Conservatives and Leftists occupy two parallel universes in the lesson drawn from the 2004 election. Conservatives believe they scored a great victory via their alternative media getting out the narrative of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, despite the major media first ignoring it, then slandering them, then burying admission of a few irrefutable indictments, then refusing to investigate more, then decrying the unwashed meddling in politics. For the most part, conservatives have rested on that laurel. Worse, professional politicians unite to squelch the possibility that their kind may be challenged by citizen upstarts.

The Left, instead of chastened, is actually emboldened by the major media’s treatment of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Their allies in the major media exercise Orwellian semantics to create a noun “swiftboating” to mean unfounded political attacks. The Left sees the opportunity in this to subdue or even silence conservatives.

They’ve created another Orwellian word-perversion, relabeling radical Leftists as “progressives,” to create today’s version of a popular front to suck in gullible liberals to radical agendas.

The progressives seek to reverse the open marketplace for speech, ideas and action that conservatives have enjoyed for the past few decades to get their messages out. This can be seen in progressives push for a return to government-enforced rationing of who appears on radio or TV talk shows, for increased government restrictions upon campaigning or supporting causes and candidates, for campaigns directed at radio and TV stations and their sponsors to take conservatives off the air. Soros money can be found behind much of this.

Conservatives protest these incursions against free speech. But, for the most part, conservatives are too much acting like deer in the headlights, either fattened and lazy from their previous ascendancy or disheartened by some of their kind having tawdry skeletons or looking for a “George to do it” instead of themselves (and then criticizing our lone George – Bush, that is – for not doing enough by himself).

Sure, conservatives do have many spokepeople who are exerting themselves. But, most allied politicians, foundations, and citizens are hiding in the shadows.

Instead, they must come out, boldly, forcefully and united into the light, energetically fight back, and fund major exposes that shine light and fumigant on the Leftist termites determined to undermine the house of free speech. Or, find themselves shut up.

As if to prove the point of the essay by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, “Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism” published by the American Jewish Committee, that favorite cage liner The New York Times looses its theater critic, Patricia Cohen, to poop on it.

She exposes her colors in her first sentence.

The American Jewish Committee, an ardent defender of Israel, is known for speaking out against anti-Semitism, but this conservative advocacy group has recently stirred up a bitter and emotional debate with a new target: liberal Jews.

Only a left-winged bird of a feather like Patricia Cohen can call the American Jewish Committee “conservative.” And, only the self-deluded can call leftist extremists "liberal."

The American Jewish Committee, founded in 1906 to combat Russia’s pogroms, has stayed true to its mission and roots “to work towards a world in which all peoples were accorded respect and dignity.” Its stances are mainstream Jewish liberalism. For example, from its May 2006 positions paper, the AJC supports $500-million for social and economic development aid for Latin America; comprehensive (enforcement and legalization) immigration reform; John McCain’s restrictions on treatment of enemy combatants; hate crimes protection for race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, or disability; domestic violence protections for women; extension of the Voting Rights Act; opposition to a flag desecration amendment as impinging on free speech; workplace accommodation of all religions’ practices; prolonging Katrina aid; opposition to relaxed IRS standards against politics by houses of worship; opposition to the “nuclear option” by conservatives to terminate filibusters of judicial nominees.

Patricia Cohen’s difficulty distinguishing left from right also extends to her difficulty to distinguish gross war crimes and genocide by the Japanese in World War II from Western colonialism. In her New York Times book review of Winston Groom's history of the pivotal year 1942 in the Pacific, although she admits he “is also the author of 11 other books, including the well-regarded Civil War history 'Shrouds of Glory,’ " she savages his choice of words as too incendiary in describing Japanese atrocities. Then, the roost from which she flies is exposed by her imbalanced moral relativism and factual poverty:

In Groom's account, the Japanese are ''wild-eyed,'' treacherous and unrepentant and their planning for Pearl Harbor ''diabolical.'' Their refusal to surrender is lunatic zealotry while the Americans' intention to fight to the end is heroic. Their imperial designs are part of a ''rapacious'' and cruel plot to ''control most of the world'' and squeeze America to death, while the colonial records of the Allies who already control it are glossed over.

So, what does Patricia Cohen bring to her review of Alvin Rosenfeld’s essay? She devotes most of her report to leftist extremists' self-justifications for attacking Israel. She doesn’t, however, quote Israel critic Tony Judt's inane, “Israel today is bad for the Jews.” She doesn’t reflect on the use by these critics of words like “apartheid,” “racism,” “colonialism,” and “ethnic cleansing” to describe Israel. As Rosenfeld shows:

These descriptors have become part of the standard discourse among “progressive” American Jews, who seem to take for granted that the historical record shows Israel to be an aggressor state guilty of sins comparable to those of Hendrik Verwoerd’s South Africa and Hitler’s Germany.

As Rosenfeld points out:

The true end point of these views is not just to force the Israelis out of the territories they have occupied since 1967, but to force an end to the Jewish state itself.

In an interview for her alma mater, Patricia Cohen says, ““Every story should be understandable for an intelligent general reader who knows nothing about the subject.” Instead, she misleads the ignorant in this story, and anyone who is informed can easily recognize her evident left-wing bias.

Senator Richard Lugar’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post displays the deep knowledge, common sense, vision and responsibility that has earned him such wide respect in foreign policy circles.

Senator Lugar leaps over the divide, observing “the debate on Iraq policy has reached new levels of stridency.” Lugar keeps his eye on strategic adjustment. Indeed, Lugar perceives that’s really what the president’s plan is, the beginning of a strategic adjustment that by its very nature cannot be presented as such.

The debates across and within lines over the various Senate resolutions essentially come down to a few points.

The president’s plan is not presented as strategic, a significant change in mission and mobilization to achieve ends. It is more operational or even tactical, adjustments of place and techniques. As such, opponents of the mission are not persuaded, as they pursue abandonment regardless of consequences, and supporters of the mission are not sufficiently encouraged, as sufficient resources are not committed.

Therefore, for most proponents the resolutions are seen as the beginning of forcing withdrawals. For some, the milder resolution is seen as an expression of no confidence. In either case, however, the only immediate beneficiaries are those seeking political points or cover and foes who clearly see encouragement to last us out.

Lugar presents the strategic adjustment:

We are not in Iraq to defend territory or even to destroy an enemy. Rather, we are pursuing the amorphous task of coaxing out of the Iraqi people and government political decisions that will result in a democratic, pluralistic society that is conducive to regional stability.

While the emergence of such a government and society is still worth pursuing, we must recognize that it is an optimal goal. It should not be the focal point of our Middle East policy or the sole measure of success in Iraq.

We need to recast the geo-strategic reference points of our Iraq policy….

Lugar continues:

The president's plan is an early episode in a much broader Middle East realignment that began with our invasion of Iraq and that may not end for years. Nations throughout the Middle East are scrambling to find their footing as regional power balances shift in unpredictable ways.

At the center of this realignment is Iran, which is perceived to have emerged from our Iraq intervention as the big winner. We paved the way for a Shiite government in Iraq that is much friendlier to Iran than was Saddam Hussein. Bolstered by high oil revenue, Iran has meddled in Iraq, rigidly pursued a nuclear capability, and funded Hezbollah and Hamas.

But the pendulum of Middle East politics may be swinging back against Iranian assertiveness. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf states and others have become increasingly alarmed by Iran's behavior and by widening regional sectarian divisions. Because of this dynamic, U.S. bargaining power in the Middle East is growing. Moderate Arab states understand that the United States is an indispensable counterweight to Iran.

This opens up opportunities for solidifying our broader strategic objectives, and it offers a backup option in Iraq….

Lugar, then offers practical, affordable, doable specifics of redeploying and exerting assets in unified mission for a stabilized or tolerable Mideast, ending on this note:

The administration must avoid becoming so quixotic in its attempt to achieve the optimal outcome in Iraq that it fails to adjust to shifts in the region or political realities within Iraq. Although any administration would be reluctant to talk about a Plan B when its primary plan is still in motion, the president and Congress must reach a consensus on how to protect our broader strategic interests regardless of what happens in those Baghdad neighborhoods or on the floor of the Senate. Otherwise, the fatigue and frustration with our Iraq policy that is manifest in the resolutions of disapproval before the Senate could lead not just to the rejection of the Bush plan but also to the abandonment of the tools and relationships we need to defend our vital interests in the Middle East.

More senators need to stop flapping their lips and start listening to Lugar.

I don’t know how to get an umlaut above the U on my keyboard, but the phrase is easily recognized: (something) above all.

For most of those in Washington, Democrat or Republican, the 2008 elections are -- above all other concerns -- dear to their hearts and actions.

We’ve all heard arguments, before and now, why this should be so: judiciary, budgets, and so forth. Those certainly are important, especially so to certain interest groups. In some discrete – relatively few -- cases, there are clear and wide divides between the outcomes depending upon which party or politician is in power. But, for most instances, there’s at best only differences of degree. Further, there’s at worst only differences of whose pocket and campaign warchest is enriched by lobbyists.

Most important, in virtually all cases, ultimate prices of life and death aren’t at issue. Some may be inconvenienced to greater or lesser extent, but not irreparably or viciously.

This isn’t the case with national security or foreign policy issues.

In most cases, actual lives will be tolerable or miseries, and actual lives will be brutally ended. In many cases, the numbers are staggering, millions and millions. In some of those cases, in turn, the fates of many millions more will be affected by the international power and confidence consequences.

At home, for those Republicans that go down this path of 2008 Uber Alles, the consequences will be to lose their core voters. If any imagine they will be seen as preferable to Democrats who don’t waffle about Iraq be darned, they are delusional.

Democrats have clearly staked out their negative turf, only offering withdrawal and the heck with consequences as their platform for Iraq, as it has been before for whenever the going is tough – as it inevitably is in armed conflicts. Leave it to Hillary Clinton to epitomize the motive, albeit inane, and the irresponsibility. As the AP report read:

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday that President Bush has made a mess of Iraq and it is his responsibility to “extricate” the United States from the situation before he leaves office.
It would be “the height of irresponsibility” to pass the war along to the next commander in chief, she said.

For current pandering, while campaigning in Iowa, Hillary ignores – the real “height of irresponsibility” -- that there will be inescapable consequences from any course to be dealt with by the next president, not to mention to be dealt with or died because of by many millions in and near Iraq.

David Broder highlights Hillary’s speechifying, rather than questioning, during the hearing to confirm Lt. General Petraeus:

She had no questions to ask.
Judging by all the polls, Clinton is the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a leading candidate for the Republican nomination, is also a member of the Armed Services Committee.
McCain asked Petraeus 14 questions, ranging from the political situation in Iraq to the morale of the troops to the timeline for the planned "surge." He ran out of time before he ran out of questions -- quite a contrast to Clinton.

Broder considers several nonexclusive possibilities for her grandstanding. One particularly displays the appreciation of what sort of mentality she brings to major public issues:

The third, less benign possibility is that Clinton is reverting to the mode of her ill-fated 1993-94 health-care initiative, when she gave members of Congress and other interested folks the impression that she thought she had all the answers -- so please just do as I say.

Let’s sum this up: Make Iraq and reality go away, don’t offer constructive or workable alternatives, and do what I say anyway. Quite a platform for a potential “commander in chief”!

It’s not much better among some Republican senators. Senator Warner’s posturing about his “conscience” requiring that he offer a resolution disagreeing with the “surge” and suggesting the president go back to the drawing board ignores the foreign and military policy impacts of undercutting the “commander in chief”, especially without detailed practical alternatives, represents the epitome of vacuous micromanagement of the battlefield by congressional committee, and is nothing less than self-serving prattle for his re-election in the Virginia that slimly elected Webb. The reaction of some Republicans that it is the senate’s role to express opinions is in the same vein of ignoring the realities of both command and practicality in favor of something like the senate being a transitory polling body rather than a careful, responsible deliberative arm of government, and one with secondary constitutional powers during war.

Robert Novak, along with Broder an astute observer of Washington, offers his view of the crass 2008 calculations among some leading Republicans:

While many Republicans want to give their president what they call "one last shot" at a military solution in Iraq, there is pervasive pessimism about prospects for the new strategy. Republicans feel withdrawal of troops must begin in the next six months for their party to have any chance at retaining the presidency in 2008…

In light of the behavior of leading figures from both parties, little wonder that more and more national security voters are turned off to either in 2008, and that will impact Republicans more than Democrats.

On her National Review Online blog, Candace de Russy discusses the articulate article of David Feith, student editor of The Columbia Current, who wrote a critique of Columbia President Bollinger’s dubious academic standards for free speech. Bolinger, a First Amendment scholar, stated that the standards for rejecting the invitation for Iranian President Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia were based upon the likelihood that the Iranian president wouldn’t take questions from the audience, and was thus unacceptable “in an academic setting.”

Feith purports that this is “a weak standard” and concludes that it amounts to a thinly veiled enabling role for would-be genocidal murderers and their ilk to gain legitimacy at the podium of a prestigious university. In other words if the condition was met that this Holocaust denying leader of an Islamic terrorist state would simply hold a Q & A session, it would prove acceptable to mount Columbia’s esteemed podium. Feith challenges us to be more vigilant in where to draw the line in forming academic policy to determine what degree of evil hate speech falls under the umbrella of free speech in an academic setting and argues that speech advocating murder is where we should draw the line. While our constitution upholds the freedom of speech for all, even from such purveyors of hate speech and murder as KKK and Neo-Nazi groups, universities have a unique responsibility to maintain definitive standards with respect to controversial speakers. This boundary of what is acceptable and what is not, should be drawn somewhere between the far reaches of repressive speech codes and reckless anything-goes free speech.

I have argued in Heil, Professor! that we should be particularly vigilant about what is emanating from the classrooms and podiums of our universities today. A professor’s classroom status is one of enormous authority and power in molding the minds of youth and harnessing their passions for good or evil. I cautioned that this power should be exercised wisely or tragic consequences might ensue. In my paper I argued that such catastrophic evil resulted from the antisemitic theories and racial nationalist ideologies brewing in the 19th century German universities which planted the seeds for Hilter’s later rise to power and Nazism to take hold. Notably, Yehuda Bauer the world’s foremost Holocaust scholar from Yad Vashem, Jerusalem concluded in Rethinking the Holocaust that “without the enthusiastic support of the intelligentsia, neither war nor Holocaust would have ensued,” and he lamented on today’s crisis in academia, “whether we have indeed learned anything, whether we do not still keep producing technically competent barbarians in our universities.”

When we see such apologists and enablers of Islamic terrorism such as Saudi funded Brandeis professor Natana DeLong-Bas, discussed in another Candace de Russy blog, we witness that we have yet a long way to go. DeLong-Bas specializes in Wahhabism, the Saudi fundamentalist ideology, which she trumpets as benevolent, democratic and feminist, while she blames the terrorism emanating from the Muslim world on Israel and the U.S. When her academic enablers argue that DeLong-Bas’ academic rights are to be protected under the statutes of free speech, what standards do they hold for such speakers as Nonie Darwish, David Horowitz, Jim Gilchrist and films such as “Obsession” that have been banned and bullied from campus podiums and the numerous professors who have been denied tenure and marginalized at Columbia because of their pro-Zionist viewpoint? Don’t be fooled by the free speech rhetoric spewed by the duplicitous academic enablers of the destruction of our civilization.

Feith has similarly argued for a responsible vigilance in the marketplace of ideas since an analogous “invisible hand” that governs free economic markets is not free of imperfections and therefore needs some responsible oversight from time to time. He said: “It is therefore irresponsible to promote ideas in the marketplace that would, if they gained even momentary ascendancy, destroy the freedom and openness that allowed them to appear in the first place.”

There comes a time in combat when split second choices are made. Tactical rules of engagement training condition one to those choices, and may make sense to the situation or to the overall mission, or not. But, inescapable in the choice is whether to die for a rule that doesn’t apply to the immediate threat. That reality is ignored only if one feels that another’s life is more important than one’s own, that the primary mission of a soldier or Marine is to die for their country rather than make others die for theirs. Front line life and death are that clear and brutal.

In today’s asymmetrical wars, the home front faces the same choices, life or death as the threats can extend here, but do have more time to reflect. But, the moment of choice is still near instant. Rumination is the same, in effect, as not acting, and letting the foe act and exploit weakness and hesitation.

I’ve heard those conservatives or to-now Iraq war supporters express their misgivings about the “surge.” Those misgivings, that lack of confidence, have strong grounds in the too often vacillating and confused course of our engagement.

Still, not only is there no alternative that doesn’t promise even worse outcomes, but the misgivings ignore the unavoidable problems of any war.

No, the “surge” is not a magic bullet. Indeed, far more is needed, all up and down the line from military to diplomatic force. But, it is having some important results, even now when just starting. We should be demanding the far more that is needed.

Instead, many are folding their tents and by their silence deserting into the night. Instead, the line must be held against the counterproductive various resolutions in Congress, which only work for politicians catering to weak will for their own personal interests in holding office, and which only serve the enemy that depends on surrenders and spinelessness in Washington for what they can’t and won’t achieve on the battlefield or in the hearts and minds of the locals.

Arguments for conscience and sense that neither serve conscience or sense, because they spell defeat and worse consequences, are smokescreens.

It’s that clear.

Reuters carries former President George Herbert Walker Bush’s angry reaction to “when the journalists' rhetoric goes beyond skepticism and goes over the line into overt, unrelenting hostility and personal animosity.” Speaking at a journalism event, the elder Bush said:

"I won't get too personal here -- but this antipathy got worse after the 43rd president took office," the former president said. He was speaking at a reception for a journalism scholarship awarded in honor of the late Hugh Sidey, White House correspondent for Time magazine.

"And so bad in fact that I found myself doing what I never should have done -- I talk back to the television set. And I said things that my mother wouldn't necessarily approve of," Bush's father said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

All well and good. But, it’s far beyond time to put your money and friends where your mouth, and anger, is.

Griping or watching lips won’t do.

It’s well beyond time for all those with public standing and resources to come together and fund a major organized effort to energetically expose, confront and combat the grossest excesses of the media and of those politicians it gives a pass to in their irresponsible and erroneous attacks. End your quibbles, and concentrate on the bigger picture: we are in a war, that if we fail to prosecute to a win will propel us and others into far worse.

The elder statesmen of politics, commentary and business owe that back to their country and fellow citizens.

A former generation of elders largely abdicated the fight during the Vietnam war, leaving much of the determinative portion of the war on the home front to radicals and (fewer compared to now) politician ninnies. Now grayer, those graduates of the ‘60’s have risen to political and media power, and are more excessive than ever.

Get off your comfortable duffs, get out your wallets, get organized, get active. Get going. Get even.

Your country, and other countries, depend upon you, more than ever, to do so.

Equivocations and divisions do not work on the battlefield.
They only encourage adversaries to be more resolved and deadly, as we dissolve.

There comes a time to stand up. And, if you don’t, you are complicit with what happens.

The pledge to not support any Republican senators for re-election who vote for any of the weasely resolutions that to greater and lesser extent withhold full support for the surge is just such a time.

Some can try to justify such irresoluteness as politically expedient, in a time when many voters are either irresolute or opposed to winning, or as expressions of political conscience by senators who are unsure of results.

It cannot be justified. It is nothing less than completely irresponsible, as a senator, as a Republican, as an American.

Such resolutions have no other effect than to encourage our foes.

Sure, we agree with these senators on many other political issues, and would hate to see them replaced by even worse Democrats. But, the national security of the United States, and the defense of freedom, democracy and decency which the United States represents, are primary to everything else – taxes, education, roads. Primary, especially, to the comforts and powers of being in office, if this responsibility is not put above all others.

I wrote about “The Pledge” before, encouraging every blogger and reader to sign on. Hugh Hewitt’s posts have led the way. Please read his latest, and then scroll back through the others.

The Pledge is here.

Where are you? Take a stand, or be complicit. The choice is that clear, regardless of rationalizations for what is unequivocably comfort and encouragement to our enemies.

I had written up the following feature article for the Queens Village Eagle before the news of Governor Spitzer’s ethics reform legislation. However, I agree with the New York Post editorial Lunches With Wolves, that these reforms, which ban gifts and paid speeches for lawmakers and prohibits their staff from lobbying legislators for two years after retiring, while they sound impressive, amount to nothing much. Rather it’s more of a cosmetic reform that’s tantamount to taking a pebble out of a mountain of debt, systemic corruption and sleazy aging legislators. The Post says, “(Spitzer) shouldn’t be rushing into inconsequential deals with his new bargaining buddies and calling it reform.” Of course, his new bargaining buddies are State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, but now in the back room with Governor Spitzer instead of Pataki. Since his reform deal was negotiated behind closed doors, it is the same old “three men in a room” signifying that nothing has changed.
********************************************
On Day Thirty Nothing Has Changed

The new governor of New York State Elliot Spitzer promised, “on day one, everything changes” but it’s almost day thirty and nothing has changed in purportedly the most dysfunctional state legislature in the nation. But on day one an impatient Governor Spitzer showed his contempt for the Republican Party and the national day of mourning in honor of President Gerald Ford by keeping his offices open while most other federal and state government facilities were closed for remembrance of one of our great presidents.

On January 1st the new governor delivered an inaugural address offering a blunt critique of twelve years of cynicism and corruption in state government under the Pataki administration although he was an integral part of the problem. He compared the decline of New York State to Rip Van Winkle, saying “New York has slept through much of the past decade while the rest of the world has passed us by.”

It is true that New York declined while the rest of the country prospered enjoying a booming economy propelled by the pro-growth policies of the Bush administration. During Governor Spitzer’s previous tenure as Attorney General, businessmen and workers fled the state for greener pastures since they found it harder to compete and do business in New York State. He contributed to this decline by chasing after Wall Street and hounding New York businesses, yet he condoned the billion dollar back room union deals in Albany, the blatant thievery of SEIU 1199, the nation’s largest and most partisan union, and averted his gaze from the waste, fraud and abuse of the New York State Medicaid industry which has been ripping off the elderly and the poor for $$ billions per year.

Traditionally, the job of the state AG is to prosecute local cases of consumer fraud and protect the public from being defrauded by powerful unions and corruption of local government programs. However Spitzer has stepped way out of bounds to prosecute cases under federal jurisdiction reserved for the SEC and Congress. But since Wall Street was within the jurisdiction of AG Spitzer, he used his office to prosecute high profile corporate cases for political gain as some analysts say. He acted as prosecuting attorney, judge, jury and chief executioner of corporations and mutual fund brokers, harassing businessmen throughout the state and country. Thomas Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce described Spitzer's approach as "the most egregious and unacceptable form of intimidation we've seen in this country in modern times.”

Now Spitzer is vigorously working to topple the slim Republican majority in the state Senate. He has selected Republican Senator Michael Balboni for his administration as homeland security administrator leaving his seat vacant and up for grabs. Furthermore, he has been campaigning unethically for the Democrat Craig Johnson to seize the seat, by funneling money into his coffers and hosting a $25,000 per plate fundraiser for Johnson, right after he placed an unconditional $10,000 limit on campaign contributions.

The unintended good news is that the governor has fired the first public shot to end the enduring nonaggression pact that has created an undemocratic and unlawful collusion between Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature to support opposing candidates in protected districts. Now it’s time for the Republican leadership to end their part of the sinister bargain and start firing back by supporting good Republican candidates for public office.

Fortunately, the Nassau County Republicans have been doing just that, by organizing a massive campaign to send Maureen O’Connell, the Nassau County clerk and former Assemblywoman, back to Albany in the special election to be held on February 6th. Now it’s high time for our county to do the same in order to give the residents of Queens a real choice at the polls and allow them to encounter the great principles and patriotic heart of the Party of Lincoln.

We’d be a little nuts not to have doubts about either the surge or the fate of our Iraq mission, after so many disappointments along the way. But, we’d be insane to toss the mission in the trash, along with the nations and peoples who depend upon the United States to defend their opportunities for greater freedoms, security and development. Our president and his generals, who have more information and responsibilities than any of us, believe we have a decent chance to overcome.

The Democrat Party and some Republicans believe that they can better micromanage the war, or abandon it in effect by publicly undercutting the president, the mission, the resolve of Iraqis and others abroad, and the potentials through resolutions disagreeing with the president’s course.

That is entirely unacceptable.

If there was ever a time for every straight-thinking blogger and blog reader to stand up, loud and clear, this is it.

Hugh Hewitt has launched a petition drive to deliver a clear message to Republican legislators.

Yesterday General Petraeus testified that the Biden/Warner resolutions and those like them encourage the enemy.
What does it mean, "to encourage the enemy?"
It means that the enemy gathers will and strength from the prospect of a collapsing political will to seek victory in Iraq and stability in the region.
With that additional strength and will the enemy redoubles and retriples efforts to kill American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
In short, it means that more Americans will die.

This is the Pledge, and the site to sign up.
Every blogger and blog reader should, and encourage every other blogger and blog reader.

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, says:

This is the sort of grassroots pressure that Democrats have been feeling for a while, but it's new to Republicans. I think that Hugh's right to start this drive. Opposition to the surge is wrong (see what Petraeus said) and it's also political suicide for the Republicans.

Now, it’s time for everyone else to stand up. Do it now. Please.

As my philosophy prof once said, all theories are nice; it’s the ifs, ands, and buts that rub.

So it is with President Bush’s proposal to tax employer paid medical insurance above $7,500 premium per year for singles and $15,000 for families. The proposal may steer in the right direction, but there are many other steps and problems needing attention before that direction’s goal can be achieved.

As with President Bush’s Social Security reform proposal, that foundered on both details and opposition, the president has not provided details to either guide debate or legislation, leaving the arena open to confusion and anxiety, fed by political exploitation. No wonder the president’s proposal for health insurance reform is called DOA by Democrats and unlikely to encourage much fervency by Republicans.

The objective, reining in extravagant benefit levels in order to place consumers more in touch with the cost-benefit of treatments, is directionally correct, at least if one believes this is one of the steps toward restraining overall health care costs inflation. There are many other steps between here and there, like adequate information adequately understood for consumers to make such choices. And, in crises, which usually attend grave injuries or diagnoses, calm reflection or the time and resources to carefully evaluate alternatives are usually unavailable. Lastly, no matter how well useful and usable information is presented, there’s always going to be a large proportion of the population that doesn’t avail themselves of it.

The problems, more directly felt by some, are even more of a barrier both to enactment and to success of this proposal.

The uniform federal tax-free limit is intended to pressure high-premium states to relax present regulations that result in high premiums. Health insurance premiums for similar coverage vary widely across the country. A deductible limit that may be reasonable in one area may be less so in another. This reflects many factors. For example: Degree of state regulations and mandates; Size and composition of the insurance pool and potential customers; Amount of competition among providers and among insurers; Structure of medical care providers. New York and New Jersey are extreme in high premiums, suffering from all these factors, especially their “community rating” and enrollment laws that subsidize seniors and late-entrants at the expense of the younger and the more self-responsible. California, also a liberal state, has among the lowest premiums, largely due to the degree of managed care and to less laws escalating premiums.

The president mentioned certain corollary measures that help overcome these state limitations on success, such as individuals being allowed to shop across state lines for insurance. But, premiums based on another state’s demographics or provider contracts and network do not apply to other states, and relatively few insurers provide coverage in all states. So, premiums will still vary widely between states, and the availability of out-of-state plans may be more limited than surmised. On the other hand, leveling premiums across states presents just the sort of personal advantages or disadvantages as within states, but on a far larger scale, and increased development of national carriers will reduce competition within many markets from smaller carriers, reduced competition usually driving premiums up.

More will suffer increased taxes in some states than in others, sure to increase their legislators’ resistance to the proposal. Also, aside from state regulations, there are aging differences among the states, with a higher proportion of elders in Florida and the Midwest, which increases overall premium levels, or if premiums are broken down by age then seniors are more heavily impacted by such taxation of employer benefits.

This, in turn, raises another problem. Age is only one of the factors that go into premiums, particularly for employers with over 20 or so employees. Such employers’ premiums are not usually “age-banded,” but “blended” and negotiated. Disaggregation of age-rates would place excess weight on this factor and reduce the ability of brokers and employers to negotiate overall premium reductions. Disaggregation may, as well, lead to pressures to reintroduce gender differences in premiums, women under 40-45 generally incurring higher claim costs than men, and the situation reversing after that age as women pass child-bearing and other uniquely female situations and men’s generally less preventive care and habits when younger having greater health impacts later. Then, add in pressures that would come for zonal disaggregation of rates, as those in more affluent urban-suburban areas seek to separate themselves from the impacts of higher cost care in rural areas where there’s less competition among health providers or from urban cores where the poor and illegals’ health care costs may be higher.

Another source of resistance comes not from the rich, supposedly targeted for their rich benefits, but from union members and professors. Those at the top or the highly paid in private employment almost always receive the same medical insurance benefits as the rest of the non-unionized workforce. The most generous benefits and, thus, most expensive medical insurance plans, actually, occur among some unions and academics. Both of these sectors are highly vocal and influential, and will not go gently from privilege into the general population.

Lastly, there’s no indication of indexing premiums in the president’s proposal, which means – like the alternative minimum tax – increasing millions of ordinary Americans being drawn into the benefits tax.

The trade-off -- of revenues raised from taxing high-premium employer-provided medical insurance offsetting tax-deductibility for individuals’ premiums or providing funds to the states to subsidize coverage for the poor – present another set of problems.

According to Kate Baicker, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, (and such estimates are usually faulty) the president’s proposal would result in "upwards of 3 million or more newly insured people." That means a wholesale imposition upon the almost 150+ million other Americans with employer-provided health insurance to incent or cover – maybe – 3 million. Initially, according to Baicker to Reuters, “about 30 million Americans could face higher taxes under the president's plan.” That 3-million includes many who otherwise could afford premiums but choose to be negligent. Tax-deductible medical insurance premiums may be proper or worthwhile, at least as much as tax-deductible mortgage interest, but not at the price of so drastically upsetting tens of millions of others’ health insurance arrangements. These are, really, separate matters and should not be conflated.

Some commenters hail the president’s proposal for opening up the debate on medical coverage, and they are correct. But, as with the president’s highly flawed and incomplete Social Security proposal, far more heat than light or results will ensue and, indeed, the path to reform probably set back by the furor.

President Bush’s State of the Nation address tonight will focus on certain health care reforms. Pre-address critics abound. A more informative address would be to highlight our State of Confusion about medical care.

The confusion centers around two central points: First, many of the ailments of present arrangements that are focused upon are exaggerated; Second, many of the proposals are insufficiently understood in their side-effects or actual intended results.

Such an Address would also be politically unpopular in some circles, or even impractical if one believes politics is more about gulling the public, or more charitably about incremental resolutions that through trial-and-error and more discrete measurability and manageability lead toward larger ends.

Polls that measure specific measures are usually judged practically, even though generalized questions often yield desires for a chicken in every pot. On the other hand, whenever large-scale “master plans” are put before the voters, they are defeated. So, there’s probably more practical understanding among most Americans than they’re given credit for having.

Simply put, the overwhelming majority of Americans are satisfied with their health care, although many are anxious about their future access or affordability. Both the number and severity of the uninsured’s situation is overblown, yet is driving takedowns of health care for the rest of us. The increasing demands for health care services – primary driver of increased costs -- are functions of both advancing technology and drugs able to help more people, and the aging of our population. The former is a good thing, and the latter is unavoidable. Politicians might shuffle those costs somewhat from one group to another, but they aren’t going away.

Again, simply put, we usually fail to sufficiently disaggregate the components of and publics for healthcare, which leads to master plans that aggravate virtually everyone, frequently misallocate resources, or leave many problems unattended, as common with master plans. There are, generally, two master plans proposed by advocates: government-run single-payer health care and free-market health care. Both ignore flies – or elephants – in the ointment, in pursuit of a salve for their larger ideological objectives: statism, in the case of the former, or laissez-faire individualism, in the case of the other.

Depending on the particular reform, either ideologic path may have as many side-effects as intended results, or even be more disease than cure. But, both deal with the same three unavoidable components of health care: access, cost, and quality. The statist path puts faith in bureaucrats to make close to one-size-fits-all decisions for all, concentrating information – though imperfect – among a few with attendant funds and power. The free market path puts faith in each individual to make appropriate personal choices even with highly imperfect information or lesser resources or individual power.

Both sides of the debates are heading in similar directions, rationing, cost controls, quality leveling, in different ways, and with different side-effects and ends intended.

Putting more cost-responsibility upon individuals leads to some more self-rationing, which can also lead to some less self-care than needed. Government-run HMO-like care controls also leads to rationing, but less specific to each’s needs, and has been heavily opposed by most Americans during the ‘90’s. More personal cost-responsibility for care incents more self-informed choices, and increases demand for worthwhile information, although many are too lazy or inadequate to taking advantage of it, and in the case of most care and the most costly portions of care does not materially decrease overall demand. Increased taxes and charges upon those not poor to increase care for the poorer may also make those less poor more reflective on what care is necessary, but doesn’t do that so much for the poorer, and doesn’t so much impact overall cost-driving demand. Putting more cost-responsibility upon anyone, increased self or imposed rationing, both reduce the incentives for entrepreneurs to devise or invent remunerative therapies, which require huge risky investments. The freer market approach still leaves many with the means to and freedom to pay for cutting-edge care. In the more statist approach, as evidenced in Canada and Western Europe, there’s less freedom among patients to seek or financial incentive for entrepreneurs to meet the demand or needs for cutting-edge care.

Just as President Reagan dramatized the runaway federal budget and process by plunking on the podium the giant budget resolutions during his State of the Nation address, President Bush would do much to focus attention on the runaway demagoguery about health care by paraphrasing Helen Hunt’s line from “As Good As It Gets,” by saying “No to a giant government-run HMO.”

The following is one of my upcoming columns for The Queens Village Eagle newsletter, in anticipation of the president's State of the Union address, where he will challenge his congressional critics to come up with their own plan for victory in Iraq.
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The country is split over President Bush’s new strategy to send more troops into Iraq. Political squabbling in Congress and media vitriol directed at our Commander-in-Chief are largely to blame for our failures in Iraq and they are undermining the moral of our troops. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acting on behalf of the Democratic majority in Congress have been bashing the president’s plan to send 21,500 more troops to stabilize Baghdad and change the “rules of engagement,” without offering a solution of their own, except for early withdrawal and defeat. Pelosi said: “President Bush has dug a hole so deep he can’t even see the light. It’s a tragedy. It’s a stark blunder.”

The consequences of the political back biting on Capitol Hill are demoralizing our troops as Marine Corporal Philip Levine of the Bronx has expressed: “It’s bad for morale for politicians to be fighting at home. The troops want to know they have the support of the government and the American people. The last thing you want when you’re over there is to read about politicians fighting over what to do with us.”

The Bush plan is a street level offensive that divides Baghdad into districts and secures and holds the city block by block until the terrorist insurgents are defeated and never return. It’s a proven model endorsed by Rudy Giuliani who used the seize and hold street crime strategy and added additional police in order to reduce violent crime in New York City by 68% from a high of over 2000 homicides a year to a few hundred.

The war in Iraq will be won or lost here at home. It’s a war of ideas and propaganda that’s being played out on the pages of the media, on Capitol Hill and in our classrooms. In order to win, we must speak up loud enough to drown out the vitriol and pessimism coming from these quarters. We must condemn the depraved media, the radical professors, and politicians who are backstabbing our troops fighting overseas for our liberty. For the sake of victory in Iraq we must speak out here in America to defend President Bush and the Congressional Republicans who support the president’s plan, in order show the troops that they have the full support of the government and the American people.

The January 2007, “Social Security Reform Options,” monograph by the American Academy of Actuaries presents as good, or better, list as any of the alternatives’ economics.

The monograph states that the reforms will change Social Security’s design “characteristics”:

(1) benefits are based on a balance between “individual equity” and “social adequacy;” (2) financing from, or on behalf of, participants makes the program “self supporting” and gives participants an “earned right” to benefits without a “means test;” and (3) participation is mandatory.

These “characteristics” have already eroded. The weight of premiums falls more heavily upon the more productive and are benefits are usually inadequate for the least productive. The program is not self-supporting, at least soon won’t be, and there is no contractual obligation to pay promised benefits, while there is already reduced net benefits for the middle class and above relative to contributions and to current income. Thus, the mandatory participation is seen by many not as a personal selling point, and may be seen negatively by more.

The question is how much further along these paths we will go. The related question is how much further along these paths we can go without undermining the program’s objectives, public support, or the economy.

The primary rationale presented by the actuaries is better sooner than later: “Enacting such changes soon is desirable, because doing so would provide significant advance notice to those affected, allowing future recipients to plan accordingly.”

This is probably so. But, at the same time, there will be current effects of each alternative, to individuals, to incentives to earn, and to the economy. Therefore, choices must be made based upon both the premises of the Social Security program’s continuation itself and upon alternatives’ current and longer-term effects.

The nominal and time-adjusted dollars of the deficits in funding the current program are huge, and confusing relative to the actuarial impact of the alternatives. The actuaries provide, instead, percentage calculations.

Over the next 75-years, the deficit from payroll taxes compared to present obligations is 2.02% of taxable payroll.

In other words, if action were taken this year, long-range actuarial balance could be achieved if the combined employee-employer payroll-tax rate, currently 12.40 percent, were increased immediately by 2.02 percentage points to 14.42 percent. Long-range actuarial balance could also be achieved with an across-the-board benefit cut of about 13 percent for all current and future recipients.

Neither of those two methods, however, would keep Social Security in actuarial balance permanently….In all years after 2080, projected expenses will significantly exceed projected income….[Therefore] in addition to a positive actuarial balance over the projection period, [it is required] that the trust fund balance, as a percentage of annual expenses, be stable or rising at the end of this period.

The confidence that one may have in actuarial projections is reduced by the result of the last such financing adjustments, and further indicates why higher adjustments may be needed now for the future: “The 2006 trustees’ report projects the trust funds [will be] drawn down to zero in 2040, about a decade and a half earlier than projected in 1983.”

The list below shows the percentage of the financial needs that may be met by some of the various alternatives. Any way you look at it, the results will be higher taxes and less benefits.

* Increase Limit on Taxable Earnings: Presently, $97,500 (and indexed to increase) is about 85% of total covered employment earnings. If raised 25% to $121,875 (90% of all earnings), about 25% of Social Security’s deficit would be eliminated.

* Increase Taxation of Benefits: “Because the dollar thresholds are not indexed, 85 percent of most participants’ benefits will ultimately be subject to income tax under current law. The revenue that could be raised through additional benefit taxation is relatively modest.” In other words, almost all beneficiaries are presently or will be taxed, having their net benefits reduced. Similar taxation of private pensions, to subsidize Social Security, would reduce Social Security deficits by about 17%, reducing additional peoples’ retirement income.

* Expand Coverage: “If all of the non-covered groups [working for religious organizations or state and local governments] could be covered, the effect would be to eliminate about one-tenth of the long-range deficit.”

* Reduce Benefits Across the Board: A 13% immediate reduction would eliminate the deficit for the next 75-years, but not get the deficits past the 75-year projection period.

* Raise the Normal Retirement Age: “Raising the NRA would reduce Social Security’s long-range actuarial deficit by about one-third to two-thirds, depending on how soon and how fast it is increased.”

* Change the Benefit Formula: Would “reduce the program’s adequacy [percent of income replaced], especially for lower earners and their families….Reducing the PIA formula by 1.1 percent each year [results in] the replacement ratio of low-income workers would be roughly cut in half in 62 years….Alternatively” just reducing the replacement ratio of mid and upper-income workers “would increase the progressiveness of the formula” (i.e., further lower the relative benefit from contributions) to where “by 2089…workers with larger wages would have larger payroll taxes, but would get the same benefit amount as lower wage workers.” This “proposal would eliminate about three-quarters of Social Security’s deficit.”

* Change the Benefit Formula to Price-indexing Instead of Wage-Indexing: Results in lower benefits, as wages rise usually faster than prices. “Such changes would have the greatest effect on high-paid workers, but over time…even low-paid workers would incur severe benefit cuts.” No percent impact provided.

* Change Initial Benefit Formula: Increase the income averaging from the present 35 years to 38 or 40 years. “This change would reduce projected future benefits for individuals with shorter work histories. For example, the 40-year proposal would reduce benefits an average of 3 percent and would eliminate about a quarter of the 75-year long-range actuarial deficit.”

* Reduce Cost-of-Living Adjustments: A more restrained calculation of the Consumer Price Index, adjusting for behavioral substitutions, would “lower the annual increase in CPI by an estimated 0.22 percent. This proposal would reduce Social Security’s deficit by about 20 percent.” On the other hand, a CPI focused on retiree needs, would be higher by about 0.3 percent per year than the one presently used.

* Double-Deck Benefit Formula: First deck provides all with a flat dollar amount, the second deck a specified percentage of average earnings. The actuaries do not provide financial impact estimates, but consider that proportionate benefits to contributions is DOA. So much for such individual equity.

* Change Auxiliary Benefits: Non-working widows, and survivors, would either receive lesser benefits, or working spouses higher. The actuaries do not provide financial program impacts. The permutations are mostly about the relative spread of the benefits of non-working and working spouses, which currently favor the non-working spouses.

* Invest Trust Fund In Equities: Although seemingly a greater risk, over the long run and compared to the paper received now from the Treasury, not really. With 40% of the trust fund in equities, at an average 6.5% real return (meaning, above inflation), 40% of the deficit could be reduced.

* Means Testing: Reduce benefits to those with income or assets above a certain amount. For example, a mid-1990’s proposal would phase out benefits at $40,000 of other income, eliminating benefits at $120,000. A percentage reduction of the deficit isn’t given, but the reaction and erosion of support for Social security from the middle and upper classes would be considered overwhelming, so the less obvious or sneakier routes of taxing benefits or fiddling with the complex benefit formulas are favored.

* General Revenue Financing: “{T]his form of financing would be more progressive than the current payroll tax…General revenue financing would require significantly higher income tax collections and/or government borrowing.”

* Individual Accounts: “Like add-on accounts, the carve-out approach does nothing by itself to ameliorate Social Security’s financial problems. However, most carve-out plans reduce trust fund expenses through a decrease in the current program benefit…However, individual accounts exacerbate the problem of funding current program benefits. This is because they divert payroll tax income away from the trust funds immediately, while resulting decreases in current program benefits occur much later.”

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Although just one poll, and any generalizations are difficult – particularly when based upon one poll, there’s much to chew on in the latest Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey that suggests part of the deeper underlying political dynamic.

Blog focus (for example, here) has been upon the percentage of Democrats (34%) who respond “no” to whether “Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?” Or, the percentage of Democrats (38%) who think other Democrats “want [the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week] to fail and for him to withdraw U.S. troops in defeat?”

Those figures, alone, are disconcerting as to the percentage of Democrats who favor U.S. defeat. It goes along with the smaller percentage (36%) of Democrats (compared to 46% of Independents and 61% of Republicans) who think, “If the United States loses the war in Iraq, do you believe terrorists would be more likely to be…encouraged to attack the United States again…? Democrats are, apparently, more sanguine than others about the prospects of direct consequences of defeat to their fellow citizens.

A question, then, arises whether being more relaxed about homefront dangers from terrorists precedes being more willing to accept, indeed favor, defeat for the U.S. in Iraq, or whether negativity toward the U.S. and its policies abroad leads to generating a more relaxed attitude toward the prospect of domestic terrorist attacks.

There’s a large body of research that “resilience” is heavily determinative of how one weathers catastrophes. There’s a large body of research that “efficacy” is heavily determinative of how one approaches problems, and if one overcomes them.

Deeper in the poll is the question, “Compared to this time last year, do you feel more optimistic or less optimistic for the coming year about each of the following?”
· Your personal happiness: Democrats 59%, Independents 60%, Republicans 72%
· Your family’s financial situation: Democrats 41%, Independents 40%, Republicans 58%

Democrats, and most Independents, lean toward governmental solutions to problems, compared to a tendency among Republicans toward more individualized, personal and self-responsibility solutions to problems. One looks to others to solve problems when one is less confident that oneself or others themselves can, and even then may be pessimistic that government can but tend that way by default. In other words, the Republican tendency is toward higher resilience and efficacy.

One can argue various causes or experiences that lead toward resilience and efficacy. However, one can’t argue (or shouldn’t) that a greater degree of resilience and efficacy are important to overcoming adversity and obstacles. Related, whether “objective” conditions are harsh or discouraging or not, it’s more likely that one will overcome when resilient and efficacious, and more likely that one will lose when defeatist or negative.

This isn’t just a matter of “the little engine that could” or of “the man who thinks he can,” or of “quitters are automatically losers.” It’s a matter that will affect the very lives and deaths of those in the MidEast and in the U.S.

[Below is the text of my Washington Examiner column from Jan. 18.]

A new handbook for professors of Middle East studies attempts to restore credibility to a discipline whose reputation has been shattered by years of politicized scholarship, one-sided teaching, and bullying students.

The publication of "Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility after 9/11: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers" by the Taskforce on Middle East Anthropology testifies to the effectiveness of organizations and individuals whose critiques of Middle East studies and higher education have put the professoriate on the defensive. Absent these efforts to shed light on the abuses so common in the discipline, the mandarins of MES would never have bowed to public opinion with this welcome, but flawed, document.

Among those recognizing the new reality are Laura Bier, who teaches at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In April 2006, she penned pseudonymous essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education lamenting an article written by a Tech student that criticized Bier's talk at a pro-Palestinian event on campus. Eschewing such a dramatic gesture this round, Bier's name appears as one of the co-authors of the handbook. For good measure, the document is endorsed by such MES luminaries as Rashid Khalidi of Columbia and Zachary Lockman of New York University.

If one emotion pervades the handbook, it is alarm: The field is presented as embattled, in crisis, and on the run. Professors who a few years ago were confident enough to wear their politics on their sleeves by bullying students (as Joseph Massad did at Columbia) or assuming that activism could substitute for scholarly accomplishment in their climb up the academic ladder (as Juan Cole tried at Yale) have discovered to their chagrin that their actions are now deemed newsworthy.

Indeed, a more accurate subtitle might have been, "How Do We Fix this Mess?" The answer, in part, is to avoid reliance on those whose reputations also lie in tatters. In a section on courting support from professional organizations, the handbook advises professors under "attack" not to turn to the Middle East Studies Association, the umbrella group for the field, because "some people we interviewed wondered about MESA's effectiveness, in part, because the association itself has been attacked, which may make it harder to respond."

Translation: The word is out on the way we've been doing business, and our professional association lacks the credibility to defend us in the court of public opinion.

The authors fret that "groups such as Students for Academic Freedom and Campus Watch pose not only ideological but also legal threats to academe's essential freedoms," although they counsel that lawsuits should be a "last resort." That's probably good advice, since the best the authors can offer by way of a successful lawsuit is that brought by former Stanford professor Joel Beinin (whose recent decampment to the American University in Cairo isn't mentioned) against David Horowitz for using a photo without permission.

A systemic weakness of the intellectual left is its equation of criticism with censorship, and the handbook employs the latter term eight times (and "censure once") in its 31 pages of text.

Professors are advised to elicit media sympathy by describing criticism as censorship, and by calling "progressive" leaders like Cynthia McKinney, the former U.S. representative, to complain that "there's a worrisome situation of censorship starting to unfold." McKinney, who speculated that that George W. Bush may have had foreknowledge of Sept. 11, might seem an odd choice for an ally.

Furthermore, the handbook suggests professors charge censorship when describing off-campus organizations and individuals who critique the field, and offers a script for calling reporters that reads in part, "it strikes me as a troubling crossing of a line, when outside organizations are stoking the flames on campus."

Yet, for all the doublespeak and self-important victimization, the handbook offers advice long absent from MES. It calls for including ground rules for civil and courteous classroom debate in syllabi, and recommends that lectures and discussions remain on topic and not wander into political or personal territory. Transparency is lauded as a virtue in teaching, and the fact that both professors and students are responsible for forming a successful class is emphasized repeatedly.

This recognition that students AND professors are mutually responsible for successful classes may prove the most useful component of the document. Such recommendations are a double-edged sword that can wielded to aid students subjected to politicized and bullying faculty, and future combatants should avail themselves of these weapons.

Moreover, the handbook demonstrates that rigorous critiques of Middle East studies can no longer be ignored by the field's gatekeepers.

Winfield Myers is a co-founder of Democracy Project and director of Campus Watch.

The plot thickens as Pace administrators vainly attempt to cover up their disgraceful conduct of silencing and bullying students into canceling the screening of Obsession. In a self-serving letter to the New York Post, Pace President David Caputo takes his administration to new heights of hypocrisy in a futile effort to redeem himself from the no-confidence vote of the faculty and student body. While he claims to champion a rich intellectual pluralism on his campus, he whitewashes the bullying tactics of his overzealous “film police” deans by blaming the victim, Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov for merely wanting to exercise his academic rights of free speech and assembly to show a film that diverges from the prevailing radical campus ideologies. Michael was censored, silenced, shouted down and physically restrained in a mediation meeting of eight against one. There was no “constructive dialogue” or “civil discourse” here as President Caputo disgracefully boasts in his letter as follows:

January 16, 2007 -- The president of Pace University's Hillel group appears to have misconstrued the intentions of the dean who brought our Muslim student group together with Hillel to engage in a constructive dialogue about the proposed showing of the film "Obsession" ("Pace's Film Police," Editorial, Jan. 10). Because our campuses have been troubled by hate and bias-related incidents this fall, our dean hoped to start a discussion about postponing it to a calmer time.

As your editorial notes, she tried to address the potential for disruption in events about contentious issues like terrorism. If disruption seems possible, we get ready to protect orderly civil discourse.

Pace condemns anti-Semitism, hate crimes, attacks, acts of vandalism and intolerance against any group. We welcome a highly diverse and richly opinionated student body and events that help students learn about the world. Campuses are the crucible where ideas are challenged and discussed openly and freely, and we are committed to staying that way. "Obsession," the students now tell us, will be shown next semester.

David A. Caputo
President
Pace University
White Plains

The Post fires back with a spot-on editorial:

PUSILLANIMOUS PACE

January 16, 2007 -- Anyone who still labors under the delusion that U.S. colleges, particularly in New York, are free-speech havens should gaze at the adjacent letter by Pace University's President David Caputo.

Caputo tries to portray Pace officials as honest brokers in dealings with a Jewish group, Hillel, which had hoped to show a film some Muslims find objectionable.

Yet, right from the start, the letter resorts to distortion: It claims that Hillel's president "misconstrued the intentions" of Pace officials. Administrators, it says, merely wanted the Jewish group to "engage in a constructive dialogue" with Muslim students.

But Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov says school staffers actually threatened him with reprisals and even physically restrained him when he tried to defend the film. How do you "misconstrue" that kind of behavior?

In any event, if the school were truly committed to freedom of expression, the only "dialogue" needed would be to convey one simple message: Anyone thinking of disrupting the film or committing violence will face severe repercussions.

End of discussion.

Officials could have used the occasion to make it absolutely clear that no one at Pace can be barred from showing a film - even if it's not a left-wing film. But that wasn't the goal.

(Again, Pace is not unique in this regard. Consider how Columbia University responded to violence there last October that kept the founder of the Minutemen Project - a group favoring tough control of U.S. borders - from speaking. New York is still waiting for meaningful action.)

Indeed, Pace flack Chris Cory acknowledges that officials really were trying to can the film - supposedly until tensions over recent anti-Muslim "hate crimes" dissipated.

But instead of admitting that outright, Caputo tries to pretend the objective was merely "to start a discussion." Please.

Sure, soothing tensions is a worthy goal. But not at the cost of free speech.

Most revealing, of course, is Caputo's characterization of terrorism. He calls it a "contentious issue." Is he serious? Only in the fever swamps of the far left (and in the minds of college elitists) would, say, the 9/11 attacks be viewed as events to be debated, rather than deplored.

The film Hillel wanted to show, "Obsession," focuses on the dangers of radical Islamic militants. There is nothing - nothing - "contentious" about it.

If Muslim students - or Pace officials - feel otherwise, the problem may be worse than the film suggests.

This is a victory in progress for freedom of speech because Michael Abdurakhmanov didn’t back down when his fundamental rights were trampled upon. Unfortunately the same thing cannot be said for other campuses such as Brown University and now Stonybrook University where the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the administration coerced the Chabad organization into canceling its planned screening of Obsession and they meekly complied. The College Republicans appear considerably bolder asserting that they will host a sceening in the spring.

Additionally Stonybrook Hillel, fearing the inevitable protests from MSA rejected the opportunity to host Nonie Darwish, a wonderful pro-Israel speaker of Palestinian roots who appears in Obsession. Darwish, a former Muslim, was the daughter of an Egyptian warrior who headed the first anti-Israel terrorist force, the fedayeen in Gaza. As a school child she was taught Jew hatred and the honor of martyrdom. The title of her new book “Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror” is the subject matter of her numerous talks across the nation.

The other day I received an email from Daniel Klein, the Campus Coordinator of Standwithus regarding his arrangements for Darwish’s speaking engagement at Stonybrook. He wrote: “We intended to bring Nonie Darwish there in the spring of 06, but the Hillel Director was totally against it, citing that it would cause problems with the Muslim students.”

A comparable situation that I recently wrote about was the acquiescence of Hillel at Brown University: “Complaining that she was “too controversial,” Muslim students objected to Darwish’s planned appearance and Hillel timidly complied, not wanting to ‘upset its ‘beautiful relationship’ with the Muslim community.’”

Sadly I found out about this after these campus organizations had already made the mistake of backing down. As I had encouraged Michael Abdurakhmanov, I would have told them that it's their academic right of free speech to show the film or have whatever speaker they want. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was invited to speak at Cooper Union and Columbia was determined to invite Holocaust denying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. MSA at UCLA shouted "death to Israel" at their campus rallies and Brown University held anti-Israel events during “Palestinian Solidarity Week”. If all this is protected speech (which it is), Hillel and Chabad should not back down when it comes to their own protected speech. They're doing more harm to their cause by placating these radical groups in the name of good feelings. In the end they will bring more animus against Israel and Jewish students as these groups learn that it is so easy to get their way.

Rather college is the place to debate and wrestle with contentious issues, not sweep them under the rug for the sake of amicable relations. Rather than being fearful of offending someone’s feelings, we should bring the thorny issues such as terrorism and radical Islam out into the sunlight and seriously wrestle with them. We are too excessively nervous about placating black, Hispanic and Arab advocacy groups who are street-wise enough to know how to bully the pious academics of the ivory tower into submission.

Below is the roll call of those who voted to register as lobbyists those who contact 500 or more to contact their congressperson or senator. The work and expense of registration would be a major regulatory burden on free speech by small organizations and perhaps bloggers and, as government regulation tends to grow, an increasing one.

43 Democrat senators (including the 2 so-called independent Democrats) think Americans’ constitutional right to petition their government should be restricted. Democracy seems inconvenient to these Democrats.

On the Amendment (Bennett Amdt No. 20 )

Akaka (D-HI)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

The Vietnam war is trotted out for analogies by many writers. In most cases they are woefully ignorant of the details of that war or country. But, that doesn’t matter to them as long as they can score some point. One thing stays constant: Most Americans still are willfully ignorant of what’s happening there today. But, that doesn’t matter as long as some Western businessmen and corrupt Vietnamese can score some profits.

Below is the intro from the 2007 Human Rights Watch report of events during 2006 in Vietnam.

Read it all. See the end of the report:

While noting political prisoner releases, the EU, Vietnam’s largest donor, placed Vietnam on its list of countries of concern in its human rights report for 2006. In May, a European Parliament delegation to Vietnam called for the release of prisoners of conscience, free access for the international press to the Central Highlands, and an end to the death penalty. In September, the United Kingdom praised Vietnam’s progress on poverty reduction but said it would link ongoing aid to progress on human rights, anti-corruption, good governance, and financial reform.

Relations with the United States reached an unprecedented high in 2006, with the resumption of its human rights dialogue, which had been suspended since 2002, and the visit of President George Bush in November. The US removed its designation of Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious freedom violations, and it was expected that by the end of the year the US would grant Vietnam “Permanent Normalized Trade Relations.”

Now, for the introduction:

January 17, 2007 World Report 2007, Human Rights Watch Vietnam Events of 2006 Vietnam’s tenth Communist Party (VCP) Congress saw a significant turnover in the Politburo, as younger members replaced key aging party veterans. New faces, however, did not bring significant improvement in human rights practices. Despite having one of Asia’s highest growth rates, Vietnam’s respect for fundamental human rights continues to lag behind many other countries, and the one-party state remains intolerant of criticism.

Hundreds of political and religious prisoners remain behind bars in harsh conditions. During 2006 the government released a handful of prisoners of conscience but arrested dozens more, including democracy activists, cyber-dissidents, and ethnic minority Christians.

Authorities continue to persecute members of independent churches, impose controls over the internet and the press, restrict public gatherings, and imprison people for their religious and political views. Media, political parties, religious organizations, and labor unions are not allowed to exist without official oversight, or to take actions considered contrary to Party policies.

The year saw unprecedented labor unrest, official efforts to muzzle an emerging democracy movement, and ongoing repression of Buddhists and ethnic minority Christians.

Before and since my column the other day defending the “long drop” that decapitated Saddam’s secret police chief, I had two extended discussion-debates with two noted conservative bloggers. Both interchanges, to me, reinforce my usual opposition to capital punishment, primarily because they reinforce my feeling that decent people too often are either or both insulated from the realities of how death occurs and from one of the two major purposes of capital punishment, deterrence of others due to the gruesome death.

In the earlier discussion, the topic was the pride in professionalism of a beheader (news article) in service of one of the Arab states. Many bemoaned his pride. I defended his professional training and focus, as that results in less multiple chop instances, and results in one of the fastest – more humane – deaths.

As the NYT’s article quoted in my “defense” piece pointed out, the “long drop” was purposely chosen by the Iraqi executioners as more humane – faster, rather than the more frequent dangling strangulation of the “official” table. It was known that the “long drop” occasionally causes decapitation – as occurred in this execution – but that is still faster, and more humane.

I also cited authority for the frequent inhumaneness of lethal injection or beheading, to stress that there are shortcomings to and that may occur with other means of execution. Indeed, the often dramatized shot to the back of the head of earlier Russian and Chinese communist practice is most sure and fast.

I quoted how many of the choices of means of execution are more based on less unease from bloody ends for observers or executioners.

One famous columnist wrote me, “of all things to be a scholar on!” Yes, of all things, the details of which we’d rather avoid in our Western sensibilities.

In another piece I argued that capital punishment is “moral” for gross crimes, largely to deter other rulers who may feel insulated by power and position from meeting their personal suffering for their actions and choices.

The bottom line is that any form of execution has shortcomings, more or less severe, and despite efforts to be as precise as possible cannot be in every case due to natural variability of the condemneds and chance.

Either we accept that reality, or hypocritically believe there’s a gentle execution, and undermine both deterrence and punishment. In which case, we’re led to or we might as well forego the execution altogether.

Further, this squemishness is, to me, part and parcel of or serves the interests of those who argue for "humane" war-fighting. There is no such thing as complete scientific or judicial precision on the battlefield.

That's the title of my latest column in the Washington Examiner (a copy with links is here).

I assess a new document titled "Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility after 9/11: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers" by the Taskforce on Middle East Anthropology. It's a decidedly mixed bag, but beyond a doubt it illustrates the effects that Campus Watch, bloggers, writers on higher education, and the conservative nonprofit world have had on Middle East studies in American universities.

Not that all will now be well--far from it. But the mandarins who control MES would never have produced such a document were they not very worried about their reputations and the future of their field. Which is to say, they're now on the defensive; it's up to all of us to press our case day after day.

(There’s some graphic detail below, and in the links.)

Discussion of the decapitation hanging of Saddam Hussein’s secret police chief has called it “botched” or purposely cruel. Neither is true. Secretary of State Rice has added to this misunderstanding, with ignorance of the facts of the case and of executions, undermining our Iraq ward and our mission there.

For it to have been botched, hanging would have to be a more precise science than it is. For this hanging to have been purposely cruel would not only have required such greater science of hanging, but is contradicted by the facts of Iraqi effort to make it a faster – more humane -- death, as well as other means being as or more cruel.

Last month, I argued the morality of execution, particularly for extreme crimes and to reaffirm a common purpose opposed to and to deter such extreme crimes. The executions of Saddam and his primary henchmen in mass brutality meet these criteria.

The only valid counterarguments are universal opposition to the death penalty (which I’ll give credit to, and not deal with here), or that the consequences of the execution in public opinion are counterproductive. In this case, despite hues in some press reports, the public opposition to the hangings among Sunnis has been very muted, and the other 80% of the Iraq population who suffered the Saddam regimes’ mass crimes are supportive. Among some in the wider Sunni Arab world, there is criticism of the hangings, but that is also muted by increasing realization of the greater dangers from Shia Iran.

So, a failure on the part of a major U.S. administration figure to understand what happened in the latest hangings can only be seen as ill-focused and dangerous to our mission.

Surely playing somewhat for the local Sunni audience, Secretary of State Condi Rice’s comment, as quoted in the New York Times, on the decapitation of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former head of Mr. Hussein’s secret police, displayed ignorance, harmful to the Iraq government and to truth.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Egypt on a Middle East tour, joined the recriminations. “I would be the first to say that we were disappointed that there was not greater dignity given to the accused under these circumstances,” she said, referring to Mr. Hussein’s execution and the two carried out Monday. “I think that passions run high after years of turmoil, under dictatorship, and that is apparently what happened. But it shouldn’t have happened and I think that it did not reflect well on the Iraqi government that it came out that way.”

The New York Times’ report added some more useful context. Ms. Rice and the State Department might find it constructive to their role in U.S. foreign policy and execution to be better informed.

Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for Mr. Maliki who supervised the details of Mr. Hussein’s execution, said officials wanted to ensure that Mr. Ibrahim and Mr. Bandar died instantly, and were not left dangling at the end of the hanging rope for 15 to 20 minutes before they were asphyxiated, which he said had been a deliberate tactic used in thousands of hangings under Mr. Hussein. That seemed to suggest that the executioners had deliberately allowed for a long “drop” for the two men hanged Monday, to be sure their necks were broken cleanly by their fall.

The Iraqis described the decapitation of Mr. Ibrahim as a “rare incident,” but they acknowledged that a similar thing had happened at least once before in the score or more of hangings that have been carried out since the fall of Mr. Hussein. They cited the case of an Egyptian man hanged in the northern city of Mosul for offenses linked to the insurgency, who had also had his head separated as he fell. In Mr. Hussein’s case, an illicit video taken after the hanging showed a bloody, egg-sized gouge in his neck, below his left ear, where the noose had cut into him as he dropped.

An Internet search for manuals on hanging suggested that Mr. Ibrahim was the victim of an overestimate by his executioners. One of the most authoritative manuals, the United States Army’s “Procedure for Military Executions,” issued under the authority of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was Army chief of staff in 1947, gave a chart that recommended that a man of about Mr. Ibrahim’s weight, about 185 pounds, would need a “drop” of five feet seven inches — nearly two and a half feet less than the drop for Mr. Ibrahim — to assure what the manual called “a proper execution.”

The manual added: “A medical officer should be consulted to determine whether any factors, such as age, health or muscular condition, will affect the amount of drop necessary for a proper execution.”

At his trial, Mr. Ibrahim, though second only to Mr. Hussein in his angry declamations against his Iraqi and American captors, mentioned his need for medication on a number of occasions, and complained bitterly about the “disgusting” American cigarettes he said he was given in lots of 10 a day.

Mr. Ibrahim’s decapitation appeared to have badly unnerved the Maliki government. The Iraqis involved were so shaken that they waited more than seven hours after the 3 a.m. executions to formally announce them, and then read a statement that dwelled on the two men’s “big crimes against humanity” while serving as acolytes to Mr. Hussein. The statement made only a passing reference to the severing of Mr. Ibrahim’s head.

As is made graphically clear in this study of the British experience with hanging, part of a more comprehensive review of capital punishment in the U.K. and elsewhere, neither hanging nor any other method of execution is precise or immediate, and all may often be excruciating or brutal.

Continue Reading (warning: graphic details)

George Soros’ moneyed tentacles focused on the media during the 2006 elections, through his funded organizations’ efforts to focus on real or exaggerated cases of Republican corruption. He was more successful than with his 2004 funding of MoveOn.org.

My old friend Cliff Kincaid (bio here) and I sometimes disagree on some issues, but on one in particular – media reliability – we’re always on the same page. Kincaid is editor of Accuracy In Media, longtime conservative watchdog of the media.

Last weekend, Kincaid attended the National Conference for Media Reform, sponsored by the Free Press, in Memphis. Below is Kincaid’s report of the extending reach by Soros and allies on the Left.

Memphis, Tennessee: Media reform sounds like a good cause. But the gathering here of more than 2,000 activists turned out to be an effort to push the Democratic Party further to the left and get more "progressive" voices in the media, while proposing to use the power of the federal government to silence conservatives. In short, triumphant liberals now want to consolidate and expand their power.

Several speakers, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, declared that they think Congress should use a new federal "fairness doctrine" to target conservative speech on television and radio.

But while conservatives are not ashamed to be conservatives, because of the popularity of their ideas about freedom, a strong military, economic growth and traditional values, the liberals at this conference wanted desperately to avoid the use of the term "liberal," apparently because of its association with failed domestic, social and foreign policies. They described themselves and their causes as "progressive."

If this conference has an impact, and the participants were called upon to put pressure on the media and Congress, we should expect increasing references to the term "progressive" in coverage of controversial liberal initiatives, including the proposed agenda for "media reform." The only question is when congressional liberals get enough nerve to aggressively push this authoritarian attempt to muzzle their political opponents.

The Soros Connection
Sponsored by Free Press, a Massachusetts-based organization that is generously subsidized by pro-Democratic Party billionaire George Soros, the "National Conference on Media Reform" featured Bill Moyers and Jesse Jackson and Hollywood celebrities such as Danny Glover, Geena Davis and Jane Fonda.

Soros, portrayed by the major media and "progressives" funded by him as a humanitarian and philanthropist, has made billions of dollars through international financial manipulations conducted through secretive off-shore hedge funds. He was convicted of insider trading in France, one of many countries to have borne the brunt of his global financial schemes.

He spent over $26 million in the 2004 presidential campaign trying to defeat Bush and also contributed to groups that have brought Democrats to power in Congress.

His "media reform" agenda is being pursued primarily though Free Press, which has received at least $400,000 over the last several years from the Soros-funded Open Society Institute. But Soros has also poured money into groups like the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and Investigative Reporters & Editors.

One obvious purpose of such grants is to steer the media away from investigating Soros himself. However, during one media appearance, on the CBS 60 Minutes program, Soros acknowledged that as a 14-year-old Jewish boy in Hungary, his identity was protected and that he actually assisted in confiscating property from Jews as they were being shipped off to death camps. As an adult, he shuns pro-Israel causes and believes in accommodating the Iranian regime.

The Free Press co-founder, John Nichols, has edited such books as Against the Beast, a critique of the "American Empire," and shares Soros's opposition to a U.S. foreign policy that targets emerging threats in the Arab/Muslim world.

In addition to the creation of what he calls a "New World Order" under U.N. auspices, Soros's causes include abortion, drug legalization, and special rights for immigrants, homosexuals, felons, and prostitutes. An atheist, Soros is promoting the complete breakdown of traditional values and morality in America.

In the official conference program, however, there was no mention of the Soros role in funding Free Press. However, thanks were extended to the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Overbrook Foundation, Quixote Foundation, Glaser Progress Foundation, and the Haas Trusts.
"We are grateful also for the generosity and support of many other public charities, private foundations and individual donors," the conference program said, carefully concealing their identities.
Publications and organizations given credit for promoting the event included The American Prospect magazine, The Washington Monthly, The Nation, and MoveOn.org

Reds Not Under Beds
The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which opposes the Chinese communist government as too capitalist, was one of the official exhibitors. Also on hand, displaying banners calling for the impeachment of President Bush, was the so-called 9/11 truth movement, which holds that Muslims were blamed for the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon when U.S. officials actually carried them out.

Other exhibitors included the Newspaper Guild, Consumers Union, Mother Jones magazine, Pacifica Radio, and Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now."

While the Democratic Party and its political leaders were embraced by most of the participants and usually met with standing ovations, the official conference bookstore didn't offer any books by or about Hillary Clinton. I was told by the bookstore owner that that she was perceived as too conservative by this crowd and that those books wouldn't sell.

On the other hand, books by Senator Barack Obama and Al Gore were prominently featured. Books by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Mikhail Gorbachev, former White House reporter Helen Thomas, and Webster Tarpley, a former associate of Lyndon LaRouche, were also available. Tarpley, an "expert" on how 9/11 was a U.S. plot, was a featured guest for two hours on Air America, the liberal radio network now in bankruptcy because of bad management and dismal ratings.

A special screening of the film "Reel Bad Arabs" was held, in order to argue that Arabs and Muslims deserve more favorable coverage from the media and Hollywood. The film is narrated by Jack Shaheen, who recently appeared on Al-Jazeera English making charges of anti-Arab media bias.

Very little was said during various panels about the Islamic terrorists who killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and are currently killing American soldiers and innocent civilians, most of them Muslims, in Iraq. Instead, Bush was blamed for the violence there.

Showing where conference participants stood on the matter of maintaining a U.S. military to defend America against the global Jihad, one of the books on sale at the official conference bookstore was titled, 10 Excellent Reasons Not To Join The Military.

Former conservative David Brock, of another Soros-funded group, Media Matters, labeled the Bush foreign policy of liberating Arab lands as "criminally insane." On the same panel with Brock, Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy suggested that U.S. foreign policy was immoral and that the media were working hand-in-glove with the Bush Administration to prepare a military attack on Iran, just as they had done with Iraq.

Reaching new levels of hysteria, Rep. Maurice Hinchey said the survival of America was itself at stake because "neo-fascist" and "neo-con" talk-show hosts led by Rush Limbaugh had facilitated the "illegal" war in Iraq and were complicit in President Bush's repeated violations of the Constitution, such as by detaining terrorists. He warned that the "right-wing oriented media" were now preparing the way for Bush to wage war on Iran and Syria.

His answer, a bill titled the "Media Ownership Reform Act," would reinstate the federal fairness doctrine and authorize bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to monitor and alter the content of radio and television programs.

Hinchey, chairman of the "Future of American Media Caucus" in the House, was introduced as the new chairman of a subcommittee with jurisdiction over the FCC. For Hinchey and the vast majority at the conference, there was a pressing need for more, not less, regulation of what they call the "corporate media."

With passage of his bill, Hinchey said that "progressives" would be able to demand and get "equal access" to programs hosted by conservatives and rebut the "baloney" of people like Limbaugh. "All of that stuff will end," Hinchey said about the influence of conservative media. By name, he also denounced Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting.

Hinchey praised Democratic FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, who appeared at the conference, and indicated that with the election of a Democratic President in 2008, the FCC could be openly used to frustrate the growing popularity of conservative ideas, perhaps under the cover of resisting "media consolidation."

Later, Hinchey was seen preparing for an appearance on Air America, which had a make-shift studio set up on the premises of the conference.

Protecting Public Broadcasting
Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who was just elected to Congress from Memphis, assured the audience that Democrats would protect and possibly increase funding for public broadcasting, which he noted is on the "left hand side of the dial" but has been having problems generating listeners and viewers.

One of the cries of some participants was to "put the public back into public broadcasting," apparently a plea for even more "public" money from Congress.

Public broadcasting's Bill Moyers, who spoke to the conference about the "ravenous" nature of "Big Media," was obviously not referring to public TV or radio's appetite for U.S. tax dollars, even though AIM has documented how these entities have received over $8 billion from the taxpayers since their creation. The far-left Pacifica Radio, another taxpayer-supported network, had a heavy presence at the "media reform" conference.

The appearance of Moyers, who served as White House press secretary in the Lyndon Johnson Administration before he worked for CBS News and public TV, was curious, at least at this conference in Memphis, because he had been aware at the time of his service to LBJ of secret surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jr.

King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 and his birthday celebration on January 15 was mentioned by several speakers, most notably Jesse Jackson, a former King aide.

One 9/11 truth movement booth featured a poster claiming that King was murdered as the result of a U.S. Government conspiracy, even though James Earl Ray was convicted of the crime and sentenced to prison. Ray died in 1998.

Continuing this fascination with conspiracy theories about the deaths of prominent people, a book for sale at the conference bookstore, titled, American Assassination: The Strange Death of Paul Wellstone, claims that the airplane accident that took the life of the liberal Senator from Minnesota was actually deliberate murder. The book claims Wellstone's "progressive" stands made him a target.

Senator Sanders, the only open socialist in Congress, accused the media of covering up King's opposition to the Vietnam War. He did not mention that King took that approach because he had come under the influence of identified top members of the Soviet-funded Communist Party USA, who had become his close advisers. This is one of the reasons why the Johnson Administration—and then Attorney General Bobby Kennedy—approved FBI surveillance of him.

King's radical turn to the left, which detracts from the good work that he did, should not be a taboo topic but it is one of many issues that "progressives" want censored from the media. Another King controversy that is off the table for "progressives" is his well-documented plagiarism.

Socialist Urges One-Sided Coverage
Sanders, who votes with the Democrats in the Senate despite his official status as an independent socialist, claimed conservatives were 99 percent in control of talk radio and that it was time "to open the question of the fairness doctrine again" to restrict what they say and how they say it.

He faulted the media for covering two sides of the global warming debate "when there is no debate in the scientific community."
Clearly, therefore, the purpose in proposing a "fairness doctrine" is not to offer different points of view but to silence viewpoints liberals regard as unsound or unpopular.

Sanders indicated he would introduce a Senate version of the Hinchey bill.

A similar bill, the "Fairness in Broadcasting Act," was sponsored by Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter, the chairman of the House Rules Committee that has enormous influence over what bills are brought up for votes.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the object of fawning media coverage despite the scandal of producing a child from an extramarital affair, argued before the conference for "the right to be heard" and insisted that the major media were not telling the real story of pain and suffering in George Bush's America.

Despite claiming to be for open debate and discussion, he recently urged consumers to boycott DVDs of the Seinfeld comedy show because the actor who plays one of the characters had been caught making racist comments in a night club. Jackson had the actor, Michael Richards, on his radio show to apologize for the remarks.

Suggesting the real agenda behind "media reform," Jackson said that the key to Democrats winning "is more access to the media."
That may depend, however, on how the "progressives" market their unpopular ideas, especially when they actively begin their congressional campaign of suppressing viewpoints in opposition to their own.

Making himself out to be a victim, Jackson said that he should be called by the media for comments on foreign policy issues like Iraq, rather than just racial controversies like the Duke rape case.
Clearly staking out a position on the far-left fringe, Jackson accused Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of taking "baby steps" legislatively when she should be exercising "bold leadership." On Iraq, he said, "you can't be against the war and for the war budget." Rather than just raise the minimum wage, he said Pelosi should introduce a massive new jobs program. He concluded his remarks by asking people to watch his TV program on the Word television network and to tune into his "Keep Hope Alive" radio show on 50 stations.

Republicans as Thieves
At a panel moderated by Paul Waldman of Media Matters, Steve Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania argued that the 2004 presidential election was stolen on behalf of George W. Bush. His associate, Jonathan Simon of the Election Defense Alliance, took to the microphone during the question-and-answer period to argue that the 2006 elections were rigged as well and that the Republicans are preparing to steal the 2008 presidential election. Waldman, who claimed to be dedicated to factual accuracy in covering current events, didn't dispute any of this. In fact, he stated his belief that Al Gore had won the 2000 election and that the media knew it.

Another panelist, Cornell Belcher, the official pollster for the Democratic National Committee, seemed to be taken aback by the conspiracy theories and pointed out that the Democrats had, in fact, made substantial gains on the federal and state levels in 2006.
However, during a conversation over breakfast, Freeman reiterated his belief that the Democrats had won far more seats than they were given credit for in 2006. Asked why they wouldn't protest the stealing of votes, he said, "Democrats are in on it." He described Republicans and Democrats as the A team and B team, and that when one team makes too many mistakes, the other goes in for relief. Asked for his opinion on the 9/11 truth movement, he said, "Nothing would surprise me."

A panel on "Media, War, and Impeachment" featured Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, whose December 2006 magazine features Hugo Chavez of Venezuela on the cover as he addressed the U.N. holding up a copy of Noam Chomsky's book on the dangers of American "hegemony." That was the appearance in which Chavez labeled Bush the devil.

The article inside the magazine by FAIR's Steve Rendall accused the American media of unfairly criticizing Chavez for "challenging the U.S.," not because he makes absurd charges, chums around with people such as the anti-Semitic and anti-American Iranian president, and threatens press freedom in his own country. Promising "Socialism or death," Chavez was just sworn in for another presidential term.

On Saturday night, as participants prepared for an event featuring Jane Fonda, they were given copies of a four-page flier advertising Bob Avakian's book, From Ike to Mao and Beyond. The flier said that Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has been described by Cornell West of Princeton University as "a long distance runner in the freedom struggle against imperialism, racism and capitalism."

Scott Lee, an RCP "helper" passing out the fliers, told me that he thought the conference was worthwhile but too heavily titled in favor of the Democratic Party. He said he wasn't aware that global capitalist George Soros had funded the left-wing conference organizers but that the money had gone for a good cause.

This is what passes for "progressivism" these days. It is a clear danger to freedom at home and abroad.

The outcome of our press release distributed to the New York media regarding the Pace administrator’s “film police” has been uplifting and exemplary. Michael Abdurakhmanov, the president of Pace Hillel has been inundated all week with calls from media and organizations nationwide asking for interviews and offering to support his cause. Standwithus, a pro-Isreal advocacy organization has been speaking up about the Pace incident at New York conservative venues and has featured a Statement from Michael Abdurakhmanov on their website. The New York Times is planning to do a wider story on Pace and other campuses that have likewise censored the film Obsession and suppressed student’s free speech and conscience.

The other day I received a call from Robert Rosenblatt, a New York attorney who has been undertaking a voluntarily effort to host public screenings of Obsession at the Harvard Club and other New York City venues. He was outraged by the stories of censorship at Pace