Newsweek's Bubble Burst

Scrappleface has a great parody of the Newsweek cover, Bush Admits He's Trapped in Bubble.

Paying for PR: The Sequel -- Shame on NBC

To confirm my point about the hypocrisy of the MSM media, there's this story today.

Which is worse, for the Pentagon to pay an independent Iraqi press to run factually accurate stories, or for NBC to run yet again demonstrably and obviously false, terrorist propaganda for free? Which is the greater threat to an independent, credible press?

Paying for PR

I must be missing something really basic. I just don't see what all the fuss is about the Pentagon paying the Iraqi press to run positive stories about the war's progress in Iraq. And, I don't see why this is such a threat to freedom of the press there. The American media's furor over this seems entirely hypocritical.

1) It is admitted by everyone on all sides that the stories are factually correct. The Pentagon is not planting false stories; they are paying the Iraqi papers to run true ones. Contrast this with the American MSM's practice of running stories based on fabricated evidence, which they call "fake but accurate." They're too stupid to get paid. Instead they pay others for the privilege, even if it's in quid pro quo favors.

2) The Pentagon is not compelling the Iraqi press to run these stories. True tyranny occurs when the press is merely an extension of the government. The fact that they have to pay shows that the press is independent. Again, the MSM comes out looking stupid by comparison. The NYT and WaPo frequently just repeat Democratic talking points even in supposed news reporting instead of analysis and opinion. They're volunteering to do it, without getting paid. It seems to me that our so-called free press is less independent than the Iraqis. The MSM is often merely a too-willing extension of the DNC.

3) The Pentagon does not have an exclusive arrangement with the Iraqi press. Though they may be paying to run these stories, there's nothing that keeps the Iraqis from running counter stories as well. Freedom of the press is compromised when only propaganda is printed. Surely, there's more question about the propagandizing role of the American MSM than the Iraqi press.

4) Almost every organization in the U.S. -- whether business, nonprofit organization, labor union -- has a PR department whose primary role is to get stories planted in the papers, and these are very successful. The press often run so-called quotes from interviews that are no more than PR-planted statements.

5) We are at war. Propaganda is increasingly a part of war.

I simply do not see what President Bush and the Pentagon have to be so apologetic about.

Sho 'Nuf

As I posted earlier, it is evident that the new Democratic strategy is to claim credit for the unfolding of Bush's Iraq policy. Democrat mouthpiece at the Washington Post David Broder writes that there are "new signs of an Iraq policy" formulated by the Democrats.

It has taken a long time, but the Democrats finally have come close to defining a sensible common ground on the issue of Iraq. ... [The] outlines of such a position emerged last week in speeches by two respected Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden of Delaware and Barack Obama of Illinois.

Biden, the committee's senior Democrat, said in New York that it is time to scale back U.S. ambitions in Iraq and reduce troop commitment while shifting security responsibilities to the Iraqis. ... What must happen to make it possible, they agree, is a significant acceleration in the training of Iraqi security forces and in the civil reconstruction projects needed to give Iraqis a sense of hope—both of which will require a change in priorities and an improvement in operations by U.S. forces.

John Henke reacts.

So, after 2 years of debating Iraq policy, the Democrats have decided that training Iraqi security forces to take over and reducing US deployments as they do—"as Iraq stands up, we will stand down"—is the best course in Iraq? And this epiphany, David Broder writes, may have "pointed the administration and the country toward a realistic and modestly hopeful course on Iraq."

What the...?!?!?! This has been the strategy all along. . . . This was the strategy Bush enunciated in August of 2003, September of 2003, May of 2004, and many other times. It was the strategy outlined in this May 2004 "Fact Sheet: The Transition to Iraqi Self-Government".

The Democrats have not come up with a new Iraq Policy. They've jumped onboard the Bush administration's existing policy, with the novel new suggestion that we stay the course...but try harder.

Henke has links to the original Bush statements on his blog.

Cindy Sheehan's Book Signing

You have to admire AP/Reuters creativity in making it look like Cindy Sheehan still has an audience. Compare photos of the actual response to her book signing with the one they ran (at bottom).

Show and Tell: A Photo Essay

Great pictures of Iraqi school shildren at Michael Yon's site.

The Opinionated Bastard

Donald Sensing's summary comes from this blog: The Opinionated Bastard: I scooped the New York Times

Dem Election Strategy

Donald Sensing has an analysis of Democrat strategy on his blog, OneHandClapping.

He begins with a summary of the original DoD strategy for the war in Iraq:

The war plan, for good or ill has never been to occupy the country. It’s always been the plan for the Iraqis to provide security in their own country. ...

Instead of installing a puppet government, we’ve spent 2.5 years building up an Iraqi one. ... In other words, instead of going into Iraq and trying to run the country … we’ve done the minimal amount of work to keep Iraq in a holding pattern until the Iraqis could run it.

[Quoting a DOD source:] We can confirm that the plan is, in fact, to reduce the size of Coalition Forces in country in 2006. It’s big news inasmuch as the Iraqis are increasing the size and strength of their footprint and, by the same token, we’re reducing ours.

Now, many Democrats previously acknowledged that this has been the plan all along. Joe Biden, for example, harangued Condoleeza Rice during her confirmation hearings about the lack of speed in training Iraqi troops. His questioning made no sense unless all agreed that this was the plan for ultimate withdrawal.

It has also been very clear from the beginning that specific milestones were to be achieved before withdrawal: appointing an interim government, drafting a constitution, holding elections for a permanent government. President Bush has been unwavering -- some would say stubborn -- in his commitment to these milestones. Now that these milestones are nearing achievement, some level of withdrawal can be contemplated.

Sensing continues:

So, knowing that the plan was to redeploy troops beginning next year, the Democrats decided to get in front of the wave: Demand the troops be sent home NOW and then when the Pentagon announces the plan to redeploy, take credit for it.

The two prongs of the attack serve two purposes. The “Bush lied us into war” wing satisfies the huge numbers of the party’s base suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. The “declare victory and go home” attack preserves, however weakly, the party’s appeal to traditionally patriotic Democratic voters, of which there are also huge numbers. Doubtless the Dem leadership sees the attacks as a two-fer.

The appeals to both wings are intended to garner huge dividends in November 2006.

With any president but George W. Bush, they’d be wrong. But GWB is the easiest president to blind side that I have seen in my life. The fact is, the Dem plan is working like a dream for them. GWB has been simply flattened by this one-two punch. For someone whose allies say can play rope-a-dope politically better than M. Ali could in the ring, he and his advisors have been amazingly inept in meeting this strategy.

Be prepared next year for the Democrats to take credit for and campaign on rescuing the country from the Iraq quagmire as US troop levels are reduced. And if the security situation in Iraq does not permit significant reductions, well, that will work fine, too. It’ll be back to the charges of mismangement of a manipulated war.

Journalists such as Nina Easton of the Boston Globe are already talking about how the Republicans are modifying their stance in response to pressure from the Democrats. This is revisionism.

Kennedy Inadvertently Bashes Colleagues Who Voted For the War

From The Political Teen, who has the video:

Russert: But Senator, what the Democrats stood for on the floor of the Senate in 2002, let me show you who said what I just read: John Kerry, your candidate for president. He was talking about a nuclear threat from Saddam Hussein. Hillary Clinton voted for the war. John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry. Democrats said the same things about Saddam Hussein. You yourself said quote “Saddam is dangerous, he’s got dangerous weapons.” It wasn’t just the Bush White House.

Kennedy: (with a stricken look): The fact is — and I voted against the war — because every military leader, highly decorated military leader, said it was foolish to have a military intervention. General Hoar, with the Marines, General Hoar who has more silver stars than you could possibly count, said that if we go into Baghdad, it will look like the last five minutes of Private Ryan. So, we know we had enough information to vote against it, I believe.

TigerHawk writes:

Hanging off Russert’s hook, Ted Kennedy made it clear that “we had enough information” to vote against the war ex-ante, effectively denouncing the very idea that pro-war Democrats can rely on the excuse that they “were misled.”

Kennedy can't have it both ways. Either the Senate did have enough information to vote against the war, or they did not because it was hidden from them. Which is it?

Very important post

Now here's a very important topic. Why do so many people hate Duke basketball?

Clinton and Iraq

Just Google it. Clinton and Irag, 1998.

Bush Lied!

I read this article by Norman Podhoretz in Commentary. It is now available on Opinion Journal. I've heard this is the article that finally provoked President Bush to go on the counter attack.

Peter F. Drucker, a Pioneer in Social and Management Theory, Is Dead at 95

Here's Peter Drucker's obituary at the NYT.

Personality Quiz

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The Original Management Guru

I just read that Peter Drucker died yesterday at age 95. This is a great loss. Although his language in such classics as The Effective Executive is dated, his thoughts on management philosophy and social commentary continue to be influential. I was greatly helped by his advice always to "feed your strengths." This struck me as a very humble philosophy. It recognizes that we all have strengths and weaknesses and time is too short to spend a whole lot of time trying to perfect our weakness, a task that may be impossible anyway (if one is tone deaf, one is tone deaf). It is far better to admit our need for a team. The smart manager surrounds himself/herself with people whose strengths complement his/her weaknesses.

The Wall Street Journal is running an old editorial on Drucker, written originally to celebrate his 90th birthday. It's a good one.

Wilson

Joe Wilson is popping up everywhere again. It's very odd that his story still has traction even though almost every point in it has long been known to be false.

The full bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on prewar intelligence is available at globalsecurity.org at this link.

The account of Joe Wilson's mission begins on page 39. The 3rd paragraph says (brackets with open spaces indicate deleted classified material):

The former ambassador had traveled previously to Niger on the CIA’s behalf [ ] . The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region [ ] . Because the former ambassador did not uncover any information about DELETED during this visit to Niger, CPD did not distribute an intelligence report on the visit

The report also says,

The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife “offered up his name” and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador’s wife says, “my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.

So, let's be clear.

Wilson claimed the Vice President asked him to go to Niger. That's a lie! His wife did.

Wilson said that he wrote up a report for the Vice President. That's a lie! He gave an oral report to low-level CIA debriefers in his own home with his wife acting as hostess. No report about his trip was ever written up because it was considered so inconsequential.

Wilson claimed that during his trip he exposed certain documents as forgeries. That's a lie! These documents didn't show up till 8 months after his trip. He never saw them, and they were immediately recognized as forgeries by all concerned. They never figured in to anyone's intelligence estimates.

After at first embracing Wilson, Kerry ran away from him as fast as he could lest he be associated with such a blatant liar. Yet now because of propaganda value of the Libby indictment, the Democrats are scurrying to Wilson again.

There's a very interesting article over at RealClearPolitics by Clarice Feldman about the irregularities of the Joe Wilson mission. The insinuation that there was an anti-administration conspiracy within the CIA may be farfetched, but the questions she raises are all very valid.

Bill Bennett

LaShawn Barber has an interesting perspective on Bill Bennett's remarks.

The Real Reason

From today's New York Times:

The second factor in Ms. Miller's decision to go before the grand jury was a change in the position of the special prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald, concerning the scope of the questions she would be asked, according to Mr. Abrams. Mr. Fitzgerald only recently agreed to confine his questions to Ms. Miller's conversations with Mr. Libby concerning the identification of Ms. Wilson, Mr. Abrams said.

This is very obviously the real reason Judith Miller has refused to testify in the past. She is protecting some other source. She had a release from "Scooter" Libby over a year ago. I still think Joe Wilson himself was the source of this information.

School

I've just completed my first full week as a full-time student on campus at Southern Seminary. It's been very strange. I have only one class with fellow students within 20 years of my age, and in that class there's only a couple. The guys I've most enjoyed talking to are barely older than my own sons. I've been tempted often to question what I'm doing here. Starting over is tough! But, I've had some good devotional times this week. I will need to cultivate the old Christian discipline of watching.

I'm taking more than a full load, six courses instead of the usual four, because two of them are prerequisite courses I'd like to get out of the way. I'm paying the price for goofing off my freshman year in college 33 years ago, when I took my only English Comp course and did not do well enough to avoid taking a basic writing course here at Southern. I suppose, since I took many writing-intensive courses, including English Literature, subsequent to that, with As, I could appeal that decision. But, I have read far too much poor writing over the years to think that anyone is above taking a remedial course.

I am also taking Elementary Greek, again. This is a refresher. I've had both Classical and Koine Greek in the past, but it's been so long that I don't think I could pass a placement test. I haven't thought about a Greek verb conjugation or noun declension in many years though I've used my Greek New Testament regularly, both devotionally and in preparing to teach. I've bought a number of supplemental books to make the course more interesting.

Those are my two prerequisites. I'm also taking Early Church History, Systematic Theology I, Old Testament Theology, and Personal Spiritual Disciplines. We have the choice of Grudem's text or Erickson's for Systematics. I've read through Grudem's a couple times on my own. I plan to reread it as part of this course, but I'm going to read Erickson's, too, to get a different perspective.

Of all my assignments, I am most interested in the position paper I will have to write for Systematics. We have our choice of several topics in the doctrine of scripture and the doctrine of God. We need to present, succinctly, alternate positions, on the doctrine, state our own position, and argue for it. I have already settled on my topic: God's relation to time. Does God exist within time; that is, is he everlasting? Or, does God exist outside of time; is he eternal? If he does not exist within time, how can he have meaningful, personal relations with his creation? I intend to study Paul Helm's book very closely, as well as Craig's and Hasker's.

It will be interesting to see how this semester unfolds ...

Name Change?

One of the things that stood out in today's New York Times article about Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame is that the article refers to her as Valerie Wilson throughout. I've run a google search to check whether they've ever done this before. As best I can tell, they haven't; they've referred to her consistently as Valerie Plame. Why the switch?

Could it be that they are trying to add credibility to their story that a State Department memo, rather than journalists, was the source of Rove's information? The blatantly obvious flaw in their previous story was that said State Department memo referred to her as Valerie Wilson, a name no one involved in this case has ever used to refer to her. How could Rove have learned the woman's name from this State Department memo, if the name he "outted" was Plame and the memo never uses that name?

Judge Roberts

I don't know much about Roberts, but I like his response to Sen. Schumer, found at Townhall.com:

My own judicial philosophy begins with an appreciation of the limited role of a judge in our system of divided powers. Judges are not to legislate and are not to execute the laws. . . . My judicial philosophy accordingly insists upon some rigor in ensuring that judges properly confine themselves to the adjudication of the case before them, and seek neither to legislate broadly not to administer the law generally in deciding that case.

Deciding the case . . . . requires an essential humility grounded in the properly limited role of an undemocratic judiciary in a democratic republic, a humility reflected in doctrines of deference to legislative policy judgments and embodied in the often misunderstood term “judicial restraint.” That restraint does not mean that judges should not act against the popular will. . . .[T]he framers expected them to be discerning the law, not shaping policy. That means the judges should not look to their own personal views or preferences in deciding the cases before them. Their commission is no license to impose those preferences from the bench.

This answer did not satsfy Schumer, of course; he voted against him for the appeals court. Schumer, et al, are committed to an unconstitutional policy-making role for the courts.

I'd like to hear more about Roberts's hermeneutic: that's the key! That and the fortitude to remain committed to it.

Debunking NYT's Wilson Nonsense

Captain's Quarters points out errors and omissions in today's New York Times story about Wilson, speculating that a State Department memo may actually have been Rove's source of information about Valerie Plame rather than journalists. The Captain, however, saves to the end the most obvious error: the memo had Valerie Plame's name wrong.

But along the way, he highlights yet again the 9/11 commission report exposing Joe Wilson's lies.

Update:

Good summary of Wilson/Plame story Linkfest: Plame/Wilson Spins Out of Control (HT: Instapundit)

ABC on Bib Laden/Sadam Connection

Now this, found on Power Line, is really amazing: tape from an ABC story in 1998, when the Democrats claimed there was a link between Bin Laden and Sadam Hussein. Now, the Democratic/MSM story line is that Bush made the whole thing up. As I said, yesterday about the NYT, they have no shame.

Despicable Headline

I've previously commented on how subscribing to the New York Time turned me into a more active conservative. I've reacted to their blatant bias. No where is this more obvious than in their headlines. Often the headlines distort and sensationalize the story. Today's headline on Karl Rove is a great example: Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer. The headline makes it seem that Rove initiated a conference call to spread information about a CIA officer, he "held a phone talk." But what did he really do, according to the story? He answered the phone. A reporter called him. He answered it. The reporter steered the conversation to Wilson, shared gossip about his wife, and Rove said, "I heard that, too." This is "holding a phone talk?" The New York Times' headline writers have no shame.

Weren't they going to try to recapture some of their old credibility, as the "paper of record?" This is not the way to do it!

Not a Clandestine Officer

Here is the transcript of Wolf Blitzer's interview with Joe Wilson. Note especially the following exchange:

BLITZER: But the other argument that's been made against you is that you've sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.

What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you.

WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.

This is typical Wilson: he wants to have it both ways. He advocates firing Rove for blowing the cover of a clandestine officer, but, then, when he might be criticized he admits she was not a clandestine officer at all. Joe Wilson has been exposed repeatedly as a liar, motivated solely by attacking Bush.

There is no scandal here. Even if Rove did name Plame, which by Cooper's account he didn't, he did nothing wrong. Plame was not a clandestine officer.

If there ever was a question about liberal bias in the media, this manufactured scandal settles it. NPR was feverish this morning in propagating this non-story.

Update from the Washington Post:

Sources who have reviewed some of the testimony before the grand jury say there is significant evidence that reporters were in some cases alerting officials about Plame's identity and relationship to Wilson -- not the other way around.

Clueless about Economics

More irony from Hillary Clinton. In the Aspen speech in which she accused Bush of being clueless, she demagogued, the 'ups and downs of the global oil market cost the U.S. economy $7 trillion last year . . . almost enough to pay off our entire national debt.' The problem with this is that our total GDP in 2004 was only $11.735 trillion. Energy goods accounted for $250 billion.

Her cluelessness about basic economics is scary! She must be working with Paul Krugman.

The Karl Rove Pseudo-Scandal

The Power Line guys have posted today's WSJ editorial on the so-called Karl Rove scandal, making it avaliable without registration. They also link to several of their previous stories on the same topic. It's a good refresher on the basics of the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson affair.

It was Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.

Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission.

Andrea Mitchell reluctantly admitted on MSNBC this past weekend that it was alreeady generally known among the news media that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, so Karl Rove certainly did not out Ms. Plame to anyone. Even the Newsweek article makes it clear that Rove didn't know the woman's name nor her role at the CIA. Even if he did, it's clear, even as admitted by the NYT and WaPo that no crime was committed. Why then this feeding frenzy over Rove?

My own suspicion is that Judith Miller, or some other reporter, was Cooper's primary source for the Plame/Wilson connection; Cooper took Rove's innocent statements as confirmation of the connection; and the MSM is now trying to pin this on Rove.

Ultimately, the NYT's position is untenable. On the one hand, they have argued that no crime was committed, and they celebrate Miller's integrity for not revealing her source. On the other hand, they are going after Rove as "the source" and claim that he ought to be fired for this "crime." The NYT is trying to manufacture a scandal out of nothing.

Bork about the Supreme Court

Bork had a great editorial on Sunday: "The combination of absolute power, disdain for the historic Constitution, and philosophical incompetence is lethal."

Mark R. Levin on Judicial Nominees on National Review Online

I agree with Mark R. Levin:

"We conservatives didn't pick this fight, but we must win it. It began with the assault on Bob Bork, and too many sat passively while it happened. Meanwhile, President Clinton's activist nominees, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both sailed through the confirmation process. They weren't smeared. Their video-rental records weren't combed through. Their trash cans weren't searched. Witnesses weren't called to testify with phony stories about pubic hair on coke cans. But now is the time to put an end to this. Thanks to the Left and its insistence on judicial supremacy, the constitutional, economic, cultural, and political stakes are too high to ignore."

neo-neocon

This blog is new to me. I'm starting to see links to it on many sites. The author's journey from liberal to conservative makes for very interesting reading.

Why the Battle for the Court Will Be Nasty

I'm eager to start blogging again, especially about Supreme Court nominees, but it will take us some time to get out from under all our boxes. In the meantime, here is a great article by Brian C. Anderson, author of South Park Conservatives, about nomination nastiness.

I have not read many of Sandra Day O'Connor's opinions; I found her concurring opinion in Lawrence v. Texas almost incoherent. Here's to getting a more rigorous, consistent thinker on the court!

Moved!

We've passed another milestone in pursuing my career change: we're now in Louisville. We closed on our new house last Thursday and moved in on Friday. We still have unpacked boxes all over the place. This house is much smaller than our home in Connecticut. Even though we got rid of alot of our stuff, we still have too much. It will take us some time to figure out where to put it all.

Independent-mindedness

I find Juan Williams's contributions to Fox News mildly amusing. I especially enjoyed his very passionate exclamation, today, about the three Republicans who at "at last" showed some independence of mind by voting against William Pryor. He often portrays Republicans as incapable of independent thought. Not once does it ever occur to him that only one Democrat, Ben Nelson (D, Nebraska) voted against their party line.

No Smoking Gun

Some great lines in an editorial about the Downing Street Memo by Michael Kinsley, today:

Developing a paranoid theory and promoting it to the very edge of national respectability takes a certain amount of ideological self-confidence. It takes a critical mass of citizens with extreme views and the time and energy to obsess about them. It takes a promotional infrastructure and the widely shared self-discipline to settle on a story line, disseminate it and stick to it.

Kinsley focusses only on the hearsay nature of this evidence: the memo is a summary of a discussion of C's impressions of the impressions of others of Bush's possible attitude. But Kinsley still accepts the weird and illiterate interpretation of the word "fixed" to mean "changed."

Did Kerry really release Navy records?

So, Kerry's must be covering something up. For a month he claimed to have signed the form, but then it turned out he hadn't mailed it. He's spent years trying to figure out how to have it both ways, again: signing the form without actually disclosing any information.

Chicago Sun Times:

There is nothing magic about signing a SF 180,' said former Naval Judge Advocate General Mark Sullivan. 'It is sort of like your checkbook. You can fill out a check for one dollar or a million. It is the same check form.'

'And the Globe story says Kerry sent it to the Navy Personnel Command, which is only a limited storage location. So it is not surprising that the Globe then notes that what they received was largely 'duplication' of records previously released. The Navy Personnel Command primarily stores a subset of service records rather than a person's full military records. There is no doubt there are a lot of after-action records missing from what Kerry has released,' said Sullivan.

Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has already found a discrepancy confirmed by the Department of the Navy of 'at least a hundred pages' missing from those already disclosed by Kerry.

So how an SF 180 is filled out is as important as signing it. But no one in the press has yet claimed to have seen a copy of Kerry's SF-180. When asked if she had a copy of Kerry's SF 180, the Globe's Managing Editor Mary Jane Wilkinson said, 'I haven't seen it, and I don't know if anyone here has.'

Anything but the Bible!

Students at Karns Elementary School in Knoxville, TN, are allowed to read anything but the Bible during recess.

Intolerance in the Bible Belt:

Instead of bullying, fighting or other typical recess pastimes, Luke Whitson was reading. But his choice of literature has stirred the constitutional and cultural sensitivities of a public school principal.

Karns Elementary School Principal Cathy Summa 'abruptly interrupted certain fourth-grade students while they were in the midst of a Bible discussion during recess, demanded that they stop their activity at once, put their Bibles away and, from that point forward, cease from bringing their Bibles to school.' So, the Pentagon buys Korans and prayer carpets for Islamist terrorists, but a fourth-grader isn't allowed to read the Bible during recess? What wonderful ways our society condones stupendous hypocrisy.

The Knoxville school system argues that recess is not 'free time,' during which, apparently, students are considered out of the classroom environment and allowed to engage in harmless pursuits, like playing, gossiping and -- yes -- reading.

It's a fine mess that liberal activists have made for us: Defend the right to practice all religions -- except Christianity. They fight to fund government agencies that support artists who dip the cross in urine or splatter Mary with cow feces, but call upon the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions whenever a Koran is accidentally "kicked." It's unfortunate that young Luke has received such an early lesson in liberal intolerance.

From the Washington Times editorial page. Text of the Alliance Defense Fund's complaint is here.

Economists Set Priorities to Combat Disease and Poverty

The Copenhagen Consensus assesses the cost/benefit of investments in development projects addressing ten major challenges in the world, characterizing them as very good, good, fair, and bad. Projects to combat AIDS/HIV are very good, ranking as the highest priority; the Kyoto protocol is a bad investment with very high cost and little benefit. They also consider guest worker programs to be a bad investment.

The link to the .pdf file with their full list is here.

CFJ Reply to Boxer

The Committee for Justice has a response to Sen. Boxer's accusations against Janice Rogers Brown, yesterday.

108 Died In U.S. Custody

I was shocked when Ceci Connelly claimed on Fox News Special Report that close to 100 Iraqi and Afghani detainees have been murdered by U.S. troops. She is the least capable of the commentators on Special Report, so my expectations are always low when she's on. Last night was especially poor. She fumbled often, able only to cite Abu Ghraib as evidence for widespread, systemic abuse. Under some pressure, she claimed that 100 murders elsewhere have been documented.

I have been searching for such documentation. The closest thing I can find is this March story from CBS News, saying that 108 have died while in U.S. custody. However, this number includes those who died from natural causes, and the second sentence in the story says that one quarter of these may have been caused by abuse. These cases warrant investigation.

This is much more consistent with the number I've read previously, 27. It'll be interesting to see if there is any follow up on this tonight.

Hillary's Harangue

Senator Clinton continues the Democratic smear of Republicans:

I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth.

This strikes me as very risky on her part: there are web sites documenting her false claims, outright lies, and bizarre behavior.

My favorite is her claim to have been named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who was a completely unknown beekeeper when she was born and did not climb Mt. Everest until five years later.

The Definitive Story about the Press's Role in Watergate

The definitive story about Watergate was written nearly 31 years ago, in the July, 1974, Commentary article by Edward Jay Epstein.

But who was “Deep Throat” and what was his motivation for disclosing information to Woodward and Bernstein? The prosecutors at the Department of Justice now believe that the mysterious source was probably Mark W. Felt, Jr., who was then a deputy associate director of the FBI, because one statement the reporters attribute to “Deep Throat” could only have been made by Felt. (I personally suspect that in the best traditions of the New Journalism, “Deep Throat” is a composite character.) Whether or not the prosecutors are correct, it is clear that the arduous and time-consuming investigation by Woodward and Bernstein of Segretti was heavily based on FBI “302” reports, which must ultimately have been made available by someone in the FBI. The prosecutors suggest that there was a veritable revolt against the directorship of L. Patrick Gray, because he was “too liberal.” Specifically, he was allowing agents to wear colored shirts, grow their hair long, and was even recruiting women. More important, he had publicly reprimanded an FBI executive. According to this theory, certain FBI executives released the “302” files, not to expose the Watergate conspiracy or drive President Nixon from office, but simply to demonstrate to the President that Gray could not control the FBI, and therefore would prove a severe embarrassment to his administration. In other words, the intention was to get rid of Gray.

This past week's orgy of press self-congratulation and defense of anonymous sources has been very convenient for the Washington Post and its sister publication, Newsweek, but this is an old, familiar story. The only interesting thing about it is how little the press has changed.

A sustaining myth of journalism holds that every great government scandal is revealed through the work of enterprising reporters who by one means or another pierce the official veil of secrecy. The role that government institutions themselves play in exposing official misconduct and corruption therefore tends to be seriously neglected, if not wholly ignored, in the press. This view of journalistic revelation is propagated by the press even in cases where journalists have had palpably little to do with the discovery of corruption.

'My brain made me do it'

A story on advances on neuroscience and their effect on views of freedom and responsibility. Ties this discussion to the recent SCOTUS case, Roper v. Simmons, where the death penalty is prohibited because of the immaturity of a teenager's brain.

Intellectual Capital: Michael McGough

A Study in Abuse

Good article by John Hinderaker on handling the Koran at Gitmo. A Study in Abuse

Gulag Guantanamo Equivalency Test

Good comparison of Guantanamo and Soviet Gulag at The New Republic Online: TNR Online

At It Again

The 9/11 Commission Report was a must read last year. However, the commission's recommendations did not really follow from its analysis. It reminded me of an MBA case study group assignment: the students invariably make the same set of recommendations, including organizational realignments to solve "the communication problem" -- there's always a communication problem -- regardless of the specifics of the case. The commission was so sure of itself, though, that its members forced wholesale implementation of its recommendations on the administration, making it a campaign issue. The sheer arrogance of the commission was spectacular.

Now , they're at it again. They have simply decided to anoint themselves the guardians of American anti-terrorism policy.

The five Democrats and five Republicans who made up the panel are returning together to the public stage - this time, solely as private citizens and without subpoena power - to investigate the government's response to terrorist threats. The 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which has a small staff based in Washington, is underwritten by several prominent private foundations, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Stem Cell Advances

Would this advance have occurred if Bush had not stood his ground?

In recent months, a number of researchers have begun to assemble intriguing evidence that it is possible to generate embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy new human embryos.

The research is still young and largely unpublished, and in some cases it is limited to animal cells. ...

... the gathering consensus among biologists is that embryonic stem cells are made, not born -- and that embryos are not an essential ingredient. That means that today's heated debates over embryo rights could fade in the aftermath of technical advances allowing scientists to convert ordinary cells into embryonic stem cells.

'That would really get around all the moral and ethical concerns,' said James F. Battey, chief of the stem cell task force at the National Institutes of Health. The techniques under study qualify for federal grant support because embryos are not harmed, he noted. And eventually the work could boost the number of stem cell colonies, or lines, available for study by taxpayer-supported researchers."

No Evidence

Yesterday, William Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, admitted that the organization has no real evidence to substantiate its leaders' outrageous accusations against the Bush administration. Despite that, he affirms that the US maintains a gulag archipelago, a network of secret detention centers around the world so secret no one has any evidence they exist but no one can disprove they don't.

Adding to his gulag metaphor, he equated the Bush administration to Latin American dictatorships and the tragedy of the "desaparecidos." Schulz, of course, has no substantiation for this either, nor does he recognize any difference between a regime oppressing its own people and a nation at war.

Having admitted he doesn't really know what is happening anywhere, he claims the whole point of his accusations is to force the administration to permit an independent investigation: "'We don't know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo and our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent human rights organizations to investigate,' Mr. Schulz said, adding that Amnesty International was careful to use the word 'alleged' when accusing high-level Bush administration officials." This, of course, has become the liberal Democratic strategy: make outrageous, unsubstantiated accusations to force an "investigation," a fishing expedition to land more "evidence" to feed the cycle of exagerration.

Shulz's claims of independence are not credible. Here are some highlights from his bio on the Amnesty International USA's web site.

"Dr. William F. Schulz was appointed Executive Director of Amnesty International (USA) in March, 1994. An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, he came to Amnesty after serving for fifteen years with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA), the last eight (1985-93) as President of the Association.

During his years with Amnesty he has traveled extensively, both in the US and abroad, including a 2004 trip to Cuba under the sponsorship of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

From 1985-93 he served on the Council of the International Association for Religious Freedom, the oldest international interfaith organization in the world. Throughout his career he has been outspoken in his opposition to the death penalty and his support for women's rights, gay and lesbian rights and racial justice, having organized, participated in demonstrations and written extensively on behalf of all four causes.

Dr. Schulz has served on the boards of People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Communitarian Network and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, among others."

He also contributed the maximum allowable to Bush's opponent, John Kerry, in the last presidential election.

Given this man's background, it would be hard not to conclude he has an anti-evangelical, anti-Republican, pro-abortion, pro-gay-lobby bias. This is yet another formerly-respectable organization I have to write off.

Stem Cells in Hollywood

Scarlett Johansson explains why she favors embryonic stem cell research, “I mean, if they could eliminate diseases like Alzheimer’s and polio that would be incredible."
Moviehole.net

Apparently, she has not heard of the Salk vaccine nor the World Health Organization's pronouncement that polio has been eradicated. Neither is she familiar with this scandal: Of Stem Cells and Fairy Tales

"'PEOPLE NEED A FAIRY TALE,' Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss, explaining why scientists have allowed society to believe wrongly that stem cells are likely to effectively treat Alzheimer's disease. 'Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line that's relatively simple to understand.'

Here's the story: Researchers have apparently known for some time that embryonic stem cells will not be an effective treatment for Alzheimer's, because as two researchers told a Senate subcommittee in May, it is a 'whole brain disease,' rather than a cellular disorder (such as Parkinson's). This has generally been kept out of the news. But now, Washington Post correspondent Rick Weiss, has blown the lid off of the scam, reporting that while useful abstract information might be gleaned about Alzheimer's through embryonic stem cell research, 'stem cell experts confess . . . that of all the diseases that may be someday cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit.'"

It's silly to jump on a statement by such a young actress, but this is all too typical of the misunderstanding surrounding this issue. One of the panel discussions on last weekend's news programs had a panelist chastising Bush for banning stem cell treatments. This betrayed ignorance on a few levels.

First, there is no ban on stem cell research; there are restrictions of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Second, if the cure for so many diseases is just around the corner using embryonic stem cells, those profit-hungry drug and biotech companies are free to develop them. The fact that none have raises the question as to how imminent these cures really are, doesn't it? If the situation were as many advocates claim, wouldn't the profiteers be in a mad rush to be the first to market with these cures?

Third, the only stem cell treatments that exist are not embryonic, but adult stem cells and umbilical cord stem cells. There are no restrictions on these. And, these are very promising. Every pro-life advocate is strongly in favor of encouraging these therapies.

So long as these Hollywood types continue to use their celebrity to draw attention to this issue and publicity-seeking politicians take advantage of reflected celebrity, we will continue to hear myths and fairy tales.

Political Thought: A Reading Program

Wonderful post at the Evangelical Outpost by Greg Forster, Ph.D. Yale, on required reading for development of political thought, beginning with Plato.

Expert Witness: Greg Forster on Political Thought

More on Gulag Guantanamo

The Washington Times story by Michelle Malkin on Guantanamo.

Power Line

"The Republicans who negotiated this deal got fleeced." Power Line

I agree.

Hey, Howard!

Yesterday's claim by Howard Dean that many Republicans have never earned an honest living in their lives strikes me as especially ironic coming from the head of the party that must rely on illegal voting by felons to win elections.

The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA:

On average, 74 percent of felons would have voted Democratic in presidential and U.S. Senate elections dating back to 1972, according to the study’s analysis of demographic and voting data.

Of Democratic presidential candidates, the study predicts that Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 re-election campaign would have gotten the highest percentage of felon votes, at 85.4 percent. Jimmy Carter’s failed 1980 re-election would have gotten the lowest, at 66.5 percent.

A state GOP-funded study by Jonathan Katz, a political science professor at the California Institute of Technology, estimates that Gregoire received 66.3 percent of the illegal felon votes.

And a study by Tony Gill, an associate political science professor at the University of Washington, estimates that Gregoire received 60.1 percent of felon votes in King County, Gregoire’s base and home to by far the largest number of illegal felon votes the GOP says were cast.

Compared with the national study, published in 2002 in the American Sociological Review, Gill writes that his study’s estimate “is too conservative, giving Ms. Gregoire the benefit of the doubt. In other words, the rate at which felons vote for a Democratic candidate is likely to be higher than the estimates provided by the precinct-level of analysis here.

The Democrats are so dependent on the felon vote that Hilary Clinton, John Kerry and others are pushing to force every state to enfranchise felons. John Fund on the Trail:

The Constitution grants states the authority to determine 'the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections,' but Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are pushing a Count Every Vote Act that would, among other things, force states to allow voters to register at the polls and declaring Election Day a federal holiday. And then they want to force every state to let felons vote--even though the 14th Amendment specifically permits states to disfranchise citizens convicted of 'participation in rebellion, or other crime.'

Forty-eight states deny the vote to at least some felons; only Vermont and Maine let jailbirds vote. Thirty-three states withhold the right to vote from those on parole. Eight deny felons the vote for life, unless they petition to have their rights restored, and the Clinton-Kerry proposal would force them to enfranchise felons (or 'ex-felons,' as Mrs. Clinton misleadingly calls them) once they've completed parole.

Mrs. Clinton says she is pushing her bill because she is opposed to 'disenfranchisement of legitimate American voters.' But it's hard not to suspect partisan motives. In a 2003 study, sociologists Chistopher Uggen and Jeff Manza found that roughly 4.2 million had been disfranchised nationwide, a third of whom had completed their prison time or parole. Taking into account the lower voter turnout of felons, they concluded that about one-third of them would vote in presidential races, and that would have overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates. Participation by felons, Messrs. Uggen and Manza estimated, also would have allowed Democrats to win a series of key U.S. Senate elections, thus allowing the party to control the Senate continuously from 1986 until at least this January.

Amnesty International's 'Gulags'

At one time Amnesty International was a respectable organization, but in just a few days they have undermined all their credibility. Equating Guantanamo with the Soviet gulag where an estimated 20 million slave laborers met their deaths is absurd.

For those who don't remember the gulags, here's an excellent summary. The Jawa Report: The Gulag Archipelego vs. Amnesty International's 'Gulags'

As the Wall Street Journal says, "A 'human rights' group that can't distinguish between Stalin's death camps and detention centers for terrorists who kill civilians can't be taken seriously."

Dean's Latest

I just watched excerpts from Howard Dean's latest speech. I haven't found a full transcript, yet, but here's a link to the USA Today story on-line.

I'm always amazed by those who somehow blame Bush for the "division" in the country, but never compare Republican statements with those of Democratic leaders: "But, [Dean] said, Republicans . . . have never made an honest living in their lives." He also "hates Republicans."

Dean regards his anti-Christian stump speech in California one of the highlights of his presidential campaign. In an interview he remembers: "'Finally I said I am tired of taking orders from the fundamentalist preachers any more, and when I said that, the entire room exploded. Everybody felt that this incredibly oppressive group of people had taken over the country and there was no reason to hope anymore."

This is the man that's going to expand the Democratic party?

Update:

Video available at Trey Jackson's site

The Krugman Contest

I sometimes look back over my posts on this blog and wonder how I became such a conservative; I never would have imagined it several years ago.

One of the major turning points for me of course, as for many others, was the Bork hearings in 1987. I took away a deeply abiding distrust of Biden and Leahy: they are masters of smear without conscience. But even those hearings only effected a slight, and reluctant, change in political orientation.

One of the most recent influences, however, has been the New York Times and its columnists. I subscribed to the NYT for a couple years when commuting weekly to Boston. I had a little apartment there, with nothing to do outside of my work hours except read newspapers and watch TV. Rather than subscribe to the Boston Globe, I chose to take the NYT since I could learn what was in the Globe at the lunch table every day. I found the blatant bias in the NYT very offputting -- the misuse of statistics, especially.

I often read the NYT with a calculator because I discovered the most telling facts were often buried in the articles, contradicting the headlines. A good, recent and typical example, though after my two-year subscription, was the NYT's reporting on Bush's proposal to "cut Medicaid spending by $10 billion." An alert reader with a calculator could mine the truth out of that article: Bush proposed a $2.5 billion reduction in the $30 billion automatic annual increase in the federal Medicaid budget over 4 years. In other words, Bush proposed a reduction in the rate of automatic increase from 15% to 13.75%, a very reasonable proposal and not at all the dramatic cut in spending the NYT attempted to mislead their readers into believing. The numbers were actually in the article -- cleverly disguised.

Nowhere is this distortion more rampant that in Paul Krugman's columns. Donald Okrent, the NYT's departing readers' representative, is finally coming clean about Krugman.

Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers . . . I laid off for so long because I also believe that columnists are entitled by their mandate to engage in the unfair use of statistics, the misleading representation of opposing positions, and the conscious withholding of contrary data. But because they’re entitled doesn’t mean I or you have to like it, or think it’s good for the newspaper.

Krugman is the Biden/Leahy of economics: truth is expendible, the smear is all.

The Krugman Truth Squad has a contest for the best-ever, most-outrageous Krugman statements in six categories. This ought to be fun.

Programs in Bridgeport

The Connecticut Post: describes a day-long prgram in one of Bridgeport's public high schools:

"Back-to-back presentations included talks by students from Newtown High School's elective sociology class — that features a study unit on gender and sexual orientation — discussions by gay and lesbian adults about their work and social experiences, ice-breaker games, and film clips centering on how family and friends react to someone revealing they are homosexual. 'We basically tried to pick clips that the kids can identify with at some point,' said Cynthia Kosc-St.Onge, a special education history teacher who advises Bassick's Gay-Straight Alliance along with Kris Burns, teen health social worker for the school.

The conference also featured a performance by 20-year-old Geo Creed Wyeth (stage name: 'Tha Novice'), a transgender dancer, musician and writer who just completed his sophomore year at Yale University.

Also, Central High School's student peer-education drama group, Profiles, acted a scene titled 'GayWorld.' It was about a homophobic young woman who learns about discrimination when she suddenly finds herself in an all-gay environment."

The amount of social propaganda in the public schools is increasing dramatically, and it only goes one way: advocates for traditional marriage can't get a hearing in Bridgeport. I bet this "homophobic young woman" was portrayed as a conservative Christian.

Travel on Special Interest's Dime

AP: Lawmakers Belatedly Disclose Trips:

"Scrutiny of Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review has found."

Surprise, surprise. In one of my previous posts, I linked to a site listing all privately-funded congressional travel. I noted that Delay was well down the list, and that the top 20 travelers were all Democrats. It turns out even this amount of travel was understated. Both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to clean up their travel reporting, but still have not fully succeeded in complying with the rules.

Why are the Democrats are trying to single Delay out on this one? I don't get it.

Reid's Version of Comity

How many times do you try to pet a dog with a history of biting, Senator McCain?

Yahoo! News:

"But whatever elation the negotiators felt, the Senate's Democratic leader did not share it.

In the privacy of his Capitol office last Monday night, Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., asked for commitments from six Democrats fresh from the talks. Would they pledge to support filibusters against Brett Kavanaugh and William Haynes, two nominees not specifically covered by the pact with Republicans?

Some of the Democrats agreed. At least one, Sen. Ben Nelson (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, declined.

Details of Reid's attempt to kill the two nominations within minutes of the agreement, as well as other events during this tumultuous time, were obtained by The Associated Press in interviews with senators and aides in both parties."

New York Times:

"Dr. Frist was told by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, his Democratic counterpart, on Wednesday that enough Democrats would join Republicans to invoke 'cloture,' allowing a final vote on Mr. Bolton.

The aide, who would speak only without being identified when discussing conversations between the two leaders, also said Dr. Frist had intervened with the administration to try to get an intelligence briefing that would satisfy opponents of the nomination."

McCain needs to quit negotiating on behalf of the Republicans!

Abortion Statistics

The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research organization, reports statistics regarding abortion in the United States, including the reasons women give for their abortions. About 90% of over 1.3 million abortions each year are ascribed solely to convenience -- that is, it would be financially and/or emotionally inconvenent to have a baby. The health, either of the woman or child, is only at issue in at most 6% of the cases.

According to the Institute, rape and/or incest is the reason for abortion in 10,000--15,000 cases each year. This number is clearly questionable. Even allowing for gross underreporting of rape and incest cases, this would mean that 1 out of every 6 rapes would result in pregnancy, which violates medical probability. At most 200-500 pregnancies each year could be the result of rape. The Institute's statistics are based on abortion-seekers self-report. If these numbers aren't just manufactured, then women may be hiding their real reasons for seeking an abortion. However, even if these statisitcs are accurate, rape and incest are clearly not the reason abortion is legal in this country. To cite rape and incest in debates on abortion is disingenuous.

1.2 million unborn are killed each year for convenience . . . according to the abortion advocates' own statistics. An Overview of Abortion in the United States

Now, what does this have to do with my posts on judicial nominees? I do strongly believe that results-oriented judicial philosophy is wrong. I do not want "judicial activists" of any stripe. But, that is not true of the Democrats. Ultimately, blocking Bush's judicial nominees comes down to this one thing: preservation of abortion for convenience.

Blubbering Voinovich

What's with Voinovich? He blubbers on the Senate floor because the Bolton nomination is SO IMPORTANT, but he didn't care enough about it to actually show up for the confirmation hearings or meet with Bolton privately when that opportunity was given him. When did it become so critical for him?

Bench Memos

Matthew Franck sees it the way I do.

Bench Memos on National Review Online: "There is another blow here, and it wounds more deeply. All the talk about preserving the traditions of the Senate in this agreement has it exactly backwards. The Democrats already broke with those traditions, and this deal endorses the new order of the ages, albeit under 'extraordinary circumstances' that remain to be defined. In the long history of the filibuster since John C. Calhoun, while its practical use and intent has often been simply to obstruct, the only defense any senator has ever made of it in public is not that it is a weapon of mass obstruction, but that it is a delaying tactic, a defense against hasty majorities, an invitation to full and leisurely debate on the floor before decisions are made. Even in recent weeks this has been the refrain of the Democrats.

McCain's Sanctimonious Seven (sorry, I left out Chafee in an earlier reference to the Six) have been snookered by that old vulture Robert Byrd into a new understanding of the filibuster — that it may be legitimately used, and legitimately defended, as a form of absolute obstructionism by a party that has the votes to prevent cloture. Not the principle of measured deliberation, but the principle of minority rule — an essentially anti-republican principle — has been enshrined in this agreement. Once again in his long career, it is Byrd who has changed the rules, and without seeming to have done so."

Sold Down the River by McCain, et. al.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ON JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

We respect the diligent, conscientious efforts, to date, rendered to the Senate by Majority Leader Frist and Democratic Leader Reid. This memorandum confirms an understanding among the signatories, based upon mutual trust and confidence, related to pending and future judicial nominations in the 109th Congress.

This memorandum is in two parts. Part I relates to the currently pending judicial nominees; Part II relates to subsequent individual nominations to be made by the President and to be acted upon by the Senate's Judiciary Committee.

We have agreed to the following:

Part I: Commitments on Pending Judicial Nominations

A. Votes for Certain Nominees. We will vote to invoke cloture on the following judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit).

B. Status of Other Nominees. Signatories make no commitment to vote for or against cloture on the following judicial nominees: William Myers (9th Circuit) and Henry Saad (6th Circuit).

Part II: Commitments for Future Nominations

A. Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.


B. Rules Changes. In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement, we commit to oppose the rules changes in the 109th Congress, which we understand to be any amendment to or interpretation of the Rules of the Senate that would force a vote on a judicial nomination by means other than unanimous consent or Rule XXII.

We believe that, under Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution, the word "Advice" speaks to consultation between the Senate and the President with regard to the use of the President's power to make nominations. We encourage the Executive branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration.

Such a return to the early practices of our government may well serve to reduce the rancor that unfortunately accompanies the advice and consent process in the Senate.

We firmly believe this agreement is consistent with the traditions of the United States Senate that we as Senators seek to uphold.

Notes:

1) McCain, et. al. gave up much more than they got. They agree to oppose a rules change, but permit the Democrats to filibuster judicial nominees except under "extraordinary circumstances." That, of course, will be any Supreme Court nominee Bush puts forward, unless he abandons his principles.

2) The agreement implicitly chastises Bush for not consulting with Democrats on nominees, insinuating that he is the one who abandoned tradition. It remains silent on the outrageous practice of the Democrats with regard to judicial nominees, beginning with Bork, continuing with Clarence Thomas, and culminating in their systematic blocks. Especially egregious is their practice of propagating outrageous smears.

3) Reid's slimeball character assassination of Saad worked. He has been rewarded for his McCarthyism.

4) This self-appointed group of Republicans defer to Byrd: a man who has changed the rules four times in the past. These fools were taken in.

Preemptive Shutdown

Even though at this stage the Senate is simply following the regular order in debating a judicial nominee, the Democrats have shut down all committee meetings.

Today's newspapers have all labeled Frist's actions extreme; at best they might concede there is fault on both sides for escalation of partisanship in the Senate. But, who is taking the extreme action here?

Demagoguing the filibuster debate

Excellent op/ed by Charles Fried in the Boston Globe today

Demagoguing the filibuster debate: "The Constitution does not say one word about filibusters, but it does state that ''each house may determine the rules of its proceedings.' Does it speak by implication? In the case of impeachments ''no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members' of the Senate. Either house may expel a member for disorderly behavior but only with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of that house. Treaties must be ratified by two-thirds of the senators present. The president's veto may be overridden by two-thirds of each house. And to propose amendments to the Constitution, two thirds of both houses are necessary. It is therefore a fair inference that, unless another voting rule is prescribed, in all other cases only a simple majority is required. And no other rule is prescribed for the voting on each house's rules. To say that in a democracy majority rule is at least the default rule is hardly wild speculation."

With Disrespect

My Dad used to tell me you could get away with saying anything if you just prefaced your remarks with "Respectfully ..." He was joking, of course! But the White House press corps take this seriously. Correspondents from ABC News and the New York Times engaged in an egregiously disrespectful exchange with Scott McClellan:

TERRY MORAN: With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not telling them. I'm saying that we would encourage them to help --

TERRY MORAN: You're pressuring them.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying that we would encourage them --

TERRY MORAN: It's not pressure?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you're saying here?

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military --

ELISABETH BUMILLER: You've already said what you're -- I know what -- how it ends.

This does not capture the snide arrogance of this exchange.

This is how the mainstream media react when one of their own is found out to have been so enamored of an anti-Bush story as to run with it without corroboration from anyone other than a single anonymous source. They expose their animus even more fully, betraying the mindset that makes this kind of mistake possible.

Republican Overreach

"But the clincher is the current imbroglio over federal judges. Democrats brazenly overturn two centuries of Senate precedent on judicial nominations — then they have the gall to threaten to shut down the institution if they don't get their way. That's Republican overreach? "

When Democrats overreach - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED - May 19, 2005:

Negotiation 101

Today's Washington Post story, Gloves Off As Senators Start Debate On Judges:

"The 'six and six' proposal, as it is called, would obligate Democratic signatories to forswear backing a filibuster against future judicial nominees except in extraordinary circumstances. In return, the six GOP signers would agree to vote against efforts to ban judicial filibusters, the aides said."

This is exactly what I'm afraid of. These accomodationist Republican Senators should not negotiate for the party. They obviously don't know how!

1. The Democrats reserve for themselves the option of filibustering in "extraordinary circumstances," but the Republicans abandon the nuclear option altogether. They ought at least to reserve the nuclear option for "extraordinary circumstances," too.

2. The Republicans have allowed the Democrats to open their negotiations from an outrageously illegitimate starting point, and thay have met them more than half way. They concede more than they get in return. They accept de facto the legitimacy of party-line, systematic, sore-loser blocking of nominees based on judicial philosophy rather than competence.

3. The Democrats define their own illegitimate terms, leaving the agreement open-ended. Note that the phrase used is no longer "extreme" because the Democrats have labeled every Bush nominee an extremist. Every time Bush nominates someone consistent with his policies and philosophy, it is "extreme" in their eyes. They have so cheapened that word that even these appeasement Republicans recognize it no longer has weight. So, the Democrats concede a change of terminology, but unilaterally define for themselves what is an "extraordinary circumstance." Does anyone doubt that a Bush nomination for Supreme Court will automatically constitute an "extraordinary circumstance?"

4. The Republicans demonstrate no familiarity with the track record of their opponents. Know your opponent is the first rule of negotiating. Joe Lieberman tried to do away with all filibusters in 1995 with the Lieberman-Harkin act. Robert Byrd is the architect of this strategy, having set the precedent for changing Senate Rules. How can anyone believe these men are negotiating in good faith?

These moderate Republicans are not keeping faith with over 63 million Americans who voted for Bush.

Filibusters: More Position Switching

More evidence to support my view that a compromise with the Democrats would be foolish. In 1997, one of their legal apologists, Erwin Chemerinsky (Duke), argued in a Stanford Law Review article that the filibuster rule was unconstitutional. Yesterday, he wrote in the L.A. Times that limiting the filibuster for judicial nominees is a "cynical exercise of raw power." Is there any doubt that these thinkers will switch back to their previous position when convenient for them, and provide scholarly justification for doing so?

Patterico’s Pontifications on Filibuster:

"In his L.A. Times op-ed, Chemerinsky decries Republican efforts to change the filibuster rule for judicial nominations. He argues that the Senate should follow its “long-established rules for changing Senate procedure” — and that any attempt to change those rules would not be based on constitutional principle:

The GOP plan to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominations would do lasting damage to the Senate. Not only do the Republicans hope to do it without following the long-established rules for changing Senate procedure but, if they’re successful, they would eliminate a key check, guaranteeing their party’s absolute control over Supreme Court appointments.

. . . .

The major problem with the nuclear option is that it is a cynical exercise of raw power and not based on constitutional principle or precedent.

This is stunning hypocrisy, in light of Chemerinsky’s law review article, in which Chemerinsky explicitly encouraged the Senate to embrace a version of the “nuclear option.” The article urged the Senate to change Rule XXII, the rule requiring a two-thirds vote to change the rules for ending filibusters. Chemerinsky argued that Rule XXII is unconstitutional."

Nuke It, Already

Wow! Here's an endorsement of the "nuclear option" from an unexpected source, the L.A. Times:

Nuke It, Already: "We don't share these activists' enthusiasm for the White House judicial nominees triggering the current showdown. But we do believe that nominees are entitled to a vote on the floor of the Senate. The filibuster, an arcane if venerable parliamentary tactic that empowers a minority of 41 senators to block a vote, goes above and beyond those checks on majority power legitimately written into the Constitution. "

NYT: Advocating Frustration of Democracy

Senator Frist Approaches the Brink

Of all the hollow arguments Senate Republicans have made in their attempt to scrap the opposition's right to have a say on President Bush's judicial nominees, the one that's most hypocritical insists that history is on their side in demanding a "simple up-or-down vote" on the Senate floor. Republicans and Democrats have used a variety of tactics, from filibuster threats to stealthy committee inaction on individual nominations, in blocking hundreds of presidential appointments across history, including about one in five Supreme Court nominees. This is all part of the Senate's time-honored deliberative role and of its protection of minority rights, which Republican leaders would now desecrate in overreaching from their majority perch.

Republican majorities blocked more than 60 judicial candidates during the Clinton administration by denying them committee hearings through the use of anonymous "blue slip" holds by individual lawmakers and a variety of other tactics just as effective, if less visible, than the filibuster. The majority leader, Bill Frist, who is zealously planning to smash the Senate rules, took part himself in a filibuster of a Clinton appeals court nominee.

Questions:

1. What did the NYT say about the Democrats previous move, in 1995, to do away with all filibusters, including legislative? What did they say when Republicans used the filibuster? "... the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, . . . an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose." New York Times editorial 1-1-95, "Time to Retire the Filibuster." The NYT will certainly change its stance yet again if the Democrats are ever in power again.

As I've said, I hope these moderate Republicans remember what the Democrats tried to do in the past, egged on by the MSM, and aren't fooled into thinking they will respect so-called "time honored tradition" in the future.

2. If both Republicans and Democrats have used a variety of tactics to block presidential appointments in the past, many of them, such as the "blue slip," just as effective as the filibuster, then why are the Democrats going berserk about the filibuster? Why don't they just use their other "just as effective" tactics?

Obviously these other tactics are not as effective. The Democrats cannot actually win a majority or persuade the majority through rational argument and influence; they want to reserve for themselves the ability to block what they cannot accomplish otherwise. This is an admission of bankruptcy.

3. What deliberative role is the New York Times talking about? Harry Reid has already declared that the Democrats will not accept 100 hours of debate, or "any" amount of debate on nominees. Debate and deliberation are obviously not their goal. The Democrats are trying to block all public deliberation. All we've seen, and will see, on the Democrat's side is McCarthyite character assassination.

4. Is the NYT really so undiscerning as to not understand the difference between a filibuster threat by a few Senators, including Frist in the Paez case, and a systematic, party-enforced, actual, indefinite filibuster triggered entirely by opposition to judicial philosophy --- and probably religious belief?

The New York Times compounds their hypocrisy by accusing others of it.

In September the New York Times is going to start charging people $49 to read their editorial pages on-line. Whose idea was that?

Sex and Montgomery County

Another very well-written article in the Weekly Standard, this time on the sex-ed curriculum in Montgomery County, Sex and the County:

An advisory committee was put together in November 2002 to recommend a new program of 'health education' dealing with 'sexual variation.' The program, when it was finally written, reflected the liberal orthodoxy of the education establishment. With the claim to teach in an authoritative way about health and sex, the program put forth a series of 'myths' to be corrected with 'facts.' But the myths were not all mythical, nor the facts all factual. And the authors could not restrain themselves from pronouncing on the moral dimness of people holding opposing views, including the theological backwardness of those religions that continue to honor the tradition of Jewish and Christian teaching on these matters.

(I forget whether this requires a subscription -- some of their articles do; others don't.)

One of the most alarming aspects of this controversy is the poor quality of theological reasoning this advisory committee endorsed. For example, the teacher resource materials argues for moral equivalence of heterosexuality and homosexuality in the Bible by pointing out that there are many heterosexual practices the Bible condemns as abominations: rape, incest, etc. The obvious reply to this is that the Bible never condemns heterosexuality per se, but it does homosexuality.

The Scariest Nominee

Excellent story at National Review Online, Peter Kirsanow on Janice Rogers Brown:

To Democrats, Janice Rogers Brown is the scariest nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the history of the republic. Since her nomination nearly two years ago, she has been the subject of the most vitriolic and persistent attacks ever leveled against a nominee to the federal bench other than Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

The black sharecropper's daughter, born in segregated Alabama, has been excoriated as a closet member of the Ku Klux Klan who, at least according to the Senate minority leader, would like nothing better than to return America to 'Civil War days.' Left-leaning political cartoonists depict her as an Aunt Jemima on steroids, complete with exaggerated physical features typically found only in the racist literature distributed by hate groups. ...

... What's driving the hysteria? Three things: demographics, abortion (more specifically, the doctrinal approach that produced Roe v. Wade), and impending Supreme Court vacancies.

As Professor Steven Calabresi of Northwestern University Law School has noted, Democrats are determined 'not to allow any-more conservative African-Americans, Hispanics, women or Catholics to be groomed for nomination to the High Court with court of appeals appointments.'

Democrats are afraid of diluting their appeal to their base. The more conservative African-American, Hispanics, women, and Catholics there are, the less credible the Democrats' claim to exclusively represent their political and economic interests.

NARAL and Mud Slinger Reid Finding Dirt Together

A story by Robert Novak on RealClearPolitics.com: Probing Judges

He[Mike Rice] and Craig Varoga, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, are partners in a California political consulting firm. Their May 5 petition requested financial information on 30 appellate judges in all but one of the country's judicial circuits, including nine widely mentioned Supreme Court possibilities. Varoga & Rice's client: NARAL Pro-Choice America.

One of the appellate judges who learned that his financial records were sought by a Democratic political consulting firm told a friend that he felt violated by this political intrusion. He did not know that the firm's client was NARAL.

The abortion advocacy group surely was not asking the judges' views on abortion. Nancy Keenan, who has been NARAL's president some five months, told this column her organization is concerned about "out of touch theological activists" becoming judges. Why seek financial information from them? She said the disclosure information might help identify the "character" of judicial nominees.

How can anyone really claim these judicial nominees aren't being targeted for their religious beliefs? Reid's front organization, funded by NARAL, is clearly looking for financial information to disguise a religious test of judicial nominees.

Fineman: Ready to Blow

Politics: Ready to Blow - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com

Newsweek's Howard Fineman likes to portray himself as politically neutral. However, isn't it suspicious that he hangs the outcome of the coming filibuster showdown on a few Republican moderates? Not once does he contemplate the suggestion that the Democrats, who have violated over 200 years of Senate tradition, moderate their stance. There is not a single allusion to a "Democratic moderate" in his article, despite the heading of his article: "a few moderates hope for middle ground." Never in the history of the Senate -- with the exception of Fortas, who had ethical problems, and who opposed by both parties -- have judicial nominees been filibustered. This is the historically extremist position.

I do not believe any compromise is in order because a compromise legitimates an extremist negotiation starting point. By far the most desirable solution, one that everyone looking at the long term would agree on, would be no change to the Senate rules so long as the Democrats restore Senate tradition and quit filibustering judicial nominees. They would have to acknowledge that they have abused Senate rules and violated Senate tradition. They would also have to offer some guarantee that they would not violate their agreement.

However, the Democrats cannot offer any credible guarantee. And so, reluctantly, Senate Republicans must write honorable tradition into the Senate rules. The tradition has been not to filibuster judicial nominees, the change to Senate rules will only apply to this situation. Sen. Frist's proposal does not apply to the legislative filibuster.

Why can't the Democrats offer a credible guarantee?

The Democrats have a history of trying to destroy the filibuster when in power. The argument that someday Republicans will be in the minority and will need the protections of the filibuster assumes too much. If the Democrats ever do get back into power again, what will stop them from changing the Senate rules in their favor? The memory of Republican restraint? I doubt it!

Sen. Robert Byrd led the creation of precedents in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987 to stop filibusters. In 1995, nine current Democratic senators sought to put an end to all filibusters, even legislative, a step much more radical than anything contemplated here. Senators Bingaman, Boxer, Feingold, Harkin, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Lieberman, and Sarbanes have already displayed a readiness to bend their principles as politically expedient. They have betrayed a willingness to take extreme positions in the past. What credible guarantee can they offer that they will not do it again?

It is far more reasonable to think they will change the Senate rules in their favor as soon as they get the chance than to think they will respond in kind to a "moderate" concession.

Also, the Democrats are led by a man who does not respect existing Senate rules with respect to confidential files, illegally characterizes these FBI files, and ignores a memorandum of understanding with the White House on treatment of nominees. What guarantee can there be that this man will suddenly learn integrity and keep his word?

No. For these reasons I support Frist's action and hope he presses on with it:

1) It codifies what was the Senate tradition until Democratic extremists highjacked the process.
2) A compromise would legitimate an illegitimate negotiation starting point.
3) The Democrats are much more likely to change the rules themselves in the future than to respect a concession today. Fineman couldn't find a single Democratic moderate.
4) The Democratic leader won't adhere to any agreement anyway.

Diplomatic (I Hate Republicans and Everything They Stand For) Dean Does it Again

Boston.com: Dean rips DeLay at convention:

"Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Party, said yesterday that the US House majority leader, Tom DeLay, ''ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence,' referring to allegations of unethical conduct against the Republican leader."

With models of civility like Dean around, I can really see why people think it's the Republicans who have lost the art of civil discourse,

How did this man get this job? He was the governor of a tiny little state with a population of about 630,000 people. The mayor of a large city has greater responsibility. He, obviously, didn't even have to learn any self-control to do the job.

Is there a web site anywhere keeping track of Dean's stupid statements?

Reid's Self-Defense

At Center of Senate Showdown, a Boxer Takes On a Surgeon - New York Times:

"On Friday night, the Justice Department sent a letter to Mr. Reid, Dr. Frist and other senators expressing concerns about his disclosure of the F.B.I. report. Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, called the letter a 'ridiculous partisan attack,' noting that the existence of the report had been public for nearly a year."

How stupid does Reid think we are? There is a confidential FBI file on every nominee. Everyone knows that.

He didn't violate Senate rules by disclosing the mere existence of a file, he characterized its contents. He claimed that there was a "problem" dcumented in the file bad enough to disqualify Saad. But, since access to these files is severely restricted, and those who do have legitimate access (not Reid) are prohibited from divulging anything included in the file, his McCarthyite accusation cannot be answered.

This man has no shame! His previous defense was that Sen. Patrick Leahy also disclosed confidential information. Well that's good. That's the new I-had-an-accomplice defense. We both did it, therefore, neither of us is guilty.

Was Reid really a boxer or just a mud slinger?

More Leahy Hypocrisy

Time to vote on Justice Owen:

"Immediately, Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Patrick Leahy, (Mr. Leahy would become chairman of the Judiciary Committee when Democrats gained majority power in the Senate three months later) wrote to President Bush, stating: 'We firmly believe that ending the long-established practice of ABA review would dilute the quality of the federal bench. The process of judicial selection needs more information about the competence and integrity of potential nominees, not less.'

Senate Democrats resuscitated the ABA's role, with Mr. Leahy stating that he regarded the group's evaluation as 'the gold standard' for evaluating judges. Shortly after the nomination of Justice Owen, the ABA unanimously gave her its highest rating of 'well-qualified.'

But in September 2002, when committee Democrats finally got around to voting on the Owen nomination, it was rejected on a 10-9 party-line vote. Justice Owen thus became the first nominee in history who received a unanimous, 'well-qualified' rating by the 'gold-standard' ABA to be denied a floor vote by the Judiciary Committee. Having been endorsed by Georgia Democratic Sen. Zell Miller, she would almost certainly have won confirmation on the Senate floor. "

Editorial from the Washington Times.

90th Anniversary of Genocide in Armenia

This is one of the most shameful events in human history, and in American policy. It is too little known.

A promising start? - The Washington Times: Commentary - May 15, 2005:

"Also, we witness the dangerous temptation of modern-day Turkish officials to present the extermination of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population as a result of World War I. We want to remind all that it was the exact hope, argument and calculation of the perpetrators that the massacres and deportations of Armenians would pass unnoticed under the cover of World War I. Neither war nor anything else can explain or justify the murder of 1.5 million innocent Armenian children, women, and men in the Ottoman Turkey. "

Its history can be found in A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

WaPo Story on Montgomery County Sex-Ed Curriculum

This is an interesting story given the lengthy exchange I had with a commenter on the Montgomery County Public School sex-ed curriculum. Anonymous assured me that the judge disposing of this case had been confused and that all the clearly anti-Baptist, theologically revisionist material cited in the judges opinion was always just teacher resource material, never intended to be used in the classroom. This story supports Anonymous's contention. Committee Reassesses Sex-Ed Decisions:

"Rather, the program was undone by a packet of teacher resource materials that few on the committee thought would draw notice or objections and that students would not likely see.

But members of two groups that opposed changes in the course ... saw big problems with the supporting materials. They feared that the viewpoints expressed in the pieces -- articles that in some cases singled out religious denominations less tolerant of homosexuality, such as Baptists -- inevitably would slip into the classroom. A federal judge agreed.

'The Court does not understand why it is necessary, in attempting to achieve the goals of advocating tolerance and providing health-related information, Defendants must offer up their opinion on such controversial topics as whether homosexuality is a sin, whether AIDS is God's judgment on homosexuality and whether churches that condemn homosexuality are on theologically solid ground,' wrote Judge Alexander Williams Jr. in granting the groups' request for a temporary restraining order to prevent school officials from launching the new curriculum in six schools.

Montgomery County school officials, citing ongoing litigation, have declined to discuss anything related to the sex education curriculum, including the process by which the committee selected the teacher resource materials.

But members of the Citizens' Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development have offered their accounts.

Fishback said committee members had not anticipated problems with the resource materials because the documents were for teacher reference and were not likely to be distributed to students.

In January 2004, committee members approved the teacher resource materials for eighth grade on a vote of 13 to 1, with five abstentions. That May, teacher resource materials for 10th grade were recommended on a vote of 10 to 4, with three abstentions."

However, this still raises several questions:

1) Why did the committee think it so important to propagate such vehemently anti-conservative-Christian propaganda among teachers? Even if the resources were meant only for the teachers, it is extremely one-sided, it spreads theological revisionism of the worst kind, slurs the Baptist denomination and endorses other gay-friendly denominations by name, and bases fact/myth comparisons on gay and lesbian advocacy materials. According to this story, the committee voted explicity on the teacher resource material. Apparently this is the material the committee wanted the teachers to use. My Anonymous commenter suggested that it was to expose teachers to materials on this very complex subject, but, again if that were the goal wouldn't the committee have included materials that disputed these anti-Christian claims?

2) What would teachers draw on for actual in-classroom use if not the teacher resource material overwhelmingly endorsed by the committee -- especially when the teacher resource material was clearly selected to achieve the explicit instructional objectives of the curriculum? Among the teacher resource materials was a link to lesson plans. They included handout materials and suggested discussion starters. The supposedly more innocuous curriculum itself is merely an outline. It is not credible to think the teacher charged with examining the influence of religious beliefs on generalizations and stereotypes of homosexuals would not make use of the teacher resources addressing these very issues. It is not credible to think that the teacher charged with examining myths versus facts about homosexuality would ignore the myths versus facts handouts included among the teacher resource materials.

3) What research did this committee do to select these teacher resource materials? They seemed quick to reject ex-gay material as unscientific, yet endorsed as authoritative blatantly one-sided propaganda. For example, their resource material cites without question John Boswell's self-justifying historically revisionist arguments about homosexuality within the Catholic church.

I think the judge got it right. This committee endorsed propaganda for teachers who would, in turn, take it into the classroom.