Articles of Interest 5-12-08
176 Days until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE:
BARACK OBAMA ON CNN...foreign policy experience is “about judgment”. Ready to be Commander and Chief when he voted “present” on 130 different bills instead of leading on a issue one way or another. Ready to lead? Judgment? Please…
GORE “CREATED” THE INTERNET…nine years ago on CNN he made his famous claim…now he’s creating the “global warming” crisis…you know, during this, the coldest spring in years. The Nobel Peace folks need a “lock box” prize.
CAN WE ASK…YES WE CAN…the RNC has created a new website to encourage voters to ask Barack Obama about the important issues facing America. www.canweask.com
FACEBOOK FRIENDS… Join the NRA "cause" on Facebook...bum out a liberal!
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/294?recruiter_id=44506
TALK RADIO 1400 AM…I’ve become a weekly guest on the Hughes Sullivan Show on WDTK-AM 1400, which is broadcast in metro Detroit every evening. I am scheduled to regularly appear Mondays and Fridays between 8:15-8:45 pm. Good, conservative talk radio. You can hear it online at http://wdtkam.townhall.com/
THE BIG SHOW…every Tuesday morning, Democrat State Chair Mark Brewer and I go head to head on WJIM with Michael Patrick Shiels. We discuss the issues of the day. The Big Show is heard statewide on many local stations. You can hear it online at http://www.wjimam.com/article.asp?id=505870
RAMUSSEN’S LATEST POLL NUMBERS:
Michigan:
McCain 45%
Obama 44%
Michigan Senate:
Levin 54%
Hoogendyk 37%
THE REST OF THE STORY:
No further commentary today.
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/OPINION01/805120329/1007/OPINION
Want business tax relief? Make a film
How to survive state government's assault on companies -- and in style
State Rep. Chuck Moss
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Michigan Business Tax, the new and worse version of the Single Business Tax, is rocketing some tax bills as much as 800 percent. Every day I hear from businesses, from manufacturers to doctor groups, asking: "Know a good Realtor in North Carolina?" No, actually the question is "What can I do about this tax?" The answer is not to get rid of the tax, even though it would be the best answer. The governor wanted the tax so badly that she shut down state government, so she is not going to let us dump it. But I have a great idea how you can lower your tax burden. The state has just passed a new law offering lucrative tax incentives to filmmakers. The tax rebates are so good that 13 new film projects are already coming. The next best thing to keep your business afloat in Michigan is to become a filmmaker. Here's how:
http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2008/05/firms_cash_in_on_china.html
Firms cash in on China
by Chris Gautz
Sunday May 11, 2008
Much has been said about the United States' trading relationship with China -- and much of it negative -- but a new report shows American companies are finding China has a wealth of opportunities. The United States-China Business Council Inc. recently released a study showing a 300 percent increase in exports to China from across the country from 2000 to 2007. Locally, the numbers are even more dramatic. In the 7th Congressional District, which includes all or portions of Jackson, Branch, Calhoun, Eaton, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Washtenaw counties, exports to China are estimated to have increased by 516 percent during the same time period. Most of that comes from the exporting of transportation equipment and electronics. Exports from the district to China amounted to $97 million in 2007.
New Mich. campaign aims to draw more out-of-state tourists
5/11/2008, 1:41 p.m. EDT
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — If you get a little tingle whenever you see Michigan's lakes, waterfalls and beaches featured in a Pure Michigan ad, Travel Michigan head George Zimmermann knows just what you're feeling. The state is launching its 2008 Pure Michigan advertising campaign in the state on Monday, a week after it launched the campaign regionally in cities stretching from Milwaukee to Cincinnati. Michigan hopes the award-winning campaign will draw more tourists from nearby states and Canada to enjoy its beaches, golf courses, fishing spots and bike trails, providing a shot in the arm despite higher gas prices and the weak economy. More than 80 percent of the state's tourism promotion dollars are being spent outside of Michigan, Zimmermann says.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/COL12/805120327
Drunken-driving legislation stalls
BY MATT HELMS
May 12, 2008
While state lawmakers come closer to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, an effort to toughen Michigan's drunken-driving laws through greater use of alcohol-detecting ignition interlocks has been stalled for months over disagreements about its impact and effectiveness. Bills that would create what supporters call extreme drunken-driving laws would target people busted for driving with blood-alcohol levels of 0.15% or more. First-time offenders and repeat drunken drivers would be subject to a 45-day license suspension followed by the remainder of a year breathing into ignition interlocks, devices that don't allow cars to start if alcohol is detected. Supporters say a 0.15% blood-alcohol level reflects heavy drinking, and the proposed penalties are tough. In addition to the ignition interlocks, penalties would include alcohol assessment and treatment.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/OPINION01/805120335/1007/OPINION
Feds should help with new fuel economy rules
Detroit News
Monday, May 12, 2008
Thirty years ago, Michigan voters decided through a constitutional amendment that state government should not be able to impose new duties or costs on local governments without paying for them. Now, U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg wants to adopt a similar idea for the federal government's fuel economy regulations for the auto industry. It seems only fair. Legislation proposed by Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township, would provide tax credits for research done by the auto industry to comply with federal fuel economy standards. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last month proposed regulations that would require cars to average 35.7 miles per gallon by 2015 and light trucks to average 28.6 miles, for a combined average of 31.8 miles per gallon.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/SCHOOLS/805120366/1026/LOCAL
Price of diesel drains schools
Rising costs force districts to limit bus stops, services
Candice Williams / The Detroit News
Monday, May 12, 2008
WESTLAND -- Each day, 80 buses serving Wayne-Westland Community Schools travel about 6,000 miles to take 7,600 students to and from school. That adds up to 1.5 million miles per year. The cost: $425,000 so far this year. Since September, the price of diesel fuel has skyrocketed almost 50 percent. Some Metro Detroit districts are pulling money from savings to pay the higher gas prices. That leaves fewer emergency dollars available and some officials are worried that as fuel prices continue to rise, they'll have to make cuts in programs, textbooks and supplies. For now, districts are scaling back bus services, limiting district-sponsored athletic trips and receiving help from corporate sponsors. One district bought a giant gas tank, so it can buy fuel at wholesale prices and store it.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS01/805120332/1001/NEWS
Corn's future?
Despite push for ethanol, Mich. farmers putting less acreage into crop this year
Jeremy W. Steele
May 12, 2008
The ethanol boom was supposed to fill farmers' fields with oodles of corn. But early indicators show Michigan farmers might actually swing some of their acreage away from the hot commodity. The state's farmers this year are expected to plant 2.35 million acres of corn. That's down about 13 percent from last year, although it's still more acreage than any other year since 1997, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. The downtick is one sign that Michigan's gold rush on corn-based ethanol has down-shifted into more of a trot. Interest in building six new ethanol plants, including one planned in Corunna and another under construction in Ithaca, also has slowed. "The profit has been squeezed. Although for the already-built plants, it's still there," said Jim Hilker, a Michigan State University professor of agricultural economics who has followed Michigan farming for about 25 years.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS06/805120356
Term limits have politicians playing musical chairs
Lawmakers, hopefuls scramble to seize new job opportunities
BY KATHLEEN GRAY and STEVE NEAVLING
May 12, 2008
Every two years, a mad scramble begins as politicians, would-be politicians and sons, daughters, spouses and other relatives of politicians search for jobs. Tuesday is the candidates' filing deadline. It will attract hundreds of people to county clerks' offices throughout the state to check out the competition for posts ranging from state representative to township trustee. Term limits for state legislators has made that scramble an even wilder day as state representatives, who must leave office by year's end, begin a game of musical chairs with local elected officials who are looking to move to Lansing to do voters' bidding. More than half of the 44 term-limited lawmakers in the 110-member House of Representatives are from Wayne, Oakland or Macomb counties.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/OPINION03/805120337/1007/OPINION
Mich. court condones misleading ballot tactics
Monday, May 12, 2008
Deb Price
When Michigan voters headed to the polls in 2004 to decide the fate of a proposed amendment to the state Constitution, they were told the following by its lead proponent: "(This) has nothing to do with taking benefits away. This is about marriage between a man and a woman," said Marlene Elwell, campaign director of Citizens for the Protection of Marriage. Citizens for the Protection of Marriage's Web site declared the group's purpose was "for defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Period." And its brochure told voters: "This is not about rights or benefits or how people choose to live their life." That sales pitch -- assuring voters that the ballot initiative was solely about limiting marriage to heterosexual couples -- reflected where voters stood.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS03/805120357
Oakland Coiunty races to watch
Frank Witsil
May 12, 2008
U.S. Congress: Eight-term Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg from Bloomfield Township is a target this year of the national Democrat Party, which is backing Gary Peters, a former state lottery commissioner and state senator from Bloomfield Township, as its favored challenger. Peters is piling up support and money, and if 2008 is a big Democratic year, Knollenberg could be in trouble. But Knollenberg is a smart politician and an excellent fund-raiser. It's likely to be a close race. What's unclear is whether Jack Kevorkian, who gained fame as the assisted-suicide advocate who helped at least 130 people commit suicide in the 1990s, got enough petition signatures to get on the ballot as an independent candidate.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS06/805120358
Races to watch
Kathleen Gray
May 12, 2008
U.S. Congress: Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Detroit Democrat and mother of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, will have at least two Democratic opponents in the August primary. Former state Rep. Mary Waters, who works in the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, and state Sen. Martha Scott of Highland Park are planning to challenge Kilpatrick. As of Friday afternoon, Democratic U.S. Reps. John Conyers of Detroit and John Dingell of Dearborn didn't have primary or general election opponents. U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Livonia, intends to run but hadn't filed yet. Democrat Joseph Larkin of Livonia has filed to challenge him.
Election 2008: Michigan Senate
Michigan Senate: Levin 54% Hoogendyk 37%
Rasmussen Reports
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Carl Levin has served in the United States Senate for 30 years and the first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of his re-election bid suggest he’s likely to keep his job. Levin leads Republican state legislator Jack Hoogendyk by a 54% to 37% margin. Levin has won each of his last three re-election bids with 58% to 60% of the vote. He has not faced a serious election threat since 1984. The candidates are essentially even among men but Levin has a huge, 30-percentage point, lead among women. Levin is strongest among voters over 50. Rasmussen Markets data suggests that Levin has a 90.0% chance to win re-election this year. The Presidential race in Michigan is much more competitive. Levin is viewed favorably by 55% of the state’s voters and unfavorably by 39%. Those figures include 27% with a Very Favorable opinion and 24% with a Very Unfavorable view.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/OPINION03/805120318/1409/METRO
Obama needs Michigan and Ohio
Monday, May 12, 2008
Daniel Howes
Memo to Sen. Barack Obama, re the industrial Midwest and the Detroit auto industry: If your growing ranks of committed party super delegates and the national media have it right, you're on your way to the Democratic nomination for president. Congrats, but as the Michigan party chair, Mark Brewer, said recently, a Democrat can't win the White House without Michigan (or Ohio or both, for that matter). You're not making it easy on yourself, especially considering that Republican John McCain's debatably-legit maverick act has a demonstrated history of appealing to a broad spectrum of voters here, including Dem-leaning autoworkers. Unless his staff is politically comatose, which remains to be seen, bet on him to try and paint Michigan red in the fall.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/METRO/805110314/1022/POLITICS
Clinton camp might consider plan to seat half of Michigan, Fla. Delegate
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign aides signaled on Sunday that they might accept a compromise on the disputed delegations from Michigan and Florida, and that the campaign might continue to fight the issue into the summer if its demands aren't met. The campaign "certainly might" accept a compromise that seats half the states' delegates, based on their disputed January primaries, said Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe. A former chair of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe made the case that the DNC should only have penalized the states half their delegations, as Republicans did when Michigan and Florida violated both parties' rules on scheduling primaries. "The rule is 50 percent," McAuliffe said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Had they done that, we wouldn't be having this discussion."
http://www.michiganliberal.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12168
Surprising lessons from the 2006 general election.
by: Mark Grebner
Sun May 11, 2008
A few days before the 2006 election, State Republican Chair Saul Anuzis sent out a taunting email, claiming the Republicans had launched a boldly re-engineered "Get-Out-The-Vote" drive, whose unprecedented effectiveness would push their candidates several percentage points above their standing in the late polls. Saul believed he had caught the MDP napping, and he wanted to stake his claim before the ballots were counted, in order to get credit for the surprise win he expected. As we all know, the only surprise on Election Day was how badly Republican candidates did. Granholm and Stabenow were re-elected by very large margins (14 and 16 points, respectively), the Dems swept the statewide education posts, re-captured the State House, came within a whisker of taking the State Senate, and were within hailing distance of upset wins in a couple of Congressional seats - which nobody thought were even in play.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/METRO/805120378
Delays worsen at state crime lab
Probe of Detroit Police firearm cases means fewer workers to investigate gun crimes across the state.
Doug Guthrie, Mike Martindale and George Hunter / The Detroit News
Monday, May 12, 2008
DETROIT -- The shutdown of the Detroit Police Department's firearms analysis laboratory over revelations about mishandled evidence is creating a statewide delay in criminal investigations and prosecutions, tying up a third of all Michigan State Police forensic technicians and adding to a deep backlog in the preparation of scientific evidence. Questions about the Detroit lab were raised last month after it was determined that police mishandled evidence in a shooting case. Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings closed the unit and asked the State Police to conduct an audit of the lab. For the next four months, State Police technicians will randomly audit Detroit cases. But because a third of the State Police's crime lab personnel will be tied up looking into the city's problems, that will further delay the state's forensic investigations. Already, there is a significant logjam.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/METRO/805120367/1409/METRO
Worthy puts all gun cases on hold
Doug Guthrie and George Hunter / The Detroit News
Monday, May 12, 2008
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has brought all gun cases in Detroit to a standstill in an effort to stem a deluge of appeals from defense lawyers while the Detroit Police firearms analysis unit is under scrutiny. She has vowed to not take evidence to court that was processed by the now-closed laboratory until her staff completes an audit of every trial and guilty plea in the past year that used information from the lab, where a ballistics mistake was uncovered last month. Still, the potential for a massive number of appeals by defendants convicted with evidence from the now suspect firearms lab "could be a nightmare," Detroit defense attorney David Griem said. "If this is a systematic snafu, the cost to the Prosecutor's Office and to all of us as taxpayers could be huge," Griem said. "This could open the floodgates for every criminal defendant in a gun case who's read the newspaper to raise it as an appellate issue or in pretrial."
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS01/80512012
Detroit City Council set to discuss Goodman report today
Detroit Free Press
May 12, 2008
Detroit City Council is expected to discuss recommendations and findings from an independent attorney's investigation into the text message scandal. The council conducted a week of hearings with city attorneys testifying as to each of their roles in the scandal that stemmed from a whistleblower lawsuit brought by former police officers against the city and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Attorney William Goodman hired by the council, has said that under the city charter the council has the power to remove Kilpatrick, censure him or ask Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove him. At least one council member, Barbara-Rose Collins, has said she's leaning against asking the governor to intervene.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/METRO/805120376
Kilpatrick lawyer who chided Worthy owes taxes, too
Parkman owes Ala. $23,600 after paying off $1M in liens in 2006.
Robert Snell / The Detroit News
Monday, May 12, 2008
DETROIT -- A member of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's legal team who scolded Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy for not paying taxes owes $23,602 to the state of Alabama for unpaid income taxes, public records show. That's only the most recent tax delinquency, though. Since 2005, lawyer James W. Parkman III has paid off more than $1 million in delinquent state and federal taxes, a figure that dwarfs the $31,000 in liens filed against Worthy. The Detroit News discovered the delinquencies more than a week after Parkman lashed out at Worthy, saying she should spend more time paying her delinquent taxes and addressing a perjury allegation in her own office and less time talking to reporters. "The hypocrisy of that is unbelievable," said Kelly Rossman-McKinney, chief executive officer of the Rossman Group public relations firm in Lansing. Parkman blames the tax situation on a reorganization of his former law firm. He would not elaborate.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/METRO/805120383/1409/METRO
Kilpatrick charity suit may go to trial
Man claims he's owed $1,500 for golf clinic in '04, which group run by mayor's sister denies.
David Josar / The Detroit News
Monday, May 12, 2008
DETROIT -- A long-delayed lawsuit alleging fraud against a charity launched by Kwame Kilpatrick before he became mayor, and operated by his sister, could go to trial Tuesday. Golfer Charles Foster sued the Next Vision Foundation in 2005, seeking $1,500 for a golf clinic he ran in 2004, as well as attorney fees, according to court records. The charity, which supports scholarships and educational programs, had been criticized several years ago because its top three employees were Kilpatrick friends or family. During one year, the charity spent nearly half its $368,000 budget on salaries. The most recent Internal Revenue Service records show the group has pared salaries significantly, but it's also raising less money.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS01/805120329
Prevailing wage ruling impacts Eaton Co.
Commissioner sees decision producing a level playing field
Alan Miller
May 12, 2008
CHARLOTTE - When the Eaton County Board of Commissioners adopted a policy requiring "prevailing wage" language March 19 in its major construction contracts, Wally Miars, owner of Miars Electric in Charlotte, was not happy. In his non-union company, Miars provides his workers with what he considers a fair wage and benefit package, but that package is not allowed on any job with a prevailing wage requirement. To submit a bid now, Miars must commit to paying his employees based on a rate determined by the state Labor and Economic Growth Department - essentially the rate paid to union workers. County Commissioner Linda Keefe, chair of the board's Ways and Means Committee, believes it was an overdue improvement to how the county does business. "It will level the playing field," she said, noting that projects using state funds already have such a requirement.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/METRO/805120375
GI from Walled Lake kidnapped in Iraq 1 year ago still missing
Catherine Jun / The Detroit News
Monday, May 12, 2008
OXFORD TOWNSHIP -- Uniformed soldiers showed up last May with the dreaded news: Byron Fouty had been ambushed and kidnapped in Iraq. Fouty, then a 19-year-old Army private first class from Walled Lake, was one of three U.S. soldiers abducted a year ago today in an insurgent ambush about 20 miles south of Baghdad. His mother still jumps when the phone rings, praying for any update, any news. "I don't know if he's alive or dead," said Hilary Meunier, Fouty's mother, in a phone interview from her home in Texas. "I can't put closure to it." Fouty remains missing, and for his family here and in Texas that has meant living the past year in a kind of tormented limbo -- waiting for word on the search, waiting for a happy ending, waiting for their hopes to be realized, or waiting for their ever-present fears to play out.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/is_mccain_sailing_into_a_storm.html
Is McCain Sailing Into a Storm?
By Steve Chapman
May 11, 2008
The last couple of months have been springtime in paradise for Republicans: the loveliest of all possible seasons. They have been watching two Democratic presidential candidates in an endless battle to destroy each other -- a process that does not appear to enhance the chance that the eventual nominee will win in November. A recent Gallup poll shows John McCain leading both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup. All this before Republicans even begin publicizing the worst that can be said about either of two candidates whose alleged defects provide a supremely target-rich environment. But it's easy to let the individuals involved obscure larger factors that may prove more important. In a hurricane, even handsome, well-built boats can end up underwater. And right now, the GOP looks as though it may be sailing into a perfect storm.
Already, Obama and McCain Map Fall Strategies
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY
May 11, 2008
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are already drawing up strategies for taking each other on in the general election, focusing on the same groups — including independent voters and Latinos — and about a dozen states where they think the contest is likely to be decided this fall, campaign aides said. In a sign of what could be an extremely unusual fall campaign, the two sides said Saturday that they would be open to holding joint forums or unmoderated debates across the country in front of voters through the summer. Mr. Obama, campaigning in Oregon, said that the proposal, floated by Mr. McCain’s advisers, was “a great idea.” Even before Mr. Obama fully wraps up the Democratic presidential nomination, he and Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are starting to assemble teams in the key battlegrounds, develop negative advertising and engage each other in earnest on the issues and a combustible mix of other topics, including age and patriotism.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055332820883987.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox
McCain Woos Democrats on Environment
By LAURA MECKLER and STEPHEN POWER
May 12, 2008; Page A4
WASHINGTON -- After spending several weeks staking out positions on taxes, Iraq and judges designed to appeal to conservatives, John McCain is shifting his attention to independents and Democrats, with proposals on climate change. The Republican presidential candidate also is using his stance on energy and the environment to draw distinctions between himself and President Bush, whose popularity is at a near-record low. Sen. McCain's support of regulating global-warming gases like carbon dioxide -- the biggest environmental issue before Congress -- more closely resembles the stance of his Democratic rivals, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, though he disagrees with them on how such regulations should be structured.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121037649583181977.html?mod=rss_Politics_And_Policy
America's Race to the Middle
After Years of Gridlock, Campaign '08 May Yield A New Political Center
By GERALD F. SEIB and JOHN HARWOOD
May 10, 2008; Page A1
The long, fascinating spectacle of the presidential primaries has all but obscured their potential impact on American politics: Campaign 2008 may break Washington's gridlock by reviving the long-dormant political center. The public's hunger for a change in Washington's ways has formed the backdrop of this year's presidential race from its outset. When the Wall Street Journal and NBC News surveyed voters in December, as the campaign began, almost half agreed that America needed "major reforms and a brand new and different approach" to handling problems. In the wake of Tuesday's primary elections in North Carolina and Indiana, it appears more likely than ever that the two presidential candidates this fall will be Sen. Barack Obama for the Democrats and Sen. John McCain for the Republicans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/11/AR2008051101786.html
McCain's Christian Problem
By Robert D. Novak
Monday, May 12, 2008; A19
John McCain, who as the Republican candidate for president has spent the past two months trying to consolidate right-wing support, has a problem of disputed dimensions with a vital component of the conservative coalition: evangelicals. The biggest question is whether Mike Huckabee is part of the problem or the solution for McCain. Some U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as "God's candidate" for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course. Huckabee's announced support of McCain is unequivocal, and he is regarded in the McCain camp as a friend and ally.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121049245463883149.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox
Obama, Clinton Adjust Aim, Target McCain
By MATT PHILLIPS and JOEL MILLMAN
May 12, 2008; Page A4
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stepped up their criticism of John McCain and aimed fewer potshots at each other amid signs the nomination fight is winding down and the Democratic Party is coalescing around Sen. Obama. Before taking time off the campaign trail Sunday, Sen. Obama zeroed in on the Republican presidential candidate's "gas-tax holiday," ridiculing the proposal as saving motorists "a quarter and a nickel a day" through the summer. He also tested a new, harsher message: Sen. McCain's involvement in the 1987 Keating Five savings and loan scandal would be fair game for the general election. The McCain camp chastised Sen. Obama. "If Barack Obama doesn't have the strength to stand up to his own calls for a 'new type of politics,' then how is he possibly the candidate who can stand up for families and rejuvenate the economy?" said spokesman Tucker Bounds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/business/media/12novak.html?ref=politics
McCain’s TV Preferences Emerge: Office Farce, Not Soap
By BRIAN STELTER
May 12, 2008
John McCain was ridiculed last month after he claimed to be a devoted viewer of the MTV soap opera “The Hills.” More than a few skeptics suggested that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee could not be serious. Mr. McCain seemed to set himself up again last Wednesday when, in an appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” he jokingly proposed Dwight Schrute, a sycophantic character on the NBC sitcom “The Office,” as his running mate. “That is pandering of the highest degree,” Mr. Stewart quipped. But Mr. McCain’s fondness for “The Office” seems sincere. The next day he seemed slightly star-struck upon meeting B. J. Novak, a writer and actor on the show, at a gala sponsored by Time magazine. Mr. McCain started rattling off the details of “Dinner Party,” a recent episode that he apparently enjoyed and remembered.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/opinion/12luttwak.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
President Apostate?
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
May 12, 2008
BARACK OBAMA has emerged as a classic example of charismatic leadership — a figure upon whom others project their own hopes and desires. The resulting emotional intensity adds greatly to the more conventional strengths of the well-organized Obama campaign, and it has certainly sufficed to overcome the formidable initial advantages of Senator Hillary Clinton. One danger of such charisma, however, is that it can evoke unrealistic hopes of what a candidate could actually accomplish in office regardless of his own personal abilities. Case in point is the oft-made claim that an Obama presidency would be welcomed by the Muslim world. This idea often goes hand in hand with the altogether more plausible argument that Mr. Obama’s election would raise America’s esteem in Africa — indeed, he already arouses much enthusiasm in his father’s native Kenya and to a degree elsewhere on the continent.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/OPINION03/805120301/1007/OPINION
Barack Obama's bitter half
Monday, May 12, 2008
Michelle Malkin
Are you ready for hope and change? Barack Obama better hope his bitter half has a change of attitude if she expects to assume the title of first lady in November. She's been likened to John F. Kennedy's wife, what with her chic suits and pearls and perfectly coiffed helmet hair. But when she opens her mouth, Michelle O is less Jackie O and more Wendy W -- as in Wendy Whiner, the constantly kvetching "Saturday Night Live" character from the early 1980s. When last our worldviews collided, back in February, the other Michelle was expounding on her lack of pride in America. I gave her myriad reasons to cheer up -- from America's role in the fall of communism to our unparalleled generosity to our nation's superior economic system, cultural resilience, entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004406277_evangvote11m.html
Young, evangelical ... for Obama?
By Haley Edwards
May 11, 2008
Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man. He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama. "I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University. Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/us/politics/12rove.html?hp
The Pundit Analyzing Obama? Some TV Upstart Named Rove
By JIM RUTENBERG and JACQUES STEINBERG
May 12, 2008
WASHINGTON — Late Thursday night, Karl Rove, the architect of the last two Republican presidential victories, was on his new television perch at Fox News, offering free advice to Senator Barack Obama as he closed in on the Democratic nomination. Any move by Mr. Obama to declare victory before the last of the Democratic primaries in June, Mr. Rove said, would alienate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s wing of the party. “That’s a mistake,” he said. “That just is rubbing the loser’s nose in it. And a lot of those supporters will remember it by November.” In the Obama campaign war room in Chicago, where Mr. Rove’s talking head was just one of several across six television screens, his counsel was taken with a heavy dose of salt.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/136440
Sit Back, Relax, Get Ready to Rumble
He's taken everything in stride, it seems. How Obama and his team will battle the GOP onslaught.
By Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas
May 19, 2008 Issue
How do you know if Barack Obama is unhappy with what you're saying— or not saying? At meetings of his closest advisers, he likes to lean back, put his feet on the table and close his eyes. If he doesn't like how the conversation is going, he will lean forward, put his feet on the floor and "adjust his socks, kind of start tugging at them," says Michael Strautmanis, a counselor to the campaign. Obama wants people to talk, but he doesn't want to intimidate them. "If you haven't said anything, he'll call on you," says Strautmanis. "He's never said it, but he usually thinks if somebody is very quiet it's because they disagree with what everybody is saying … so Barack will call on you and say, 'You've been awfully quiet'." There are no screamers on Team Obama; one senior Obama aide says he's heard him yell only twice in four years. Obama was explicit from the beginning: there was to be "no drama," he told his aides.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-dems11-2008may11,0,71247.story
Barack Obama faces an untested set of hurdles
If he's chosen as the Democratic nominee, his race might be an issue, but experience and social issues loom much larger.
By Doyle Mcmanus and Peter Wallsten
May 11, 2008
WASHINGTON — For the first time, a major political party is on the brink of choosing an African American as its candidate for president, but when Democratic strategists and other analysts look ahead, they don't see race as Barack Obama's biggest challenge. They worry more, they say, about other issues: Will swing voters view him as too young? Too inexperienced? Or too liberal? "I am sure there are people in Missouri that won't vote for Barack Obama because he's black, but there are not that many of them," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a swing-state leader who endorsed Obama early. "I don't think that's going be a deal breaker." Instead, she said, Obama's most important test should he lock up the nomination will come from Republican efforts to paint him as an elitist, a social and cultural liberal outside the mainstream of American life.
The company Obama has kept
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Rod Dreher
Forty years ago this month, Paris exploded in left-wing student riots that led to a nationwide general strike. The revolutionary fervor of France's soixante-huitards ('68ers) spread widely, including to American campuses. If you're wondering when the Good '60s of peace, love and civil rights gave way to the Bad '60s of anarchy and violence, May 1968 is as good a historical pivot point as any.John McCain was in the Hanoi Hilton at the time. Barack Obama was 6 years old. Yet the restless spirit of '68 haunts this year's presidential campaign, especially the White House bid of Mr. Obama, who, having pretty much missed the '60s – "Civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam War. Those all sort of passed me by," he told The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan last year – was supposed to take us beyond those divisive traumas. It's not working out that way. His former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an unreconstructed '60s radical, a fire-breathing disciple of James Cone's period-piece black liberation theology.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055622112284133.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
Obama and the Values Question Mark
By DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN
May 12, 2008
With the Democratic nomination all but decided, it's time for Barack Obama to start defining himself in the context of the general election -- before the Republicans define him. Most importantly, he must answer this question once and for all: What are his values? Mr. Obama began to do so last Tuesday night, by speaking more generally about who he is and how he defines himself. But this is just a first step. Exit polls in Indiana and North Carolina show clearly that fewer than 60% of white voters believe Mr. Obama shares their values. In a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 45% of the American electorate said they can identify with Mr. Obama's values, compared to 54% who say they can identify with John McCain's values.
Face it, Democrats: Barack Obama's got a growing problem with whites
BY JUAN WILLIAMS
Sunday, May 11th 2008, 4:00 AM
Hillary Clinton, down to her last straw, is making the case that she is the better candidate to run against the Republicans because, unlike Barack Obama, she can win white Democrats. She is right. But because she is daring to touch the hot button of racial politics, she is being told to shut up or risk being charged with exploiting racial tensions for political advantage. The facts are stubborn, however. Since his phenomenal win with 33% of the white vote in nearly all-white Iowa, Obama has been unable to get a firm grip on white Democrats. He has won a majority of these voters in only six states, the biggest of which is his home state of Illinois. Clinton has defeated Obama among white voters in key states such as California, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Exit polls show Clinton winning an overwhelming average of 57% of white Democrats since the February Super Tuesday elections.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20080510_9994.php
Voters: Racism Is Not the Problem
Wright aside, if Obama's race were a net liability with voters, he would have had no chance of winning the nomination.
Stuart Taylor Jr.
Sat. May 10, 2008
Is Barack Obama--now closer than ever to winning the Democratic nomination--nonetheless at a political disadvantage because of white racism, or "racial fears," or "race-baiting," or racial "double standards," as some commentators have suggested? The evidence indicates otherwise, as it pertains both to this election and more broadly to the perennial tendency of many in the racial-grievance groups, the media, and academia to exaggerate how much white racism remains and its impact on African-Americans. But many of the voters who have been unfairly tarred as racist do have a different flaw that Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain are working especially hard to exploit: ignorance of elementary economics and other things every high school graduate should know, which accounts for the low quality of the debate on issues ranging from the gas tax to trade to the budget.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a50425a-1f86-11dd-9216-000077b07658,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1
W Virginia keeps distance from Obama
By Andrew Ward
Published: May 11 2008
Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican. “I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides. Mr Simpson’s remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls. A landslide victory for Mrs Clinton in West Virginia will do little to improve her fading hopes of winning the Democratic nomination, because Mr Obama has an almost insurmountable lead in the overall race.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/11/AR2008051101865.html
Clinton Team Acknowledges $20 Million Debt
A Top Aide Denies Rumors That She Is Seeking VP Slot
By Anne E. Kornblut
Monday, May 12, 2008; A04
CLARKSBURG, W.Va., May 11 -- With her campaign falling ever deeper into debt, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton spent a rainy Mother's Day seeking votes ahead of Tuesday's primary here, turning a deaf ear to calls for her to leave a Democratic presidential contest she has little hope of winning. Clinton aides continued to insist that she will remain in the race even while confirming that she is $20 million in debt. "The voters are going to decide this," senior adviser Howard Wolfson said on "Fox News Sunday," acknowledging the $20 million figure. "There is no reason for her not to continue this process." Wolfson said he has seen "no evidence of her interest" in pursuing the second-place spot on the Democratic ticket, contrary to rumors that she is staying in the race to leverage a bid for the vice presidential nomination.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/36639.html
Group pushing Clinton as VP choice tied to her campaign
By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
WASHINGTON — A group called VoteBoth has been leading the charge for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up on the Democratic ticket. But the people behind it come from just one of those camps — Clinton's — and one of their goals may be keeping Clinton's White House prospects alive. The group's founder, Adam Parkhomenko, until recently worked as an assistant to Patti Solis Doyle, who was Clinton's campaign manager until February. Parkhomenko in 2003 founded the Draft Hillary for President Committee. VoteBoth's spokesman is Sam Arora. He's a law school student who in recent years worked for Clinton and for former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's presidential campaign chairman. VoteBoth's Facebook page lists three others as administrators, all with Clinton connections.
http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/634725.html
Turn out the lights, Hillary
By Bob Ray Sanders
May 11, 2008
Sen. Hillary Clinton is a smart, strong, tenacious woman. Those qualities are ones that many of us have admired in her for years. They also are traits that cause a lot of other people -- including many women -- to despise her. Some folk just can't stand a forceful female, an intelligent woman who is willing to stand her ground with any man and one who has the audacity to believe that she can be president of the United States. Despite my longtime admiration for her, I must admit that in recent months I've lost some of the respect for a woman I robustly defended when she and her husband were being attacked by the "vast right-wing conspiracy." Admittedly, more than a year ago I proclaimed my allegiance to Barack Obama by suggesting that he should be the next president. I also said at the time that should Clinton win the Democratic nomination, she could not win without Obama on the ticket. It's clear now that she will not be the nominee, and it's even more apparent to me that she should not be.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cookreport.php
Upset Republicans
It's important to remember that when a political party is experiencing bad times, it doesn't catch many breaks.
by Charlie Cook
Sat. May 10, 2008
Recent special elections for House seats in Illinois and Louisiana that were once reliably Republican sent the GOP an unmistakable signal that the party's 25-year-old playbook is obsolete: Simply spouting an undiluted conservative message doesn't consistently work anymore, even in some of the nation's reddest districts. And a potential loss in a special election in Mississippi later this month could underscore that message. The upset in Louisiana's 6th Congressional District, where President Bush won 59 percent of the vote in 2004, should jolt the GOP. Similarly, losing the Illinois seat vacated by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican, whose 14th District went to Bush by 55 percent, should be a wake-up call.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/hoping_to_hold_on_in_mississip.html
Hoping to Hold On in Mississippi
By George Will
May 11, 2008
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. -- The 1st Congressional District, the northernmost in the most culturally Southern state, has given the nation William Faulkner and Elvis Presley, and next Tuesday will have a special congressional election that will test the Republican hope that Barack Obama and his former pastor can be the basis of a Republican strategy to nationalize congressional races to the disadvantage of Democrats. A Senate seat also could be affected by the cascading consequences of Republican Sen. Trent Lott's December resignation. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour replaced him with 1st District Rep. Roger Wicker, who this November will be on the ballot seeking election to the remainder of Lott's term. Wicker's opponent is former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who has won two statewide elections. The winner of the Republican nomination to fill Wicker's House seat is Greg Davis, mayor of this town, which is on the far west side of the district, just down Interstate 55 from Memphis.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/NEWS/805110366/1001/news
'Yellow Dog' Dems could blunt Republicans' Southern edge
Disapproval of war, economy opens solidly GOP districts to shift
Ana Radelat
May 11, 2008
The Deep South held fast against the surge that swept the Democratic Party into power in Congress two years ago. But today, there are cracks in Republican defenses. A shift in political winds - attributed to voter impatience with the war in Iraq, a deteriorating economy and an unpopular Republican president - has made rock-ribbed Republican districts in the South suddenly competitive. That's especially true for conservative "Yellow Dog" Democrats who know how to campaign. "Republicans are going to find races that would have been slam dunks in the past to be extremely challenging," said political analyst Charlie Cook. House races where Democrats could pick up Republican seats include the northern Mississippi House seat formerly represented by Roger Wicker (appointed to the Senate in January), retiring Rep. Jim McCrery's northwest Louisiana seat, and retiring Rep. Terry Everett's southeast Alabama seat.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055661828684155.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
Keep America Open to Trade
By CARLOS M. GUTIERREZ and ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
May 12, 2008
As immigrants, we're proud of America and the strength it derives from being uniquely open to trade, to investment, and to ideas and people. Recently, prominent voices in punditry and politics have questioned the benefits of America's openness and called for an isolationist U-turn that would choke off our innovation and prosperity. In every state of the union, such a retreat would be disastrous for jobs, economic growth and consumer choice. Nowhere is this more clear than here in Torrance, Calif., where today we are visiting a Hitachi plant that remanufactures auto parts. This "foreign" company employs 16,000 Americans -- 8,000 in California alone -- and is just one of hundreds of overseas firms that invest directly in the U.S. From where we're standing, what America needs is more openness here and abroad -- not less.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/11/AR2008051101734.html
Not an Emergency
Congress again uses a war funding bill to advance pet projects.
Washington Post
Monday, May 12, 2008; A18
FIVE YEARS into paying for two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's outrageous that so much of the financing continues to be approved outside the normal budget process, through "emergency" spending bills that must be passed, must be passed in a hurry and therefore must risk ending up as vehicles for other initiatives. Some of these are worthy, but they hardly count as "emergencies" that should be exempt from the ordinary give-and-take of budget negotiations or from the rules that require new mandatory spending programs to be paid for in some way. This dreary phenomenon is unfolding again in the form of the latest emergency supplemental appropriation, this one providing another $162 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the middle of 2009. The House has proposed language that would also require the president to begin redeploying troops within 30 days; this isn't likely to survive the Senate.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055143706183847.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
The Biggest Housing Losers
Wall Street Journal
May 12, 2008
You may not know it, dear reader, but Congress is playing you for a sap. During the housing mania, you didn't lend money at teaser rates to borrowers who couldn't pay, or buy a bigger house than you could afford. You paid your bills on time. As a reward for that good judgment and restraint, Barney Frank is now going to let you bail out the least responsible bankers and borrowers. The Massachusetts Democrat's housing bill passed the House Thursday, and it makes us wish we had splurged like so many others. In the name of helping strapped home buyers, Mr. Frank is giving lenders a chance to pass their worst paper onto Uncle Sugar. If both borrower and lender agree to participate, lenders can accept 85% of the current appraised mortgage value and in return get to dump up to $300 billion of those loans on the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055427930584069.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
Wind ($23.37) v. Gas (25 Cents)
Wall Street Journal
May 12, 2008
Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy dollars are buying now. Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That's double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all the money Congress is throwing at "renewables." Even more subsidies are set to pass this year.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055247300183929.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
The Union Police
Wall Street Journal
May 12, 2008
Unions keep losing membership as a share of the national workforce, which explains why organized labor's main political focus is changing the rules to force more workers into unions. Witness a bill that Senate Democrats are pushing this week to require that hundreds of thousands of local police and firemen submit to collective bargaining. Under current law, every state has the ability to set policies that govern its public workforce. In some states, police, firefighters and paramedics belong to unions that collectively bargain for their contracts. In others, unions representing public-security workers can bargain over pay, but not over benefits or work rules. And in some others, these workers can choose not to belong to a union. Democrats want to change this for the entire country.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05112008/postopinion/editorials/columbia_errs_again_110282.htm
COLUMBIA ERRS AGAIN
New York Post
May 11, 2008 –
Columbia University has gone and done it again. Still under fire for a host of outrages - offering a platform to Iranian strongman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; tolerating faculty members' harassment of pro-Israeli students and a blatant physical attack on a guest speaker; all but ignoring egregious plagiarism on the part of a tenured professor - the school has made a most unfortunate appointment to a key academic post. John Coatsworth, who actually reached out and invited Ahmadinejad to the Ivy League campus last fall, has been named dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs by President Lee Bollinger. Bad choice. And not just because of Coatsworth's far-left ideology, which certainly won't be out of character on the Morningside Heights campus.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/11/usa
Forget the naysayers - America remains an inspiration to us all
Will Hutton The Observer,
Sunday May 11 2008
Browsing through an American bookshop does not lift the spirits. Books that chart the end of American supremacy, predict wars over finite natural resources, study the squeezed middle class or the catastrophic Bush presidency proliferate. The United States is going through a period of introspection and the Boston bookshelves, at which I spent part of last week, heave with the results. In one respect, it is hardly surprising. Iraq, Afghanistan and the rise of China. The credit crunch. The $124 a barrel oil price. The unbelievable unfairness of Bush's tax cuts. The racism and violence that still pockmark American life. Yet the pessimism is overdone. The more I visit the US the more I think the pundits predicting the US's imminent economic and political decline hugely overstate their case. Rather, the next 50 years will be as dominated by the US as the last 50.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/opinion/12kristol.html?ref=opinion
The Jewish State at 60
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
May 12, 2008
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. There have already been many birthday greetings, some heartfelt, some perfunctory, along with numerous reflections on the meaning of the occasion, some profound, some commonplace. For me, however, a discordant voice broke through. Israel is a “stinking corpse” on its way to “annihilation,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last Thursday as Israel celebrated Independence Day. “Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken,” proclaimed the president of Iran, a nation that is a member in good standing of the United Nations and an active trading partner of countries like Germany and Russia. “Today the reason for the Zionist regime’s existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDNkMTdhZjkzY2Q1MWRhOWQxMTRmZWZmZjMyZjU5MmI=
Warring History
Rethinking the Iraq critics.
By Michael Barone
May 10, 2008, 8:30 a.m.
In trying to understand news about the conflicts in Iraq, I work to keep in mind the difference between what we know now about decision making in World War II and what most Americans knew at the time. From the memoirs and documents published after the war, we’ve learned how leaders made critical judgments. But at the time, even well-informed journalists only could guess at what was going on behind the scenes. Today we’re only beginning to learn about what went on behind the scenes in regard to Iraq. One important new source is the recently published War and Decision by Douglas Feith, the No. 3 civilian at the Pentagon from 2001 to 2005. Feith quotes extensively from unpublished documents and contemporary memorandums, just as in the late 1940s Robert Sherwood did in Roosevelt and Hopkins and Winston Churchill did in his World War II histories.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/world/middleeast/12basra.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Drive in Basra by Iraqi Army Makes Gains
By STEPHEN FARRELL and AMMAR KARIM
May 12, 2008
BASRA, Iraq — Three hundred miles south of Baghdad, the oil-saturated city of Basra has been transformed by its own surge, now seven weeks old. In a rare success, forces loyal to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki have largely quieted the city, to the initial surprise and growing delight of many inhabitants who only a month ago shuddered under deadly clashes between Iraqi troops and Shiite militias. Just as in Baghdad, Iraqi and Western officials emphasize that the gains here are “fragile,” like the newly planted roadside saplings that fail to conceal mounds of garbage and pools of foul-smelling water in the historic port city’s slums. Among the many uncertainties are whether the government, criticized for incompetence at the start of the operation, can maintain the high level of troops here. But in interviews across Basra, residents overwhelmingly reported a substantial improvement in their everyday lives.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/11/davidcameron.conservatives
Is Team Cameron ready to storm Number 10?
Jo Revill
Sunday May 11 2008
London's East End is not usually thought of as a traditional stamping ground for the Tories, but in Spitalfields, close to where Jack the Ripper used to find his victims, another kind of vicious crime will take place this week, at least in the eyes of Labour supporters. David Cameron and his team will be heading there on Thursday to launch their Homelessness Foundation, an attempt to come up with some hard solutions for the 79,000 families living in temporary accommodation. There is nothing new about opposition politicians unveiling eye-catching policy ideas; what is new is the level of seriousness with which they are taken. The heads of all the major homelessness charities have agreed to sit on the foundation's advisory panel. One of them, the head of Crisis, Leslie Morphy, said she recognised that the Conservatives' fortunes had changed the way they were now being seen:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/11/AR2008051101782.html
In Burma, a U.N. Promise Not Kept
By Fred Hiatt
Monday, May 12, 2008; A19
When a parent abuses or neglects a child, government steps in to offer protection. But who steps in when government abuses or neglects its people? Nearly three years ago, the United Nations announced an answer to that question: It would. At a summit celebrating the organization's 60th birthday, 171 nations agreed that they would intervene, forcefully if necessary, if a state failed to protect its own people. The action was seen as both a sign of remorse for the failure to stop genocide in Rwanda and a rebuke to the United States and its unilateral ways. "I'm delighted that the responsibility to protect, a Canadian idea, now belongs to the world," said Canada's prime minister at the time, Paul Martin. "The United Nations will not find itself turning away or averting its gaze." Since then the United Nations has averted its gaze as Sudan's government continues to ravage the people of Darfur. It has turned away as Zimbabwe's rulers terrorize their own people.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/095igqwe.asp
Countering Iran
How to deal with the clerics in Tehran.
by Reuel Marc Gerecht
05/19/2008, Volume 013, Issue 34
What are we going to do about Iran? When Hillary Clinton surreally promised to obliterate the Islamic Republic if the mullahs nuked Israel, she at least recognized that a nuclear-armed clerical regime is a serious menace, and that successful diplomacy with Tehran without the threat of force is fantasy. How to handle Iran may well be the decisive foreign-policy question of the 2008 presidential campaign--especially if Tehran continues to exploit the vacuum left by the collapse of the Bush administration's Iran policy and the general listlessness of the U.S. presence in the Middle East outside of Iraq. Tehran is on a roll. Its development of a nuclear weapon progresses. The European Union's attempts to cajole the mullahs to abandon uranium enrichment--the most demanding part of developing the bomb--has become ever-more plaintive; the Europeans promise incentives more than they threaten sanctions.
New Allies In Asia?
By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, May 11, 2008; B07
TOKYO -- China and Japan have been reliable enemies for a thousand years. Their leaders have always been able to count on each other to stir nationalist anger and distract their followers from other problems by trading insults, threats or at times blows. So an abnormally friendly five-day visit to Japan by Chinese President Hu Jintao causes many here to wonder what has suddenly gone right in the relationship between the two giants of Asia -- and whether it can last. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the primary engineer of this Asian rapprochement, believes that it can. "We have been able to put the past in the past," he told me shortly after Hu left the country yesterday. The new path is possible because of -- not in spite of -- China's great economic surge as a global exporter, Fukuda explained through an interpreter in a 90-minute interview.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002265.html
Olympic Gag Order
Why should China's repression of free speech be imposed on athletes from the rest of the world?
Washington Post
Sunday, May 11, 2008; B06
WHEN BEIJING was bidding to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, part of its pitch was that the games would help promote human rights in China, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) bought it. But with the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies less than three months away, it looks as if the reverse is the case -- that China's repressive norms are affecting the rest of the world. Consider a letter the IOC recently sent to individual countries' Olympic committees, clarifying its policy on political expression -- even nonverbal expression -- by athletes anywhere within Olympic venues. Rule 51.3 of the Olympic charter, the letter noted, provides that "no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."
