Free Frank Warner

‘A Man for All Seasons’ was a surprise

“A Man for All Seasons” was on one of the all-movie networks yesterday. It reminded me what an unexpected break that movie was from the trends in 1966.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, one Hollywood motion picture after another argued for removing the stigma against divorce. (Previously, movie scripts were thoroughly unkind to anyone who divorced.)

So it was daring that, in the year Catholics finally were allowed to eat meat on Fridays, Columbia Pictures released a film about man who literally lost his head in the defense of an ancient principle, that divorce was intolerable.

Virtue of integrity. Of course, “A Man for All Seasons” is about much more than opposing divorce. It is about following your conscience, and you needn’t be a papist to admire such integrity.

Hollywood ought to surprise us more often with provocative messages delivered against the grain.

Frank Warner

Give Wright the hook

Does anyone really think that if the Rev. Jeremiah Wright holds paranoid views about the U.S. government, Sen. Barack Obama also must hold them?

I doubt anyone believes this, and yet every time this nutcase minister burps, Obama is called on to denounce the emissions.

It’s time Obama stopped responding to Wright, who has nothing helpful to say about anything. Advice to Obama: Just refer the press to the “statement of April 29th,” and ask for questions about planet Earth.

Frank Warner

In Indiana, U.S. Supreme Court scores big for one voter, one vote

The U.S. Supreme Court took a good first step yesterday in its decision to uphold Indiana’s requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls.

I don’t like the idea of having to carry identification, but I like less the idea that elections are decided by people who shouldn’t be voting (dead people, for example), or by people voting more than once.

What the Supreme Court wasn’t asked to look into in the Indiana case is absentee balloting, and more generally, voting by mail. These are two increasingly used voting methods that threaten the validity and integrity of elections.

The un-secret ballot. Ideally, voters should have no one looking over their shoulder as they cast their ballots. Between making your decision and casting your vote, there should be no chance that another person can say, “Hey, I’ll give you $5 if you vote for Joe Blow” or “Hey, I’ll kill you if you vote for Joe Blow.” Unfortunately, voting by mail allows this. That’s why the secret ballot in an election booth is so important.

On the photo ID question, some worried that many poor and older people don’t have photo driver’s licenses. Well, we can get photo IDs for them. Indiana’s law provided for that.

Democrats said the photo ID voting law would hurt them at the polls, either because an unusually large portion of Democrats don’t drive or because Democrats depend on illegal voters. And yet, a year after photo ID passed in 2005, Indiana Democrats won three new congressional seats.

No voters, no votes. It seems odd and absurd that the same people who spent months with magnifying glasses studying the 2000 Florida ballots for dents and hanging chads could be totally uninterested in whether the people who vote, vote legally.

Now let’s ban voting by mail, and let’s talk about restricting absentee ballots to the most exceptional circumstances, with safeguards.

Every voter’s vote should count as much as ever other voter’s. Let’s do all we can to protect this essential principle of democracy.

Frank Warner

Again, AP avoids the truth on how well Iraq museum was protected

Yesterday, the Associated Press ran a story under the headline, “Baghdad museum receives artifacts stolen from Iraq.” Again, the AP failed to point out that all the initial news reports on the museum being “emptied” were hideously incorrect.

Worse, the story hints that those widely reported wrong stories were right. The truth is, 95 percent of artifacts in the Iraq National Museum never left the museum buildings. And only 1 percent was “looted” after U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad.

Here’s how the AP reporters Bushra Juhi and Sameer N. Yacoub covered this newest report on Iraq museum artifacts:

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s National Museum on Sunday welcomed the return of more than 700 antiquities stolen during the chaos that followed the U.S.-led invasion five years ago.

Golden necklaces, daggers, clay statues, pots and other artifacts were displayed briefly during a ceremony attended by Syrian and Iraqi officials. Syrian authorities seized the items from traffickers over the years and handed custody last week to an Iraqi delegation in Damascus….

Looting broke out in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities following Saddam's ouster in April 2003. The museums were ransacked and thousands of items taken, dealing a harsh blow to collections that chronicled some 7,000 years of civilization in Mesopotamia including the ancient Babylonians, Sumerians and Assyrians….

The U.S. military was intensely criticized for not protecting the National Museum’s treasure of ancient relics and art in the weeks after Baghdad’s capture, when looters roamed the city looking for anything of value.

Thieves smashed or pried open row upon row of glass cases and pilfered — or just destroyed — their contents.

Sins of omission. Note what the AP leaves out of that story. How many items were in the Iraq museum to start with? 501,000. How many were stolen in April 2003? 15,000. How many were stolen before U.S. troops arrived? 10,000. Leaving how many “looted”? 5,000.

And what were most of those 5,000 missing pieces? Beads, amulets and tiny imprinting seals.

Yes, “the U.S. military was intensely criticized for not protecting the National Museum’s treasure of ancient relics and art.” The military was intensely criticized unfairly and without justification.

In April 2003, American Soldiers and Marines removed a totalitarian dictatorship from Baghdad, avoided Saddam’s snipers inside the Iraq museum and managed to protect 99 percent of the museum’s antiquities.

Report that for once.

Frank Warner

Why aren’t Obama and Clinton demanding instant action to stop global warming?

If Democrats believe global warming is a threat to peace, why don’t they call immediately for the construction of nuclear power plants?

And more curiously, if they believe life on Earth is threatened soon by CO2-releated global warming, why are the Democratic candidates for president not even mentioning a need for action?

Is it possible Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton saw Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” and just didn’t believe it? Was all that hype over science, or was it part of that wild and whacky, fiction-based Democratic doomsday religion?

Interesting, not scary. Call me skeptical, but the words of Obama and Clinton are the words of leaders who see global warming as an interesting phenomenon, but not as a frightening trend.

Frank Warner

New York Times exposes the ‘secret’ conspiracy to win the Iraq war

I love how The New York Times spun the use of military analysts on television news into a “secret Pentagon program” to build support for winning the Iraq war.

News agencies interview military analysts because they want their expertise. The biases of those analysts are no secret. And if their predictions and analysis are proven wrong, both the news agencies and those analysts look bad. So there’s little incentive to spin.

The greater incentive to twist the news is among those who want to lose a war against fascists and fanatics. That surrender movement, led by The New York Times, is no secret either.

Frank Warner

Humans almost didn't make it

About 70,000 years ago, we were down to 2,000 humans, and they were struggling with a deadly drought. Prehistory almost preempted history.

Frank Warner

Hillary picked up 11 delegates, remains 128 behind

That's what Pennsylvania meant.

After the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama has at least 1,719 delegates and Hillary Clinton has at least 1,591 delegates. Seven of Pennsylvania’s 158 delegates still hadn’t been decided.

Obama won at least 70 delegates in Pennsylvania, while Clinton won at least 81. (Pennsylvania also will send 29 unelected, uncommitted "superdelegates" to the Democratic National Convention.)

That leaves Clinton 121 to 128 delegates behind Obama.

Frank Warner

No Iraq war in Pennsylvania primary ads

I’ve seen and heard lots of political advertisements by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the last few weeks here in Pennsylvania, and I’ve yet to hear one that says anything about the Iraq war.

Today, Pennsylvania primary day, we see a shot of bin Laden, but hear not a peep on Iraq.

This is a good development. It suggests that, when the general election campaign comes along, Clinton or Obama will take a more reasonably supportive approach to Iraq.

Focus on economy. Clinton and Obama’s prepared ads talk about rising oil prices, the faltering economy, health care and the character flaws of their opponents, but unless I’ve missed a couple commercials, they ignore the war.

Of course, Iraq was raised at the Philadelphia debate in front of a hard-core defeatist crowd, and each candidate candidate talked vaguely about withdrawing U.S. troops in an orderly way faster than the other candidate would. At Democratic rallies, they also declare the war "unwise."

But it’s the specifics on withdrawing troops in an “orderly way” that will make the difference between consolidating democracy’s victory in Iraq and tossing that nation back to fascism, genocide and bigger wars.

Knowing better. These campaign ads don’t talk about withdrawing quickly or fixed surrender timetables. They don’t talk about the war.

I have the feeling the silence is because both Clinton and Obama know Iraq must be saved as a free country, but it would be primary season suicide to tell that to Democrats.

Frank Warner

Free people are happier

Of course free people are happier than unfree people. And the unfreer people are, the less likely they are to be asked whether they're happy.

Does anyone doubt South Koreans are happier than North Koreans?

Frank Warner

Michael Moore endorses Barack Obama

When a fascist propagandist endorses the candidate I favor, yes, I have second thoughts.

Frank Warner

Michael Yon: What an Iraq victory will mean

Michael Yon in “Moment of Truth in Iraq”:

“We can win this war. And if we do it will be a victory of the same magnitude as the fall of the Soviet Union. It will not be a victory for the Republican Party. It will not be a victory for America and Great Britain and others ‘against’ Iraq. It will be a victory for freedom and justice. It will be a victory for Iraqis and for the world, and only then will it be a victory for us.”

I’m surprised this isn’t explained more often. If Iraq ends up with a secure democracy, its liberation will have catapulted the Middle East 100 years forward, into the light of freedom and out of centuries of darkness and despair. A free Iraq will drop the first roots of a real peace.

For perhaps another 50 years, the fascists and fanatics, and their Western accomplices, will continue the opposition to a free Middle East, and they may even deliver some staggering setbacks. But once the sweet breezes of freedom slip into Arab and Persian lands, the remaining oppressed will make increasingly loud calls for the liberty that is their right. When every Middle Eastern government finally is free, the region will have its lasting peace.

And remember, Michael Yon saw it coming.

Frank Warner

Condoleezza Rice: Sadr is No. 1 coward

Mookie al-Sadr is threatening “open war” on Iraq’s democratic forces, and he looks like a goofball in the act. Will he ever pick up a gun to fight for a Sadr dictatorship? No. Will he even show his face? No.

With that in mind, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Sadr a coward and a clown today. As the Associated Press reports:

“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go to their deaths and he’s in Iran.”

And by the way, that “self-imposed cease-fire” wasn’t self-imposed. It was imposed last year by the “surge” in U.S. forces, which forced Sadr’s Mahdi “Army” to shut down and compelled Sadr to hide behind Ahmadinejad’s skirts.

What a maroon!

Frank Warner

Rudyard Kipling guarded against the weeds of ignorance

Take a look at Roger Kimball’s essay on Rudyard Kipling. It puts into perspective Kipling’s call on the West to accept “the white man’s burden” and guide the uncivilized masses out of oppression and ignorance.

Remember that it was Kipling’s poem of that name that called on the United States to steer the Philippines to freedom and enlightenment after the Spanish-American War. Recall, too, that in accepting that burden, America found itself with its first Iraq war. Subduing that anti-democratic insurgency produced the first elected parliament in all of Asia, and kept the Philippines out of the hands of the land-hungry Japanese.

The Philippines project also produced anti-American resentment over what seemed to some as meddling, rather than liberating. But Kipling predicted that sentiment. Before the U.S. embraced the Philippines, he wrote:

Take up the White Man’s burden—
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard—.

It sure sounds like Iraq.

Dedication to civilization. Kipling was called an imperialist and racist for his dedication to progress, but as Kimball points out convincingly, Kipling was not talking about the “white man” as an empire or a race, but as civilized mankind of all colors. If Kipling felt hostility toward any ethnic group, it was the “huns.”

Says Kimball:

The key word is “civilization.” Kipling was above all the laureate not of Empire, but of civilization, especially civilization under siege. Henry James once sniffed that there was only one strain absent in Kipling: that of “the civilized man.” It’s a frequent refrain. But in a deeper sense, Kipling was about almost nothing else—not the civilization of elegant drawing rooms, but something more primeval and without which those drawing rooms would soon be smashed and occupied by weeds.

Guarded and bettered. Where people have governments without dictators, town halls without intimidators and libraries without censors, they have Kipling to thank. Where no one takes up the burden of freedom, the schools grow weeds.

Frank Warner

Democrats could do with a little humor

The most disturbing aspect of this week’s Democratic presidential debate wasn’t the questions, though I did wonder why Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton weren’t asked to explain their accusations that John McCain wants “a 100-year war.”

What disturbed me most was the lack of humor in Obama and Clinton’s answers. Leaders can’t be forever defensive, forever solemn. Occasionally, they have to act human, put the clash of ideas into perspective, step back and reveal they’re not all cold calculation.

Obama has shown himself capable of a wit on his feet; Clinton, much less so. But three days ago, both were so serious and nasty they looked like children trying to imitate bad adults.

Lighten up, or you defeat yourselves.

Frank Warner

The rest of the ‘Iraq war is a debacle’ story

When I heard this “Pentagon study declares Iraq war a major debacle” story on the BBC last night, I wondered if someone might be leaving something out.

The story, by Miami Herald “reporters” Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott, says:

WASHINGTON -- The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations. It was published by the university’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center.

‘MAJOR DEBACLE’

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” says the report’s opening line.

You can see how the BBC might be attracted to such a gloomy report from “the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.” But is it really the Pentagon’s study? Does the National Defense University say victory is in doubt?

‘Can’t win’? But first, there’s more:

The addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq last year has improved security, but not enough to ensure that the country emerges as a stable democracy, the report said….

“For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a ‘must win,’ but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a ‘can’t win.’”

The report lays much of the blame for what went wrong in Iraq after the initial U.S. victory at the feet of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. It says that in November 2001, before the war in Afghanistan was over, President Bush asked Rumsfeld “to begin planning in secret for potential military operations against Iraq.” …

The report also singles out the Bush administration's national security apparatus and implicitly President Bush and both of his national security advisors, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, saying that “senior national security officials exhibited in many instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect.”

Not a Pentagon study. Spotting some red flags, the Small Wars Journal got in touch with Joseph Collins, author of the “Pentagon study,” and asked if the study really was the Pentagon’s or the Defense University’s, and if the “news story” was an accurate summary of his report.

Collins said:

The Miami Herald story (“Pentagon Study: War is a ‘Debacle’”) distorts the nature of and intent of my personal research project. It was not an NDU study, nor was it a Pentagon study. Indeed, the implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events. Such is not the case. It was mainly about the period 2002-04. The story also hypes a number of paragraphs, many of which are quoted out of context. The study does not “lay much of the blame” on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he “bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” It does not single out “Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley” for criticism.

‘Choosing War.’ So it isn’t a “Pentagon study.” It isn’t the official report of the National Defense University. It is one researcher’s “personal research project.” The title, “Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath,” should have been a tip-off that it was a personal evaluation. (Who wanted to “choose war”?) The author uses strong and sometimes poorly chosen words to describe how the liberation of Iraq might have been better prepared, but he’s not blaming Rumsfeld et al the way the Miami Herald writers or the BBC hoped he would.

And a minor point: The Small Wars Journal notes that, while the Miami Herald says Collins’ report was published by the NDU’s “National Institute for Strategic Studies,” it really was published by the Institute for National Strategic Studies.

It took two reporters to get all that wrong.

The big surprise. I just looked at the report, and the big surprise: Most of the stuff quoted by The Miami Herald is in the report’s introduction, which is not a summary of Collins’ findings, but his attempt to explain why he studied how America chose to invade Iraq.

As Collins said, his research focused on what happened in 2002-04, and how early decision-making on the Iraq invasion might have been improved. The introduction to his report was merely to argue the war is unquestionably a major undertaking – so big its initial decisions ought to be analyzed fully.

Collins also says in his report that Saddam Hussein appeared to be waiting out the U.S.-enforced “no-fly zone” restrictions and other sanctions that followed Saddam’s failed 1990 annexation of Kuwait, his continued deadly repression and his refusal to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors.

“From 1991 to 2003, Saddam continued to rule, putting down sporadic revolts, and turning the Iraqi state into a kleptocracy, a money-making enterprise for himself and his cronies....

“In 2002 alone, Iraq attacked coalition aircraft on 500 occasions….

“Over the years, Saddam found a way to profit from the sanctions, stockpiling cash and building palaces as his people withered…. As the 20th century came to an end, however, Saddam’s propagandists had convinced many in the West that the U.N.-approved sanctions were hurting the people and especially the children of Iraq. The sanctions regime was on thin ice. …

“Saddam’s relationship with terrorists was always a concern. Years later, analysts would argue about whether Saddam had an operational relationship with al Qaeda, but in truth, his relationships with many terrorist groups were active and never in doubt. …

“Even the Clinton administration -- after congressional pressure -- had declared that regime change in Iraq was U.S. policy. …

“After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, the vast majority of Bush administration officials did not believe that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11, but they saw new reason to be concerned with Saddam and his WMD programs. …

“The president [Bush] said in his introduction to the 2002 National Security Strategy that: ‘The gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology.’”

Those observations are left out of the Miami Herald story.

Ignore Saddam’s war? Collins makes the case that the invasion, occupation and stabilization of Iraq could have been done better. However, the fatal flaw to his analysis is his theme that the liberation of Iraq is a “war of choice.”

We fought back against Saddam’s war of aggression in 1991. Saddam agreed to cease-fire terms. He violated those terms, including a couple of particularly important promises, made as a guilty party on probation, to end repression against the Iraqi people and to prove he was not trying to make chemical and nuclear weapons again. Saddam had never stopped the war against the U.S.-led coalition. He had never stopped the war against his own people.

There was no choice but to remove Saddam. If the world is to have a chance at a lasting peace, there is no choice but to make certain, as we did after World War II, that internationally aggressive totalitarianism is replaced by democracy.

Frank Warner

Robert Reich endorses Barack Obama

Earlier this year, former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich criticized Democrats for taking campaign contributions from hedge-fund managers, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that Reich would endorse Barack Obama for president.

Reich writes:

Although Hillary Clinton has offered solid and sensible policy proposals, Obama’s strike me as even more so. His plans for reforming Social Security and health care have a better chance of succeeding. His approaches to the housing crisis and the failures of our financial markets are sounder than hers. His ideas for improving our public schools and confronting the problems of poverty and inequality are more coherent and compelling. ...

He also presents the best chance of creating a new politics in which citizens become active participants rather than cynical spectators. He has energized many who had given up on politics.

The call for change. Reich, who studied at Oxford University with Bill Clinton, obviously wants something new, something better than Hillary Clinton can offer.

Frank Warner

South Vietnam flags fly for a free Vietnam

South Vietnamese who were chased to America when North Vietnam’s Communists spread their repression in 1975 are protesting now for China to leave Vietnam’s territory alone.

The Vietnamese-Americans have seen the protests favoring Tibet’s freedom and independence. They want the world to know that China’s dictatorship, which backed North Vietnam’s aggression in the 1960s and 1970s, also has turned on its fellow Communists in Vietnam by claiming Vietnam’s Paracel and Spratly islands to be Chinese islands.

The Vietnamese-Americans last week rallied in large numbers in San Francisco. Thousands of flags of South Vietnam flew at the demonstration. The rally saw not one flag of Communist Vietnam, because that flag stands for the same oppression that China’s Communists represent.

Frank Warner

The art of abortion

I’d risk my life to defend anyone’s freedom of expression, but for some I’d take fewer risks. The Washington Post reports on a Yale University student whose “art project” claimed to document her own self-induced abortions:

In a statement yesterday, Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said: “Ms. Shvarts . . . stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.”

Ann Althouse:

Ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body... So that’s what passes as insight at Yale these days? If I was going to get livid and horrified about something it would be that a great university sucks so many young women into the into the intellectual graveyard of Women’s Studies. Think what these women could be studying instead of this endlessly recycled drivel. If you care about women’s bodies, study science and help us with the limitations of the body. But to imagine you are helping us by restating meager platitudes is just very sad.

Sure it was art, if art is laziness draped in infamy.

Frank Warner

Obama and Clinton finally are asked to debate Social Security

I can’t wait to see the next “Saturday Night Live” sketch on the press interviewing Barack Obama:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Obama, do you call Pennsylvanians bitter, gun-hugging, Bible-thumping bigots because they don’t like you, or do Pennsylvanians not like you because you call them bitter, gun-hugging, Bible-thumping bigots?

OBAMA: What?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Never mind. Senator Clinton, you are so brilliant, truthful and experienced, why do you seek only the presidency?

Devilish details. Jokes aside on last night's Obama-Clinton match-up in Philadelphia, I was impressed with the Social Security part of the debate. It finally forced the candidates to provide a little more detail about saving Social Security.

Of course, Hillary Clinton repeated her non-position, which is “Let’s create another Social Security commission so we can ignore its findings again.” She has said there’s no crisis in Social Security (ignoring the fact that Social Security has no cash savings and, in just nine years, it will be required to pay retirees more money than active workers pay in). She also has proposed partial privatization (though she wouldn’t call it that) of the federal retirement program by creating a new 401(k) private account for workers.

Meanwhile, on his end of the debate, Obama offered the clearer, more honest, more courageous approach. Raise the Social Security tax, particularly on upper income taxpayers. In other words, he would do something.

But senator, that’s a tax, ABC-TV moderator Charlie Gibson prodded. That’s going to raise taxes, he said.

“But the point is, we’re going to have to capture some revenue in order to stabilize the Social Security system,” Obama said. “You can’t -- you can’t get something for nothing. And if we care about Social Security, which I do, and if we are firm in our commitment to make sure that it’s going to be there for the next generation, and not just for our generation, then we have an obligation to figure out how to stabilize the system.

“And I think we should be honest in presenting our ideas in terms of how we’re going to do that and not just say that we’re going to form a commission and try to solve the problem some other way.”

“You can’t get something for nothing.”

Exactly.

Frank Warner

See also: Hillary Clinton proposes new 401(k) retirement accounts. Isn’t this privatizing Social Security?

See Also: Social Security: A reminder of the other ‘Groundhog Day.’

Pope Benedict XVI: Freedom is a gift

In his visit to the White House today, Pope Benedict XVI had some interesting words to say about freedom. The words are remarkable, particularly because few popes have ever discussed political freedom so directly.

Benedict seemed to elaborate on President Bush’s oft-repeated statement that freedom is not America’s gift to the world, but God’s gift to every human.

The pope said:

From the dawn of the Republic, America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation's founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature's God.

The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles, and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In that process, which forged the soul of the nation, religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement. In our time, too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideas and aspirations.

In the next few days, I look forward to meeting not only with America's Catholic community, but with other Christian communities and representatives of the many religious traditions present in this country. Historically, not only Catholics, but all believers have found here the freedom to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, while at the same time being accepted as part of a commonwealth in which each individual group can make its voice heard.

As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more human and free society.

Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience -- almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good, and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one's deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate.

In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good. Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in Eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows time and again that "in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation," and a democracy without values can lose its very soul. Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent "indispensable supports" of political prosperity.

The Church, for her part, wishes to contribute to building a world ever more worthy of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God. She is convinced that faith sheds new light on all things, and that the Gospel reveals the noble vocation and sublime destiny of every man and woman. Faith also gives us the strength to respond to our high calling and to hope that inspires us to work for an ever more just and fraternal society. Democracy can only flourish, as your founding fathers realized, when political leaders and those whom they represent are guided by truth and bring the wisdom born of firm moral principle to decisions affecting the life and future of the nation.

For well over a century, the United States of America has played an important role in the international community. On Friday, God willing, I will have the honor of addressing the United Nations organization, where I hope to encourage the efforts underway to make that institution an ever more effective voice for the legitimate aspirations of all the world’s peoples.

On this, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the need for global solidarity is as urgent as ever, if all people are to live in a way worthy of their dignity -- as brothers and sisters dwelling in the same house and around that table which God's bounty has set for all his children. America has traditionally shown herself generous in meeting immediate human needs, fostering development and offering relief to the victims of natural catastrophes. I am confident that this concern for the greater human family will continue to find expression in support for the patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts and promote progress. In this way, coming generations will be able to live in a world where truth, freedom and justice can flourish -- a world where the God-given dignity and the rights of every man, women and child are cherished, protected and effectively advanced.

Mr. President, dear friends, as I begin my visit to the United States, I express once more my gratitude for your invitation, my joy to be in your midst, and my fervent prayers that Almighty God will confirm this nation and its people in the ways of justice, prosperity and peace. God bless America.

Universal Declaration. It’s noteworthy, too, that Pope Benedict reminded the world of the United Nation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free elections, free speech and freedom of the press, not just in Europe and the United States, but in every nation on Earth.

The pope also mentioned his hope that conflicts can be resolved by patient international diplomacy. We all share that hope. He and we also know from history that hundreds of millions of humans have lived whole lifetimes without freedom -- and tens of millions have died far too young -- simply because diplomats have made careers of patiently sugarcoating the cruelty of tyrants.

Frank Warner

Obama, it's a small-minded world

Barack Obama certainly did his primary campaign or his possible general election campaign no good a week ago when he equated small towns with small minds.

I wonder if it's possible the Republicans represent the rich, but the Democrats represent the elites. I wonder what the difference might be. And then, who's left to represent most Americans?

Maybe Obama will take a moment to reflect.

Frank Warner

On vacation

I'm on vacation this week, but I probably will stop in a few times.

I notice that Hillary Clinton suddenly is back up to a commanding double-digit lead over Obama in Pennsylvania. Both have run some effective television commercials, but that is a dramatic reversal of the trend.

Frank Warner

Lieberman sums up the truth on Iraq

Austin Bay:

[W]e all know why the complex chart gets ignored and successes are glasses half-empty: A presidential election campaign is on, and the Democratic Party has bet its soul on defeat.

  “Hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, but most of all speak of no progress in Iraq.” Thus Sen. Joe Lieberman, a member of the Armed Services Committee, deftly summed the last two years of Democratic Party posturing as well as the Democrats’ talking points in the latest hearings.

Mr. Lieberman’s maverick pal, Sen. and Republican presidential nominee John McCain, spoke more bluntly, “Congress should not choose to lose in Iraq, but we should choose to succeed.”

I like Barack Obama, but I want someone in the press to ask him and Hillary Clinton why they say we can win in Afghanistan, but never speak of victory in Iraq. There are 25 million people in each country. Don’t all 50 million deserve to be free?

Frank Warner

Ayatollah Sistani tells Sadr to disarm the Mahdi militia

I’ve said before that the Grand Ayatolla Ali Sistani is the sectarian Benjamin Franklin of Iraq. He is Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, and yet he understands better than most laymen the laws of man and the power of freedom.

In 2005, he told Iraqis to go out and vote, in spite of the death threats against them. Now he is telling Moktada al-Sadr to cut out his remote-controlled anti-democratic thuggery and disarm the illegal Mahdi militia.

Jalal el Din al Saghier, Sistani’s spokesman, said this about Sadr’s Mahdi militia:

“Sistani has a clear opinion in this regard; the law is the only authority in the country. Sistani asked the Mahdi army to give in weapons to the government.”

Dust-off time. Few Iraqis have stepped forward for democracy as boldly as Ayatollah Sistani. This is the time for more Iraqis to follow Sistani’s lead and leave Sadr in the Iranian dust.

Frank Warner

Andrew Sullivan admits he was wrong about Gen. Petraeus and the ‘surge’

Andrew Sullivan, a leading advocate for the liberation of Iraq who gave up on it after a year and a half, now admits he was mistaken last year to doubt Gen. David Petraeus’ nonpartisanship and wisdom in developing the highly successful “surge.”

“At one point last year, I was worried that Petraeus was being used politically,” he writes. “I was wrong. He’s been a magnificent general, in a near-impossible situation. Ditto Crocker.”

Sullivan seemed such a breath of fresh air in 2002 and 2003, when he made the humanitarian argument for freeing Iraq. He had the right principles, but the big disappointment was his lack of resolve in the face of fanatical enemies and cowardly friends.

Battle-tested. So it’s nice to see him admit he was wrong about Petraeus. Maybe now he’ll take a new look at the earlier commanders in Iraq and the nature of war itself. It’s not a science. It’s often as much a test of will as a test of tactics, manpower and ammunition.

On the test of will, many came up short in Iraq. Fortunately, more had courage when and where it counted.

Frank Warner

Democratic candidates deprived of time in the center

The prolonged primary fight for the Democratic presidential nomination has deprived both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton valuable time to move to the center.

Both have had to walk a verbal tightrope, particularly on the Iraq war. They’re trying hard to appeal to the party zealots dedicated to losing in Iraq, and, at the same time, they’re trying to save themselves enough ambiguous wiggle room to preserve a victory of freedom should either of them become president.

Often, it doesn’t seem that way. Obama and Clinton never talk of winning in Iraq. But their talk is likely to change, at least a little, once one of them wins the nomination. I’m curious to see how much a change we’ll see.

Defining dangerously. The longer the nomination battle goes, the danger grows that the two will exaggerate their anti-victory positions to a point where there’s no turning back. They could develop stands so clearly defined against a secure and democratic Iraq that they’d never be able to steer back to responsibly protecting the Iraqis’ freedom.

John McCain, the Republicans’ presumptive nominee, has been able to move to the center, which is not far from where he’s always been. He also happens to be safely on the side of victory in Iraq.

But McCain is not guaranteed election in November. One of these Democrats could win, and it would be reassuring if that Democrat had time to speak with more reason and resolve on the liberation of Iraq.

Hurry nomination. For all of us, including the people of Iraq, the sooner the Democratic presidential nomination is decided, the better.

Frank Warner

Time to quit: Jay Rockefeller sinks to new low describing what John McCain did in Vietnam War

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, whose freedom and filthy wealth have been protected by people like John McCain risking their lives, actually was quoted yesterday as saying this of McCain’s Vietnam War service:

“McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they (the missiles) get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”

Rockefeller apologized yesterday after the statement was published in The Charleston (W.Va) Gazette. But that he could ever put those words together reveals the depths of depravity of the man who bought West Virginia. In his desperate struggle to win power for his party, he long ago surrendered any connection to basic principles, like courage and freedom.

Rockefeller should resign from the Senate and go home, wherever that is.

Frank Warner

Amazing space shuttle pictures

Take a look.

The originals are much bigger, much clearer. Click on the bottom picture just for a hint at the clarity.

Frank Warner

In Iraq, the important difference between no progress and not enough progress

I am struck today with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s quoting again, in front of Gen. David Petraeus, of Petraeus’ comment on March 13 that the Iraqi government had not made “sufficient progress” toward reconciliation.

Clinton’s point seemed to be that, if they haven’t made sufficient progress during the “surge” over the last nine months, it’s time to surrender.

But then Petraeus reminded her that what he really said in that brief, off-hand interview with The Washington Post was that there hasn’t been enough progress, but that there has been some progress in many areas.

Clinton catch. Obviously, the general is always careful to say there hasn’t been enough progress as long as there’s some fighting going on. Otherwise, we’d all naturally say, great, let’s bring our troops home today. But we can’t reasonably demand that we withdraw if enough progress is made and that we withdraw if not enough progress is made.

We withdraw when democracy is secure or if it is clear the battle for freedom has no chance of winning.

We’re looking for some progress, and there has been some progress on most of the 18 benchmarks for Iraqi success. We all want all problems solved quickly, but we have to remember, too, that there is an enemy or two or three in Iraq – and some significant interference from Iran.

We don’t need politicians pandering to voter impatience to make it impossible to seal our victory in Iraq.

Frank Warner

Olympic protests will help to free China

These Olympics-related protests against the Chinese Communists’ abuses in Tibet are a good thing. They’re putting the pressure of international shame on a totalitarian regime that has been hiding its oppression.

Unfortunately, the high-profile demonstrations are unlikely to win independence for Tibet. China, under dictatorship or democracy, is not going to give up that land. However, the spotlight on the China regime’s general illegitimacy may force it to offer proof the Chinese government actually is willing to ask the consent of those it governs.

Keep up the protests.

Frank Warner

12 of Iraq’s 18 benchmarks for success have been met

Iraq now has reached more than half of the “benchmarks” for success that the U.S. Congress gave it last year, Frederick W. Kagan at the American Enterprise Institute notes.

Kagan says that, by expanding its army, reducing sectarian violence, removing safe havens for terrorists and taking practical steps toward evenhandedness and reconciliation, the democratically elected Iraqi government is showing real progress.

The progress has occurred during the “surge,” which appears to have helped reduced significantly the casualties of war and sectarian strife. It comes as anti-victory voices claim the Iraqi leaders have “failed to take advantage of the breathing room” that U.S. and Iraqi forces gave them over the last nine calmer months.

17 of 18 with progress. Kagan says the Iraqis have used the “breathing room” well:

“As the tally ... shows, the Government of Iraq has now met 12 out of the original 18 benchmarks set for it, including four out of the six key legislative benchmarks. It has made substantial progress on five more, and only one remains truly stalled. One can argue about the scoring of this or that benchmark, but the overall picture is very clear: before the surge began, the Iraqi Government had accomplished none of the benchmarks and was on the way to accomplishing very few. As the surge winds down, it has accomplished around two-thirds of them and is moving ahead on almost all of the remainder. To say in the face of these facts that Iraq has made ‘little’ or ‘no’ political progress is simply false-to-fact.”

Here are the 18 benchmarks, which Congress approved in May 2007 as nonbinding goals in the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007. With each benchmark, you’ll see Kagan’s evaluation.

1. Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review. NOT DONE, but under way.

2. Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification. DONE, approved February 2008.

3. Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources of the people of Iraq without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an equitable manner. NOT DONE, NO PROGRESS, draft law is held up in parliament, but oil profits are being shared.

4. Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions. NOT DONE, but moving ahead, and Kagan says it probably is a bad goal anyway.

5. Enacting and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, and a date for provincial elections. DONE, approved March 19, 2008.

6. Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty. DONE, passed Feb. 13, 2008.

7. Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are accountable only to the central government and loyal to the Constitution of Iraq. DONE, but actual disarmament isn’t so easy.

8. Establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan. DONE.

9. Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations. DONE, with more than three brigades.

10. Providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to execute this plan and to make tactical and operational decisions, in consultation with U.S commanders, without political intervention, to include the authority to pursue all extremists, including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias. DONE.

11. Ensuring that the Iraqi Security Forces are providing even handed enforcement of the law. NOT DONE, but some progress.

12. Ensuring that, according to President Bush, Prime Minister Maliki said ‘the Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation.’ DONE.

13. Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security. DONE.

14. Establishing all of the planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad. DONE.

15. Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces units capable of operating independently. DONE.

16. Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected. DONE, but difficult to measure.

17. Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis. NOT DONE, but some progress.

18. Ensuring that Iraq's political authorities are not undermining or making false accusations against members of the Iraqi Security Forces. NOT DONE, but some progress.

Hey, 12 out of 18 benchmarks of political and security progress have been reached during a war. That’s not everything, but unless you want to lose, it is encouraging.

Frank Warner

* * *

Footnote: Members of the Iraq Study Group also have issued a report on Iraq’s progress during the “surge.” The report notes that “The Iraqi parliament has achieved some but not all of the benchmarks set out for it by the administration,” but the meeting benchmarks still has not done enough to bring Iraq’s factions together.

“The benchmarks were intended to serve as proxy indicators for a broader “national reconciliation,” i.e., a commitment among the majority of Iraq’s competing factions to fundamental principles about the Iraqi state. The benchmarks have not succeeded in this regard. The progress made has been the result of tactical horse-trading, which, though positive as far as it goes, has not alleviated the underlying causes of political instability in Iraq or facilitated the emergence of a truly united national polity….

“Political progress is so slow, halting and superficial, and social and political fragmentation so pronounced, that the U.S. is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago. Lasting political development could take five to ten years of full, unconditional commitment to Iraq....

“Even if progress in Iraq continues, the results may not be worth the cost.”

* * * * * *

Update: It’s 15 of 18 now. Significant progress has been seen in achieving 15 of the 18 benchmarks for Iraq’s success. In July 2008, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad released its report finding that Iraq had not made significant progress only in the areas of benchmarks (iii), (vii) and (xi).

Those three poor marks indicate Iraq’s failure to enact and implement laws on fairly dividing up Iraq’s oil revenue; failure to disarm all militias and insurgent groups; and failure to improved the professionalism and even-handedness of the Iraqi police.

But in every other category, Iraq was making progress, as of May 2008, when the review was made. In July 2008, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad released its report finding that Iraq had not made significant progress only in the areas of benchmarks (iii), (vii) and (xi).

Those three poor marks indicate Iraq’s failure to enact and implement laws on fairly dividing up Iraq’s oil revenue; failure to disarm all militias and insurgent groups; and failure to improved the professionalism and even-handedness of the Iraqi police.

But in every other category, Iraq was making progress.

Dart the running sheep!

Take a look at this test of reaction time. It's a lot of fun.

I haven't reached cheetah speed yet.

Frank Warner

Thank God: The Phelpses are going to hell

A federal court has just placed liens -- financial claims -- on the property of Westboro Baptist Church, the hate organization that demonstrates at the funerals of soldiers and Marines with signs that say, “God hates you.”

The liens against Westboro are to guarantee that the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, a Marine killed in Iraq, will be compensated in his successful invasion of privacy lawsuit. On March 10, 2006, the “church” members desecrated the Marine’s funeral in Westminster, Md., with slanderous pickets.

The court, which has awarded $5 million to Albert Snyder, the Marine’s father, is targeting the church building and an office building owned by Westboro Baptist in Topeka, Kansas. It’s about time the Phelps family members responsible for Westboro’s hellish cruelty were penalized.

Frank Warner

Was 1930s Ukraine famine genocide or what?

Millions of Ukrainian peasants died of starvation in 1932-33 because Soviet authorities stole their grain and demanded they give up their private fields and form collective farms.

The collective farms didn’t materialize and, because the Communist government would not let the peasants leave their villages, they had nothing to eat. The result was the “Holodomor,” or death by hunger.

But according to Russia’s psychopathically defensive leaders, that was not genocide. Ukrainians, however, say it was genocide. The debate sheds some light on why Nazism’s horrible atrocities are condemned easily, but Communism’s bloodier record is often overlooked.

Duma protests. The Duma, Russia’s parliament of Putin puppets, this week passed a resolution declaring the famine must not be called genocide. Even Alexandr Solzhenitsyn publicly opposed the genocide label. And he isn’t alone among academics.

Why do historians, who unanimously condemn Nazism’s crimes against humanity, find it so much more difficult to find fault with Communism, which, after all, is responsible for killing tens of millions more humans than the Nazis?

I think it’s because the Nazis made it their central ideology to target specific religious and ethnic groups for extermination. It was a policy of murder and bigotry in concert. The Communists at least claimed to kill for a higher principle, equality, making it easier for theoreticians to dismiss the Communists’ decades of mass death as idealism that innocently failed.

Covert bigotry. The Soviet Communists did unfairly target certain religious and ethnic groups for misery, but they always claimed it was in the name of fairness to all. They targeted the rich for being rich. They targeted the poor for refusing to apply Communist theory.

And yet, the effect of Communist ideology was a Nazi-like totalitarian oppression and a death toll unmatched in human history.

The “genocide” label is tied up in definitions. Was the Ukraine famine organized to destroy Ukrainians as an ethnic group? The Russian Duma says no, the famine’s victims were not one group. According to the Duma, the victims were:

“million of citizens of the Soviet Union, representing different peoples and nationalities living largely in agricultural areas of the country.”

Label loophole. So maybe Soviet Communism will get off the “genocide” hook because it didn’t starve just one ethnic group. China’s Communists undoubtedly are counting on the same loophole to sugarcoat Mao’s starvation of millions in the 1958-60 Great Leap Forward.

Communism gets a break because it operates in the name of economics, not racism. It claims it commits no genocide. But then what label does history have that can condemn an ideology more repressive and deadly than Nazism?

Frank Warner

Putin says no to Cold War II

Trust, but verify. But would-be Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s words to NATO today showed a glimmer of reason and hope.

“Let’s be friends, guys, and engage in an honest dialogue,” Putin said.

Putin, who had been harshly critical of NATO in the past, sought to emphasize positive elements in Russia’s NATO ties, such as Russia’s agreement to facilitate transit of supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan across Russian territory. He shrugged off concerns that the world is sliding toward a new East-West divide.

“None of the global players—Europe, the United States or Russia—is interested in returning to the past,” Putin said. “And we have no ideological differences.”

Democratic peace. Putin still claims to be worried about a giant military alliance of democracies on Russia’s western border. But why worry? When is the last time a democracy invaded or attacked a real democracy?

Return Russia to the path to real, open and accountable democracy, and there’s nothing to worry about. And freedom happens to be more fun than oppression. Win-win!

Frank Warner

Global warming cools

The BBC is quoting a United Nations meteorologist as saying the globe seems to be cooling this year. The evidence: a cool “La Nina” current in the Pacific Ocean.

This means that as carbon dioxide emissions increased, measured global average temperatures increased until 1998, remained around that warm level until 2007, but are likely to show a significant drop this year.

And yet, carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gas” emissions continue to increase.

Not the sun. At the same time, United Press International is reporting that British scientists have evidence that solar activity is not linked to climate change.

Maybe if the political parties were not wedded to one position or another, like religious tenets, and if the news media themselves were not wedded to one side, we could make sense of these reports.

Frank Warner

Nothing new on Philly’s ‘cure for concer’ beating

I checked The Philadelphia Inquirer today. There’s nothing new on the April 1 baseball-bat beating in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill Hotel of a man yelling, “Look at the notes! Look at the notes!”

The victim yelled back cryptically, “Is it the cure for cancer?”

I don’t know what that was all about. I was hoping a follow-up story would clear up the mystery.

Frank Warner

John Kerry Swift Boat controversy: Did it matter?

On a recent post about Sen. HIllary Clinton’s discredited Bosnia "sniper fire" story, the comments focused on an older controversy over Sen. John Kerry.

The basic question seems to be: How much of our willingness to believe ugly stories about a candidate’s character is based on our dislike for that candidate over his or her politics?

Here are some of the exchanges about Hillary Clinton and about Kerry’s accounts of his Vietnam War experiences:

JJ Mollo:

Among my siblings there are memories of shared events that differ dramatically. Everyone is absolutely convinced that the others are lying for self-aggrandizing purposes. My wife and I could never agree on the occurrence of our first date until I got to the point where I could no longer remember what my position was supposed to be. Then she won the argument. Any Psych 101 student can tell you that memory is unreliable. It's astonishing how many ways the human mind can misperceive, misremember, fail to observe, falsely recover, scramble and conflate. In hindsight, everything often seems clear and vivid to our imagination, but that can be deceptive. Memories are often just plain wrong, and correct memories must be constantly refreshed and verified with other evidence in order to remain correct.

Hillary is not handling this well. She should just admit that she thought it happened, but it apparently didn't. She's afraid to admit to a "senior moment" because it will eliminate her ability to use age as an argument against John McCain.

People who speak 12 hours a day for a living tend to tell the same stories over and over. Each time they tell them they elaborate and interpolate details, just as people do when they tell the same joke over and over. Eventually the interpolations remain and the original has vanished. This is a natural process. It's not just the story that changes; their beliefs change as well. We're all living in Roshomon. John Kerry believed everything he was saying. He probably got it mixed up with a movie he was watching. Who knows what the truth was. Hell, the swiftboaters probably believed what they were saying. Obama doesn't have the same problem because he doesn't have as much to talk about and he hasn't been doing the political thing for as many years as other candidates.

I'm guessing that Hillary was told about sniper fire. She might have rehearsed running for cover in her mind. Her daughter was with her. I imagine she was worried the whole time but not allowed to show it. It may be that she never got the opportunity to decompress and allow actual events to sink in and be mentally recorded.

All recollections are reconstructions of the past. Much of this is done by the Occam's Razor method, stringing bits of recollection together logically in order to obtain a coherent narrative. Sensible reconstructions will supersede vague but contradictory memories and will actually replace the original memories.

Considering our innate mental weaknesses, it's amazing what a sophisticated society we have created on this planet. I'm sure you all have experienced that rational conversation can be difficult with most people and impossible with some. I think we have to recognize that we all have limitations and failings, ourselves included, and it is only collectively that we are strong. Dedication to generous conversational standards is an important pillar of that collective structure. We need to ask ourselves what is it we should be focusing on. I didn't like the swiftboat campaign, and I didn't like the Rather/Mapes investigations. Who cares? I don't want Obama to lose because of something his wife said or because of a staged photograph, and I don't want Hillary to lose because of this. I'm much more concerned about her promise to pull out the troops.

George:

"...the swiftboaters probably believed what they were saying."

What they were saying is probably true. They were rig