Intelligent Design Expelled from Dover

There are important stories in the news this week, to be sure. And I am following them. The Iraqi elections. Sadaam's trial. Bush's NSA eavesdropping revelations. All important.

But the story that interests me most is the story of the Federal Judge in Pennsylvania issuing a ruling that the Intelligent Design policy instituted by the Dover School Board was unconstitutional and must be ceased.

The story was interesting to me on two levels.

First, it taps into my longstanding interest in the creation vs. evolution debate.

Second, the decision is a milestone in that debate and deserves a great deal of study and scrutiny. I'd advise everyone that is proffering an opinion on the ruling to actually read the thing.

I read the entire ruling - an ambitious excercise for a non-lawyer - including all 139 pages plus the footnotes. I read it all in one sitting.

After reading the Dover decision, I made a decision. That is, to start a new blog focused on this one topic only - separate from Partisan Newsjunkie.

Politics here.

Creation vs. Evolution over at my new home: http://onorigins.blogspot.com

Stop in and check it out.

This is News?

In the "this is news?" category tonight, I submit the lead story on all the network and cable networks tonight. Let's review it as reported by CBS:

Bob Schieffer introduced Wednesday's CBS Evening News by using loaded language as he pointed out how, “to protest the President's decision to continue spying on American citizens, a federal judge took the unprecedented step of resigning from the court that issues warrants in such cases,”

Really now. This is the state of mainstream journalism today?

First of all, it is of course loaded language. According to the totality of news reports on the topic the judge did not officially announce a reason for his resignation. Would you get that from Scheiffer's phrasing "to protest the President's decision..."? Of course not. That phrasing was loaded and agenda driven.

So, if the judge did not announce an official reason, how did Schieffer know the reason. Again, from reading multiple sources I learned that this was deduced from remarks that the judge made in private conversations. Really now! Is that the standard of reporting a lead story on network news now? CBS News is reporting rumors about private remarks as factual news now?

Finally, why is this news? Is it news that one Clinton appointee has a philosophical difference of opinion with President Bush? One judge out of 11 resigns and that is news? No, it is not.

If it were news, the accurate headline would be "10 out of 11 judges are not offended by the President's actions."

Run, Forrest, Run

So, I was flipping through the channels last night and landed on a movie that is in my Top Ten best movies of all time list - Forrest Gump.

Interesting scene in the middle. Forrest has served in Vietnam and is in Washington D.C. to receive a Medal of Honor from the President. As he's walking through Washington, he accidentally gets caught up in a line going to a war protest on the mall.

Before he knows it, he's mistaken for a member of a group of veterans protesting the war and is thrust up on stage to speak - in the midst of a gathering of radicals and hippies. SDS types. Black panthers. etc.

Forrest, looking completely honorable and completely out of place in his military dress uniform and medals, steps up to the microphone to speak.

Behind Forrest is a huge banner, which reads:

Support the troops. Bring them home.

Wow. Things never change. Was Cindy Sheehan out there somewhere? Howard Dean? George Soros?

Probably not. John Kerry probably was, though.

Get off the stage, Forrest. Run, Forrest, run.

Bush Fighting Back

Finally, after a long summer of press and opposition drubbings, President Bush is going on offense to defend his record on Iraq and terror. Finally, an effective and sustained response to the outrageous yammerings of the Defeatocrats.

So, a recap of recent boos and kudos is in order:

Kudos - to the President in his address and press conference, for a needed and compelling recap of the terrorist threat we still face and of his job requirement to protect the country as his first priority.

Boos - to the New York Times for attempting to dupe the country with a scandal story the day after the most significant news story of the year - the Iraqi elections. The non-story about the President authorizing domestic wire taps to track terrorist with foreign connections was held for a year and then dumped with a timing designed both to minimize the success story of the elections and to take down the Patriot act. As the President said today:

My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy.

Boo - to the leaker within the NSA or the Congress who leaked this to the New York Times. Note to Democrats: this is a real secret, worthy of keeping. Not like this made up Valerie Plame outing that you've had your knickers in a twist over for the last two years.

Boos - to the Democrat leadership (Pelosi and Reid) who were briefed on the wiretaps, but ran for cover yesterday when the news story broke. Chickens.

Kudos - to the President for the courage to say that he ordered the wiretaps many times and would do so again as often as needed. This story says that we have a Commander in Chief who is serious about fighting the War on Terror with everything in his arsenal.

Boos - to the rest of the media for dropping the incredible story of the succesful Iraqi elections to chase like lemmings the wiretap story. One day. That's all the coverage that the MSM gave to perhaps the most significant news story of the year.

Kudos - to the U.S. Government and the Iraqi people for pulling off the election.

Boos - to the mainstream media who have kept alive on the front pages the story about the CIA running secret prisons for terrorists overseas. If we are, good. Shame on this leaker as well. Again, it shows that we're serious about fighting a war.

Boos - to the leftist party leaders who continue to make outrageous defamations day after day and continue to call for retreat in Iraq.

Boos - to the Senate Democrats who successfully killed, for now anyway, the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Is there any position that the Senate Democrats have taken in the last two years that Osama bin Laden wouldn't have voted the same way on?

Boos - finally, to the Islamic Army of Iraq who, not content to wait entirely for the Democrats and the media to win this war for them, put a bullet in the head of an American captive this week. Barbarians.

All Seeing?

We noticed last week that our local psychic is going out of business. Her building is up for sale and everything.

The obvious question: Why didn't she see that coming?

Saving Lives in Iraq

There are a lot of ways to tell a story with statistics. Pro or Con. Favorable or unfavorable. In a way the enlightens or that obscures the truth.

For months now, critics of the War in Iraq have thrown around statistics about how many civilian casualties are directly related to the American invasion to depose the murderous tyrant Sadaam Hussein and his thug regime.

How many? 100,000 thousand was the oft repeated, though unsubstantiated claim. 100,000 dead civilian Iraqi's caught in the crossfire.

Lately that number is being revised down by proponents who have challenged the wilder claims. How many? 30,000 appears to be the new number, used now by both more reasonable critics and by the Bush administration. That was the number used by President Bush even today.

30,000. Dead Iraqi civilians.

Is that possible? Certainly. It's a war, in case you didn't get the memo.

Is it unheard of? Not compared to most conflicts. Vietnam, according to a radio report I listened to today, produced 1 million or more civilian casualties. World Wars resulted in considerably more.

Is it to the shame of the U.S. that there have been 30,000 civilian dead?

No, it is not. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that our actions have saved lives in Iraq.

There are of course the thousands of Iraqis found in mass graves, killed at the hands of the Hussein regime. That's not a threat anymore.

There are, of course, the untold number of Iraqis killed directly by, or ordered killed by, Sadaam's thug sons - Uday and Qusay. Thugs who reportedly took after dinner strolls at night over to the prisons to select prisoners for execution purely for enjoyment. Those thugs are in the ground, and Iraqis are now safe from them.

More telling: take as my only case the U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq after the first Gulf War.

Sanctions that prohibited Iraq from selling oil. Sanctions that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children. (A case often shouted from the rooftops by Bush critics who claimed that the sanctions killed 500,000).

To alleviate the suffering, the U.S. and the U.N. modified the sanctions to allow Iraq to sell Oil - for - Food. Did it end the dying? Of course not. Sadaam promptly stole the money and used it to build many many palaces to his glory and to bribe French, German, and Russian diplomats to oppose any action against him in the U.N.

Children and adults died of starvation in Iraq under the U.N. sanctions, each and every year.

How many. Estimates that I heard were 5,000 per month. That's 60,000 / year dead. Every year for 12 years. That's 720,000 dead from the sanctions.

So, given 60,000 / year dying just from the sanctions - and Sadaam's refusal to comply with the requirements that would have lifted the sanctions, what were the options?

Bush opponents exclaim that the correct option for dealing with Iraq was to leave the sanctions in place. How many times did you hear Kerry, Dean, Clinton, and company argue that we shouldn't have invaded because "the sanctions were working".

60,000 dead per year is working? Were they willing to not invade and accept 60,000 dead in 2003, again in 2004, and again in 2005? They must have been, because none of them advocated withdrawing the sanctions and walking away.

On the other hand, President Bush rightly concluded that the sanctions were not working. And we couldn't just lift the sanctions and walk away. Not only would you still have mass graves filling up, the terror threat after 9/11 dictated that we take down a state sponsor of terror.

So. It costs 30,000 lives over 3 years to do the right thing. To invade Iraq and depose the regime.

That's deeply regrettable. But it doesn't tell the whole story.

The rest of the story is that by ending the sanctions and ending the regime, we likely saved lives. Yes, that's what I said - saved lives. What's the math?

Not invading - leaving the sanctions as the anti-war crowd advocated?

2003 - 60,000 dead
2004 - 60,000 dead
2005 - 60,000 dead

Total - 180,000 dead

War in Iraq

2003 - 28,000 dead
2004 - 1000 dead
2005 - 1000 dead

Total - 30,000 dead

That's the math of war. A regrettable war, but a just war.

Do the math. Tell the whole story.

That's my take on it.

Disgrace(s) of the Week

It's a good thing that I don't write a regular column identifying the "Disgrace of the Week". There are just too many lately to choose from. The increasingly outrageous, left-wing, anti-war Democrat party is serving up example after example at a pace too fast to document well. Here are some recent candidates:

1. Let's start at the top:

Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee - who made this outrageous comment this week in a radio interview, while our troops are in harm's way on a war mission authorized by the President and the Congress:

"The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong,"

Unbelievable, that a chair of a major party would declare defeat and hoplessness less than 10 days from the major milestone that the troops have been fighting toward - the December 15th election in Iraq.

It goes without saying that he should resign. But I'll say it. He should resign. He has disgraced his party, and the rank and file of his party should call for his resignation.

2. Or maybe we should go with the man the Democrats thought should be President - Sen. John Kerry. A man who stumbles to a new position, all of them defeatist, on the war every day and who this week arrived at this disgraceful comment:

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of – the historical customs, religious customs," Kerry said Sunday. "Whether you like it or not ... Iraqis should be doing that."

Excuse me? "...young American soldiers..." "...terrorizing kids and children...". Are you kidding me? Does he not understand how loaded the word "terrorizing" is in the current climate of the War on Terror? Of course he does, and he meant to use it. The man who made outrageous claims against our military in Vietnam is at it again. He can't help it. It's deep in his psyche to allege the most heinous behavior by our troops in the field. And a lot of you wanted him to lead our country?

John Kerry should, as well, resign. He has disgraced his party, and the rank and file of the Democrat party should call for his resignation.

3. How about the most under-reported outrage of the week. I'm talking about Ramsey Clark going to Baghdad to lead Sadaam Hussein's defense team in his war crimes trial.

Ramsey Clark, Democrat. Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States under the Democrat administration of President Lyndon Johnson. Ramsey Clark, anti-war protestor for 30 years and hero of the unhinged anti-war left. In Baghdad to defend the butcher and terror threat that we launched a war to depose.

Ramsey Clark cannot, of course, resign. Nobody elected him to anything. He should instead, be denied re-entry into the U.S. and/or tried for treason.


The shocking fact is that, in two of these three disgraceful acts, we're not talking about fringe players. Granted that Ramsey Clark falls into the Cindy Sheehan fringe left category. But Howard Dean and John Kerry are leaders of their party. The logical question is - how much more extreme and disgraceful are these leaders going to allow their hatred of George W. Bush to take them?

Democrat's Dishonorable Hindsight

If one more Democrat leader steps up to a microphone and advocates the position that we should immediately withdraw from Iraq (as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi did this week), or that they were wrong to vote for the War there and would not have voted that way if they knew what they know now (as Sen. Hillary Clinton did), I'm gonna puke.

Both are dishonorable positions from elected leaders while we have troops in harm's way working to achieve victory in the task layed out by their Commander in Chief, and authorized by these revisionist cowards.

For the record, I do not support their assertion that the war was a mistake, is a disaster, or was entered into through lies and manipulation of intelligence. I support both the troops and their mission, Democrat claptrap notwithstanding.

Democrats Line Up to Surrender

The best sentence that I read in an editorial this week was this one, from Mona Charen's excellent column entitled "One Marine's Words":

Liberals seem always to believe that America will lose its wars, and when it doesn't, that it should.

That quote explains a lot. It especially explains why Democrats are falling over each other lately to get to a microphone to call for either complete surrender (Rep. Murtha calling for immediate withdrawal) or surrender on a payment plan (Sen. Barrack Obama calling for troop drawdown.)

Why the hurry to surrender? What's the rush?

The simple answer is that they have to do it now, because "Bush's War", as they call it, is about to experience a significant success and they have to undermine it before that can happen.

We've already seen three historically significant milestones in the War on Terror front in Iraq, as detailed in Ann Coulter's excellent column this week, where we are transforming a dangerous dictatorship that was a threat to the world into one of the sole democracies in the Mid East:

- deposing the tyrant Sadaam Hussein
- electing a constitutional assembly to draft a Constitution
- approving that Constituiton by a ration of 79% to 21%

Now we are within 20 days of the most crucial milestone in the War - a milestone that our troops have struggled for in harm's way - the democratic election of a government governed by their Constitution scheduled for December 15th in Iraq.

20 days from success, and Democrats are rushing to microphones to declare their new paradigm: that the Iraq mission was a tragic mistake (Sen. John Edwards), that the President lied them into voting for the war (Howard Dean), and that we should pull out troops and "admit our mistake" - a euphemism for surrender.

Unbelievable. But that's the state of Democratic leadership in our country today. These people cannot be trusted with power.

Depravity for Rent

It's not often that I walk into a video rental store and am saddened to see a video for rent. It happened to me this week, though.

The video in question is "The Devil's Rejects" by Rob Zombie. My local video chain had a whole shelf section stocked with copies.

I was first tipped off to this movie by film critic and conservative talk show host Michael Medved, whose take on the movie was that it was so depraved that it should never have been made. Depraved. That's a word you don't hear used in our society. After listening to his hour long segment on the movie I would have to guess that he's probably right.

I don't know if you've ever sat through a movie and then wondered why you paid to see that level of sickness. I have. It was "Silence of the Lambs". Despite it winning a best picture Oscar, I regretted seeing it. It has a level of sickness in it that I can't wipe from my brain.

Is "The Devil's Rejects" depraved? Let's see. Let's here from a different film critic that I normally respect, Roger Ebert, who recommended the movie with 3 stars:

Here is a gaudy vomitorium of a movie, violent, nauseating and really a pretty good example of its genre. If you are a hardened horror movie fan capable of appreciating skill and wit in the service of the deliberately disgusting, "The Devil's Rejects" may exercise a certain strange charm. If on the other hand you close your eyes if a scene gets icky, here is a movie to see with blinders on, because it starts at icky and descends relentlessly through depraved and nauseating to the embrace of road kill.

What's the movie about? According to Ebert:

"...it's about a depraved family of mass murderers" who slaughter their way through some revenge plot.

So, if it's a gaudy, nauseating, "vomitorium" why would he recommend it? Says Ebert:

There is actually some good writing and acting going on here, if you can step back from the material enough to see it.

Ahhh. I see. If you can "step back from the material" you can appreciate the mastery of the craft. That in itself is a depraved argument.

I was saddened enough to see it play at my local cineplex, where teens could - with some work - see it and have to live with it in their mind. Now, it's right there on the video rental shelf. How far are we exactly from the Roman collisieum?

Will I rent it? Of course not. But the eager teen who was dragging his clueless mom straight to that shelf will. God help him.

France on Fire

I watched, intrigued, a commercial on the History Channel advertising their 2 part series on "The Crusades". "It began", said the commentator, "with a faith".

Wrong faith, it turns out. The faith the producers wanted to start with was Christianity, and the time they wanted to start with was around 1095 when Europe mounted up some troops.

Wrong, I thought. The crusades did not begin in 1095. They began in 623 when the Prophet Muhammed died and the faith that he birthed began to expand violently at the point of a sword. By the 700's, Islam had occupied not only Jerusalem but large parts of Europe as well - including France. For the Europeans to wait another few hundred years to armor up and fight back is a testament to their patience.

To say that the Crusades started in 1095 is like saying that our War on Terror started on 9/11. Maybe it did from our side, but not from the terrorist's side. I would date it back to the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. Certainly the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Or the Khobar Towers bombing. Or the embassy bombings. Or the attack on the U.S.S Cole. My point being, it did not start on 9/11.

Radical Islam is at War with the west, again. A point that should be obvious, but that keeps evading the left. Maybe seeing France in flames this week, to the tune of 300 cities as of today, will cause some rethinking in liberal elite circles. Doubtful, as most media still will not label the arsonists as Muslim, but perhaps.

For a rational European take on the topic, check out Mark Steyn's column "Wake up, Europe, you've a war on your hands". If you haven't yet had the privilege of reading one of his brilliant columns, this is a good place to start.

So, for this week at least, we're left to ask the obvious question about the unrest in Paris: How long until France surrenders?

Liberal "Tolerance"

So, I'm riding in my new vehicle. Traveling down the road in style. Enjoying one of the perks - Satellite radio: Sirius to be exact. Checking out the talk radio stations. Patriot. Right. And, hey why not, Left.

I've done it before. Air America. Whatever. It's healthy to check out the opposite point of view. I can hack it. Give me what you've got. Give me your best shot.

It was about noon. Not sure who which whacked out liberal will be spouting, but I'll listen in. As soon as I hear her New York accent, I recognize that it's Lynn Samuels that I read about on the Sirius program guide.

It only takes a couple of sentences to tune me in to her topic - tomorrow's election for New York City mayor. And it only takes a minute for me to hear her evaluation of the candidates. I quote:

"...we got a little wimp Jew, and a little wimp Spic...".

Click. I'm out.

Ahhhh, the vaunted liberal tolerance. Champions of diversity. Pathetic.

I have to say, I've listened to conservative talk radio for more than a decade and have never heard anything approaching that kind of racist talk. Unbelievable. And they wonder why conservatives dominate talk radio.

A moment more important than politics

I put politics on hold today for a more important moment:

I got to take my 12-year old son out for our first round together of real golf on a real golf course. The same course where I played my first round of golf more than 31 years ago.

Priceless.

Slandering the President

Regrettably, we are at the point in history where no slanderous allegation is too outrageous for the Democrat Party leadership to hurl at the President of the United States for partisan political gain.

It's clear from watching the antics of leaders like Reid, Durbin, Shumer, Boxer, Kennedy, et al that they have settled on a strategy of trying to take down the President by alleging at full voice that the President and his administration manipulated or manufactured intelligence during the "run-up to the war" (their preferred and parroted phrase) in order to "lie us into war" for their nefarious and illegal purposes.

It's a scandalous allegation. It's an unfounded allegation.

The facts of the situation, though irrelevant to the Democrat leaders, are that Democrats made the same case for removing Sadaam Hussein when Clinton was in office in 1998 as has George Bush. President Clinton made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States. All of the Democrat leaders are on record supporting that. See Jonah Goldberg's excellent column "We said that?" and others for the pertinent quotes.

The fact is that most of the Democrats are on record supporting the President's request for Congress to authorize a war with Iraq.

The Democrats, who have now changed their minds because they have read their own press clippings alleging that the war is going badly, now want to revise history. Given the inconvienient fact that they are all on record supporting the President, they now have to allege that the President lied to them and hope you won't reread their quotes.

It's outrageous. What's more it's slanderous. What's even more is that it is hurting our reputation overseas - again for the sole purpose of partisan political gain on the part of the Democrats.

I'm outraged. You should be too.

Kudos on Alito

We're back! In one stroke, nominting Judge Alito to the Supreme Court, President Bush has rallied us conservatives back into his camp.

3 things seem clear to me:

1. Alito is excellently qualified for the position. He will turn in a brilliant performance in his Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, frustrating Democrats in the process.

2. Republicans will eagerly jump into the fray, based on his qualifications and originalist philosophy, to support and defend his confirmation.

3. Democrats, despite Alito's evident qualifications, will reflexively oppose Alito with everything they have in a blindly partisan manner that will not resonate with the public.

Game on.

Scooter's no-crime Indictment

My choice for the self-fulfilling prophecy of the week goes to the Mainstream Media (MSM) based on a poll reported on Fox News Sunday by Britt Hume this week. According to the poll, a "majority of Americans believe that the CIA leak investigation has taken a toll of President Bush's popularity".

Well, no kidding. That's a shocker.

After a two year Special Counsel investigation accompanied by a relentless drumbeat of irresponsible accusations from the left and outrageous unsubstantiated speculation from the press itself, would you guess that would take a toll on the President?

The speculation from the press reached a hysterical zenith in the last month. The talking points from the left moved far beyond the basic storyline: that the White House power players, led and coordinated in an abuse of power conspiracy by Karl Rove, intentionally outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame in an orchestrated effort to discredit her whistle-blower husband Joe Wilson. That, in itself, is quite a story made more devious by constant repetition. In the two weeks before the grand jury hearing the evidence expired the speculation grew wilder, including:

- an indictment of Bush's principal advisor Karl Rove, who would be "frog-marched" in handcuffs out of the White House
- possible indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney himself as one of the sources of "the leak"
- an expansion of the Special Counsel's focus to include impeaching President Bush for lying us into war

All speculation, and all false.

It's important to pause to remember the assignment the Special Prosecutor was given: to investigate whether or not the law protecting covert CIA agents from exposure (which may risk their lives). The law has specific requirements, including one that the agent have been officially overseas undercover within the last five years, and that the "leaker" did so intentionally with the purpose of exposing the agent to risk.

So, did Patrick Fitzgerald find that the law had been violated? No, not based on his indictments. He did not indict anyone for violating that law?

Did he find evidence of a abuse of power conspiracy in the White House to punish Wilson by outing his wife? No, not based on his indictments. He did not indict anyone for a conspiracy. He did not indict more than one person.

So. The original focus of the investigation - did someone "leak" the identity of a covert CIA agent in violation of the law - produced no indictments for that crime.

We can effectively say at this point that Karl Rove did not violate the law, per the indictments. The burden of proof to say otherwise lies with his critics, who have no proof.

The only indictments involve a bit player for indirect crimes - perjury and obstruction. No underlying crime. Only he-said she-said contradictions about who said Valerie Plame's name first. Which leads me to two questions:

1. If Valerie Plame does not fit the definition of a covert CIA agent, and she doesn't having not been in the field for more than 6 years, and if her name is not classified, which it is not, then how can saying her name in any context constitute a "leak"? For that matter, how does it matter who said her name and when? I could say it. You could say it. President Bush could have stood on the White House steps and yelled VALERIE PLAME. It's not illegal. And the lack of indictments for violating that law validates that. So why do we keep talking about a "leak"?

2. Who in the press or on the left is going to apologize to Karl Rove for dragging his name through the mud for the last two years? Not any of the Democratic leaders who, despite the lack of an indictment, are out today on TV calling for Rove's firing still. Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic Party, was even on TV tonight still calling for Cheney's indictment. Outrageous.

Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader, called today for President Bush to apologize for Plamegate. I say Reid and all of the left should apologize for trashing Rove and Cheney for so long. Back off. You lost.

Predictions

For what it's worth, I predict:

- Harriet Miers' nomination will be withdrawn before or shortly after the pending committee hearings. She's toast.

- Special Counsel Fitzgerald will not indict anyone for the original crime in Plamegate - violating the law protecting covert CIA agents.

He may indict for perjury or obstruction, which would be unfortunate and a giant waste of time. There's no crime here.

- White Sox in 6 games

Penalty Declined on Miers Post

My friend Julie left a thoughtful comment on my last post, regarding Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court, that I wanted to explore in more depth than a comment. She said, in part:

Whoa, whoa, whao - flag on the play!!! "I am certainly encouraged by the dicussion of her faith life as an evangelical Christian, and what that likely portends for her votes on the court." 'Scuse me, but that sounds an awful lot like what an "activist judge", to use a term that is usually blurted from the mouths of die-hard neo-Cons when faced with the idea of a Liberal justice, might do. Are we using the Constitution as our benchmark, or the Bible? If she uses anything but the Constitution then how can that not be "legislating from the bench".

This is one thing that irks the crap out of me from Conservatives - the idea that "activist judges" are only Liberals. If you put someone on the bench because you hope they will vote one way or another on any issue, then it doesn't matter if you are Conservative or Liberal - you are engaging in the very activity that the other side is frequently blamed for.

A flag on the play? Ouch. 15 yard penalty?

Hold on - after a review of the slow motion tape by the referee in the skybox, the penalty is declined.

I think that the root of our different perceptions lies in our thoughts on what "judicial activism" is. I have 4 quick thoughts on that:

1. Voting my way and activism are not the same thing, to me anyway.

Getting to choose someone who "shares your judicial philosophy", i.e. votes your way, is one of the perks of winning an election. It's the expectation. It's not activism.

2. Umpiring what's Constitutional or not - as conservatives prefer- is not activism. Treating the Constitution as a living document - as liberals prefer - is activism.

Activism usually aims to achieve social change. I would argue that where social change has happened in our society by legislation (Voting Rights Act) or Constitutional amendment (suffrage?) it has been accepted and normalizes out. But when social change happens by activist judicial fiat by less than 9 people (Roe v. Wade) it has been divisive.

3. Evangelical Christians are, in my opinion, less likely to pursue social change by judicial fiat than secularists. We have other outlets for that pursuit. Church. Charities. etc. Liberals, especially secularists, expect government to play this role and are more willing and likely to try to use the courts for these ends.

4. Religious fundamentalists, who are prone to interpreting scripture by the plain written word - as Miss Miers appears to be - are also less likely to be activists who "discover" new rights in an old document. The are more likely to read the plain text of the document and vote.

All of that explains me being "encouraged" by comments about her Evangelical faith.

However, I know think that her nomination will be withdrawn or defeated, so it may be all moot.

on Harriett Miers

After a week of study and reflection, here are my thoughts on President Bush's nomination of his personal lawyer, Harriett Miers, to the Supreme Court:


My initial reaction was clear and visceral. The nomination was deeply disappointing and demoralizing on several levels:

- qualifications: There were so many extremely qualified candidates on a national level with constitutional credentials. The best legal minds in the country with the blessing of the best conservative scholars. The only list in the group that Harriett Miers' name was on was the President's. As George Will eloquently argued in his opinion piece on the topic, this was not a serious nomination.

- squandering an opportunity: Conservatives have been toiling for in excess of thirty years just for this day. All of that work to elect a conservative President with a Republican House and a Republican Senate to lay the groundwork for this crucial appointment when Justice O'Connor would retire. Make no mistake, this seat is the swing vote that will change the judicial direction of the court for a long time. Filling this seat cannot be left up to chance, to an unknown. It's not enough for the President to say to his base "Trust me". Not by a long shot.

- diversity politics: President Bush bowed to identity politics that demanded that O'Connors seat be filled by a woman above all else. That's not conjecture, that's reported by the President's people. My objection is not that the seat will be filled by a woman, but that it could only be filled by a woman. There were plenty of conservative women as candidates that would have filled the bill and been considered legitimately as the "best qualified". Harriett Miers, not.

- cronyism: not in the sense of financially rewarding personal associates. In the sense of being so narrow and provencial that in lieu of selecting the best qualified for a position of critical national importance you select the best qualified that you personally know. We can't afford that, judicially speaking. We've had enough of that with failed appointments at federal agencies like FEMA and Immigration. We can't afford that on the Supreme Court.

- ducking a fight: Selecting bona fide conservative jurists with a track record would likely have brought a confirmation fight with the Democrats, which most conservatives would have relished. Pat Buchanan rightly points out that the President missed an opportunity to rally conservatives to his side at a time when he needs them by waging the fight that we wanted for the court. Most importantly, the lesson of the Roberts confirmation was that a brilliant nominee can beat the Judiciary Committee and win confirmation. The President chose not to follow up with such an impeccably credentialed conservative nominee and win the fight. Now he has an unintended fight with the conservatives that he betrayed.

That was my initial reaction - that President Bush made such an ill advised choice that he essentially betrayed the conservative base that worked hard to elect him and to promote and defend his policies. It was an unbelievably ill-advised decision.

I've heard two mitigating arguments in support of the President's decision this week. 1) His father's mistake, Justice Souter who went liberal on the court, was accepting recommendations for a judge he didn't personally know and 2) the Republican Senators who would be the President's army in a nomination fight are too squishy to count on. Given their sellout in the Clinton impeachment, and the deal struck by the Sen. McCain and the Gang of 14 to pre-empt fillibusters, that is a considerable argument. Despite having the majority, too many Republican Senators are squishy and cannot be counted on in a fight.

I'm sure Miss Miers is a fine and capable person. I am certainly encouraged by the discussion of her faith life as an evangelical Christian, and what that likely portends for her votes on the court. She probably will vote the conservative, originalist, position most of the time. But it is not a certainty. And that's the problem.

Do I know for sure that this former city councilwoman would have voted no in the horrible Kelo vs. New London case in the last court, which allows those councils to excercise eminent domain to seize property from private citizens and give it to private businesses on the basis that it will generate more sales tax? No, I don't. O'Connor voted for this abomination that invalidates private property rights in America. Who knows where Miers would have stood.

Do I know that Miss Miers would uphold bans on the abominal partial-birth abortion procedures that will come before the court? No, I don't.

And that's the problem. All of these type decisions end up being decided 5-4, and it can't be unclear with this nomination which side of the 5 that she will be in. That's not what we worked hard to elect a conservative President for. That's not what we worked hard to elect a Republican Senate for. Not for uncertainty.

Since the nomination, the President and his spinners - including Mrs. Bush - have demonstrated their cluelessness on the depth of disappointment that this careless nomination has caused in the base. Clueless. If he wants to come out and attack conservative critics of his unqualified nominee as "sexists" or other such nonsense, he will pay a price in support.

Here's what I think will happen.

Miss Miers will be confirmed to the court. President Bush will not withdraw her. Democrats don't have the votes to stop her. Republicans will suck it up and reluctantly vote for her.

Democrats will look bad in the Judiciary Committee when they start attacking her Christian faith, which they surely will. Most, but not all, will vote no.

Republicans will give her a hard time, and then vote for her. Then they will excercise their ire with President Bush. He has squandered his margin of error. No more automatic support from the conservative base. No more slack for President Bush:

- no more slack on failing to do anything serious on controlling our border after 9/11

- no more slack on reckless spending and failing to veto a single spending bill

- no more slack on crony appointments in federal agencies

- no more slack on dissing issues conservatives care about (i.e. dissing the Minutemen as "vigilantes", the Swift Boat Veterans, etc.)

The President could have shown leadership here. He could have selected one of the top 20 conservative jurists in the country and waged the fight for direction of the most important court in the land. He would have rallied his conservative base and energized his second term.

Instead, in one weak and inconsequential choice, he demonstrated his limitations and disillusioned his champions. A big mistake. Perhaps an unrecoverable mistake.

President Bush's Spinning Plates

The way I see it, President Bush's remaining term and legacy depend on the final outcome of several spinning plates:

- Vote on the Iraqi Constitution on October 15th. The vote is a major milestone in the War in Iraq and the measurement of success there.
- Confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers
- The independent council investigation of "Plamegate"
- Indictment of Congressman Tom Delay
- FEC investigation of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
- a possible "Katrina commission"


The best case scenario, which allows Bush to regain some ground in the polls and go on to enact policy with some authority is:

- Iraq has a successful vote and approves a constitution
- Harriett Miers has a positive showing in the confirmation hearings and is confirmed by Thanksgiving
- Prosecutor Fitzgerald ends his investigation with a report that no crime was committed and Rove and company are off the hook
- Tom Delay's indictment is dismissed
- Bill Frist is cleared of wrongdoing
- no Katrina Commission. Instead, Bush takes lead in rebuilding New Orleans

The worst case scenario, which will doom Bush to early lame duck status is:

- Iraq votes down the constitution and descends into Civil War
- Miers nomination is defeated or withdrawn
- Fitzgerald indicts Karl Rove or Scooter Libby in "Plamegate"
- Tom Delay goes to trial. Conviction being worse.
- Bill Frist gets forced into resignation
- a partisan Katrina Commission shoots at the Administration's handling of the emergency for months.

There's a lot at stake for the President in the next few months, and the rest of his term hangs in the balance.

If You're Going to Shoot at the King, Don't Miss

Democrats are beside themselves with glee that Tom "the hammer" Delay, Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives had to step down after being indicted on conspiracy / money laundering charges.

Glee, I tell you.

There's just two problems that they are not taking into account yet.

First, it's clear to me after following all of the news about the indictment that it won't hold up. The initial indictment was flawed, due to the minor technicality that the act alleged wasn't illegal at the time alleged, that it was dismissed. The second indictment, money laundering, was elicited from a grand jury that had only been impaneled for five hours. I think Delay will succeed on getting the indictment dismissed on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.

Second, the Republican Leadership is not taking getting shot at by partisan enemies lightly. According to a radio interview that I heard with Delay himself last week, the leadership met privately and circled the wagons - agreeing to start agressively pursuing policy matters that have been idle such as spending cuts, energy policy including drilling in Alaska, border control, etc. It's full tilt for straight out conservative Republican policies in the next six weeks. Kind of an unintended consequence of indicting the leader, I would say.

Clarity on "The Mainstream"

For months, years even, we've been hearing caterwauling from the leadership of the Left about "the mainstream", especially as it relates to the judiciary. Every time President Bush nominated someone for a judicial post, leaders of the Democrat Left ran to a microphone to denounce them for being "outside the judicial mainstream".

This accusation from the Left reached its peak recently with the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Senator after Senator said they would have to withold their vote until they could test his mainstream-ness, as they defined it of course.

We had the hearings. Roberts demonstrated his exceptional qualifications for the position in two days of grilling by the Judiciary Committee. The Senate Democrats failed to land a glove on his credentials or skills.

So, now the Senate has voted. And now the "mainstream" has been clarified.

The vote: 78 to 22.

Who's out of the mainstream? The 22.

Kennedy. Clinton. Schumer. Durbin. Boxer. etc.

Each and every one of these shrill demagogues are now officially on the record. And out of the mainstream.

Can we please stop hearing from them now?

ABC's anti-Religious Talking Points

I watched two premiers on ABC tonight: the series premier of "Commander in Chief" about America's first woman president and the season premier of "Boston Legal".

Here's a thought: how likely is it that two back-to-back shows in primetime on a network would have script elements taking a cheap shot at Creationism?

For example, one of the lines in the opening of "Commander in Chief" implied that if the Republican Speaker of the House becomes President, then we'll have "...book burnings, Creationism in the classroom..." . "Boston Legal" contained a similar cheap shot after showing a montage of religious statements made by presidents.

I knew "Commander in Chief" was going to be a show with a liberal bias in the mold of "The West Wing". And it lived up to that with it's dose of liberal hysteria.

It's was a fairly good drama, and I'll probably watch it. And, of course, I'll enjoy heckling it each week.

I only have one request: could they send the script writers who wrote this character of a strong female chief executive to Louisiana to aid Governor Kathleen Blanco who, in stark contrast to the Geena Davis character, became a blubbering, paralyzed, and ineffective leader in the face of a real emergency?

Democrats Abdicate Responsibility

Once again, petulant Democrats in the House of Representatives have taken their ball and gone home.

For those of you who don't regularly watch C-Span, the House committee with oversight on FEMA conducted hearings today regarding FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina. The key witness today was embattled former FEMA director Michael Brown, who came out swinging to defend himself. He faced a lot of tough questions from the Republican members of the Committee and one invited Democrat.

Why only one Democrat?

Because the Democrats on the committee refused to show up for the hearing. These Democrats are insisting on an independent bipartisan commission, similar to the 9/11 commission. Their view is that the Republicans running the committee (again, because they won the most elections!) will whitewash the issue. (If you watched the hearings you saw some tough questioning from the Republicans) Since the committee Democrats haven't gotten their demand, they refused to play ball.

In other words, they abdicated their responsibility as elected officials to participate in the hearings.

A simple question for them. If we have to have an independent commission every time there is a controversial issue because we can't trust Congress to do it's job, why do we need Congress?

Note to the Democrats on the committee: demonstrating your irrelevance is not a smart move.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: False Certainty

I'm immersed in my study of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Theory (ID). I'm reading essays, books, critiques both ways, etc. Lots of reading. Since I'm immersed in the topic, I also notice articles in newspapers and on the internet about the subject as well.

For example, I read an article from the Associated Press on the internet last week titled:

"Genes Show Signs Brain Still Evolving"

As I was reading the article I was reminded of a very old, and very bad, joke that I heard almost thirty years ago in one of the four calculus courses that I took in college. It goes like this:

Three scientists were riding in a car on their way to a meeting in Scotland. There was an astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician.

Looking out the winding, the astonomer saw an animal standing sideways to the car out in a pasture.

"I didn't know that there were brown cows in Scotland", said the astronomer.

"Wait a minute", said the physicist. "All we can really say is that there is one brown cow in Scotland."

"Actually", smiled the mathematician, "the only thing we know precisely is that there is one cow in Scotland that appears to be brown on at least one side."

Bad joke, I know. You have to be a real science geek to get that joke. I personally love it.

The point of the joke is the level of precision and certainty common to different scientific disciplines. Mathematicians being very precise, astronomers less so. What's a billion light years here or there? Over the years I decided that Darwinian evolution advocates often fall in the less precise category.

I encountered another angle on this concept in my own scientific training in my chosen field. Metrology - "the science of measurement". A practical science, but a science. In the course of my training I learned to beware of false precisison. In other words, beware of stating the results of a measurement to a higher degree of precision that you could actually achieve with your measuring instruments. In other words, saying "a quarter of an inch" is different than saying "0.250000". This is especially dangerous when you are using calculators to convert measurements and you are fooled by your 8-digit display to think you are more precise than you really were. As an example, I once watched a man measure an eight foot long piece of metal with a standard toolbox 25 foot metal tape measure. Not a precise instrument by any means. Using the tape measure, which was marked off probably in 1/8th inch increments, he measured the metal rod. Then, very confidently, he recorded the measurement on a blueprint to 4 digits of precision. 8.6250 inches. He was fooling his readers with that sense of accuracy.

Unfortunately, I usually bring that joke and that training with me when I read scientific articles and because of them I usually end up heckling and deconstructing the article. Why? For two reasons:

- The headlines of these articles often implies a sense of certainty in the "discovery"

- The body of the article will often start with a degree of precision that the remainder of the article either can't back up or will contradict.

Let's examine our example. Again, the title:

Genes Show Signs Brain Still Evolving

Okay. It starts out confident and promising. "Genes show signs..." Will the article back that up? Let's continue...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The human brain may still be evolving. So suggests new research that tracked changes in two genes thought to help regulate brain growth, changes that appeared well after the rise of modern humans 200,000 years ago.

Wait a minute..."may still be evolving"? My confidence is slipping. But hey, it's backed up by "new research". Okay, I'm still listening.

That the defining feature of humans - our large brains - continued to evolve as recently as 5,800 years ago, and may be doing so today, promises to surprise the average person, if not biologists.

Wait a minute...stepped off a cliff again. Twice.

"...and may be doing so today"? Really? How confident are we again?

"...continued to evolve as recently as 5,800 years ago". Really?

5,800 years ago? Not 5,700? Not 5,900? How about almost 6,000 years ago? How about 6,000 plus or minus 1000 years ago? Are you sure? Are you that sure? Does the validity of this discovery hinge on how sure you are?

Let's press on and see how sure we are.

"We, including scientists, have considered ourselves as sort of the pinnacle of evolution," noted lead researcher Bruce Lahn, a University of Chicago geneticist whose studies appear in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

"There's a sense we as humans have kind of peaked," agreed Greg Wray, director of Duke University's Center for Evolutionary Genomics. "A different way to look at is it's almost impossible for evolution not to happen."

Wow, that sounds pretty sure. So sure, that "it's almost impossible for evolution not to happen." But then again, how likely is it that a director of a "Center for Evolutionary Genomics" is going to speak up and say that genetics don't show evolution? Really now. He'd have trouble finding a seat at the center's Darwin party. Let's see if anyone disagrees with all of this certainty.

Still, the findings also are controversial, because it's far from clear what effect the genetic changes had or if they arose when Lahn's "molecular clock" suggests - at roughly the same time period as some cultural achievements, including written language and the development of cities.

Lahn and colleagues examined two genes, named microcephalin and ASPM, that are connected to brain size. If those genes don't work, babies are born with severely small brains, called microcephaly.

Using DNA samples from ethnically diverse populations, they identified a collection of variations in each gene that occurred with unusually high frequency. In fact, the variations were so common they couldn't be accidental mutations but instead were probably due to natural selection, where genetic changes that are favorable to a species quickly gain a foothold and begin to spread, the researchers report.

Lahn offers an analogy: Medieval monks would copy manuscripts and each copy would inevitably contain errors - accidental mutations. Years later, a ruler declares one of those copies the definitive manuscript, and a rush is on to make many copies of that version - so whatever changes from the original are in this presumed important copy become widely disseminated.

Scientists attempt to date genetic changes by tracing back to such spread, using a statistical model that assumes genes have a certain mutation rate over time.

For the microcephalin gene, the variation arose about 37,000 years ago, about the time period when art, music and tool-making were emerging, Lahn said. For ASPM, the variation arose about 5,800 years ago, roughly correlating with the development of written language, spread of agriculture and development of cities, he said.

"The genetic evolution of humans in the very recent past might in some ways be linked to the cultural evolution," he said.

Other scientists urge great caution in interpreting the research.

That the genetic changes have anything to do with brain size or intelligence "is totally unproven and potentially dangerous territory to get into with such sketchy data," stressed Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Aside from not knowing what the gene variants actually do, no one knows how precise the model Lahn used to date them is, Collins added.

Uh oh. Trouble in the tribe. Let's bypass for a moment the accuracy of the "molecular clock". I'm just going to relish the quote that it's "totally unproven and potentially dangerous territory to get into with such sketchy data". Delicious.

But, did they at least hang with the study author about the 5,800 years? Let's look:

Lahn's own calculations acknowledge that the microcephalin variant could have arisen anywhere from 14,000 to 60,000 years ago, and that the uncertainty about the ASPM variant ranged from 500 to 14,000 years ago.
Those criticisms are particularly important, Collins said, because Lahn's testing did find geographic differences in populations harboring the gene variants today. They were less common in sub-Saharan African populations, for example.

That does not mean one population is smarter than another, Lahn and other scientists stressed, noting that numerous other genes are key to brain development.

"There's just no correlation," said Duke's Wray, calling education and other environmental factors more important for intelligence than DNA anyway.

Uh oh. Not quite the precision that "5,800 years" implied. Not that I believe the other numbers either. 14,000 to 60,000 years ago? Really? I guess if you have better numbers, use them.

After you re-read the total article a couple of times you have to ask yourself two questions:

1. How many "probably"s and "may have"s does it take for a discovery to just become a inconsequential statement made by someone trying to justify their research?

2. How - in any way, shape, or form - does this article hold up and have any news value for the Associated Press to report?

But, I must say, I had fun heckling it.

The Most Serious Story that You're not Watching

Able Danger.

It's the story that's flying under the radar in politics right now. Washed out, if you will, by hurricane's and war. It's there, percolating. Ready to explode in Senate hearings and on the internet. But not yet. Two more weeks and it might bubble up.

Here is a quick summary of the Able Danger story, in case you have missed it:

- Army Special Forces command, probably responding to a tasking to prepare for terrorist activity, set up a secretive task force called "Able Danger" using existing personnel reorganized into a project team.

- Able Danger set out to identify the terrorist threat

- Able Danger employed the work of a brilliant computer specialist who developed a "data mining" technique to plow through huge amounts of "open source" (non-classified) data to find patterns identifying terrorists. The open source data consisted of driver's license data, voting records, etc. The amount of data utilized exceeded 2 terabytes. (Almost 25% of the material in the Library of Congress. Huge amounts of data)

- According to the Able Danger team, in 2000 they had identified several potential terrorists, including Mohammed Atta - eventual leader of the 911 hijacking teams - and his terrorist cell in Brooklyn. They had it charted out on the wall, including Atta's picture.

- The Able Danger team tried to pass this information on to the FBI for action. They scheduled 3 meetings with the FBI. Each meeting was cancelled, probably by Defense Department lawyers.

- The Able Danger team was disbanded before 911, apparently because their dragnet had also picked up information on U.S. nationals and caused some embarrassment. All 2.4 terabytes of data were deleted, without the consent of the general in charge.

- Two weeks after 9/11, Congressman Curt Weldon claims that he took a copy of the Able Danger chart with Atta's picture on it to the White House where he gave it to a National Security Council deputy.

- The 9/11 Commission staff was briefed on Able Danger, but discounted it and did not include it in it's report.

- Congressman Weldon has been trying to highlight the Able Danger information to make the case that the 9/11 Commission did not do it's full duty in this regard. He and a Lt. Col from the team have been making the rounds of talk shows discussing the controversial fact that they had identified Atta before 9/11.

- The 9/11 Commission and the Pentagon have both been publicly trying to discredit the Able Danger witnesses. Four more team members have publicly come out to support the Lt. Col's version of the story and are ready to testify.

- Sen. Arlen Specter opened hearings last week in the U.S. Senate on Able Danger. Congressman Weldon testified. The 5 members of the Able Danger team were ready to testify, but were prohibited by the Pentagon from doing so in open hearings.

- After mounting pressure, the Pentagon reversed itself this week. The five team members will testify on October 5th in the Senate.

The pressing issues are:

- Why was the team not allowed to coordinate their findings with the FBI? Was it "the wall", erected by Commissioner Jaime Gorelick when she was Janet Reno's deputy AG at the Justice Department? Has the "wall" been taken down?

- Had Able Danger given the leads to the FBI, could 9/11 have been prevented?

- Why did the 9/11 Commission discount the information and not include it in the final report?

- Most importantly: If the team had that level of sophistication in identifying potential terrorists, why isn't it in operation today protecting us?

Tune in to the hearings on October 5th. Yes, you may have to find it on C-Span. But, it's worth your time. You can fit it in between hurricane stories.

70's Flashbacks

My formative years were in the 70's. I can relate to the 70's. And it seemed like I was inundated this weekend on TV with the 70's:

- That 70's show reruns nonstop on every channel. That one sparks a lot of deja vu with me.

- Breaking Bonaduce: a reality show with 70's star Danny Bonaduce. An irresistble primetime reality theraputic train wreck.

- a music infomercial with "songs of the 70's" - hosted by Greg Brady

- a ridiculous anti-war rally featuring fringe hippies spouting ridiculous hysterical rhetoric about the "facists" dragging us into an illegal war on the mall in Washington D.C. An amalgam of drop-outs and malcontents representing every fringe niche of the left railing against the administration.

Oh. Wait a minute. That last one wasn't actually from the 70's. It happened yesterday in Washington D.C. It just looked like the 70's, hippies and all.

the Importance of Judges

By coincidence, as the nation's representatives in the U.S. Senate confirm for us the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, two judgements come down from lower courts that demonstrate how much power judges have and how much damage to our society that they can do with imprudent rulings:

1. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the current statement of the pledge, which includes the phrase "under God", is unconstitutional.

This action of a few, the judges, on behalf of a minority, a group seeking to remove all expressions of belief from the public square, is clearly not the will of the majority of Americans - who would support the pledge as is. This thwarting of the majority is to the court's peril in the esteem with which the public holds the judiciary.

2. A federal judge in Michigan has declared unconstitutional a Michigan law which bans partial-birth abortion.
Here are some truths about this awful and unwise decision:

- Every time the people's representatives take this up as a legislative issue, they vote to ban this barbaric procedure.

- Every time a judge rules on the law passed by the legislatures, they rule it unconstitutional.

One judge thwarting the expressed will of the people's representatives. This is untenable, and is the reason that abortion is still such a polarizing hot button issue. The people, via their representatives, are not allowed to settle the matter in a democratic fashion.

In this case, one liberal judge appointed by Bill Clinton thwarted the will of Michigan's legislature. Untenable.

In the case of partial-birth abortion, this tendency of the judiciary to stop the democratic process is particularly eggregious because partial-birth abortion is itself eggregious and barbaric. The judge in question apparently offered the opinion that the law presented an "undue burden" on women seeking an abortion. I personally have no problem balancing the barbarity of the act against that undue burden and in coming down in favor of the law, which expressed the will of the people of Michigan. But, I'm not wearing a black robe so my opinion doesn't count.

Supporters of this procedure, and of the judges who regularly rescue them from the expressed will of the majority, often argue that these bans of partial-birth abortions are faulty because they do not contain exceptions for the life or health of the mother. These arguments are themselves faulty because this procedure has nothing to do with the life or health of the mother. But then again, most supporters of the "right to choose" this barbaric procedure are entirely ignorant of the realities of this procedure. They simply support this right reflexively thinking, erroneously that they are being noble. They are not. Supporting barbarity is barbaric, not noble.

I have yet to have a discussion with a supporter of the "right to choose" a partial-birth procedure who could even begin to adequately describe the actual procedure. This is not trivial. It is central to the argument. Most people do not want to know the actual details of the procedure due to squeamishness. In fact, the purveyors of this barbarity count on your squeamishness to continue to practice without scrutiny.

***Squeamishness alert: description of partial-birth abortion follows. However, if you're too squeamish to know the truth about the procedure, you forfeit the right to have an opinion on it ***

For starters, no one that I have had this discussion in person with knew that the procedure takes 3 days. 3 days. If your life was in jeopardy, would you "choose" a procedure that takes 3 days over a C-section. Of course not. So, let's dispense with the "life of the mother" nonsense, because that is not the reason for choosing this procedure.

No pro-choicer that I've had this discussion with knew the mechanics of the procedure. The dilation of the cervix over 3 days using laminaria. The blind positioning with forceps of the baby in a breech position. The delivery of the child up to and except it's head. Puncturing the baby's skull with sharpened scissors. Sucking the brains out with a vacuum. Finally, completing a delivery of a dead baby.

It's not about the health of the mother. If the mother's health was in jeopardy, would you intentionally position the baby in breech which has a higher complication rate? Would you stop the delivery at the neck?

The procedure is not about the life of the mother. The procedure is not about the health of the mother. The procedure is about delivering a dead, intact, baby. Dead, because that is the result the mother has elected with her "right to choose". Intact, to reduce the liability of the abortionist - who risks leaving body parts inside if he uses other traditional methods at the late date.

That's the reality of partial-birth abortion.

It's barbaric. And I have no trouble at all labelling supporters of this "right" as barbarians.

Including this judge. A barbarian in a black robe.

It's time to start impeachment procedures for some of these out of control judges. That's the only check available against those who would regularly thwart the will of the majority.

Confirm Judge Roberts Quickly.

The confirmation hearings have started for John Roberts, nominee to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice.

In normal times it would be difficult to listen to blowhard Senators primp for the cameras (in all cases) and assault the nominee (in the case of the blindly partisan Democrats on the Judiciary Committee). Only the most rabid Bush-hating left would dispute that Roberts is technically qualified for the seat with his impeccable resume. The President had the right to nominate him, and the Republicans have the votes to confirm him. That's what you get when you win elections.

So all that's left is the show.

And these aren't normal times. We have a national disaster on the Gulf Coast that needs attending to. We don't have time for blowhard Senators to put on a show for the sake of their base.

Two days.

Ask your inane questions.

Then vote. Up or down. But vote.

Confirm the judge, and then get on with - for example - reexamining that pork laden transportation bill to trim out the ridiculous projects and put money into real infrastructure improvements like levees.

Liberal Bubble

I had ocassion to pass through a major university town this week. It's been a long time since I was in the liberal bubble that is a college campus these days. Wow. No doubt about it. Time stands still there and the ground tilts distinctly left.

I noticed it immediately when I stopped for a burger. I had to wait an inordinately long time to be waited on. Why? Because the staff was deeply involved in hectoring a young man that they had just "discovered" was a PK - a preacher's kid. They all had to get their licks in, calling the poor unfortunate a "probable hypocrite" and ridiculing the fact that he had probably been dragged to church "every time the door was open." Only after they had all sufficiently piled on could they remember to ask "May I help you". Ahhh, the vaunted tolerance of the left. Apparently diversity is not big enough to accept a PK. But then again, I just wanted a burger.

That was immediately followed by an attempt to check into a hotel. I say attempt, because again I had to stand and wait while the staff tried to one-up each other on how evil drug companies were because they were out to make a profit on their research. "God forbid a drug company would develop a drug that benefits humanity and give it away for free!" Are we done yet? Everyone got their licks in on the evils of capitalism? Because, if you are done celebrating the enlightenment of your own intellects, can I get a room? I work for a living, my work day is not over yet, and I have paperwork to do. But don't let that get in the way of next hour's open forum at the check-in desk on the wonders of Marxism.

Apparently, the most important thing in the liberal bubble is talk. Not work, certainly. But talk. Lot's of it.

It took me back 25 years, when I myself was an undisciplined radical lefty who loved to rant about stuff that made me feel educated at the time but embarass me to think about today.

Yes, nothing has changed. Time stands still in the liberal bubble.

Biting My Tongue

There are so many observations that I want to make regarding Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath.

All insightful and relevant.

None of them helpful. Not while people are still suffering.

So, I've donated to two organizations and am looking for other ways to help.

And biting my tongue.

God bless the sufferers and the helpers.

Still Spitting on Soldiers

One of the widely recognized shameful behaviors of our past would be the disgraceful behavior of the ant-war left spitting on soldiers as they returned from Vietnam.

At least, I thought it was recognized as shameful. I thought that lesson was learned and would not be repeated.

I was disabused of that notion a couple of weeks ago via a report on one of the fringe left's current means of protest. That involves the group "Code Pink", supporters of Cindy Sheehan - who was in her own right spitting on soldiers by jumping in front of every microphone she can find to assert that the soldiers are killers who are not fighting for a noble cause and that our enemy are "freedom fighters". It seems that Code Pink has started protesting outside of Walter Reed Army Hospital, where returning injured war veterans are treated. Code Pink chooses Friday nights, when the veterans and their families leave the hospital by bus for a meal, to stage their most vocal protests including laying out fake caskets on the sidewalk. They want the veterans to know that they were injured for nothing. Nice.

And I was disabused of the notion that the left learned to be civilized again today. I was listening to a radio interview of a National Guard chopper pilot who spent most of the last week airlifting 1700 people off of rooftops to safety in New Orleans. The pilot got to go home after that and expected a good reaction. Instead, he got picked at by haters and blamers who wanted to know why he "hadn't done more". The pilot said that the attacks took him right back to his experience coming home from Vietnam, which took him 25 years to get over. Nice.

Both activities boil down to one common thing to me - the left's 2005 version of spitting on the troops.

It was despicable then. It's despicable now. Cut it out.

Disaster - Lessons Learned So Far

I've learned a few lessons from the Gulf Region Disaster in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the greatest natural disaster in our lifetime - so far:

1. The scope of disaster is mindboggling. I just can't completely comprehend the level of human suffering that has ocurred and that is still ocurring, with people still trapped and a million people displaced.

2. The strength of America is incomprehensible as well.

I heard Condi Rice interviewed this morning saying that the greatness of America is that we care about each other. I would quibble with that. I think people worldwide care about each other in a disaster. The greatness of America is that we've built a society that can pick ourselves up from a disaster, without waiting for the world to come in to rescue us. It's a strong society that has built the structure to rescue itself.

3. The capacity of people to fingerpoint and blame is endless.

I'm outraged by all of the politicians and media/talking heads coming out of the woodwork to blame the Bush administration for deaths.

Folks, get real.

The first response to emergency is local. The mayor and his administration. If you must fingerpoint, you have to start with the fact that they failed their citizens badly. Did Bush send thousands of people into the Superdome with not enough food, water, or security? No. The mayor's people did. Did Bush leave tens of buses parked, to be later flooded, instead of deploying them to evacuate people before the storm? No. All you have to do is look at the AP photo on the "Drudgereport" of all the school buses parked and flooded to know who the first level of failure was.

The second response is the state level. If you have to fingerpoint, you have to put Govenor Blanco on the hook. Did Bush fail to deploy the National Guard quickly enough? No. Lay that at Govenor Blanco's doorstep. Instead of crying on TV, overwhelmed, she should have led. Where were the 8000 members of the Guard who were not deployed to Iraq? For that matter, where were the State Police of Louisiana? Why did Mississippi (who took the direct hit of Katrina and suffered massive damage) and Alabama not collapse the way Blanco did?

What's clear to me is that the government levels in Louisiana, know to be thoroughly corrupt, failed to protect their citizens.

The last response is federal, who step in to rescue overwhelmed local and state resources. Were they slower to respond than they should have been? Maybe? I don't know. But a lot of people are accusing FEMA and others unfairly.

I'm tired already of the race pimps (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson) throwing around the "racist" accusations.

And, how many fingerpointing Democrats, who were the first and second levels of failure, do I have to watch on TV blaming Washington to gain political traction? It's unseemly.

I watched the President of Jefferson Parish on "Meet the Press" this morning telling a heartbreaking story of a woman who was not rescued, and who drowned on Friday, accusing the feds of not helping enough. How does that make sense? If you were right there and couldn't save her, how do you expect the people can come in from several states away and save her? Obviously, I cut this traumatized man a lot of slack in his grief. But enough already, of the blame game.

4. The mainstream media is essentially irrelevant as newsgathering operations.

I wanted to tune in for a few hours last night. What did I find?

CNN and Fox News - excellent and moving coverage
MSNBC - some good, some bad
ABC - worthless. Showing reruns of Super Nanny while people are dying
CBS - worthless. Disgraced anchor Dan Rather interviewing some fingerpointers.

Meet the Press was disgraceful this morning, with Tim Russert in full meltdown mode calling for the Secretary of Homeland Security to resign. Did he question Mayor Nagin? Did he question Governor Blanco? No, just the feds.

5. If you're depending on government, at any level, to keep you safe in a disaster you're making a mistake.

I'm quietly reviewing my preparedness for disaster.

Checking my supplies: food, water, batteries.

Rethinking disaster plans.

Inventorying the guns I own (9mm, rifles, shotgun) and ammo. If you think that's crazy, ask some of the fleeing evacuees this week if they wished they were armed.

Now that I've had my say on lessons and fingerpointing - back to the helping.

Do something. Make a donation. Conserve energy. Take in someone.

Enough fingerpointing.

How Thin is the Veneer of Society?

It is very disconcerting, to say the least, to see anarchy break out in the streets of a major American city. Doubly so on the heels of the worst natural disaster in our country's history.

I have nothing to say politically about the disaster unfolding on our TV screens.

I have only sadness.

And compassion.

For those who are suffering.

For those reacting - those doing it "right" and those doing it "wrong". Thank God they're reacting.

For the beseiged mayors of devastated cities.

For governors and representatives who need to pull together a massive relief effort.

For our President and the Federal officials.

Let's step in and back them all up.

I do have some level of disgust:

For all of those I see on TV throwing the race card into the discussion. You're not helping. Shut the hell up.

For anyone trying to gain political traction out of people's misery and death. You're not helping. Shut the hell up.

And for the criminals who are preying on desperate people in New Orleans. They need to be taken down immediately.

Prayers, and action, for the suffering. That should be our focus.

Missing the Point

I was reading a long article in USA today this morning about schools facing the question of ID vs. Evolution as the school year begins. The article attempts to frame the discussion for readers by, among other things, defining the theories as follows:

"Intelligent Design: Some biological structures, such as DNA instructions, are so complex that they could not occur as a result of evolution and must be the work of an intelligent designer. No answer as to who or what that may be."

Is that a sufficient definition of Intelligent Design? It's good, but from what little reading I've done on ID so far, I would say that it is insufficient. Yes, the argument that life is too complex to be accounted for is part of the story - but it's the negative argument. How can you prove that it's too complex?

I would, and ID proponents have, state the definition slightly differently. I would argue that the complexity of life shows evidence of intelligent design by the nature of the information encoded into it. Information implies a design. Design implies a designer. That's the positive argument.

To only argue the negative is to miss the point. Information, not complexity, is the point. The program of your DNA is information.

The article of course goes on to give a standard definition of evolution, as a theory that "..species evolve over billions of years through natural selection, inheriting small variations that improve individual's abilities to survive and reproduce."

Did the article leave it at that and let you make your own conclusions? Of course not. The author had to immediately add this little caveat:

The theory of evolution is backed up by 150 years of research. White House science advisor John Marburger called it a "cornerstone of modern biology".

Oh, as long as we're not taking sides.

My Study Project - Evolution vs. ID

As promised in an earlier post, I've launched into a study project on the topic of Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. I'm immersing myself in a variety of sources, from popular literature to textbooks to internet flame wars on the topic - some of which I've foolishly but gleefully jumped into.

I'll have comments as I go on whatever strikes me in my studies. They will be high level thoughts, observations, and questions. I promise - no long winded dissertations. After all, I'm not getting paid for this.

Here are some things that I bring to the discussion on the front end:

1. A theistic worldview. I am a Christian man. I am not a materialist. I am obviously open to the concepts of an intelligent agent necessary for acceptance of ID. I have spent a lot of time in theological and apologetics study.

2. A deep appreciation of science. I appreciate the wonders of the natural world and the deep body of knowledge that has been advanced by some brilliant scientists and engineers.

3. A critical view of the evidence on each side. And a passion to study it.

4. An awareness of my limitations. The best I can do as an informed layman is to study diligently the arguments of both sides and make my own call.

5. A sense of humor. The origin of life is an interesting, maybe the most interesting, topic that I can study. But it's just that. I'll study it. I'll have opinions. And I'll keep it in balance.

I use words. I appreciate words. I catch when words are used in an unintentionally humorous way. Two examples:

I was reading a techinical science paper online the other day on the topic of "common descent with modification". The author gave a brief explanation of how lifeforms moved toward "higher taxa". Well, which is it? Are we "descending" into "higher taxa". Pick a direction and stick with it.

On another night I was watching a nature channel documentary, put together with some help from biologists I'm assuming, about giant squid in the ocean. Cut to a drawing of a giant squid with a huge eye dominating the drawing. Voice over: "... with a large eye that is designed to gather all of the possible...". What? Wait a minute. Did he say "designed"? Better watch that, Mr. Voice Over Man. You'll get drummed out of the science community for inferring design.

So, stay tuned. More to come on topics like:

Transcendancy
System Definitions
Assumptions
etc.

I Told You So

Yes, I did. I told you so.

I said, as far back as this post in April of 2004, that the 9/11 Commission report would be compromised by politics. Why? Because of conflict of interest. It's simple, really.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the most serious issues that the Commission needed to investigate as to why the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies were not able to stop the attack by sharing information and cooperating with each other was "the wall". The wall was a Justice Department policy disallowing cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement.

So, as it's being revealed this week in the press, when the military task force named Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta as a probable terrorist in 2000 and indeed identified Al Qaida cells in the U.S., they were prohibited from sharing that with the law enforcement groups that could have stopped them. Why? The wall.

This was not dealt with in the 9/11 Commission report, which indicates that the report is faulty.

Sadly, this was entirely predictable - and was, in fact, predicted in this blog and others.

Why?

- because the author of the "wall" policy was a Clinton Justice official named Jamie Gorelick, who worked for Janet Reno
- because Jamie Gorelick should have testified before the Commission, but did not
- because Jamie Gorelick was herself a Commission member - in a position to tamper with and hide this testimony
- because when the Commission chairman and co-chairman were confronted with this conflict of interest, while the Commission was in session, they circled the wagons and protected their sitting member - with the result that the investigation of the "wall" policy was handled with kid gloves and political sensibilities instead of aggressive investigation. Go back and read it in the report. It's entirely inaccurate and dangerous because it's a coverup that prevented real action to address the deficiencies of the Clinton policy.

Someone, or several someones, need to fired retroactively. Let's start with both chairmen of the Commission - who have rendered their report inoperative by shielding one of their own and denying the country the truth for which we paid.

Let's also call Commissioner Gorelick into the dock to testify, finally.

I thought it was a vacation?

George W. Bush was on the news tonight talking about the topics of discussion during the Cabinet meeting that he held at his ranch today.

Huh? I'm confused. Didn't all of the media tell me he was on vacation for 5 weeks?

I'm going on vacation this week. Note to self: don't schedule any cabinet meetings on my vacation.

Abortion Distortion

The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) issued an advertisement this week accusing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of taking legal action to support abortion clinic bombers.

This is a blatant and completely dishonest distortion of the facts of the case, and is the new low in the reprehensible behavior of the left in their attempt to defeat the nominee. Have they no shame whatsoever?

The case referenced involved technical arguments over who had jurisdiction to act on issues of legal protests in front of abortion clinics - state or federal. Roberts argued in front of the Supreme Court in favor of it not being a federal issue, and won 6-3. So, simply said, if Roberts was guilty in that action of supporting clinic bombers then so is the Supreme Court. It's ridiculous and completely dishonest.

Don't believe me? See for yourself in this analysis on Factcheck.com

Roberts is adequately on the record deploring violence at clinics and NARAL convieniently leaves that out. Why? Because it's not about the facts, it's about the results. They want to defeat Roberts and will use sleazy tactics to do so.

NARALs dishonest smear campaign against an honorable man is deplorable and outrageous, and we should heap further shame and scorn on an already disreputable organization.

Bush's Working "Vacation"

I saw news articles yesterday featuring George W. Bush in Illinois to sign legislation on a highway bill.

How can that be?

Didn't the mainstream media outlets all spend a large part of last week blasting the President for going on vacation to Texas for 5 weeks? 5 weeks? In Texas? They got a lot of yardage out of mocking him. How can you possibly, Mr. President, go on vacation for 5 weeks when there is so much to be done? When we are at war?

Yet, there he was on TV in Illinois working. How is that a vacation?

The MSM wouldn't have lied to me, would they? I thought they were objective journalists. (sarcasm off).

Evolution vs. Design at the Bookstore

Evolution or Creation? It's one of my favorite study topics dating back almost 30 years to my high school and college days. At different periods of my adult life I've dived back into the topic. Reading books. Attending lectures. Surfing the internet. When I'm in a study phase (or fad?) I digest as much as I can and then move on.

And this week it's back on again.

You might have seen the news stories that set it off. President Bush answered a simple question from a reporter and it blew up. Someone asked him to comment on a recent controversy over whether or not "Intelligent Design" theory should be taught in high school science classes alongside evolution. Bush made a generic, nondescript statements, which immediately got distorted by everyone with an agenda.

"I think part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."

Nothing radical. Nothing earthshaking. He did not propose that evolution be banned from school. He didn't propose equal weight in science classes. He only opined that kids should know what the debate on evolution is all about.

Of course, secularists in academia and in the press immediately became unhinged. The Darwinist community started accusing the President of everything from imposing ignorant fundamentalism on our nation's schools to bringing back the dark ages. I was particularly impressed with the visiousness of the cartoonist who drew the familiar evolutionary progression of apes with George W. in the last position looking particularly chimpy in Texas boots. Very civil.

It didn't suprise me, of course. The most dogmatic fundamentalists I've ever encountered are Darwinian evolution apologists. No one is to challenge the othordoxy while they are around, scientific method nothwithstanding. To do so invites scorn and ridicule from the keepers of the faith.

Okay, back to my own little struggle with the issue.

Back in my college days, at a major Big Ten University, I spent a lot of time thinking about this issue, but not from the position you would expect. At the time I was an agnostic and an engineering student. In addition to my required coursework of chemistry, physics, calculus, etc. I took electives like Anthropology (2 semesters), Astronomy (2 semesters), and Evolutionary Biology. We also had a regular circuit of guest lecturers on the topic in those days and I attended them all.

I specifically remember my course in Evolution. The course material of course. But the professor as well. I remember going up to the podium after class one day and listening as he held court for the undergrads off the record. He was telling us all how depressed he was by life and that he already had his suicide planned out to the degree that he had pills stored up. You may not see a link between his hoplessness with life and the topic he was teaching, but I did that day and I still do.

Frankly, in those days as an undergrad - even coming from a technical and agnostic background - I had questions about natural selection. I was taught all of the standard "evidences", like the moths changing color ratios in industrial England and the like. I just didn't see how all of that added up to creation of new species ended up in humanity. I would eventually, through future study, understand that differences in microevolution (mutations leading to changes within a species) and macroevolution (creation of new species) frames the essential debate. I have no doubt that natural selection accounts for the variety of life within species. I have a lot of doubt that it accounts for the introduction of new species.

I also question the original spark of life. Scientists like to gloss over this question with vague references to chemistry experiments long ago that were able to produce an amino acid or two in a bottle from some chemicals and electricity. It's a point that is core to the debate and can't be glossed over. Can life come from non-life without a creator?

I've read a lot over 30 years on the topic. I approach it from both a scientific mind and a Christian heart. Criticize that if you will. I think it's a valid approach for a being that is three in nature: body, soul, and spirit. I think it's the only valid approach.

So now it's back in the news, prompted by a simple comment by the President. I expected the Darwin dogmatists to dig in and entrench. However, I'm always irritated by the politically correct "moderate" public officials who show up on TV to debate this and who want to have it both ways. They speak the standard party line of the elite, which is: I may believe that God created us, but I don't want that taught in a science class. It should properly be taught in a philosophy or religion class.

Well, that's hooey. The topic is the origin of life. There are arguments that support Darwinism. There are arguments critical of it. And there are arguments for Design. They all properly belong in a science class.

For example, I'm particularly struck by the microbiologist argument for Intelligent Design based on the priciple of irreducible complexity. It argues that there are some components of cells, having several components, that cannot be reduced to simpler operation. Therefore, they couldn't have come about through a mutational process of natural selection because without all of the components present it would fail. The understandable analogy is a mousetrap. It is a functional design with 4 pieces: a board, a spring, a clip, and a hook. It has to have all 4 pieces to function. If it "evolved" without a hook for example, then it's a failed mousetrap. The existence of all 4 pieces working perfectly together is evidence of design, not evolution. It's the same with the cellular structure. It has to have all pieces present to function, and that's evidence of design - not millions of years and millions of mutation. (The same holds true of a wing evolving from a leg. Long before it became a functional wing it would just be a bad leg.) Design. Engineering. That argument can be made in a science classroom.

Bottom line: my interest in the topic is rekindled and that means a trip to the bookstore to catch up on the current literature. And therein lies my surprise of the day.

I wanted to buy one book each to start again with a study on the origin of life. A representative book on Intelligent Design. And a best case defense of Darwin and natural selection. Both sides.

It was easy to find the Darwin book ("The Blind Watchmaker"), shoulder to shoulder among several choices on the "Science" shelves of my local Barnes and Noble.

But alas, as hard as I looked I could not find a book on Intelligent Design. A quick trip to the information counter and we located it. In the "Religion" section. Give me a break.

NY Times Adoption Inquiry Reprehensible

So, it's come to this.

It was easy to speculate that the left in this country, including liberal media outlets like the NY Times, would do anything to attempt a takedown of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Easy, because there is a pattern of behavior to base a prediction on including the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence t Thomas.

The problem that the liberals have is two fold:

First, the President is entitled by the Constitution, and by virtue of having won the election, of choosing a nominee of his liking. He clearly prefers a conservative with tendencies to respect the law and the Constituition and, despite liberal carping and clamoring that he choose a "consensus" nominee (read "evolving liberal"), he chose one in John Roberts.

Second, Roberts has an impeccable and bulletproof resume. Bulletproof, that is, if one is laying by respectable rules.

Therein lies the problem. Based on past patterns, the left will not play by civil rules. They will attack and smear and take any low road to take down a respectable and honorable man just because they differ from his view. Despicable, but predictable.

Were we wrong? Have we gone overboard in our predictions of the low behavior of the left? Of course not. A case in point:

Conservative media was aflame yesterday with reports that the NY Times had launched an investigation into the adoption of John Robert's two children. Confirmation is found in this Newsmax story. They had no probable cause to launch an investigation. It's a pure fishing expedition to find dirt to trash someone personally. They cloaked in in terms of a "background check", despite it being an apparent smear hunt.

I'm outraged at this, as I have been by no other story in a long time.

As an adoptive father twice myself, I want to state unequivocably that this attempt by the NY Times to pierce the sealed adoption records in this context is reprehensible and is completely out of bounds. Shame should heaped on the appropriate officials at this newspaper for reaching a new low in journalism.

Despicable.

The President is Never on Vacation

It's the silly season with the Washington Press Corps, again.

Every August, without exception, they run the same exact story: The President is leaving for a 5 week vacation at his home/ranch.

They play this story big and always with all the negative spins:

- why does the President get to go on a 5 week vacation?
- how can he do that when we're at war?
- how will things get done if the President isn't in Washington?

Michael Moore made a huge deal out of this story in the opening of "Farenheit 9/11", where he played up the fact that President Bush was on "vacation" for 40 days in August right before 9/11.

They leave out the facts that would provide balance and context.

- Everyone's gone from Washington. The Supreme Court is out of session. Congress is out of session. Did they run a headline that said "535 Congressman go on 3 month vacation!" ? No, they just smear the President.

- When Congressmen leave Washington to go home and meet with their constituents in their district, do they call it a vacation? They work from their home and go out and meet people. Same with the President. He'll work from Texas and go out and conduct meetings in 10 states while he's on "vacation". Who says he has to work out of Washington all of the time, especially when no one else is there.

- The President is never on "vacation". He has National Security briefings every day. He has a guy following him around with the nuclear codes. He's "on" every day that he's supposedly on "vacation".

Can we give this ridiculous vacation story a rest this year.