Bill O’Reilly, David Letterman Renew Feud

Bill O'Reilly walked out for his appearance on David Letterman's "Late Show" with a plastic shield. He could have used it.

"That's cute, that's nice," Letterman said on Friday night's show. "You come out with toys."

Letterman and the Fox News Channel talk show host renewed their prickly confrontation from January, when Letterman told him "I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap." [Editor's Note: Get Bill O'Reilly's new book with our FREE offer -- Go Here Now.]

Before O'Reilly even came out, Letterman made his feelings clear.

"I'm secretly hoping when Bill O'Reilly comes out here, I'll have the opportunity to call him a bonehead," Letterman said.

They discussed the Iraq war and the upcoming midterm election, with O'Reilly saying that Americans are depressed by the progress of the Iraq War, and that they'd rather watch escapist entertainment like "Dancing with the Stars" than the news.

He asked Letterman: "Are you going to be on 'Dancing with the Stars'?"

"Ha ha," Letterman said. "You bonehead."

Letterman said that like many Americans, he was so angered in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that he wanted to strike out, and didn't oppose the Iraq War at its beginning. As time has gone on, he said he has realized that was wrong.

Asked by O'Reilly whether he wanted the Americans to win the war, Letterman said he wanted a solution that would result in the least loss of American lives.

As part of their confrontation, O'Reilly said Letterman was guilty of oversimplifying a complicated situation.

"You're putting words in my mouth," he told Letterman at one point.

"You're putting artificial facts in your head," Letterman responded.

O'Reilly didn't get angry with Letterman during his appearance, although at one point he told an apparent heckler in the audience to "knock it off." He told the audience that he and Letterman were really friends. "This whole thing is a big act," he said.

Letterman never agreed with him.

"I have no idea what I'm talking about," Letterman said. "But I don't think you do, either."

Rush Limbaugh Proves: I Never Maligned Obama

Rush Limbaugh was right — it was Teddy Kennedy who first referred to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as “Osama Obama.”

During his Oct. 23 broadcast, an indignant Limbaugh told listeners, “The Financial Times misquotes me in a story, claiming I am the one who called Barack Obama, ‘Obama Osama.’"

To prove his point, Limbaugh played a sound byte from Sen. Kennedy’s Jan. 11, 2005 luncheon speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

A questioner asked the senator from Massachusetts, “Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected with over 80 percent of the vote, and over a million of those voters were also President Bush voters. What did Senator Obama do that Senator Kerry and other Democrats not do?“

Kennedy replied, “There you go. Why don't we just ask Osama bin Laden — Osama Obama — Obamamam what is — since he won by such a big amount.”

“So there you have it,” Rush said. “There is the origin of it. It's even worse than I remembered it being. Osama bin Laden, Osama Obama, Obamamam.

The man at the top of NewsMax magazine’s 25 Most Influential Radio Hosts list had previously explained that he couldn’t resist the opportunity to mock Sen. Kennedy, telling his listeners, “Folks, we had to do a parody tune out of this.”

Meanwhile, Democrats and the mainstream media have been blasting Limbaugh for linking Sen. Obama, a possible 2008 Democrat presidential nominee, with the terror mastermind.

But don’t blame Rush. He was only making fun of Teddy.

Analysis: Ten Good Reasons to Vote GOP

If the polls are to be believed, the Republicans who control the White House and Congress are in trouble.

Their problem?

People vote their pocketbooks, or wallets, the old adage goes.

But the economy is booming. Even gasoline prices have plummeted. Unemployment, the bogeyman of politicians, has shrunken to a record low point.

As for the security matter, since 9/11, the worst attack on American soil since the Civil War, the United States has been free of any significant terrorist attack. None. Zippo. Zilch.

If Americans do vote the GOP out of either House of Congress, many of these accomplishments are threatened.

Should Democrats get control of the House of Representatives, they have already promised that one of the Republican initiatives that made all these things possible will be rolled back.

Higher taxes -- and with it, economic recession and more unemployment.

The Democrats will also signal the terrorists a "victory" for their side with a push for a quick withdrawal from Iraq. Remember, the Congress, not the president, funds our troops abroad. A Democratic Congress will most assuredly withhold funding unless Bush relents.

The list of Republican accomplishments is both long and real, and provides the platform upon which even greater results will be built under a Republican Congress and White House.

For sure, the GOP has had its share of shortcomings. The economy could be doing better. The deficit could be smaller. The postwar plans in Iraq could have been better implemented.

If anything, the Republicans are facing a message deficit. The liberal media establishment is just not letting them tell their story to the American people.

Here are 10 good reasons why you should vote Republican come election day. You won't hear about them on ABCCBSNBC News.

Reason #1. The economy is kicking butt. It is robust, vibrant, strong and growing. In the 36 months since the Bush tax cuts ended the recession that began under President Clinton, the economy has experienced astonishing growth. Over the first half of this year, our economy grew at a strong 4.1 percent annual rate, faster than any other major industrialized nation. This strong economic activity has generated historic revenue growth that has shrunk the deficit. A continued commitment to spending restraint has also contributed to deficit reduction.

Reason #2. Unemployment is almost nil for a major economy, and is verging on full employment. Recently, jobless claims fell to the lowest level in 10 weeks. Employment increased in 48 states over the past 12 months ending in August. Our economy has now added jobs for 37 straight months.

Reason #3. The Dow is hitting record highs. In the past few days, the Dow climbed above 12,000 for the first time in the history of the stock market, thus increasing the value of countless pension and 401(k) that funds many Americans rely on for their retirement years.

Reason #4. Wages have risen dramatically. According to the Washington Post, demand for labor helped drive workers' average hourly wages, not including those of most managers, up to $16.84 last month -- a 4 percent increase from September 2005, the fastest wage growth in more than five years. Nominal wage growth has been 4.1 percent so far this year. This is better or comparable to its 1990s peaks. Over the first half of 2006, employee compensation per hour grew at a 6.3 percent annual rate adjusted for inflation. Real after-tax income has risen a whopping 15 percent since January 2001. Real after-tax income per person has risen by 9 percent since January 2001.

Reason #5. Gas prices have plunged. According to the Associated Press, the price of gasoline has fallen to its lowest level in more than 10 months. The federal Energy Information Administration said Monday that U.S. motorists paid $2.21 a gallon on average for regular grade last week, a decrease of 1.8 cents from the previous week. Pump prices are now 40 cents lower than a year ago and have plummeted by more than 80 cents a gallon since the start of August. The previous 2006 low for gasoline was set in the first week of January, when pump prices averaged $2.238. In the week ending Dec. 5, 2005, prices averaged $2.19. Today, gasoline can be found for less than $2 a gallon in many parts of the country.

Reason #6. Since 9/11, no terrorist attacks have occurred on U.S. soil. Since 9/11 the U.S. has not been attacked by terrorists thanks to such programs as the administration's monitoring of communications between al-Qaida operatives overseas and their agents in the U.S. and the monitoring of the international movement of terrorist funds -- both measure bitterly opposed by Democrats.

Reason #7. Productivity is surging and has grown by a strong 2.5 percent over the past four quarters, well ahead of the average productivity growth in the last 30 years. Strong productivity growth helps lead to the growth of the Gross Domestic Product, higher real wages, and stronger corporate profits.

Reason #8. The Prescription Drug Program is working. Despite dire predictions that most seniors would refrain from signing up to the new Medicare prescription benefits program, fully 75 percent of all those on Medicare have enrolled, and the overwhelming majority say they are happy with the program.

Reason #9. Bush has kept his promise of naming conservative judges. He has named two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. In addition, he has named conservative justices who are devoted to the Constitution as it is written and not as activist liberal judges think it means. The strong likelihood that one or more justices will retire from the Supreme Court makes it mandatory for the Republicans to hold the Senate and have a chance to name new conservative justices.

Reason #10. The deficit has been cut in half three years ahead of the president's 2009 goal, with the 2006 fiscal year budget deficit down to $248 billion. The tax cuts have stimulated the economy and are working.

In contrast to this stunning record of real achievement, the Democrats offer no real plans for the way they want to improve America or make us safer.

Instead, issues like the Mark Foley scandal have been used to smokescreen their own lack of ideas in a public debate.

The choice voters will make is whether they want higher taxes and less security by surrendering the tools used to combat terrorism or lower taxes and the continued use of tools like the Patriot Act, terrorist surveillance, terrorist interrogations and missile defense.

Consider what leading Democrats are promising if they gain control of Congress.

Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., who would lead the House tax-writing committee if Democrats win in November, said he "cannot think of one" tax cut he would renew. That agenda would result in $2.4 trillion tax increase over the next 10 years.

If Democrats take majorities in the House and Senate, the average family of four can expect to pay an average of $2,000 more in taxes.

The leader of House Democrats and the woman who would be speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after 9/11 that she "doesn't really consider ourselves at war ... we're in a struggle against terrorism."

By opposing the Patriot Act, terrorist surveillance missile defense and even interrogating the most dangerous terrorists captured on the battlefield, Democrats are in direct opposition to the vital tools we use to fight terrorism.

Many Democrats, including the prospective House Ways and Means chairman, favor cutting off funding for the war in Iraq.

Democratic leaders have made it clear that they see investigations and impeachment as viable options should they take control of Congress. They are therefore promising to tie the hands of the president and his administration in the middle of a war.

Democrats want to reverse the president's economic policies that have led to a historically strong economy.

Enough said.

Survivor!

The GOP Victory
By JIM MCTAGUE

JUBILANT DEMOCRATS SHOULD RECONSIDER their order for confetti and noisemakers. The Democrats, as widely reported, are expecting GOP-weary voters to flock to the polls in two weeks and hand them control of the House for the first time in 12 years -- and perhaps the Senate, as well. Even some Republicans privately confess that they are anticipating the election-day equivalent of Little Big Horn. Pardon our hubris, but we just don't see it.

Our analysis -- based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data -- suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three

We studied every single race -- all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate -- and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support. We ignore the polls. Thus, our conclusions about individual races often differ from the conventional wisdom. Pollsters, for instance, have upstate New York Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds trailing Democratic challenger Jack Davis, who owns a manufacturing plant. But Reynolds raised $3.3 million in campaign contributions versus $1.6 million for Davis, so we score him the winner.

Likewise, we disagree with pollsters of both parties who see Indiana Republican Rep. Chris Chocola getting whomped by Democratic challenger Joe Donnelly, a lawyer and business owner from South Bend. Chocola has raised $2.7 million, versus $1.1 million for Donnelly. Ditto in North Carolina, where we see Republican Rep. Charles Taylor beating Democrat Heath Shuler, a former NFL quarterback, because of better financing. Analysts from both parties predict a Shuler upset.

Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years. Look at House races back to 1972 and you'll find the candidate with the most money has won about 93% of the time. And that's closer to 98% in more recent years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Polls can be far less reliable. Remember, they all but declared John Kerry president on Election Day 2004.

Our method isn't quite as accurate in Senate races: The cash advantage has spelled victory about 89% of the time since 1996. The reason appears to be that with more money spent on Senate races, you need a multi-million-dollar advantage to really dominate in advertising, and that's hard to come by.

But even 89% accuracy is high compared with other gauges. Tracking each candidate's funding is "exceptionally valuable because it tells you who has support," says William Morgan, executive director of the renowned Mid-West Political Science Association in Bloomington, Ind. The cognoscenti, he says, give the most money to the candidate they believe has a good chance of winning.

WE FOUND NO SHORTAGE of people to challenge us. They argue that money doesn't make a difference when the electorate is as worked up emotionally, as it is this year. John Aldrich, a professor of political science at Duke University who writes extensively about elections, says that a candidate really doesn't need the most money to win; he merely requires enough cash to get his message across. Aldrich believes Democrats will win this year with less money because they won't have to spend so much to persuade voters to switch horses.

"The support for the president, the Congress and incumbents is relatively low by historical standards," he says. In fact, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll says voter disgust with Congress is the lowest in the survey's 17-year history.

It's true that our formula isn't foolproof. In 1958, 1974 and 1994, the wave of anti-incumbent sentiment was so strong that money didn't trump voter outrage. We appreciate that voters in 2006 are hopping mad at the GOP because of the war and because of scandal. We just don't agree that the outrage has reached the level of those earlier times. The reason is that the economy in 2006 is healthier. And the economy is the only other factor that figures in our analysis.

In 1958, in sharp contrast to now, the country was in a deep recession. Though the Democrats controlled the House, voters blamed their pain on Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower, and it cost the GOP 48 seats. In 1974, a Watergate year, inflation and an Arab oil embargo pinched household budgets and helped fuel voter anger at Republicans. In 1994, though the economy was improving, unemployment was above 6% and personal income began to fall in the quarter prior to the election, souring the mood of the electorate. People blamed their pain on high taxes, which they associated with Democrats, and ushered in Newt Gingrich & Co.

Though the current economy is slowing, unemployment remains relatively low, at 4.6%, and disposable-income growth is positive. While GDP figures will be revised downward in coming weeks and unemployment figures could edge up, it may not matter. Those numbers are "interesting stuff for economists, but voters will continue to focus on pocketbook issues like the price of gas and the value of their 401(k)s," says GOP insider Rick Hohlt. Pump prices have been falling and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been on a tear, reaching 12,000 last week.

Hohlt and analyst John Morgan say Republicans will have unusually tough election-day challenges from Democrats in more than 50 races -- a high number. They recall no more than 20 highly competitive races in 2004. All but 10 of this year's contested seats are held by incumbents, and Hohlt and Morgan aren't predicting an outcome.

IF WE'RE EVEN HALF right, and the GOP retains control of the Senate but loses the House, then there would be important ramifications for the stock market. Since traders often have disdain for Democrats, there could well be a relief rally, at least in the short term. "It would force investors to rethink some overzealous discounting of stocks," says Chuck Gabriel, chief political analyst for Prudential Equity Group.

Fear of Democrats, he suggests, may be playing a role in the weakness in energy and pharmaceutical stocks, with investors bracing for a populist backlash against profits. "Elections may or may not be a driver, but it would not hurt to remove that headwind," says Gabriel.

Shares of student lender Sallie Mae also may also be feeling the weight of the presumed Democrat victory. The theory is that Democrats would reduce student-loan rates if they control both ends of the Capitol, hurting profit margins for parent SLM (ticker: SLM). It's unlikely Democrats could succeed with the Senate in GOP hands.

Gabriel adds that shares of mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), which have gained since Mark Foley resigned on Sept. 29 amid a sex scandal, might decline with even a partial GOP victory. Republicans are considered less friendly to the quasi-governmental agencies than pro-housing Democrats.

President Bush certainly would have to rethink his approach to Congress if our scenario plays out either in full or in part. The GOP majority in Congress would be so slim that the president would have to live up fully to a promise he made during his first election campaign to be a "uniter," not a "divider." He'd have a monstrously difficult time getting Congress to make his tax cuts permanent. His desire to reform Social Security with private investment accounts likely would remain unfulfilled.

The scandals and the unpopular war are not all that are propelling Democrats this year. The party has fielded candidates who are more attractive and better financed than in many past campaigns.

There are nine House races where the GOP's funding advantage is minimal, allowing for upsets. However, we don't think the Democratic pockets are deep enough to bring about a rout in these contests. There are nine other races where Democrats have very narrow funding advantages -- but the Republican Party has ready money to pour into such contests. Sara Taylor, director of the White House Office of Political Affairs, says the Republican Party has a $56 million cash advantage over Democrats going into the final weeks of the campaign. That's a lot of TV ads.

MANY ON WALL STREET believe the Democrats will triumph this year, too. "I'm not a big believer in generic polls, but the 23-point lead that Democrats have over the GOP in the recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll is about as wide as it gets," says Greg Valliere, chief political strategist for the Stanford Washington Research Group, a leading adviser to the Street. The poll Valliere cites showed 59% of respondents favoring Democratic candidates, 36% favoring Republicans and 5% undecided. "I threw in the towel for the Republicans a day or two after the Foley scandal broke," he says.

Even the "investors" who buy contracts on the Iowa Electronics Market are down on the Republicans for the first time in memory. Contracts that will be worth $1 if Hastert & Co. end up retaining control of the House on Nov. 7 are trading for around 30 cents -- hardly a vote of confidence.

You hardly can blame Democrats for feeling giddy as the mid-term contest approaches. The GOP Congress has proved more adept at producing scandal than legislative reforms, and the unrelenting bloodbath in Iraq doesn't instill strong public confidence in our commander-in-chief. Maryland Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen contends the GOP's old trump card, terrorism, no longer has an effect on voters because they perceive America's pacification effort in Iraq "is a mess and in chaos because of gross incompetence by the Bush administration."

There's no denying that the Democrats have fielded stronger candidates this time around. The effects of that will be on display throughout Election Day in close races around the country. Here's a rundown on some of the tightest.

In Connecticut's fourth congressional district, Republican Rep. Chris Shays is in a bruising rematch against Diane Goss Farrell, whom he narrowly beat in 2004. He's raised $3.2 million to her $2.5 million. That puts her within reach of an upset, but we reckon Shays' funding advantage will help him keep his seat, even though the district voted against Bush in the past two presidential elections.

In New Hampshire's second district, incumbent Republican Rep. Charlie Bass, who was elected in 1994, has raised a total of $918,789. The challenger, lawyer Paul Hodes, whom Bass beat handily in 2004, has raised about $1.1 million. Although Bass is the incumbent and within striking distance, it looks as though he's going to be knocked off, based on the money.

In Indiana's 9th district, in the southeastern part of that state, Republican incumbent Mike Sodrel looks as if he will survive a spirited challenge by Baron Hill. Sodrel unseated Hill in 2004 after losing to him in 2002. Sodrel has raised $2 million versus $1.2 million for Hill, a comfortable funding advantage.

When Barron's visited the 9th district in July, we wrote that Sodrel would face an uphill fight because Republicans there were angry at Bush for running up the deficit and for mismanaging the Iraq war. Not only is Bush unpopular in the district; so is GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels. The fundraising numbers tell us that the GOP base might have had second thoughts about voting for a Democrat. Still, we expect Democrats to unseat Republicans in two other Indiana congressional districts.

In Pennsylvania, pundits have written off Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, who has raised $17.3 million. His Democratic challenger, Bob Casey, who has raised $15 million, has a large lead in the polls. This is the first serious challenge for Santorum since he was elected in 1994. We see him defying the pollsters on Nov. 7 and hanging on to his seat, with voters from the Western part of the state riding to his rescue.

In Rhode Island, we predict Republican Lincoln Chafee will lose to democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney. Whitehouse has raised more than $4 million versus about $3.5 million for Chafee. According to the Center for Responsive politics, nearly 80% of the challenger's money comes from individuals as opposed to political committees. Chafee has raised about 50% from individuals. Clearly Whitehouse has a better organization.

With only two weeks to go, a barrage of contradictory poll findings is apt to confuse the oddsmakers, not to mention voters. But we're sticking with our numbers, and they say one thing: The Democrats don't have quite enough heft to push aside the elephant.

There Goes The GOP Base — And Probably Both Houses

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

The Republican base, that vaunted entity whose every mood swing has controlled the zigs and zags of the Bush administration policy, has moved out, according to the latest Gallup polling.

Karl Rove's heroic efforts to preserve its fealty have failed to move Republican base voters. Karl cannot compensate for Bush's failure to project his issues as the midterm disaster for the Republican Party nears.

The Gallup Poll of Oct. 6-8 shows that, in the wake of the Foley scandal, the number of "white frequent churchgoers" who are planning to vote Republican has dropped from 58 percent to 47 percent since last month. The margin of their support for Republicans over Democrats, 26 percentage points in September, has entirely disappeared and the parties are tied among this core element of the Republican base.

The Gallup Poll also reveals that Democrats now win all eight major issues, including terrorism and morality. Asked which party would do more to enhance "moral standards in the country," Democrats now win 47 to 36! And on terrorism, Democrats now have a 47 percent to 42 percent advantage.

The Foley scandal has wrought extraordinary damage to the Republican Party and appears to have had a particularly negative impact on the base.

No amount of blame shifting onto Democrats for breaking the story or for holding it until September is likely to compensate for the evidence that House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., did not act promptly to expose it himself. According to the latest Fox News poll, 61 percent of voters believe that Hastert knew about the Foley affair early on and did nothing to stop it.

Churchgoing whites are the core of the Republican base. The fact that they are now breaking even in the approaching midterm elections foretells total disaster for the GOP. For this group to leave is, quite literally, the political equivalent of the last dog dying!

It is now likely that they will lose both houses of Congress.

With this kind of defection, Republican Sens. Mike DeWine (Ohio), Conrad Burns (Mont.), Rick Santorum (Pa.), Jim Talent (Mo.), and Lincoln Chaffee (R.I.) seem likely to be gone.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's, R-Tenn., seat seems likely to go to Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn. And Sen. George Allen, R-Va., may also be on his way out. In New Jersey, after trailing Tom Kean Jr. for most of September, Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez seems to have moved out to a small lead that will probably grow.

And all of this trend is before the final weeks when downscale Democrats, who have not yet focused on the elections, "come home" and vote their historic party loyalties.

The defection of the Republican base is likely to be felt even more keenly in the House races.

The very gerrymandering that GOP leaders had hoped would leave their House margin invulnerable may now backfire as the Republican white churchgoers, whom the district lines had incorporated into swing Republican districts, now defect and vote Democrat or stay home in massive numbers.

The gerrymandering designed to keep Democrats out may have the perverse effect of keeping disaffected Republicans in the swing districts, magnifying their effect on the election.

Can the Republican Party reunite with its base?

It's hard to see how they can win it back until the 2008 election. A Hillary Clinton candidacy would obviously help them to regain the fierce loyalty of their base, but she would also bring in millions of single women voters who would support her candidacy by huge margins.

The recent census data showing that half of all households are unmarried indicates how extensive a political force single women can become.

In the long term, of course, Democratic policies on same-sex marriage and abortion are likely to bring the base back to its traditional bearings, but these issues seem to be having little impact on holding the Republican majorities in Congress.

O.J. TRIALS FOR TERRORISTS

Ann Coulter

The Democrats claim they want to treat terrorism as a criminal law problem, but when we give them an American citizen convicted of aiding terrorists -- as happened this week -- a Democrat judge gives her a slap on the wrist. Or he was going to give her a wrist slap until someone told him that wrist-slapping was banned under the Geneva Conventions, so he let the wrist off with a warning.

Last year, a New York jury found Lynne Stewart guilty of helping her former client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with his Egyptian-based group of murderous terrorists, appropriately known as "the Islamic Group."

The blind sheik needed to instruct his followers to abandon a truce and resume murdering innocents, but he couldn't get the message through because, by sheer coincidence, he was in prison for conspiring to murder innocents here in America by plotting the first World Trade Center bombing. So Stewart and a "translator" met with her former client in prison and took his messages for transmission to his followers in Egypt.

With the full constitutional protections Democrats want for terrorists in Guantanamo, Stewart was convicted by a New York jury last year.

This week, Judge John Koeltl -- appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1994 -- spurned the prosecution's request for a 30-year sentence and gave Stewart 28 months for being a terrorist's mule. Now she'll clog up the criminal justice system with endless appeals for the next several years -- using procedures that liberals also want for Guantanamo detainees.

At Stewart's sentencing, the judge noted that the defendant's actions had not resulted in any deaths. I'll have to remember that in case I'm ever on trial for attempted murder. "Hey, your honor, did I mention that the guy lived? Yeah, the darn gun jammed on me. Go figure, huh?"

In rejecting a 30-year sentence in favor of a 28-month sentence, the judge commended Stewart for her "public service, not only to her clients, but to the nation" for representing members of the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground. In a sane world, that would have justified a longer sentence, not a shorter one.

If only Democrats could turn the entire war on terrorism over to the courts, they could release terrorists and terrorist sympathizers with wild abandon -- and Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton would never have to take a position.

When Americans are allowed to vote, a fireman's vote counts as much as George Soros' vote. But if liberals can just get terrorists into the judicial system, a Clinton-appointed judge can rule on a defense funded by George Soros -- precisely what happened in Stewart's case. Note that even in liberal New York City, average citizens on the jury voted to convict Stewart, despite her Soros-funded defense.

Democrats run apparently sane candidates for office, like James Webb in Virginia and Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, who can puff up their chests and pretend they want to pursue terrorists -- while carping about any and all military action in the terrorists' general direction. Instead, let's turn terrorists over to courts full of Clinton and Carter judges! Democratic candidates get to look tough, and the terrorists go scot-free.

It would be frightening enough to treat terrorism as a criminal law problem if it were Republicans saying it. But these are Democrats. Their idea of a major criminal case is Tom DeLay's campaign treasurer accidentally depositing a campaign contribution into a checking account rather than a savings account.

By contrast, terrorists imprisoned in Guantanamo for trying to kill Americans must be treated as innocent little lambs. Oh, to be there when Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman is exonerated due to previously unavailable "DNA evidence"!

After President Bush signed a law this week providing for military tribunals for terrorists being held at Guantanamo and prohibiting their torture, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said, "We will look back on this day as a stain on our nation's history." (Note to Democrats: It's still too soon to use "stain" as a metaphor for a White House brouhaha.)

Democrats stood outside the White House shouting "Torture is a crime!" and "Bush is the terrorist!" Yep, these are the people who claim they're going to keep us all safe, America. Everybody good with that?

Gen. George Washington tried Major John Andre, Benedict Arnold's British co-conspirator, by military tribunal and ordered Andre hanged within 10 days of his capture. Nazi saboteurs, including an American citizen, captured on U.S. soil during World War II were tried in secret by military commission and promptly executed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Nuremberg trials were a form of military tribunal.

But Democrats think military tribunals aren't good enough for the terrorists plotting to kill Americans today. Liberals are going to make the terrorists love us! What better way to start than with criminal trials in front of judges like John Koeltl?

George Soros Takes Aim at Israel

Billionaire investor George Soros is leading a move to stitch together an American Jewish political lobby that is "anti-Israel,” according to a column in the Jerusalem Post.

Soros, who spent millions attempting to defeat President Bush in 2004, is one of a "tiny minority of American Jews” who have played a role in undermining support for Israel in the Democratic Party, and they now seek "to undermine Israel’s position in the U.S. in general,” Caroline Glick writes in the Post.

Soros has invited another American Jewish billionaire, Peter Lewis, along with "North American Jewish plutocrats” like Charles and Edgar Bronfman, to join forces with him and leftist Jewish American organizations – including American Friends of Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom – to construct a political lobby that will weaken the influence of the pro-Israel lobby.

"Many of the individuals and organizations associated with the initiative have actively worked to undermine Israel,” Glick writes.

"Soros caused a storm in 2003 when, during a fund-raising conference for Israel, he alleged that Israel was partially responsible for the rise in anti-Semitic violence in Europe because of its harsh response to Palestinian terrorism.”

Glick also points out that in November 2005, the leaders of the Israel Policy Forum met with Condoleezza Rice and urged her to dismiss Israel's security concerns regarding two of the Gaza Strip's border crossing points. As a result, Rice pressured Israel to make dangerous concessions to the Palestinians.

And after Hamas' electoral victory in January, American Friends of Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom worked to shield the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority from Congressional sanctions.

Together they worked to torpedo the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act, which enjoyed overwhelming support in the Congress and was designed to update American policy toward the Palestinian Authority in the wake of Hamas' ascendance to power.

Among its provisions, the bill called for an immediate end to U.S. assistance to nongovernmental and U.N. organizations operating in the PA that had connections to terrorist organizations.

Due to the lobbying efforts of the "Jewish leftists,” the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act was eventually scuttled, Glick notes, adding:

"Soros would like to institutionalize the ad-hoc coalition's success in undermining the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act in a new lobby.

"While its Jewish founders insist that they are pro-Israel, the fact of the matter is that they are about to establish an American Jewish anti-Israel lobby.”

Hillary Loses Senate Debate . . . Big Time

By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

On Friday night, Hillary Clinton finally had to face an unscripted, uncontrolled media event — a debate with her feisty opponent John Spencer, the Republican candidate for Senator from New York this year.

Spencer pinned her ears back with his opening statement when he declared:
"I am the only person here who really wants to be the Senator from
New York . . . she wants to be President."

And then he exploited the opening by reminding Hillary "you're not the President yet."

During the debate, Spencer highlighted Hillary's vote against the NSA's wiretapping program and her efforts to kill the Patriot Act.

John Spencer began his challenge to Hillary tonight. The race starts today.

Hillary's huge financial advantage and her lead in the polls was of little use tonight because it was obvious that the empress has no clothes.

While Hillary gave scripted, rehearsed answers, Spencer challenged her failure to deliver on her campaign promises of 200,000 new jobs and mocked her refusal to accept blame for anything, pinning the job loss on Bush and the North Korea bomb on the State Department.

But beyond the words, there were the appearances. Hillary Clinton was a Richard Nixon look-alike tonight, wearing pancake makeup, featuring hooded eyes that never met the camera, and looking like she felt — angry at having to waste time justifying her Senate tenure in something as trivial as an election.

John Spencer may not beat Hillary, but he sure made her sweat tonight. If she wins by less than 12 points — the margin Lazio lost by in 2000 — she will have a lot of explaining to do. And John Spencer, may just be the guy to make it happen.

Stonehenge makes list in new seven wonders vote

Only one of the ancient wonders of the world still survives -- now history lovers are being invited to choose a new list of seven.

Among 21 locations shortlisted for the worldwide vote is Stonehenge, the only British landmark selected.

The 5,000-year-old stones on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, will be up against sites including the Acropolis in Athens; the Statue of Liberty in New York; and the last remaining original wonder, the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo.

An original list of nearly 200 sites nominated by the public was narrowed to 21 by the organizers and experts, including the former director general of Unesco Professor Federico Mayor.

The vote is organized by a non-profit Swiss foundation called New7Wonders which specializes in the preservation, restoration and promotion of monuments, and the results will be announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon.

About 20 million votes have already been lodged, including many from India, for the Taj Mahal; China, for the Great Wall and from Peru for Machu Picchu, the fortress city of the Incas.

The other original seven wonders of the ancient world were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; the Statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus; the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Tia Viering, spokeswoman for New7Wonders, said: "Apart from the Pyramids, the seven ancient wonders of the world no longer exist."

The only criteria for the new list is that the landmarks were built or discovered before 2000.

"People of England, it is now your turn to be heard," added Viering. Support Stonehenge to become one of the New Seven Wonders of the World."

Votes can be made online, at www.new7wonders.com.

The 21 finalists for the New Seven Wonders of the World, alphabetically:

1 Acropolis, Athens, Greece

2 Alhambra, Granada, Spain

3 Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia

4 Chichen Itza Aztec site, Yucatan, Mexico

5 Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

6 Colosseum, Rome

7 Easter Island Statues, Chile

8 Eiffel Tower, Paris

9 Great Wall, China

10 Hagia Sophia church, Istanbul, Turkey

11 Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan

12 Kremlin/St.Basil's, Moscow

13 Machu Picchu, Peru

14 Neuschwanstein Castle, Fussen, Germany

15 Petra ancient city, Jordan

16 Pyramids of Giza, Egypt

17 Statue of Liberty, New York

18 Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom

19 Sydney Opera House, Australia

20 Taj Mahal, Agra, India

21 Timbuktu city, Mali

Video Game Lets Players ‘Assassinate’ President Bush

A new video game’s goal is to digitally kill President Bush.

“Quest for Bush” is an online game released by the Global Islamic Media Front, a group with ties to al-Qaida.

It opens with a U.S. military facility complete with pictures of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Armed with various weapons, players pursue missions like “Jihad Growing Up,” “Americans' Hell,” and “Bush Hunted Like a Rat.”

“Quest for Bush” is part of a growing group of Islamic video games that are monitored by the U.S. Defense Department.

It is similar in nature to the popular game “Doom.”

Ken Mehlman: GOP Can Hold Congress

By Ronald Kessler

Despite what he called the toughest challenge Republicans face since they took control of Congress in 1994, Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said he believes the GOP will retain control of both the House and the Senate in the November elections.

Speaking this week at the American Spectator Newsmaker Breakfast, Mehlman said opinion polls have generally underestimated Republican turnout. He said they do not necessarily take into account the planning that has gone into winning the coming elections and the resources available for the final days of the campaigns.

“If you add up the national parties, the state parties, and the campaigns in the places where this election will be decided, we have a $55.8 million cash advantage,” Mehlman said. “That is worth a significant amount. If you look at almost every competitive race, either themselves or themselves with outside assistance, we will be able to present very aggressive messages in the last three weeks.”

Polls in general have incorrectly favored Democrats, Mehlman said. In recent years, “Every one of the polls indicated an electorate that was more Democratic, significantly more Democratic, than any actual electorate we’ve seen in 25 years,” Mehlman said.

In the past, Mehlman and his colleagues have attributed this in part to a failure by both pollsters and the media to take account of demographic changes in recent decades. What they do not understand is that the greatest population growth has been in exurbs around large cities. People in those areas tend to vote Republican.

Polls Don't Count Last-Minute Campaigns

The polls also cannot measure the effect of the advertising blitz planned for the final weeks of the campaigns or Republican micro-targeting efforts aimed at turning out voters, Mehlman said. While the Democrats have the media on their side, they are far behind in developing sophisticated ways to locate voters who might vote their way and persuading them to vote. “Ken Mehlman’s Voter Vault,” a June 12, 2006 NewsMax story, detailed the RNC’s micro-targeting efforts.

“In Pennsylvania this year,” Mehlman said, “there will be 16,000 net new Republicans relative to Democrats because of our voter registration efforts. In Arizona, there’ll be 28,000 new Republicans relative to Democrats.”

Mehlman said the RNC anticipated that the races would be challenging.

“Races are not coming into play that suddenly require us to run around and change allocation,” Mehlman said.

“If you look at where the president has campaigned and who he’s raised money for; if you look at the unprecedented resources the RNC will be spending; and what the other parts of the campaign committees will be spending; if you look at the kind of coordination we’ve had; this is something we’ve anticipated for a while and made appropriate provisions for this kind of a challenging year.”

Clear Choices

The fact that the two parties present a clear choice works to the advantage of the Republicans, Mehlman said.

“It’s a choice in my judgment on national security — whether in the face of terrorists, we are strong with the Patriot Act, strong with surveillance, strong with interrogation, strong with missile defense, and don’t surrender the central front in the war on terror to the enemy,” Mehlman said. He contrasted this to “specific Democrat proposals to weaken those tools we need to win.”

The elections also present a clear choice on taxes and judicial approach, he said.

“It is a referendum on whether your taxes ought to go up or ought to go down, and it is a referendum on whether we want judges in the mold of Justices Roberts and Alito who are judges who will allow the communities to set their own standards, or judges who will legislate from the bench,” Mehlman said.

While there are some indications of a Democratic surge, Mehlman said the evidence on the ground suggests otherwise.

“There have been 39 primaries this year,” Mehlman said. “In 36 of the 39 primaries that have been held — these are Democratic primaries — in 36 of the Democratic primaries, turnout in the primary was lower this year than the average turnout over the last 20 years in that state.

"Now does primary turnout automatically extrapolate to general election? Not necessarily. But you would think if there was this massive surge, you’d see it at some level.”

Mehlman said the fact that 80 percent of Republican resources come from small donors, suggests a great deal of Republican enthusiasm.

“I was in Ohio where, between last Saturday and the following Wednesday, a quarter of a million volunteer neighbor-to-neighbor contacts were made on behalf of Republicans running in that state,” Mehlman said. “That’s akin to the kind of activity we saw five days before the last election, but it’s occurring three and a half weeks out.”

On the negative side, Mehlman said, people not only feel uneasy about the Iraq war, they feel insecure about their personal financial future.

Uneasiness Over Security Issues

“There is an underlying angst that exists in the country despite very strong economic numbers,” Mehlman said. “And the underlying angst has to do with the fact that the things people get for their own personal economic security — you ask them what makes them personally economically secure, it’s things like their health care, their pensions, and what are they paying in gas prices that are big factors.”

Yet, Mehlman said, people are feeling insecure about those items because they feel they can't rely on them. In part, that is because "we have a delivery model for health care and for pensions that is based in the past, not the future," Melhman said. And I think that while this is an economic challenge, it’s also an opportunity for conservatives.”

That opportunity comes with allowing people to take control of their own health care and insurance and their own retirement plan.

“That would increase people’s personal security, economic security,” Mehlman said.

Mehlman went on to say that in the face of the angst, Republicans can point to a clear record of accomplishment. “Every year that George Bush has been president, a tax cut has been signed into law,” he said. “You have the most pro-life president in history.

"You have Roberts and Alito added to the Supreme Court. You have an unrelenting moral clarity and follow-through in action in the war on terror that is consistent with what we’ve seen in our great right-of-center presidents like Ronald Reagan and his approach to the Cold War. You have, for the first time in a generation, real litigation and lawsuit reform that we haven’t had.”

Mehlman said he did not think the scandal involving messages sent to pages
by former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., will affect voters’ choices when they vote for their own member of Congress. “There’s one poll which showed a significant
Foley effect, and it got a lot of attention, the Gallup poll — 23 percent switch
in the generic value. Every other poll you look at, if you average them, showed
a 2 percent shift [to Democrats], and two polls showed no shift.”

Mehlman Rises to the Challenge

Mehlman said he has been through tough races before, and he feels comfortable about the coming elections. “I don’t wake up in the middle of the night all worried about things, because I know that we’re doing everything we possibly can, running as effective an effort as we can. And if you do that, then you feel pretty good about what the outcome’s going to be. And you know that on the issues, the voters are with us.”

While the House will be harder to keep than the Senate, “I expect to keep both the House and the Senate,” Mehlman said.

North Korea: Sanctions Are Declaration of War

North Korea on Tuesday blasted U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing the country for its nuclear test, saying the measures amount to a declaration of war and that the nation wouldn't cave in to such pressure now that it's a nuclear weapons power.

The bellicose remarks - the central government's first response to the U.N. measures imposed last weekend - came as China warned the North against stoking tensions and the American nuclear envoy arrived in South Korea for talks.

The North broke two days of silence about the U.N. resolution adopted after its Oct. 9 nuclear test, issuing a Foreign Ministry statement on its official Korean Central News Agency.

"The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war" against the North, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The North warned it "wants peace but is not afraid of war" and that it would "deal merciless blows" against anyone who violates its sovereignty.

The communist nation "had remained unfazed in any storm and stress in the past when it had no nuclear weapons," the statement said. "It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state."

China has long been one of North Korea's few friends, but relations have been frayed in recent months by Pyongyang's missile tests and last week's nuclear blast.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao warned Pyongyang against aggravating tensions and said the North should help resolve the situation "through dialogue and consultation."

The verbal volley came as the U.S. pressed on with a round of diplomacy in Asia aimed at finding consensus on how to implement the sanctions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to arrive in Japan on Wednesday before traveling to South Korea and China.

After landing in Seoul on Tuesday, the U.S. nuclear envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said he couldn't confirm media reports that the North may be preparing for another test explosion.

But Hill stressed that the international community should make the North pay a "high price" for its "reckless behavior."

Hill told reporters he wanted to talk to South Korean officials about reports the North was getting ready for a second nuclear test. Japan's government also had "information" about another possible blast, Foreign Minister Taro Aso told reporters, without elaborating.

But a senior South Korean official told foreign journalists that despite signs of a possible second test, it was unlikely to happen immediately.

"We have yet to confirm any imminent signs of a second nuclear test," the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

China, whose support for the sanctions is key to whether they will have any impact on neighboring North Korea, began examining trucks at the North Korean border.

The measures ban trade with the North in major weapons and materials that could be used in its ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs. They call for all countries to inspect cargo to and from North Korea to enforce the prohibition.

Hill planned to meet his South Korean counterpart, Chun Yung-woo, and the two were to hold a three-way meeting with their Russian counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev, who has been in Seoul since Sunday.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov was also due in Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart. North Korea was expected to top their agenda.

South Korea has said it would fully comply with the sanctions but has also indicated that it has no intention of halting key economic projects with the North, despite concerns that they may help fund the North's nuclear and missile programs.

"Sanctions against North Korea should be done in a way that draws North Korea to the dialogue table," South Korean Prime Minister Han Myung-sook said Tuesday ahead of her meeting with Fradkov, according to Yonhap news agency. "There should never be a way that causes armed clashes."

In Washington, U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte's office said Monday that air samples gathered last week contain radioactive materials that confirm that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion.

In a short statement posted on its Web site, Negroponte's office also confirmed that the size of the explosion was less than 1 kiloton, a comparatively small nuclear detonation. Each kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tons of TNT.

It was the first official confirmation from the United States that a nuclear detonation took place, as Pyongyang has claimed.

Meanwhile, the U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, Jay Lefkowitz, urged China and South Korea to rethink aid policies to North Korea, saying unmonitored assistance could prop up a "criminal regime."

China and South Korea provide large amounts of badly needed economic and energy aid. Both Beijing and Seoul worry that a collapsed regime in Pyongyang could send refugees flooding over their borders.

O'Reilly Ignored by New York Times

Fox superstar Bill O'Reilly is running neck-and-neck with Washington Post editor Bob Woodward as the two vie for top spot on the New York Times list of nonfiction best sellers.

In the Time's list published this past Sunday, Woodward's Bush-bashing book, "State of Denial," came in as No. 1, with O'Reilly's "Culture Warrior" close on Woodward's heels in the No. 2 spot.

Last week, "Culture Warrior" was No. 1.

The Times has reviewed Woodward's book positively.

But so far the paper stubbornly refuses to review O'Reilly's book.

Bo Derek: Stop Horse Meat Exports

Actress-turned-activist Bo Derek is spearheading a campaign to stop the export of horsemeat to Europe and Japan.

Three European-owned factories in the U.S. send some 26 million pounds of horsemeat overseas each year.

Now Derek, who first came to national attention in the 1979 movie "10,” has joined other celebrities and horse lovers in an attempt to shut down the plants — two in Texas and one in Illinois.

In September, the House of Representatives passed the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which bans the transportation and sale of horses for human consumption. But it’s unclear whether the Senate will vote on a similar bill before Congress adjourns for the year.

So Derek is in Washington meeting with senators to urge passage of the legislation. She joins celebrities including Willie Nelson, Christie Brinkley and Whoopi Goldberg in the effort, which is backed by the Washington-based Society for Animal Protection Legislation.

The issue is a personal one for Derek, 49, whose 2002 autobiography is called "Riding Lessons: Everything That Matters in Life I Learned from Horses.” She oversees a 130-acre ranch in Santa Ynez, Calif., that was once home to more than 30 horses. She now has six.

"I am not a member of any animal rights organization,” she told the Washington Post. "I am a big red-meat eater. I live in cattle country.”

She tells lawmakers she meets with that horses deserve a respectful death and burial. Horses that veterinarians put down with a lethal injection are not consumed because toxins remain in the meat. Their remains are cremated. When used for food, horses — like cattle — are stunned with a bolt gun and bled to death.

Most Americans are not even aware that horses are slaughtered in the U.S. for consumption overseas, several polls have revealed. Opponents of the horsemeat ban say horse owners should be able to do whatever they want with their horses, and they claim a ban would lead to the unregulated handling of unwanted horses.

Derek believes that concern is unwarranted. Last year about 90,000 horses were slaughtered out of a population of around 9 million, and if they weren’t bought by slaughterhouses the horses could be adopted by someone for riding because 90 percent of the horses sold at auctions are in sound condition, according to Derek.

But former Congressman Charles Stenholm, a lobbyist for the horsemeat industry, told the Post that "with all due sincerity to the naivete of Bo Derek, it is a horse welfare issue. Somebody has to take care of unwanted horses. There are just not enough people who want to adopt horses.”

He also said it could cost as much as $2,000 to have an unwanted horse disposed of.

But Derek is continuing the fight. She recently met with Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and convinced him to co-sponsor the bill in the Senate.

Anne Russek, a horse breeder in Virginia, is also working to get the legislation passed. She told the Post that while she has been able to lobby her own congressman, "Bo Derek can get to anybody’s congressman.”

Magazine Time

For those of you who don't know, The Future Republicans of America is a magazine. It is a biweekly and completely free magazine. If you are interested in getting a copy, click the link below and select "Latest Issue".

Have fun and be enlightened!

J. Serrano

http://www.angelfire.com/dragon2/future_gop

For questions or comments please write to: write_fra@yahoo.com

He Huffs and He Puffs

North Korea's Dear Leader threatens to explode a nuke.
by Dan Blumenthal

HERE WE ARE AGAIN. Kim Jong Il is doing what we have come to expect of him: threatening the world and engaging in nuclear brinkmanship. And this time the Dear Leader is declaring his regime's intention to test an actual nuclear weapon.

Last July, ignoring the warnings of the United States and other members of the six party talks, Kim Jong Il decided to test several short- and long-range missiles. No one besides our closest ally in Asia, Japan, seemed to care much, and the international response was far softer than what Tokyo proposed. Kim was slapped with sanctions prohibiting the sale of nuclear and missile materials. Japan went forward with its own broader unilateral sanctions, and, clearly dissatisfied with the international and American responses, mused aloud about the need for a nuclear-strike capability.

But all Kim Jong Il had to do was wait for the huffing and puffing to peter out. By September, Washington was offering Pyongyang one-on-one talks and "flexibility" on sanctions currently in place to keep North Korea from trafficking in counterfeit money. These sanctions have clearly hurt the cash-strapped regime, which lives off a combination of criminal activity and extorted foreign aid. And yet, Washington's concessions, apparently, were not good enough for the Dear Leader.

Kim has decided to up the ante and threaten to test a nuclear weapon. Another round of threats has ensued. A very provocative act, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "Bad news," according to the E.U.'s Javier Solana. But why should Kim worry about consequences? U.S. and Japanese efforts to get the United Nations to express disapproval in advance of a test--a simple warning of Chapter 7 actions that could lead to tougher sanctions and the use of force--have already been rebuffed by North Korea's "protectors," as Ambassador John Bolton calls China and Russia.

Reasonable people may ask, Why is Kim escalating when he is so close to getting what he wants? There are plenty of possible motivations. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is set to visit South Korea in October on a fence-mending trip. A Japanese-South Korean rapprochement would be a major blow to Kim's strategy of weakening America's Asian alliances. Perhaps Kim is peeved that Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Philippines joined Japan, South Korea, and the United States (Russia and China sat out) at a recent meeting in New York on the North Korean nuclear crisis. Maybe the paranoid leader is upset by signs that the U.S.-South Korea relationship may be fixable?

There is also the Iran factor. Kim and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seem to be studying each other's moves. The Iranian president wants his own six party-like process, which would allow him also to build up his country's nuclear arsenal while extracting all the benefits of diplomacy with the big boys. Just like Kim. And it was soon after Iran was rewarded for its own provocations by an offer of goodies from the E.U. and America that Kim tested his missiles this summer. Perhaps Kim also desires the respect Ahmadinejad has received. The Iranian president got to speak in New York at the United Nations and the citadel of the foreign policy establishment, the Council on Foreign Relations. He was even on the cover of Time.

Of course, no one really knows what Kim is after, besides survival, which nuclear weapons will buy him for a while. But he has also learned that brinkmanship and escalation work. Why not continue and see what else he can get, especially from Seoul and Beijing?

The United States last week warned privately and publicly that "we are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea." But we have said that before, and we have been living with a nuclear North Korea for quite some time. Besides, what actions will we take to not "live with a nuclear North Korea"?

Proponents of more diplomacy argue that, had the United States pursued a more rigorous diplomacy, we could have convinced China and South Korea, once diplomacy failed, to support a more coercive approach. But Beijing's geopolitical calculation--a nuclear North Korea may not be so bad when compared with the alternative of a unified Korea allied with Washington--precludes getting tough with Kim. And the growing pains of South Korea's immature democracy have complicated Washington's attempts to work with it on the North Korea issue.

Even worse, the "more-diplomacy" argument overlooks the basic truth about our North Korea problem, which is that we are willing to live with a nuclear North Korea, because the alternative is a major war. In which case, our policy should be based on the premise that we will be living with a nuclear North Korea until the Kim regime is gone. Such a policy requires first getting ourselves out of the six party talks, so we can focus on defending ourselves and reassuring our nervous allies Japan and South Korea that our nuclear umbrella will protect them.

We also have other means of deterring the Dear Leader, mitigating his threats, and working toward his eventual demise. Unrelenting pressure can be put on the trade in illicit goods that keeps Kim's regime alive. We can adopt a more robust nuclear posture in Asia. We can mitigate the artillery threat to Seoul through counter-battery weaponry. We can intensify our Proliferation Security Initiative activities, and place a quarantine and inspection regime on ships moving to and from North Korea. We can also accelerate the deployment of missile defenses to our regional allies. We can launch an international campaign to ameliorate human rights abuses and absorb refugees, and so on.

But a continued policy of conference diplomacy and empty threats will give us the worst of all worlds: more nuclear weapons in North Korea and more alliance problems with South Korea and Japan. The lesson we should be teaching Pyongyang is that breaking your commitment to non-nuclearization leads not to concession after concession, but to isolation, pressure, and the uncomfortable position of having a nuclear arsenal pointed at you.

Hoisted On Your Own Standard

Feeding Frenzies Feed on Everyone
By Jonah Goldberg

The Democrats prayed for an October surprise and, like manna from heaven, a hypocritical, sexually disturbed Florida Republican dropped into their laps. They looked at the cyber-stalking ephebophile and said, “Behold, this is good.”

Overnight, Nancy Pelosi has emerged as the nation’s soccer grandmom, disgusted with the GOP leadership’s alleged partisan coverup of a sex “predator” and “pedophile.” (Foley may or may not be a predator, but pedophiles don’t dig post-pubescent teens; ephebophiles do.)

Almost as instantaneously, Democratic candidates denounced their opponents for taking money from Foley, as if acceptance of such funds constituted support for pederasty.

Now, let me be clear. I carry no water for the House GOP. Less than a month ago, I wrote that I thought it would probably be a good thing if the Republicans lost the House. So I’m hardly inclined to rally to their flag because of their handling of this Foley mess. But let me make a prediction: Despite the Crucible-like moral panic sweeping Washington right now, this will backfire on Democrats, liberals, and the gay Left.

Self-described progressives are great at whipping up a moral frenzy when it serves their purposes, and are hilariously indignant when Moral Majority types return fire in kind. Remember the national bout of St. Vitus’ dance over sexual harassment in the late 1980s and early 1990s? Liberals made sexual harassment their signature issue, rending their clothes and gnashing their teeth over Sens. John Tower and Bob Packwood and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, among others. The puritanical zeal of these inquisitions cannot be exaggerated.

And then came Bill Clinton, who was, by any fair measure, a worse womanizer than Thomas or the rest of them. The Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit led, inexorably, to revelations of alleged rape and scandalous behavior with an intern. Forced to choose between power and principle, liberals and feminists held an impromptu fire sale on principles.

Whereas once feminists insisted that “women don’t make these things up,” accusations of rape were dismissed instantaneously. Whereas once zero-tolerance was the rule (“no means no”), feminist deity Gloria Steinem suddenly advanced a one-free-grope rule for powerful men. Whereas once even the appearance of impropriety was unacceptable, feminists suddenly argued that everyone should lighten up. Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, elected in 1992 — the “Year of the Woman” — as part of the anti-Thomas “backlash,” argued that female interns should count themselves lucky in the Clinton White House. After all, she said, “30 years ago, women weren’t even allowed to be White House interns.”

It would be unfair to suggest that liberals have been clamoring for gays to have an unfettered right to hit on teenage boys and are only reversing themselves out of partisan opportunism. Although, it does cast a harsh light on those now screeching about Foley being a “sexual predator, the fact that liberals hardly objected to Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds’s continued service in the House for 13 years after he unapologetically admitted to having had actual sex with a teen page — as opposed to the less harmful cyber variety — and after an investigation revealed his advances were not always invited.

But it is fair to say liberals aren’t thinking things through. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel suggested this week that the mere fact Foley is gay should have “raised questions” about his friendships with pages. If Foley were a Democrat and GOP spinners suggested gays are automatically suspect as predators, the now-silent Human Rights Campaign and other gay rights groups would go ballistic.

What liberals don’t understand is that social conservatives actually believe their moral rhetoric, even when it’s politically inconvenient. That’s why GOP Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana had to resign when his marital infidelities became public during the Clinton impeachment, much to the chagrin of Democrats who wanted to advance the “everybody does it” defense of President Clinton. And that’s why vast numbers of social conservatives now want Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s head on a pike.

Meanwhile, the only moral lapse that reliably and consistently offends all liberals collectively is hypocrisy. As Howard Dean declared on Meet the Press last year: “Everybody has ethical shortcomings. We ought not to lecture each other about our ethical shortcomings.” But he continued: “I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy.” This is a remarkably convenient principle insofar as it can indict only people with actual principles.

Fanning the flames of righteous fervor over Foley will probably reap electoral benefits for Democrats. But the time will come when some fiasco like the “Foley standard” will be inconvenient to Democrats. In response, liberals will hold another fire sale. And yet, they will be stunned again when people claim the Democrats don’t stand for anything.

The Dangerous Consequences of Cutting and Running in Iraq

by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., and James Phillips

The premature withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would have disastrous consequences for Iraq, for the Middle East, and for American foreign policy and would lead to a full-scale humanitarian disaster. Congress should reject outright calls for America to cut and run and instead should insist that the Bush Administration finish the job of training Iraqi security forces that are capable of supporting the government, dealing with sectarian violence, and providing for the safety of the civilian population.

Failure as an Option. There are at least five likely consequences that would flow from abruptly abandoning the people of Iraq. Such a shortsighted U.S. policy would be a severe blow to the Iraqi security situation, Iraqi oil exports, U.S. allies in the region, the global war against terrorism, and the future of all Iraqis.

Consequence #1: An Army Up for Grabs. A sudden U.S. withdrawal would raise the risks of full-fledged civil war and disintegration of the army into hostile factions. The defection of soldiers to various militias, taking with them their heavy equipment, would bolster the militias’ firepower and capacity to seize and hold terrain. The result would be a bloody and protracted civil war such as the conflict in Bosnia following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Consequence #2: Energy Uncertainty. Growing anarchy in Iraq and the possible breakup of the country into autonomous regions would severely affect Iraq’s oil exports. In 2005, Iraq produced about 1.9 million barrels per day (MBD) of oil and exported about 1.4 MBD. By June 2006, Iraqi oil production had risen to 2.5 MBD, and the government hopes to increase production to 2.7 MBD by the end of the year. A U.S. withdrawal would undermine the security of oil pipelines and other facilities and increase the vulnerability of Iraqi oil production to sabotage. The resulting drop in Iraqi oil exports would increase the upward pressure on world oil prices in an already tight oil market. Energy uncertainty would be increased further if Iraq splintered and Iran gained domination over a Shia-dominated rump state in the oil-rich south.

Consequence #3: Allies in Jeopardy. The chief beneficiary of a rapid U.S. pullout would be Iran, which has considerable influence over the dominant Shiite political parties, which represent most Iraqi Shiites: about 60–65 percent of the population. If Iraq imploded, Iran quickly could gain dominance over an emerging “Shiastan” rump state endowed with the bulk of Iraq’s oil reserves. This would give Iran additional resources and a staging area to escalate subversive efforts targeted at the Shiite majority in Bahrain and Shiite minorities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. These and other countries look to the United States to serve as a guarantor against an aggressive Iran. If the United States fails to follow through on its commitment to establish a stable government in Iraq, it will severely undermine its credibility. Abandoning Iraqi allies would erode the confidence of other allies in U.S. leadership and further fuel conspiracy theories about American plots to carve up Iraq to keep Arabs weak and divided.

Consequence #4: Al-Qaeda Triumphant. Osama bin Laden would trumpet an abrupt U.S. withdrawal as a victory for al-Qaeda and proof that America is a “paper tiger,” just as he claimed after the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1994. An unstable, failed state in Iraq would also provide al-Qaeda and other radical groups with a sanctuary for recruiting a new generation of suicide bombers and a strategically located staging area for deploying terrorists for attacks on Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and elsewhere around the world. The recently declassified “key judgments” of the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,” pointed out that a perceived victory for jihadists in Iraq would boost their strength and ability to threaten Americans.

Consequence #5: A Humanitarian Catastrophe. Iraq is a mosaic of ethnic, sectarian, and tribal subgroups. Baghdad and other major cities include significant intermingling of Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Kurds, Turcomans, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other Christians. Instability and civil war would put many of these people to flight, creating a vast humanitarian crisis that would dwarf those seen in Bosnia and Kosovo and rival the scenes of horror and privation witnessed in Cambodia, Congo, Rwanda, and Sudan. Not only would Iraqis be put at risk of disease, starvation, and violence, but with the government unable to meet their basic needs, the Iraqi refugees would fall under the control of the sectarian militias, turning Iraq into Lebanon on steroids.

An Alternative to Failure. A continued U.S. military presence cannot ensure success in Iraq unless Iraqis cooperate in building an effective government, but a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. support would unquestionably guarantee failure, with disastrous results for Iraq, its neighbors, and U.S. national interests. The only winners would be an expansionist Iran and an increasingly lethal al-Qaeda.

The alternative is to insist that the Bush Administration finish the job it started by completing the training of Iraqi security forces, supporting Iraq’s new democratic government, beginning the disciplined reduction of American forces, and turning the future of Iraq over to the only people who can ensure the nation’s long-term success—the Iraqis.