Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

These are a few rather specific things for which to look in 2004. Specific is dangerous, so let’s assume that the baby and the bathwater are both gone long before the Tarot has been put in the box. But here we go:

Look for the Democrat Party to remain divided. Okay, I’m starting with the obvious, but whomeve their eventual nominee, they will remain divided. If, by chance, the nominee is Howard Dean, we’re looking at the rebirth of a phenomenon we saw two decades ago: [Republican President] Democrats. Twenty years ago, they were the Reagan Democrats, conservative (mostly southern) Democrats and Dems who just liked President Reagan. The Bush Democrats to fly in the face of a nominee Dean would be moderate-conservative-Democrats who think that President Bush is doing a good job and dislike Howard Dean. So whereas the Reagan Dems were reacting to the President, the Bush Dems will be reacting mostly to Dean.

No matter who the Democrat nominee is, the Veep selection will not be a current candidate. It will not be Hillary. It will probably be a moderate Senator from the mid west, and Indiana’s Evan Bayh springs readily to mind.

There will be no consensus after the first ballot at the Dem convention, and then will begin a pre-planned “Draft Hillary Rodham” — Rodham, as opposed to Clinton, because the Dems will want to maintain that “wall of seperation” — movement. She will put on a public display of pensiveness, the gush for a while, the magnimously turn them down. She could never be a number two, and she probably believes the hype regarding her chances in 2008.

Things in Iraq will work out, in that they will be governing themselves by July. We’ll still be there in force to maintain order, but the Iraqi government will be functioning. I won’t predict when general elections will be held in Iraq, nor will I do so for Afghanistan. I do think, however, that the U.N. will broker some sort of peace between the Karzai government and the “moderate Taliban.” When all is said and done, they get an Islamic Republic, albeit one not modeled after Iran or Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan.

Speaking of Mullah Omar, I don’t think we’ll see him again. Like Elvis and the Sasquatch, there will be “sightings,” though, for what they are worth.

Iran, in a post-Bam gesture of good will, could offer to surrender Osama bin Laden to the United States. They’ll tip him off, of course, and he will “escape” to Pak, but Iran will then assert that they tried, hoping that eases some pressure on them. President Bush is not buying.

The economy does well enough, and my game is politics, not economics, so I won’t give you an interest rate prediction. I will say that the stock market isn’t going back, but that the dollar will remain weak.

It’s early, and I haven’t put any names in the blank spaces, but the President will have coattails and the GOP will gain eight Senate seats, including a John Thune upset of a weakened Tom Daschle. This will put them one below the magic number of 60. Max Baucus (D-Montana) will be enticed to make the switch, much to the delight of such as Rhode Island’s Linc Chafee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and the two gals from Maine.

[Note: Senate Minority leaders, weakened by whatever hits Daschle, are as vulnerable as weakend House Speakers, such as Washington’s Tom Foley in ‘94.]

Look for Senate conservatives to form their own caucus, but look for non-conservatives to seek to appropriate the label by joining. None of the four I beg as overjoyed at the edition of a liberal Baucus to their GOP “Mod Squad” will join. Maybe John Warner of Virginia. California’s new Republican Senator — former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin? — will not apply.

Osama bin Laden will be captured after the 2004 election. Saddam Hussein will not be tried in 2004. We’ll talk about the Cabinet after the election.

I know I have been too specific to hope for a perfect track record, but this is fun stuff. No matter how serious it seems, it has to be taken with the requisite grain of salt, or substitute if, like me, you’re keeping an eye on your BP.

Happy New Year!

New unemployment claims are at their lowest level since the day the President was sworn-in. [ABCNEWS.com] The four-week moving average, more stable, is at its lowest level since February 10, 2001, three weeks after inauguration.

The employment market has survived the Clinton recession. The economy has survived a terrorist attack and two wars. The economy has survived the burst of the Clinton bubble.

It’s morning in America.

That woman, Miss Lewinsky, has failed in her bid to have the government pay her legal bills in the criminal investigation of former President William Jefferson Clinton, the AP reports Wednesday.

To collect attorneys’ fees, Lewinsky needed to demonstrate that the perjury and obstruction probe of the president would not have occurred except for the now-expired Ethics in Government Act, which led to the appointment of Independent Counsel Ken Starr.

The three-judge panel’s conclusion:

“The question is, would evidence of criminal wrongdoing by an incumbent president and accomplices of that president have escaped an investigation of similar scope in the absence of the Ethics in Government Act?” the court stated. “History teaches us that the answer is no.”

So the court found that we (taxpayers) do not have to pay for Monica’s attorneys and that authorities didn’t need Ken Starr fishing around to suspect Clinton of criminal behavior.

Representative Chris Shays (R-Connecticut) isn’t buying the words of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. According to a story on the web site of WVIT in Hartford:

“I think it’s really irresponsible for our government to tell people that they don’t need to take precautions,” Shays said. “If Secretary Ridge says, ‘Just do what you normally do,’ I would say, what do you normally do? If normally, you go to Times Square, I wouldn’t do what you normally do.

Shays is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence,

“I know I wouldn’t want to go to Times Square because I know it’s a tempting target for terrorists,” Shays said Tuesday. “I know I wouldn’t let my daughter go.”

Nothing specific. The New York City police department will be out in force: police snipers, seven police helicopters, sensors, scanners…

Shays then went on NBC’s Today, between segments probably concerning gardening and underwear, and said that one of his guest will be former POW and retired Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson:

“Maybe the congressman should talk to her a little bit about courage. You’re going to see a million people here who have the courage to come.”

Bad answer, Mike. Celebrating New Years Eve should not be equated with ousting one of the world’s most brutal, mutant thugs.

The solution is simple. Help reelect President George W. Bush. Click RIGHT HERE to be directed to the page where you can become a Bush Team Leader, an official part of the campaign. You can also join by donating at the campaign’s SECURE SERVER. You can make a habit of visiting Political Annotation on Wednesday and sending the President a few dollars every week.

And here is the official Blogroll of the Willing, those who’ve taken the time and space to spread this important word:

Well, Schumer, Daschle, and Jay Rockefeller –three Democrat Senators of fine standing — declared victory, chastised Attorney General John Aschroft for not stepping aside sooner, and looked forward to the results of the investigation into Valerie Plame-gate. Joe Wilson said something, and analysts and scholars will be debating the relevance and impact of his comments until after they’ve finished their coffee. [See blog post from yesterday.]

There was some regret that Ashcroft replaced himself with a lifetime Justice Department attorney (U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald of Chicago, rather than the special counsel they had sought, but Daschle said he was content to “quickly get to the bottom of this urgent matter and swiftly bring to justice the person or persons responsible.” This was not, as the New York Times headline implies, the naming of an independent special counsel and an abject capitulation to Democrat demands.

The candidates for the Dem nomination were, of course, more hostile.

From this AP piece, we have that Lieberman was angry that Fitzgerald was “constrained by Department of Justice regulations that severely curtail the prosecutor’s autonomy.”

Candidate Dean complained that “the American people deserve a person whose honesty, objectivity and fairness are guaranteed to investigate this serious matter.”

Kerry sniped that Fitzgerald is a “Bush political appointee [who carries] the same baggage as John Ashcroft.” (On May14, 2001, the Chicago Tribune described Fitzgerald as a “politically independent, career federal prosecutor from New York.”)

Deputy Attorney General James Comey will remain the acting AG for the case of the leak regarding that woman, Ms. Plame, As a sidelight, Comey is the U.S. attorney who filed the federal charges against that woman with the napkins, Martha Stewart.

In the Democrats’ political killing fields of Iowa on Monday, candidate John F. Kerry cried the following:

“When we hear statistics like these and when we know how to turn them around, it is flatly unacceptable and irresponsible for the President of the United States to simply look the other way,”

To what was he referring?

The hat is tipped to Viking Pundit for this one.

Of all the matters on which the Democrat candidates have been harping — jobs, including France in U.S. foreign policy decisions, tax cuts for their “wealthiest one-percent” — Kerry managed to find a new one. Asthma. No kidding.

Here’s this Fox News story.

Why would Attorney General John Ashcroft pick this time, several months into the Joe Wilson-inspired investigation to recuse himself? It seems obvious to me that something is about to happen, perhaps the revelation of the leaker behind Valerie Plame-gate and this is someone with whom Ashcroft is associated as one who serves near President Bush and at his pleasure. If that be the case, then Ashcroft almost had to stand away from the case, as the last thing the President needs as he prepares to begin his campaign for reelection are the quasi-legitimate squeals from the opposition.

Granted, this is what Schumer and his lot have been demanding, but it is not what they demanded. They wanted the AG to step aside before there was a hint that there might be a conflict. Ashcroft seems to have waited until it became apparent, at least to him, that there would be.

Also, this investigation is going to uncover nothing legally actionable. To criminally indict someone on charges of disclosing the name of a CIA agent, there must be grounds to believe that the leaker knew that the release of such information was illegal and leaked it despite this knowledge. The law was created to prosecute government officials who maliciously disclose the names of intelligence agents.

There was no malice, thus there can be no indictment. This finding will contain more credence to critics coming from someone other than a close Bush appointee.

Recusing himself was the smartest thing politically for John Ashcroft to do. Valerie Plame-gate is a minor matter, and the wisest course is not to needlessly allow it to become a more complex and troublesome problem. This sets no deleterious precedent, and the Democrats do not get their “special counsel.” (Patrick Fitzgerald, who will head the investigation for the justice department, is a U.S. attorney from Chicago.) This should allow me and my fellow supporter of the President to breathe a sigh of relief.

One wonders if Karl Rove had anything to do with asking Ashcroft to step aside as the smartest move politically. One also wonders, though this could be unrelated, whether Rove was the leaker. As brilliant as Karl Rove is, his strategic mind can be replaced. There is one thing he seems to have, though, which is invaluable in this particular Administration: the President’s trust. That’s something crucial to this Administration and this election.

My wife tells me to blame Rich Bond. I usually do, so I think I will.

We’ve seen him compared to everyone from George McGovern to George Bush, and I don’t see either. I’ve compared his grassroots organization unfavorably with that of Ross Perot in 1992. I’m looking for something better, and I might have found that comparison in Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

I read a nifty piece in today’s NRO about Khatami and his positions; to wit:

Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami voiced his opposition to the death penalty, stating that “he did not even wish for the execution of captive Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.” The very same day, in the northern town of Gonbad-e-Kavoos, an Iranian man convicted of murder was hanged in public, becoming the tenth execution in Iran reported by local press over the past week.

And:

Khatami also denied that his country ever sought to develop nuclear weapons. Speaking at the World Council of Churches in Geneva, the Iranian leader stated that the Islamic religion forbids the use of weapons which kill indiscriminately, saying that “We cannot go and seek a nuclear program because of our religious faith.” Once again, it was a good timing for such a statement, just one day following the arrest of nuclear scientists, Dr. Farooq Mehmood and Yasin Chohan by Pakistani authorities, for possible links to the transfer of nuclear-related information to Iran. Dr. Farooq is the director of Pakistan’s prestigious nuclear facility, Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL), which developed the country’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.

The right-sided blogosphere has been replete with examples of Howard Dean’s lies. Like Khatami, he’s not even good at it.

Iranian president Khatami has accumulated a long list of public lies and deceptions since he became the president in 1997. “The biggest lie,” says Reza Bulorchi, the executive director of the U.S. Alliance for a Democratic Iran, “was Khatami himself, the so-called ‘moderate reformer.’”

Khatami even has a loyal, grassroots following. These are the people who shout down reformers and demand the deaths of the various infidels.

Dean is not McGovern, Mondale, Carter, or — gag — President Bush (as Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein asserted yesterday). He most resembles Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, who has his own web presence HERE.

Geopolitics. Some quick background: Pakistan’s President Nawaz Sharif was ousted by coup in October of 1999, and General Pervez Musharraf was installed as military dictator. In June of 2001, he decided that he was the president, and he declared himself to be so. On September 11, 2001, terrorists loosely based in neighboring Afghanistan made General/President Musharraf a player on the world stage. He reestablished a national assembly after elections in 2002. His main battle within Pak has been with the Islamist parties, but the leaders of these parties have no given him new powers [Reuters link] in exchange for his promise to resign as chief of the military by beginning of 2004.

To put Musharraf and Pakistan in a geopolitical context, there have supposedly been several assassination attempts directed at General Musharraf of late. Some geopolitical experts and even some within various world governments have thus stressed that it’s not important whether Musharraf lives or dies; rather, the stabilizing factors must stay in place. One wouldn’t say such things regarding President Bush or, to use the other side, French President Jacques Chirac. Of course, they are elected leaders of stable nations.

Musharraf’s most shiny new power comes in the form of a constitutional amendment, Article 270-AA:

“The Proclamation of Emergency of October 14, 1999, all President’s Orders, Ordinances, Chief Executive’s Orders… shall not be called in question in any court or forum on any ground whatsoever.”

This serves to validate everything he has done to date, including the Emergency Declaration, in which he abolished every last bit of Pakistani government and declared: “The whole of Pakistan will come under the control of the Armed Forces of Pakistan.”

Musharraf can also abolish the legislature at any time with the consent of the Pak supreme court.

Opponents inside Pakistan claim that those in the elected leadership are surrendering power to a single man, Musharraf. Others also see this as the militarization of Pakistani governmental institutions. This is true, and it is loathsome. The alternative, though, is an unstable country with enemies and nukes, a whim away from launching death at India and/or becoming a new place for international terrorists to lay their hats. That would inevitably turn into an Islamist dictatorship. This is especially nefarious at a time when democracy is peeking in at that region.

Good morning. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday evening — and reported by the Associated Press (via CBSNews, in this case) — shows that President George W. Bush is the most admired man, receiving top honors from 29-percent of the 1,004 adults surveyed between December 5 and 7, with the usual margin-of-error of plus or minus 3 points.

The President was trailed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Pope John Paul II with 4-percent.

The woman most admired by those surveyed, given her constant adulation in the media, was Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, given happy account by 16-percent of respondants. Oprah Winfrey received the nod from 7-percent of those who answered, first lady Laura Bush garnered 6-percent and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice won four-percent of the responses.

Those surveyed were not given a list of names from which to choose, so they took whomever first came to mind with little thought or reflection. The President usually receives the most mentions from respondents to the question regarding men, while the first lady is said to usually fare better. But with the constant drumbeat of Hillary stories in the press, her name has to be the most memorized. She’s significantly less significant than the media portrays her, but her name is going to spring first to the minds of some of those who hear it a dozen times a day.

Candidate John Edwards, the one Democrat who could play with George Bush, has a novel idea for job creation: a tax cut. He’s going to give us five-million jobs in two years. From the Associated Press:

Edwards’ proposal called for:

- Tax breaks for companies that agree to keep their operations in the country, a move he said would create 52,000 jobs in Iowa alone.

- Targeted tax cuts for middle-class families, which he said would put money in the pockets of 1 million Iowans.

- Creating a first-time homeowner tax credit, which would help 70,000 Iowa families move into a house.

- Offering 120,000 Iowa families a $2,500 tax credit for each new child born, making it easier for at least one parent to stay at home with the infant.

- Offering retirement savings incentives to 980,000 Iowans, offering tax incentives for setting money aside. Another 260,000 families would benefit for a lowered capital gains tax, he said.

He wants to repeal parts of the President’s tax cuts which he said benefited the very wealthy, etc.:

“We know that President Bush’s tax cuts did not do enough for working people,” Edwards said. “But our answer cannot be to raise taxes on those who make the least. We cannot say to the average family of four in Iowa: your taxes are going up by more than $1,700.”

That’s how much Edwards says that Dean’s total repeal would cost middle class families.

“One America does the work, while another America reaps the reward,” Edwards said in a speech detailing his efforts to bolster quality of life for middle-class Americans. “One America pays the taxes, while another America gets the tax breaks.”

Class warfare, and the wealthy trial lawyer is for the little guy.

He’s on a different wavelength than is the imploding frontrunner, and a few thousand Deaniacs on the Internet who do not even know their candidate cannot change much.

Dean’s grassroots campaign is no match for that of Ross Perot in 1992. Perot formed a grassroots organization, started a party, dropped out of the race claiming conspiracy, reentered the race, picked a man not cut out to be a politician as his running mate, and still took 19-percent of the vote that November. Dean’s campaign is not even in the same league.

Historically, a President’s approval rating late in the year prior to a General Election has predicted the success, or lack thereof, of that President in the next election. Since the second President Roosevelt, every President save one has won a reelection he sought if he finished the year with an approval rating above 50-percent. (The exception was President Carter, who finished the year before the election at 54-percent but ran into destiny in the person of Ronald Reagan.)

Let’s look at these end-of-year ratings and the subsequent elections. In 1939, President Roosevelt’s approval rating was 64-percent; in 1940, he was reelected. In 1943, he was at 66% and won the next year.

In 1947, President Truman’s approval rating was at 54%, and he won in ‘48. In 1953, his approval rating was under 50%, at 23%. The next year, he dropped out of the race for the Dem nomination after losing the New Hampshire primary to Senator Dick Russell (D-Georgia).

In ‘55, President Eisenhower’s approval rating was 75-percent, and he was reelected the next year.

At the end of 1963, newly sworn-in to lead a nation in mourning, President Johnson’s approval rating 74%, he was elected in easily in 1964. In ‘67, LBJ was at 46-Vietnam-percent and opted not to seek reelection.

In ‘71, President Nixon was at 50-percent approval and walked over George McGovern the next year.

In 1975, President Ford’s approval rating was at 39%, and Carter cleaned his clock in ‘76.

We mentioned Carter’s loss after his 54% rating at the end of the previous year.

President Reagan was also at 54-percent at the end of 1983, and 1984 set records.

GHWB was at 50% at the end of 1991, not over that level, and Clinton defeated him the next year.

Clinton was at 51-percent in ‘95, and he defeated Bob Dole the next year.

This brings us to 2003. President Bush is at 63%.

Howard Dean can argue that most of that is ancient history, that things are different. This is what I tried to argue in school; my professor told me that a smart analyst does not bet against history without a mitigating factor, such as hostages in Iran and foolish speeches about malaise.

The mitigating factor this time could be Iraq if something disastrous goes down, but that’s not likely.

The Dems, right now, need one of two things to go sour: the reconstruction of Iraq or the economy. At this point, I’m inclined to say both. Part of the reason I can speak so confidently of the President’s reelection is his approval rating.

Many liberal pundits have pretty much decided that Howard Dean will be the Democrat nominee, and they no longer appear to back him enthusiastically now that he continues being Howard Dean. The only way they see to plant the sees for a very unlikely Dean victory in the General election, they have acknowledged, is to denigrate the opposition.

In today’s Los Angeles Times, Mark Kurlansky posits that Dean has to defeat the racism of Dick Nixon, circa 1968. He argues, feebly, that Republicans win Presidential elections by appealing to the racist, southern yahoos using the racist codeword: “States’ rights.” We all should know, he intimates, that the term has little to do with the Federalism of Madison and Jefferson; rather, it implies the “the right to own slaves.”

Nixon saw his opportunity in the decline of the great civil rights movement and the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. He judged that the South, a solid Democratic bloc that had never forgiven Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans for the Emancipation Proclamation, was furious about 10 years of civil rights progress and was ready to turn on the Democrats, who had received faithful Southern support since before the Civil War. In the end, Nixon defeated the Democrats not because of their worst disaster, Vietnam, but because of their greatest accomplishment, civil rights.

How does one counter such histrionic rhetoric? To argue that the Republicans really do oppose slavery is to lend some sort of credibility to his statement. I can only conclude that Kurlansky is either a sick bastard or is out of his head with desperation. Probably both, if the latter can cause a man to write this hideous tripe, let alone submit it for publication:

Nixon also began a campaign for an anti-civil rights court and in so doing sharpened the division between parties and turned the U.S. Senate into a far meaner place. Lame-duck President Lyndon Johnson had chosen Associate Justice Abe Fortas to be U.S. chief justice. Back in those quaint times, both Republican and Democratic senators recognized the right of the president to have his choice. Fortas had almost overwhelming support from Democrats and Republican leaders. But John Ehrlichman, later Nixon’s chief advisor on domestic affairs, worked with Robert Griffin, a GOP senator from Michigan, who got 19 Nixon Republicans to oppose the nomination.

Four decades after the fact, he’s attempting to extract false bogeyman from ancient history. (Sick.)

The other example of desperation at the Times is a lot less hateful. Ron Brownstein, in his opinion piece promotes the notion that Dean is George Bush in drag, the liberal version of the President.

The real reason Bush and Dean appear to be twins beneath the skin is that their current political strategies and styles are so similar. Dean has ascended in the Democratic presidential race by defining himself as the anti-Bush.

But in his approach to politics, Dean is now Bush’s mirror image, the liberal equivalent of a conservative president.

Before we laugh this one away as a desperate attempt to drag the President to the Dean level by comparison, let us hear what Brownstein has to say.

Almost every major policy decision Bush has made in office — from his tax cuts, to his energy and environmental plans, to his decision to invade Iraq without explicit United Nations authorization — has reflected the preferences of his core conservative supporters, even at the price of alienating moderate swing voters.

As a candidate, Dean has shown the same priority. At every stop, he insists Democrats must shift their attention away from the swing voters that Bill Clinton prized to excite core liberal constituencies like union members, women’s groups, minorities and gay rights activists. “We are going to take back the Democratic Party from the idea that the way to win elections is to neglect our base,” he insists.

He assumes that when the President makes policy decisions, he is running for reelection. This is a chic theory in trashier liberal circles, that Karl Rove runs the White House. He seems unable to accept that not every President governs as did Bill Clinton. Some have core values and “the vision thing,” and President Bush is one of them. And that is the way he campaigns. Dean campaigns in all directions.

Brownstein also asserts that both Dean and the President “share a tendency to sometimes speak before they think, and to dig in deeper when events seemingly demand retreat.” He gives no examples, and I can think of none on the President’s part. He asserts that Dean, like the President, see the world in black and white terms. Brownstein is either afraid to recognize or incapable of grasping that the world exists in black and white terms. This should be even more apparent now, when the examples have become so suddenly stark.

But if Dean see the world as black versus white — and not in Kurlansky’s ugly sense — it does not show. He fancies the world to be a billion “dazzling” shades of gray, each to be explored as the mood strikes. Thus Osama bin Laden can be guilty, not-guilty, and “ask the jury.” He can switch religions on a bike trail, campaign away from Christ, and call Jesus his preferred role model.

Kurlansky calls the GOP racist and says that for Dean to win, he must defeat that racism. Brownstein says that Dean is Bush in a mirror, and ” imitating the president may not be the most promising strategy for beating him..” One paper, two obscenities. Desperation does this to some.

From today’s Hartford Courant:

NEW CASTLE, Del. — A year ago, if political experts had to choose a candidate who would set Democratic fund-raising records, win Al Gore’s endorsement and be in the top tier of presidential contenders at the start of 2004, it would have been Joseph Lieberman.

Wrong, at least here. A year ago, I thought that candidate John Edwards, if anyone, would set Democrat fund-raising records, what with the support from the legal profession and, I incorrectly assumed, his grass roots (which, as it happens, never quite materialized.) He proved me right for the first reporting period, then faded fast.

A year ago, as now, I did not think it mattered in a positive way who would win Al Gore’s endorsement. If I would have guessed, it would have been candidate John Kerry. They dig each other. The Gore people consider Lieberman to have been a drain in 2000.

Top tier at the start of ‘04? Lieberman was one. Gephardt with Iowa, Kerry with New Hampshire, Edwards with South Carolina. I didn’t think much of Dean, thinking he was Kucinich in a nurse’s outfit.

I did not think Lieberman had a shot at the nomination, as he is not one to excite the electorate (Clinton, Carter) or even fool the electorate into believing they are exited (Mondale, Dukakis).

So I was off the mark, I suppose, but in a different direction.

Moveon.org is the nebulous Democrat internet organization — actually three organizations — which pays for the creation and presentation of amateurish, non-sequitur ads which do nothing but attack the GOP.

The Argus blog contains a thorough and revealing description of Moveon.org, from Sunday.

What I can tell you is that according to MoveOn.org’s faq, the San Francisco Foundation Community Initiative Funds, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that is not allowed to attempt to influence the outcome of elections. They aren’t doing go directly, but.. Anyway, you can see their 2002 990-PF (PDF) at Guidestar. On page 7, we see expenses that would make our finance committee go nuts, and on page 12, we see that they gave $15,249 to MoveOn.org to raise awareness of the individual’s ability to make a difference in American politics (on page 20, it mentions a grant of $17,698, so I don’t know if these were two different amounts or the $15,249 was the part related to political activity).

Check it out.

Good morning. The bit about the Dean Juggernaut and its secret energy task force — about which I wrote yesterday afternoon — seems to be the big political news so far this morning.

The Dean campaign is spinning as best it can, but this was stupidity.

It came on the heels of the Dean Juggernaut threatening Democrats with certain death if he does not win the party’s nomination. This is another Dean doing I reported and analyzed yesterday.

This won’t affect the Deaniacs, of course, as they’ve bet the farm on a dolt and stubbornly refuse to be sophisticated enough to look elsewhere. Like Dean related, these people will be dispirited and directionless once Dean is finally dismissed as the clown that he is, and they will drift aimlessly away. The Democrats will have to do it without these folks, which they’d have to do anyway.

He still thinks he’s in it, and I wish it weren’t true. Here’s is what I wrote this afternoon in the Rightsided Newsletter regarding candidate Edwards on Fox News Sunday this morning:

CANDIDATE JOHN EDWARDS was Chris Wallace’s second guest on FNS, and he used the opportunity to introduce some more of his own brand of smarm. Edwards complained that he wants our policy to be “not just pre-emption, but prevention.” He went on about “going it alone” and “American occupation,” and how it was “just not working.” The words seemed hollow, but that is probably because we have been hearing them, in one form and to one extent or another, since 2002.

“I’m absolutely not interest in being vice president,” he told Wallace in response to the question.That’s Edwards. He says this all with a straight face, and, you know, you damn well feel like you ought to believe him, ‘cos shucks…

He’s a great liar.

From the transcript:

WALLACE: Senator, since then, through diplomacy, Libya has agreed to give up all its weapons of mass destruction; Iran has agreed to surprise inspections.

In fact, hasn’t the Bush policy of getting tough with other nations, hasn’t that proven to be effective?

EDWARDS: No, it hasn’t, Chris. Because what’s happening is, we have, for example, a nuclear nonproliferation treaty that’s full of holes, very difficult to enforce.

And because America is not showing leadership in bringing other countries from around the world together — and what I talked about in addition in that speech that you didn’t show was forming a nuclear global compact, where America leads and brings other leading nations from around the world to set real standards to stop nuclear proliferation and have real enforcement mechanisms.

That was a beautifully told lie. Whether or not you can see through it is not the point. You are not the typical American voter. The typical American voter wouldn’t be caught dead reading something like this blog. You have your own savvy, knowing what to look for and which end is up. Some people are easily fooled. (Forty-three percent in 1992, anyway.)

WALLACE: … Senator, didn’t you vote to go to war when it was popular, and then when things started going badly didn’t you choose to vote against the $87 billion to support the troops?

EDWARDS: Absolutely not. What I said from the very beginning is that I thought Saddam Hussein was a serious threat, one that needed to be dealt with. I voted for the resolution. I stand by that decision. I did what I believed was right at the time.

Now, I also said at the same time that in order for us to be successful in Iraq, that it would be critical when we reached this stage for there to be a clear plan for what we would do and, second, for this to be an international operation, not just an American occupation.

And when the vote on the $87 billion came before the Congress, this was my chance, and other members of Congress’ chance, to say the policy, the Bush policy in Iraq right now — not working with others, doing this alone, an American occupation — was not working. And we needed to change course.

The man voted for the war then voted not to support the troops, but he is capable of saying that this was not the case. He was sending a message.

WALLACE: Well, let’s talk about the contest, the race. You have been campaigning around the country for months. You’ve spent millions of dollars on TV commercials. But the numbers indicate that you haven’t caught on. Let’s look at the latest polls.

In the latest Iowa poll, you’re running fourth, with 5 percent support. And in the latest New Hampshire poll, you’re running fourth, with 6 percent support.
Senator, what’s the problem?

EDWARDS: Oh, there’s no problem. If you’re me and you’re here on the ground and you see what’s happening, I have a lead here in South Carolina which will be the third key primary state. In Iowa and New Hampshire, I’ve been moving up. There are other polls that show me doing much better than those numbers you just showed.

Suddenly, he’s leading the field or within striking distance.

Look beyond the goofy grin with this one, at least unless or until he’s through.

The other Sunday Morning material pales in comparison to the sounds of the ongoing implosion of Howard Dean. Now, Time Magazine’s Karen Tumulty claimed that “we all” (the political press) had been expecting Howard Dean to implode for months, but it didn’t seem to be happening no matter what he did. The political press only recently began toying with the notion of a Dean implosion. I’ve been writing about it since before the birth of the blog last August, when Dean’s campaign was beginning to take on an air of a surge to the top. I could very well be explaining my miscalculation when it doesn’t happen, but I still believe it will and Dean will not be the Dem nominee.

Case in point: the Associate Press reports today out of Des Moines that candidate Dean is threatening the Democrat Party with mass desertions if he does not win the nomination. He explains that “millions” of new people have become active in the Democrat Party and will stay home if he doesn’t get the party’s nod.

“If I don’t win the nomination, where do you think those million and a half people, half a million on the Internet, where do you think they’re going to go?” he said during a meeting with reporters. “I don’t know where they’re going to go. They’re certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician.”

But if Dean does win the nomination, the other Democrat voters might stay home rather than vote for him. There are more Democrats who like someone other than Dean that who support Dean.

With his statement, Dean has further polarized the Democrat Party into the pro-Dean neo-beatnicks and the rest. That being said, the Democrats need to go through this exercise, as they did in 1984, in order to credibly field a candidate in 2008.

Listening to candidate Howard Dean self-righteously demand the release of the record of the Administration’s Energy Policy Task Force chaired by Vice President had all the earmarks of a losing challenger picking all the old, rehashed issues for something which will work against the President with more than just the simple-minded Deaniacs. As the Associated Press reports today, it was also pure hypocrisy.

[A]s Vermont governor, Dean had an energy task force that met in secret and angered state lawmakers.

Dean’s group held one public hearing and after-the-fact volunteered the names of industry executives and liberal advocates it consulted in private, but the Vermont governor refused to open the task force’s closed-door deliberations.

In 1999, Dean offered the same argument the Bush administration uses today for keeping deliberations of a policy task force secret.

“The governor needs to receive advice from time to time in closed session. As every person in government knows, sometimes you get more open discussion when it’s not public,” Dean was quoted as saying.

Dean’s own dispute over the secrecy of a Vermont task force that devised a policy for restructuring the state’s near-bankrupt electric utilities has escaped national attention, even though he has attacked a similar arrangement used by President Bush.

The Dean campaign has protested that the two energy task forces are not comparable (for specious reasons)but:

“In general, what is good for the vice president should be good for the governor. A candidate who attacks on grounds he is vulnerable is foolish,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania professor who helps run a Web site that compares presidential candidates’ rhetoric to the facts.

Read the AP Piece and rest assured that Karl Rove could tell you even more about Dean’s task force. As I said months go, Deans lines could work in the Democrat primaries but cannot be run from in the General Election.

Host Bob Schieffer had on his show New York Times columnist David Brooks, Karen Tumulty from TIME Magazine, and Dan Balz — full glare — from the Washington Times.

Brooks noted that the United States is the most powerful nation in the world and asked: What are we going to do with that power? Tumulty pointed out that more U.S. soldiers have been killed since combat ended than during the actual war.

I found it interesting that she did not use false qualifier “since President Bush declared the end of combat operations.” Perhaps the tale that President Bush went onto the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and declared the war over was not having its desired effect.

Balz went on about Howie Dean: “He seems to be the first candidate to bring Democrats into the process.” He emphasized the internet, how Dean was doing something revolutionary by making ordinary people feel a part of the campaign, a part of the process. Balz has forgotten Ross Perot in 1992.

Remember, Perot started a group — United We Stand, America — which included regular people become active in politics for the first time in their lives. They were part of the process, they thought. They held meetings, get-togethers, meetups, and picnics. They made bylaws and received faxes from Dallas. And it was all centered around a charismatic lunatic.

It’s happening again with the Deaniacs, updated for the Internet age.

The main difference between the Perotistas and the Deaniacs resides, of course, in their leaders. Ross Perot was serious, while Howard Dean is a driven fraud.

Brooks complained that Republicans listen to Rush Limbaugh and cannot name famous authors, while Democrats don’t know how to make gumbo. (”Different worlds,” was his term.) His other theory is that people now feud about the political leaders they hate — Clinton, Bush — while they pretty much have all become centrist on the issues. I hope he listens to the tape and regrets opening his mouth, because those thoughts are not connected with reality.

Brooks thinks gay marriage is the “most divisive [topic of] social debate,” but he does not see it becoming a major issue in the election. I had said that the issue lacks the fundamental importance of gun ownership rights or abortion.

Schieffer said that candidate Gephardt has the greatest chance of defeating Dean, after an Iowa victory. They all agreed that Jacko was the most disturbing story of the year, and Ed Bradley’s interview with Jacko will be aired on CBS this evening.

Jam-on.

This afternoon’s Rightsided Newsletter has been delivered to Inboxes worldwide, with a discussion of Chris Cox on FNS, candidate John Edwards on FNS, and sub-host Terry Moran’s talkers on TW.

In this space later, I’ll have a look at Bob Schieffer’s chatterheads on FTN, Wolfgang Blitzer and Rudy Giuliani on tape for LE, and sub-host John King’s roundabout with Rangel on Dreier on LE.

The RSN itself, the online version, is linked above if you want to check out what was said on the Sunday shows, and you can subscribe there as well.

KEY:
MTP: NBC’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert
FNS: FOX’s Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace
FTN: CBS’s Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer
TW: ABC’s This Week with former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos
LE: CNN’s Late Edition with Wolfgang Blitzer

Well, it looks like the traditional “Year in Review” weekend for the Sunday talkers. On MTP, host Russert will talk to Laura Bush, which is always nice, and Carolyn Kennedy Schlossberg, whose father was President four decades ago.

On FNS, host Wallace talks to candidate John Edwards. His political press keeps repeating that he’s a bundle of boyish charm with a nice hairstyle, but they keep offering him opportunities to emerge. Perhaps born of pity, it nevertheless gives the man the opportunity to lie to a national audience. This is dangerous, because he is the best damn liar in the field.

The other FNS guest is Representative Christopher Cox (R-California), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. Perhaps he’ll be asked about the Frenchies and their blasé attitude towards the terrorist scare over the Christmas holiday.

FTN looks like a throwaway, with host Schieffer chatting with some myopic media types: Columnist David Brooks and journalists Dan Balz, Kimberly Dozier and Karen Tumulty. (Actually, Brooks is one of the better New York Times columnists. Honest. He used to write for the neocon journal The Weekly Standard.)

On TW, Steph talks to White House economic advisor Larry Lindsey and yesterday’s news, former Clinton secretary of labor Robert Reich. Gingrich will be a guest, providing a foot-in-mouth role model for candidate Howard Dean if he’s watching, as will from Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta. Besides Lindsey, Steph will be taking the 1990s to a taxidermist and putting them on display so we can poke sticks at them.

On LE, host Wolfgang Blitzer Talks to Representatives Chuck Rangel (D-New York), who has been in a particularly foul mod of late, and David Dreier (R-California), one of Governor Schwarzenegger’s boyz. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s failed national security advisor, will be along to complain bitterly about something.

I’lll review and analyze them for the free Rightsided Newsletter, with the extra stuff appearing in this space.

Which means that I will watch all five Sunday Morning Public Affairs Talk Shows: NBC’s Meet the Press, with Tim Russert; FOX’s Fox News Sunday, with Chris Wallace; CBS’s Face the Nation, with Bob Schieffer; ABC’s This Week, with George Stephanopoulos; and CNN’s Late Edition, with Wolf Blitzer.

I have to get a macro for that.

I review and analyze these shows for the Rightsided Newsletter, which is sent free to Inboxes around the world. I have been doing the newsletter and the Sunday shows since 1997.

To subscribe: visit the web site, or send a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

On the WSJ editorial page on the web — Opinion Journal — today, Vernon L. Smith issues an interesting notion: The Iraqi People’s Fund.

This is the time, and Iraq is the place, to create an economic system embracing the revolutionary principle that public assets belong directly to the public–and can be managed to further individual benefit and free choice, without intermediate government ownership in the public name.

Amen and amen.

He posits that the future Iraqi government will be “tempted to corruption, violation of rights and expanded political power” if it owns the assets, so give them to the Iraqi people. Here’s his proposal:

Over a period of several decades, all Iraqi assets should be auctioned to the highest bidders in an individual, national and international business competition so that each asset or bundle of complimentary assets is transferred to the bidders who value them most for production, development or exploration. The auction could begin by selling existing producing oil properties, refineries, pipelines, and gathering, separating and terminal facilities over the next several years, then move to mineral, oil and gas exploration leases, and to land surface rights.

This sounds great, but who makes the sale and who collects the proceeds? Saddam’s no longer in any position to do so, after all.

Under Dr. Smith’s plan, I’d assume the United States conducts the auctions. As for the proceeds:

The proceeds would be deposited in a giant mutual fund for investment in index securities of the world’s stock markets and monitored–but not managed–by the U.N. Investing in stock indexes would minimize the need for discretionary financial management, and the prospect of the next government exercising or re-establishing any central control over Iraqi assets. The Iraqi Fund should be a closed-end fund whose shares are tradable and listed on world stock exchanges. The proceeds of each new property auction would be deposited to the account for investment in index funds. Redemptions at market value would go to any Iraqi citizen who elects at any time to cash out any portion of his shares.

This plan, I think, deserves a closer study, but I’d immediately nix any possible United Nations role. That organization is directionless, corrupt, and morally bankrupt. The fund should be monitored by a board made up of representatives selected by the governments of the member countries of the Coalition of the Willing, with advisory/monitor roles for countries like France, Germany, Russian, and the Kingdom of Belgium if that will placate them.

Also, we must take into account that the Obstinate Block — France, Germany, Russia, the Kingdom of Belgium — have dibs on those proceeds, as do Iraq’s neighbors, countries we’d like to see follow Iraq’s democratic suit. Cash infusions are not a way to crunch governments.

But I like the thought, and I’ll have to trust the good doctor on the feasibility of the economic aspects.

Question: If candidate John Kerry — wannabe spawn of the real J.F.K. — looked as if his desperation were showing, would anybody notice? (The forest is optional but would look good for New Hampshire.)

Look at what the Associated Press dragged in:

With a month to go before the New Hampshire primary, John Kerry says voters must choose between Democratic front-runner Howard Dean or a more centrist candidate like himself.

Candidate Kerry’s lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union was six out of a hundred. That is only one point better than 5/100. Although his rating will probably be in the 20s for this year, depending on the votes the ACU chooses, that will be an election-year deviation and still very, very lefty. His life ACU, 6, is identical to that of Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York), whom we need not call a centrist Senator.

By contrast, candidate John Edwards’s ACU is a 15 and candidate Joe Lieberman a 20. While these are not centrist scores, they reflect a touch more moderation than does Kerry’s record. (Dennis Kucinich, scored on House votes, rates a 13 out of 100, also clearly to the Right — if I may use that term in connection with this man — of Kerry.)

Kerry said “we can’t beat George Bush by being Bush-lite,” referring to Dean’s criticism of more centrist Democratic candidates.

“But we also won’t beat George Bush by being light on national security, light on fairness for middle-class Americans or light on the values that make us Democrats.”

Kerry told New Hampshire voters “the nation looks to you to determine the character and direction of our party.”

What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson? (Didn’t Al Gore assert that Simon and Garfunkle wrote that song about him?)

Good morning. A good deal has been written about candidate Howard Dean’s comments in Friday’s Concord Monitor [CNN story] ostensibly that Osama bin Laden is innocent until convicted by a jury of his peers.

“I’ve resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found,” Dean said in the interview. “I will have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials.”

Dean added he is certain most Americans agree with that sentiment.

He could have avoided the fuss by looking at a hypothetical: “If found guilty,” a smarter Dean would have said, “I think he should receive the maximum/minimum sentence prescribed by law.” Howie made an amateur mistake in answering the way he did, but he has made quite a lot of such mistakes and will undoubtedly continue making them apace.

Dean’s boyz got their candidate back on track later:

Later, Dean released a statement clarifying, “I share the outrage of all Americans. Osama bin Laden has admitted that he is responsible for killing 3,000 Americans as well as scores of men, women and children around the world. This is the exactly the kind of case that the death penalty is meant for.

“When we capture Osama bin Laden, he will be brought to justice and treated in the same manner that President Bush is recommending for Saddam Hussein.”

That is better, but what is behind his mention of President Bush recommending a sentence for Saddam Hussein? He is stating that, according to his revised opinion, bin Laden deserves the death penalty while Saddam Hussein does not.

Bin Laden has not admitted that he is responsible for killing 3,000 Americans and others. He has never directly admitted his guilt.

But the important item to take from Dean’s latest is his acknowledgment that Osama bin Laden will be captured. President Bush has assured us that OBL will be captured eventually, and Dean had up until this interview scoffed at the notion.