President Bush Grants Pardon to ‘Deliverance’ Actor

There’s been a lot of talk about President Bush’s use of his executive powers.

Now the critics can say that he is the first commander in chief to give a presidential pardon to a cast member of an Academy Award-nominated movie.

Randall Leece Deal of Clayton, Ga., was in the cast of the 1972 film, “Deliverance.” The movie also starred Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight.

You may recall that the “Deliverance” plot involves a group of recreating urban businessmen who end up having some highly disagreeable contacts with some backwoods Southerners.

Back in the 1960s, Deal was convicted on two counts of violating liquor laws and one count of conspiring to violate liquor laws, also known as moonshining.

Deal never served jail time for the convictions but sought a presidential pardon to remove the stain from his record.

Not someone who appears to be the least bit connected with Washington, D.C., Deal has worked at the Rabun County Sheriff's Department for the last 16 years.

According to Federal Election Commission records, he has never made a single federal political contribution.

Bush’s action stands in contrast to the pardons doled out by former President Bill Clinton to Puerto Rican terrorists and fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife Denise donated $70,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign and $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library fund.

Rich had been indicted on charges of evading more than $48 million in taxes. He was also charged with 51 counts of tax fraud and with running illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis.

The Left Coast Report could find no record of Rich having been a moonshiner.

Sean Connery Ducks Political Debate, Slams Hollywood

Sean Connery has refused to participate in a planned political debate, which is scheduled for Scotland's Festival of Politics.

The actor’s refusal came after he discovered that his opponent had indicated he was going to bring up a certain issue at the forum.

Connery has been a staunch supporter of the Scottish National Party, which seeks Scottish independence from the U.K.

His assigned debate opponent was supposed to be the festival's presiding officer, George Reid, who let it be known that he was going to question Connery about his views on domestic violence.

One controversial statement attributed to Connery goes as follows: “Sometimes there are women who take it to the wire. That's what they are looking for – the ultimate confrontation. They want a smack.”

Connery always claimed the remarks were taken out of context.

Although Connery has backed away from the political debate, he did manage to attend a ceremony during which the British Academy of Film and Television Arts presented him with an award for Outstanding Achievement in Film.

The veteran took the opportunity to announce the end of his 50-year Hollywood career, and he did so with a furious tirade against Hollywood. Connery accused the entertainment industry of incompetence and a lack of professionalism.

“The time has come because of my rather unfortunate last movie. The cost to me in terms of frustration and avoiding going to jail for murder cannot have continued,” Connery wryly said.

He also accused “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen” director Stephen Norrington of being “insane.”

Beautiful Dreamers

Iran and Hezbollah turn on the lights. Europe blinks! Seriously!
By Denis Boyles

A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep.

— Jiminy Cricket

The recurring reverie of Europe, of course, is a peaceful planet ruled by gentle people who work for large, international bureaucracies — like, say, Kofi Annan and the tribe of soft-spoken shepherds who dwell beneath the U.N.’s giant blue banner.

But in the last few weeks, the results of two closely related events have left the Europeans tossing and turning as their wish-filled dream becomes a nightmare in which the U.N. stops producing pan-pipe music, and becomes instead a tool for increasing violence to a horrific level.

The first event was the pathetic conclusion of the European-led diplomatic “initiative” intended to convince the Iranians not to build nuclear weapons. The European approach was a time-honored one, something they learned through centuries of colonial rule: They offered the natives baksheesh — called, more politely, “incentives.” At the same time they relied on that most modern of global institutions, the U.N., and produced a resolution, thus creating a carrot-and-stick strategy they thought might work.

The outcome of this diplomatic “initiative” has been obvious forever. Not even Iranians can be persuaded carrots make a meal and confusing a U.N. resolution with a stick offends the dignity of sticks everywhere. The Iranians know that in the U.N., they will be placed under the care of the Russians and the Chinese and the Security Council resolution threatening them with unspecified punishments will be like every other Security Council resolution: Ignored.

Nevertheless, the European press has been giving the cover of sincerity to Tehran for years; they have reported the comings and goings of European prime ministers and foreign secretaries with deference and dignity, as if these were serious people on serious missions. The Iranians themselves pulled back the curtain on this series of skits when they delivered their unkind response to the Europeans last Tuesday (and repeated, along with Russian guarantees of Security Council toothlessness, this morning in Le Monde): After years of make-believe negotiations, the Iranians said they were now finally ready to get “serious.”

As this report in the Guardian suggests, the reaction to the Iranian threat in the European media has been fairly predictable: As an interviewer on the BBC’s World Service said on Wednesday, it’s an American problem, not a European one. This is a view reflected in this dossier of pieces in Le Monde and echoed in the Independent, where the Americans are afraid of what the paper calls a “threat” in sneer quotes. On the BBC and elsewhere, the Persians are being portrayed as shrewd tacticians nurtured by a thousand years of chess playing and carpet selling, while George Bush is seen as a poker player trying to bluff his way out of a bad situation. (But in the Daily Telegraph some signs of intelligent life: A poll today reveals that a majority of Britons believe Islam — and not just its crazy fundamentalists, either — poses a threat to the West.)

The second event is related to the first in that it concerns the fact that Iran is already waging war in Lebanon. This is something the French-led passage of Security Council resolution 1701 is supposed to arrest by bringing peace to the region by, among other things, disarming Hezbollah. Too late the French realized to their horror that if they wanted peace, they would have to be among the ones who imposed it.

For days, the French tried to weasel out of their own resolution; Le Figaro dutifully editorialized in support (ridiculing Fijians along the way!) of Chirac’s “caution” in sending in only 200 soldiers — even as it ran a round-up of European press ridicule in which the Italians and others accused France of cowardice and deceit. The response was shrill, especially for Europeans skilled in cynical non-responses. Even the Belgians laughed: “France retreats,” said RTBF.

By Wednesday, U.N. critic Jed Babbin was on the BBC to filet the French not once, but twice. The second time was on BBC2’s Newsnight when Babbin was booked opposite a nearly speechless French politician. She grew wide-eyed as Babbin coolly explained that in resolution 1701, France had gotten all that Chirac had demanded — and it still wasn’t enough to spur the country into accepting the leadership role it had claimed as a right in Lebanon. He was relentless, honest, and precise in outlining French duplicity. France, he said in the most stinging insult of all, could no longer be considered a “serious nation.” This left the French politician stammering like Elmer Fudd. It was the best demonstration of French cooking I’ve seen since Julia Childs died.

Finally came yesterday’s announcement on French television — and reported here by Le Figaro — by a tanned and surprisingly sober looking Chirac that France would send 1,600 more troops into Lebanon where they will avoid contact with Hezbollah as the Iranians, who have already indicated that nuking Israel isn’t an entirely unpleasant idea, proceed to rearm the Hezbo terrorists.

In the end, it wasn’t the European media or a sweet dream of peace that stirred the French government to take what even the BBC reports will surely be a meaningless stand in Lebanon no matter how many men the Europeans put on the ground. The thing that finally moved France was Italy’s offer to send in 3000 men. According to La Repubblica, Annan called Romano Prodi and asked his country to be ready to take command, since the French were vanishing.

Italians! That was too much, even for France. First the World Cup, now this!

The CIA-Leak Fiasco

Back where it started, after three years of investigation.
By Byron York

On October 3, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell talked to reporters after meeting with Laszlo Kovacs, the foreign minister of Hungary. The meeting went well, with nothing controversial to discuss. It went so well, in fact, that a reporter said to Powell, “Mr. Secretary, things are so smooth I thought I’d ask you about something else. The State Department is offering to help in the search for the person who leaked the CIA official’s name. Can you say something about that situation? How might the State Department help?”

“We have been asked by the Justice Department, those who are conducting this investigation, to make ourselves available for any purpose that they have,” Powell answered. Promising to cooperate fully, Powell added, “We are doing our searches in response to the letter we received yesterday, and make ourselves available. I’m not sure what they will be looking for or what they wish to contact us about, but we are anxious to be of all assistance to the inquiry.”

No one in the press corps knew it at the time, but if a newly published account of the CIA-leak case is accurate, Powell knew much, much more than he let on during that session with the press. Two days earlier, according to Hubris, the new book by the Nation’s David Corn and Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, Powell had been told by his top deputy and close friend Richard Armitage that he, Armitage, leaked the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak. Armitage had, in other words, set off the CIA-leak affair.

At the time, top administration officials, including President Bush, were vowing to “get to the bottom” of the matter. But Armitage was already there, and he told Powell, who told top State Department officials, who told the Justice Department. From the first week of October 2003, then, investigators knew who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity — the ostensible purpose of an investigation that still continues, a few months shy of three years after it began.

Justice Department officials also knew who else had spoken to Novak. In that same time period, October 2003, FBI investigators spoke to top White House aide Karl Rove, and Rove told them of a brief conversation with Novak in which Novak brought up learning of Plame’s place of employment and Rove said he had heard about that, too. So by October 2003 — more than two months before the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald — the Justice Department knew who had told Novak about Plame.

ONE FRENZIED WEEK
Given the most recent revelation about Armitage — no surprise to anyone watching the case — plus what was previously known about the leak, the question now is, why did the investigation go on? Why was it expanded, and why was Fitzgerald named, and why does it continue today? Some of the answers can be found in the events of a single, frenzied week at the end of September and beginning of October 2003.

Justice Department officials originally did not want to pursue the case. The CIA first contacted the Department about the Wilson leak shortly after Wilson’s identity was revealed in Novak’s column on July 14, 2003. Such referrals are often handled quickly by the Department, but it appears the Plame referral languished there for more than two months. And then, on Saturday and Sunday, September 27-28, all hell broke loose, when news leaked that George Tenet had written a letter to the Justice Department about the matter.

On Monday, September 29, 2003, the Washington Post reported that “The controversy erupted over the weekend, when administration officials reported that Tenet sent the Justice Department a letter raising questions about whether federal law was broken when the operative, Valerie Plame, was exposed. She was named in a column by Robert D. Novak that ran July 14 in The Post and other newspapers. CIA officials approached the Justice Department about a possible investigation within a week of the column’s publication. Tenet’s letter was delivered more recently.”

After the Tenet leak, Democrats in Congress, led by New York Sen. Charles Schumer, demanded an investigation. On September 30, 2003, the Post published a front-page story, “Bush Vows Action if Aides Had Role in Leak,” which reported that, “President Bush’s chief spokesman said yesterday that the allegation that administration officials leaked the name of a CIA operative is “a very serious matter” and vowed that Bush would fire anybody responsible for such actions.”

The furor prompted Novak to write another column on the Plame matter. “During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why [Joseph] Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger,” Novak wrote. “He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA’s counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger.”

According to Hubris, Armitage had gone through the weekend of September 27-28, and then the continued furor on Monday and Tuesday — not to mention the previous three months — without realizing he was Novak’s source. It was only upon reading Novak’s “no partisan gunslinger” column, allegedly, that Armitage knew he was the source and got in touch with Powell.

In any event, the Justice Department moved quickly. In the next two weeks, DOJ investigators interviewed Armitage, Powell, Rove, Lewis Libby, and others. According to Hubris, Armitage told investigators about his talk with Novak, but did not tell them that he had also told the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward about Plame. It appears that Armitage did not tell Fitzgerald about his Woodward conversation until November 2005, and then only after Woodward initiated the process.

TRAITORS? NEVER MIND
Why did Armitage keep the information from Fitzgerald? In Hubris, Armitage’s allies hint at the same defense that Lewis Libby’s lawyers use to explain why he didn’t tell investigators everything: that Plame was a relatively inconsequential part of a big story and was not, as administration critics say, the focus of a White House conspiracy. “My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat,” State Department intelligence head told Corn and Isikoff, saying that Armitage had simply “f—-ked up.”

Whatever Armitage’s motives, the fact that he was the Novak leaker undermines — destroys, actually — the conspiracy theory of the CIA-leak case. According to Isikoff, in an excerpt of Hubris published in Newsweek: “The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone…”

It’s an extraordinary admission coming from Isikoff’s co-author Corn, one of the leading conspiracy theorists of the CIA-leak case. “The Plame leak in Novak’s column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence,” Corn and Isikoff write. “The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework.”

No, it doesn’t. Instead, Corn and Isikoff argue that after Armitage “got the ball rolling,” his actions “abetted” a White House that was already attempting to “undermining” Joseph Wilson. That’s a long way from the cries of “Traitor!” that came from the administration’s critics during the CIA-leak investigation.

WHY LIBBY — AND NOT ARMITAGE?
Of course, investigators knew that all along. So why did the investigation continue? And why was Libby ultimately indicted, and not Armitage?

It appears that Libby’s early statements raised investigators’ suspicions. Early on, once the FBI started asking questions, Armitage told investigators he talked to Novak. Rove told investigators he talked to Novak. The CIA’s Bill Harlow told investigators he talked to Novak. Their stories, along with Novak’s description of how he learned about Plame (Novak talked to investigators at the same time, describing the process, but not naming sources), all lined up pretty well.

And then came Libby. During that same October time period, Libby — who was not Novak’s source — told investigators he learned about Plame from Tim Russert. According to the Libby indictment, Libby said that “Russert asked Libby if Libby was aware that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.” Although Libby wasn’t one of Novak’s sources, his story didn’t fit with the others, and that would most likely make investigators suspect that somebody wasn’t telling the truth. In this case, it probably appeared that person was Libby.

Ultimately, Libby was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges. But at the time Fitzgerald indicted Libby, at the end of October 2005, he did not know that Armitage had not told investigators about his, Armitage’s, conversation with Woodward. According to Hubris, Fitzgerald then re-investigated Armitage, finally deciding not to charge him with any crime.

Why? Certainly it appears that no one committed any crimes by revealing Plame’s identity, and one could argue that the Justice Department should not have gone forward with a wide-ranging investigation after it discovered Novak’s sources. But if Fitzgerald was going to indict Libby, then why not Armitage, too?

The answer may lie in the bitter conflict inside the administration over the war in Iraq that is the backdrop to the entire CIA-leak affair. Armitage’s allies have made it clear that they believe Armitage is a “good” leaker while Rove, Libby, and others in the White House are “bad” leakers. We do not know what CIA and State Department officials told Fitzgerald during the investigation, but we do know that fevered imaginings about the terrible acts of the neocon cabal were not the exclusive province of left-wing blogs; they were also present inside the State Department and CIA. Fitzgerald may have chosen the course that he did — appearing to premise his investigation on the conspiracy theorists’ accusations — because he was pointed in that direction by the White House’s enemies inside and outside the administration.

But now, after all the investigating, all the work, and the setting of terrible precedents for forcing reporters to testify in court or go to jail, the CIA-leak case hasn’t moved much beyond where it was in that frenzied week in October 2003. And unlike the old independent counsels, who were required by law to issue a report on their investigation, Fitzgerald has no obligation to explain his actions to anyone. Some questions that are unanswered now might well remain unanswered forever.

Academic Frauds

Serious Students shouldn’t take women’s studies.
By Carrie Lukas

Summer vacations no longer consist of lazy days on the beach or income-generating jobs. Many college students now dedicate these months to unpaid internships or meagerly compensated opportunities that supposedly provide real-world experience and build impressive résumés. Ambitious undergrads heading back to school should be just as careful in selecting their courses as they were planning their summers. One tip for the serious student: Avoid women’s studies.

One might assume that women’s studies courses are no less relevant to real life than your average college class. A semester of medieval poetry or art history certainly seems like poor preparation for a career in marketing or sales, undoubtedly where many humanities majors end up. But at least in these types of classes students are taught forms of analysis and critical thinking that come in handy in the future.

Women’s studies courses are different. They tend to abandon rigorous analysis in favor of consciousness-raising exercises and self-exploration. One textbook explains that women’s studies “consciously rejects many traditional forms of inquiry, concepts, and explanatory systems; at the same time, it is developing new and sometimes unique traditions and authorities of its own.” Those “unique” traditions include providing students with “credit for social change activities or life experience, contracts of self-grading, diaries and journals, even meditation or ritual.”

This is too flaky for some students. The textbook warns of potential resistance to these teaching methods. Students may commit such sins as challenging facts in an effort to “undermine the credibility of feminist reading materials and instructors.” In other words, students aren’t supposed to read texts critically and reach their own conclusions. They are supposed to accept without question the materials and views of their instructors.

It’s no accident that women’s studies is so different from other subjects. It has an explicit agenda, and the agenda is not simply to provide young women (and men) with knowledge and tools for future learning. Women’s studies is unabashedly political and intermingled with the feminist movement. The National Women’s Studies Association’s constitution, written in 1982, made this link clear: “Feminist education is a process deeply rooted in the women’s movement and remains accountable to that community.” One textbook author writes: “Women’s studies is faced with a vast responsibility…. We must prepare the next generation for its participation in the women’s struggle…”

Recruiting women into the organized feminist movement begins with convincing women that they are victims. Recruits are told that women suffer because of an oppressive societal structure—the patriarchy—which gives men power over women. Marriage lies at patriarchy’s core: Traditional marriage and family is a trap for women. Men are viewed with suspicion, potentially violent and looking to oppress. Salvation lies in an enlightened workplace, with generous paid maternity leave, free onsite daycare, and salaries that ignore factors like the number of hours you work or your job responsibilities, but ensure men and women are all paid the same.

It’s no surprise that women’s studies courses are often unabashedly political. Republicans are described as “overtly opposed not only to women’s rights but to advances in civil rights in general.” Students learn that the 1990s have given us “The Contract on America, the virulent racism and misogyny of the religious and political right, attacks against the poorest and must vulnerable among us — welfare mothers and children…”

Students should hear such a view. But there should be balance: Students should read and hear alternative perspectives. Balance is something most women’s studies classes sorely lack.

Serious students shouldn’t waste their time in women’s studies classes. For a taste of what women’s studies has to offer, pick up the latest issue of Ms.e or read NOW’s latest rant. But use limited class time on something more relevant to the real world, like a course on Beowulf or East Asian art.

Michael Moore Threatens Hillary

The day after Sen. Joe Lieberman’s defeat in the Connecticut primary, Michael Moore warned Sen. Hillary Clinton that strong opposition to the war in Iraq is her “only hope” of winning the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.

In a mass mailing addressed to “Friends,” the Bush-bashing filmmaker wrote:

“Let the resounding defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman send a cold shiver down the spine of every Democrat who supported the invasion of Iraq and who continues to support, in any way, this senseless, immoral, unwinnable war . . .

“Nearly every Democrat set to run for president in 2008 is responsible for this war. They voted for it or they supported it . . .

“I realize that there are those like Kerry and Edwards who have now changed their position and are strongly anti-war. Perhaps that switch will be enough for some to support them. For others, like me - while I'm glad they've seen the light -- their massive error in judgment is, sadly, proof that they are not fit for the job. . .

“To Hillary, our first best hope for a woman to become president, I cannot for the life of me figure out why you continue to support Bush and his war . . . I'm here to tell you that you will never make it through the Democratic primaries unless you start now by strongly opposing the war. It is your only hope. You and Joe have been Bush's biggest Democratic supporters of the war. Last night's voter revolt took place just a few miles from your home in Chappaqua. Did you hear the noise? Can you read the writing on the wall?”

In a postscript, Moore adds: “Republicans -- sorry to leave you out of this letter. It's just that our side has a little housecleaning to do. We'll take care of you this November.”

Oliver Stone and Nicolas Cage Transformed by ‘World Trade Center’

Based on some recent remarks made by director Oliver Stone and actor Nicolas Cage on CNN Headline News, the experience of making the “World Trade Center” film had a profound effect on the two men.

Stone and Cage told CNN Headline News why this movie was different from other works of theirs.

Stone described the movie as “detailed, accurate, based on true events and real participants who survived.”

Stone said it was different because it’s “an amazing story” that’s “never been told” and involves a rescue that “is so improbable.”

“I don’t think the director is the issue. If you like him, great. If you don’t, the film is better than the director,” Stone uncharacteristically explained.

Cage approached the film with an attitude of desiring “to honor their story and to not bend it.”

The actor also explained his reluctance to do promotional interviews for the film.

“I view the film as storytelling which depicts history. And I’m respectful of these people’s stories, and I do not see this as an opportunity to go on other shows that are entertainment-based to sort of sell it,” Cage said.

Cage admitted that the movie had “absolutely changed him. “I had the most amazing experience I’ve ever had on any film,” he said.

Meeting the actual men who are the subject of “World Trade Center” was “like an electric current that went right through me,” Cage recounted.

“Wow, there really are angels,” the actor said. “These people are above and beyond. Their spirit is an incredibly powerful force to feel. And it changed my life. Absolutely.”

Media ‘Played Down' Muslim Killing of Jew in Seattle

While the press was going to town with story upon story about Mel Gibson's arrest and disparaging remarks about Jews, a far more egregious act of anti-Semitism that occurred on the same day received far less media attention.

On July 28, several hours after Gibson's arrest, Naveed Haq – who holds an engineering degree from Washington State University – barged into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, announced "I am a Muslim American angry at Israel," and shot a 58-year-old woman to death. Five other women, one of them pregnant, were also shot.

In the first six days after the two events, the media database Nexis showed 888 stories mentioning "Mel Gibson" and "Jews," but only 236 mentioning the Seattle shooting.

Calling that coverage "only modest," Jeff Jacoby asks on the Web site Townhall.com "why the Seattle bloodshed was played down," noting that Haq is not the first seemingly non-violent Muslim to erupt in a violent rampage this year.

In March, Iranian-born Mohammed Taheri-azar, a psychology major at the University of North Carolina, intentionally rammed a car into a crowd of students, hitting nine of them. He said he wanted to "avenge the death of Muslims around the world."

In June, Michael Julius Ford killed one person and injured five when he opened fire at a Denver warehouse, before he was shot dead by a SWAT officer. His sister told the Denver Post: "He told me that Allah was going to make a choice and it was going to be good and told me people at his job [were] making fun of his religion."

If Mel Gibson's nonviolent outburst is "a legitimate subject of media scrutiny, all the more so is the animus that has spurred Muslims like Naveed Haq to jihadist murder," says Jaboby, an Op Ed writer for the Boston Globe.

"How many more Haqs must erupt in a homicidal rage … before we stop assuming that these are merely random incidents?"

Instead, the New York Sun noted, Americans need to open their eyes "to the possibility that they are part of a war in which understanding the enemy is a prerequisite for victory."

Don't let this happen to you

I miss my internet. You never notice how much you need something and how much you take it for granted until its gone. I always assumed that I would miss it if it ever left, but now I know. I am utterly hopeless without it. The laptop at my home seems like a hollow cavern without its broadband connection. It too misses the warmth that an internet connection can bring.

Why do I not have internet, I don't know. For these past few weeks I have tried to pass the time unpacking boxes in my new home, but to no avail. The computers sit there with vacant expressions. No new blogs, no e-mail, no rantburg, nothing.

So a word of advice to you, the reader. Love your internet connection, by it jewelry, treat it to a nice dinner and movie, and thank it every day. By mistreating the fragile creature that is the internet, you too will find it vanished from your life and suffer this same loneliness.

Radio Marti Boosts Broadcasts to Cuba

The United States beefed up its television transmissions to Cuba over the weekend through its Miami-based TV Marti station in response to reports that Cuban President Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother.

On Saturday, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting unveiled a new G-1 twin turbo propeller plane, which will increase the transmissions from one afternoon a week to six, said Alberto Mascaro, chief of staff of the broadcasting office.

The new privately owned plane was set to go up in mid-August, but TV Marti pushed the date forward after Castro transferred powers to his brother Raul Castro July 31, citing intestinal bleeding and the need for surgery. Neither Castro nor his brother have spoken publicly since then.

Congress approved $10 million in its 2006 budget to develop airborne TV broadcasting and counter the Cuban government's mostly successful efforts to jam the transmission.

"We have some reports already of people in Havana and the Matanzas area seeing it, but we just started out on this so we're getting information as we go along," Mascaro said Monday.

TV Marti, which began broadcasting in 1990, includes four-and-a-half hours of newscasts, as well as programs about public affairs, culture, music, sports, and entertainment in Cuba, the U.S. and around the world.

The Cuban government has called it U.S. propaganda.

Since 2004, the station has transmitted programming Saturday afternoon and evening via an Air Force C-130 Hercules cargo plane. During that time, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting has received 1,000 recorded testimonies from those on the island who were able to see the programming, Mascaro said.

"It's difficult to know. It's not like in a place like Cuba you can take a public poll," he said.

Previously, the station transmitted programming using blimps, which were damaged by hurricanes.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting has been transmitting programming to Cuba via Radio Marti since 1985. The radio station was established by Congress under the now defunct U.S. Information Agency. Today, it broadcasts 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Both the radio and TV stations are overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent federal agency, and have a combined budget of $28 million.

On Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent a message to the Cuban people via the Marti television and radio stations, imploring them not to flee the island for Florida because of political uncertainty.

Radio and TV Marti are not the only U.S.-based stations seen and heard on the island. A small number of people in Cuba have satellite dishes and can pick up commercial TV stations. Some Miami commercial radio stations can be heard in the western provinces. The nonprofit Cuban Democratic Directorate also maintains the radio station Radio Republica, which is beamed via shortwave into the country.