Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

Arianna Huffington is not a serious person.

Arianna Huffington went on CNN’s Larry King Live show this evening and announced this: Huffington withdraws from governor’s race.

According to Reuters, she yawned: “I’m pulling out and I’m going to concentrate every ounce of my time and energy to defeat the recall. I’ve realized that’s the only way now to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Arianna is not a serious political observer, so it should be taken as irrelevant that she now concedes that she will now oppose the recall — support Gray Davis — simply as a means to stop Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is irrelevant taht she does not think it possible that Cruz Bustamante could win on question two. Perhaps she spoke with the Davis people, because that is what they’re saying in private.

Huffington said at her first rally on August 6, the day she announced on NBC’s Today show: “And if we keep electing the same kind of politicians [as Gray Davis] who got us into the same kind of mess, funded by the same kind of special interests, we’ll never get out of this mess.”

She has a week to convince her supporters to do what she now wants them to do, provided she doesn’t leap back into the race, blaming it all on an “iron pumping dirty tricks squad.” We tried to contact her supporters, but their mother said they were down at the pub again and that they should get a job and move out.

Here’s another thought on the matter of someone telling Bob Novak about Joe Wilson’s wife, and maybe it could relax Chuckie Schumers bowels, which are currently Uproar-con Delta.

A reader just suggested:

“I think that CIA / FBI agents should te treated like juvenile sex offenders and have lists giving their names so decent people wouldn’t have to live next to them. I doubt they have been right about anything in the last half century.”

One never knows, now, if a parent of the girl whom you entrust with the task of baby sitting your children could be a CIA/FBI agent. These days, you just never know….

Then again, think of what such disclosures might do to property values? Yikes.

The Dems have until midnight tonight to wrap up their third quarter fundraising, and here is what is being said on their mailing lists:

John Edwards:

We only have 36 hours left before the end of the quarter to make our $595,000 goal - a dollar for every American who lost his or her job this year under the Bush administration’s disastrous economic policies.

Dennis Kucinich:

I have been challenging the Bush Administration more vocally than ever in the last few days, and I want to tell you about it. And please forward this message. But first, I need your help. There’s only one day left before this quarter’s fundraising deadline. Tuesday is the last day. My presidential campaign is counting on you.

John Kerry:

Bush is raising tens of millions of dollars from his special interest Pioneers. We need to stand up to the Republicans and show them that we have strength in numbers. The funds we collect in the next 24 hours will determine the media perception of the strength of our campaign, and these funds will determine our media budget for the critical early contests.

Joe Lieberman

The response to my call for help has been overwhelming. Thousands of you have contributed to our fight to return integrity to the White House. Now we need each of you take one more step to help me reach my $300,000 fundraising goal before midnight tonight.

Howie Dean

Our goal is to raise a total of $15 million dollars by midnight tonight. If we are going to beat George W. Bush and his fundraising machine, we must show right now—at this early stage in the primary season—that your individual contribution, combined with the contributions of tens of thousands of others, have the power to take on the special interests. This is the day that you make history.

Enough of that nonsense.

They are doing it. They are raising money. No one can sit back and suppose President Bush and Vice President Cheney have the money to fight what will be a machine larger than merely the DNC and their nominees campaign. Supposing does not pay the bills, but we can help. Click HERE if you can donate whatever amount to Bush/Cheney ’04. The third quarter is ending for them also, and the alternative is just too disingenuous. And flawed.

H.R. 2045, the “Ten Commandments Defense Bill,” proclaims these rights:

(a) DISPLAY OF TEN COMMANDMENTS- The power to display the Ten Commandments on or within property owned or administered by the several States or political subdivisions thereof is hereby declared to be among the powers reserved to the States respectively.

(b) EXPRESSION OF RELIGIOUS FAITH- The expression of religious faith by individual persons on or within property owned or administered by the several States or political subdivisions thereof is hereby–

(1) declared to be among the rights secured against laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion made or enforced by the United States Government or by any department or executive or judicial officer thereof; and

(2) declared to be among the liberties of which no State shall deprive any person without due process of law made in pursuance of powers reserved to the States respectively.

(c) EXERCISE OF JUDICIAL POWER- The courts constituted, ordained, and established by the Congress shall exercise the judicial power in a manner consistent with the foregoing declarations.

To support these rights, H.R. 2045 lists several findings, among which is:

(4) The rights secured under the first amendment have been interpreted by courts of the United States Government to be included among the provisions of the fourteenth amendment.

The following is an article by Dr. Christina F. Jeffrey, a political scientist who is, among other things, a former historian of the U.S. House of Representatives. She and her husband, Dr. Robert Jeffrey, are Catholics who were strong supporters of Judge Roy Moore in Alabama.

She offers a look at and behind H.R. 2045. With permission:

Many of the people who have signed onto this Bill are lawyers. Thus they have very little excuse for putting their names on this pretend defense of the Ten Commandments. We deserve better. Our guys need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a real bill to defend the Ten Commandments, not just “boob bait for the bubbas”.

This from the DRUDGE REPORT®. Robert Novak says:

“Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson’s report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.

“Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson’s involvement in the mission for her husband — he is a former Clinton administration official — they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else.

“According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives.”

What to make of this?

The argument being stirred by Wilson and the Dems is that someone in the White House — Karl Rove, on which they are counting — purposely disclosed (leaked) the name of an undercover CIA operative (Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame) in order to enact revenge on Wilson for his anti-Bush column in the New York Times and/or to keep others from contradicting the administration.

It wasn’t a leak. The White House person who mentioned it to Novak in a different context seemed not to know that she was undercover.

Novak contacted the CIA for confirmation, and they didn’t warn him not to publish the name. The CIA told Novak that Ms. Plane was an analyst, not an undercover op.

It seems, then, that this story of Karl Rove calling six reporters in order to savage Wilson is pure fantasy. Democrats and the press were eager to believe it, smelling blood. Remember, this was Karl Rove’s blood, so it could quite probably be some blood from Bush/Cheney ‘04.

“Move along. There’s nothing here to see.”

Former California Governor Pete Wilson, if you’ll recall, was front-and-center getting Arnold’s campaign ready to run for governor. Wilson’s people staffed the campaign, with Wilson-manager George Gorton ran the show early on, until Arianna complained publicly to Arnold about how he was “pahn-du-whing to the Pete Vill-sun team that youhh’ve suhrrhounded yourseff whith.”

I wondered, just last night, where Wilson had gone now that a poll showed things looking very good for Arnold. I found this bit by Dan Smith of the Sacremento Bee.

Sean Walsh, Schwarzenegger adviser and former top lieutenant to Wilson, said the former governor is working behind the scenes on policy and fund raising. His high visibility early on, Walsh said, occurred because the fledgling campaign needed a surrogate spokesman quickly.

. . .

Finally, Schwarzenegger had had enough: “Let me make one thing clear,” he said. “On October 8, it’s not going to be Governor Wil-son or Governor Bush or any of those things. It’s going to be Governor Arnold, OK?”

I am not certain that this is something Arnold actually said, or rather a sentiment attributed him by Sean Walsh. (The Arianna quote I used above is accurate, taken from piece, with the spelling modified to better capture the speaker’s sonorous syllables.

Pete will probably be at the victory party, but that probably won’t take place early in the AM a week from tomorrow. The count will, I’m told, take days. (Weeks, if they want to go fishing for chads.)

Good morning. It seems that California Democrats Tri-Valley Herald Online - More Local Newsfear a Governor Schwarzenegger beause he has promised not to raise taxes.

“He’s already serving ultimatums to the Legislature in terms of what he would never do,” Assemblyman John Dutra, a Fremont Democrat, said in an interview. “Obviously, the legislative branch is not going to be dictated to by Mr. Schwarzenegger.”

AND:

Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, said in a telephone interview that if Schwarzenegger wins and “stands by his (no-tax-hike) promises, we are going to turn the schools in California into a third-world education system, for starters.”

AND:

“I’m concerned that he (Schwarzenegger) is saying, under no circumstances, will he consider any kind of a tax increase even if the end result is Draconian cuts in education, health care and public safety,” Dutra said.

It’s not the end of the world for Dems. Arnold is not the first GOP politician to challenge: “Read my lips.” And remember, Arnold issued is pledge only after his newly-selected campaign economics advisor, billionaire Warren Buffet, said that California could well need a tax hike.

It is, however, frightening to note that, true to form, Democrats break out in hives and panic whenever it is even hinted that a tax cut could be leaving the equation. They need to confiscate as much money as possible for to put it wherever they feel it belongs. Man’s purpose in life is to feed the blob. (sick)

There’s a cute piece in the Tuesday WashPost about how excited the Hispanics who “have long toiled in the fields” are about the prospect of voting for Bustamante:

“Bustamante!” exclaimed Maria Munoz outside the travel agency where she works. “He is the only one to vote for, no one else. He thinks like us.”

That is a startling admission, but there you have it. There is an entire group of people, to whom Ms. Munoz refers as “us,” who think like Bustamante.

There’s a problem, though. (Not whether to call them Hispanics or Latinos, as I don’t know the difference and do not know that they care either.) A lot of them, it seems, want to retain Joey Davis. The nodus is this:

At the same time, they face a quandary. Polls show Latinos evenly split on whether to recall Gov. Gray Davis (D). Some feel the recall is unfair and say they will vote to keep Davis in office, even if it means losing their best chance yet to elect a Latino governor. Others so badly want Bustamante that they plan to vote to dump Davis and vote for him. But that brings a risk of electing actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, new polls suggest, is the leading candidate to replace Davis, running ahead of Bustamante.

Hispanics make up, according to the WashPost story, some 14% of all registered voters. They are a smaller portion of the electorate than are Tom McClintock supporters (18%). (And I doubt the two groups — Hispanics and McClintock voters — are mutually exclusive. There plenty of conservative Latinos in California, I’m sure, but…)

The story says: 100 percent of California Latinos want to retain Davis, but half of them will not vote to do so simply because they want to vote for Cruz Bustamante. Who conducted these polls, and how many of them are there? Did every poll show this? If two polls showed there was the Latino dichotomy and ten did not, one could still truthfully say that “polls show Latinos evenly split.”

“Arnold is fake — that’s what a lot of us think now,” Villanueva said here in Delano. “He doesn’t realize that the driver’s license law, just like Prop 187, is about respect.”

Villanueva angrily said that one his friends, an illegal immigrant who is a farm hand, had to go to court a few days ago for the first time because a police officer caught him driving without a license.

Villenueva’s friend, the illegal immigrant, is a fake. His friend is breaking the law by residing in the country illegally, and thus is entitled to respect only for his life as he is escorted back home.

The relevant portion of Bob Novak’s July 14 column was this:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. “I will not answer any question about my wife,” Wilson told me.

The key sentence for our current purposes is: “‘I will not answer any question about my wife,’ Wilson told me.”

Notice that Novak asked Wilson for comment before the story disclosing his wife’s CIA employment was published, and Wilson said he would discuss his wife. This means that Wilson knew beforehand yet did not object. That makes him an accessory to the leaker. He allowed a column to be published identifying an undercover CIA agent.

Chuckie Schumer doesn’t get it.

Back in 1992, Ross Perot ran for President for a while, quit the race, then got back in. He explained his depature this way (paraphrase): “Now, Larry, Larry, listen to me Larry. You didn’t let me finish, Larry. You see, Larry… are you listening to me, Larry? Good. We got that straight. Now Larry, I got out of the race because the Republican dirty tricks squad was going to disrupt my daughter’s wedding, Larry. It’s a pig in a poke, Larry.”

Seriously — if one can muster that much in situations like these — Perot said he quit the race because the “Republican dirty tricks squad” had planned to disrupt his daughter’s wedding. But Perot’s eccentric. We can forgive such things from society’s real nuts.

I’ve just read that the Davis camp accuses Schwarzenegger campaign of ‘dirty tricks.’

Davis spokesman Peter Ragone said the campaign had obtained an e-mail showing that the Schwarzenegger camp was trying to stack one of the governor’s town-hall meetings “with shills for their campaign, Republicans who would disrupt and attack the governor.”

“We find that deeply troubling and deeply disrespectful to the process,” Ragone said, terming the tactic “dirty tricks.”

Which brings to mind: “Larry, now listen to me, Larry. Larry, I’m just trying to be govenor of California, Larry. Nations largest State with people from all planets in the universe, Larry. And the Schwarzenegger dirty tricks squad, Larry, tried to disrupt my town hall meeting, Larry. It’s a pig in a poke, Larry.”

He’s desperate. There’s still time for him to resign. This would make Bustamante governor and negate the recall, and it would probably mean that he’d have to move.

This from the Kuwait News Agency’s web site — out of Kuwait, with the kw internet exension.

Iraqi oil export revenues be [sic] USD 15 billion soon

BAGHDAD, Sept 29 (KUNA) — Iraqi Oil Ministry undersecretary Thamer Al-Ghadban exclusively told KUNA on Monday the Iraqi oil export revenues will reach USD 15 billion soon if approving the price of 20 dollars per barrel. Al-Ghadban pointed out the ministry had achieved its goals in a standard period and the production capacity reached some two million barrels daily, “which we expected to achieve by the end of this year,” he said.

The Iraqi official expected Iraq will witness production capacity of some five million barrels per day which had never been achieved before. (end) [ital. added]

The story shows an Iraq definitely not in chaotic anarchy, able to plan for its own oil production, soon to be able to contribute mightily to its own rebuilding effort, and about to be producing at rates not seen during Saddam’s hate fest.

I’ll fax that to Ted Kennedy later.

I’ve written about 800 words about this deal with former ambassador Joe Wilson, his wife Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, and what I see as an effort to remove the President’s top political advisor, Karl Rove, from the mix pre-election. It’s for tomorrow’s Rightsided Newsletter, and it’s easy to subscribe free to that.

Her name is Valerie Plame. Joe Wilson’s wife, the CIA agent, is named Valerie Plame. Do a Google search, and you’ll get 1,780 hits. This has been common knowledge since July, as the search results will bear out, as has the alleged “leak/smear.” So many newspaper’s today are not printing her name so as not to appear as “culpable” as Karl Rove. Let’s be clear on this: the Dems will not be happy until the leak is Rove.

This could well be an act of desperation on the part of the Dems. The field of nine was going nowhere. General Wesley “The Answer” Clark turned out of be more a cipher than a solution, and if they want to stop Bush, go after Rove.

A Paris-based journalist writing for a Lebonese paper (former Washpost Associate editor David Ignatius) is not what one would expect to be an objective source of information on the goings-on in day-to-day Baghdad, one which matches what we are being told by our military, delegations returning from there, and the Administration.

In today’s Lebanon Daily Star, I found just such an Op/Ed pice — Baghdad improves as window of opportunity closes — and I commend it to your attention.

It’s not a puff piece, and I cannot vouch for it’s accuracy, but it has the air of a version pretty near the truth. He is in rather a rush, though, and sees the situation as tenuous, writing that “catastrophe is still looming” and, of course, “harbingers of a true guerilla war.”

He concludes:

Baghdad is a neater place than it was, and Iraqis and Americans are united in wanting real security. But the window for cooperation won’t stay open much longer.

One assumes, then, that he’s going to close it?

Dennis the Menace never had it so good. Ambassador Joe Wilson travelled to Niger last year, decided they weren’t selling Uranium of Saddam, and wrote a report which he claimed had to have been read by Dick Cheney and other decision-makers in the Bush Administration. On July 6, he wrote an Op/Ed to this effect for the New York Times.

His wife is an agent of the CIA, and someone leaked this information to columnist Robert Novak. Both National Security Advosor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell said they didn’t know. This is a paragraph which didn’t make it into yesterday’s Rightsided Newsletter:

Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife was evidently a CIA agent who was “outed” by someone within the Bush Administration. This disclosure was unauthorized, and Russert wanted to know “if head will roll” because of it. (The man could well be living at some point in revolutionary France.) National Security Advisor Rice told the MTP host that she knew nothing about it, the Justice Department was investigating, and the “President would not expect his White House to behave in that way [unauthorized disclosure].” This sounds very civilized, so it seems that Charlotte Corday is safe from Russert’s guillotine. For now.

And HERE is a bit from Reuters about Dr. Rice on yesterday’s Sunday shows.

Joe Wilson is a guest on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal as I type. Of the leak regarding his wife, he told host Paul Orgel that his sources tell him: “The campaign to discredit me by exposing my wife was run out of the White House.” He fingered Karl Rove directly, but he said he doesn’t believe that President Bush knew about it.

The highlight of his career, he tells us, was when he helped take Clinton on that famous trip to Africa. Before joining the diplomatic corps, he worked for former House Speaker Tom Foley and former Senator Al Gore. Although he insists that diplomat must be apolitical, he notes: “My political leanings are left of center.”

He is one of the “Bush haters” who’ve been getting some press as Bush haters of late. He just told a caller — I am listening as I type — that her voice can be heard, that her vote counts: “despite what some people might thinik about Florida.” He also said he is working for the liberal Moveon.org, that very liberal but politically unsophisticated internet group.

I guess we can all come to our own conclusions, but the man makes me sick. His self-important partisanship in the guise of a neutral public servant turns my guts. Get off my screen, Wilson.

[Note: The Bob Novak column is several months old, being dredged up from July 14. Read the text: HERE.]

California Governor Joey “All Cats are Gray” Davis is loathed by his next door neighbor. Mike Snell sent this story to his exclusive list, and it’s a New York Times feature story regarding 79-year-old Charlotte Goland. She lives next door to the governor of California, and donated $2,000 — unsolicited — to the Recall Gray Davis petition drive.

For five years now she has watched the man come and go. He passes by in his limo, windows always up, without ever once saying so much as hello. ‘’Maybe I’m stubborn,'’ she says. ‘’But I’ve got such a violent reaction to the man. It’s a gut reaction. I don’t like him. It’s intuitive. I’m not really sure this feeling I have for him would be as strong if I didn’t live here next to him.'’ She motions to the pond out her back window. ‘’You’d never see him out there. He just goes in that house and shuts the doors and closes the curtains.'’ She says she doesn’t believe there is a trace of originality in her view of Gray Davis; the neighbors she knows all share it. ‘’You ought to talk to some other people here,'’ she says.

His other neighbors hate him, as well, and it seems more visceral than anything otherwise substantive.

The piece also looks at some of the candidates to replace Davis, like this one:

S. Issa likes the effects of the recall — ‘’I think it’s a wake-up call for California'’ — but he admits that he’s not going to vote for it. He’s not sure any of the candidates are qualified to replace Davis, with one possible exception. If it came to that, he says, he could do the job, because he is guided by the sincere desire to leave the world a better place than he found it. ‘’Money, it comes and goes,'’ he says. ‘’Fame, it comes and goes. Health, it comes and goes. One day I will die. There will be a judgment. I’ll be asked: ‘Did you do something good?’ And I’m going to say, ‘I tried to run for governor.’ ‘’

As Sean Hannity’s liberal sidekick, Alan Colmes, used to say drolly on his syndicated radio talkshow: “Beautiful.”

It is almost over. After all this, it is finally nearing the end.

Here’s this, something I mentioned briefly in this afternoon’s Rightsided Newsletter:

CNN’s Judy Woodruff, subbing for Wolf Blitzer this AM on Late Edition, asked Secretary of State Colin Powell about a quote from him in a recent Newsweek. The magazine alleged the General Powell had recently referred to General Wesley Clark as “Lieutenant Colonel Clark,” certainly a derisive “demotion.” Supposedly because Powell thought Clark to be something like an “overeager general-wannabe.”

Powell denied it. He said that General Clark was a Lt. Col. when he worked for him, but he never used that appellation after the Lieutenant Colonel was promoted. “I don’t know where they get those quotes,” Powell said, this time derisively.

Of Clark, he said: “One of the most gifted soldiers I ever had working for me.” That is, indeed, a compliment, but it also puts Wes in his place. (He was once the Secretary’s subordinate.)

Which reminds me. On CBS’s Face the Nation, Howie Dean dismissed General Clark as a “sign of desperation by some inside-the-beltway Democrats.” Clark is the only potential major Dem candidate besides Dean who is not a per se Washington insider.

Are we having fun yet?

The latest California poll to hit the wires is one which was taken after the recent candidates’ debate, the first CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken in this race.

The results had 63 percent of the registered voters surveyed would vote to recall Davis, with only 35 percent wanting to keep him on. His departure seems to be a foregone conclusion, but everyone but him and a few national Democrats have known this for a long time.

To replace him, 40% picked Arnold, 25% chose Bustamante, 18% chose Tom McClintock. There are some also rans, according to the survey: 5% went with Greenie Peter Camejo and two percent opted for Arianna Huffington of the very wealthy dizzbot party.

If this bears out, and we don’t know what the results of the survey would be once the afterglow of the debate [yeah] has passed into darkness. Either way, it looks like Arnold will win even with McClintock in the race. Tom McClintock will be seen as the brave conservative who did not back down.

Babs Boxer is up for reelection next year. Despite her name, she’s not the Cassius Clay of the debating world, so the over-under would have to be one round. Like those old Tyson fights.

This some Sunday Morning Talk Show stuff which didn’t fit into today’s Rightsided Newsletter, but is as important as any of it.

Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic, was wrote in yesterday’s New York Post about the Democrats’ reaction to the President’s $21-billion (of the full $87-billion) request for rebuilding Iraq’s civilian infrastructure:

The second response is that Democrats can’t evaluate Bush’s request without more information. At the CBC debate, John Edwards said he wouldn’t vote yes “without the president telling us how much this is going to cost over the long term, how long we’re going to be there, and who is going to share the cost with us.” But this isn’t a position; it’s a dodge. We already know who is going to share the cost with us: almost nobody. … Edwards has all the information he needs to make a decision on Bush’s budget request right now. Liberal internationalism says he should vote yes; the Democratic base says he should vote no. And his demand for plans, estimates, and timetables is a device to avoid choosing between the two.

It’s obvious that if the United States does not see that Iraq is given a decent chance to build a Democracy, we will have failed the people or Iraq and the people of the United States. Edwards called Iraq, on Fox News Sunday this morning, “a shooting gallery.” The term “quagmire” is tossed around carelessly. A breeding ground for terrorists, which conjures to mind an image of a stagnant pool of fetid water from which dangerous mosquitoes spring forth. The only way to clean this up is to clean it up.

On NBC’s Meet the Press, Dick Gephardt declared: “There are a lot of questions that Congress needs to ask, and will ask.” Like, how much will other countries will contribute? But that does not matter. Paul Bremer has estimated the cost for rebuilding Iraq to be about $60-billion, with estimated Iraqi oil revenue covering some $40-billion of that. Either way, it has to come from somewhere.

On CNN’s Late Edition, Senator Trent Lott (R-Tennessee) told sub Judy Woodruff: “I don’t think he’ll [President Bush] get every dollar, but he’ll get most of it.”

The Bush Administration would like for its allies in the war against terror to forgive some $100-billion in Iraqi foreign debt incurred during the reign of Saddam Hussein. (They also owe some $98-billion to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from the 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The Kuwaiti parliament recently turned down an Administration proposal to forgive that debt.)

Iraq owes most of the $100-billion to — besides the Saudis — France, Germany, and Russia. Three familiar names. (They also owe some $1.7-billion to Bulgaria, who took a different tack and became a part of the Coalition of the Willing.) Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), looking very vice-presidential on Late Edition alongside Trent Lott, said that he wants those nations to forgive their debt before the United States commits rebuilding money, “because its not right for those who supported Saddam to be repaid,” while the American taxpayer is not. He was referring the U.S. contributions to Iraq which would help pay off their debt, much of which is owed to France and Germany. (On this, he is more unforgiving than is the President.)

Woodruff asked him about Joe Biden’s proposal which would repeal the tax cut for the “wealthiest 1%” to defray the cost of reconstruction in Iraq. Bayh objected at first, and Woodruff insisted that “it’s only for the wealthiest one-percent,” not for everyone. Bayh stood his ground, insisting that he would not consider such a repeal if the money goes to France and Germany.

Asked by Steph on This Week if the United States would consider loaning the money for reconstruction to Iraq, rather than giving them outright grants, Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted: “We don’t want to saddle the Iraqis with any more debt.”

Rebuilding Iraq is going to be a complicated and expensive [ad]venture. I literally shudder when I think of a Kerry or a Dean moving into the White House in time to screw it up royally. The first budge for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania proposed by Governor Crazy Eddy Rendell last March was for $21-billion. The President will probably get an amount similar to that requestion, so… vote Republican.

Good morning. While getting ready for this morning’s talk shows, I noted a piece on the web site of the Des Moines Register: Ted Kennedy stumps for Kerry in Iowa. Now, Kennedy is popular with ultralibs and most partisan Dems, but his recent anti-Administration slurs — slurred imputations — have drawn the ire of sober-thinking Americans. What good would a Kennedy so recently tained to for Kerry in the decidely non-Massachusetts State of Iowa? Let’s make something perfectly clear:

“We reached a different conclusion, but we didn’t have differences going into what we were driving at,” Kennedy said. “He believed that they could achieve the objectives, which I agreed with, by a different way.”

Kennedy this month called Bush’s justification for war “a fraud” motivated by politics. Kerry is among four presidential candidates who voted for the war resolution, but he has criticized Bush’s pre-war diplomacy and refers to postwar Iraq as a “quagmire.”

Kennedy drew a distinction, and Register staff writer Thomas Beaumont did his best to amplify Kennedy’s contradictory snarls.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) attacked Kennedy’s remarks and called on Kerry, among a few others, to directly repudiate them. Kerry responded: “Tom DeLay is a bully. He tried to bully Democrats in Texas and we’re not going to accept his shrill partisan attacks or allow him to suggest that patriotism belongs to one political party.'’ He did not seperate himself from Kennedy’s remarks; rather, he changed the subject to the struggle of the Texas State legislature to draw Congressional districts for their own State.

Neither Kerry nor Kennedy will be on this morning’s Talk Shows, though John Edwards will talk to Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday, Dick Gephardt will be on NBC’s Meet the Press, and Howie Dean is set for CBS’s Face the Nation.

Guess what. A Russian rocket has put the first ever Nigerian satellite into orbit. A 27-year-old Nigerian security guard named Prosper Sunday beamed: “It makes me proud to be a Nigerian. It shows our nation is progressing. We’ve joined the space age.”

We ought to be proud for them. The Nigerian satellite will monitor military facilities, infrastructure, and the country’s oil piplelines, from which freeloaders siphon hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil each day.

“It’s a great feat for Nigeria,” said Joseph Akinyede of the National Space Research and Development Agency, based in the capital Abuja

“We have a footprint in space.”

But in walk the Dems.

“They should be helping the poor. Most people here are just struggling to find something to eat.”

A 27-year-old barber named Adam Ahmed, who owns neither a TV nor a radio and thus hadn’t heard of the satellite, complained:

“They haven’t told us much about space,” he said.

“I’ve heard of people going to the moon but I don’t know how they got there.”

I propose a seperation of charity and state.

…according to Kerry and Dean. RNC spokeswoman Christine Iverson notes: “If John Kerry calls for one Administration official to resign, Howard Dean has to call for two.”

On Friday, Kerry called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign because he has acted “in an arrogant, inappropriate way that has frankly put America at jeopardy.” This is why I said, a few weeks ago, that Ted Kennedy should give up the political ghost. Kerry has nothing on Rumsfeld.

Neither has Dean, who also called on Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to resign. He promised to start an internet petition drive calling for their resignations. A couple dozen Dem cranks with 25,000 Hotmail accounts each, and Dean has himself a groundswell of public sentiment.

Just a reminder: tomorrows Rightsided Newsletter is the one which reviews the Sunday morning Talk Shows. The RSN is free, of course, and you can subscribe by visiting its web site, or by clicking on THIS to fire up your mail client to send a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [at] topica.com.

[Jim McCaffrey told me of two Dem-related Op/Ed pieces in this morning’s New York Post — one by Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic (TNR), and another by National Review (NR) editor Rich Lowry. Then when I could not find them online, he sent me a couple of pcx files. (I subsequently found the Beinart piece as a “TRB from Washington: Cheap Shots,” HERE.) Jim wrote: “Anything for the cause.” Thanks, Jim.]

TNR is generally center-left, while NR is “is America’s premier journal of conservative political thought. As would be expected, each distinguished editor approaches the Dems from his own angle.

Beinart’s (TNR) piece is Post-headlined “The Iraq-Money 3-Step,” and it begins:

A week into his presidential bid, Wesley Clark looks less like the Democrats’ solution than another symptom of their basic problem. That problem is that much of the Democratic base still doesn’t take national security seriously. Sure, Democrats know that most Americans don’t trust the party to keep them safe. But they deny that this distrust has anything to do with prevailing Democratic ideology. The party, they reassure themselves, merely needs a tougher image.

It didn’t work for McGovern or Cleland, he writes, and it will not work for Wesley Clark this fall: “The voters–shocking as it may seem– actually care what the parties believe.”

He writes: “[A]t the very moment Democrats are swooning over Clark, the party’s views on Iraq are growing even more confused.” First, they trashed the President for underestimating the cost and the difficulty of post-Saddam Iraq; then, when the President requested $87-billion for this purpose, they respond in three ways: “The first response is that the Bush administration should be spending the money at home. … The second response is that Democrats can’t evaluate Bush’s request without more information. … The third dodge is to equate reconstructing Iraq with lining Dick Cheney’s pockets.”

The Democrats do not have a coherent national security doctrine, Beinart concludes. “You can dress up the Democratic Party in whatever uniform you want, it still doesn’t have a strategy for the defining challenge of our time.”

Lowrey (NR) takes a different tack in his Post piece, “A Party Caught in Contradictions: The ’04 Dem Credo.” He proceeds to list the contradictions for which today’s Democratic Party stands going into next year’s election. Here is a sampling:

• “President Bush is isn’t devoting enough resources to the reconstruction of Iraq… and — in light of his $87 billion aid proposal — he is devoting too many resources to the reconstruction of Iraq.”
• “Punch card ballots are a travesty of justice … unless they elect a Democrat (as they did in California just one year ago).”
• “Bush is responsible for an economic downturn that began before he was elected … and Clinton is responsible for an economic recovery that began before he was elected. (At last — a kind of consistency.”
• “The Patriot Act is denying Americans their liberties … and John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards or Bob Graham should be elected president after having voted for it.”
• “Library records are sacred documents … but the Constitution — a ‘living document’ subject to manipulation by judges — is not.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence McAuliffe objects to any attempt to portray his party as fragmented based on the varied cackles of its current crop of candidates. The party will eventually settle on one man, one message, he insists. He readily admits that the common cause of all Democrats is ousting President Bush.

What do we have if they somehow succeed? What is the Democratic Party, in terms of positive principles? The motion: Void, zilch, zero, naught, nothing, vacuum.

Without objection, so ordered. Hearing no objections, it is so ordered, and the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.

Ozzy Osbourne is an aging rocker — used to sing with a group called Black Sabbath — who recently scored a hit with his family on MTV. His wife Sharon now has her own daytime talkshow; Sharon Osbourne cursed opposite the Queen on British TV last Christmas.

When Ozzy Osbourne talks, nonsense syllables emit from his throat; likewise, when Joey “Gray” Davis speaks, few can be certain if we hear words, whimpers, or unintelligible nonsense. Ozzy and Joey are each married to a gal named Sharon, although Sharon Osbourne’s husband is a popular guy, in some circles, suffering from the mass-suicide of his brain cells, while Sharon Davis’s husband is universally reviled.

Sharton Davis has granted an interview to the Associated Press.

Petite and impeccably dressed, with a scrupulous memory for facts and detail, Sharon Davis has long been an effective if underutilized ambassador for her husband, Gov. Gray Davis.

Ms. Davis might be an effective ambassador, but methinks its time for Governor Davis to shut down his embassy and let California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres open up an Interests Section, much like Castro has in D.C.

President Bush and Vlad have hooked up at Camp David this weekend and they held a joint press conference this morning. The main develop is that the United States and Russia are friends, allies. Putin said that any differences are bushed aside, etc. The Coalition of the Unwilling was, half year ago, France, Germany, and Russia; Schroeder and Putin have fallen pretty much in line, and the Coalition of the Unwilling is now France. This is very big.

Part of Chirac’s motivation in opposing the war against Saddam was to build a coalition of nations which could stand as a counterbalance to the interests of the United States, kind of a paper-superpower. France, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Germany and the former Soviet Russian Federation, was to be Chirac’s counterbalance, starting the United States in the eye and not blinking.

The world now has a bad case of the blinks. France’s dream is dead, probably for a very long time.

Good morning. The following exchange, which took place last night on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman proves the currently popular theory that Letterman and NBC’s Meet the Press host Tim Russert are interchangeable.

Interviewing Secretary of State Colin Powell, Letterman wanted to know if the Secretary would serve in a second Bush Administration, or if — as rumoured in the Washpost and elsewhere — he would leave after the first term:

Letterman: “Let’s assume that [Bush] wins a second term. Would you be his secretary of state? Would you like to continue or have you in fact told him you would not continue?”

Powell (smiling): “I have enjoyed my job enormously and I will serve it at the pleasure of the president How long do you want to do this?”

Letterman: “I would infer then that you will be a secretary of state if [the president] wins another term?”

Powell: “Oh, I’ll be secretary of state for as long as I serve at his pleasure.”

Letterman: “And you’re still in his pleasure, you haven’t incurred his displeasure have you?”

Powell: “Not so far today, but it’s early.”

Until a decade ago, Letterman worked for NBC, and it is possible that he and Russert bumped into each other in the hall and exchanged interviewing techniques via osmosis.

Seriously, though the CNN.com story bears the subhead “Secretary of state deftly sidesteps questions about his future,”the Secretary cannot declare that he will serve in the second Bush Administration. The President chooses his cabinet, and Powell implied that he will serve if asked.

I happened across an AP Analysis of McClintock’s new television ad, and it seems that the ad is more of what he has been doing: pushing his experience and deeply held convictions. A paragraph of their analysis caught my eye:

The words honesty and integrity, which also scroll across the screen, refer to McClintock’s conservatism.

The terms honesty and integrity are apt descriptions of conservatives. Back in my Rand-ie days, we called it: “Non-Contradiction.”

For laughline purposes alone, here is the latest fundraising e-mail from Howie Dean. He has President Barlett doing his shilling for him.

Dear Friend,
I am writing you today as a fellow supporter of Howard Dean. It is now more important than ever that we stand up with him.

At yesterday’s presidential debate in New York City, the Washington candidates continued their relentless attacks on Howard Dean. For the past month, the establishment candidates have been conducting orchestrated assaults on Dean’s
character, employing radio ads, speeches, direct mail, and a whisper campaign
questioning the Governor’s commitment to key Democratic values — one of them has even created a website devoted exclusively to criticizing Howard Dean.

As Howard Dean said at the debate, “We need to remember that the enemy here is
George Bush, not each other.” We need Howard Dean’s bold leadership in the White House. Strong fundraising keeps our campaign’s momentum going; it pays for much-needed media buys in key battleground states and it attracts new supporters to Howard Dean. And continuing strong fundraising will also help with the campaign’s latest bold move: hiring a coordinator for each of Iowa’s 99 counties.

[fundraising URLs and that]

Thank you for taking the time today to support Howard Dean.

Sincerely,

Martin Sheen

These Hollywood types have joined Howie on whatever the alternate plan of existence is from which he sends his signals.

It looks like Issa’s people were able to negotiate a Friday date for the announcement with Arnold’s people, because Issa back Arnold officially today. We knew it yesterday, of course, but the Issa crew had to get permission from Arnold’s boyz as to when the formal announcement could be.

Said Issa: “I cast my endorsement today for the man I know is going to take us in the right direction.” (My conspiracy friends say that Darrell is tight with the Generals who run Syria, but to me, merely backing the Syrians keeping troops in the Lebanon, if he actually did, does not, in and of itself, make one a bad person.) [See Congressman Issa’s statement of April, 2002, HERE.]

Campaigning with defrocked former Texas Governr Ann Richards in West Hollywood today, California Governor Joey Davis challenged Arnold to a debate: “Right here, right now, I challenge him to a debate.” Davis and Schwarzenegger will not be competing in the upcoming recall election. There is no reason why the two of them should debate, except that Davis has a few weeks left and needs something to save his failed governorship. Schwarzenegger turned him down, with a campaign spokesman offering: “So, sorry Gray, you are on your own, pal.”

Davis is going down, and he has decided to take as many unborn babies down with him as he can. Davis today signed SB 332 and SB 771, two bills related to human embryonic stem cell research. However, the Senate still has a bill to pay for the experimentation:

What wasn’t discussed is SB 778, which authorizes the issuance of a bond for the purpose of funding biomedical research facilities, as well as research grants or loans. It is stuck in a Senate Appropriations committee. Sponsor state Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) says she’ll try to move it next year.

Methinks it is time for some fiscal reality. The State of California cannot afford to continue throwing money at medical experiments on unborn babies. “This research has the potential to…” It’s had that potential for ten years and you’ve found nothing. Try something else.

This is from Congressional Quartley’s daily “CQ Today Midday Update” of this afternoon:

“Our Constitution allows consumers to choose not to receive commercial telemarketing calls. We will seek every recourse to give American consumers a choice to stop unwanted telemarketing calls.” — Federal Trade Commission Chairman Timothy Muris, of a court decision declaring the national “do not call” registry unconstitutional.

This is wrong, and it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of our Constitution. Our Constitution empowers the Federal Government to do certain things. It does not empower the individual to do anything. This is basic stuff, Muris.

Section 527 of the IRS code was enacted in 1975 “to cover the tax treatment of all political organizations intended to influence the nomination, selection, appointment, or election of a candidate for federal, state, or local public office.” A 527 committee, named for that section of the code, can accept as much soft money as is offered from individuals, corporations, and interest groups. A politician 527 Committee is affiliated, of course, with a politician, such as is the case with candidate John Edwards’s New American Optimists. McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan/Bush proscribes national committees and individual candidates from accepting such donations.

Because of these 527 committees, it is reported, are cutting into the Republicans’ standard fundraising edge.

From the WashPost story comes word of a study by The Center for Public Integrity:

The center’s study, which covered the period from August 2000 to August 2003, found that money going to Democratic-leaning groups — such as unions and environmental and abortion rights groups — was more than double that going to Republican-affiliated groups, $185 million to $81.6 million, a difference of $103.4 million.

The story also reports that former Clinton aide Harold Ickes is will soon be opening his own political 527 committee — as differentiated from politician 527 committee which serve the candidates directly — to spend some $50-million on television advertising. (Ickes supports such current candidates as General Wesley Clark and Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania).)

The GOP receives more hard money, natch.

Former Representative James Trafficant (D-Ohio), lodged in a federal penitentiary, will note be running for President, as such, in 2004. If had heard mumblings — and that’s all they were — about this, but I just now discovered that his draft committee had its own web site.

The details are linked, but suffice it to say that his people did not raise by Wednesday the necessary $100,000 to qualify for Fed matching funds.

So that ends that chapter. But he would make a great running mate for Wesley Clark should the general best the rest of the insuffereable Dem field.

California Governor Joey Davis, a man not invited to the debate between his potential replacements, is once again talking about a one-on-one debate with GOP frontrunner Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I’m going to set the record straight. I’m getting sick and tired of his distortions,” Davis said. “If he doesn’t set the record straight himself, I may have to debate him.”

Davis issued such talk very early in the process, sounding as if he would have been granting Schwarzenegger credibility by deigning to debate him.

Even now, Davis is acting as if it is his choice whether or not to debate his challenger. He is not talking about debating the most qualified of all the candidates, including the governor, State Senator Tom McClintock. He does not hint at lowering himself to challenge Cruz Bustamante. Of the three serious candidates to replace Davis, only Arnold Schwarzenegger is new to this political thaang, and Davis wants a piece of him.

Schwarzenegger’s camp dismissed Davis’s talk as that of a governor in trouble, desperate to gain some standing. Indeed, the polls indicate that most Californians want rid of Davis. He will be left to sink and swim on his own.