GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

News from the Swamp: Rove resigns

Karl Rove, the man most directly responsible for the rise of George W. Bush’s political career, announced this week that he would resign as Deputy Chief of Staff at the end of this month. Former RNC chair Ed Gillespie has been asked to help fill the void. Rove’s departure comes as a shock to some, but his closest associates noted that he has been contemplating leaving the White House for about a year. “There’s always something that can keep you here,” Rove told The Wall Street Journal, saying that his resignation was postponed due to the Iraq and immigration debates, among other things.

Few people are ambivalent about Rove, so news of his departure was met with diverse responses. Demo presidential candidate John Edwards said, “Good-bye. Good riddance,” which is apropos, since that is precisely what we will be saying to Edwards in February 2008. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) vowed to include Rove in his continued witch hunt even after he leaves Washington.

Republicans, particularly President Bush, remain thankful for Rove’s service as the political guru behind the GOP’s return to power in 2000 and 2002. However, Rove’s stature as a mythic hero to Republicans and a demon to liberals often led to an exaggerated sense of his abilities and his level of control on White House policy. For instance, some Republicans still want to blame him for the loss of Congress in 2006, but Rove maintains that a sense of entitlement among Republicans, congressional corruption and runaway spending created a perfect storm through which the GOP was unlikely to secure victory. On the opposite end, Democrats want to believe that Rove’s machinations have led to a complete subversion of justice and the democratic process, though they have yet to produce a single shred of evidence.

Rove’s legacy as the top political consultant of our time will last long after his name has slipped off the front page of America’s newspapers. He intends to teach and write a book with his new-found free time, he has no favorites among the GOP presidential candidates, though he professes a fondness for all of them, and he voices no intentions of getting back into politics. But at age 56, it’s hard to imagine this political animal calling it quits.

In the House: Hastert will retire

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has announced that he will retire from Congress at the end of this term. Hastert, elected in 1986, was the longest serving GOP Speaker in history, holding the post for eight years. Democrats are salivating at the possibility of picking up the seat. Doug Thornell, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, predicts a Democrat will win, saying, “Any Republican running will have to answer for their party’s failure to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for George Bush’s endless war in Iraq and his irresponsible fiscal policies.” Well, Thornell is right about those free-spending fiscal policies, and Hastert must bear some responsibility for it.

Also, the fourth highest Republican in the 109th Congress, Deborah Pryce of Ohio, announced she would not seek reelection in 2008 after eight terms in office.

New & notable legislation

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) plans to introduce legislation to tighten requirements for transportation earmarks—bike paths, museums, parking lots and beautification projects would no longer be covered by these funds.

All 202 members of the House Republican Conference have co-sponsored the Broadcaster Freedom Act (H.R. 2905), a bill that prohibits the resurrection of the misleadingly named “Fairness Doctrine.”

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, plans to propose an increase in the federal gas tax from 18.4 cents per gallon to 23.4 cents. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will see Oberstar’s five-cent increase and raise him by 49 cents for a 72 cents-per-gallon tax—50 cents of which would be in direct federal taxes, with a separate carbon-emissions tax adding an additional 22 cents. That should bring prices down.

Straw poll forces tax issue and Thompson’s exit

Mitt Romney handily and predictably won last weekend’s Iowa Republican straw poll, but the man who benefited most from the media coverage of the event was second-place finisher Mike Huckabee. Romney has been focusing (and spending) almost exclusively on Iowa and New Hampshire, so his campaign got virtually no bounce from his win. Huckabee, on the other hand, is running a campaign that barely has two nickels to rub together but still managed $150,000 to cover the cost of supporters’ ballots, food, transportation and entertainment, which Huckabee and his band, Capitol Offense, gleefully provided. Americans for Fair Taxation chipped in to help the former Arkansas governor.

Huckabee is the only Republican presidential candidate to embrace enthusiastically the fair tax (national sales tax), which many credit for his success in the poll. “We need to go to a fair tax that is so simple a seven-year-old running a lemonade stand could understand it,” Huckabee said. That would indeed be nice. If enacted, the fair tax would replace personal- and corporate-income taxes, and capital-gains and estate taxes with a national sales or consumption tax. Huckabee claims that such a tax change would be “the most important step we could take for American competitiveness.”

On the other hand, Huckabee’s record as governor of Arkansas contradicts that of the pro-growth presidential candidate he has become. During his time as the state’s chief executive, Huckabee signed tax hikes on cigarettes, gasoline and private nursing-home beds. He also supported Internet taxes and additional sales-tax hikes. So, as with Romney, voters have to decide which Mike Huckabee they are voting for or against.

Meanwhile, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson dropped out of the presidential race after a sixth-place showing in Saturday’s straw poll. Prior to the voting, Thompson stated that if he placed worse than second, he would drop out. True to his word, he has done so, without any indication of which other candidate, if any, he would support.

Early states getting carried away

Iowa Governor Chet Culver has sought to put the brakes on a game of caucus leapfrog that has led Iowa politicos and lawmakers to threaten holding their first-in-the-nation caucus in December of this year. “This is a 2008 presidential selection process,” Culver said earlier this week. “It should start in 2008, and I expect that it will.”

A mad dash by states like South Carolina and Florida to schedule their primaries earlier in 2008 has encouraged other states to close in on the dates of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. Both states are protective of their important status, but local and state political parties around the nation have exhibited a desire to play a larger role in selecting the Republican and Democrat nominees. The result is a heavily front-loaded primary process which could lead to the parties essentially picking their nominees as early as mid-February, leaving many American voters cheated out of their chance to choose the best presidential candidate for the general election.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Warfront with Jihadistan: Afghanistan

Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf made the unusual admission this week that his government is not doing enough to eliminate support for Afghan terrorists in his country. “There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil. The problem that you have in your region is because support is provided from our side,” Musharraf said as President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan nodded in agreement. Musharraf has maintained that terrorism in Afghanistan is a homegrown problem, so his frank words are an encouraging sign.

Meanwhile, The New York Times, under the headline “How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad” (they can’t even bring themselves to avoid the scare quotes around “good war”), delved into all the ways that the U.S. has failed in Afghanistan, including “diverting resources” to Iraq. Yet the real news from that country is brighter. Undoubtedly, there have been missteps and mistakes on the part of the U.S. , but we defy The Times to name a war that has ever gone exactly according to plan. Certainly, if the U.S. has made mistakes, we have also made correct decisions and experienced success.

Additionally, “it’s important to note,” as Ann Marlowe writes in The Wall Street Journal, “that to talk about ‘reconstruction’ is the biggest lie in Afghanistan. Before the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan was long one of the poorest countries in the world and has never had a lot of infrastructure. There are ruins in the country, of course, but 95% of them are in or near Kabul itself. Most of Afghanistan lives much as it always has, subsisting on small-scale farming and trading.” Of course, to liberals, we destroyed the country in order to save it. The truth is, business is picking up, as are construction and education. Ultimately, Afghans will have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps if they are to build a country centuries ahead of their present 7th-century system. They now have the freedom to do just that.

Speculation on Petraeus’ report

Speaking to reporters after an al-Qa’ida bomb killed 250 Iraqis, General David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said that he is preparing to recommend a cut in troop levels in his September report to Congress. The general says the surge is working, but he maintains that the drawdown should not be quick or significant, lest we surrender “the gains we have fought so hard to achieve.” Petraeus noted again that more and more Iraqis are coming over to our side, being tired of the violence perpetrated by foreign fighters in an effort to win the country. “It’s all about the local people. When all the sudden the local people are on the side of the new Iraq instead of on the side of the insurgents or even al-Qa’ida, that’s a very significant change.” As for the long term, Gen. Petraeus says the U.S. “will be in Iraq in some way for nine or ten years.”

Helped by their accomplices in the Leftmedia, Democrats, who have pushed for and gotten not just a September report from Gen. Petraeus, but sworn testimony, have been subtly changing their tone regarding immediate withdrawal because Americans are picking up on the fact that bad news for America is good news for Democrats. Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack in The New York Times and now anti-American Der Spiegel in Germany, for example, all of the sudden see hope and success in Iraq. Apparently, some Democrats (particularly the ones running for re-election) have realized that they should temper their enthusiasm for American defeat lest they surrender the congressional gains they “fought so hard to achieve” in 2006.

IRGC earns the terrorist label

The Bush administration may soon serve notice to Iran by way of adding the 125,000-strong Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the “specially-designated global terrorist” list because of increased IRGC involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most notably, its naval forces took 15 British sailors and Marines in the Persian Gulf hostage earlier this year. The IRGC would join 42 other terrorist organizations on the list, including al-Qa’ida, Hizballah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but would mark the first time the armed forces of a foreign government have been designated as a terrorist group. The designation would allow the U.S. to block assets of the IRGC, a potentially valuable tool in the war in Iraq.

The designation may also serve the purpose of prodding our allies to participate more readily in sanctions against the Iranian government, in turn deterring, one hopes, the Iranian nuclear-weapons program.

Profiles of valor: Little Fatima

Little Fatima Jubouri may be only nine months old, but she has already gained worldwide attention, along with the doting care of staff at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

An orphan after her mother and uncle were shot at close range in the head by jihadis, her father having died earlier, Fatima was abandoned and left to the mercy of nature, her bed being the garbage of one of Baghdad’s most violent areas and her roof the sweltering summer sun. Here, police found her on 25 June, malnourished, dehydrated and weighing only eight pounds. U.S. soldiers brought her to the hospital.

“When she first got here she was timid and scared,” says U.S. military nurse Specialist Desmond Cacciotti. “Now she is laughing all the time.” Her former bed of trash has been replaced by a cot, which sits in a supply room close to the nurses’ station. When she is not sleeping, the staff includes Fatima in their daily routine. “We’ve made a sling out of a sheet,” says Cacciotti. “We put her in there and carry her around while we take care of patients and do paperwork.”

The anomaly of Fatima’s presence has not gone unappreciated. “She is a baby—she is happiness in a bad place,” said Lieutenant Beth Brauchli, the hospital’s acting public-affairs officer. Hospital personnel recognize, however, that Fatima’s stay with them may soon come to an end, as U.S. soldiers will have to take her to the orphanage where her five siblings already live. Although adoption inquiries have been made, under current Iraqi law, full adoptions are not permitted. Still, Lt. Brauchli hopes that the media attention garnered by Fatima will “create a loophole in the policy.”

Until the future plays out, however, Fatima will continue to brighten the halls of the Combat Support Hospital, her life reminding the world that hope exists in Iraq in the eyes of its innocent children.

On the Homeland Security front: Padilla guilty

Jose Padilla (AKA Abdullah al Muhajir) was convicted yesterday along with two other defendants on charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people abroad and providing material support for terrorism. Padilla, you may recall, was arrested in 2002 as part of an al-Qa’ida plot to explode a radiological (dirty) bomb in the U.S. , though prosecutors did not pursue those allegations. Padilla’s arrest and, in particular, his detention as an “enemy combatant” rather than a criminal (he is a U.S. citizen and Chicago native) sparked outrage among leftists who decried the “violation” of his civil rights. He became the poster child, as it were, for the debate over classification of terrorists. In the end, Padilla was tried in court, and a jury of his peers found him guilty as charged. Also found guilty were Adham Amin Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan. Sentencing is scheduled for 5 December.

The Frontiers of Science: Mission Endeavour

After thundering into orbit a week ago Wednesday, space shuttle Endeavour and crew successfully docked to the International Space Station, delivering more truss pieces to the orbital outpost as well as replacement gear and consumables. On board Endeavour is astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was backup to Teacher-in-Space astronaut Christa McAuliffe, who perished in 1986 in the space shuttle Challenger accident. Morgan left the teaching profession to become a full-time astronaut, but she took time out from her in-orbit duties this week to hold special education sessions with students back on Earth.

Eerily reminiscent of the Columbia disaster in 2003, a baseball-size piece of external tank foam broke off after launch, slamming into Endeavour’s belly and gouging a roughly three-inch by three-inch hole in her thermal-protection tiles, exposing the underlying felt and aluminum structure. Engineers say that the small hole poses no danger for the crew during Endeavour’s re-entry next week, but of course, those engineers are safely on Earth. Thursday night, NASA mission managers, also safely on Earth, decided that astronauts should not repair the hole. Given the consequences to the space program should Endeavour and crew be lost on re-entry, we hope the mission managers made the right decision. Return to Earth and landing are scheduled for next Wednesday.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Federal deficit continues to drop

The Treasury Department reported late last week that the federal deficit for the ten-month period beginning 1 October 2006 was $157.3 billion. By comparison, the deficit for the same period the previous fiscal year was $239.6 billion. Record revenues of $2.12 trillion are to thank for the substantially lower red ink, though spending continues to outpace money taken in through taxes and duties. Democrats have downplayed the good news about the shrinking deficits because it proves that President Bush was right about lower taxes bringing in higher revenue. In addition, since Demos are notoriously profligate spenders, the reversal of this trend would mean that liberals alone would be to blame at the polls next year.

As for spending, President Bush may have developed some fiscal backbone. He has issued veto threats against 48 different Demo bills since the liberals took over Congress in January. Among those bills are nine of the 12 spending bills for next year, which collectively cost $22 billion more than the President requested in the federal budget.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), summed up the tax-and-spend mindset when he said, “In a trillion-dollar economy, [$22 billion] really doesn’t amount to much.” Of course, it is exactly this attitude that allowed deficit spending to get out of control in the past. Here, we would do well to remember Senator Everett Dirksen’s old saw, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Our sense is that the real frustration for the Demos is that President Bush is standing in the way of them opening the floodgates of entitlement spending in an attempt to solidify their hold on power. Unfortunately, there are plenty of spendthrift Republican representatives who are just as willing to waste taxpayer money as the Democrats.

If the President keeps up the pressure by threatening and exercising his veto power, then Republicans on the Hill may yet come to their senses. We suggest the vetoes start with the lobbying and ethics bill recently passed by Congress—a sham that should be revealed as such before the American people.

California healthcare may not survive September

California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed through his state’s much-ballyhooed version of universal health care in January. According to Time magazine, Arnold was “doing big things that Washington has failed to do.” The essence of the plan was to force individuals to purchase health care, like it or not. Businesses were forced to cover employees or pay a 3.5-percent tax to fund state-run insurance. Doctors and hospitals must pay two and four percent, respectively, of gross revenues to fund state insurance.

Now, however, this “big thing” is a big drag on California. The state is in its second month of the fiscal year without a budget and the healthcare initiative is a big reason why. The new plan requires $12 billion in new “levies,” as Governor Schwarzenegger calls them (“taxes” to the rest of us), which cannot be enacted without two-thirds approval in both state houses. The rest of the budget has not been approved without the raised taxes, and the chances are quite slim with them. Indeed, we might soon be saying, “Hasta la vista, California healthcare.” Alas, liberals around the country will be undeterred by another failure of “universal” healthcare.

Dangerous toys? Senator Durbin, save us!

Various distributors have recalled toys made in China over product-safety concerns, adding to the recent news of faulty tires and tainted pet food. The scare started when a number of children were seriously injured after swallowing loose magnets and was made worse by news that a number of toys had been shipped with lead-based paint. Importers and consumers have reacted appropriately by recalling the defective toy lines, being more careful about their purchases and becoming generally more wary about the “made in China” label. Clearly, if China wants to maintain the trust of the American consumer, it will need to clean up its act.

Nevertheless, for many, this response isn’t enough; Washington pols are itching to step in and save the day. “We can’t wait any longer for China to crack down on its lax safety standards,” Senator Dick Durbin said. The New York Times echoed his sentiment, calling for tighter regulation of Chinese imports. While some government regulation certainly may be warranted, most of the current rhetoric is a thinly veiled attempt at meddling in the market by implementing unnecessary protectionist measures and limiting free trade.

Obviously, Americans don’t want to purchase tainted or dangerous products, nor do American businesses want their names associated with such products. Americans aren’t stupid, however. We suggest, therefore, that American consumers are fully capable of punishing Chinese companies by not buying their goods. Such market forces are far more effective than any federal nanny-state regulations. More important, they avoid the unintended consequences that inevitably follow when Washington meddles in the market. Besides, we have survived far more dangerous toys than these. Does anyone remember Lawn Darts?

CULTURE

Faith and Family: ‘Call God whatever you want’

Roman Catholic Bishop Tiny Muskens (we kid you not) of the Netherlands declared this week that people of all faiths should call God “Allah” in order to promote understanding among them. In an interview with Dutch television, he said that while he was in Indonesia, priests used the name “Allah” during mass. “’Allah’ is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God ‘Allah’?” he asked. “What does God care what we call Him? It is our problem.” Muskens is telling us that the moon god known as “Allah” is equal to the Creator of the universe.

On one count, Muskens is right: It is our problem if we start changing God’s name to suit ourselves. Apparently, Muskens is unaware of Commandments One and Three (or Two in the Catholic tradition). “You shall have no other gods before Me,” and “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” It seems pretty clear to us that God does care what we call Him. He spent a lot of time in Scripture telling us just this, if only Muskens and other politically correct theo-libs would care to notice.

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

Black Entertainment Television’s recent cartoon created by rapper Bomani “D’mite” Armah sends a mixed message at best. Geared toward children, the public-service-announcement-style rap video contains encourages children to read a “motherf**g book, nr”, “brush yo’ G* d*** teeth” and “wear deodorant, n****r” while gratuitous images of violence, alcohol consumption and rump-shaking flicker across the screen. To top it off, the ad is set to a looped sample of music lifted from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. BET’s Denys Cowan said that the song “has such a powerful message that we thought it would be fun and thought provoking for our audience. This video a great example of how the best animation can convey complex messages with great clarity and humor.” What powerful message? We in our humble shop fail to see the clarity and humor in this vulgar dreck. Apologists who call the video humor or satire fail to recognize that it only further serves to underscore stereotypes. The NAACP has failed to comment. No surprise there.

From the Village Academic Curriculum File

With little public fanfare, the Philadelphia School District has dropped recognition of “Gay and Lesbian History Month,” —along with every other group “history” month—from its 2007-2008 schedule. This came after widespread public backlash following its addition in 2006.

In recent years, the district had been quietly populating its calendar with special-interest tributes, such as African-American History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and Ramadan. The GLBT title was merely the latest in a string of “diversity” designations. According to Cecilia Cummings, the district’s Senior VP for Communications and Community Relations, the district simply was “not prepared for the controversy… [and] did [not] have the preparation or training to… deal with this issue in a way that could keep kids safe.”

While the gender-disorientation crowd is crying foul and the pro-family side is praising the move as “an excellent choice,” the real issue is why the district began including the tribute in the first place. If district educators truly wanted to “keep kids safe,” they should have refused from the beginning to cater to the radical anti-family agenda of homosexual activists.

GLAAD: TV’s not gay enough

A homosexual-advocacy organization has decreed that U.S. television networks simply aren’t “gay” enough. A recent study by The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) reviewed 4,693 hours of programming from June 2006 through May 2007 and assigned the grades “excellent,” “good,” “fair” or “failing” based on the number of times themes relating to gender-disorientation pathology were observed. Although no network was rated “excellent,” it should come as no surprise to our readers that Walt Disney-owned ABC received the highest marks, while News Corp.-owned Fox failed to make the grade. ABC aired 171 hours of gay programming constituting 15 percent of their prime-time programming. Meanwhile, Fox devoted only six percent to deviant sexuality. CBS and NBC rated as “fair” for nine percent and seven percent, respectively. “Our overall concern,” said GLAAD spokesman Damon Romine, “is increasing the inclusivity of the networks and having our lives be more visible.” Fabulous. The study specifically faulted CBS for failure to include homosexuals as crime-fighters. Next season, expect a new series entitled “CSI: San Francisco,” in which the lead character, “Fritz,” will open the show with “Up against the car and spread ‘em, big boy!”

And last…

Several items from the Court Jesters department this week: First, the DC judge who filed suit over a lost pair of pants has rejected a generous offer by the cleaners to drop their request that he pay their $83,000 in legal expenses if he drops his appeal. The family that owns the cleaners has raised enough to pay their bills, and they decided to try to end the fighting. Judge Pearson would have none of it, however, filing his appeal to the highest court in DC. Nice guy.

Next, a Rutgers women’s basketball player is suing former (and future) radio shock jock Don Imus for calling the team a bunch of “nappy-headed hos” back in April. “This is a lawsuit in order to restore the good name and reputation of my client,” said her attorney, Richard Ancowitz. This after the team accepted Imus’ personal apology later in April.

Another junk suit is that of a man suing 1-800-FLOWERS for $1 million because they inadvertently revealed to his wife an affair he was having. He ordered flowers for his mistress, and 1-800-FLOWERS sent a thank-you note to his home, where his wife discovered it. He was divorcing her anyway, but after discovering the affair, she demanded more money from her upstanding husband.

Finally, a West Virginia man is suing McDonald’s for putting cheese on his hamburger after he explained his allergy at the drive-through. The plaintiff “repeatedly asked as to the status of his food and whether it had no cheese, and took multiple preventive steps to assure his food did not contain cheese,” the suit says. However, he proceeded to eat the sandwich and ended up at the hospital after his ensuing allergic reaction. As The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto quipped, “So apparently the ‘multiple preventive steps’ he took ‘to assure his food did not contain cheese’ did not include looking at the [darn] sandwich before eating it!”

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)