The death of William F. Buckley, Jr., this morning at his home in Connecticut--in his study, we're told--throws into sharp relief a remarkable life, well-lived.

In a day of professional pundits who pursue headlines and cable TV spots instead of knowledge and wisdom, or nonprofit leaders who amass fortunes but will be remembered chiefly for their avarice, he stood out as a household name who disdained mere popularity. His reputation was made not from mastering the ability to read the zeitgeist and then ride it, principles be damned, but from his genuine joy of learning, writing, debating, meeting others, and fighting the good fight.

Bill Buckley was the irreplaceable man for our struggles. He will be seen, I think, as the most important conservative since Edmund Burke. Not, of course, because he ever got around to writing that "big book" that everyone encouraged him to some day pound out, but because of his ubiquitous presence in every medium over so many decades, his unique and immensely likable personality and remarkable facility with language, and his ability to draw talent to his magazine and, more broadly, conservatism. He was the necessary nucleus without which the conservative movement would not have coalesced.

I met him only one time, at the Old Executive Office Building at a July, 2001 event to mark the fortieth anniversary of the death of Whittaker Chambers. I told him I'd edited and written a good bit of a college guide that I was certain he knew of, and he beamed, said of course he loved the book, that it was a pleasure to meet me. He made me feel not so much important, which I knew I wasn't, as grateful to have been there on that day, and to have met such a man.

I'm sure he had no idea who I was, yet even in meeting a very minor player, he made me feel that it was his great delight to know me. Given that so many say this about him, one can see a foundational element of his personality, and his success: an extraordinary generosity of spirit. At this event, at the end of his recollection of his long friendship with Chambers, he got all choked up. It was very moving then, as it is to recall it now.

William F. Buckley, Jr. Requiescat in pace.

One of the core charges that John Kerry’s media-aided campaign made in 2004 and since to delegitimize the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is that its leader John O’Neill, who had opposed Kerry in 1971, was a creation of Richard Nixon’s White House.

I was there, and know better. Until now, the central purported prop for the charge went unrebutted. Charles “Chuck” Colson has now spoken up. It’s time for reputable media, and even Kerry’s advocates if they have any integrity, to cease this charge. Like a dime-novel legend, based on little, this charge has been frequently repeated and embellished by Swiftee critics.

The charge of being a Nixon White House creation is based upon an article that Joe Klein published in the December 2, 2002 New Yorker magazine. Joe Klein passes from Kerry’s speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April, 1971:

He was an immediate celebrity. He was also an immediate target of the Nixon Administration. Years later, Chuck Colson-who was Nixon's political enforcer-told me, "He was a thorn in our flesh. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. He forced us to create a counterfoil. We found a vet named John O'Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O'Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do to boost his group."

Actually, in 1971 I formed Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace (VVJP), which John O’Neill joined, to oppose Kerry. Neither Colson nor the White House “formed” VVJP nor “found” John O’Neill.

In 2004, I contacted Joe Klein and Chuck Colson, to rebut this charge. Neither replied.

Klein has not revealed his interview notes or recording (if there was one) with Colson, so it’s unknown if the quote of Colson is accurate or if it is out of context.

Colson didn’t reply, trying to stay out of the 2004 Vietnam vets taking on Kerry, as he didn’t want to distract from his prison ministry.

Now, Colson has replied, rebutting Klein.

Vietnam veteran Bruce Obermeyer, physics undergrad, MBA, who has worked in aerospace safety at Boeing for decades, wrote to Charles Colson inquiring about the charge: “Can Mr. Colson please clear up the confusion about his involvement with VVJP and the alleged quote.” (Obermeyer has written me, “Unlike John Kerry, I stayed the full year of my tour, and unlike John Kerry, I actually was inside Cambodia, flying missions in the skies over it for a longer period of time than John Kerry's entire tour.”)

This is the reply Obermeyer received February 25, 2008 from Colson’s spokesman:

[W]e forwarded your email to Mr.Colson for his review. He has since read your email and has asked me to reply with his comments:

"No, I have never taken credit for trying to organize something called the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. I discovered Mr. O'Neil, who had just come out of the Navy, and brought him into the White House and worked with him and gave him some encouragement. A lot of people charged that this was really a Nixon front-group that I had started. That's untrue. I hope this helps." - Chuck Colson

See much more, below the fold:

The above covers the bare facts. Below, in detail, to create a historical record (esp. as many primary sources are not on the Internet), are more.

This speech appeared in FrontPage Magazine today. It was delivered by Sharad Karkhanis, Ph. D. before the Queens Village Republican Club at Antun’s on the occasion of Lincoln’s Birthday Celebration and Award Ceremony 2/10/2008. He was honored as Educator of the Year for his valiant stand for free speech battling a defamation lawsuit for daring to suggest that placing convicted terrorists in teaching positions on the City University of New York payroll is not appropriate.
****************************************

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Honorable Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, Chair James Trent, President Phil Sica, Mr Marlin, Prof. Matacotta, friends, relatives, and recipients of other awards, my friends and colleagues from Kingsborough and my good friend Phil Orenstein. Thank you Phil, for that wonderful introduction. I’m truly overwhelmed with this honor. I’m humbled with the thought that you too have recognized the importance of protecting one of the most cherished rights of American Citizenship, that of the First Amendment right to free speech and the press. Thank you , thank you, thank you for joining me in this struggle, for if I am not able to express myself freely, one day, you too will be subjected to the denial of your right to express yourself. My fight is your fight, and I intend to go on no matter where it goes, or however long it takes. I will fight it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States even if it takes twenty years. This fight is a fight worth fighting for. Read more...

Barack Obama has created his own non-patriotic image problem. He can blame others, or the rough-and-tumble of politics, all he wants. But, together with his empty record of accomplishments nor experience, his hyper-liberal record during his brief sojurn in the Senate, his anti-Israel advisors, his other suspect associations, his wife’s absurd newfound appreciation of America, the photo of him in Muslim costume symbolically displays a reality about him: Obama hasn’t the political judgment to be trusted with stewardship of America.

In a media age, where more people get their impressions of the news from visual images than from textual or analytical analyses, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama need image advice. Obama’s façade is crumbling.

Compared to Barack Obama’s youth and energy, not to mention his way with phrases (even if vacuous), Hillary Clinton should at least be thankful she doesn’t have Richard Nixon’s five-o’clock shadow problem. (Sorry; couldn’t find any photoshops of Hillary with a Nixonian beard-shadow.) But, she has the rest of Nixon’s image problems-- sans any significant accomplishments, experience or knowledge. She appears aged, stiff, and prickly. Her gold-embroidered collar doesn’t make her look like a commander-in-chief but a wannabe.

Some compare Barack Obama’s presentation of self as modeled on John Kennedy’s, “a John Kennedy for our times” says this paean.

John Kennedy, however, was a real pro at crafting his image, including visual. For example, for those of us who recall when fedoras and hamburgs were de rigor for statesmen and older politicians, John Kennedy refused to wear hats (even a Texas Stetson presented to him, which he said he’d try on in private back at the White House), providing a visual contrast of his youthful appearance and his willingness to break with the past.

Michael Dukakis didn’t get the visual image training, to avoid hats, and foolishly added to his presidential campaign “tanking.”

John Kerry, characteristically going to foolish extremes, saw his self-imagined image not only take on water from the Swiftees but from his NASA dress-up making him look umbilically connected to something strange, or toxic.

This tripping up on one’s costume is nothing new. Calvin Coolidge drew laughter at him for wearing an Indian headdress. (Although, Coolidge’s taciturn manner at least did manage to make him appear not to enjoy it).

So, what are we to make of Barack Obama’s Muslim costume when in Kenya?

Really, not much in and of itself. Curiousity, and courtesy to a host. As the Drudge piece that spread this photo shows, Obama is not the only political notable to don a costume, or receive criticism for it. Hillary’s spokesperson says, “Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.” She was criticized for the appearance of kowtowing to Islam’s repression of women.

However, together with Obama’s other visual faux pas, he is cementing into the public consciousness an image of someone whose loyalties are suspect. As Politico’s Ben Stein says:

February 24, 2008
CNN's question: Obama's patriotism
Does Barack Obama show the proper patriotism for someone who wants to be president of the United States?
I've got to say, I've never seen a reader poll like this on a mainstream media website (or, to be honest, a right-wing blog). This is currently on CNN.com.

Much has been made of the photo of Obama not putting hand over heart during the singing of the national anthem.

Snopes has a semi-convincing explanation.

Then, we have his refusal to wear an American flag pin in his lapel. There, Obama excuses himself from pride in his nation’s premier symbol because Obama opposes our involvement in Iraq.

“As far as the American flag pin, I mean, when we start getting into those definitions of patriotism, that’s a debate I am happy to have, because what I will come right back to them is: a party that resided over a war which our troops did not get the body armor they needed or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning or not fulfilling the veterans benefits that these troops need when they come home or undermining our constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary. That is a debate I am very happy to have.”

Unfair to end without mentioning the visual of McCain’s dowdy sweater under his jacket or his jowls. But, his image as a hero with pride in America, alone, stands out when compared to the image Obama has created of himself.

I wasn’t going to comment on Michelle Obama’s newfound positive feelings about America. Enough others had, and what’s to add?

Michelle Obama and her husband Barack are categorized, generally, as very liberal.

She and he are, also, widely categorized as poorly schooled or experienced in the real world, despite their privileged stellar education and successful legal careers.

SEE “The truth about Michelle Obama's 'working class' credentials.”

Red diaper-baby, former communist, still proud Old Leftist Pete Seeger, lifelong in the trenches for change, offers a stark contrast in a comment in today’s Parade Magazine insert to Sunday newspapers across the country:

I am actually optimistic. My country has done wonderful things that nobody believed we would do: civil rights, women’s rights, freedom of speech. The nonviolent revolution will come next.

February 27, Seeger will be in the spotlight at PBS’ American Masters.

I saw a Pete Seeger live performance when I was a child, and I still remember it as delightful. I grew up with the deep tradition of American folk music, especially heavily the leftist variety during my social democrat upbringing and college years. See this 2005 discussion from City Journal.

The politicization of American pop dates from the 1960s, but it grew out of a patient leftist political strategy that began in the mid-1930s with the Communist Party’s “Popular Front” effort to use popular culture to advance its cause….

It’s tempting to dismiss the politicization of popular music as of limited consequence. But as the Popular Front keenly grasped, culture matters—and music matters perhaps most of all. Allan Bloom, glossing Plato, wrote that “to take the spiritual temperature of an individual or society, one must ‘mark the music.’ ” In America, popular music provides a soundtrack for growing up. And the lyrics of that music too often deliver the message that our leaders are “idiots,” that our politics are corrupt, that bourgeois life is purposeless, that this country is no freer than any other—and probably less so. How can we find ourselves surprised, then, by the cool indifference that typifies many kids raised in times of affluence, freedom, and peace?

For his part, Pete Seeger, who lives near the Hudson in Wappingers Falls, New York, continues to perform, now singing “Turn, Turn, Turn” as a protest against the Iraq war, a radical to the end. “I’m still a communist, in the sense that I don’t believe the world will survive with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer,” he told Mother Jones last autumn. (The lefty magazine crowns Seeger “the grand old lion of the Left.”)

Happily, some have embraced the Popular Front’s legacy in ways that Seeger probably didn’t anticipate and wouldn’t likely approve. In March, a crowd in Taipei, several hundred thousand–strong, sang “We Shall Overcome” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” as part of a protest against forcible annexation by mainland China—and the prospect of Communist Party rule.

The messages of this leftist folk music may have been critical of American policies, but was optimistic in its tone and charge. The positive message is what lasts, encouraging even conservatives.

Michelle Obama’s pampered ignorance and indifference to even the heritage of liberal accomplishments, her negativity, stands her in a different strain of American: Dummy.

P.S.: For more about Pete Seeger, the good and the critical, see this Pete Seeger Appreciation Page, and search its links.

From the corrections page of today's New York Times:

For the Record

An article on Friday about the building of a Transcendental Meditation palace in Parma, Ohio, referred imprecisely in some editions to the percentage of the population practicing TM that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi believed would be necessary to achieve increased coherence in the collective unconscious. It is the square root of one percent of the population (for example, about 1,700 people in the United States) — not merely “the square root of one percent,” which is 10 percent. (Go to Article)

My Campus Watch colleague Cinnamon Stillwell posted a blog today on the proliferation of absurd, narcissistic, self-serving academic conferences on the chic topic of "academic freedom." As she shows, this is a euphemism, on the part of may academics, for "having the temerity to disagree with me."

The proliferation of dubious conferences on "academic freedom" continues unabated. And, in each case, biased and politicized Middle East studies academics are a major component.

In October, 2007, the University of Chicago hosted, "In Defense of Academic Freedom," an event whose unifying theme was "the notion that Jewish groups have degraded the quality and breadth of discussion in the media and in Washington." Hardly the stuff of self-described progressives, but such is the state of discourse in the corridors of academia today.

Then there was the "DePaul Academic Freedom Conference" earlier this month. It featured the usual suspects, all alleging "academic freedom violations" against DePaul University because "professors Mehrene Larudee and Norman Finkelstein were denied tenure." Apparently, the granting of tenure is now a God-given right and any infringements thereupon are considered grounds for martyrdom.

Next up on February 23, the College of Arts and Science (CAS) Student Council of New York University will host the "First National Teach-In on Freedoms at Risk in America." This time around, the gathering of the persecuted will include, as described at the CAS website, "our nation's foremost academics and intellectuals, and students and faculty from both within and outside of the NYU campus."

To read the rest of the post, click here.

Mark Falcoff, of respected and distinguished service to America, wrote to Powerline blog today about a dinner he attended with Fidel Castro in 2001, as part of a delegation from the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations. Falcoff’s intent is to reflect “how Castro's ego and indifference to the fate of others has impacted upon an entire people.”

Instead, or moreso, Falcoff reflects badly upon himself, David Rockefeller, Pete Peterson, and the other notables from CFR there.

About half-way into a long, long toast by Castro, over 30-minutes, that they were standing for, one of the delegation’s members seated next to Falcoff slumped into his chair:

About ten minutes, maybe fifteen, into the Maximum Leader's speech, Bill Rogers slumped down into his chair, obviously ill. Everybody in the room except Castro stared at him, but nobody moved. Another five minutes Bill passed out. He wasn't on the floor but he wasn't sitting up either. At that point Ricardo Alarcon, the president of Castro's puppet parliament, came racing around from the other end of the table, and asked me what was going on. I said I didn't know; Bill was obviously sick or worse.

Castro--who couldn't have been ten feet away--was completely oblivious to all this, delivering his platitudes to a corner between the wall and the ceiling. Alarcon looked at Rogers; then he looked at Castro. He decided on the spot nothing must interrupt the Comandante. So we all stood there for--it seemed like an eternity--until Castro finished. When he finally did end and we could raise our glasses, I felt a huge sigh of relief. Now Castro could be told to attend to Bill's health. But no, he wandered off into a corner, still talking, until some woman pointed to Rogers.

Then and only then did Castro clap his hands, bodyguards went into action, doctors were produced, and Bill was carried out to some place where he could be given an EKG. Fortunately it was nothing more than heat exhaustion. But he could have died right there and nothing could have been done about it.

It has always seemed to me that this incident is entirely emblematic of Castro's unnatural self-absorption. In this case it was only Bill Rogers' fate in the balance; think of how Castro's ego and indifference to the fate of others has impacted upon an entire people.

There’s no mention by Falcoff of why he or the other American luminaries didn’t have the common decency to assist Mr. Rogers or to dare interrupt Castro.

It’s, also, not clear that Castro was unaware of his trusted underling already rushing to Mr. Rogers, or that part of his underling’s not interrupting his toast may have come from the silence of the Americans there perhaps seeming less than fully concerned. After his toast, once Castro was explicitly made aware, he did immediately cause help to come to Mr. Rogers. Falcoff’s reflection is less than convincing on this score against Castro.

The purpose in my writing this is not to excuse Castro, for this or anything else, but to raise a bigger issue.

It is worthy of mention that Falcoff and other stalwart dignitaries of American capitalism let a colleague sit, possibly dying in his chair, while their priority is not to interrupt Castro's long-winded toast.

To me, it displays a widespread moral turpitude among American politicians and businessmen re: dealings with tyrants.

Indeed, as Goethe observed, manners are a reflection of one’s soul. I’d add that manners carried to the extreme of endangering lives are a reflection of false priorities. Including treasuring trade profits that entrench despotic regimes or talk-fests with ogres that only feed the egos in the room but serve no useful diplomacy.

For a sanity check on my take, I solicited several others’ takes. Winfield Myers’s take is typical:

The question I'd have is obvious to any child: why did they just stand there with glasses raised in the face of this fellow's obvious medical emergency? What did they have to fear--would Castro have dared to shackle them or have them roughed up had they had the temerity to attend to Rogers? Who cares about being rude, so-called, in the face of the possible death of a friend?

I emailed to Mark Falcoff this morning:

I, and others, are shocked that -- surely facing no physical risk yourselves -- you and other paragons of American business and commentary stood by, literally, as a colleague sat slumped in his chair, as you say possibly dying, in order not to interrupt Fidel's harangue.

Before I comment publicly, would you please comment as to why, or if anything significant to this point is missing from your post.

Thank you, in advance, for your reply, as soon as possible please.

If and when I do get a reply from Mark Falcoff, I will add it to this post.

While waiting, John McCain’s priorities are not confused, or diplomatically overridden by Emily Post. Today he said of Fidel, “"I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon.” Reuters adds, “McCain, 71, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, has accused Cubans of participating in the torture of some of his fellow prisoners in Hanoi during the Vietnam War.” My friend Mike Benge, a fellow POW of McCain’s, testified to Congress in 1999 about the Cuban torturers and interrogators, and more.

While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are looking forward to meeting with Fidel’s brother-inheritor of the scepter, McCain is again clear:

"Apparently he is trying to groom his brother Raul," McCain said. "Raul is worse in many respects than Fidel was."

Many of our diplomats, businessmen and commentators need to get the morality and priority of their manners straight. Then, at least, our enemies will be more cognizant of who and how they toast, or torture.

Mark Tapscott’s editorial today in the Examiner looks at a different aspect of “Uncle Sam’s Credibility Gap On Spending” than I did yesterday, “Only 5% of Americans Trust Government Spending Reporting” in an Association of Government Accountants survey of Americans.

Tapscott adds that he hopes more Americans learn to use the extensive databases of spending that have come online recently, partly due to Tapscott’s leadership on transparency in government, despite that at present:

[O]nly 10 percent of the respondents said putting government spending data on the Internet would increase official accountability. Our prediction is that percentage will steadily rise in the years ahead as public awareness, understanding and use of the database grows.

Tapscott, also, points out that John McCain is a spending hawk, and that Barack Obama “co-sponsored the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, though, strangely, he rarely mentions it while campaigning. How refreshing it would be to have two nominees vying to be the most committed to federal spending reform and transparency.”

Obama’s constituency of feeders at the government trough probably wouldn’t be as happy with him as we would be if Obama stressed the runaway spending in Washington.

The Discover America Partnership of the major US tourism companies has spent millions lobbying to get into the pockets of US taxpayers and international travelers via their Tourism Promotion Act to fund tourism promotion profiting itself, despite the huge profits these companies already have at their disposal.

It reminds me of the Monty Python “Ministry of Silly Walks.”

Despite being ably exposed last Sunday by the Washington Post’s lobbying reporter, Jeffrey Birnbaum, expanding in depth on the points I’d already made, the silly walkers at Discover America haven’t missed a step in their dance.

Last month, the chairmen of the Travel Business Roundtable and the Travel Industry Association, both leaders in Discover America, wrote President Bush imploring him to include their Travel Promotion Act in the economic stimulus package. They cite a tourism contracted study they say “projects the return on investment to be 35:1 in visitor spending.” Glory, with that kind of ROI, compared to ones that are a small fraction of that in industries that make major investments, why aren’t these titans of silly walk investing in their own business?

Today, the Travel Industry Association issued a press release claiming that “the United States, despite a modest increase over 2006, welcomed 11 percent fewer overseas visitors in 2007 than in 2000. More significantly, the United States welcomed 10 million fewer overseas visitors in 2007 than it would have if it simply kept pace with post-9/11 worldwide long-haul travel trends.”

“If” is a key word here, as the TIA offers a “if” trees grew to the sky argument. One might ask what would be “if” these tourism companies spent as much time and funds promoting their sites as they do trying to silly walk into our pockets?

Further, their figures are misleading, aside from spurious projections. Not only does Discover America silly walk through facts, but even its chosen unnaturally high base year – 2000 -- for comparison is misleading, as is their ignoring that a decline began in 2001 well before 9/11.

Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, international visitation to the United States was already in decline, suggesting the inability of the U.S. travel and tourism industry to maintain the record level of international arrivals set in 2000 when the United States welcomed more than 51.2 million international visitors. The months preceding September 2001 had negative growth in arrivals when compared to the prior year: February 2001: -2.8%, March 2001: -3.3%, April 2001: -5.8%, May 2001: -5.4%, June 2001: -3.3%, July 2001: -4.1%, August 2001: -0.2%. (See the Department of Commerce table here.)

Indeed, the Discover America Partnership in silly walking, which says that post-9/11 recovery in travelers to the US is less from more profitable Europeans than less profitable Mexicans, due to US border security restrictions, needs to face that the pre-9/11 decline was larger from Western Europe, before increased security checks at our borders: February 2001: -5.0%; March 2001: - 7.0%; April 2001: -14.6%; May 2001: -10.5%; June 2001: -12.2%; July 2001: -9.3%; August 2001: -4.1%.

Discover America and its corporate backers need to re-walk their assertions and look in the mirror for lagging marketing efforts that predate 9/11.

In 2000, US tourism revenues from foreigners was $103 billion. In 2007, they were almost $123 billion. Hardly an argument for dipping into taxpayer and travelers’ pockets to fund a self-serving pot for US tourism companies.

So much for the Discover America Partnership’s “Ministry of Silly Walks.”

No, we don’t mean this one, Mayra Veronica, although she is one of Cuba’s most enticing products, whose talents are successful in the appreciative red-blooded US of A.

But, before moving on, now that we’ve got your attention, enjoy this “brief” video.

Uh, where was I? Oh, now I remember, although the peaks of the Sierra Maestra are a more enticing subject.

Various commentators are hopeful that, after almost 50-years of Fidel Castro’s communist rule, Cuba may rejoin the ranks of free or freer nations.

Models, meaning analogies, from other countries are trotted forth.

Amity Schlaes turns to East Germany as one, primarily as to the proper US path.

The situation in Cuba resembles that of East Germany. On Oct. 18, 1989, strongman Erich Honecker was forced to resign. Unperturbed, the press focused on his successor, Egon Krenz -- exploring issues such as Krenz's age and what exactly he had done in the Free German Youth movement. Like Raul Castro, Krenz was praised for his pragmatism.

We missed the big story. Krenz was just a figurehead. So was Hans Modrow, who succeeded him. East Germany was already dead. Germans were merely waiting for the right moment to push their way through the border checkpoints. Within less than a month, they had brought down the Berlin Wall.

The first good move by George H.W. Bush -- the 41st U.S. president -- was to allow that change to happen without intervening. In 1989, you didn't see NATO moving to prop up the Warsaw Pact. Bush just waited….

Kohl, with the support of Bush, made a big wager. He would promise each East German that ``none would have it worse than before,'' and many would have it better. East Germans would get one deutsche mark for each of their East German marks, though that was hardly the exchange rate the market would have determined. Enormous subsidies would flow eastward for 10 years as well….

But some analysts believe there is little reason for Cuba to cut deals with the United States. The CIA estimates, after a long period of stagnation, the Cuban economy is growing again, rising 7 percent last year. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is pumping in oil and billions of dollars to support his leftist ally. And while U.S. companies are not welcome in Havana, Chinese state-owned enterprises are. Robert Muse is an international lawyer specializing in Cuba. He says the Chinese government is cutting deals to secure natural resources from the island.

ROBERT MUSE, INTERNATIONAL LAWYER: They're committed to investing billions of dollars in nickel production in. Cuba -- nickel prices are at an all-time high -- in oil exploration and extraction in Cuba and other primary industries.

GERSH: With other Latin American countries following Havana's lead and nationalizing their economies, Muse says Cuban leaders see no need to meet American demands on human rights and democracy in order to lift the U.S. embargo.

MUSE: Nearly 20 years I've been around the subject, they are less interested than they have ever been. In a way, the Cuban leadership feels vindicated by history.

This is confirmed by one of the US’s leading authorities on trade with Cuba.

John Kavulich, a senior policy adviser to the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, does not expect any meaningful change in trade relations, including farm trade.

While there has been considerable interest by U.S. companies and farmers to do more business with the island nation, Kavulich said the U.S. has little influence in Cuba.

"The key to what takes place in Cuba and how Cuba develops in the next 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 months is Venezuela and China. Because they are providing the financial support to Cuba," he said. "And as long as they do, the Cuban government has absolutely no incentive whatsoever to engage with the United States in any meaningful way."

Some Western businesses may see profitable opportunities in Cuba, and point to Vietnam as an example to model. But, what has that wrought: entrenchment of the regime and continued human rights abuses and repression. As Human Rights Watch introduced its review of 2007 in Vietnam:

2007 was characterized by the harshest crackdown on peaceful dissent in 20 years.

The government, emboldened by international recognition after joining the World Trade Organization in late 2006, moved to suppress all challenges to the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) by arresting dozens of democracy and human rights activists, independent trade union leaders, underground publishers, and members of unsanctioned religious groups. This reversed a temporary easing of restrictions in 2006, prior to Vietnam’s hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, when independent activism and opposition political parties had surfaced.

Human Rights Watch, also, said this about 2007 in Cuba:

Cuba remains the one country in Latin America that represses nearly all forms of political dissent. There have been no significant policy changes since Fidel Castro relinquished direct control of the government to his brother Raul Castro in August 2006. The government continues to enforce political conformity using criminal prosecutions, long-term and short-term detentions, mob harassment, police warnings, surveillance, house arrests, travel restrictions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment. The end result is that Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law….

In January 2005 the European Union decided to temporarily suspend the diplomatic sanctions that it had adopted in the wake of the Cuban government’s 2003 crackdown against dissidents. In June 2006, and again in June 2007, the EU decided to renew the suspensions, but not lift the sanctions outright. It offered to resume discussions with the Castro government, stipulating that if it were to accept the invitation, the Cuban government must be willing to discuss human rights, political prisoners, and democracy. In response, the Cuban foreign ministry indicated that Cuba would not participate in talks unless the sanctions were fully dropped. Nevertheless, representatives of the EU and Cuba held “informal, exploratory talks” at the United Nations in September 2007 and agreed to meet again in early 2008.

The EU’s blandishments have been futile, and the US should expect the same from Cuba’s prospective new rulers succeeding Fidel.

Fausta follows events in Cuba closely, and sees little reason to get euphoric as long as there is such continuity of oppression.

Unless there is a remarkable upheaval from within Cuba, we advise the more advantageous consideration of other models from Cuba, as we started this post with.

The exposure of government spending practices is important to more than a few porkbusters or wonks. Americans have extremely low confidence in government care with their purse. Politicians and their parties who ignore this unease do so at their electoral peril and disregard for our financial security and faith in government.

The Association of Government Accountants contracted a Harris survey in January of public attitudes toward government spending. [HT: Stephen Barr @ WaPo]

The project is called Citizen-Centric Government Reporting Initiative.

Governments exist to serve their citizens. Citizens have the right to an understanding of how their government operates and if their tax dollars are being spent efficiently and effectively. And governments have a responsibility to provide that information in an easily understandable way.

This initiative encourages governments to produce and publish an annual ‘state of the government’ report that is no more than four pages long. The reports, designed to be visually appealing, provide understandable information to citizens about the financial condition and performance of the government that answers the question, “Are we better off today than we were last year?”

AGA believes that the report will make governments more accountable to their citizens and will help Americans become more educated citizens, who are better able to participate in government activities. Governments are encouraged to include the report in their local newspaper and post it to their government website, which would provide easy access to the public.

Government financial statements are too large and too complicated for average citizens, meaning those without a college degree in finance, economics or accounting. Therefore, the majority of governments—federal, state and local—are not reaching their citizens with some of the most significant financial and performance information. Even local governments, rich with readily available financial and performance information, may fail to inform citizens if the data is not provided in an interesting and understandable way.

The survey results are reported here. Excerpts:

[A] lack of government accountability and transparency undermines
democracy and gives rise to cynicism and mistrust. This result is reflected in the survey findings, which reveal deep dissatisfaction among the American public with both the availability of government financial information and the way it is delivered to the people. Much of this dissatisfaction has to do with issues of trust and a gap between what the public expects and what is actually delivered.

* The American public is most dissatisfied with government financial management information disseminated by the federal government. Of those surveyed, 72 percent say that it is important to receive this information from the federal government, but only 5 percent are satisfied with what they receive.

American adults believe governments are failing to practice open, honest and responsible spending while doing a poor job of providing understandable and timely financial management information….
American adults believe that being responsible to the public for spending is the most important area regarding financial management.

* Seventy-one percent of respondents who receive financial management information from the government, or believe it is important to receive it, say they would use the information to influence their vote.

Hear that Congressman Bonner.

UPDATE: The February 22 Examiner editorial, “Uncle Sam’s Credibility Gap On Spending,” looks at the implications of this survey for the 2008 presidential race.

Reuters:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reaffirmed his predecessor's line on cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday, saying free speech should respect religious sensitivities.

"The Secretary-General strongly believes that freedom of expression should be exercised responsibly and in a way that respects all religious beliefs," his spokeswoman Marie Okabe told reporters.

He had nothing to say about common hate cartoons against Jews in the Arab media. “Political correctness” being a one-way street at Turtle Bay.

New York Times:

Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.

Patients “cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs,” the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament.

“That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.,” Mr. Johnson said.

Michelle Obama's words are important because, like Hillary, a future former-First Lady Obama may decide to seek the highest office in the land.

Yet in the hullabaloo arising from Michelle Obama's statement that, "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country," this obvious reason for paying attention to her words has received little comment.

Hillary is proof that First Ladies, and potential First Ladies, are no longer "simply" supports to their husbands, ambassadors of good will, and domesticators of the White House (not that Hillary succeeded on that score).

Today's First Ladies may be tomorrow's presidents, and that makes all the difference.

If the 44-year-old Michelle Obama has lacked pride in her country all of her adult life--in spite of graduating from Princeton and Harvard, in spite of being a U.S. senator's wife--that is noteworthy because, should Barack succeed, and he may indeed, she may try to follow his footsteps.

With Hillary's ascent, the old mold of the First Lady's role in American politics has been broken. While some potential First Ladies may not be remotely interested in seeking office themselves, some, such as Ivy League-educated lawyers who are familiar with, and comfortable in, America's halls of power, should be watched carefully.

Hillary has blazed the trail, and we can't know who will follow.

If you ever injected truth into politics you would have no politics. ~ Will Rogers

If politics is to continue to be viewed, as it is by most, as a venal exercise in enriching self and contributors, whatever the broader public or national security interest be secondary or seriously influenced, then there’s no better way than the current lack of full disclosure by political candidates and officeholders.

Generically, politics should be the arrival of reasonable, read legally set levels, of consensus in our legislatures and by our state and federal chief executives and agencies arrived at in the legally prescribed manner.

That’s not what we, far too often, get. Instead, we have secretive earmarks, we have cloudy candidate and campaign finances, we have past and recent personal peccadilloes and alliances, all shrouded in layers of secretiveness.

That extends from full school, military and court records to tax filings to health exams to the exact source of contributions, including the source’s exact source, and including the wide array of – in effect – taxpayer-subsidized 501(c)’s which work the fringes of lax regulations in order to influence policies and elections.

One can argue that what’s past is past, especially when long past. One can argue that donors have an expectation of privacy. One can argue that some things are too private.

All good arguments.

But, overriding them is that the very fate of our – the public’s – financial and physical security are at jeopardy when decisions are made that seriously affect our interests. Also, anyone who wants to be an anonymous donor is refusing to engage in open debate, but merely seeking influence. Open debate, particularly about matters of importance, is what we deserve, not back-room finagling or below-the-radar lack of transparency.

If a candidate or office-holder feels that something in their affairs is misconstrued, they have the opportunity to explain it. The sense and cogency of their explanation will determine others’ judgment of them and their behavior.

Sure, those who are scurrilous will seek advantages. However, they do now, and are aided by the very secrecy and shrouding of which candidates and office-holders take advantage.

There’s an increased resurgence of history’s facts, and increased respect for the bravery, decency and sacrifices of our far better young men in service, that is less suppressed by and relegated to slogans of the aging ‘60’s and ‘70’s radicals and hangers-on. This show is part of that recovery of sanity.

Tonight, National Geographic’s cable TV channel broadcast its 3-hour “Inside the Vietnam War.” It will be rebroadcast Sunday, February 24. Check your local listings for time, and don’t miss it.

Over 50 Vietnam veterans appear in the show, along with many never before seen photos and video footage. As the show’s announcement says, the show “features the harrowing firsthand accounts of the brave men and women who lived through the war.”

My friend R.J. Delvecchio (Del) was a Marine combat photographer in Vietnam. Some of his work is included in the program, and he briefly appears. Del wrote me about his experience with the show’s production and a special preview for veterans held in Washington, D.C.

The partial version I saw was very well done, reviewed some of the history of the war very objectively, then went into peoples' individual experiences, recollections, and reflections. Views ranged from those who were proud of their service, were fully supportive of helping S. Vietnam, and would go again, to one really negative reflection (from Philip Caputo) about it all being a waste.

The images and footage were very good, it actually was a real documentary with no major political slant.

If anything, the antiwar people will find it less than to their liking.

I went to DC for this shindig, at really substantial cost, and it was worth every penny six times over. About 40 of the people interviewed for the film showed up, plus a whole bunch of distinguished guests, like Mark Moyars and Dr. Bob Sorley. National Geographic put out one hell of a spread of food and drinks, and we got to stand around and talk and meet people that it was an honor to meet. Carlton Sherwood of Stolen Honor fame, Paul Galanti, a longtime POW, and assorted other distinguished veterans and others. It was just super.

After a couple of hours of schmoozing and munching, we filed into the theater section.

We were led in the Pledge of Allegiance by the head of the Blue Star Mothers organization, and it's hard to express the feeling of standing there reciting the pledge with so great a group of people, a pledge that came out loud, strong, clear, with pride and devotion in every tone from every person. Then one of the vets and his wife did a version of America The Beautiful that had an added new stanza, in which it was said that black, white, brown, red or yellow, we belong to America and to each other. A basic description of the best ideals of the America we know and love.

They then showed a half-sized version of the documentary, since 3 hours is too long for an audience of old guys! But it was extremely well done and everyone there was very happy with what they saw. (I only saw one of my pictures in the reduced version, but was assured the full version has more and even some of me talking.)

I hope you find it as worthwhile as I have.

Del

The middle-aged, protypically bearded advance reviewer at the New York Daily News says the show “lacks vision” in failing to stress the final futility of our efforts.

Thomas Lipscomb watched the full show tonight, and offers his review.

The NY Daily News guy just didn’t understand the show. He wanted his opinions punched and it wasn’t about that.

It was really from the POV of the subjects… it was truly INSIDE … not an overview by people with no experience and a lot of political attitude.

And despite the disproportionate coverage of Marines…[Lipscomb served in the Army] it was pretty damned good.

It didn’t start with the advisers and the build up… it started with the first arrival of combat forces in 65 and left with the departure of the US troops with a quick cut to the evacuation in 75.

Lovely choice of interviews, very different than Stanley Karnow’s.

A Chief Petty Officer, a lot of enlisted personnel from private to mid level sgts… almost all officers were company grade at the time, though like Bob Scales or MacCaffrey they may have retired as generals…

So it was a grunts eyeview with some good stuff from mainly Tac air… copters and just a few f4 drivers.

I liked it a LOT.

I would add, it is one of the few times I have ever seen a news program that actually let its subjects talk and followed with pictures and maps to illustrate what they said. The producers did keep things in a chronological order so that people actually were on camera at the time they were in action, but otherwise the description of the war, when the participants were optimistic, when there were breakdowns in discipline, the tragedy of My Lai described by those on the copter that stopped it.

It was sort of a throwback to the old Ed Murrow SEE IT NOW which tried for the same effect without the omniscient network news point of view.

P.S.: Another Vietnam veteran, actually a civilian AID worker captured and suffering for years as a POW, Mike Benge, was also at the National Geographic preview, and writes me with this added observation:

[T]hey put in the napalmed, naked little girl and Gen. Loan offing the VC who had just cut off the legs of the dependents in the police barracks, with no comment as to their context or any other explanation; the Americans had nothing to do with either, but by having them in there, it puts the blame on US troops.

For those who know little or nothing about the VN War, and for the antiwar crowd, just having these pictures in the film implies that the US troops had something to do with these incidents. The napalmed naked girl was hit by bombs from ARVN aircraft and was iconic and used as propaganda against the US troops by the antiwar crowd, as was the one by Gen. Loan. History has proven that the top news agencies in Vietnam were infiltrated by the NVA and I can only assume that they were responsible for the mislabeled caption accompanying the of the napalmed girl; picture for World-Wide publication and blaming the incident on US aircraft/troops. National Geographic should have known better.
Mike

Jeff Jacoby exposed the Obama Campaign's fealty to the Marxist-left yesterday in an excellent Boston Globe column exposing the fact that his volunteer campaign office in Houston was prominently displaying a Cuban flag with the mug of none other than murderous thug Che Guevara. Jacoby appropriately asks what would JFK do? Being the anti-Communist stalwat he was, he most certainly would have demanded that his volunteers take down this flag.

On another note Matt Drudge and James Taranto from the Wall Street Journal expose another potential hypocrisy of Obama today on his site, as Barack uses remarkably similar language and circumstances to describe people who have "fainted" at his rallies. Perhaps Barack is getting carried away with himself....

Before I started writing about the travel industry’s lobbying effort, Discover America, to dip into the taxpayer and international traveler’s pockets to further profit this $1 trillion industry, there was scant attention.

Now, the Washington Post has a major piece (6,746 words), “Mickey Goes To Washington: Lobbyists for America’s richest mouse set out to persuade Congress to scare up $200 million to promote U.S. tourist destinations,” in today’s Sunday magazine section, by Jeffrey Birnbaum, carefully dissecting Discover America. As Birnbaum makes clear, “One thing everyone agreed on: The travel industry did not want to pay for the ads itself.”

Another case of the blogosphere leading, and the MSM finding the story.

The points I’ve been driving home are all there: The statistics Discover America ignores about the strong recovery of post-9/11 international tourism; The cynical marketing by Geoff Freeman, Discover America’s PR specialist; The “inside-beltway” lobbying that swells our federal expenditures and enriches lobbyists and Congressional staff’s future job prospects.

As Birnbaum says:

The explosion in the size of K Street, the locus of the lobbying industry, is an extension of the growth and reach of government. The ballooning federal budget has its tentacles in every aspect of American life and commerce….

And why wouldn't ex-lawmakers and aides gravitate to K Street? Lobbying jobs pay at least twice and sometimes three times government salaries. Serving in government is now viewed by many on Capitol Hill as a steppingstone to a lucrative career in bending government to the whims of paying clients….

What initially, also, set me off was what I called the “bashing” of America by Discover America.

"We absolutely have to overcome Fortress America," agreed Freeman, who suggested creating a Web site with "horror stories about getting into the U.S."

The cast of leading companies and Washington characters who allowed themselves to be part of this is shocking, and despicable.

So far, the Discover America dip into our pockets is stalled. But, a major new lobby to keep trying to get into our pockets is launched. Birnbaum ends his examination: “A lobbying machine, once it gets started, cannot stop.”

Neither can those who care about runaway federal spending and the selfish feeding on American taxpayers to enrich the “ruling class.”

My prior posts are here:
US Tourism Industry Continues Bashing America

Why Is Disney Bashing America?: Pork Investigation

“America the Unwelcoming”, Zakaria The Stooge (UPDATE)

Tourism Industry Trashes U.S.

P.S.: Special thanks to Mark Tapscott for his leadership on porkbusting and ethics in D.C.

Mark adds his thoughts here.
"Washington Post discovers 'Discover America' lobbying con first exposed by blogger Bruce Kesler", and characteristally doesn't take the credit due himself.

This coming Tuesday, February 19, PBS’s respected Frontline will air its examination of “what really happened in Haditha,” the show’s introduction saying that’s what we should expect of the program.

The show doesn’t meet that goal, and can be criticized for what it does and doesn’t include, meriting a grade of “B-.” That means, the show is definitely worth watching, and deserves a passing grade.

Necessary to a full understanding of Haditha, none but a very few have read or remember the hundreds of pages of Haditha Article 32 hearings, the hundreds of serious newspaper articles and blog posts examining the unfolding of the known facts, or have personal training and experience in combat. Frontline’s “Rules of Engagement” about the Haditha events may be as close as most will come.

The writer/producer/director of the show, Arun Rath, doesn’t have that background for understanding Haditha. Nonetheless, he has made a serious effort, and admits that his view matured from a reflexive liberal view of a massacre:

"I am a journalist and tend to follow world news fairly closely, but before starting work on this project all I knew about the Haditha incident was basically the headlines," Rath told me.

"When I first heard about it I thought it was interesting and counterintuitive. I knew that Marines had more intense training than our other forces, so the idea that so many would suddenly snap under pressure seemed a little strange. But I also knew that horrible things happen in wars, and figured something bad must have happened.

"Once we started to look into the story more deeply, we realized how far off the popular notion of what happened in Haditha was. For instance, the idea that there were no firefights when we know that November 19, 2005 was a day of very intense attacks across the town. We spend some time in our film spelling this out, using an interview with Major (then Captain) Jeffrey Dinsmore, the battalion's intelligence officer, to help bring that day to life. We were also able to obtain the ScanEagle video from that day. That will be eye-opening for much of our audience."

Thanks to Frontline, I received an advance copy of the show and its transcript, to share a preview of it with readers.

An “A” would have likely been unattainable, given an hour and the few still open questions to be decided at upcoming court martials. Or, an “A” might only be given by a rigid partisan of one side or another, if the show marched to a one-sided tune. A “C” would be appropriate if there were disabling errors in the show, resulting in a serious overall misimpression. A “D” or “F” would be reserved for a slanted diatribe or ranting screed, better reserved for Bill Moyers or Keith Olbermann respectively.

There are several serious misimpressions created by the show, but they are not disabling of the show’s overall veracity, as the core facts of the Marines acting within the rules of engagement does come through, and only reduce what would otherwise be a “B” to a “B-.”

Washington Post reporter Josh White provides his views and speculations throughout the show, but White has not been one of the primary reporters following the Article 32 hearings and other emerging details. White has been a prime conduit for those close to the prosecution. Perhaps White was used in the show because the prosecution is not permitted to comment publicly. However, an explanation of White’s presence in the show as the only newsman (except for scandal starter Time Magazine’s Tim McGirk) would have been more enlightening to the viewer. The slant in White’s views can be gleaned, for example, in this incident of taking a quote about Haditha misleadingly out of context. The authority quoted replied: “The way the story ran made it seem like I believed the Marines were guilty before the incident had even been investigated. That saddened me...”

As to Tim McGirk, whose Time story of Haditha at the time and in the show is given much attention, his reporting and views are given more credence than deserved. McGirk misrepresented his source as a “the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, which cooperates with the internationally respected Human Rights Watch”, which Human Rights Watch denied and Time ran the correction.

In Frontline’s show, the intelligence officer for the Marines at Haditha says “the Hammurabi video is insurgent propaganda because intelligence information received almost immediately after the – the events of November 19th, indicated that the video had been – recorded by an insurgent propagandist.”

That’s immediately followed by McGirk’s interview by Frontline, McGirk saying, and having the final word:

I had worked with the Hammurabi people before on other stories. And I think that it’s wrong to smear them as pro-insurgent. These are people who are carrying out human rights work in Iraq.

Frontline shows early in the program an interview with one of Hammurabi’s principals, neatly attired in suit, but doesn’t question the veracity of his statements nor even raise the question as to whether Hammurabi is a human rights group until the much later exchange above.

Toward the end of the show, two surviving Iraqi children are shown making brief statements about how they saw Marines brutally kill their families. Their statements are not questioned.

However, these children’s stories have actually varied in different tellings. Frontline doesn’t raise that. Nor does it raise that one of the children admitted to prior knowledge of an attack on the Marines.

Frontline introduces Haditha as a rather bucolic spot before the Americans arrived, a “serene oasis.” Frontline has the Marines’ intelligence officer speaking to the number of insurgents passing through and in Haditha. Frontline, however, doesn’t speak about the strategic importance of Haditha, its giant dam feeding crucial electricity and water through much of Anbar province, or earlier attacks on Marines in Haditha, such as,

In Spring 2005, insurgents attacked Haditha General Hospital, the largest in western Al Anbar, with a suicide car bomb, destroying more than half of the building with the explosion and ensuing fire. Insurgents also established fortified firing positions inside the hospital and used patients and staff as human shields as they attacked Marines from the hospital and later retreated from the Marine counterattack.

Nor does Frontline update us about Haditha today, building and commerce thriving under newfound security, and security now turned over to Iraqis.

Lastly, the details of the Article 32 hearings, especially of those whose charges were dismissed or tangential to the killings, are only sketchily narrated and explained, but one can mark that up to the brevity of time the show has and the surrounding issues it covers.

Nonetheless, despite these shortcomings in the Frontline show, what clearly comes through is that, as the show’s press liaison said to me, “was there a rush to judgment?” can be answered in the affirmative. The show, particularly, zeroes in on John Murtha’s inflammatory comments about Haditha and the Marines as propelling Haditha into the news and hurried CYA and investigations. Even using a Fox Report, Frontline says, “Haditha led the news for weeks. And soon became synonymous with other outrages in the Iraq war, like Abu Ghraib.” Former Marine and renowned Iraq analyst Bing West drives the point home:

Haditha in my judgment is a metaphor for how the press unconsciously, being in opposition to the war, will take an incident and simply by reiterating it and reiterating it and reiterating it build it into something that it wasn’t.

The prosecutions arguments that there were either more restrictive rules of engagement than followed, or that they required even greater hesitation than followed, are ably refuted by the defense attorneys and the Article 32 hearings’ results thusfar. The remaining court martials, set to begin in March, of SSgt Wuterich and LCpl Tatum are for reduced charges, and the prosecution’s case appears weak as evidenced by a last minute scurrying to Iraq to reinterview Iraqis in hope of strengthening their case.

The Hammurabi shill for a massacre gets one of the last words, “the punishments don’t come close to the crimes committed in Haditha.” But he is immediately followed by the WP’s Josh White, “what the investigation has revealed since [being “potrayed by Iraqi civilians as a massacre, by Congressman Murtha as killings in cold blood”] is that this was far more complicated than some execution.”

At the show’s end, several current Marines from Kilo/3/1, the unit involved at Haditha, express either their concern that stricter rules of engagement and scrutiny of any killings of Iraqis may lead to Leavenworth or their own death, while hoping that it will contribute toward winning hearts and minds.

That’s a sober finishing note, and one to consider if someone you know or love has to face the clearly split second decisions necessary in combat, especially when the enemy hides among civilians and is aided by them, as at Haditha.

P.S.: A closing quote by Bing West in the show is, I believe, out of context. I’ve yet been unable to reach Bing West to see if this is so, and will add an update if and when I do.

P.P.S., 2/18/08: Jules Crittendon, who was embedded with US forces in Iraq, offers his advance screening able review of the show.

It may be indicative of the criticism the New York Times justly received for its previous installments of “War Torn”, which were featured in the higher circulation Sunday editions, that the latest appears in today’s lower circulation Friday edition, before a lower circulation long weekend holiday.

Part 4 of “War Torn” is titled, “When Strains on Military Families Turn Deadly,” focusing on domestic abuse. The reporters are clear that:

It is difficult to know how complete The Times’s findings are. What is clear, though, is that these homicides occurred at a time when the military was trying to improve its handling of domestic violence.

Before that we’re treated to an opening hoary tale of an Army vet of Iraq murdering his wife. Then,

Pentagon officials say that wartime has not derailed their efforts to make substantive improvements in the way that the military tackles domestic violence.

They say they have, for example, offered more parenting and couples classes, provided additional victims advocates and afforded victims greater confidentiality in reporting abuses.

But interviews with members of the task force, as well as an examination of cases of fatal domestic violence and child abuse, indicate that wartime pressures on military families and on the military itself have complicated the Pentagon’s efforts.

The article, also, presents its own hesitation regarding its investigation:

But an examination by The Times found more than 150 cases of fatal domestic violence or child abuse in the United States involving service members and new veterans during the wartime period that began in October 2001 with the invasion of Afghanistan.

In more than a third of the cases, The Times determined that the offenders had deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq or to the regions in support of those missions. In another third, it determined that the offenders never deployed to war. And the deployment history of the final third could not be ascertained.

Much of the rest of the article is comprised of criticisms of the handling of a few specific cases, and comments by experts that more needs to be done.

That is probably true, as the military has acknowledged and exerts itself to do.

I spent several hours researching studies of spousal and domestic abuse, which doesn’t make me an expert. It does appear that the incidence is higher in the military, adjusted for demographics, than among civilians. However, the incidence in the military has declined since the 1990’s, when the military stepped up its prevention, treatment and punishments, although increasing some since 2003, particularly among Reserve and Guard troops called up to serve.

It’s still a relatively small number and percentage of troops. Studies, further, don’t evince a causal connection to experiencing war, but include a cluster of other factors such as youth, separations from family, early marriages, and alcohol. There's a wide range of degrees of severity of domestic abuse, ranging from yelling to shoving to physical attack, that range not presented. There’s, as well, a wide range of psychological theories as to predispositions to domestic violence, as perpetrator or victim, that are not presented.

The NYT’s series, again, tries to create its own “statistics” and stir, while failing to present scholarly analyses and placing the NYT’s presentation in informative context.

It is interesting, for example, that the incidence of domestic abuse is higher among civilian homosexual couples, and that the incidence of female on male abuse is underreported due to several factors.

This doesn’t excuse the primary type of male on female abuse, but does raise the issue of its exclusion from the NYT’s lengthy piece, which would provide greater context.

It is, again, interesting that the NYT’s Part 4 of “War Torn” is seemingly downplayed in placement, and stretches to treat domestic and spousal abuse, failing to come up with a scandal that would merit the extensive amount of ink devoted to it.

What seems clear is that the military appears to have devoted comparably far more energies to dealing with the problems than has civilian life, which might have provided the New York Times with a truly interesting article, rather than such an incomplete one. The NYT's certainly had enough space and words to have done so, if that were its purpose.

The US tourism industry continues to be more concerned with lining its own pockets than protecting Americans’ security.

Last November, I and Tim Carney published columns in the Examiner (both are available here) about the tourism industry’s efforts to undermine US border security and at the international visitor and US taxpayer’s expense promote the profitable $1 trillion US tourism industry’s profits. Travel industry front Discover America Partnership is the forefront of this political effort, the Travel Promotion Act.

Discover America’s executives took issue with our columns, but couldn’t refute our facts.

Travel industry newsletter Travel Mole today has its since November 2006 North America Editor, David Wilkening, quoting Marriott International’s chief financial officer: “I think you probably need not just a new occupant in the White House, but you probably need some meaningful change in visa policy to get some of that lost share back.” Marriott is a leading sponsor of Discover America, as are Disney, Anheuser-Busch and American Express.

David Wilkening, otherwise a freelance travel writer, has also written glowingly of the business prospects inviting the US to end its boycott of Cuba, while not mentioning either the Cuban repression of its people or Cuba’s continuing subversive efforts throughout the Western hemisphere.

Meanwhile, back at the real world, the European Union, while bristling at US security measures, has its own EU Justice Minister proposing border security measures stronger than the US’. Predictably, advocates of illegal entry to the EU are bristling.

The Travel Promotion Act,(Senate version S.1661, House version H.R.3232) have not yet been voted upon. There’s still time for you to weigh in with your senators and congressman as to your preference.

In "Coddling Islamists: Prof Who Objected to Sharing Panel with IDF Veteran Gets $500k Grant to 'Initiate Dialogue,'" I examine the latest news about University of Delaware political scientist Muqtedar Khan, who is also a Pentagon consultant and fellow at the Brookings Institution. Khan received considerable attention in October when he objected to appearing on an academic panel with Campus Watch associate fellow Asaf Romirowsky because Romirowsky is a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Khan can now add the State Department to his list of benefactors: yesterday UD announced that he had received a $494,368 grant from State to, of all things, "initiate dialogue."

Read the whole story here.

New York’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, aspiring to the governorship once held by his father, finds a handy populist target, health insurers.

Cuomo, borrowing from an earlier New York City district federal court suit and one in New Jersey, charges that insurers underpay out-of-network claims by lowballing the reasonable-and-customary charges of doctors against which health plan members’ coinsurance (% payable by insured) is applied. The database, Ingenix, is owned by United Healthcare but shares the data of all major insurers in order to arrive at reasonable-and-customary charges for medical procedures.

The first problem is that Cuomo appears to exaggerate:

Mr. Cuomo said his office had compared the prevailing market rate for a routine doctor’s visit with the amount Ingenix had calculated as reasonable and customary. While doctors in the metropolitan New York City area typically charged $200 for an office visit, he said, Ingenix calculated the rate at only $77. Under a typical plan, the insurer would pay 8o percent of the $77, or only $62. The patient would be responsible for covering the remaining $138 balance.

UnitedHealth disputes the numbers Mr. Cuomo provided, saying Ingenix calculates the range of prices for those office visits as $125 to $300. The company said it did not know how Mr. Cuomo’s office came up with its figures. Members of Mr. Cuomo’s staff declined to describe the method. [bold added]

The second problem is that Cuomo refuses to be transparent, while accusing insurers of not being transparent:

“There is no disclosure; there’s no transparency; there’s no accountability,” said Mr. Cuomo, saying his office began investigating the matter after receiving complaints from consumers.

The third problem is that Cuomo charges as illicit the common statistical method of discarding extreme outliers in calculating reliable averages:

The company rejects charges that seem far from the norm and subjects the information to a “strong validation process,” according to a UnitedHealth spokesman, Don Nathan. The information gives insurers “a snapshot of current charges in a geographic area” that they can use to determine what is a reasonable and customary fee for a service, he said.

The fourth problem is that Cuomo disregards the cost impact of his charges. If extreme charges are included in calculating reasonable-and-customary, then the costs of insurance must rise.

Acknowledging what he called the headline risk, Doug Simpson, a Merrill Lynch analyst, predicted in a research report Wednesday that consumers would end up paying more, no matter the end result of the investigation.

“We believe to the extent that regulators wish to raise provider payments for out-of-network care,” Mr. Simpson wrote, “there will be a corresponding increase in the cost of coverage.”

The fifth problem is that Cuomo, coming from the pro-government-run healthcare camp, wouldn’t mind that at all. Cuomo asks:

Individuals generally pay higher premiums for the privilege of being able to select doctors or hospitals outside the network, Mr. Cuomo said.

“You could have paid less and be limited to the in-network doctors,” he said.

New York State’s health insurance premiums are already near $500 more a month higher than the average state for family coverage, reflecting primarily New York’s relatively expansive coverage laws and mandates.

For decades, sane people and states elsewhere in the country have marveled at New York’s excesses, and sought to avoid them. The result is a highly taxed, stagnant, aging population in New York and its one-legged economy’s reliance on Wall Street’s booms-and-busts (including bust the economy). Tort lawyers seeking class-action payoffs, and ambitious attorney generals elsewhere seeking populist platforms for their ambitions may follow Cuomo’s lead, but the rest of us will suffer.

On February 19th (9 PM), PBS’ Frontline will broadcast “Rules of Engagement: What Really Happened in Haditha.”

This is an important show to watch.

The motion hearings start tomorrow in the court martials of LCpl Tatum and SSgt Wuterich. These motions, including which evidence to allow or suppress, will heavily affect their trials. One of the motions, by the prosecution, is to suppress Major (then Captain) Dinsmore’s testimony, he being the intelligence officer of the battalion. The Frontline show does have an interview with Dinsmore. You may get more information from Frontline than from the court martials themselves.

It's also important to watch the show, and be prepared with the known facts of the matter, to intelligently understand the show.

Today, I spoke at length with several individuals with direct involvement with the program, and others with heavy involvement in the Haditha cases. I asked some pointed questions, and received what sounded like credible answers.

I will also receive a copy of the show, possibly this weekend if final edits are complete, to preview with you.

Before proceeding, at this point, you may not need a backgrounder so, if you do, see the links at bottom to prior posts about Haditha, in reverse chronological order. Also, refer to the Defend Our Marines website for most of the primary documents.

I asked a leading defender of the Haditha Marines for his expectation of the show, having been interviewed for it. He’s hopeful, and “wants a fair shake for guys trying to stay alive.” Interestingly, this retired professor, this 3-tour Army vet of Vietnam, was a participant in the Vietnam Veterans Against The War’s demonstration in D.C. in April 1971, seeking “chicks,” and not finding out ‘til after VVAW’s deeper agendas and extremist leadership.

I asked the press liaison for Frontline whether to expect a thrust that involvement in a brutal war brutalizes our men? She said not, but rather, “was there a rush to judgment?” I questioned several lines in the show’s press release, that could be taken as accepting the line of Iraqis who accuse the Marines of atrocities. She replied that these Iraqi assertions are rebutted by Marine defenders in the show. She expressed the very strong impression of the Marines’ professionalism, and one saying in light of the trials they’ve seen “I hesitate now” about taking direct action against threats and another saying it’s “important to hesitate for the greater good of the mission.” [her words]

Review the prior posts below. The oldest has a prominent conservative blogger deeply troubled by Haditha, so the “rush to judgment” was not entirely from those opposed to our involvement in Iraq. But, he was following the major media’s rush to judgment, the major media's persisting, at least until the Marines’ defense punched holes in the prosecution at the Article 32 hearings.

Still, none of the major media has come out and taken responsibility for a rush to judgment.

The respected Frontline show may yet bring about the re-examination of the major media’s willingness to believe the worst about the Marines and the U.S.

For more important background to the show:
The Frontline press release is here.
The Defend Our Marines announcement of the show is here. The writer/producer/director of the show is quoted: "Once we started to look into the story more deeply, we realized how far off the popular notion of what happened in Haditha was.”

We eagerly look forward to seeing how well Frontline manages to get viewers closer to the truth. Both the Marine defender and the show’s press liaison I interviewed independently said the Haditha Marines did what they’d been trained to do. It doesn’t appear to me that major media journalists did what they’re trained to do, unless it’s to rush to accept negative views of our combat troops.

The Haditha Juries & Truth

The Court Martials That Could Break Or Strengthen The Marine Corps

NYT’s Excuses Itself From Haditha

Haditha Is Final, Except For Justice For Murtha

Haditha Hurrahs May Be Premature

NYT’s Hasn’t Heard Of Innocent ‘Til Proven Guilty

Haditha: Ware, Sharratt, Tatum, Wuterich, Mattis

What's Next On Haditha

LtCol Chessani Recommended for Haditha Court Martial

Haditha Prosecution Judged “Incredible”

Latest Haditha Prosecution Implosion

Haditha: Tale of Three Cities (Update From Marine's Mother)

Haditha Cases Continue To Crumble

Haditha Prosecutors Didn’t Leak This

Haditha Prosecution a Political CYA and Attack on Unarmed Marines

Haditha Prosecution Acknowledges Weak Case

Will Haditha Be Another Duke For Media?

Haditha and Jamil Should Lead to Media Reform

U.S. Media May Hope Haditha Charges are Dismissed

Kline’s Non-Apology Apology to Marines

USMC Reveals Murthaducker Lie

Veteran Reporters

Military Theory Vs. Practice in Iraq

Why Have Haditha Families Fought Exhuming Victims?

‘Kinder and gentler’ warmaking may itself go on trial in the haditha matter

The “Fog” in NYT’s Haditha Investigation Story

Time's massacre

Hitchens, Haditha, and My Lai

Haditha: Now let’s see who drive-by media believe

How Innocent are the “Innocents” at Haditha?

Haditha: Who, What, When, Where, Why

Tell It To The Marines (A Soldier's Update)

Haditha Makes Abu Ghraib Look Like A Picnic

When Jack Wheeler wrote that John McCain was “turned” during POW captivity, Thomas Lipscomb and I sought to dig deeper. Lipscomb and I were both deeply involved investigating, and exposing, many of John Kerry’s lies and exaggerations in 2004, so we especially felt it responsible to see if there was any validity to Wheeler’s charge.

Wheeler did not respond either privately or publicly with any to demands for evidence. This stands in stark contrast to the voluminous well-qualified evidence produced by the Swiftees. Indeed, all indications evident to McCain’s fellow POW’s, many of whom are not his political allies, is that Wheeler’s charge is hollow. (See, for example, here and here.)

Lipscomb and I have a deeper and more important agenda here than Wheeler. As Lipscomb lays out below, there’s a devolution among candidates and their surrogates in the 2008 campaign, and seeming tolerance for it by major media and many bloggers, that is both disgusting and dangerous.

Selecting a president is not a slop-slinging match, unless one wants a pig in a poke.

One-sided presentation of candidates is advocacy definition. Intemperate presentation is self-defining. Factless screeds, especially when touting significant accusations, are self-defeating and reduce the candidate, reporter, or blogger’s further serious consideration by others.

SWIFT BOATING AND SHOWBOATING

By Thomas Lipscomb

The 2008 election campaign is already setting new records for pure nastiness, and we haven’t even gotten out of the primaries. Democratic candidates are alluding to the use of the dread “Swiftboating tactics” which to them mean baseless charges alleging such vile conduct that even refutation fails to undo the harm done by simply raising the allegations.

They should be so lucky. As Vanity Fair's acerbic columnist Michael Wolff said in the 3-minute 2-second trailer to a Kerry-sponsored (and Kerry-censored) documentary campaign film by respected producer Steve Rosenbaum, Inside the Bubble, the real problem with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claims was--- they were "largely true."

On Memorial Day 2006 John Kerry used a starry-eyed New York Times reporter, Kate Zernike, to carry a message. He had delayed too long and finally decided to refute those Swiftboat “lies” and had an organization doing that called “The Patriot Project.” We never heard a single refutation nor anything more about the “Patriot Project”, as Kerry’s attempt at a political comeback disappeared with all the impact of a flopped soufflé.

In the Fall of 2007 Kerry eagerly accepted a challenge by billionaire Boone Pickens. Pickens bet Kerry a million dollars that he couldn’t disprove a single one of the “lies” those evil Swifties had charged him with. Kerry was all raring to go to do just that… until he disappeared again. Try to figure out what happened to that bet.

So in spite of mainstream media laziness and derision, Kerry’s charges and those of his “Kerry critters,” no one has disproved any of the charges the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth made and they have been standing behind them for almost four years. If they are “baseless,” no one has shown them to be. They certainly alleged “vile conduct” and yet no suit has been filed nor statement issued that was material in refutation.

If any individual or group has direct intimate knowledge of flagrant misconduct directly relevant to the candidacy for office of anyone and does not come forward, they might correctly be accused of failing in their duty as a citizen or citizens. One certainly can’t fault the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for that.

What has been most upsetting about the present 2008 campaign has been the kind of charges that have come forward in both parties and the kind of “evidence” that is presented in support of them. It is time to open a “hall of shame” to at least publicly embarrass those who are engaging in them. As of now there seems to be no penalty from the press or public for any claims about anything made by anyone.

An online blogmag rump of what was once a pretty good magazine named INSIGHT published charges that Barack Obama had been hiding his madrassa Islamic education while he was growing up in Indonesia as a child. In an age of Al Qaeda with thousands of US troops engaged with terrorists educated in madrassas, this was as calculated a “killshot” as any in politics. Speculation, but no final proof I am aware of, held that the most likely author of this kind of dirt was the Hillary Clinton campaign. The question why anyone should be surprised that a grade school kid might want to minimally explore his father’s religious heritage didn’t seem to occur to anyone at the time. Nor did anyone seem to notice Obama’s long term membership in a rather spirited black Church of Christ in his neighborhood - a death sentence under Sharia law for a “converted Muslim.” When they finally did the story died.

However, Hillary’s finger prints were all over other allegations coming from her campaign’s fascination with Obama’s childhood. As her www.HillaryClinton.com site had it last December 2: “In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled “I want to be a president” and in case that wasn’t terrifying enough, “In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled “ I want to become president.”

I don’t know which is scarier. Baby Obama’s single mindedness or the fact that he was writing essays in kindergarten when most of us were still trying to get teacher to let us play the triangle in rhythm band. But for sheer nastiness, Hillary broke her own mold as she clearly was ready to follow Obama back to the womb if she could find a way to destroy his challenge to her “inevitable” right of succession.

A week ago another incident happened which deeply saddened me. I have respected Dr. Jack Wheeler, the author of this report for many years and simply couldn’t understand his action in making public such a speciously based account. I still can’t. This time it is a detailed attack on John McCain’s conduct as a prisoner of war. Its author alleged that McCain had collaborated extensively with his Communist captors. He had even been given a private apartment while supposedly being held in solitary confinement and the enjoyment of two prostitutes. The source for this was alleged to be a "T", son of a Russian interrogator, “T” having the duty of doing the translation of the McCain transcripts for the Russians who allegedly controlled the Hanoi Hilton interrogations.

The author claimed that his source for this information was “a small group of GOP Senators and Congressmen” who had talked to “T” and were concerned as he was that Hillary would use this information at a key moment to destroy the McCain candidacy and glide into the White House in a landslide. Apparently Soviet military intelligence and the CIA had “swapped some records” after the demise of the Soviet Union and now the CIA had all the prisoner interrogation logs “T” had prepared, and others. According to the author, his personal knowledge from a reasonable source (named this time), old CIA hand Cord Meyer, established that Meyer had recruited Bill Clinton as a CIA asset while he had been at Oxford. So it would be easy for Hillary and Bill to use the old boy net and get McCain’s transcripts, or deliver them to Obama if he became the Democratic candidate. [ed: links above in Kesler’s intro.]

Cord Meyer, unfortunately, is dead. I don’t know why, but I believe Jack about his Cord Meyer quote. My problem is I can’t begin to credit a tale like this based upon “a small group of GOP Senators and Congressmen” whom Wheeler refuses to identify. And what makes it even harder to believe is that every responding POW who was in the Hanoi Hilton, some actually in physical confinement with McCain for long periods of time, discredits Wheeler's story. And there have now been several virulent denunciations of it by respected POWs, many of whom are critical of McCain.

It is almost the obverse of the Swift Boat experience. No one who served with Kerry or served as his superior officer agreed with the totality of his recitation of his record. In the case of Wheeler’s charges against McCain, no one who was in the Hanoi Hilton with McCain confirms any part of Wheeler’s account as passed on from that “small group of GOP Senators and Congressmen.”

The danger to any insider is that he starts showboating: using his confidence in the validity of his inside sources to shortcut the elements of proof without which any story becomes irresponsible in the extreme, and a story like this an inexcusably vicious fantasy claiming to be fact until proven otherwise.

This is what the 2008 campaign is now come to. At a time when the internet promised more transparency and review it also makes it possible to launch charges that wouldn’t pass the worst editor in the smallest newsroom in the most understaffed paper in the country. The least bloggers can do while justly attacking the many lousy stories from mainstream media is maintain the kind of minimal standards they would expect of the MSM themselves.

Jack Wheeler is a patriotic American and I am sure he thinks he is doing this for the most laudable reasons.

But it is even simpler than that. “No sources, no evidence, no story.”

If we can’t observe that minimal discipline, the purest hearts in the world won’t save us, or the country we claim to care so much about.

Want to really do something about Congress? Then stop griping and get behind these dozen veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have banded together in Iraq Veterans For Congress.

Their mission:

Voters want to restore leadership and honor back to Washington. Who better to accomplish that mission than our generation of warriors?

Indeed, picture these men as your representatives in Washington, and picture them confronting wobbly weasles.

As the campaign progresses, others may join them.

Go to the links of their individual sites and read what makes a congressman who you can be proud of. Once you’ve read their bios, how can you resist contributing.

Samples:

LTC Allen West has lived his life in service to America. In 2004, when it was time to retire from more than twenty years of service in the US Army, Col. West brought his wife and two young daughters to Broward County, Florida, where he taught high school for a year. Col. West then returned to Afghanistan as an advisor to the Afghan army, an assignment that he finishes in November 2007.

Another:

From Iraq and Afghanistan, to Pakistan, China, the Republic of Korea and Colombia, and even serving in Saudi Arabia on September 11th, 2001, I have actually been to the places that too many in Washington seem only able to discuss in partisan political terms.

Another:

Marine Captain Duncan D. Hunter recently returned from serving his country in Afghanistan. This was his third tour of duty since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Another:

During his first tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 Scott was both a tank and scout platoon leader in the 7 th Cavalry Regiment of the First Cavalry Division. He was first attached to a special forces detachment where he ran multiple missions into the most dangerous portions of Iraq in pursuit of high value targets such as Abu Musab al-Zarkawi. Mid way through his tour he was then assigned as a scout platoon leader where he was responsible for patrolling Iraq 's Highway 8, also known as Baghdad 's Airport Highway , as well as a large segment of Baghdad 's southern district of West Rashid.
Prior to his most recent deployment in 2006, he was selected as the speechwriter for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq Commander, Lieutenant General Ray Odierno. As speechwriter, Scott took part in high level strategic planning and helped to focus Lieutenant General Odierno's message within the military community as well as to the international press helping to turn around the rising negative perception of the War in Iraq . For those tireless efforts, Scott was awarded the Bronze Star.

And they didn’t stop giving after they returned to the US:

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Kieran – remembering the nation’s support for New York after 9/11 – drove with two Marine buddies to New Orleans with supplies and joined search & rescue teams. For Kieran, it was simply another chance to serve his country in a time of need. Kieran and the other two Marines were awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.

They haven’t stopped giving to the U.S. they love and defend. It’s time for you to start giving to them the financial support they need to stand for us again.

Michelle Malkin, as common, has the roundup about the furor created by the Berkeley city council siding against Marine recruiters, and the planned demonstration on February 12 to protest this travesty.

A generation of such public insults to America’s most sacred symbols has inured most Americans to such absurdities.

It wasn’t always so. And, consequently, at least in part, ordinary Americans altered the course of history. Let’s revisit 1967.

Parade Poster for “Support Our Men In Vietnam Parade”, May 13, 1967

In 1967, I worked with Charlie Wiley in his organization of the longest parade in New York City since World War II, the Support Our Men in Vietnam Parade held May 13. The New York Daily News' WPIX-TV live televised the whole day of contingents from all over the tri-state area marching down 5th Avenue. The parade caused quite a stir at the time, for example when everyone in America watched the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights and he announced his support. I checked online, and at the archives of the Daily News and the New York Times, finding only a visual clip reference and nothing else from that pre-Internet time. (There may be more, but I don't have Lexus-Nexis to search further into the cyberbowls of memory.) Yet, the various anti-Vietnam War marches of the era are immortalized in paeans from their participants and wannabes…

Coincidentally, 4-years after the May 13, 1967 Support Our Men in Vietnam Parade, on May 13, 1971, I had an op-ed in the New York Times (needs Lexus-Nexis to locate a copy) contradicting John Kerry and few friends' mass media spectacle of lies and slanders of my fellow Vietnam veterans. This launched the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace, in which John O'Neill joined up to expose Kerry, a job we finished in 2004.

You won’t recognize any of the names on this roster of the participants who organized the 1967 parade.

At Google, you’ll only find one source of the 1967 TV footage (here), and except for me no writings about this event from this pre-Internet era.

For those old enough to remember: Where were you in 1967? For those now: Where will you be February 12, 2008?