Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

In Chicago Sunday — Pentacost — ten homosexual members of the Rainbow Sash Movement demanded to receive the Holy Eucharist. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago had circulated a memo about these Sash folks, saying that the sashes were a symbol of opposition to the church’s teachings on homosexuality and an attempt to exploit the communion as a political tool.

Remember, to Catholics, what is given in the Eucharist is, through a process they call transubstantiation, the “physical body, blood, and divinity” of Jesus Christ. There is nothing political about this to them.

The Sash folks were given communion in St. Paul, Minnesota, however, with the priest in that city accusing both sides of using the Eucharist as a political tool.

A Vatican doctrinal decree last year directed at Catholic politicians said a well-formed conscience forbids support for any law that contradicts “fundamental” morality, with abortion listed first among relevant issues. A second Vatican statement said it is “gravely immoral” not to oppose legalization of same-sex unions.

Before its Daily Mass program, cable network EWTN runs an explanation read by Father Angelus Shaughnessy, a Capuchin Franciscan, which stipulates that no one “in a state of grave sin” may participate in the Eucharist without first undergoing a sacramental confession. This was added in recent weeks, possibly to explain the gravity of the Eucharist to viewers.

As a Catholic, JF Kerry should know better and respect the teachings of his church.

The House is trimming the Transportation Security Administration, started after 9-11, costs: $10-billion over 3 1/2-year. House Aviation subcommittee Chairman John Mica of Florida said that the new bureaucracy was created in haste, without forethought, in the frenzy after the attacks.

Republicans want to return all airport screening positions to the private sector, while Democrats insist that the government can do a better job if given a real chance.

Can a bureaucracy, once created, actually die? We’ll have to watch this one.

My words for Memorial Day were posted yesterday evening, on the May 30 Memorial Day. They weren’t much, but what can I say more than THANK YOU.

The Associated Press reports on the President this Memorial Day.

The AP also reports on candidate JF Kerry spending his Memorial Day attacking the President in regards to the military.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post decides that President Bush is attacking Kerry in an unprecedented manner with misleading statements.

Analysts predict, they report, that President Bush will eventually surpass his father’s 1988 campaign against Michael Dukakis for sheer negativity.

JF Kerry has been attacking the President since Howard Dean was called the likely Democrat nominee.

The thesis of the NYTimes “Congressional Memo” is that “even some Republicans say they worry that Congress is abdicating its oversight responsibility” in the matter of President Bush.

Writer Chris Hulse names one Republican who feels this way: iffy GOP Representative Chris Shays of Connecticut: “I believe our failure to do proper oversight has hurt our country and the administration. Maybe they wouldn’t have gotten into some of this trouble had our oversight been better.”

To his credit, but in the face of his initial assertion, Hulse also quotes Republican Representative Duncan Hunter (R-California) on the matter: “Maybe we should cancel every piece of Congressional business for the entire year so that the issue at Abu Ghraib can be milked until the election.” Of course, he then quotes Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) saying that the Republicans trying to protect the Administration have led to the Administration’s lack of communication with Congress.

In his opening paragraph, he compares the Abu Ghraib with Watergate and Iran-Contra.

It eats newsprint.

Geopolitics.

The Prime Minister of Iraq will be one Eyad Allawi; he will serve as the head of the government. The President of Iraq will serve as the head of state.

Although the comparison is general at best, the best known of this type of arrangement is that of Great Britain, where Tony Blair is the Prime Minister and Queen Elizabeth II is head of State. (In the United States, the President is head of both government and state.)

Though they had promised to select a President by the close of business Monday, the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) has failed to do so. The IGC, or most of ‘em, are said to favor a gentleman named Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, the current IGC President. Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) is said to favor 81-year-old Adnan Pachachi, a pre-Saddam Iraqi foreign minister. (Nelson Mandela springs to mind, but that is simply that gravitas which comes with age.) The UN envoy, the Algerian anti-Semite Lakhdar Brahimi, is also said to favor Pachachi.

Both men are Sunni Moslems to Allawi’s Shi’ite background.

From the AP via Canada’s Montreal Post:

A council member said the U.S. and United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi favoured [sic] former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi, who supports keeping foreign troops in Iraq until the security situation is stabilized.

The Canadian head of government is Prime Minister Paul Martin, while the head of state is Britain’s QE II represented by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.

As a matter of personal preference, I would be more comfortable with Pachachi. He has the “Nelson Mandela” age-related gravitas along with that brought by service in the pre-Saddam Iraqi government.

The latest column by Barbara J. Stock is live on the Rightsided Newsletter web site.

It opens:

Can my generation ever repay the sacrifices made by our parents and grandparents? Yes, and no.

And to read the rest, click HERE.

She sees a way to repay.

Good morning.

(I’d link to Stephen Schwartz if I had a URL handy. Google his name.)

As the sun sets on Memorial Day…

Thank you.

Just thank you.

From the bottom of my heart.

My mind right now thinks of you as young men (and women), putting on your uniform, checking your rifle, doing whatever it was you did to prepare. You knew what you had to do, and you damn well did it. You trained with America’s best, you served with America’s best, and you were America’s best. You still are. Forever.

Thank you.

The gun which Saddam Hussein held in his lap when he was “caught like a rat” [Maj. General Ray Odierno] by the 4th Infantry division last December 13 now hangs mounted on a wall in a study off the Oval Office, Time Magazine reports in Monday’s edition.

The study…has become a place where Bush keeps the memorabilia that hold special significance for him. Another of the room’s mementos: a photograph of special-forces soldiers in Afghanistan praying after burying a piece of the World Trade Center there as a tribute to those who died in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

That same study was used in a different manner by President Bush’s predecessor, thus the ellipsis above.

From The Buzz, in today’s Kansas City Star online:

Sen. John Kerry has a new campaign plane. “This is my freedom bird now,” he said.

When reporters asked what the name of the new plane would be, he said: “I don’t know, maybe Freebird?” That was a reference to the name troops in the Vietnam War gave to the transport jets that ferried them back home.

Then Kerry joked: “How about ‘Bush-whacker 1 or 2?’”

Some groans were heard, and Kerry returned to “Freebird.”

Here’s this from Matt Druge last month:

One source suggests the hairdresser was flown to Pittburgh on Teresa Heinz Kerry’s ‘Flying Squirrel’, a Gulfstream V private jet.

[The ‘Flying Squirrel’ is worth about $35 million. A deluxe model; plasma TV, two bathrooms, fancy mahogany and burlwood paneling, gold-plated fixtures.]

The bracketed bit is from Drudge, as well.

So Kerry could call his new campaign plane “The Flying Ferret” or “The Flying Rat.” Of course, there’s no Vietnam reference there.

The Sunday edition of the Rightsided Newsletter has been delivered to the sundry global inboxes of the subscribers, and it is available online for those who do not yet subscribe: CLICK HERE.

The brightest line of the morning, I think, was actually spoken this afternoon, on CNN’s Late Edition, with Judy Woodruff subbing for Wolfgang Blitzer.

She had asked Dole, a man crippled on the WW II battlefield, what he thought of Kerry’s constant referral to his service in Vietnam. Dole answered: “I think John’s got to watch that.”

From the RSN: As Woodruff was talking over him, Dole said: “And I’d just tell him, ‘Talk about something else.’”

Here, here.

Here is a draft of what I wrote for the RSN regarding Nancy Pelosi’s appearance with Russert on MTP:

A guest on MTP, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi reprised her earlier “incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience” rhetoric without using the words. In fact, she asserted that: “I said that with great reluctance. … I said this for the troops.” Because, she later added, “We’re on a course of action which is dangerous for our troops.”

Finally, Pelosi looked to JF Kerry to save this nation via a change of course: “We have to create our country with that spirit of community” evinced at the time of World War II. She is working overtime to prevent this from happening, however, with her over-the-top language.

Good morning.

New York Times, Sunday: Scant Evidence Cited in Long Detention of Iraqis

USNews & World Report, June 7: Up in the Celblocks: A Pentagon memo defines just who gets to see some inmates at Abu Ghraib–and when

Associated Press (Newsday), Saturday: Intelligence Agents Encouraged Abuse

NYTimes, Saturday: Cuba Base [Guantanamo Bay] Sent Its Interrogators to Iraqi Prison

Alternet.org, Friday: Abuse from Sea to Shining Sea

This one has been over for awhile. It’s time to find something new, perhaps reexamine Joe Wilson’s tome on frog-marching which kind of fizzled. Maybe they could look into Iyad Allawi CIA ties, or some such nonsense.

But nothing outlasts a story with pictures. They keep going and going and going…

A caption under a photograph in a Madonna book referred to an ex-boyfriend “a gay man.” He sued, and U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston dismissed the case because, she held, calling a guy homosexual is neither slander nor libel. Why? Evidently, she gleaned from recent court decisions bolstering homosexual rights, that it is just plain fine to be one.

This is problematic. A heterosexual man might not want to be called a homosexual because, to him, it is an insult. Or because it will color the perception others have of him in a way he does not desire. And because it is just not true.

But let’s apply her logic to the labels of political ideology. By her reasoning, it would be alright for someone to call me a liberal. I could laugh that one off, because it is absurd; but so would be referring to me as a homosexual. Why would I become angry if called one?

Would it vary from person to person? Perhaps some heterosexual conservatives could accept being called homosexual but not being painted as a liberal.

Party labels. Is there a consensus amongst the Log Cabin Republicans that it’s okay to be referred to as heterosexual but not as a Democrat?

I am a Republican, but being called a (capital L) Libertarian would earn a “not quite.” Being called a Democrat would invoke an eye-roll, if another Republican were to call me that intentionally, or a correction if spoken by anyone else.

What, if any, damage has the ex-boyfriend suffered? How much “pain and suffering”?

Judge Gertner, I need some clarification.

[Note, as this 1998 dissenting opinion reveals, Judge Gertner would also like to decriminalize drugs, which I offer only as a clue to her ideological bent.]

Labeling Ahmed Chalabi “a favorite of conservatives,” the New York Times today published that, according at least to the headline, “conservative allies” defended Chalabi to Condi Rice last Saturday.

The “conservative allies” mentioned in the peace are former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Pearle, former Clinton CIA head James Woolsey, and ousted House Speaker Newton Gingrich.

With Pearle, he sees the attacks on Chalabi as impugning himself as well.

Mr. Perle said the action against Mr. Chalabi would burnish his anti-American credentials in Iraq and possibly help him to be elected to political office. “In that regard, this clumsy and outrageous assault on him will only improve his prospects,” Mr. Perle said.

Mr. Perle said that he had no business dealings with Mr. Chalabi, but that he believed the C.I.A. and D.I.A. were spreading false information that he did. He also said that Mr. Chalabi was not alone in supplying intelligence to the United States government that turned out to be false.

Did Chalabi engage in espionage for the mullahs in Iran? Did he furnish false informative for the purposes of his own aggrandizement? Those are the questions being asked and not being answered.

Another flip-flop, this one in a one-hour Friday night interview with the Washington Post. In he, he denounced the Bush Administration for being concerned with the spread of Democracy overseas while indicating that he would spread American values, among which Democracy was prime.

While Kerry said it was important to “sell [democracy] and market it” around the world, he demurred when questioned specifically about a number of important countries that suppress human rights and freedoms. He said securing all nuclear materials in Russia, integrating China in the world economy, achieving greater controls over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or winning greater cooperation on terrorist financing in Saudi Arabia trumped human rights concerns in those nations.

“Sometimes we are dealt a set of cards that don’t allow us do everything we want to do at once,” he said.

During the interview, he eschewed the soaring rhetoric on freedom and democracy that are commonplace in Bush’s speeches or news conferences. At one point, he stumbled over his words when he tried to emphasize his interest in promoting American values: “The idea of America is, I think proudly and chauvinistically, the best idea that we’ve developed in this world.”

Note also his professed pride and chauvinism when speaking of America vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and consider the “arrogance” with which he faults the President.

I honestly and objectively do not think the man is fit to be President.

Here’s JF Kerry on the radio this morning:

“It’s time to put away pride and stubbornness,” Kerry said in the Democrats’ weekly radio address. “We must rebuild alliances that have been shredded because an America respected in the world will be an America stronger in the world and safer here at home.”

Of which alliances is he speaking as “shredded”? Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder, having survived his late 2002 elections and the time shortly thereafter, is keen to get back on the good side of the United States. Putin and Russia, no problem there. We have better relations than ever with Mexico, Australia, and Eastern Europe. Canada, with a new prime minister, is trying work its way back into the good graces of Washington.

And it is not per se about President Bush; it is about America. Bush can either hinder or facilitate, and the President is facilitating economic, military, and diplomatic agreements apace.

The problem, then, is France. The only way to appease France is to stop being the United States. We must become weaker, less assertive, more pliable. That, I have asserted, must be the Kerry Doctrine, then: we must be as weak as France.

South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford saw too much pork in the State’s budget, so he vetoed 106 items. Then on Wednesday, South Carolina’s Republican-controlled House overrode all save one of the governor’s vetoes.

Same party, different spending proclivities.

Hours after his vetoes were cast off, Sanford’s top legislative priority, an income tax reduction plan, basically died in the Senate.

House members said the whirlwind process of dealing with the vetoes demonstrated their confidence in the compromise budget approved last week by a large margin.

The speed with which Sanford’s concerns were dispatched led to harsh words from the governor’s office as Sanford spokesman Will Folks accused House Ways and Means Chairman Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, of trying to “embarrass the governor.”

“This is an absolute mockery of the deliberative process,” Folks said. “Clearly, Harrell and other leaders in the House don’t care about discussing the merits of these issues. They are more concerned with who’s the mayor of Importantville.”

Sanford backed off Folks’s remarks, but he did his part to embarrass the legislators. On Thursday, he carried two screaming piglets — “Pork” and “Barrel” — onto the floor of the Statehouse to let them know what he thought of their spending.

“There was a lot of pork-eating yesterday,” said Sanford, juggling the tiny, squirming pigs. “Ultimately what was said yesterday was: ‘We’re not going to cut spending by one dollar.”‘

The governor stood at the House chamber doors with pig feces smeared on his shoes and coat and laughed about it.

Inside, representatives were outraged.

House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, said the stunt was “the worst kind of politics.”

“This is the people’s house, it ought to be treated with dignity. I think he defiled it in order to get
TV coverage,” he said.

It also embarrassed the folks at TheState.com:

What Sanford did was demeaning to the office of governor and the state of South Carolina. And it certainly didn’t help our image. Outsiders already have this stereotype of the South, and something like this confirms that sad image.

Once again, thanks to Sanford, it’s acceptable to laugh at South Carolina.

I’m from north of the Mason-Dixon, and I have a stereotype of southern lawmakers: they are not New England (or DC) technocrats. They aren’t afraid to laugh at themselves or at the absurd.

If the press wants urbanity, they ought to consider a move.

According to Jonathan M. Stein in Friday’s The Washington Dispatch, 9-11 Commission Commissioner Jaime Gorelick is one of the brethren (her term for the commissioners) because she wants to be Attorney General in a Democrat Administration. She wanted it in Clinton’s second term, but he stuck with Janet Reno for scandal(ous) reasons.

She also wanted to run the CIA, according to Stein. (If that had happened, I suppose it is possible that Clinton could have received his wish to have 9-11 happen on his watch. Remember, Clinton wanted the legacy-building opportunity that went with it.)

A former Democrat staffer recently stated that Ms. Gorelick is on the commission for one reason – and it isn’t for her legal mind. Gorelick is on the Commission “to make sure Bush and his team look as bad as possible and to protect the Clintons and Reno.” Her reward for doing her job well. . . the powerful position she has coveted for seven years.

It will take more than a Kerry victory this November to secure the A.G. post for that woman, Ms. Gorelick. She simply will not be confirmed by a Republican Senate.

Good morning.

Sergeant Donald Walters died fighting when his convoy — the one with Pfc. Jessica Lynch — was ambushed during the invasion. That’s what his wife had been told, and that is what the army had believed, until new evidence was discovered.

They told her [Walters’s wife Stacie[ an ongoing investigation had turned up evidence that Iraqi fighters led a lone Sgt. Walters, wounded in the leg, into a building after he was separated from comrades in the 507th Maintenance Company.

Six combatants guarded him, according to two Iraqi ambulance drivers who have spoken to investigators.

“Several hours later,” an Oregon Army National Guard press release states, “his body was brought out of the building after he had been shot twice in the back.”
Blood splattered on a wall matched Walters’ DNA, officials confirmed. Some suspects have been identified, a National Guard spokesman said, but their names were being withheld.

[ . . . ]
Her husband also suffered a dislocated shoulder and superficial stab wounds, suggesting torture, she said. Officials said the fatal shots appeared to have been fired more than 20 feet from the wall where he was executed.

“To put it frankly, that is a vile crime,” said Capt. Michael Braibish of the Oregon Military Department, which coordinated with the Pentagon task force in delivering the news to the Walters’ parents.

Walters was not capture, tortured, and killed by the Iraqi resistance; this was done by Saddam Hussein’s army before they were defeated and had dissipated.

The Administration has been faulted for poor pre-war planning because CPA head Paul Bremer officially disbanded Saddam’s army instead of putting it to security work for the coalition. The opponents of the war suggest that the men responsible for the painful and after-combat torture and death of Sgt. Walters could secure the streets of Najaf from Sadr’s militia. These people could well have been Sadr’s militia.

California Republicans chose the moderate establishment guy, former Secretary of State Bill Jones, to run against Barbara Boxer this fall. According to the latest field poll, Babs is leading Jones among registered voters, 55-percent to 32-percent, with 12-percent up-for-grabs.

The conservative in the GOP race was Howard Kaloogian. He pushed the primary field to the right for a time.

Here in Pennsylvania, liberal Democrat Joe Hoeffel is looking stronger against moderate Republican Senator Arlen Specter than he might have against the Specter’s vanquished primary opponent, conservative Representative Pat Toomey

In 1976, the party establishment and Gerald Ford’s boyz told voters that Ronald Reagan could not defeat the Democrat nominee, who turned out to be Jimmy Carter. Maybe not in that year, but his chances would have been much better than those of Ford.

In 1980, the party establishment told GOP voters not to nominate Ronald Reagan that he was too conservative for voters and would lose even to Jimmy Carter. No.

Conservatives can and will win general elections, and they do not even have to be “the right conservative.” The problem arises if they are the wrong conservative. (And I don’t go back to Goldwater.)

In a column off MSNBC.com this evening, Eleanor Clift misreads A.G. John Ashcroft in a way that shows she is allowing her malevolence to override any intellectual firepower she might have.

What was the subliminal message of John Ashcroft’s stepped-up terror warning earlier this week? It’s that if the terrorists want to disrupt the presidential election, that must mean they’re for Democratic candidate John Kerry.

Think Madrid. The terrorist train bombings there in March were credited with ousting Spain’s pro-Bush conservative government and propelling the Socialists to power. But Kerry has done a good job in recent days of countering the notion that if he is elected president, America will go soft on terrorism.

That is not it at all.

I dealt with this when the same underdeveloped thesis was put forward by a writer for the SLATE online fashion magazine on Wednesday.

Al Qaeda, by that formulation, would want Bush to lose because he had cooperated with the Zionists, or whomever, in standing up to their boy Saddam.

They knew Aznar didn’t like them, so they wanted him to lose. They know Bush doesn’t like them, so they want him to lose. They know their enemies, and the hate them. They support Zapatero and JF Kerry only in that they are not Aznar and Bush.

Zapatero’s victory did not weaken the coalition; rather, it seems to have strengthened it. Unless he does something rash and/or stupid, a Kerry victory probably wouldn’t harm the coalition in the short term.

But the larger question for al Qaeda is the war on terror.

Either way, Ashcroft did not mention the terrorists wanting Kerry to win because that was not his point. They want Bush to lose. [See Misreading Ashcroft, Wednesday]

Is it something in the water, or is it just the election season?

From JF Kerry in Wisconsin, Friday afternoon:

“We rushed off to war without an adequate plan, without adequate supplies … without a plan to win the peace,” Kerry said.

Yet Kerry, who backed the congressional resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq, had no snap answer when a woman asked: “What do you plan to do to bring our troops home?”

Kerry said he could not predict what the situation would be in Iraq on Jan. 20, 2005, when he would be inaugurated as president if he beats Bush in the November election.

But he said, “I’m going to get our troops home as fast as possible with honor and the job accomplished in the way it needs to be.”

JF Kerry has no plan, as he cannot predict the situation in the future. At the same time, JF is faulting President Bush for not accurately planning down to the last detail what to do in future situations.

Ah, the nuance!

I find such thinking to be frightening when I think that — may God forbid it — this man could possibly be our next President. People remark in various ways about the President’s intellect, but at least the man does not nuance himself into an existential void.

When the Reform Party endorsed Ralph Nader, his name went on the ballot in 7 States: Kansas, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, and South Carolina. The Green Party could put him on the ballot in 22 States — Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin — and the District of Columbia, but they still have their June 23-28 convention in Milwaukee; there, the Greens might choose a nominee or, failing that, formally endorse a candidate.

Nader has said that he does not want their nomination, and it is not clear if a mere formal endorsement would put his name of the ballots.

If he winds up with the slate of States from both parties, Nader will have 23 States (six with overlap) and the District.

This might matter.

Watching Secretary Ridge answer the legitimate questions which seemed not to be coming from Charlie Rose’s usual anti-conservative mindset, it struck me that her was the man entrusted to “mobilize and organize our nation to secure the homeland from terrorist attacks” [from the DHS web site].

It further struck me that no one — aside from this fellow — had yet called upon him to resign. Why not? To be fair, if they want the heads of John Ashcroft, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Tenet, then what of Secretary Ridge. Perhaps because he is not perceived as being as threatening as the others.

And there is the mild flap over Ashcroft and FBI Director Bill Mueller sounding a terror alert without first consulting Secretary Ridge. Evidently, Ridge thought that Ashcroft and Mueller were going to discuss simply the seven wanted fugitives, not tinker with how alert Americans were to be. In fact, on ABC’s Good Morning America Wednesday, the Secretary said that the threats we faced were “not the most disturbing that I have personally seen during the past couple of years.”

The following is from Representative Chris Cox (R-California):

“The reason that Congress created the Department of Homeland Security is that we need to merge the various parts of government responsible for pieces of the war on terrorism into one coordinated effort,” said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), chairman of the homeland security committee.

Cox said it was “regrettable” that Ridge did not appear with Ashcroft and Mueller “because their separate public appearances conveyed the impression that the broad and close interagency consultation we expect … may not have taken place in this case.” He noted that the 2002 law creating the department puts the secretary in charge of issuing “public advisories relating to threats to homeland security.”

I personally see this as the three men doing what they believe is their responsibility, and we know that Ashcroft and Mueller would have had to go through Ridge if they wished to raise the security alert level.

Has Tom Ridge been given protected status by the Dems and the media, similar to that Secretary Powell enjoys? Is the (collective) press attempting to portray Ridge as insulated from what is really going on in the Bush Administration, much as they have done the same to Powell?

The latest column by Justin Darr, Invent Some Common Sense, is live on the Rightsided Newsletter web site. It opens:

I have great news for all Americans who are fed up with high gas prices. Presidential Candidate John Kerry has announced his sure fire plan to end our dependence on foreign oil, save the environment, and lower energy prices.

To read on, click HERE.

MTV.com Choose or Lose reports today on a 1971 study which shows that what happened at Abu-Ghraib is a predictable pattern of behavior for young people thrust into such situations, as were the reservist-guards.

In 1971 a group of 24 college men volunteered to act as either guards or prisoners in an experimental prison. Under the watchful eye of Dr. Philip Zimbardo, esteemed professor of psychology and former president of the American Psychological Foundation, volunteers went through several rounds of testing to ensure psychological and physical health and “normalcy.” They were then designated either guards or prisoners by the simple flip of a coin.

Two days into the good doctor’s experiment, the normal, adjusted students were playing their prison roles with frightening reality. The “prisoners,” fed up with having roll calls in the middle of the night, rebelled by pushing their beds against their cell bars and refusing to come out. The “guards” called in reinforcements, pulled the prisoners from their cells, striped them naked, and proceeded to humiliate and abuse them for hours. To further reinforce their power, the guards took away bathroom privileges and forced prisoners to urinate and defecate in buckets inside their cells, and to later clean the mess out with their bare hands. It got worse — so bad that Zimbardo halted the planned two-week study after only six days.

Dr. Zimbardo told MTV news that Abu-Ghraib was not a few bad apples messing around; rather, it was “a bad barrel converting good apples into bad apples.”

Zimbardo went on to explain that the Stanford prison experiment and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal were built on the same foundations with similar (and even predictable) results. Inexperienced guards were given little instruction, extraordinary power and limited oversight. In Abu Ghraib that dynamic was heightened by the stress of war and death and the need for information from Iraqi prisoners.

Or, as I’ve said, it’s what kids do.

This is not a political problem. It is a military one, the military has known this for longer than has Congress, and it is being dealt with. By the military.

The new column by Isaiah Z. Sterrett, Liberal Lollygagging on Iraq, is now live on the Rightsided Newsletter web site. It opens:

ONCE AGAIN Unisom Kerry has been outfoxed by the dumb guy from Texas.

To read the rest, click HERE.

~~~~~

ADDENDUM:

This is from the Bulgarian News Agency his evening:

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Thursday rejected Chinese proposals to limit an initial mandate for foreign forces in Iraq to January, saying it was too soon to discuss a date amid the current turmoil, Reuters reports.

Reuters also reports tonight that French President Jacques Chirac wants the Iraqi government in January to “at all times be able to end” occupation by the coalition.

Schroeder said: “I don’t think that in the current phase a final date can be named already because I think the situation is too confusing.”

So the nay-sayers this year may not be France and Germany; rather, it could be France and the People’s Republic of China. Remember, France and the PRC are permanent members of the UNSC with veto power, while Germany is not.

A Franco-Chinese/Sino-French alliance would make for an interesting situation, a geopolitical “brains and brawn” setup.

General William Boykin is a Christian. When speaking to an evangelical group last year, he said: “I knew my God was bigger than his [a Somali warlord]. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

Of President Bush, he said: “He’s in the White House because God put him there.”

Almost a year ago, in June of 2003, he told a religious group that terrorists hate the U.S. “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”

The Pentagon’s inspector general has been investigating General Boykin indirectly at the behest of those offended by the remarks. The investigation is said to be almost complete.

On a side note, General Boykin, who is undersecretary of defense for intelligence, has had his name mentioned concerning another matter recenty:

Boykin’s boss, Stephen Cambone, told Congress on May 11 that he had urged Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then the commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, to travel to Iraq last August and make recommendations on how to better interrogate prisoners.

Cambone said he was involved in Pentagon discussions on how to press detainees for information without violating the Geneva Conventions. Miller later testified that he never discussed the matter with Cambone or Boykin.

Di Rita said Wednesday that Boykin played no role in overseeing or approving interrogation procedures for prisoners held in Iraq.

Robert Novak’s May 27 column deals with the potential return of former Representative Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma). You see, Don Nickles said ENOUGH, and the GOP needs a candidate.

Coburn is a Republican: “limited government, entitlement reform, anti-abortion.” Unlike many Republicans, he did more than talk the talk.

He is supported by neither the White House to the Oklahoma GOP; they back former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys, who Novak sees as a sure loser against Democrat Representative Brad Carson.

Coburn was so uncongenial to the go-along, get-along mood that characterized the Republican majority in the House that a conflict-of-interest complaint was filed against him because he went back to Muskogee every week to deliver babies. If he had to choose, he declared, he would give up Congress — and the complaint was dropped. In his current campaign, Coburn spends two days a week practicing medicine.

In announcing his candidacy, Coburn took dead aim at the professional politicians who dominate the Republican-controlled Congress: “I believe we have a deficit of moral courage in the United States Congress. We have many learned individuals who know what is right but have not the courage to stand against the moral corruption that is now attempting to undermine our republic.”

My party needs Ronald Reagan. Coburn isn’t it by any stretch, but he would be some fresh air. Even if he’s not well-liked.

The arrogant, world-hating, go-it-alone — as some would have it — has reached a free trade agreement with Bahrain.

The agreement marks the third such deal with an Arab country. A free trade agreement with Morocco was completed in March and the United States has had a free trade agreement with Jordan since 2001.

The Bush administration sees the opening of America’s vast market to moderate Arab countries as a way to build support for its efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

This is in the Middle East, where the U.S. is supposedly reviled for leading a multinational coalition in Iraq.

The arguments and rhetoric just don’t work.