MoveOn.org Pays NY Times $77,000 More

MoveOn.org has paid the New York Times $77,508 after the newspaper confirmed that its ad department had undercharged the group for its controversial ad that called General David Petraeus “General Betray Us.”

Many critics, including Vice President Dick Cheney and several Republican presidential candidates, had charged the newspaper with giving subsidized ad rates to MoveOn because it sympathized with its views, the Times acknowledged Wednesday.

The New York Post had disclosed that the Times charged the left-wing group only about $65,000 for the full-page ad, while the “open rate” for such an ad is $181,000.

The ad in the Sept. 10 issue of the Times accused Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House."

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., called for hearings into the discount, maintaining that it “could constitute an unlawful campaign contribution” to the political action group.

The Times at first maintained that it charged MoveOn the same “standby” rate of $64,575 that it charges all advocacy groups for a full-page ad that can run anytime during a 7-day period.

The sales representative should have charged $142,083, according to Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis, because MoveOn wanted the ad to run on a specific day and therefore was not entitled to the “standby” rate.

Mathis was quoted on Sunday as saying the ad rep had “made a mistake” in granting the discount.

However, when asked if the sales representative was sympathetic to MoveOn, Mathis said on Tuesday: “The salesperson did not see the content of the ad at the time the rate was quoted. There was no bias.”

Columnist George Will wrote on Wednesday: “The Times, a media corporation that is a fountain of detailed editorial instructions about how the rest of the world should conduct its business, seems confused about how it conducts its own.”

GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani ran an ad of his own in the Times, attacking the MoveOn ad as a “character assassination” of Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq. He paid the “standby” rate.

According to the Times, a Giuliani spokesman insisted he was entitled to the standby rate because the Times did not guarantee when it would run the ad.

Eye of the Beholder

by Victor Davis Hanson
The American Enterprise Online


War torn Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million. The former is a violent and impoverished landscape, the latter said to be paradise on Earth. But how you envision either place to some degree depends on the eye of the beholder and is predicated on what the daily media appear to make of each.

As a fifth generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about "Nearly 200 poor Californians butchered again this month!"

How about a monthly media dose of "600 women raped in February alone!" Or try, "Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!" Those do not even make up all of the state's yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.

Iraq's judicial system seems a mess. On the eve of the war, Saddam let out 100,000 inmates from his vast prison archipelago. He himself sat in the dock months after his trial began. But imagine an Iraq with a penal system like California 's with 170,000 criminals - an inmate population larger than those of Germany , France , the Netherlands , and Singapore combined. Just to house such a shadow population costs our state nearly $7 billion a year or about the same price of keeping 40,000 Army personnel per year in Iraq . What would be the image of our Golden State if we were reminded each morning, "Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals"?

Some of California 's most recent prison scandals would be easy to sensationalize: "Guards watch as inmates are raped!" Or "Correction officer accused of having sex with under-aged detainee!" And apropos of Saddam's sluggish trial, remember that our home state multiple murderer, Tookie Williams, was finally executed in December 2005 - TWENTY SIX years after he was originally sentenced.

Much is made of the inability to patrol Iraq 's borders with Iran , Jordan , Kuwait , Saudi Arabia , Syria , and Turkey But California has only a single border with a foreign nation, not six. Yet over 3 million foreigners who sneaked in illegally now live in our state. Worse, there are about 15,000 convicted alien felons incarcerated in our penal system, costing about $500 million a year. Imagine the potential tabloid headlines: "Illegal aliens in state comprise population larger than San Francisco !" or "Drugs, criminals, and smugglers given free pass into California !"

Every year, over 4,000 Californians die in car crashes - more than the number of Americans lost so far in the years of combat operations in Iraq . In some sense, then, our badly maintained roads, and often poorly trained and sometimes intoxicated drivers, are even more lethal than IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices.) Perhaps tomorrow's headline might scream out at us: "300 Californians to perish this month on state highways! Hundreds more will be maimed and crippled!"

In 2001, California had 32 days of power outages, despite paying nearly the highest rates for electricity in the United States . Before complaining about the smoke in Baghdad rising from private generators, think back to the run on generators in California when they were contemplated as a future part of every household's line of defense.

We're told that Iraq 's finances are a mess. Yet until recently, so were California 's. Two years ago, Governor Schwarzenegger inherited a $38 billion annual budget shortfall. That could have made for strong morning newscast teasers: "Another $100 million borrowed today - $3 billion more in red ink to pile up by month's end!"

So is California comparable to Iraq ? Hardly. Yet it could easily be sketched by a reporter intent on doing so as a bankrupt, crime-ridden area with murderous highways, tens of thousands of inmates, with wide open borders.

I myself recently returned home to California , without incident, from a visit to Iraq 's notorious Sunni Triangle. While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m. was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones. Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.

NY suit seeks to stop immigration raids

Immigration authorities violated Hispanic families' civil rights by raiding their homes without court warrants, sometimes bursting in before dawn to look for people who didn't live there, according to a federal lawsuit.

The suit was filed Thursday on behalf of 15 people — including seven U.S. citizens — who say their suburban homes were raided earlier this year.

Arguing that the raids violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, the suit seeks unspecified damages and a halt on the home raids until Immigration and Customs Enforcement develops legal guidelines for them.

Mark Thorn, an ICE spokesman, said the agency does not comment on pending lawsuits.

According to the lawsuit, a program dubbed Operation Return to Sender dispatched armed federal agents to homes in search of illegal immigrants thought to have lingered after being ordered to leave the country. But the people sought often weren't there and couldn't "reasonably" have been expected to be, the lawsuit said.

In one case, authorities raided a home in East Hampton on Long Island around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 20 in search of a man who had moved out in 2003, according to the lawsuit. The family still living there were U.S. citizens, except for a child who is a legal resident awaiting naturalization.

"Because the immigrant communities are afraid to publicly challenge these home raids, they've been getting away with it," said Foster Maer, an attorney with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Democrats fail to pass anti-war bill

The Senate rejected legislation Friday that would have ordered most U.S. troops home from Iraq in nine months, culminating a losing week for Democrats who failed to push through any anti-war proposal.

The vote, 47-47, fell 13 votes short of the 60 needed to pass.

"We're going to continue to lose lives and squander resources while they (the Iraqis) dawdle," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who sponsored the bill.

Republicans blocked the measure, contending it would have dire consequences for the region and usurp control of the war from seasoned generals. Last week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, recommended to Congress and President Bush that some 130,000 troops be kept there through next summer — a slight decrease from the more than 160,000 troops there now.

"It would be a very overt rejection of Gen. Petraeus' leadership," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. The military commanders "have earned the ability to carry on their mission," he later added.

Blocking the bill were 43 Republicans, Connecticut Independent Joseph Lierbman and Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Whereas Nelson and Pryor say they are reluctant to embrace a timetable on troop withdrawals, Dodd said he refuses to support anything short of cutting of funding for combat.

Three Republicans — Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska — voted with 44 Democrats in favor of the bill.

Petraeus' Capitol Hill testimony is widely seen as a primary factor in shoring up support among Republicans, which had deteriorated steadily throughout summer. While still nervous about the ongoing violence in Iraq and unpopularity of the war, many GOP members say they now remain hopeful that another year of combat will stabilize Iraq and prevent U.S. troops from returning to the region a decade later.

"If we leave, we will be back — in Iraq and elsewhere — in many more desperate fights to protect our security and at an even greater cost in American lives and treasure," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a presidential candidate and the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

Frustrated by the lack of Republicans willing to break ranks, Democrats this week abandoned — for now — attempts to reach a bipartisan compromise on Levin's legislation. Levin had said he would have been willing to turn the nine-month date into a goal for troop withdrawals, rather than a mandated deadline.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Republicans, along with Bush, now own the war.

"Back home they assert their independence, but in Washington they walk in lockstep with the president and continue to support his failed policies," said Reid, D-Nev.

Recent polls show that American views of the war largely have not changed since Petraeus appeared before congressional committees two days last week.

A poll released this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 54 percent of Americans still favor bringing troops home as soon as possible. And despite slight improvements in the public's view of military progress, more said the U.S. will likely fail in Iraq than succeed — by 47 percent to 42 percent — about the same margin as in July.

Friday's vote finished a week of disappointments for Democrats.

On Wednesday, the Senate rejected legislation by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would have guaranteed troops more time at home; it fell by a 56-44 vote with 60 votes needed to advance. On Thursday, the Senate blocked legislation sponsored by Reid and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that would have cut off funding for combat in June 2008. That measure failed by a 70-28 vote, 32 votes short of 60.

On Thursday, Republicans successfully pushed through a resolution condemning an advertisement by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org. Displayed in The New York Times, the ad taunted Petraeus as "General Betray Us."

The resolution, sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, passed by a 72-25 vote.

House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the House should consider a similar measure. But when asked if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would allow it, spokesman Nadeam Elshami said in an e-mail: "The House is going to devote its full attention to providing health care to children, promoting energy independence to improve America's security, reducing global warming, and responsibly redeploying U.S. forces now in Iraq.

"These are the priorities of the American people," he said.

Glamorous politician wants law to allow 7-year itch

Bavaria's most glamorous politician -- a flame-haired motorcyclist who helped bring down state premier Edmund Stoiber -- has shocked the Catholic state in Germany by suggesting marriage should last just 7 years.

Gabriele Pauli, who poses on her web site in motorcycle leathers, is standing for the leadership of Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) -- sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) -- in a vote next week.

She told reporters at the launch of her campaign manifesto on Wednesday she wanted marriage to expire after seven years and accused the CSU, which promotes traditional family values, of nurturing ideals of marriage which are wide of the mark.

"The basic approach is wrong ... many marriages last just because people believe they are safe," she told reporters. "My suggestion is that marriages expire after seven years."

After that time, couples should either agree to extend their marriage or it should be automatically dissolved, she said.

Fifty-year-old Pauli, twice divorced, is a maverick intent on shaking up her male-dominated and mainly Catholic party which has dominated Bavarian politics since World War Two.

"This is about bringing ideas into the CSU and starting a discussion," she told German television on Thursday after she had unleashed a wave of criticism from other politicians.

Former foe Stoiber said she did not belong in the CSU and European lawmaker Ingo Freidrich dismissed her views.

"She is diametrically contradicting our Christian, ethical values," Freidrich said.

Peter Ramsauer, head of the CSU in Germany's parliament, compared Pauli's ideas to "the dirt under your fingernails".

Pauli, who attracted attention earlier this year when she posed for a magazine wearing long black latex gloves, was at the centre of a snooping scandal which eventually led to Stoiber, Bavarian premier for 14 years, saying he would stand down early.

She said his office tried to obtain details about lovers and alcohol consumption to use against her.

The CSU will elect Stoiber's successor as party head at a conference next week. He will be replaced as state premier in early October.

Viewed as a party rebel, Pauli stands almost no chance of winning next week's vote. The contest has been fought mainly between Bavarian state economy minister Erwin Huber and German Consumer Minister Horst Seehofer.

The popularity of Seehofer, a 58-year-old married father of three, has suffered from the disclosure that he had been having an affair with a younger woman who recently had his baby.

French Warn War with Iran Coming

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday his country had to prepare for the possibility of war against Iran over its nuclear program, but he did not believe any such action was imminent.

Speaking in an interview on RTL radio and LCI television, Kouchner said the world's biggest powers should use further sanctions to show they were serious about stopping Tehran getting atom bombs before it came to war.

"We must prepare for the worst," Kouchner said, adding: "The worst, sir, is war."

Asked if France was involved in any planning towards war, he said: "The French army is not at the moment associated with anything at all, nor with any maneuver at all."

Tehran insists it only wants to master nuclear technology to produce electricity, but it has yet to comply with repeated U.N. demands that it halt uranium enrichment and other sensitive work that could potentially be used in producing weapons.

Kouchner's comments follow a similarly hawkish statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said last month in his first major foreign policy speech since taking office that a diplomatic push by the world's powers was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."

France has said repeatedly it wants the U.N. Security Council to pass tougher sanctions against Iran over its failure to dispel fears that it is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons.

"We do not want to signal anything other than 'peace is in your interest, and in ours too,"' Kouchner said.

Asked whether he believed U.S. President George W. Bush would launch air strikes against Iran before the end of his term of office, he said: "Honestly, I don't think we've reached that stage, not at all. At least I hope so."

Web service gives alibis for adulterers

Looking to get away for a weekend fling without getting caught? A new French company provides would-be adulterers with custom-made excuses that help take the danger of discovery out of cheating.

Founded six months ago by former private eye Regine Mourizard, Web-based Ibila can cook up invites to phony weekend seminars, fake emergency phone calls from work, invitations to nonexistent weddings — anything to justify cheating spouses' absence.

Mourizard said her service is aimed at protecting couples and families by allowing adulterers to live their flings undetected.

"If the alibi is well done and the spouse doesn't suspect anything, this can sometimes save marriages," Mourizard told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Here's how it works: In an e-mail message or call to Ibila, the prospective client requests an alibi for a specific date and time. Mourizard concocts just the right excuse, taking into account the client's profession and personal circumstances.

She and her co-worker, a computer specialist, draw up fake restaurant and hotel bills, receipts and other documents to help shore up what Mourizard calls her "little white lies."

If the adulterer was supposed to have been away for a seminar, the company can even provide the kinds of freebies — pens, hats and tee-shirts — sometimes given at such events.

Mourizard said she that because of privacy issues, she could only give details about one of her past clients, whom she called "Geraldine."

Married to a "strict man," Geraldine was desperate to get out of the house for an hour-long meeting with an ex-boyfriend who lived abroad and was briefly passing through town.

"This man was practically the love of her life and she had to see him," Mourizard said. Together, they hatched a plan.

Geraldine owned a driving school, so on the appointed day, Mourizard called her home pretending to be a student who needed a last-minute lesson before her driving test the following day.

"The husband totally bought it. He even offered to get the car out of the garage for her," Mourizard said.

The simplest excuses — like Geraldine's — cost euro19 (US$27), while more the more elaborate and time-consuming alibis can run upward of euro150 (US$207).

Mourizard insisted her business is completely above board because she concocts fake bills from invented companies, hotels and restaurants and does not doctor or forge real documents. She also requires clients to sign a document pledging not to use her materials to swindle their employers or the French government.

Upon request, the company can handle the logistics for clients' secret rendezvous, from making hotel reservations to booking train and plane tickets. Ibila also offers to buy illicit gifts, so that suspicious purchases at flower, perfume or chocolate shops don't appear on clients' bank statements.

Most of her clients — about 60 percent — are men, Mourizard said. They range in age from 25-60, but most are in their mid-forties.

Mourizard, a 50-year-old mother of two, said it was her experience as a private detective that led her to open Ibila — Europe's second such service, she said.

"For 20 years, I worked to keep people from doing what they wanted to do. And I then thought, 'what if I help them do it, in a safe way?'"

Following a "very amicable" divorce from her first husband, Mourizard remarried two years ago. Asked what her spouse thinks of her new business, she said: "He thinks I have some pretty bizarre ideas."

Is he suspicious when she gets strange phone calls or receives unexpected invitations in the mail?

"No, he trusts me completely. And I trust him. I mean, if he were cheating, I'd find him out in a second," she said.

Japan's prime minister says he'll resign

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Wednesday he will resign, ending a troubled year-old government that has suffered a string of damaging scandals and a humiliating electoral defeat.

Abe said he was quitting to pave the way for ruling and opposition parties to work together to approve the extension of Tokyo's naval mission in support of the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan.

"In the present situation it is difficult to push ahead with effective policies that win the support and trust of the public," Abe said in a nationally televised news conference. "I have decided that we need a change in this situation."

Abe, a nationalist whose support rating has plunged to 30 percent, also cited the ruling party's defeat in July 29 elections, in which the opposition took control of the upper house of Parliament.

The prime minister said he had instructed ruling party leaders to immediately search for a replacement, but he did not announce a date for his departure from office. His former foreign minister, Taro Aso, is considered a front-runner to replace him, though Aso said it was too soon for him to comment.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced it would use a streamlined election process to choose a successor. Kyodo News agency reported the party planned an election for LDP president next Wednesday.

The party leader is guaranteed election as prime minister because of the LDP's control of the powerful lower house of Parliament.

The sudden resignation came less than a month after Abe reshuffled his Cabinet in a bid to recover public support. He had been adamant that he would not step down to take responsibility for the LDP electoral defeat.

Abe announced his departure just as the government faced a battle in Parliament over whether to extend the country's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean. Just days earlier, he said he would quit if he failed to win parliamentary passage of legislation extending the mission.

On Wednesday, Abe suggested that his departure could aid bipartisan passage of the bill.

"I have pondered how Japan should continue its fight against terrorism," Abe said Wednesday. "I now believe we need change. So Japan must continue its fight against terrorism under a new prime minister."

The United States has turned up the pressure on Japan to extend the mission. U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer met with Cabinet officials, including Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, earlier Wednesday to make Washington's case for extension.

The plenary session of the lower house was to be delayed until at least Friday, and the opposition criticized Abe for quitting just as the session was to heat up.

"I've been a politician for nearly 40 years, but I think this is the first time that a prime minister has remained in office after the ruling party lost a majority ... and expressed his resignation right before parliamentary questioning," said Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

Abe, at 52 Japan's youngest postwar prime minister, came into office a year ago with ambitious plans: to repair frayed relations with Asian neighbors, revise the 1947 pacifist constitution, and bolster Japan's role in international diplomatic and military affairs.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement praised Abe for presiding over a "clear improvement" in relations that nose-dived under Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, and called for continued closer ties. South Korea was similarly positive.

In Washington, Gordon Johnroe, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said: " President Bush and Prime Minister Abe have had a good working relationship. the U.S. and Japan remain strong and steadfast allies, and we look forward to working with the new government as it's formed."

Abe, whose grandfather was premier and whose father was a foreign minister, initially met with success in fence-mending trips last autumn to China and South Korea. He also passed laws bolstering patriotic education and upgrading the Defense Agency to a full ministry for the first time since World War II.

But a string of scandals starting late last year quickly eroded his support. Four Cabinet ministers have been forced to resign over the past nine months, and one — his first agriculture minister — committed suicide over a money scandal.

Abe's government also has been fiercely criticized over some 50 million missing pension records.

Support for the political blue blood was also damaged by his concentration on ideological issues — such as patriotism and constitutional reform — at a time when many Japanese are concerned over the widening gap between rich and poor and other bread-and-butter worries.

In such a weakened state, Abe may have feared he wouldn't have the clout to win passage of the Afghan mission, said Eiken Itagaki, a political analyst and writer.

"He has run out of political capital," Itagaki said. "So he bolted, in the hope that a more experienced successor can save the mission, and sort out the mess."

It also was a sharp reversal of fortunes for the ruling party, which has controlled Japan almost uninterruptedly since it was formed in 1955. Abe succeeded the wildly popular Koizumi, who led the LDP to a landslide victory in elections for the powerful lower house in 2005.

Though Aso is considered a front-runner to succeed Abe, it is not clear whether he has the political clout and popular support to stop the LDP's slide in popularity.