Former CIA director Robert M. Gates has turned down an offer to be the new national intelligence director.

Gates, president of Texas A&M University, sent an email to the university community Monday afternoon and announced that he had declined an invitation for the post and had committed to a new contract with A&M. He plans to remain in his academic post through summer 2008, if not longer. He wrote:

Gates took over as president of Texas A&M in August 2002, before which he had been interim dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, which is housed at A&M along with the elder Bush's presidential library. Gates was Bush's CIA director from 1991-1993. He had a 27-year career with the agency and served six presidents.

When the A&M board of regents appointed Gates president in August 2002, he was chosen over a second unnamed candidate, widely acknowledged to be former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who was an economics professor at A&M before running for Congress. A&M's powerful alumni and athletics organizations strongly endorsed Gramm in the regents' meeting, but a majority vote yielded Gates as the sole finalist for the post.

Gates has proven to be a fastidious organizer in his tenure at A&M, implementing broad and sweeping reorganization moves that have raised the eyebrow of many establishment Aggies. He is widely liked, though, and he is known as a fair and honest broker who is candid about his desire to do what he believes in. Many students, faculty and staff will tell you he is the right man at the right place at the right time.

President Bush certainly could have used a man with leadership qualities like Dr. Gates. Gates' decision to decline the position certainly is a loss for the Bush administration and this nation, just as his departure from A&M would have been a loss to the university community. And I must wonder sometimes: What if Gates had been given as much time at CIA as he's had at A&M? Would he have reorganized and restructured the flailing agency such that we could have avoided the "day of fire"?

I think it's safe to say that if he had taken the new "intelligence czar," we would have seen remarkable and swift action to optimize and streamline American intelligence-gathering efforts.

Last night on his radio show, Matt Drudge played two exchanges in Tim Russert's interview with John Kerry. I think the social science term for this is "flip-flop." Theologically, it's called envy.

The fourth question Russert asked:

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat to the United States now than it was two years ago?

SEN. KERRY: No, it's more. And, in fact, I believe the world is less safe today than it was two and a half years ago. And, you know, I think this is one of the difficulties of what I tried to carry in the course of the campaign. It is a difficult argument to carry in the middle of a war. After 9/11, in a war on terror, it is exceedingly hard as a challenger to carry the argument that the incumbent president and your country are not doing what's necessary to protect itself. But we are not.

The fifth question asked:

MR. RUSSERT: Is the United States safer with the newly elected Iraqi government than we would have been with Saddam Hussein?

SEN. KERRY: Sure. And I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone, and I've said that a hundred times. But we've missed opportunity after opportunity along the way, Tim, to really make America safe and to bring the world to the cause. I mean, look, I sat with any number of Arab leaders, and I said to them, you know, "Mr. Prime Minister" or "Mr. President, is your country--do you believe Iraq, being successful there is important?" The answer is yes. "Do you believe that if it's a failed state, that's a threat to the region?" The answer is yes. "Do you believe that it could be a haven for terrorism even more than it is today?" and so forth. The answer is yes. Then you say, "Well, why aren't you there? What is the problem?" And the problem becomes one of the way in which this administration--they will tell you openly--has approached them and the world.

Steve at Southern Appeal has posted on the funeral of Judge William Augustus Bootle, who ordered the University of Georgia to desegregate. He includes the text of Mercer University President Kirby Godsey's eulogy.

This excerpt from that eulogy stands out:

It reminds us that those who respect tradition needn't devolve into purveyors of traditionalism. As I noted in my earlier post on this matter, Judge Bootle possessed the strength of character needed to help overturn the seemingly immovable social system under which he was raised. And (not "yet) he supported the mission of the Federalist Society later in life. Those who understand that tradition, to be respected, must be wrestled with intellectually and morally will see no contradiction in the Judge's decisions. Or, put another way, they won't subscribe to the doctrine of the dormition of the Holy Spirit.

Glenn Reynolds and his readers have traced changes in a New York Times story that originally included this hopeful paragraph near its beginning:

Go to Instapundit to see how this paragraph gradually slid further into the story and disappeared entirely from this morning's hard copy version.

I guess they were mindful of John Kerry's advice to not "overhype" the story.

Here's the lineup for True North Radio for JAN. 31 - FEB. 4, 2005:

Monday: JIM BEERS, who retired from the US Fish and Wildlife Service after a 30-year career as a wildlife biologist, wetlands biologist, special agent, and refuge manager. Jim was a Congressional Fellow in Washington D.C., and held the high position of Chief of Operations for the National Wildlife Refuge System. He was, for seven years, the wildlife biologist in the National Wildlife Refuge System’s Central Office. During the Clinton Administration, Jim exposed $45 million of government-agency abuses done in collusion with animal rights and environmental organizations. (You can read his Congressional testimony online.) Jim was rewarded for exposing corruption by being sent home and given no work assignments. After 9 months, Jim accepted a cash settlement and retired. He then began writing columns and has become a much sought-after speaker on property rights. You can read some of Jim’s columns in Outdoors Magazine, and others on the Internet.

Tuesday: COL. GORDON CUCULLU, military analyst for FoxNews and for New York's WABC-TV and WABC-radio. Gordon is the author of Separated at Birth: How North Korea Became the Evil Twin. Check out Gordon's beautiful and content-rich website.

Wednesday: PAUL DRIESSEN, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death. A former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth, Paul abandoned the environmental movement when it become intolerant in its views, inflexible in its demands, unwilling to recognize our tremendous strides in protecting the environment, and insensitive to the needs of billions of people who lack food, electricity, safe water, healthcare and other basic necessities that we take for granted. Paul is a Senior Fellow with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. He is also a fellow of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, both nonprofit institutes that focus on energy, the environment, economic development and international affairs. We'll be talking about Genetically Engineered Foods & other controversial topics.

Thursday: BILL SAYRE, formerly with the U.S. Federal Reserve, now a Member of the Board of Directors of Associated Industries of Vermont; of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce; and of the Vermont Forest Products Association. A student of Milton Friedman's (among other Nobel Laureates), Bill received his MBA in economics/finance from the University of Chicago.

Friday: LUCIEN ELLINGTON, who has advanced degrees in history, economics education, and education, holds the distinguished position at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, of UTC Foundation Professor of Education. Formerly Associate Director of the UT-Chattanooga’s Center for Economic Education, Lucien is now Co-Director of the university’s Asia Program, and is regional coordinator for the Freeman Foundation-funded National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. Lucien has also been recognized as an expert in education by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, who named him a Marvin Wachman Senior Fellow . Lucien is the author of three books about Japan, and edits the journal Education About Asia, which is read by middle, high school, and university educators He has served as a consultant for over 100 teacher institutes on Japan throughout the United States and has directed eleven study tours of Japan for schoolteachers. He now teaches and supervises courses on the histories of China, Japan, and the Koreas for educators in three southern states.

But that’s not why he’s here. Lucien is active in history and social science education reform. He is one of the co-authors of the famous Fordham Foundation Study, Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? That’s the question we’ll ask--and answer--on Friday's show.

Lucien understands well the challenges of teaching high school, having himself been a high school history and economics teacher for eight years.

You are encouraged to forward this announcement to people who may be interested in the guests and topics featured this week, and to put our call-in numbers on speed dial.

Waterbury/Montpelier area: 244-1777

Long distance from anywhere: 1-877-291-TALK or 1-877-291-8255

Tune in to WDEV 550 AM/96.1 FM or to WSYB 1380 AM to hear TRUE NORTH live, from 11:05 a.m. till noon, Monday through Friday..

Should you miss a show, don't forget--each week we post the previous week's shows on our website, so you can listen to those you missed online. Just go to True North Radio and click on Archive.

Iraq the Model wrote yesterday:

Arthur Chrenkoff's latest posting on the good news from Iraq is up this morning at Opinionjournal. He describes precisely the feeling that I had when I saw the front page of yesterday's NYT:

He offers an excellent round-up of articles about yesterday's election -- more, in fact, than you'll be able to read. How does Arthur do it?

The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund has a fascinating article on Rush Limbaugh’s warning to President Bush regarding border policy. Don’t miss this one.

Voltaire taught us that only a fool would value every word of a reputed writer. I guess that means it’s OK for me to disagree heartily with Peggy Noonan’s last two columns.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Ms. Noonan’s reactions to President Bush’s inaugural address — enough that I’m just now getting around to writing and posting my thoughts. But the delay has allowed me plenty of time to consider the ramifications of the president’s speech while doing some academic analysis of it. And as much as I hate to do so, I must say: Peggy Noonan is wrong about President Bush’s second inaugural.

There is an old joke that says engineers view the glass as neither half full nor half empty — it’s just twice as big as it needs to be. I won’t attempt to interpret Ms. Noonan’s words out of context, but I do submit that President Bush has decided to view the world from the positive frame of reference. In his mind’s eye, the world is but half full of democracy, and he intends to fill it up.

I simply cannot figure out what about this disturbs Ms. Noonan.

She wrote in her 21 Jan. column:

But he didn’t. The president set forth an aggressive and righteous agenda far beyond his next four years in the White House. He charged a path for freedom. Hey, if one has to have goals, they might as well be good ones.

Ms. Noonan shields her criticisms of President Bush’s speech behind the veil that “this is not heaven, it’s earth.” I certainly don’t think the president made such a mistake. He is a man of faith. He is a man of principles. And he is a man who does what he says. As fallible human beings, we must yearn for perfection, not near-perfection. I think that is what President Bush’s speech is all about.

I’m a believer in the notion that nothing is static — you’re either going up or going down. Life is a binary, and one must pull hard toward the top or plummet toward the bottom. President Bush isn’t interested in simply setting freedom on an upward course. He wants the ideal of liberty to be universal, to shine light in all the shadows where tyranny dwells.

In her most recent column, Ms. Noonan continues to rail on the president’s speech. I was mystified at the first missive, but the second one really blows me away. And it is clear that Ms. Noonan has faced a barrage of questions and speculation about her opinions of this speech. Certainly Rush Limbaugh’s listeners were left bewildered by her assessment.

“They forgot context,” Ms. Noonan writes. That, she says, was the president’s biggest mistake. “All speeches take place within a historical context, a time and place. A good speech acknowledges context often without even mentioning it.”

True. But the president didn’t leave much context to the imagination with this line: “And then came a day of fire.”

This nation is at war. Americans were attacked without warning, and President Bush declared then that regimes that harbored terrorists would be counted among this nation’s enemy. His thinking became the Bush Doctrine, and he believes American national security is vested in the spread of freedom around the globe.

I disagree, therefore, with a couple more of Ms. Noonan’s assertions. She wrote that this nation has not seen a truly remarkable inaugural address since 1961. That’s her opinion, but I disagree. And she asserts that President Bush’s second inaugural wasn’t poorly written, just “badly thought.” I take issue with that belief, too. President Bush’s words echoed the policy he has been embracing for four years. That’s a line of thinking I happen to appreciately greatly.

[Note: The following post is by one of my Georgia friends, Joseph Knippenberg of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. Joe is professor of politics, Associate Provost for Student Achievement, and Director of the Rich Foundation Urban Leadership Program. He is a contributor at No Left Turns. Winfield Myers]

With two-thirds of the speech and much of the soaring rhetoric devoted to America’s place in the world, it is no wonder that most of the pundits have focused on the foreign policy implications of President Bush’s Second Inaugural. To the extent that they have paid any attention at all to his statements about domestic policy, it is to wonder how he can accomplish much of anything at home, given the grand sweep and apparent contentiousness of his international vision.

I would like, for the moment, to take a “seamless garment” approach to the two elements of the speech, arguing that the two parts are inextricably connected in a single vision, not at odds with one another, the way genuinely robust domestic and international liberalism can often be (think “guns vs. butter”).

“Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens,” the President said. Have we chosen freedom, or do we take it for granted, having had it bequeathed to us by our forebears? Might not the very success of our experiment in republican self-government lead us to rest on our laurels, only lazily or fitfully living up to our obligations at home, let alone abroad?

It seems to me that the genius of President Bush’s speech is the way that it speaks to this challenge in domestic policy, with propositions following the thrice-repeated phrase, “in America’s ideal of freedom.” First comes “the ownership society,” intended to make “every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny,” by enabling us all to take personal responsibility for our own lives and well-being. This is an updated version of the sturdy yeoman farmer, capable now of superintending his or her own retirement and caring for his or her own triple-decker or suburban ranch. Such people do not become dependents of the nanny state, asking not what they can do for their country, but what their country can do for them.

The second proposition recognizes that, in George Will’s immortal phrase, statecraft is, above all else, soulcraft: “the public interest depends upon private character—on integrity and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives.” “Self-government,” the President affirms, “relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.” Human beings who govern themselves are capable of making and keeping promises; to be a promise-keeper is to embody the central virtue of the classical liberalism of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, not to mention the contemporary evangelicalism of Bill McCartney.

Thirdly, there is the proposition that “liberty for all does not mean independence from one another.” The roots of liberty are in families, churches, and communities. Those raised in these settings combine their liberty with liberality, ennobling the former “by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak.”

“America’s ideal of liberty” produces the people who gave generously in response to the tsunami. It produces people who would regard it as “dishonorable to abandon” obligations to the Iraqi people, even if they are “difficult to fulfill.” It produces people who are capable of choosing “to serve in a cause larger than [their] wants, larger than [themselves].”

President Bush acknowledges that there are different ways of fulfilling the longing for liberty in every human heart. America’s way, born of its culture, its institutions, and its place in the world, produces a people capable of holding up the light of liberty and helping others find their own way.

The President’s domestic policy might well be defensible in its own terms, but it is also inextricably connected with his understanding of America’s unique role in the contemporary world. As we choose freedom for ourselves, we help others choose it for themselves.

The blogosphere is filled with posts decrying the negative reaction of many on the left to the successful elections in Iraq. Great coverage of this latest disgrace have been posted by Captain Ed, Wretchard (who dismembers the absurd Juan Cole, who called the elections "a joke"), and Hugh Hewitt (who also thrashes Cole). Hindrocket has been reading Democratic Underground (PL has many pertinent posts up); Michelle Malkin notes that most leftist bloggers are in hibernation in the wake of the election.

Florida Cracker has a great collection of photos, including one of an Iraqi soldier approaching a polling station on his hands and knees as a sign of respect. (I can't help but note that today's Gospel reading was from the Sermon on the Mount.)

The leader in Monday's Daily Telegraph gets straight to the point by comparing the left's reaction to Iraq with their reaction to South Africa's first democratic election:

Its conclusion speaks for me and, I'm sure, millions more:

With the news that Iraq's elections were more peaceful than many expected, we should continue to assess the opposition -- in America. John Kerry's shameful post-election behavior continued, with his comments to Tim Russert that, in effect, the elections were illegitimate. "No one in the United States should try to overhype [sic] this election," he said, adding "It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote." According to NewsMax, he again displayed his famous capacity for flip-flopping:

When things in Iraq have settled down and thoughtful people can look back to the nation's rebirth, an account will be taken of just who befriended the Iraqi people, and who cynically hoped to keep them in chains so as to harm the Bush administration. Since this is a day of celebration for the Iraqi's newfound freedoms, let's not that, among those who've rooted for the right side is former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, who has stood out as a supporter of the administration's policies toward Iraq, and as a staunch ally of Condoleezza Rice. In his recent public statements, Young seems a veritable elder statesman when compared with his shrinking former boss, Jimmy Carter. If the men shared a worldview in 1976, only one of them has resisted all efforts to learn in the intervening decades.

In this morning's AJC, Young writes:

And:

He aims this blunt statement at his fellow Democrats: "We have just lost an election being negative."

Young stood by Condi Rice during her nomination process, and he was recognized by President Bush for his steadfast refusal to take the easy route by joining his fellow Democrats, along with too much of the leadership of the African American community, in pummeling her and the war in Iraq.

When Young was mayor of Atlanta, and especially when he served as U.N. Ambassador under Jimmy Carter, he was often controversial and adversarial in ways that harmed America's diplomatic efforts. At the U.N. he often issued virulently anti-America statements, supported Soviet-backed "liberation" movements in the Third World, and helped create the international personality cult that surrounded Yasser Arafat. Today, however, he has taken a stand for democracy in Iraq, and meritocracy at home. For that, he deserves gratitude from his domestic foes on the right, and emulation by his erstwhile allies on the left. If Andrew Young can come around on these questions, what's stopping other Democrats from doing a little growing up themselves?

Years ago when I was teaching the Great Books, my first task every semester was to divest my students of their ahistorical view of classical literature. Most wanted to treat Greek legends as if they had been created in toto -- born full grown like Athena. Part of the problem stemmed from Edith Hamilton's handbook of classical mythology, which failed to differentiate between archaic and classical Greek literature, or Greek and Roman variations on central characters. Hence, students picked up the Iliad assuming that Achilles would be killed (with an arrow to the heel, of course) on the last page, when in fact that Roman legend didn't emerge until centuries after Homer lived.

I used the analogy of the history of science to drive home a simple fact: literature, philosophy, and theology have histories. You wouldn't want to be treated by a fourteenth century physician, I'd say; medical knowledge has a history. Ditto chemistry, physics, or astronomy. I could see faces light up -- that magic moment all teachers long for -- and before long the best students were writing and speaking of the history of thought in ways that allowed them to grasp the creation of different genres and categories.

That was especially important when teaching classical literature, of course, since the Greeks were busy creating a vocabulary upon which later knowledge would rest. And today, it's important to keep in mind that Islam, like Christianity, has a history. Whatever its public face today, it isn't stagnant, and what we see now isn't what's always been, or even the only manifestation of it that exists around the world today.

Daniel Pipes addresses this in a reply to Lawrence Auster, who'd characterized Pipes's approach to Islam as "ecumenist." Pipes writes:

And he warns Auster, and the rest of us, of the dangers of presentism:

Stephen Schwartz also argues for viewing Islam historically, the better to understand where it is today and what it's likely to become tomorrow. He warns that the principal threat to Iraqi stability comes from the Wahhabis across the border in Saudi Arabia. It is this strain of Islam, and not Islam qua Islam, that Zarqawi draws upon when he condemns democracy and threatens all who support it:

Both men understand that, contrary to the pronouncements from doomsayers on the cynical left and the isolationist/nationalist right, political progress can be made in the Middle East. They don't underestimate the difficulties ahead, but neither do they argue that cultural proclivities or religious beliefs are historical determiners that make the future the same as the past. That's what happens when you read history and understand that the past is filled with paradoxes, and that all thought has a history. Crude determinism, whether of a Marxist or pseudo-Hegelian variety, has no place in the discussion.

Are old animosities between the realists (or, better put, appeasers) at State and the Neocon/idealists at the White House really disappearing? Will State and the Pentagon actually begin working in concert to advance the President's policies?

David Brooks thinks he sees signs of a rapprochement among these warring factions, and I certainly hope he's correct -- if that means a vanquishing of the leaky liberals at State and the Pentagon, who worked overtime during the campaign to undermine the administration's policies.

Brooks says that the battle of ideas is getting more attention so that liberty can be spread by means other than arms. I hope he's correct there, too, since a glaring weakness in the President's plans thus far has been their lack of appreciation for the role that education should play in making possible the establishment and growth of civil society. Voting, key though it is, isn't an end in itself, and absent a vigorous campaign to teach leaders about the rule of law, a free press, and freedom of speech, the victory symbolized by elections could be ephemeral.

Part of the new atmosphere Brooks detects is of course a consequence of the ending of the campaign season. Unlike the Clinton administration, which created the "permanent campaign," the Bush White House seems determined to actually get things done. The strategy for accomplishing that is still in the making, and Brooks's reading of current trends could be encouraging, but only if the ends -- an ending of tyranny -- aren't lost in the process.

John Hinderaker was interviewed by Al Franken on Air America today, and it seems that Franken's favorite topic was . . . himself. Hindrocket calls it "the worst 15 minutes in the history of radio." Although the producer had told Hindrocket that he'd be preceded by sneering columnist Nick Coleman (who's attacked PL in print) and that he'd have the opportunity to respond, it didn't happen. Less capable guests, who haven't helped create one of the best blogs, would have been vulnerable to Franken's sandbagging. As it is, Franken comes off as a duplicitous host. That's not shocking, but he may be surprised just how many people learn of his action.

Welcome, Instapundit Readers!

I have rarely, if ever, encountered a document so filled with hatred, bile, and distortion as "'Some People Push Back' On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," by Ward Churchill. I discovered him via the Wall Street Journal's Taste page, where an editorial details Hamilton College's invitation to Churchill to appear on a panel on "Limits of Dissent?" next week. Churchill, who teaches ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, claims in his essay that the terrorists of 9/11 weren't terrorists but, in fact, humanitarians; that those who died got what they deserved; that the war with Islam, going back to the Crusades, explains and justifies these actions; and that we've been visited by some "reality therapy" so that we'll know how it feels to be bombed.

The Journal links to the piece, and I've taken the time to read it. I can assure you that it's actually much worse than the Taste page editorial implies. It runs to some 5,600 words; here are some excerpts:

Yes, dead Iraqi children -- not Osama bin Laden, not Al Qaeda. Even if we make allowances for this particular portion of his ignorance by assuming that not everyone knew bin Laden was responsible from the beginning, somehow Churchill leapt to the conclusion that -- what? -- Saddam was behind the acts?

But his main point, of course, isn't to herald any particular radical Muslim leader for killing his countrymen in such numbers (and, by the end, he's credited virtually the entire planet for stricking back at us). Rather, he aims to express his hatred for his country, its inhabitants, and its liberties. After launching into an incoherent rant attempting to draw a moral equivalency between the Germans of the 1940s, the Holocaust, the First Gulf War, and the American people (yes, it's as convoluted as it sounds), Churchill writes:

And then:

Never let it be said that he directs all of his seemingly bottomless reservoir of hatred toward Republicans alone:

He implies that Timothy McVeigh was fighting for the same team when he killed innocents in Oklahoma City, and that McVeigh's actions were laudable. Under the heading "On Matters of Proportion and Intent," he writes:

Under the heading "The Makings of a Humanitarian Strategy" he writes:

After this, Churchill engages in a hate-filled fantasy of what America might do to avoid further attacks. Among his hopes: that we try "hanging a few of America's abundant supply of major war criminals (Henry Kissinger comes quickly to mind, as do Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton and George the Elder)." If we do this, "there is every reason to expect that military operations against the US on its domestic front would be immediately suspended." Again, his point is that we should do these things, that these VIPs have it coming to them just as much as did the victims in the Twin Towers and in the Pentagon.

And, in what Churchill no doubt sees as a terribly clever turn-about, he advocates inspections of American weapons sites, Nuremberg-style trials of "a few thousand US military/corporate personnel," and payment of reparations to all we've harmed. For Churchill, of course, that includes just about the entire world.

He's pessimistic that this plan will come to pass, however, because:

You see, "Americans just don't get it," as is obvious by our refusal to take mass murder lightly:

And so, Hamilton College has seen fit to invite this man to campus to, what?, as the Journal says, engage in debate over whether 9/11 was good or bad? At least if that's the case, there can be no doubt where Prof. Churchill stands.

Update: Glenn Reynolds links to this photo, which nicely captures Churchill's unintentional parodic absurdness.

Update II: Instapundit is now linking to this post, which places Churchill in the context of '60s nihilism.

As if more evidence was needed that many political groups claiming to serve minority interests are, in practice, little more than PACs for correct-thinking minorities only, Drudge is reporting, via the Hill (subscription required), that the Hispanic Caucus will not endorse Alberto Gonzales for the post of U.S. Attorney General.

My feeling about the Hispanic Caucus, as well as the Black Caucus, is about the same as for the myriad groups claiming to represent the interests of women, minorities, and others: partisanship is fine, as long as they admit to it. If the Hispanic Caucus was honest about its mission, it would change its name to the Liberal Hispanic Caucus, or Democratic Hispanic Caucus.

But by claiming to represent the interests of all Hispanics, only to prove its partisan nature in moves such as the Gonzales freeze-out, it follows the NAACP's well-trod example of failing its constituency. Rather than working to advance the interests of Hispanics, per se, it promotes a narrower definition of "Hispanic" to include only those whose politics it finds palatable. This serves the press well, since we'll doubtless see articles trumpeting Gonzales's failure to gain the imprimatur of this group as evidence of his lack of qualifications for office. These reports should, and probably will, be ignored by his backers, but they'll be used to tar him or, worse, brand him as a sell-out.

But the analogy with MSM holds. As minorities gain access to a wider source of information, the hold of the old order weakens. Hispanics voted for Bush in record numbers last year, and not because they were hoodwinked or corrupted, as liberals allege. Rather, they, like other Americans, are better educated on the issues that concern them most -- the economy, national security, the chance to build a better future for their children. For that, we all can thank the New Media, not to mention the obvious ability of adults to survey the world around them and conclude that they can decide for themselves who's with them, and who's against them. No matter who their erstwhile friends in DC may claim to represent.

With the Iraqi elections almost upon us, you might think that the West, as a whole, would be pulling for the Iraqi people. After all, American troops have died (and will continue to die) to liberate that country from one of the most brutal dictators to rule any land since the bloody death of Hitler, and the undeserved natural deaths of Stalin and Mao. Iraqis, of course, have paid dearly for harboring hopes of a better tomorrow, first under Saddam, and now at the hands of Baathist terrorists our media insist on calling “insurgents.” Given the nature of dictatorships, which in structure and execution resemble the Mafia more than any legitimate form of government, Iraq’s climb out of the depths of Baathist sadism is little less than remarkable.

But, as we all know, the whole world isn’t pulling for Iraq. In fact, significant segments of the American political class, joined by assorted academics and pundits, are openly hoping for catastrophe. Others, while not desiring failure, dismiss all progress in Iraq with a wave of the hand, declaring the Middle East’s future as pre-destined and immutable with all the intellectual subtlety of a seventeenth-century Calvinist divine or nineteenth-century Marxist radical. The free will of individuals counts for nothing, we’re told, when it’s met by the Realists’ own Hegelian march of history. Things cannot get better; nothing can improve; America is powerless against such world-dominating forces.

But, you may say, those warning the President against launching a crusade for democracy are only modern-day Jeremiahs wondering the intellectual deserts of Neoconservative think tanks and publication boards, declaring the follies of modern kings. But Jeremiah, you’ll recall, had a higher purpose in mind. In fact, he had a higher power in mind, a genuinely immutable historical force that, paradoxically, allows men and nations to go astray – again, by the exercise of their own free will. And Jeremiah’s objects of scorn weren’t those who proposed to change the corrupt, sclerotic status quo, but those who supported it. He came not to comfort those who, like modern-day liberals and some conservatives, stood athwart history yelling “stop,” but to discomfort them, to give hope to the oppressed, and to, in effect, change the course of history.

The leader in today's WSJ ($) places Sunday's Iraqi elections in proper historical perspective. Progress in Iraq is not, as domestic cynics would have us believe, negligible. In fact, the degree of cooperation among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds is remarkable, as is the eagerness of Iraqis to participate in the election. Just today, via Power Line, Iraqi authorities announced the arrest of two more close associates of terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Hindrocket goes so far as to speculate that Zarqawi himself may be in custody, as earlier rumors held. Let's hope so.

The Journal's editorial appropriately accords Zarqawi the importance he deserves, mentioning him in the opening paragraphs:

And how to explain those American, and particularly conservative, voices who see the administration's push for freedom as dangerous, short-sighted, naive, or involving "too much God"?

More in Part II, coming shortly.

Max Boot's column in today's L.A. Times has this to say about Seymour Hersh:

Boot takes strong exception to Hersh's latest hit story, "The Coming Wars: What the Pentagon Can Now Do in Secrecy," which appears in the New Yorker. His principal complaint: Hersh's imagination, like Oliver Stone's, is better than his journalistic skills. And "all of Hersh's errors run in one direction: toward making the U.S. government look bad."

In a conclusion that seconds the complaints of Thomas Sowell, outlined in the previous post, Boot writes:

Thomas Sowell's latest column takes aim at a particularly pernicious form of media arrogance and irresponsibility: the refusal to report accurately on military operations in Iraq. In particular, Sowell is incensed that reporters are eager to report every American casualty, yet rarely report enemy casualties.

This serves to distort the picture by downplaying the success of Coalition military assaults on "insurgents" (read terrorists).

Sowell draws a historical analogy with WWII:

The model for such slanted reporting, of course, is Vietnam, which too many contemporary reporters view as the Golden Age of media accomplishment.

But, as Sowell notes, such an approach can swing domestic opinion against a war that is winnable, because it convinces the home folks that the sacrifices under way aren't worth it. If we're going to lose no matter what we do, then why not cut our losses and run?

Of course, American news consumers have a much wider range of choices today, as readers of any blog know. Arthur Chrenkoff has just posted on Good News from the Muslim World, Part 4, which (as is the norm with Arthur) offers more excellent information than many hours of old style network news.

But Sowell's main point stands, because the New Media, for all their influence, still reach fewer people than the MSM. As others have pointed out, even listeners to talk radio shows often hear news updates from the AP or the CBS Radio Network -- hardly unimpeachable sources of information. True, the Fox Radio Network is set to grow rapidly, and it will offer a choice to program managers who now find their selection of reliable radio news limited. The trends are not in the MSM's favor, but time is key in the war in Iraq. As long as the MSM distort the news from the battlefield, they'll endanger America's mission in Iraq -- not to mention their own future.

Adam's Gecko today has a fine post describing the incredible work of the crew of the USS Lincoln as it shuttles UN and other dignitaries back and forth between Aceh to the guestrooms aboard the ship. Of course, these UN and NGO leaders can't and won't sleep in tents adjacent to tsunami victims. No doubt these are the same leaders who criticize the United States and call us stingy as their salaries and offices are paid for by American tax dollars in New York and their difficult work in the field is eased by three squares a day and clean sheets aboard the Lincoln.

Wlady Pleszczynski noticed that yesterday's press conference offered up something not normally on the menu: contempt that ran both ways. What's up, he says, is that the President doesn't fear the Washington Press Corp -- at all.

Rush played Gannon's question yesterday, but he cheered it as evidence that a slice of the Washington media were finally asking fairer questions. That's of course true enough, and it's great that Gannon was called on, but his presence is less a sign that the old guard has changed than that it is making itself less relevant.

Read the rest of Wlady's post -- and smile.

Update: Blogger Lane Core, Jr., sends word that he blogged on Bush and the press last April. This isn't the first time that the President has let the White House press corps know how he feels.

Blogger Orrin Judd writes at TCS that the New Democratic Philosophy of Bill Clinton is dead. He notes that Social Security reform, once embraced by the likes of former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, is now attacked by Democrats.

Orrin says that George W. Bush's run as a "compassionate conservative" had a more than passing resemblance to Clinton's own "third way" policies, and the co-opting of the Democrats helps explain their current malaise. Similarly, Tony Blair has co-opted the Tories so that, like America's Democrats, they're sidelined by the determined and visionary leadership of the opposition. He says that John Howard of Australia is pursuing a "conservative version of the third way." Their common ground?

In the face of overwhelming evidence that electoral victory is gained by moving toward the center, what have today's Democrats done? Embrace the bitter, loony left, of course, as their petulant treatment of Condoleezza Rice shows. Any party whose public face is Barbara Boxer's, or which casts itself as the reactionary wing of American politics, is sure to lose. Which is why Hillary, a true left-winger if ever there was one, is desperate to be perceived as a natural centrist. But will her compatriots notice?

My wife and I are both graduates of the University of Georgia, as are other family members (including a sister). It's remarkable to consider that when my first relative to attend UGA, a great-great uncle, graduated in 1900, the racial make-up of the student body was the same as when Judge William Augustus Bootle ordered it desegregated in 1961. His death on Tuesday in Macon provides an opportunity to reflect on his legacy.

I learned of Judge Bootle's death via Steve at Southern Appeal, where I turn frequently to catch up on the news from my home state. Unlike me, Steve knew Judge Bootle, and his posts (the other one is here) contain links to two of the Judge's speeches and newspaper articles.

The immorality of Jim Crowe is by now, I believe, clear for all to see. By issuing his order, Judge Bootle began a process that, in UGA's case, allowed desegregation to proceed with surprisingly little drama. But Judge Bootle didn't open the doors for blacks only, although that was the most important immediate consequence of his actions. Rather, his order, viewed after the passing of 42 years, was part of a series of judicial and legislative steps that freed an entire region from a poisonous past.

When we travel home, as we did for Christmas, we're always struck by the remarkable growth of the New South. That's nowhere more obvious than in one of our primary destinations, Atlanta. And I'm not speaking here merely of that city's famous (or, to some, infamous) suburban sprawl. Today, even the intown neighborhoods, blighted since WWII, are being rebuilt at breakneck pace.

Fly to Houston and you'll find the same type of growth; ditto for Charlotte, Orlando, Nashville, and many other Southern cities. This South, the one best known to people born since WWII, has been a magnet for jobs, investment, and all types of people for decades. And without men like Judge Bootle, none of it would have been possible.

As long as the region's populace was divided against itself, with social injustices directly linked to economic backwardness, an area that today boasts over 80 million souls would have remained an economic backwater. That's not to claim that desegregation's main benefits can be measured in mere economic terms -- far from it. But by freeing the region's black residents -- by making them full citizens -- desegregation accelerated the spread of a commodity that had been in short supply: opportunity. Freed from the shackles of our own apartheid, the inhabitants of the region could at last tap their own skills, ambitions, and abilities to build a much more equitable, and richer, society.

As residents of the Northeast, every trip home reminds us of how aged the infrastructure (and, for that matter, the populace) is in our adopted region when compared with the Southern cities with which we're familiar. That's not to complain about our current home region, which has its own charms, beauty, and strengths. But it is unmistakable to most observers.

One final note. Steve at Southern Appeal has posted some photos, one of which shows Judge Bootle standing with Steve and others in front of a banner of the Federalist Society of Georgia. This is the same organization that has been vilified by opponents of the President as a racist group bent on turning back the clock to the days of segregation. The charge was always absurd, of course, but Judge Bootle's presence at a conference sponsored by the FSG doesn't indicate that, in his latter years, he abandoned the courageous position he staked out decades earlier.

Instead, it reveals the consistency of his opinion that the courts should not allow state-sponsored racial preferences to stand. A life-long Republican, it's important to remember that Judge Bootle was appointed a U.S. Attorney by Calvin Coolidge in 1929, fired by FDR four years later, and appointed a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia in 1954. During those days, Republicans in Georgia were scarce in every region but the mountainous Northeast, and the Judge lived in Macon.

Thus, as a link to the Party of Lincoln's anti-segregation past, he lived long enough to see his principals become ascendant in his home state and region. There's still work to be done, to be sure, but he left behind a remarkable legacy.

Update: Steve at Southern Appeal has posted a new set of links with more information on Judge Bootle.

It's fascinating and even somewhat surprising that the Academy of Motion Pictures snubbed Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11 -- with his movie not even nominated for "Best Documentary." Of course, documentary it is not, but that's never stopped Hollywood before. Sadly, Mel Gibson's beautiful Passion of the Christ was nearly-equally snubbed, garnering only three nominations in technical categories.

Michelle Malkin has a column in today's New York Post that illustrates just how out-of-date, and out-of-touch, some federal agencies can be. We all recall that immigration officials notified two of the 9/11 hijackers that their visa applications had been approved -- six months after 9/11.

Now, that same agency has notified Eugueni Kniazev of Brooklyn that he is "deemed to be a lawful permanent resident of the United States." But there's a problem: as an employee of Windows on the World on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the WTC, he was killed on 9/11.

I can add only one comment to Michelle's story, which deserves wide distribution (see more information at her web site): given the magnitude of such mistakes, and the absence of measures to prevent them from reoccurring, why would anyone wish to grant even more power to regulate our lives to any branch of the federal government?

China's rulers are betting their regime that the Chinese people will accept a few silver shekels in exchange for oppressing any hopes for greater personal and political freedom. With living standards on the rise, at least in the growth cities along the coast, and high tech gadgets finding their way into the homes of the increasingly large middle class, Communist Party leaders, joined by legions of apparatchiks, are gambling that the masses will willingly pay for their material goods with their dreams for a freer tomorrow.

But the Internet is making that gamble riskier for sclerotic leaders who know that material well-being, welcome though it is, cannot fill the void in the human spirit caused by their ongoing repression of political and religious thought they deem subversive.

An op-ed by Emily Parker in today's Asian Wall Street Journal ($) [update: it's now free online] examines this problem from her post in Hong Kong. She writes that Chinese citizens were outraged by the news blackout that followed the death of former leader Zhao Ziyang's death last week. Because they can't express their views openly in print, on the radio, or on television, they turned to the Net to learn about Zhao and Tiananmen Square and to express their disgust with authorities for attempting to keep them in the dark.

Authorities anticipated this, of course, and tried in vain to block access to web sites that carried accurate stories about Zhao and his role in trying to prevent the Tiananmen Square Massacre of June, 1989.

But as the following statements from Chinese web sites (reproduced in Ms. Parker's op-ed) demonstrate, China's strongmen failed in their efforts to prevent the truth from leaking out:

Emily Parker concludes her essay on a poignant note:

Last week I commented on a column by the Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady ($). She asked whether or not Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez should be on America's list of terrorist supporters before providing ample evidence that the answer is, unequivocally, yes.

Today, my friend Thor Halvorssen, who is Venezuelan, adds additional evidence in a Weekly Standard article titled "Guerrilla Nation." At issue is not only Chavez's long-voiced sympathy for terrorists and thugs the world over -- he supported Saddam Hussein and the Taliban -- but his open support for FARC, the Columbian terrorist organization that has sought for decades to overthrow Columbia's government.

As Mary O'Grady, and now Thor Halvorssen, have stated, Venezuela provides a test case for incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Her treatment of Chavez, as a sponsor of terrorism or a mere head of state loaded with oil resources, will be an early indication of the Bush administration's willingness to push for an end to state-sponsored terrorism. Those efforts can take many forms, and not every move needs to be broadcast to the world. But over time, we'll know whether or not Chavez is being held accountable for his actions. Those actions, by the way, include the reduction of civil liberties for Venezuelans themselves -- another poke in the eye to America's stated support for liberty and opposition to tyranny.

Foreign policy realists and the left-wing of American politics used to be in the driver's seat of American foreign policy. Now they're side-lined by the Bush administration's changes in that policy, and they don't like it one bit.

In fact, argues John Podhoretz, they're so fearful that success in Iraq will spell doom for them -- and glory for Bush -- that they would cheer the failure of this Sunday's Iraqi elections.

What does it tell us about such folks that they place their own reputations above the future of Iraqis and, by extension, other peoples who know, or recently knew, tyranny first-hand? Moreover, what does it tell us about the policies they advocate? Toward what end do they wish American policy to aim?

Short answer: Georgetown mansions, chic parties, and WaPo op-eds for themselves; tyranny for Arabs.

Democracy Project blogger Laurie Morrow addresses that question in an article today at FrontPage Magazine. The answer: the parents of the folks you probably think of when you hear that phrase.

Read the whole thing.

It’s college application time in our household. Multiple forms have been filled out and mailed in. And now form letters are beginning to roll in. How’s that for ending two consecutive sentences with prepositions? Will there be more? Stay tuned—or, better yet, stay with.

One such form letter arrived the other day from Marquette University. It “welcomed” our son to the incoming class of 2005. “Whew,” I suppose, might have been our reasonable response. He’s in. (There I go again.)

Then I read on (oops), and as I did, the “whew” became a “huh.” And that “huh” had nothing to do with encountering any dollar figure for tuition. That’s another story—and another “whew.” It seems that the folks in the admissions office have decided that our seventeen year old is the “type of person who will truly enhance the Marquette community.” Oh he will, will he? And to think I thought that they might have thought that he might be enhanced by the Marquette experience. To be sure, he’s enhanced our lives in all sorts of ways. Then again, he’s done a few other things besides all of that.

The Marquette experience? No, the letter did not trot out that tired phrase. But it did trot out something else, namely that tired old warhorse of a word: “diverse.” Is there a college in this incredibly diverse country that does not claim to be diverse and/or celebrate its diversity? In fact, is there a college mission statement anywhere in this land in which THAT WORD does not appear?

Funny, isn’t it? In the name of diversity we’re well on our way to winding up with colleges and universities that are all essentially the same. Maybe we’re already perilously close to being there. We’re certainly a whole lot closer than any one (especially college administrators) would care to admit.

It seems to me that in an incredibly diverse country there ought to be room for colleges and universities that are genuinely different from one another. After all, what’s wrong with a college that announces to the world—and tells its applicants—that it is, say, a conservative Christian institution? For that matter, what’s wrong with another college claiming—and being—a secular liberal institution? At the very least, what’s wrong with a private college simply stating that it is Catholic or Lutheran or Baptist or secular? Nothing so far as I can tell. But there is something very wrong if and when, and in the name of diversity, we end up with every college being in fact a secular liberal college.

Now of course Marquette claims to be more than diverse. The precise wording in its welcome to our son is that he has been admitted to a “diverse, Catholic, Jesuit university.” What exactly does that string of adjectives mean?

Perhaps it is a simple exercise in redundancy. If it is Catholic, it presumably is catholic and, therefore, universal; hence a universal university. And if it is universal, it is necessarily diverse. Moreover, if it is Jesuit, it is presumably Catholic—and vice versa.

On second thought, this little platoon of adjectives may not be redundant at all. If Marquette is truly diverse, in the modern sense of that over-worked term, it may not be Catholic at all—or at least not much at all. What percentage of the student body identifies itself as Catholic? What percentage are practicing Catholic—or cafeteria Catholics—or orthodox Catholics? It doesn’t say. What percentage of the faculty is Catholic of any stripe? It doesn’t say.

In a face-to-face session with Creighton University’s director of admissions, we learned months ago that its student body is approximately two-thirds Catholic (of any stripe). We also learned something else. Without any prompting, the director went on to say that the two-thirds figure struck him as about right. Furthermore, there would be cause for concern at Creighton if that percentage dropped below 55% or rose above 75%.

The first concern makes some sense; the latter, however, makes no sense—unless “diversity” means what I fear it means. So let’s examine these concerns a little more closely. If Creighton truly is a Catholic university, why is there some concern at 55% and none at 67%? On the other hand, if Creighton is a diverse university, why would it ever want a great preponderance (say, two thirds) of its students to be of the same religious faith?

Wait a minute! First it was Marquette. Now it’s Creighton. Is this some sort of bait and switch? Not really. Or have I been caught conflating the two? Possibly—and with some good reason. The two are Midwestern universities of comparable size, history, and “in the Jesuit tradition.” Having had no direct conversation with a Marquette admissions officer, I cannot refer to specific percentages, whether of fact or concern. My guess is that the Marquette numbers and concerns are probably quite similar to those of Creighton.

What can be added to the discussion are a few references to the Creighton letter of acceptance. Upon reading further into the body of the letter our “whew” gave way yet again to another “huh,” as well as to a cause of concern all our own. It seems that if our son chooses Omaha’s version of Jesuit diversity over what he might find in Milwaukee, he will be enrolling in a “top flight college.” Oh yes, it is also a college in the “tradition of Jesuit excellence.” So far, so good, I suppose. To be fair, this letter itself does not contain the word “diversity.” Nor, curiously, does it contain the world “Catholic.” The only Marquette adjectives that survives in the Creighton letter is “Jesuit.” This may actually be a bit of inadvertent truth in advertising, since the phrase “in the Jesuit tradition” often translates (so I’ve been told) to “we pay no attention to Rome.”

Diverse or no, Catholic or no, Creighton does promise to “develop students into successful and focused young adults.” During their undergraduate years they will acquire a “love of learning . . . and a level of self-confidence that ultimately allows them to enjoy their success.” Hmmmm. Success in the classroom breeds self-confidence, which in turn leads to enjoying, maybe even reveling in, that success. It all sounds to wonderfully, so cozily, American.

What all this has to be with developing and/or strengthening young Catholic Americans remains an open question. And how and where Creighton thinks young Catholic Americans fit into a diverse America remains another open question. But at least Creighton doesn’t feel that it will be enhanced by our son’s presence there. Instead, Creighton will apparently be doing the enhancing, as it goes about its business of producing its self-confidently successful—or is that successfully self-confident—graduates.

Now back to Marquette. Actually, it appears that this Jesuit university is also in the enhancement business. After their opening bow toward our marvelous son they do get around to spelling out just what they propose to do for him (as opposed to what he will do for Marquette). It seems that he will “learn how to think and to make good decisions.” So far, so good, I suppose. He will also be challenged with “different ways of looking at the world.” What else might one expect to encounter at a diverse university?

It gets better—or worse. Our son is informed that he will also be given “abundant opportunities to transform yourself, and to become the person you have always wanted to become.” And to think we thought he was being admitted because he already was a well-enhanced person.

Wow! How to choose? But really now, is there a choice? It, too, sounds so wonderfully, so cozily, American. And no doubt once our son has been transformed, he will be self-confident and successful. Or vice versa. And to think I could have instead written “the other way around.”

Around? Who knows, our son may even learn how not to end sentences with prepositions. But will he learn anything at either school about the Catholic proposition? It seems that that kind of diversity is less and less likely to be found at institutions that were once self-confidently Catholic.

Once upon a time and not so long ago Marquette and Creighton were just that. And when they were just that America was a more diverse country (in part because of that). Huh? Yes, you read that right. Today’s colleges may preen over their diversity, they may take pride in their diversity, but one wonders if they really practice it. And certainly they don’t practice it as it was once practiced.

For once upon a time the Marquettes and Creightons of American higher education were beacons of diversity, simply because they knew who they were and what they were about. This was nothing to preen over or take pride in. Maybe this was because they were more concerned with producing graduates who knew more about propositions than prepositions—and were they fit in American life.

That's the conclusion Joe Knippenberg at No Left Turns draws from a survey published by Public Agenda that considers voters' opinions of the role religion should play in the political arena. His take differs markedly from William Raspberry's, as the WaPo columnist is (surprise, surprise) alarmed at what religious folk are doing to American democracy.

The upshot, says Joe: "[T]here’s been an increase in respect for religiously-formed consciences, even if those religiously-formed consciences don’t yield positions identical to one’s own."

You mean religious people can be tolerant of others? Go away!

Joshua Muravchik has written an insightful rebuttal to the President's "realist" critics, including WSJ writers Peggy Noonan and Mark Helprin. The op-ed, "The Democratic Ideal," appears in today's WSJ and on the editorial page's free web site.

Muravchik argues that the naysayers -- those who seemingly believe that democracy cannot spread to nations currently ruled by tyrannical or authoritarian regimes -- are blind to history and the lessons we should draw from it. "Bush and his fellow idealists," he says, "are more realistic than the 'realists.'"

After recounting the increasing agitation for democratic reform emanating from even the Middle East, Muravchik tackles the critics' conflicting contentions that Bush either can't, or won't, place freedom at the forefront of American diplomacy, thereby rending us hypocritical. Or that he will pursue such a policy with such gusto that the world will be destabilized.

With critics contending such opposing possibilities, one wonders about their strong marriage to the status quo. What does it offer that is so compelling? Why is it preferable to any alternative? And why are they ignorant of the lessons of history.

As the President said in his Inaugural speech, there is nothing inevitable about liberty's spread. We humans are the actors of history, possessed of free will as we are. Historical determinism has been shown, at great cost in human life, to be an intellectual's dream, and society's nightmare. The real utopians aren't those who want to make America safer by doing what we can to make the rest of the world freer. Rather, they're those who've found utopia in today's demonstrably volatile and violent world.

Via the Big Trunk at Power Line, that's the title of Victor Davis Hanson's article in the upcoming issue of Commentary.

After taking stock of the Middle East and other trouble spots, Hanson writes:

His conclusion:

As is always the case with both author and magazine, it's a worthy read.

Seoul Train is a new documentary film on the secret underground railroad that assists refugees fleeing North Korea. Some of the footage was shot by activists who secretly returned to North Korea. If they had been caught, they would have been summarily executed.

Here is the schedule for True North Radio this week.

Note: The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Reviews of K-12 Standards for 2005 have just been released, and Vermont's performance is disappointing, or worse. The Fordham Foundation Review is an annual, state-by-state, subject-by-subject, detailed assessment of how American education is performing.

On Tuesday we'll discuss how Vermont performed in English/Language Arts. The report on English Language Arts and Reading Standards is by Sandra Stotsky. On Friday, we'll look at our performance in mathematics, where the news is especially grim. Math Standards is written by David Klein, et al.

You are strongly encouraged to circulate this information widely. Most Vermonters, no matter what their political affiliations, want our children well prepared to enter the hi-tech workplace. This means they're going to need more rigorous and more effective math instruction than this study suggests they're now getting. And with the money we're paying in taxes, our reading instruction should certainly merit far more than it receives; Dr. Stotsky's study suggests we're paying champagne prices for a beer education. While we'll be discussing where we need to improve according to these studies, I'm also going to ask each scholar what we need to do, very specifically, to move both grades to an A -- a grade other states have earned.

Here's the lineup for True North for the week of JAN. 24 - 28, 2005:

Monday: Roger Kimball, generally considered one of America’s foremost intellectuals, Roger is the Managing Editor of The New Criterion and a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, the London Spectator, the London Times Literary Supplement, and National Review. Among the many books of which he is author or co-author are The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art; Lives of the Mind: The Use and Abuse of Intelligence, from Hegel to Wodehouse; Experiments Against Reality: The Fate of Culture in the Postmodern Age; and The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America. Roger’s most recent book, which he edited with Hilton Kramer, is Lengthened Shadows: America and Its Institutions in the Twenty-First Century, an array of remarkable essays about modern culture. Each essay focuses on a different area of experience (e.g., education, the law, the military), and is written by an expert in the field who is a member of the conservative pantheon, writers like Mark Steyn, Judge Robert Bork, Jay Nordlinger, Frederick Kagan. If you love a conservative, this book makes a great Valentine’s Day gift!

On Monday’s show, Roger and I will be discussing the President’s linking of America’s security with the progress of freedom around the world in his Inaugural Address, the subject of Roger’s new essay, just up on National Review Online. We’ll also discuss Harvard University President Larry Summers’ advancing to front place in the heated competition for Most Politically Correct Cringing Jellyfish of a University President, as he prostrates himself before hysterical feminists who got a case of the vapors when Summers suggested women might not be identical to men (see Roger’s remarks). And we’ll discuss “postmodern” science, about which Roger makes some interesting observations.

Tuesday: Sandra Stotsky, Assistant Commissioner of Education for the State of Massachusetts, and the author of the Fordham Foundation's Report on the Teaching of English to Vermont K-12 Students. Dr. Stotsky is a Research Associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the author of Losing Our Language: How Multicultural Classroom Instruction Is Undermining Our Children's Ability to Read, Write, and Reason. Sandy's book concerns the dumbing-down of elementary school children's textbooks; she argues that the downward trend in children's analytical powers, general knowledge, and overall literacy is a consequence of the deliberate dumbing-down of elementary school reading textbooks.

Wednesday: TBA

Thursday: Bill Sayre, formerly with the U.S. Federal Reserve, now a Member of the Board of Directors of Associated Industries of Vermont; of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce; and of the Vermont Forest Products Association. A student of Milton Friedman's (among other Nobel Laureates), Bill received his MBA in economics/finance from the University of Chicago

Friday: David Klein, author of The State of Math Standards 2005 (this is the Fordham Foundation Report on the Teaching of Mathematics to K-12 Students).

You are encouraged to forward this announcement to people who may be interested in the guests and topics featured this week, and to put our call-in numbers on speed dial.

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Tune in to WDEV 550 AM/96.1 FM or to WSYB 1380 AM to hear True North live.

Should you miss a show, don't forget--each week we post the previous week's shows on our website, so you can listen to those you missed online. Just go to truenorthradio.com, and click on Archives.

It didn’t take long for the chieftain of the realists – Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations – to decry against President Bush's second inaugural address stating that “promoting democracy is the wrong priority for foreign policy” in today’s Washington Post. Sounds like sour grapes to me.

He writes:

But why should we listen to Haass and the realists? Wasn’t it their approach that gave us 9/11? Wasn’t it the realists who armed Osama bin Laden against the Soviets and Saddam Hussein against the Iranians? That approach didn’t work either – America need only take one side in every conflict and every struggle and that’s the side against tyranny and for democracy. Rightly, Americans rejected this visionless, take it as it comes-approach to foreign policy by giving President George W. Bush a second term. While the War in Iraq may be messy, it’s keeping the homeland safe by drawing in the fringe lunatics of the Muslim world, like al-Zarqawi, to Iraq rather than lower Manhattan or South Florida. I would rather live with that reality than Haass’.

Dear President Summers,

My sympathies were with you, initially. It seems clear you have been treated unfairly by women who agreed to a private, off-the-record meeting, but who, when you raised ideas with which they disagreed, betrayed your trust, behaved rudely, and tried to silence even the suggestion of dissent. These women behaved very badly, indeed.

But you, sir, behaved worse.

Just how low an opinion of the female sex do you have, that you not only tolerate but reward ill manners, moral cowardice, and intellectual weakness in women? Are your expectations of us so low? How dare the leader of one of the foremost research institutions in the nation value Truth less than preserving the eggshell egos of a handful of fragile feminists?

As the President of Harvard, your responsibility is to cultivate civility, moral courage, and intellectual rigor in faculty and students—irrespective of sex; it is your charge to preserve the free and reasoned exchange of ideas, especially controversial ideas, and to decry the silencing of dissent.

You have chosen to fail on all counts.

When that silly woman stormed out of the meeting, you should have called her on it, then and there. You’re being paid to be an authority figure, an