk. That was for public consumption; now that the public is focused on other things, it's back to business — insider business — as usual.

Richard Cohen is rightly upset that the Bush Administration conspired to keep the news about North Korea's nuclear program a secret until after Congress had voted on its Iraq use of force resolutions. This outrage is just a thread in a larger White House pattern of secrecy.

Undoubtedly, other governments also knew that North Korea was cheating on the agreement it had reached in 1994 with the Clinton administration. It was supposed to abandon its nuclear weapons program -- which, in a way, it did. But it started up another one -- and this is the one that Washington started to substantiate last summer. Washington and Pyongyang had at least one thing in common: They were both keeping a secret from the American people.

In too many respects, the Bush administration operates as if it -- and not Congress or, for that matter, the American people -- owns this entity called "the government." It has told Congress to buzz off when it asked for documents telling whom Vice President Cheney met with in formulating the administration's energy policy. Enron, perhaps?

It has been downright uncooperative in granting Freedom of Information Act requests from the news media and other interested parties. It fought a proposal to create an independent commission to investigate what went wrong before Sept. 11, 2001, then reluctantly agreed to one -- and now has reneged on that agreement. The intelligence community, it seems, did just a swell job -- the hole in Lower Manhattan notwithstanding.

Paul Craig Roberts has lately argued that President Bush needs to spend some of his political capital to get a tax cut enacted.

Now, there is certainly a case to be made for tax cuts today. In fact, I've mentioned that before (see here and here).

But, in order to enact needed tax cuts today, we must revist last year's 10-year tax cut travesty that even some candid (alas, unnamed) Bush advisors admit was passed under false pretense.

But the House Republicans, instead of revisiting it, want to make that tax package permanent. They do not care about the ocean of red ink that idea would cause just as the baby boomers start reaching Social Security's various eligibility ages en masse.

Yes, last year's tax cut is full of gimmicks that make little sense. But there is a reason those gimmicks exist...because even under the idiotic belief that we would have $5.6 trillion in surpluses this decade (sold to us by (sarcasm on) the adult corporate heroes in the White House (sarcasm off)), the sunsets and other gimmicks were the only way to make this broad tax cut package seem affordable.

We will know when a person is serious about our nation's economic and fiscal health when he or she offers a program of tax cuts today in exchange for cancelling the damaging and utterly unsustainable tax cuts passed last year.

And I swear...trading tax cuts *today* for cancelling the future ones is not just smart policy, it's a winning political strategy. Alas, only a few lonely voices in the wilderness seem to agree.

In the fiscal year that just ended, we added $420 billion to the national debt. That's nothing compared to what's coming if we fail to grow up and get our fiscal house in order.

The Baltimore Sun explains why rebuilding Afghanistan and helping Hamid Karzai gain some control of the country outside the capital is vital to our national interest.

Following the recent elections in Pakistan, there is now a large region to the southeast of Kabul, straddling two countries, where the local population and to varying degrees the local power structures are hostile to Mr. Karzai, hostile to the United States, and -- by the way -- sympathetic not only to the remnants of the Taliban but to al-Qaida as well. The west and north of Afghanistan are restless, the south resentful. If Afghanistan goes, everything that has been accomplished in the war on terrorism will have been fruitless.

Jeff Jacoby writes about the diplomatic heroes who violated orders to help save some Jewish people from the Nazis.

If you thought that California politics could not possibly get more weird, take a look at the final note in Robert Novak's column today.

Do we really need an Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Rob Reiner race for governor in four years?

Steve Chapman explains that North Korea's admission that it has a nuclear weapons program presents a real complication for the White House's foreign policy plans. He writes:

The Bush administration has big plans for remaking the world to suit its preferences. We shouldn't be surprised if some countries will do everything they can to resist those plans, and we shouldn't be surprised if some succeed.

Thomas Friedman makes the excellent point that democracy will never take root in the Arab world "without the Mideast states kicking their oil dependency and without us kicking ours."

Yet another reason for the United States to kick its fossil fuel habit. It is well past time for us to take the global lead in creating a post-fossil fuel economy.

The New York Times editorial board seeks action to fix a looming corporate pension accounting scandal.

Mark Shields suggests that President Bush create a new Paul Douglas Brigade so all of today's middle-aged hawks who skipped military service when they were young could fight in the war they are demanding.

As Shields explains:

At the top of my own list of personal heroes is the late Paul H. Douglas, who served three terms in the U.S. Senate from Illinois and, if anything, was more of a maverick than McCain, infuriating his own Democratic Party leadership and his home state's most powerful interests as he tirelessly championed civil rights, tax reform, conservation and economic justice.

But what makes Douglas interesting was that after Pearl Harbor -- when he was already a professor at the University of Chicago and an elected Chicago alderman -- he, a Quaker, enlisted as a private in the U.S. Marine Corps. After Parris Island boot camp, Douglas was assigned to the First Marine Division, which meant for him heavy combat against the Japanese in Pacific landings at Peleliu and Okinawa, where Douglas for "heroic achievement in action" won the Bronze Star. He was wounded twice, so severely that he permanently lost the use of his left arm.

What makes Douglas my hero is that when he enlisted in the Marines, he was 50 years old, which means that when he was wounded in combat on Okinawa, he was 52.

David Broder loves governors. So, it is not surprising when he focuses upon them before election time.

He explains today what's at stake in the nation's upcoming 36 gubernatorial elections. It's not just trying to run state governments in a troubling economy. The result of these races will have an impact on the 2004 presidential campaign...and beyond.

And politically, governors are the heavyweights -- far closer to the battle for the White House than the senators who hog the Washington stage. Four of the past five presidents have come from the ranks of governors. And it was the Republican governors who were the force behind President Bush's victory -- from the early endorsements Engler helped to engineer right down to the Florida recount victory stage-managed by Gov. Jeb Bush.

What should a government that ran up $420.8 billion in new debt in the just ended fiscal year do?

Perhaps find a way to stop the torrent of red ink? Impose some fiscal discipline?

Hah! If the Republicans take control of the Senate and hold on to the House, they plan more tax cuts.

Fuzzy math strikes again.

Why did the Bush Administration wait 12 days before making public North Korea's nuclear weapons program admission?

Of course it had nothing to do with the Iraq use of force resolution debate that the White House desperately wanted to win. How convenient that the information comes out after that debate was concluded.

The White House bill signing ceremony is easy. As President Bush proves, however, the real sign of commitment comes when the Office of Management and Budget decides how much funding it wants for some initiative.

Remember how serious the president was about bringing corporate crooks to justice and cleaning up the financial system? Well, the Bush Administration now wants to scale back funding for the Security and Exchange Commission's corporate oversight and policing efforts.

Even embattled SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt admits that the new funding request will, as reporter Stephen Labaton writes, "not allow [the SEC] to undertake important initiatives."

Of course, this story is running on a Saturday. The White House hopes the American people are not paying attention.

The Philadelphia Inquirer urges people to remember Holly Maddux today now that her "ex-hippie guru" killer has finally been found guilty after 25 years.

People who need to purchase lives are complaining about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) missing yesterday's vote on the Defense Appropriations bill.

A bill that passed by a razor-thin 93-1 margin.

I would think that people could -- and should -- find something far more important about which to complain.

This Los Angeles Times editorial makes what should be an obvious -- but in these times it is necessary to make -- point about the federal budget:

As Nov. 5 approaches, lawmakers won't touch the issue of rolling back tax cuts. However, until Congress revisits the trillion-dollar issue, it can rearrange the furniture all it wants but a real housecleaning will never take place.

Nicholas Kristof thinks the idea of establishing a flourishing democracy in Iraq after we remove Saddam from power is "a pipe dream, a marketing ploy to sell a war."

No, not about 2004. More like 2012 or 2016.

The New York Observer peers into New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's future and sees a potential run for the White House. He does have the early resume of a contender. File this one away for later in the decade.

Robert Novak discusses the speculation that Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) might be tempted to switch parties. Novak does not think so in the short-term, but "in time, a caucus where he does not seem to belong could prove intolerable."

Richard Cohen wants the government to institute some common sense gun control measures.

Look, gun nuts, this is not about taking away your weapons. Increasingly, I have become less and less convinced of the efficacy of strict gun control -- the English experience has been just awful -- and at times, such as the night a burglar broke into my house, I hanker for a gun myself. All that I and others like me want right now is to make it harder to kill and harder to escape apprehension.

Drew Richardson, a former supervisory special agent of the FBI, weighs in on the recent National Academy of Sciences report on polygraphs:

The jury is in and the evidence is clear and compelling. The American people should insist and our executive and legislative branches of government should ensure that the technological and sociological embarrassment we have come to know as polygraph screening should be immediately stopped. Not one more innocent applicant or employee should be falsely accused and not one more spy should be given cover through having passed a polygraph exam. The notion (as will be suggested by some in government agencies using polygraph screening) that this is just one tool among many being used to address problems is wrong and dangerous mumbo-jumbo. The results of polygraph screening examinations are either believed or they are not. If they are believed, they are acted upon and, furthermore, these actions, if based upon erroneous polygraph results, will continue to lead to the sorts of grave injury to country and citizens as previously noted.

Talkleft reports that the United States government has deported a Canadian citizen to...Syria. Talkleft asks:

Where is Maher Arar? Canada doesn't know what happened to its citizen after the U.S. deported him to Syria, a country he hasn't lived in since he was a teenager.

They better start. Now.

This is an unconscionable error in judgment. The people who made the decision to send Arar -- who was traveling on a Canadian passport -- to Syria must be dismissed. If Arar needed deporting, then he should have been sent to his home: Canada.

As the story notes:

"Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham admitted yesterday that Canada has no idea where Mr. Arar is being held. And in a statement yesterday, Syrian Ambassador Ahmad Arnous denied any knowledge of Mr. Arar's whereabouts. "We have no information regarding Mr. Arar, only what we know from the Canadian press," said Mr. Arnous. "It's a matter between the Canadian government and the American government."

"In a speech yesterday, Mr. Graham said Canada has "registered our protest to the United States. Our position is that a person travelling on a Canadian passport is a Canadian citizen and has a right to be treated as a Canadian citizen."

Outgoing House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas) believes the Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft is out of control and displays a "lack of regard for personal civil liberties in America.''

If Armey can say it, then many others should follow.

Slate's Timothy Noah reveals that Vice President Dick Cheney was until recently a dove on Iraq.

One wonders if the Vice President has an answer today for the dilemma he outlined as a mere Secretary of Defense in April 1991?

If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?

The New York Press' Michelangelo Signorile has coverted and now supports Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Well, kinda.

Thomas Friedman today criticizes campus activists calling for their colleges to stop investing in Israel, the Bush Administration, and Israeli hawks.

Here's a sampling of this gem of a column. He writes of the divestiture campus activists:

How is it that Egypt imprisons the leading democracy advocate in the Arab world, after a phony trial, and not a single student group in America calls for divestiture from Egypt? (I'm not calling for it, but the silence is telling.) How is it that Syria occupies Lebanon for 25 years, chokes the life out of its democracy, and not a single student group calls for divestiture from Syria? How is it that Saudi Arabia denies its women the most basic human rights, and bans any other religion from being practiced publicly on its soil, and not a single student group calls for divestiture from Saudi Arabia?

Cal Thomas writes that the Beltway Shooter proves that there are no safe neighborhoods anymore.

Tony Blankley today writes an excellent column looking to the fatal impact of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's recent slur against Islam.

On CBS' 60 Minutes program a few weeks ago, the Rev. Falwell said:

"I think Mohammed was a terrorist. I read enough of the history of his life. He was a violent man, a man of war. Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses. And I think Mohammed set an opposite example."

Blankley explains why Falwell's declaration is a misreading of biblical history, hypocritical, and simply bad politics. He also notes:

President Bush has spent the last year desperately trying to limit our war on terror to the terrorists, and not letting it slide into a war of civilizations: Judeo-Christian vs. Muslim. That strikes me as a bloody good idea.

And just as many of us have pointedly observed how few Muslims came out to condemn Osama bin Laden after his murderous attacks on America, I feel obliged to point out how few American conservatives have come out to condemn Mr. Falwell's statement (not that their acts were morally equivalent, of course — one killed 3,000, the other insulted the religion of a fifth of mankind). As a longtime conservative and strong supporter of Mr. Bush's war on terrorism and Iraq, and as one who has fought on the same side of the political barricade as Mr. Falwell for the past quarter-century, permit me to proffer my condemnation.

Here's the Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer Quote of the Day. Responding to a question about the D.C. sniper and new proposals for ballistic fingerprinting to help future law enforcement investigation efforts, the Press Secretary said:

"How many laws can we really have to stop crime, if people are determined in their heart to violate them no matter how many there are or what they say?"

Okay, I'll stop. Of course he does not mean that. But it is interesting that this White House feels laws have little value only when it comes to anything related to guns.

A letter including anthrax was opened by an intern in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office one year ago today.

There has been another shooting in the Washington, D.C., area tonight. A woman was shot dead in the parking lot in the "Seven Corners" area of Falls Church, Va.

This shopping center is near several major interstates and highways.

While it is not official yet, this killing obviously looks like the latest attack by the D.C.-area sniper.

Cathy Young outlines some of Attorney General John Ashcroft's abuses of federal power. I remember a time when conservatives believed in limits on federal power. The Attorney General seems to have forgotten.

This Robert Novak report hardly inspires confidence.

However, the officers who thought that happy days were here again on the day that George W. Bush became president have been disappointed.

Their disappointment stems from Rumsfeld's inclination, born of a turbulent lifetime in governmental and corporate affairs, to make decisions within a restricted circle. That includes war planning. According to Pentagon sources, the secretary does not consult the uniformed service chiefs. Participating in the immediate planning are Gen. Tommy Franks, commander in chief of the Central Command, and a few officers from the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

What most bothers the generals, however, is Rumsfeld's preference for outside advice. For example, sources say a frequent consultant with the secretary is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an amateur military expert and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. There is no distribution through the Pentagon of such advice.

Richard Preston explains how easy it is to create a variant of the smallpox virus that is resistant to the vaccine used to protect against the natural strain. He writes:

The United States government has begun a crash effort to create a national stockpile of vaccine for use in a smallpox emergency, at a cost of around $1 billion. Though the vaccine is being made with modern methods, it is designed to work against the natural form of the smallpox virus. This vaccine was developed in 1796. Would it work against a 21st-century biologically engineered smallpox? Probably not. And given rapid advances in molecular biology, genetic engineering of the smallpox virus is now feasible, not by amateurs or terrorist groups but by professional scientists in countries that have biowarfare programs.

William Safire writes that if the D.C.-area sniper is not affiliated with Al Qaeda or another terrorist organization, we can be certain that those groups are taking notes about our reaction to these shootings. He explains:

If these weekday murders are the acts of a homicidal maniac and not part of a terrorist conspiracy, then surely the plotters of last year's devastating strikes at the Pentagon and New York's twin towers are saying: What a perfect follow-up, cheap and simple and maddening. Why didn't we think of that?

Trish Boppert writes about the lack of respect shown to Pluto.

Jackson Diehl reports that high-level relations between Germany and the United States remain nearly nonexistent three weeks after the conclusion of German elections that featured an anti-American campaign by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his government. He writes:

The German leader appears oblivious to the intense feeling of injury radiating from George W. Bush, who was compared to Hitler by Schroeder's justice minister in the campaign's closing days. Senior officials of the German defense ministry know nothing of the Pentagon's preparations for Iraq. There are no plans for a Bush-Schroeder meeting, and some officials say they fear there may be none even when the two leaders encounter each other five weeks from now at a NATO summit in Prague. Even a visit to Washington later this month by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer faces a fundamental challenge: What is there now to talk about?

Sebastian Mallaby writes that future generations are going to wonder why we failed to halt a preventable global catastrophe that is killing millions of people.

Here, surely, is the puzzle for future historians. How could we, a society with the technology to land a missile on Saddam Hussein's bathmat, not mobilize the science necessary to defeat the scourge? How could the United States, a nation that spends $10 billion a year on soaps and perfumes, give $1 billion in public money annually for battling the virus and regard that as enough? How is it that we have known about AIDS for two decades yet only now are starting to react?

The death toll has reached 188 from Saturday's car bomb terrorist attack at a Bali, Indonesia, resort.

Officials are linking this attack to Al Qaeda and its terror associate Jemaah Islamiyah.

Perhaps we could turn our attention back towards that world-wide war on terror which was to have been our national mission?

Steve Chapman writes:

A report issued last week by the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the federal government stop using polygraphs to screen for security risks. Why? Because, in the words of the study, these devices are "intrinsically susceptible to producing erroneous results." That's academese for "I wouldn't trust one as far as I could throw it."

Kevin Phillips questions President Bush's assertion that the danger the nation faces today from Iraq is equal to the danger faced from the deployment of Soviet missles in Cuba 40 years ago.

The White House preoccupation is unnerving. Forty years ago, President John F. Kennedy produced aerial photos of newly installed Russian missiles 90 miles from the United States. Bush can only discuss how Iraq, some 10,000 miles away, may be trying to use unmanned aerial vehicles to target the United States. He's not talking about the former Soviet Union, but a rag-tag country with a gross national product the size of Kentucky's.

No one is arguing that Saddam is a good leader. Few are arguing that he is not evil. What we still do not know is whether the price of taking out Saddam (both during a war against him and in its aftermath) is higher than the price of pursuing a real containment policy against his regime.

UDPATE: William R. Polk also thoroughly debunks the idea that, in Iraq, the United States today faces a threat equal to the one posed by the Soviet deployment of missiles in Cuba 40 years ago.

Thomas Oliphant hopes that Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will follow through on his promise to see that Congress' role in the Iraq debate has not ended.

Oliphant recaps the disturbing developments about which Congress must push the Bush Administration to explain:

It is now a matter of official intelligence community analysis that ''imminent threat'' and Iraq do not belong in the same sentence. The only justification for their use together would be if Iraq is invaded and Saddam Hussein is desperate enough to use chemical and biological weapons or give a few canisters to terrorists.

It is also official doctrine that the Bush administration has given up figuring out how to help install a post-Saddam government mixing Iraqi dissidents from exiled and indigenous opponents. We ourselves are going to govern Iraq for the indefinite future.

At the last minute, the White House broke its word and is trying to sandbag the kind of broad commission inquiry into the events of last Sept. 11 that has always followed major catastrophes. Those who suspect someone is trying to hide something are free to speculate.

Robert Novak writes that "Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a long shot for the Democratic presidential nomination, was the unexpected star at last weekend's annual Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines." Novak also reports that Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) was unimpressive. (fourth item)

Mark Lenzi explains part of the problem moderate Muslims have with the United States:

If you scratch below the surface, you find what really bothers moderate Muslims: It is that the average American believes it is his or her God-given right to have gasoline at about $1 a gallon and to own a sport utility vehicle; and that practically no one in the United States knows or cares that their government overlooks the practices of brutal regimes in places such as Myanmar or Equatorial Guinea in the name of cheap gasoline.

Maureen Dowd explains how most of the debate from all sides over the Iraq use of force resolution was full of doublespeak and dishonesty from "a place where people say the opposite of what they mean."

Thomas Friedman writes about the D.C.-area sniper and wishes that President Bush would pay at least a fraction of the attention to domestic terror as he has recently focused upon Iraq.

The fact that the president speaks only about Iraq, while his neighbors down the street speak only about the shooter, reinforces the sense that this administration is so obsessed with Saddam it has lost touch with the real anxieties of many Americans. Mr. Bush wants to rally the nation to impose gun control on Baghdad, but he won't lift a finger to impose gun control on Bethesda, six miles from the White House.

Personally, I'm glad Mr. Bush is focused on disarming Iraq's madman and tracing Iraq's Scud missiles and weapons of mass destruction. It's a worthy project. I just wish he were equally focused on disarming America's madmen, and supporting laws that would make it easier to trace their .223-caliber bullets and their weapons of individual destruction. A lot of us would like to see more weapons inspectors on the streets here, and in the gun shops here, not just in Baghdad.

It could, however, help save lives and catch killers.

Debra Saunders writes about the fatal gaffe California GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon made earlier this week.

Lucky Gray Davis. He's as unpopular as any modern governor, because he's venal and imperious. Rather than reward Davis' lack of integrity, California voters hunger for an alternative.

Enter Simon, who last week essentially accused Davis of breaking the law in 1998 by accepting a $10,000 check from COPS on state property. Team Simon had to eat those words when it turned out that a COPS photo of Davis accepting a check from a former COPS official was taken at a private home.

So much for Simon's integrity. As a former prosecutor, Simon should have checked that the COPS photo was legit. He didn't. Then, when the story imploded, Simon tried to play it cute, saying, "At the end of the day, it was really a matter between COPS and the FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission)."

Simon is done. He could take the rest of the GOP statewide candidates with him. Perhaps the California Republican Party should try to figure out some way to nominate an electable candidate next time.

San Jose Mercury News Chief Editorial Writer Phil Yost is unimpressed by candidates who say they want to run government more like a business.

David Broder looks at the arguments the Democrats are making about the economy. But the real news appears at the end of his column.

You see, the Bush Administration says that the Democratic critique is unfair because they knew the economic bubble had burst and they inherited a bad situation.

Okay. Let's grant that fact. Broder (and all Americans should join him) then wonders:

If, as he [Broder's administration source] says, the Bush team was well aware by Inauguration Day that the bottom was dropping out of the "bubble" economy, then why did it rely on those inflated budget surplus estimates to justify the long-term tax cuts that the president still defends?

"We were in line with the blue-chip [consensus] estimates," my White House instructor said. But did you believe them? "That," he said, "is a good question."

The tax cuts were predicated on a White House argument that there was money for everything. If the Bush Administration knew then that the numbers were cooked, then the tax cut is an even larger fiscal fraud than we originally thought.

At yesterday's Democratic-sponsored Capitol Hill forum about the economy, former Clinton Administration economic advisors Janet Yellen and Gene Sperling outlined an economic plan well worth embracing.

The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman explains:

They called for a temporary investment credit to spark business investment over the next six to nine months; a tax refund for low- and middle-income Americans; an extension of unemployment benefits; and federal relief to deficit-ridden states, whose budget cuts and tax increases could be negating federal efforts to prime the economy.

Yellen and Sperling also called for canceling tax cuts for the affluent that are planned for later this decade as part of the 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax law enacted last year. Sperling pleaded for what he called "a pro-growth grand bargain" in which Bush would sacrifice part of his tax cut and Democrats would sacrifice federal spending to get the government's fiscal house back in order.

There are other reasons to cancel the tax cut, of course. Maya MacGuineas, a fellow at the New America Foundation and Social Security advisor to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) argues that the tax cut needs to be cancelled to fund the creation of private accounts. (NOTE: I know MacGuineas, she is the member of the Board of Directors of Third Millennium, an organization for which I used to work.)

MacGuineas, the originator of the important progressive privatization idea, understands that those in favor of adding private accounts to the Social Security system need to tackle the transition costs created by the policy.

The nation today clearly has many priorities more important than cutting taxes for the affluent. It is time for Democrats (and fiscally responsible Republicans) to make this case.

The D.C.-area sniper has now killed eight people in the past 10 days. The latest victim was killed while pumping gas in Spotsylvania County, Virginia (the fourth person targeted at a gas station).

A state police officer was investigating a traffic accident only 50 yards away from the doomed man.

This remains an extremely effective terror campaign, even if key Justice Department sources fail to understand that fact.

The impact in the region is understandably large. As the Washington Post's Manny Fernandez reports:

Amid fears of sniper attacks, organizers have canceled numerous outdoor events in the Washington region this weekend, including Rockville's 10K/5K run, Fairfax County's West Potomac High School homecoming dance and the football game between Wilson and Dunbar high schools in the District.

Nearly all area school districts, except for Howard and Frederick counties, have scrapped outdoor sports activities through the weekend, though most indoor activities, whether school-sponsored or not, will be held as scheduled.

It should give one pause when The Onion in its satire comes so close to observing reality.

Thanks to Kris Lofgren for spotting the link.

The N.Z. Bear really hates telemarketers. Click here to see what the Bear has done about it.

The New York Times urges the Supreme Court to rule unconstitutional Congress' latest copyright extension.

As the Times explains:

Copyright law requires a balancing of the interest of copyright holders against the rights of everyone else. Artists are entitled — despite the arguments of Napster and its defenders — to a property interest in their work for a reasonable period of time. But the public also has an interest in seeing that copyrights eventually lapse, and that creative work enters the public domain with no need to pay royalties. Contemporary artists are then free to borrow from these older works, a creative tradition that dates back to the ancients.

The Philadelphia Inquirer believes that Congress and President Bush should ensure that the corporate reform effort actually leads to reform.

Naming a tough oversight board and restoring investor protections are major pieces of unfinished business in the corporate ethics scandal.

Or to put it in terms corporate big-wigs can relate to: It's like that golf swing. Stance and aim count, but follow-through is everything.

Earlier this week, I celebrated Rep. Mike Pence's (R-Ind.) criticism of the broadcast networks for failing to broadcast President Bush's Monday night speech about Iraq.

Well, now it turns out that the broadcast networks had an excuse. As Mike Kinsley notes in his column, the White House never made a formal request for the airtime.

Today's The Note from ABC News explains the story behind the latest candidate to drop out of a U.S. Senate race.

In what The Note fervently hopes will not become a trend, the November 5 ballot lost — sort of — another Senate candidate yesterday.

Mike Taylor's name will remain on the Montana ballot as the Republican nominee against Democratic Senator Max Baucus, but Taylor is suspending his campaign after his poll standing apparently plunged in the wake of a mother of a Democratic party TV ad showing a young Taylor in disco-style garb practicing his hair-styling profession and applying lotion to the face of a male customer.

Now.

If Republicans had run an ad like this against a Democratic candidate, even without any explicit suggestion that the candidate is gay, the media and national gay rights groups would scream bloody murder.

Also, if this story had happened in an East Coast state, it would be getting major national press coverage and micro semiotic analysis of the ad.

But of course, neither of these things is the case, and Republicans are left with Taylor on the ballot and the prospect of some write-in effort, but no real shot here at a Democrat who, because of the nature of the state and his style of politicking, should be/would be vulnerable to a credible challenge.

"Montana Secretary of State Bob Brown said finding a replacement candidate replacing Taylor would probably be more difficult in his state because the election code is much more specific — and restrictive — on such matters. But the law does allow write-in campaigns up to 15 days before the election."

To his credit, Montana State Senator Ken Toole, D-Helena (the Montana Human Rights Network's program director), told the Billings Gazette that the ad "is an overt and obvious appeal to the homophobic (voter) that is playing to that stereotypic imagery."

Baucus was already leading by double digits when this ad began to air. Was it worth it?

The only thing worse than knowing that Democrats are likely to give Baucus a pass is the fact that anti-gay conservatives will suddenly find a reason to cynically exploit homophobia before returning to their efforts to spread it.

The Washington Post's Mike Allen explains why presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson has become one of the most important people in the West Wing.

This Mark Fiore animated editorial cartoon highlights the contradictions in our nation's Iraq policy. It takes about 45 seconds to load.

Not that it will matter, but Professor Michael I. Meyerson explains the Constitution's provisions for declaring war and notes that even the present resolution under debate falls short of the document's requirements.

The framers viewed war in largely a dichotomous fashion: Either we were at peace or we were at war.

Once at war, it was the task of the president to see us safely through the military campaign. If we were not engaged in hostilities, however, the decision to transform the country into a nation at war was solely the job of Congress. As Alexander Hamilton wrote, the plain meaning of the Constitution is that "it is the peculiar and exclusive province of Congress, when the nation is at peace, to change that state into a state of war."

The critical problem with the resolution that Mr. Bush presented to Congress is that by seeking a conditional grant of power, it leaves to the president the decision to change our nation into a state of war. Thus, a provisional authorization places the ultimate power in the wrong constitutional hands.

The question of whether war is necessary at any particular moment is for Congress to decide. When the president decides that such a moment has arrived, he should then explain to Congress why war is essential and seek its authorization.

Jules Witcover wonders if Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) could find a better rationale for sending young men and women off to war than just "trusting President Bush's instinct."

Witcover asking for substantive debate? How quaint.

If Sen. Bennett is so unconcerned about the Senate's Constitutional oversight responsibilities, he should not seek reelection in 2004. Then Utah's voters can elect someone that might have a remedial understanding of the legislative branch's co-equal role in our government.

Rep. Mike Pence yesterday went to the House floor and condemned the broadcast networks for failing to show President Bush's Iraq speech earlier this week.

Rep. Pence said:

Under the Telecommunications Act of 1934 public broadcasting companies use the public airwaves and therefore they have public duties. And as we prepare on this floor to debate sending American soldiers into harm's way, it was wrong and appalling for those corporations to abdicate their duty. Rather than the details of biological and chemical weapons, NBC broadcast Fear Factor. Rather than the status of the Iraqi nuclear weapons system, the King of Queens on CBS. And rather than telling the American people of Iraqi complicity with terrorism, the Drew Carey Show aired on ABC. This is appalling. And it is an absolute abdication of their duties under the Act.

Broadcasters are making money through the use of a public common asset. They do not have a right to use the airwaves. It is a privilege carrying with it public service responsibilities that the FCC should consider enforcing and strengthening.

Memo to the "key Justice Department" official quoted in the post below: the sniper-terrorist killing people in the D.C. area is having a big impact.

Even key Justice Department officials can figure this out. Just look at the Washington Post's sports page and ask yourself why sports columnist Michael Wilbon is writing about the sniper and not the one of several possible sports stories. Wilbon writes:

I can't write a traditional sports column today. I suppose I should care about the Braves losing early again or Barry Bonds coming through in the clutch or how the Redskins' kid quarterback is handling his first week as a starter, but I don't, because eight people right here where we live have been shot by some psychotic killer who is still on the loose.

Jerry Seper reports in today's Washington Times that the authorities do not believe that the unknown sniper killing people in the Washington, D.C., area is an international terrorist. Seper writes:

"Nobody has ruled out the possibility that the shooter belongs to some international terrorist organization," said a key Justice Department official. "But it does appear, for now, that this person is acting on his own, choosing his victims at random and for no apparent reason.

There are no clearly defined targets. He's left no calling card or made any demands or claims. The only common denominator appears to be that he wants to kill people," the official said. "A terrorist would be expected to seek a bigger impact, spraying bullets into a crowd to kill more than one person at a time.

Talk about not seeing the big picture. Terrorism does not require sending a homicide bomber into a crowded area. It does not require the killer be suicidal. (Someone who wants to live and spread fear would not start shooting in the middle of a crowded area because eventually the authorities would stop or kill the shooter.)

But parents aren't sending their kids to school, people are cancelling their outdoor activities, and the people I know in the D.C. area are quite scared and concerned about the situation.

Maybe it is a lone killer stalking random prey. But we know that Al Qaeda was training snipers. The sniper is having a huge impact, and not just in the Washington area. I do not understand why our Justice Department wants to discount this possibility.

The terror people feel, after all, is quite real.

Well, I guess it is okay to politicize the war. As Thomas Oliphant explains, Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.) is running an interesting ad in his race against Sen. Tim Johson (D-S.D.) Oliphant writes:

It begins its 30 seconds of bile with images of terrorists and then of Saddam Hussein himself, and in case there are any doubts, the announcer quickly removes them: ''Al Qaeda terrorists. Saddam Hussein. Enemies of America.''

For ordinary people, the commercial would appear to face a huge obstacle - Johnson will vote for the resolution sought by the White House. In such a phony world, however, there are never obstacles to falsehoods, so the commercial blithely links these forces - ''working to obtain nuclear weapons.'' Then comes the whopper: ''Now more than ever, our nation must have a missile defense system to shoot down missiles fired at America.''

The Seattle Times last week defended Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) from criticism he was getting for his trip to Iraq.

McDermott over the weekend, however, decided to go too far for even the Times. The editorial notes:

At a Democrat-sponsored town-hall meeting Sunday, McDermott suggested the administration's actions were designed to distract voters' attention from domestic economic problems before the November election and foment a "bloodless, silent coup."

He went on to say, "This president is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor — to create Empire America."

The desire to create a vibrant democracy in the Arab world is one of the rationales used to justify attacking Iraq to remove Saddam from power.

But just how easy will it be to create a democracy out of Iraq? Professor Fawaz A. Gerges argues that Iraq is not ripe for an immediate transition to a national representative government.

Iraqis, monitored and oppressed since 1958, have lost faith in the political system and turned inward to the safe harbor of tribalism and religious and ethnic factionalism. Every community -- Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites -- fends for itself and has built an "iron wall" to shield its members. Civil society has been crushed and the middle class has been decimated, thanks mainly to the U.N.-led sanctions since 1991. The building blocks and institutions necessary for a functioning polity, let alone a democracy, do not exist. The tragedy of Iraqi politics, and Arab politics in general, is that both the ruling elite and the dominant opposition are anti-liberal and anti-democratic. Society is deeply scarred and its foundations of trust are frayed to the breaking point. Subversion and plotting have replaced natural political processes as the means to obtain power.

Now that an attack seems all but inevitable, it is time for people to demand these answers from the White House.

Richard Cohen wants New Jersey to take tough action against the anti-Semitic poetry of New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka. He writes:

My favorite New York mayor of the moment is not the incumbent Michael Bloomberg, or the sainted Rudolph Giuliani of recent memory, but Edward Koch of more distant tenure. It was Koch, in a letter to the editor, who whacked the New York Times for its wimpy editorial suggesting that the way to deal with the anti-Semitic poetry of Amiri Baraka -- he's New Jersey's poet laureate -- was through "discussion and condemnation." Koch had a better idea: Eliminate Baraka's position. Atta boy, Ed.

Baraka still has the right to spew his hate and lies (his poem includes the lie that 4,000 Jewish people were told to stay away from the World Trade Center on September 11). New Jersey's taxpayers, however, need not fund it.

Since there was little new information in President Bush's address tonight, why did the White House make a big deal out of this speech?

It has to be the tone.

President Bush tonight was restrained, somber, serious. The hot-headed rhetoric of August has been replaced by something more appropriate given the gravity of the subject.

(Of course, if the president had started with a multilaterial focus and this tone, he would have faced far less criticism than he has in recent weeks.)

My guess is that this speech will go over well with the American people. I agree with Andrew Cline, it would be a shock if the president's polls did not rise after this effort.

Congress will pass an authorization resolution this week (one much better than the one originally proposed by the White House). The American people will fall in line.

Now it is up to Saddam.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick explains how Los Angeles District Attorney District Attorney Steve Cooley is abusing his powers in his outrageous handling of the Winona Ryder shoplifting case. Lithwick writes:

Instead of pleading this case out and getting on with the business of prosecuting murderers and rapists, Cooley's office has now diverted at least eight attorneys to work full time on this case, with a deputy district attorney having to reschedule a murder prosecution so she can convict Ryder.

It's not my job to argue that Ryder is innocent; I don't get paid enough to do that. She still has to account for a whole mess of unpaid-for merchandise that accompanied her out of the department store last winter. But it's hard to believe that righting societal wrongs against the poor victims at Gucci and Prada is more pressing for the district attorney's office than prosecuting killers.

John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira test their "Emerging Democratic Majority" thesis on New Jersey's political scene. They write:

...New Jersey, which voted for Republican presidential candidates from 1968 through 1988, is part of a nationwide swing — particularly strong in the Northeast, Far West and parts of the Midwest — toward the Democratic Party.

Nat Hentoff destroys those who argue that Senators should ensure judicial nominees have philosophies dedicated to "moving the country in the right direction" and are "consistent with the nation's needs" (New York Times editorial page).

As Hentoff explains:

Which needs, and at what point in our history? In 1954, when the Supreme Court decided, in Brown vs. Board of Education, that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, a majority of Americans did not consider integrated public schools a national need. Many were furious.

How would the New York Times measure the "nation's needs?" By polls? If so, which pollster?

Both parties have acted poorly. Both sides have had their chance at righteous indignation. Now is the time to put this process back together again.

Quoting an American Psychological Association press release mentioned in today's EurekaAlert! e-mail:

WASHINGTON - Job loss and its related financial strain put people at elevated risk for emotional and physical problems, according to researchers studying the consequences of being unemployed. This finding is reported on in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Unemployment can start a vicious cycle of depression, loss of personal control, decreased emotional functioning and poorer physical health. according to lead author Richard H. Price, Ph.D., and co-authors Jin Nam Choi, Ph.D., and Amiram D. Vinokur, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan.

Former Congressional staffer James Jaffe describes the broken federal budget process as Richard Nixon's revenge.

Oh, by the way: the federal government's new fiscal year began on October 1. Unfortunately, Congress has passed exactly zero of the 13 annual appropriations bills needed to fund our government. (Here is a status report.)

An impressive record, to be sure.

If this Robert Novak story is true, then the New Jersey Democratic leadership better hope that former Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) wins his Senate race. Otherwise Democrats around the nation will be unable to forgive their New Jersey colleagues for their failure to follow up on this possibility. Novak reports:

The Senate Democratic leadership's choice to replace Torricelli was former Sen. Bill Bradley. Although Bradley is widely reported as rejecting the candidacy, Democratic sources said he was open to negotiations about his future role in the Senate.

Steve Chapman explains why opposing a preemptive war against Iraq is not appeasement.

The two no-fly zones enforced by British and American fighters cover most of Iraq. Meanwhile, economic sanctions have kept him from buying weapons and spare parts, or doing much of anything to rebuild his army. "Hitler got more powerful with time, while Saddam has gotten weaker," notes John Mearsheimer, a defense scholar at the University of Chicago.

We've stationed thousands of troops in Kuwait, we have air bases in Saudi Arabia, and we generally keep an aircraft carrier within striking distance of Iraq at all times. In short, we've let Hussein know that if he ever sets one toe across any of his borders, we'll stomp him flatter than a straw hat on the interstate.

Cragg Hines wishes President Bush would take to heart words he spoke last June at Warsaw University. Bush said then:

"When Europe and America are divided, history tends to tragedy. When Europe and America are partners, no trouble or tyranny can stand against us."

Christopher Layne, a CATO visiting fellow, argues that hegemony has proven to be an unsuccessful strategy throughout world history.

Thomas Friedman says that the Democrats should stop whining about Bush hijacking the agenda with war and start making a compelling argument for themselves. He writes:

I spent the last month traveling the country on a book tour, during which I said that what worried me most after 9/11 was what kind of world my girls were going to grow up in. I ran into so many Americans who share that concern. After a talk in Atlanta, one guy came up to me, just opened his wallet and showed me the picture of his daughter. He didn't say a word.

The point is that I can assure the Democrats that while Mr. Bush may be obsessed with Iraq, most Americans are worrying about their jobs, the stock market, the environment and the fact that their kids may not grow up in as open and peaceful a world as they did.

Newsday wonders about the plans the Bush Administration has for rebuilding Iraq and its government after our seemingly inevitable war to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

The rebuilding problem must be a part of the Iraq debate. As the Newsday editorial explains:

Winning a war against Iraq but failing to deal with the consequences of toppling Saddam Hussein's despotic regime in such a volatile region could lead to disaster.

Without a credible plan for rebuilding Iraq and establishing a stable, representative government to hold that fractious nation together, the United States could raise regional instability to unpredictable levels.

Debra Saunders hints at the possible political dangers posed by the New Jersey Supreme Court decision this week to allow former Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) to replace Sen. Robert Torricelli (D) on the ballot for this November's election.

One GOP operative posed the question principled Democrats ought to be asking, but aren't: "What's to stop the Republican Party from looking at races around the country, and determining where candidates are weak and just replacing them with a strong one?"

The answer should be: Respect for the rule of law. But if the New Jersey Supreme Court feels no such respect, why would partisan politicians?

In reply to this earlier post, Tom said that I should not worry about the precedent this sets. But, as I noted, political operatives are trained to take advantage of loopholes like this one. If Lautenberg wins, someone else will try the gambit and political bosses may feel less reluctant about overrriding primary decisions around the nation.

Hugh Spitzer suggests that we consider our roads a public utility.

It is an interesting suggestion that I wish would spark a national conversation to figure out how to get drivers to pay for the true cost of their automobile use.

David Broder today writes about how disgusted voters are with the trivialization of politics. These voters have decided to ignore one of the most important election cycles in recent memory.

Broder blames the negative political campaigns for turning off voters across the nation. While I understand from where Broder is coming, I think he goes far too easy on the nonvoters and cynical citizens he interviews.

There is a reason campaigns use negative advertising: it works.

The minute the whiners Broder interviews get off their duffs en masse some election day and vote against candidates who use negative advertising is the day that tactic will go into the closet.

The minute these whiners choose candidates of substance in primaries and general elections is the day they will start seeing better candidates run for office.

The minute these whiners vote for candidates who take unpopular stands in the short-term for the long-term gain of the country is when we will see our political leaders make tough decisions instead of focusing on the trivial.

Ultimately, the power is with those who do not show up on election day. Blaming the campaigns will not change this fact.

Voters who do not like the two established parties can choose a third party candidate (nothing will scare the Ds and Rs more than seeing Green or Libertarian candidates get 15-20 percent of the vote). They can write-in someone from their community whom they highly respect.

If whining non-voters go to the polls and do one of the above, the political class will take notice.

Otherwise it will continue to do all it can to ensure only their supporters participate.

This Washington Post editorial wonders why President Bush is silent as his allies in the Christian right defame Islam and its founder.

The same, however, cannot be said of some key leaders of the religious right in America who are counted among President Bush's closest political allies. And on their noxious mix of religious bigotry and anti-Muslim demagoguery, Mr. Bush's silence is deafening.

We have in mind several religious conservative leaders who count Mr. Bush as one of their own. There is the Rev. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son and successor and a participant in the president's inauguration, who has declared Islam a "very evil and wicked religion." And there is Christian Coalition founder and television evangelist Pat Robertson, who said that "to think that [Islam] is a peaceful religion is fraudulent." Mr. Robertson, in full attack mode himself, called the prophet Muhammad "an absolute wild-eyed fanatic . . . a robber and brigand . . . a killer." And, in an appearance on the CBS program "60 Minutes" to be broadcast tonight, the Rev. Jerry Falwell completes the demonization of a religion by smearing the prophet of Islam as "a terrorist."

Christopher Lydon and Mary McGrath (the team that used to bring us "The Connection" on National Public Radio) are going to produce a new series called WIDE WORLD: Global Riddles of Identity, Technology and Power.

It is an interesting set of topics, and Lydon and McGrath have proven they know who to produce informative and entertaining programming. Follow the link above to learn more about this new project.

Paul Krugman makes an excellent economic suggestion.

Since the economy needs stimulating now, Krugman argues, how about we find ways to cut taxes today and pay for them by cancelling the future tax cuts.

Krugman suggests another rebate. I think that a cut in the payroll tax would prove more effective.

Andrew Sullivan makes an excellent observation about the New Jersey Senate race controversy:

There is still a choice without the Torch. There are other minor party candidates for whom non-Forrester supporters could vote. And there's a write-in possibility that could be used by the Democrats. The court ruling seems to me to assume that the only valid choice is between Democrats and Republicans as printed on a ballot, a preposterous idea that insults other parties, other views and the voters' intelligence.

I hope Sullivan will remember this when it comes time to decide which candidates get to participate in future candidate debates.

George Will explains why the New Jersey Supreme Court was wrong to allow the Democrats to replace Sen. Robert Torricelli on the ballot.

Torricelli is not dead (being terminally ill, politically, does not count). He is not incapacitated (being ethically challenged does not count). He is not in jail (with his contributor David Chang, one of seven people who pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Torricelli). Were he any of those three there might be grounds for waiving the 51-day limit. But poll results that sadden Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle are not grounds.

The federal government's fiscal year ended on Monday, September 30. So, it is appropriate to take a look at how much the national debt rose in the past year.

$100 billion? You wish. $200 billion? Sorry. $300 billion? Still low. $400 billion? Getting warmer.

The actual amount? Upon further review, we learn that the national debt rose by $420.773 billion in the past 12 months.

Click here to see for yourself.

Doesn't mortgaging the future feel good, America?

Aside: By the way, even in those years when the federal budget was supposedly in surplus, the national debt actually continued to grow. Ask your candidates about it.

Nicholas Kristof notes that while Iraq is one of the most repressive regimes on the planet, its women have far more rights and opportunities than women living in many other Arab nations.

This is not to paint Saddam in a more positive light. But it should make us rethink our support of certain allies. As Kristof writes:

So as we invade Iraq for its barbaric and repressive ways, our allies in the Muslim world should feel deeply embarrassed that a rogue state offers women more equality than they do.

The Wall Street Journal's William McGurn discredits the latest Saudi public relations line about the American women being held against their will inside that country.

He also reports that the House Committee on Government Reform will hold a Congressional hearing into this subject tomorrow. Government Reform Chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) deserves our thanks for his efforts to hold the Saudis accountable for their treatment of these Americans.

Paul Greenberg explains why the Senate will miss Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who is leaving for a better gig with NBC's Law & Order.

E.J. Dionne writes an eulogy for Social Security private account proposals, noting that if candidates live up to their campaign promises the idea is dead for the next several years.

Of course the Democrats are using the issue to great effect on the campaign trial. Republicans, however, left themselves open to this attack by underemphasizing the cost of a transition from today's system to one with private accounts.

Actually, as Dionne notes, not all Republicans made this mistake.

Moreover, it turns out that Sen. John McCain -- a privatization advocate -- was prescient during his 2000 presidential campaign when he said the country couldn't afford both partial Social Security privatization and a large tax cut.

Why? If current benefits are to stay where they are, as the privatizers promise, the transition costs of privatization would run to about $1 trillion. That's because letting those currently working invest a couple of percentage points from their Social Security taxes would drain that money from the system. Where would that cash come from now that we are running deficits instead of large surpluses? And how can privatizers keep their main promise: that their new system would leave individuals better off than they are now? They can't.

Politics, however, will not allow it.