Bush Implicated in CIA Leak Investigation!

(Click Picture for Larger View).


I'd say this doesn't look too good for King George and the rest of the War-Monger Crowd ....


Bush Authorized Leak to Times, Libby Told Grand Jury
By Josh Gerstein

April 6, 2006 updated 9:02 am EDT

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter.

Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiry initially focused on the alleged leak, which occurred after a former ambassador who is Ms. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times questioning the accuracy of statements Mr. Bush made about Iraq's nuclear procurement efforts in Africa.

No criminal charges have been brought for the leak itself, but Mr. Libby, a former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was indicted in October on charges that he obstructed the investigation, perjured himself in front of the grand jury, and lied to FBI agents who interviewed him. Mr. Libby, who resigned from the White House and pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to go on trial in January 2007.

In a court filing late Wednesday responding to requests from Mr. Libby's attorneys for government records that might aid his defense, Mr. Fitzgerald shed new light on Mr. Libby's claims that he was authorized to provide sensitive information to the Times reporter, Judith Miller, at a meeting on July 8, 2003.

"Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was Ôpretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was Ôvery important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote.

Mr. Libby is said to have testified that "at first" he rebuffed Mr. Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the prosecution filing said.

Mr. Libby told the grand jury that he also sought the advice of the legal counsel to the vice president, David Addington, who indicated that Mr. Bush's permission to disclose the estimate "amounted to a declassification of the document," according to the new court papers.

One of the facts Mr. Libby said he planned to disclose to Ms. Miller was that the estimate, produced in October 2002, concluded that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium." This contention was sharply at odds with Mr. Wilson's op-ed piece which argued there was no evidence of such a procurement effort, at least on a trip he took to Africa at the CIA's request.

Mr. Bush's alleged instruction to release the conclusions of the intelligence estimate appears to have been squarely within his authority and Mr. Fitzgerald makes no argument that it was illegal. While Mr. Libby said he gave that information "exclusively" to the Times reporter at their breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, many of the findings of the estimate were formally declassified and discussed at a White House press briefing ten days later, on July 18, 2003.

The court papers filed by Mr. Fitzgerald do not make clear whether Mr. Bush knew the disclosure was destined for Ms. Miller, though they indicate Mr. Cheney knew that fact. Mr. Libby is also said to have testified that five days late Mr. Cheney authorized the release to the press of information about a cable about Mr. Wilson's strip.

Messrs. Bush and Cheney have been interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald and his staff, but it is not known how their accounts of the events compared to that of Mr. Libby.

In an interview with Fox News in February, Mr. Cheney, who has a reputation for secrecy, acknowledged that he has sometimes pressed for the official release of classified records.

"I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions," he said.

Asked if he had ever "unilaterally" declassified material, Mr. Cheney replied, "I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."

While prosecutors initially said Mr. Libby was the first government official to disclose Ms. Plame's identity, it subsequently emerged that a Washington Post reporter, Bob Woodward, learned earlier about her CIA employment from another government official. Neither Mr. Woodward nor Ms. Miller wrote about Ms. Plame at the time. Another journalist, Robert Novak, first disclosed the employment of Mr. Wilson's wife in a syndicated column released on July 14, 2003. The columnist based his story on interviews with Mr. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and another official who has not been officially identified.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Libby covered up his role in the disclosures because "he knew the White House had publicly staked its credibility on there being no White House involvement in the leaking of information about Ms. Wilson." They also noted that Mr. Bush publicly declared he would fire anyone found to have leaked classified information.

The new court filing quotes from handwritten suggestions Mr. Libby gave to the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, urging the spokesman to proclaim the vice presidential aide's innocence with the same vigor that the press secretary previously denounced as "ridiculous" suggestions that Mr. Rove might have had a hand in leaking Ms. Plame's identity.

Mr. Libby's note, as typed up by the prosecution, reads like a stanza of verse:

"People have made too much of the difference in
How I described Karl and Libby
I've talked to Libby.
I said it was ridiculous about Karl
And it is ridiculous about Libby.
Libby was not the source of the Novak story.
And he did not leak classified information."

Mr. McClellan did not adopt the talking points verbatim, but did tell reporters later that Messrs. Rove and Libby "assured me that they were not involved in this."

Mr. Rove has not been charged with a crime, but remains under investigation by Mr. Fitzgerald's office.

View the Government's Filing (PDF).

Also See:

• Bush at Center of Intelligence Leak


• Media Matters - Ensor, Hume accepted without question claim that Bush's NIE "declassification" was legal

  Summary: CNN's David Ensor, reporting on the revelation that President Bush "authorized" the disclosure of classified portions of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate pertaining to Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction, simply asserted without elaboration that unnamed "experts" say Bush's actions were "legal," and that the president has "the right" to declassify such information. Similarly, Fox News' Brit Hume said that both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "have the legal authority under an executive order signed by the president to make public classified information. So that takes the unauthorized out of it." Neither Ensor nor Hume challenged the notion that the president has the authority to leak classified information, questioned whether Bush -- assuming he has that authority -- properly declassified the information, or made any effort to explore the ramifications of the president's exercise of that alleged authority. Read more.

• NATIONAL JOURNAL: What Bush Was Told About Iraq by Murray Waas (03/02/2006)


• NATIONAL JOURNAL: Insulating Bush by Murray Waas(03/30/2006)


• Liberty Street: DAN FROOMKIN ON MURRAY WAAS


• Informed Comment: Bush: Leaker-in-Chief?
  Bush as Johnson + Nixon
  By Juan Cole


• Evidence Suggests White House Conspiracy by Jason Leopold

Technorati tags: New York Sun, Josh Gerstein, Bush, Libby, Rove, CIA Leak investigation, Cheney, Patrick Fitzgerald, Scott McClennan, Valerie Plame Wilson, news, commentary

Stupidity, Pomposity and Politics

Scuttling Toward Sanity
By David Brooks
The New York Times

I had a horrifying experience in the House of Representatives last week. The House Immigration Caucus held a press conference so members could compete to see who was the biggest blithering idiot in the group.

"Anybody who votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter, 'A for Amnesty!' " one aspiring idiot thundered. There's "a foul odor that's coming out of the U.S. Senate!" bellowed Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, who then went on to win the prize by suggesting that instead of using illegal aliens to harvest crops, we force felons to do it. "I say, Let the prisoners pick the fruits!"

Here was a seemingly mentally competent adult recommending that we force a largely minority population to go out in the fields and pick lettuce and cotton. You wanted to hit him over the head and scream: Is this ringing any bells, Representative Rohrabacher? Are we repealing the Emancipation Proclamation, too?

But this week the action moved over to the Senate, where pomposity generally has a restraining influence on stupidity. And indeed the major bill in the Senate, first conceived by John McCain and Ted Kennedy and refined by Arlen Specter, was immediately more sensible than anything that had emerged from the House.

The Specter bill acknowledged a few realities. First, a highly skilled nation like ours needs to import unskilled workers to do miserable jobs. Second, government is simply not powerful enough to hold off the global economy. You cannot build a wall around the United States that will successfully keep out the workers the U.S. economy demands.

The Specter bill balanced border enforcement with worker programs. It would build sluice gates regulating the flow of immigrants, not a wall.

But the Specter bill didn't have enough Republican support to pass. So an amazing thing happened. Senators tried to find a viable center.

Mel Martinez and Chuck Hagel forged a compromise proposal. McCain and Kennedy latched on. So did Bill Frist (who decided he'd swung too far over toward the anti-immigrant crowd) and the White House.

This proposal also recognized some realities, namely that the longer an immigrant is here, the more valuable to America he or she becomes. New immigrants are going through the shocks of assimilation. But veteran immigrants, even illegals, usually have excellent work records. They've put down roots. Their children are golden. These U.S.-born children go on to earn as much as children of natives, and pay taxes that compensate for the welfare costs of the first generation.

The Martinez-Hagel compromise would allow illegals who have been in the country five years to work toward citizenship, while imposing a higher hurdle for those who haven't. The measure was sufficiently tough to win support from 15 or so Republicans who couldn't support the Specter bill.

The Republicans were delighted with their progress, but then ran into trouble with the Democrats. At first they blamed the Democrats' lack of response on Harry Reid's desire to deny Republicans a victory. But then it became evident that the unions and other Democrats had leapt up to oppose the compromise because it might give legal status to illegal workers already here. The unions have a semilegitimate concern that large numbers of these workers lower wages for U.S. workers. This is probably true, but the effect is so modest that after thousands of studies, reputable economists have not been able to agree upon how much wages are reduced or even if they are at all.

Senate Democrats were also afraid that a half-baked Senate measure would be ripped apart in conference by Jim Sensenbrenner, the House negotiator who in past conferences has eaten senators for breakfast and cleaned his teeth with their bones.

What happened next is comprehensible only to devotees of the Senate. A trifling few differences about substance erupted into a furious disagreement about who would control the schedule on the floor.

As darkness settled last night, aides were boiling with frustration and ladling precriminations to me over the phone. Nobody could quite put their finger on exactly what was holding up a deal. And yet the Democrats might end up defeating a liberal immigration bill over a trifle.

"This is the sweet-spot deal," said the immigration expert Tamar Jacoby. "It makes moral sense. It makes practical sense. It's a little convoluted, but it's workable. If it fails, what a shame."

The House may be vulgar, but at least that body gets things done.

Photo credit: David Brooks. (New York Times)

Related Articles:

• Latinos Protest in California in Latest Immigration March


• Hastert Hints at Compromise on Immigration Bill


• THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE: THE CONTEXT; Split Over Immigration Reflects Nation's Struggle


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• NEW: The Wall That Keeps Illegal Workers In

Technorati tags: David Brooks, The New York Times, Immigration, illegal immigrants, illegal aliens, Hispanic-Americans, Refugees, Politics, Government, Senate, Congress, Dana Rohrabacher, commentary, news, op ed

Bush Scarier than Nixon

Feingold, John Dean: Bush Scarier than Nixon
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive

Republicans made a bad mistake if they thought by holding a hearing on censure they could embarrass critics of the President.

For when the Senate Judiciary Committee met on March 31 to explore Senator Feingold’s censure bill, the Wisconsin Senator scored point after point.

First, in his opening statement, he boxed Senator Arlen Specter into a corner. Specter has been pooh-poohing censure and has boasted of introducing a bill that he says will correct some of the problems he sees in Bush’s handling of the NSA spying.

But Feingold noted that Bush’s claim of Presidential authority would render Specter’s bill meaningless.

“If the President has the inherent authority to authorize whatever surveillance he thinks is necessary, then he surely will ignore your law, just as he has ignored FISA on many occasions,” Feingold said.

Under such a circumstance, “nothing that we can legislate, no matter how carefully crafted, is worth a hill of beans.”

Or as John Dean of Watergate fame added: Even as Bush would be signing Specter’s law, “Dick Cheney will be drafting a signing statement that will gut the law.”

Feingold made clear, in dramatic language, what this kind of Presidential overreaching, if unchecked, would mean: “We no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government; we have a monarchy.”

And Feingold warned, “If we in Congress don’t stand up for ourselves and for the American people, we become complicit in his lawbreaking.”

Feingold also dispatched with the claim that the Senate has no right to censure the President. He quoted constitutional scholars on the subject, and he noted that in 1999 thirty-eight Senators, including several Republicans, co-sponsored a resolution to censure Bill Clinton.

Feingold said Bush’s lawbreaking was a “greater threat to our Republic” than Nixon’s. Dean agreed. “The situation is even more serious,” Dean said. “Never before have I felt the slightest reason to fear our government. Nor do I frighten easily. But I do fear the Bush/Cheney government.”

Feingold charged the Bush Administration and the Republicans with a “cover-up” for not bringing forward former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who himself had expressed reservations about Bush’s NSA spying.

And Feingold was particularly outraged by Bush’s misleading statements about the program.

“The President has acted in bad faith both with regard to not revealing this program to the appropriate members of Congress, the full committees that were entitled to it, but more importantly by making misleading statements throughout America suggesting that this program did not exist . . . and then, after the fact, dismissing the possibility that he might have done something wrong,” Feingold said.

“To me, the lawbreaking is shocking in itself but the defiant way that the President has persisted in defending his actions with specious legal arguments and misleading statements is part of what led me to conclude that censure is a necessary step.”

Bruce Fein, who was in Reagan’s Justice Department, joined Feingold in denouncing Bush’s secrecy. “President Bush’s intent was to keep the program secret from Congress and to avoid political or legal accountability indefinitely,” Fein testified. “Secrecy of that sort makes checks and balances a farce.”

Fein also argued that Bush’s theory of his inherent powers would justify him in “employing battlefield tactics on the sidewalks of the United States.”

Feingold did not limit himself to Bush’s NSA scandal. He put it in the context of Bush’s assertions of executive power with regard to torture and preemptive war.

“What we have here,” Feingold said, “is one of the greatest attempts to dismantle our system of government that we have seen in the history of our country.”

Related Articles:

• John Dean: Bush's Unprecedented Arrogance

Technorati tags: The Progressive, Matthew Rothschild, John Dean, Russ Feingold, Censure, FISA, Watergate, Democrats, Republicans, Bill Clinton, Bruce Fein, NSA, news, commentary

Another Sleaze-Bag Bites the Dust

This is so sad, it's actually funny:
Homeland official arrested for solicitation

Photo credit: Deputy Press Secretary Brian J. Doyle of the Department of Homeland Security (MSNBC)

Technorati tags: Homeland Security, Deputy Press Secretary, Brian J. Doyle, porn, child porn, solicitation of a minor, news, commentary

Kerry Weighs in on Iraq

I'll never forgive this man for bailing on Democrats in the last election, but there is no denying, sometimes John Kerry gets it right. In this NY Times op ed, he does just that (and manages to make Bush look like a 'Flip Flopper' in the process):

Read "Two Deadlines and an Exit"

Photo credit: Democratic Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry , seen here in 2005, said the United States should set a May 15 deadline for Iraqis to form a unity government and then plan to withdraw its troops by year's end (AFP/File/Paul Richards)

Technorati tags: John Kerry, George Bush, Iraq, The New York Times, news, commentary, op ed

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"A Cocky Little Bandy Rooster"

Jack Cafferty had a few choice words for Tom Delay on "The Situation Room" Tuesday:

Wolf, all the tough talk was reduced to, "I quit!" To borrow a phrase from Roberto Duran, " No Mas." Mr. Delay suddenly became another disgraced public servant who couldn't take the heat. He would strut around on capitol hill like a cocky little, bandy rooster, but today he slithered away from Congress...

Click here to play video.

Technorati tags: Crooks and Liars, Jack Cafferty, The Situation Room, Tom Delay, video, news, commentary

If you get sick, do it in Massachusetts

... that is, if you want to get well without filing for bankruptcy.










Massachusetts is about to become the first state to provide close to universal health coverage. The state legislature passed the bill on Tuesday. And Governor Mitt Romney has vowed to sign it.

The bill provides health insurance for all its citizens using methods and ideas from both sides of the political spectrum, dividing the cost between business, individuals, and government. It's a great example of how bipartisan cooperation can achieve meaningful, much needed reform for constituents. The bill, while not perfect, is a vast improvement over the status quo.

It's interesting how a few, well-governed states are stepping up to fill in the enormous, gaping potholes left by our Do-Nothing Federal Government. Washington has become so corrupt, so insular, so venomous. it has all but rendered itself ineffectual. The people's priorities, largely, are not on their political agenda. So exactly why do we need them?

Anyone for seceding from the union? I'm game.

Ironically, if BushCo continues its Royal Reign of Irresponsibility and Entitlement, states may ultimately want to secede from the union, this time in order to avoid Civil War.

Read more about the Mass. Health Care Plan here.

Photo credit: C.J. Gunther for The New York Times
The Rev. Hurmon Hamilton spoke Tuesday at a rally in the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston, which celebrated passage of the health care bill.

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Technorati tags: The New York Times, Health Insurance, Managed Care, Universal Health Care, State Goverment, Mitt Romney, Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts, Bipartisan legislation, Medicine, Health, news, commentary

And This Guy Wants to Be President?

by William Fisher

This week, we got yet another pitiful lesson in just how craven wannabe presidential hopefuls will be in pandering to their "base" - and how little some of them understand about how to wage and win the "Global War on Terror."

The lesson came from Senator George Allen, the former Republican governor of Virginia, who is widely reported to be seeking his party's nomination for president in 2008.

Senator Allen wrote to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to recommend 3-star general Jerry Boykin to be the new head of the Army's Special Operations command.

For those of you with political amnesia, this is the same Jerry Boykin who appeared in dozens of Christian evangelical churches - often in uniform - to deliver himself of such utterances as:

About his battle with a Somali (Muslim) warlord: "I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

About the Global War on Terror: "America's enemy is "a spiritual enemy ... called Satan." The enemy will only be defeated, he added, "if we come against them in the name of Jesus ... We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this ..."

About radical Muslims: "Why do they hate us so much?... The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation."

About President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there." Read more.

Photo credit: Sen. George Allen, R-Virginia, addresses the New Hampshire Republican State Committee Annual Meeting Saturday, March 25, 2006 in Milford, N.H. Allen is a potential Repulican presidential primary candidate. (AP Photo/Lee Marriner)

Women: Ready for Prime Time?

Two Worn-Out Diplomats, One Fold-Out Bed
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

I'm just back from London, where the Brits were fascinated with the Condi Rice and Jack Straw two-for-the-road odyssey, the exchange of visits to their hometowns, Birmingham and Blackburn, and the rebuff of Condi by Paul McCartney and a Blackburn mosque.

British journalists loved hearing about how Condi exercises alongside diplomatic reporters in hotel gyms, not at all self-conscious about working out in form-fitting shorts and T-shirts.

The British are used to iron ladies, perhaps not pumping iron but trying to iron out world affairs. In his quaint new book, "Manliness," the Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield cites only one woman with that exalted trait: Margaret Thatcher, who told the first President Bush not to go wobbly on Saddam. Teaching other women to be assertive, Mr. Mansfield frets, might be "like teaching a cat to bark."

The struggles of the relentless American diplomat and the charming British diplomat to knock heads in Iraq and get the government to govern, with the war spinning into sulfurous sectarian fighting, was less mesmerizing to many reporters than the pair's gender-benders.

At one point Mr. Straw said America and England had the right to prod Iraqi politicians: "We've got to be able to deal with Mr. A, Mr. B or Mr. C. We can't deal with Mr. Nobody."

A smiling Ms. Rice, still promoting the illusion that Iraqi women are better off, corrected: "Jack, I'm sure we'd be all right with Miss A or Miss B or Miss C, too, right?" (It would have to be a generic Miss, since there are no powerful women leaders there.)

The foreign secretary held his face and pleaded: "I was not being gender-specific. Don't report me, please."

The British reporters were gobsmacked when Condi gave the fold-out bed on her Boeing 757 to Mr. Straw for the night flight to Kuwait, and slept in the aisle as flight attendants stepped over her.

It may have been a sign that U.S. foreign policy is finally becoming humble, as W. promised in his first campaign, now that Condi has admitted "thousands" of mistakes in Iraq. But it also shows the secretary understands the importance of manly virtues: she was tough enough to sleep on the floor and chivalrous enough to make sure Mr. Straw didn't.

The Times of London made smarmy jokes about "how far the special relationship has developed," and asked a Baghdad embassy spokeswoman if Jack's sleeping in Condi's bed was "second base" for the couple.

The comedian Bill Maher recently noted that while other countries elect a wide array of female leaders, our women politicians are still expected to wedge themselves into a "straitjacket" and act like men.

It has been two decades since I covered Geraldine Ferraro's historic run for the White House. One politician welcomed Ms. Ferraro with a wrist corsage; another in Mississippi asked the "young lady" if she could bake blueberry muffins. Johnny Carson joked that Joan Mondale would not like her husband working late with his female vice president.

So now there are racy Rice-Straw jokes. How far have we come?

The Los Angeles Times ran a piece yesterday about Hollywood's doubts about Hillary, including Sharon Stone's basic instinct that it's too soon for the New York senator since "a woman should be past her sexuality when she runs" and she thinks Hillary still has "threatening" sexual power.

It seemed unlikely that we'd kick the habit of wanting Daddy in the Oval Office until we kicked the habit of wanting Daddy in the anchor chair.

Now that the nightly news is largely an anachronism, and the suits are trying to make it more cuddly and personality-driven to win younger viewers, we can finally break that barrier. (Even though Walter Cronkite fretted to a group last fall that women on TV talk in "too high a register.")

As Rebecca Dana wryly wondered in The New York Observer: "What is gravitas? And why does it kick in at nightfall?" She quoted one network executive explaining that even women "like to get their news from other women in the morning and from men — husband figures — at night."

So now we'll see if Katie Couric can be trusted with the Herculean task of appearing on camera for 5 or 10 minutes a night, reading a teleprompter.

Still, she'll have to prove that, more than being just a headliner, she knows what's behind the headlines. As Bob Schieffer has done, raising CBS ratings, or as Christiane Amanpour might do as an anchor, Katie needs to show she understands the roiling events beyond the teleprompter.

Let's just hope Les Moonves doesn't welcome her with a wrist corsage.

Photo credit: Maureen Dowd. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, Condoleezza Rice, Jack Straw, Margaret Thatcher, Geraldine Ferraro, news, commentary, op ed

Immigration: It's All About Empire

It's flabbergasting how people like Thomas Friedman (see NY Times op ed below) can take a passionate, human issue like immigration and reduce it to a crass, inhuman discussion of how we can selectively use immigrants to our own ends: to build a more powerful empire and assure our place as king of this new, flatter world.

The fact that immigration, at it's most basic, is about human beings? Irrelevant.

Sub-human wages? So what?

Human suffering? Who cares?

It's all about harvesting the world's brain power (We want exclusively educated immigrants; only the crème de la crème; nothing less than the best for America!) to help us lead the world in new, cutting edge technologies.

I can't help but see visions of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," dancing through my head. Or worse, this kind of thinking conjures up much darker images of a certain, crazed German dictator who was the inspiration for Chaplin's satiric masterpiece. Oy vay.

In Friedman's warped, super-inflated head, It's about 'us doing it to them' before 'they do it to us.' That's the imperious, king of the hill, name of the game.

Sounds a lot like our foreign policy in Iraq, doesn't it? It's no wonder; It comes from the same egotistic, money-hungry, domination-consumed thinking.

Instead of preventive wars, we have preventive immigration--yet another neo-con disaster in the making.

Oh joy, something other than World War III to look forward to.


High Fence and Big Gate
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

America today is struggling to find the right balance of policies on immigration. Personally, I favor a very high fence, with a very big gate.

So far, neither President Bush's proposal to allow the nation's millions of illegal immigrants to stay temporarily on work visas, nor the most hard-line G.O.P. counterproposal, which focuses only on border security, leaves me satisfied. We need a better blend of the two — a blend that will keep America the world's greatest magnet for immigrants. Why?

First, the world is flattening, and as a result more and more people around the globe have access to the same technological tools for innovation and entrepreneurship. In such a world, where innovation is concentrated really matters — because that is where the best management, research and sales jobs will be located for any company.

Because of its deeply rooted culture of immigration, the U.S. has a huge advantage in such a world. If we are smart, we can still cream off the most first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world — more than any other country — and bring that talent to our shores to start companies and work in others.

We have gone from the Iron Age to the Industrial Age to the Information Age to the Talent Age, and countries that make it easy to draw in human talent will have a distinct advantage today.

Anybody out there try to become a Swiss citizen lately? It's not so easy — and it's also not an accident that Switzerland's most famous product is the cuckoo clock.

Second, a steady flow of immigrants keeps a society flexible and competitive. In this flat world, more people than ever can leverage technology. So whatever can be done — whatever today's technologies enable and empower — will be done by someone, somewhere. The only question is whether it will be done by you or to you. The more open your society is to new people and ideas, the more things will be done by you, not to you.

We shouldn't just welcome educated immigrants, but laborers as well — not only because we need manual laborers, but also because they bring an important energy. As the Indian-American entrepreneur Vivek Paul likes to say: "The very act of leaving behind your own society is an intense motivator. ... Whether you are a doctor or a gardener, you are intensely motivated to succeed."

We need that steady energy flow, especially with India and China exploding onto the world stage with huge pent-up aspirations. If you want to know what China and India feel like today, just take out a Champagne bottle, shake it for 10 minutes and then take off the cork. Don't get in the way of that cork. Immigrants keep that kind of energy flowing in America's veins.

An amnesty for the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants already here is hardly ideal. It would reward illegal behavior. But since we are not going to deport them all, some version of the Arlen Specter bill seems like the right way to go: Illegal immigrants who were in the U.S. before Jan. 7, 2004, could apply for three-year guest-worker visas, each renewable one time if the applicant paid a $1,000 fine and passed a background check. After six years, if the immigrant learned sufficient English and paid another $1,000 fine and back taxes, he or she could start to apply for citizenship.

But because I strongly favor immigration, I also favor a high fence — if not a physical one, then at least a tamperproof national ID card for every American, without which you could not get a legal job or access to government services. We will not sustain a majority in favor of flexible immigration if we can't control our borders.

Good fences make good immigration policy. Fences make people more secure and able to think through this issue more calmly. Porous borders empower only anti-immigrant demagogues, like the shameful CNN, which dumbs down the whole debate.

We also need to control the influx of immigrants because one byproduct of the flattening of the world is that many decent low-end factory jobs previously open to someone with only a high school degree or less are now disappearing. As Dan Pink notes in his book, "A Whole New Mind," many of those jobs can now be done faster by a computer or cheaper by a Chinese worker. Therefore, we can't just endlessly expand our pool of manual labor without condemning people at that low end, particularly black men, to a future of declining wages or unemployment. That will have terrible social consequences.

For all these reasons, I weigh each immigration proposal with two questions: "Does it offer a real fence? Does it offer a real gate?"

Photo credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

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Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, immigration, refugees, labor, deportation, border security, illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, news, commentary, op ed

Mukhtar's Revolution

Nicholas Kristof, with more in today's NY Times op ed on the courageous Mukhtar Mai in Pakistan:


A Heroine Walking in the Shadow of Death
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times

MEERWALA, Pakistan

When I met Mukhtar Mai here two years ago, she was at her wits' end. Her campaign to fight rape and illiteracy had run out of money, and she was selling family possessions to keep her schools operating.

Now so much has changed. Mukhtar, who also goes by the name Mukhtaran Bibi, has become an international celebrity. Her autobiography is the No. 3 best seller in France and is coming out this fall in the U.S., movies are being made about her, and she has been praised by dignitaries like Laura Bush and the French foreign minister.

Pakistan has also provided a paved road, electricity and telephone service to this village, she herself has learned to read in one of her own schools, and her new aid group is flourishing.

Best of all, her campaign is really working: more women seem to be prosecuting rapes and acid attacks, and there's some evidence that such violence is dropping.

But partly because of her success, there's a good chance that Mukhtar will be murdered. "The traditional landowners want me dead," Mukhtar said sadly. "And the government doesn't want me around, either." (You can watch Mukhtar in my video report, "Courage in Pakistan.")

President Pervez Musharraf is a modern man, and I'm sure he is privately repulsed by acid attacks and rapes. In some respects, he's doing a fine job — above all, he's presiding over a stunning 8 percent economic growth rate (those socks you're wearing may be manufactured in Pakistan).

But Mr. Musharraf seems to feel that Mukhtar is casting a spotlight on Pakistan's dark side, so he is leading an effort to bully her into silence.

The authorities confiscate Mukhtar's mail and feed vicious propaganda to sympathetic journalists, portraying her as a liar, a cheat and an unpatriotic dupe of India (and of me).

"My life and death is in God's hands," she said. "That doesn't bother me. But why does the government keep treating me as if I were a liar and criminal?"

A top police official has threatened to imprison her for fornication, which would discredit her and remove her from the scene. The charge is ludicrous, for Mukhtar is constantly chaperoned — by rape victims who have sought sanctuary here and sleep on the floor beside her each night.

"For the first time, I feel that the government has a plan to deal with me," Mukhtar told me. And that plan, she said, is to kill her or throw her into prison.

Naseem Akhtar, the principal of Mukhtar's elementary school for girls, added, "I want you to know that no matter how we are killed, even if it looks like an accident, it isn't."

The threats have come from high up. Brig. Ijaz Shah, a buddy of President Musharraf's, traveled to Lahore in December to deliver a personal warning. He met Dr. Amna Buttar, an American citizen who has interpreted for Mukhtar in the U.S. and heads a Pakistani-American human rights organization that is supporting her (www.4anaa.org).

According to Dr. Buttar, Mr. Shah started by defending the president's record on women's rights. But then, alluding to a planned visit by Mukhtar to New York, he added: "We can do anything. ... We can just pay a little money to some black guys in New York and get people killed there."

That's right. The racism is the least of it: one of President Musharraf's closest aides was warning that unless Mukhtar piped down, the government of Pakistan might murder her and her American interpreter on the streets of New York. I asked the Pakistani government why it would do that, and Mr. Shah sent me a statement acknowledging that he had met with Dr. Buttar, but he said it had been a social visit and denied that he had threatened to kill anyone. "The allegations to this effect are baseless," he said.

Just for the record, I don't believe him. Mr. Musharraf should fire him at once.

I make a big deal of Mukhtar because if poor nations like Pakistan are to develop, they need to empower women. When a country educates girls, they grow up to have fewer children and look after them better. They take productive jobs. And plenty of studies show that as women gain influence over family budgets, the money is less likely to go for tobacco, soda or alcohol, and more likely to be invested in small businesses and in children's education.

This means that gender equality is not only a matter of simple justice, but also essential for fighting poverty and achieving economic development. If Pakistan is to become a rich and powerful country, it must empower its women — and that is what Mukhtar's revolution is all about.

So General Musharraf, back off! Leave Mukhtar alone, and go find Osama.

Photo credit: Nicholas D. Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Related:

• The Unknown Candidate: Mother of a Nation

• Multimedia: Courage in Pakistan

Technorati tags: Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Pakistan, Mukhtar Mai, Pervez Musharraf, women, education, schools, gender equality, sex crimes, human trafficking, freedom, human rights, rape, news, commentary, op-ed

Tierney Skewers Dobbs

It's "Fun with Lou Dobbs" courtesy of John Tierney in today's NY Times op ed.

Satire aside, I think he's a bit askew in his characterization of Lou's position, but, hey, what else is new?

Besides, Lou Dobbs is perfectly capable of defending himself, what with having his own daily news show and being a founder of CNN and all....

Border of Insanity
By John Tierney
The New York Times

This is a special edition of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," news, debate and opinion. Live from Pyongyang, North Korea, Lou Dobbs:

Good evening from North Korea. We had to go halfway around the world, but we've finally got good news for the working men and women of America angry about illegal immigration. Tonight you'll hear our exclusive report from the nation that proudly calls itself the Hermit Kingdom.

But first, more bad news from Washington. Despite my personal trip to Cancún for last week's summit meeting, President Bush remains hostage to foreign interests. My soaring ratings apparently mean nothing to the White House or the Senate Republicans working on an amnesty plan for the illegal immigrants now carrying Mexican flags through our streets.

Tonight's poll question deals with those protesters and where they get their money. As these reconquistadors plot to make California a province of Mexico, have they made a secret deal to turn the Los Angeles port over to an Arab company? Cast your votes at loudobbs.com. We'll have your answers later.

A report out today refutes the claims that the American economy benefits from immigration and free trade. If you're a regular viewer, you already know that's a myth. But maybe these figures will knock the rose-colored glasses off a few so-called mainstream economists. The new report, from the Minutemen Institute of Research Study Analysis, shows that previous cost-benefit estimates ignored three crucial factors:

• Since Nafta opened the border, the importing of cheap tortilla chips has worsened America's obesity epidemic by 475 million pounds.

• Intermarriage between immigrants and natives is expected to reduce the projected height of the average future worker, leading to a 2.4 percent decrease in earning potential.

• Americans lose 38.7 billion minutes of productive work time per decade sitting through telephone instructions to "dial 2 for Spanish."

Add in those costs, and the net loss to the American economy is $4.3 trillion. I can't say it often enough: there's nothing free about free trade.

No one understands that better than our hosts here in North Korea, the world's most economically independent nation. They know the hazards of foreign labor and foreign goods. "Buy North Korean" is more than a slogan here. Outsourcing is outlawed.

How do they stay strong? Let's find out from the North Korean military leader in charge of border security. Thank you for joining us, General —— excuse me, could you pronounce your name for our viewers?

No.

No?

That is an internal matter.

Ah. Let's talk about something that's no secret: the difference between our borders. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans annually sneak into the U.S. How many people make it up here across your southern border each year?

Approximately zero.

I can believe it. I sure didn't see any South Korean flags on the streets today. We got nothing but blank looks when we asked for the hiring spot for foreign laborers. What's stopping them? Is the whole border fenced?

There are two fences across the Demilitarized Zone. Also thousands of artillery systems and land mines.

I wish you could brief President Vicente Fox of Mexico and members of Congress. I bet they've never thought of land mines — well, maybe Tom Tancredo has. And you also have 700,000 border agents?

The number of troops is classified.

But the point is, the message that our defeatists at home need to hear, is that with enough determination, you can seal the border. Nobody's digging tunnels under your fences, right?

Actually, a few have dug tunnels.

But you said that there have been virtually no crossings.

In this direction. Some of our citizens have fled south.

But what they could be looking for? You've got a self-sufficient economy.

These are isolated cases of mental delusion. They believe tales of places where workers own personal telephones and bicycles — even cars. [Laughs.] Fortunately, we apprehend most of them.

Well, the next time you catch one, I've got something you can share with him. I'd like to present you with a copy of my book "Exporting America."

A foreign book? No, thank you.

A man of principle. I respect that, General.

Up next, a tour of Pyongyang's finest restaurants, where you won't find any enchiladas — or Mexican busboys. Stay tuned as we bust the myth that there are some jobs North Koreans won't do.

Photo credit: John Tierney. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: John Tierney, New York Times, immigration, refugees, terrorists, illegal aliens, national security, border security, Lou Dobbs, North Korea, news, commentary, op ed

Zinni Calls for Rummy's Dismissal

Now comes yet another call for Rummy-boy's dismissal due to his critically botched Iraq war decisions. This time the call comes from former US military commander, Anthony Zinni, who lead the US Central Command from 1997 to 2000, and made his comments on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday and on Hardball today.

"Integrity and getting on with the mission and doing it right is more important than loyalty. Both are great traits, but integrity, honesty and performance and competence have to outweigh, in this business, loyalty," the former Marine Corps general said.

Read more.

Photo credit: A former senior US military commander, Anthony Zinni, pictured in 2002, called for the dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over critical mistakes made in the Iraq war. (AFP/File/Sven Nackstrand)

Technorati tags: Rumsfeld, NBC, Meet the Press, Hardball, Iraq, Anthony Zinni, news

Olbermann: The War Memo

Keith Olbermann goes over the newest released memo from The U.K. He blasts Bush's line, "No president wants to go to war, " in that the memo reveals the war plans were drawn up five days before Colin Powell went to the UN.

Andrea Mitchell actually brings up the Downing Street memo (she doesn't call it that) and says war was inevitable from the start, mentioning the "painting of a spy plane," tactic to trick Saddam into firing at it, allowing Bush to justify invading Iraq.

Mitchell: "It was very clear that George Bush was set on going to war...."

CLICK TO WATCH.

Technorati tags: Keith Olbermann, The Memo, U.K., Iraq, Bush, Andrea Mitchell, news, MSNBC

The "News" According to Rummy & Georgie

The Lincoln Group was tasked with presenting the US version of events in Iraq to counter adverse media coverage. Here we present examples of its work, and the reality behind its headlines.

Technorati tags: The Independent, U.S. Propagranda, Andrew Buncombe, media, journalism, news, commentary

Sheer Poetry: The House That Jack Built

Jack's House
By Hart Seely
The New York Times

These are the men
that fleeced the tribes
that paid the money
that made the bribes
that purchased the Congress
that Jack built.

Read more.

Also see:

• For Jack's a Jolly Good Fellow!

• Abramoff gets 6 years for fraud

Technorati tags: Jack Abramoff, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Bob Ney, Tom Delay, Congress, Hart Seely, The New York Times, poetry, op ed

Lobby Reform Lite

The Senate has voted for a halfhearted package of reforms that would come nowhere near curing the easy money, quid pro quo culture that now bedevils the Capitol.

More here and here.

Technorati tags: Lobby reform, K-Street, Senate, government, lobbying and lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, Politics, Government

Plea in DeLay Case Snares Close Confidant

The third significant plea deal in the Abramoff/DeLay bribery scandal was announced today and Tom C. Rudy, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, names Ed Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, as being a central player in the scandal.

Photo credit: Tony Rudy, a former deputy chief of staff to Rep. Tom Delay, leaves Federal Court in Washington, Friday, March 31, 2006. after pleading guilty to conspiracy and promised to cooperate with the governments investigation of lobby fraud. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

BREAKING:

Tom DeLay Says He Will Give Up His Seat

Representative Tom DeLay, whose iron hold on the House Republicans melted as a lobbying corruption scandal engulfed the Capitol, told TIME that he will not seek reelection and will leave Congress within months.

Photo credit: US Representative Tom DeLay on Capitol Hill. (Photo: TIME Magazine)

Also see

• DeLay to Resign From Congress


• TomPaine.com - The Hammer Is Nailed

  Tom DeLay is gone, but his politics of division and corrupt system of corporate patronage live on.

• A Partisan Leaves; Will an Era Follow?


• Sidney Blumenthal: I, DeLay


• DeLay Departs: Champagne All Around! | The Progressive

Technorati tags: Tom Delay, Tom C. Rudy, Ed Buckham, Politics, News

Rice admits "thousands" of errors in Iraq

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted on Friday the United States had probably made thousands of errors in Iraq, but defended the overall strategy of removing Saddam Hussein. Read more.

Photo credit: A Protestor chants anti-war slogans outside Pleckgate High school as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Blackburn March 31, 2006. (REUTERS/Darren Staples)

Technorati tags: Condoleezza Rice, Iraq, Jack Straw, Britain, U.S., international affairs, news

A Reverence for Hate

Anyone who has any respect left for John McCain needs to have his brain rearranged. Political opportunism is one thing. Embracing hatred is another. Read on:


John and Jerry
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Well, I'll be damned. At least, that's what the Rev. Jerry Falwell says. Last month Mr. Falwell issued a statement explaining that, in his view, Jews can't go to heaven unless they convert to Christianity. And what Mr. Falwell says matters — maybe not in heaven, but here on earth. After all, he's a kingmaker in today's Republican Party.

Senator John McCain obviously believes that he can't get the Republican presidential nomination without Mr. Falwell's approval. During the 2000 campaign, Mr. McCain denounced Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance." But next month Mr. McCain will be a commencement speaker at Liberty University, which Mr. Falwell founded.

On "Meet the Press" yesterday, Mr. McCain was asked to explain his apparent flip-flop. "I believe," he replied, "that the Christian right has a major role to play in the Republican Party. One reason is because they're so active and their followers are. And I believe they have a right to be a part of our party."

So what has happened since the 2000 campaign to convince Mr. McCain that Mr. Falwell is not, in fact, an agent of intolerance?

Maybe it was Mr. Falwell's TV appearance with Mr. Robertson on Sept. 13, 2001, during which the two religious leaders agreed that the terrorist attack two days earlier was divine punishment for American immorality. "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Mr. Falwell, who also declared, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "

Or maybe it was Mr. Falwell's appearance on "60 Minutes" in October 2002, when he declared, "I think Muhammad was a terrorist." Muhammad, he said, was "a violent man" — unlike Mr. Falwell, I guess, who said of terrorists that we should "blow them all away in the name of the Lord."

After each of these incidents, by the way, Mr. Falwell issued what were described as "apologies." But they weren't apologies — they were statements along the lines of, "I'm sorry that some people were upset by what I said." It's clear that in each case Mr. Falwell's offensive remarks were not a slip of the tongue; they reflected his deeply held beliefs.

And that's why it's important to hold someone like Mr. McCain — who is still widely regarded as a moderate, in spite of his extremely conservative voting record — accountable when he cozies up to Mr. Falwell. Nobody thinks that Mr. McCain shares all of Mr. Falwell's views. But when Mr. McCain said that the Christian right has a right to be part of the Republican Party, he was in effect saying that Mr. Falwell's statements are within the realm of acceptable political discourse.

Just to be clear: this is a free country, and Mr. Falwell has a right to say what he thinks, even if his views include the belief that other people, by saying what they think, brought down God's wrath on America. By the same token, any political party has a right to include Mr. Falwell and his supporters, just as any politician has a right to make a political alliance with Mr. Falwell.

But if you choose to make common cause with religious extremists, you are accepting some responsibility for their extremism. By welcoming Mr. Falwell and people like him as members of their party, Republicans are saying that it's O.K. — not necessarily correct, but O.K. — to declare that 9/11 was America's punishment for its tolerance of abortion and homosexuality, that Islam is a terrorist religion, and that Jews can't go to heaven. And voters should judge the Republican Party accordingly.

As for Mr. McCain: his denunciation of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson six years ago helped give him a reputation as a moderate on social issues. Now that he has made up with Mr. Falwell and endorsed South Dakota's ban on abortion even in the case of rape or incest, only two conclusions are possible: either he isn't a social moderate after all, or he's a cynical political opportunist.

Photo credit: Paul Krugman (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Paul Krugman, New York Times, John McCain, Jerry Falwell, Religious Right, hatred, prejudice, anti-semitic, politics, government, Liberty University, news, commentary, op ed

Libby's Weasel

Libby's lawyers are trying to get the case against Libby thrown out on the grounds that Fitzgerald's "unsupervised and undirected power...requires that he be relieved of his duties in the investigation and that all actions he has taken be voided."

In response, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is narrowing the description of his powers in an effort to counter calls for dismissal of the criminal case he brought against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

Am I wrong to view this as Libby's attempts to weasel out being prosecuted for lying under oath?

Am I wrong in also wondering if Libby may actually succeed, in that Fitz wouldn't be seeking to narrow the description of his powers if he thought the assertion that his appointment violated Federal law was specious?

From any legal eagles out there, comments would be appreciated.

Read more here and here. Links to primary source material here.

Also see:

• The Blog | Steve Clemons: Behind the Scenes: Rove and Libby in Deadly Legal Dogfight | The Huffington Post


• The Raw Story | Rove said cooperating in CIA leak inquiry


• NEW: Fitzgerald Knew Identity of Leaker From Start

Technorati tags: CIA Leak Investigation, Scooter Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame Wilson, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, James Comey, news, commentary

On the Road With JK and the V.P.

By David Brooks
The New York Times

I'm afraid I've been unable to complete my foolproof plan for North Korean nuclear disarmament because I've been unable to rip my eyes away from the celebrity hotel and backstage requirement lists that have lately been posted on the Internet.

First came the leaked document from the vice president's office letting us know that when Dick Cheney has some downtime at a hotel, he likes nothing better than to crack open a diet caffeine-free Sprite in a well-lit 68-degree room and watch a television preset to "Hannity & Colmes." Then I saw the documents, also posted on thesmokinggun.com, revealing that my idol Bruce Springsteen requires raw oats, whey powder and nonfat soy milk in his backstage dressing room, and that Mary J. Blige demands "No Dairy or Pork of Any Kind!!" for her preconcert meal, even though she doesn't look neocon.

Now there's a leaked memo from the John Kerry campaign to hotel managers, informing them that "JK hates celery" (too spicy, perhaps); that, ungratefully, he does not eat tomato-based products; and that his Cobb salads must have both balsamic vinaigrette and ranch dressing on the side (flip-flopper).

I've long argued that the first time you see the Kerrys you think he's normal and she's weird, but after you observe them for a while you realize that inwardly he's the weird one and she's normal. This is confirmed by Teresa Heinz Kerry's entirely sensible hotel requirements list: good air circulation, flax bread and chicken Caesar salad with lots of garlic. When I saw that Mrs. Heinz Kerry prefers Starwood Hotels' Heavenly Bed, I felt that surge of solidarity we all feel toward those whose hotel mattress tastes are identical to our own.

You may call this new passion of mine voyeuristic snooping, but I call it piercing sociological research, and I discern in these leaked memos highly significant historical trends, which of course is my job.

In the first place it's interesting to watch politicians and their staffs try to come up with lists of items intended to produce sensual pleasure. People who go into politics tend to be the sort of hyperambitious workaholics who have repressed the Dionysian side of their natures in order to become high school tools, college applicant all-stars and twenty-something mentor magnets, in pursuit of their dreams of someday becoming deputy under secretary of commerce. Then they flock to Washington, a city with an erogenous zone the size of a pea. These are not people with highly developed hedonism skills.

What they come up with, as they contemplate pleasure, is a sort of dweeb decadence. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are beyond them. Their fantasies run in the direction of really well-selected energy bars. Their memos call for an orgy of decaf, a Mardi Gras of bottled water, a Caligulan binge of chamomile tea. It's like watching the Taliban production of "Entourage."

The other thing these memos illustrate is the psychotic nature of the staff-boss relationship. Remember, it's overeager staffers who write the memos — supercompetent types who magnify their importance and indispensability by making arduous demands on behalf of their superiors.

The relationship between staffer and boss is marred by the Jeeves Principle, which holds that in most large organizations the really intelligent people end up as subordinates while the blandly charismatic, effortlessly slender, excessively well-groomed ones end up as top dogs.

Political and corporate aides have all the requisites for success except the most important one: a complete absence of self-irony. Intellectually superior but personally thwarted, the staffers respond to this disharmony in the cosmic order, first by mixing their affection for their bosses with rich veins of ridicule. (What else are we to make of the Kerry aide's assertion that hotel in-suite movies "make JK very happy"?)

Second, they exact psychic revenge on their bosses by reducing them to infantile dependence. Through flattery and by assuming responsibility for all the normal details of life, these master puppeteers turn their bosses into helpless Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, who require squads of eager, efficient young people to pull them along.

If we allowed the bosses to write their own hotel requirement memos, they wouldn't be filled with picayune bottled water specifications. They'd be more honest: "Please praise me from the moment I walk in the lobby to the moment I'm out your door. Please lose my schedule and misplace my ambition. Please supply me with comfy bathrobes and give me back my youth."

Photo credit: David Brooks (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: David Brooks, The New York Times, John Kerry, Dick Cheney, Politics, Government, Hotels and Motels, commentary, news, op ed

Mother of a Nation

By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times

MEERWALA, Pakistan

I don't know whether journalists felt it around the young Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., but around Mukhtar Mai I sense the presence of greatness.

Mukhtar, who also goes by the name Mukhtaran Bibi, is the young peasant woman — she doesn't know exactly how old she is — who three years ago was gang-raped on order of a local tribal council. Instead of killing herself, as was expected of any self-respecting woman, she prosecuted her attackers, used compensation money to start schools, and started a nationwide revolution to empower women.

Every day, poor and desperate women and girls with tear-smudged cheeks arrive in this remote and impoverished village, seeking sanctuary. Every night, up to a dozen of them sleep on the floor in Mukhtar's bedroom beside her. (She has given her bed to the principal of the girls' elementary school she started here.)

One visitor is a lovely 7-year-old girl who breaks down in huge, heartbreaking sobs as she tells how the servant of a rich family raped her, and how the rich family then threatened to kill her and her family unless she recanted her accusation.

Then there's Fauzia Bibi, a 30-year-old who was raped and tortured by eight men for two days to punish her family because her uncle supposedly had an affair with a woman from their clan. The attackers are threatening to kill her entire family unless she recants.



Video: Return to Meerwalla
Nicholas D. Kristof visits Mukhtar Mai in Pakistan, where, with the help of funds from Times readers, she has created a haven for women and schoolgirls.
Inspired by Mukhtar, these women are standing their ground. They are risking their lives — and, in anguish, those of their loved ones — to prosecute their attackers. It's a lesson in courage and civics I'll never forget.

"As long as I'm alive, we'll proceed with this case," said Shabana Mai, the mother of the 7-year-old. "Of course, if they cut my head off, there's nothing I can do."

Mukhtar arranges legal assistance for these women, puts them in touch with aid groups, and looks to their other needs. One woman arrived without a nose; cutting off a nose is a traditional Pakistani way of punishing women. Mukhtar has arranged three surgical operations and, above all, the prosecution of the man who did it.

With her faith in the civilizing power of education, Mukhtar also goes door to door and browbeats parents into sending their daughters to her school. "Sometimes I'll make a deal with the parents — I tell them, 'You send two of your daughters to my school, and I'll let you keep two others at home,' " she explained.

The school goes up to the fourth grade, though next year it will include fifth grade as well. The academic star is Sidra Nazar, a 9-year-old who ranks first in the fourth grade.

But a month ago, Sidra's parents pulled her out of school. Her clan was in a dispute with another, and to resolve the matter she was offered as a bride to a 20-year-old man in the other clan. Outraged, Mukhtar went to Sidra's parents and raised a stink.

Her meddling infuriated Sidra's parents, but they dropped the marriage plans, and Sidra is back in school. "I want to be a doctor," she told me.

I had the honor of addressing the graduation ceremony for Mukhtar's school. (I didn't get an honorary degree, perhaps because Mukhtar thought I would be offended by being made an honorary fourth grader.) But another commencement speaker, a Pakistani human rights activist named Khalid Aftab Sulehri, said it best: he described Mukhtar as "the mother of the nation."

That's what I find so inspiring about this woman. Hers is as sordid a story of evil and victimization as one could find, and yet — by dauntless courage, by the magic of the human spirit — she has transformed it into an uplifting vision of hope.

•

My last two columns recounted the story of Aisha Parveen, a young Pakistani who escaped from the brothel in which she had been imprisoned for six years. The courts were threatening to send her back to the brothel owner, who planned to kill her.

In the last few days, everything has changed. The police have dropped all charges against Ms. Parveen, and instead they have arrested the brothel owner on charges of kidnapping her and attempting to murder her. The Pakistani government is now behind Ms. Parveen and giving her 24-hour police protection, and she's thrilled — and thankful for the support from so many readers.

Now for the million other Aisha Parveens around the world. ...

Photo credit: Nicholas D. Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Pakistan, Mukhtar Mai, women, education, schools, gender equality, sex crimes, human trafficking, freedom, human rights, rape, news, commentary, op-ed

Jill Carroll Update

Those who couldn't wait to lambast Jill Carroll for statements she made shortly after her release from kidnappers should be ashamed. Irresponsible journalists have no business second guessing Carroll's integrity and broadcasting their defaming conjectures without checking the facts.

So what else is new, right? We should be used to this kind of hack "reporting". Not one of these so-called journalists has half the courage Jill showed by putting herself in danger daily in her quest to tell the Iraqi side of the war story.

Yet, instead of lauding her and celebrating this young woman's release, they maligned her for statements she was coerced to make by her kidnappers and, later, fearing retribution from her captors, in a TV interview (she was promised would not be aired) with the Iraqi Islamic Party. She was further erroneously accused of refusing to travel and cooperate with the U.S. military and U.S. officials.

One can only imagine what Carroll has been through these past months. I doubt she ever dreamed she could be greeted by her professional peers with such disdain.

Maybe the real mistake she made was that she survived. If she hadn't, CNN and MSNBC could have spent days--who knows? maybe weeks!--lauding her as a hero, running hour upon hour of looped Jill Carroll videos, interviewing her friends and distraught family, and elevating her career as a courageous reporter to the level of sainthood. (Imagine the ratings! And what a great distraction from Bushie's problems! Darn that girl. What did she have to go and get released for? Bor-ing. What a drag.)

Honestly. How do these people sleep at night?

Photo credit: FREE AT LAST: Jill Carroll, shortly after her release after 82 days as a hostage in Baghdad. (Scott Peterson/Getty Images)

For an update that is based on facts instead of fantasy, see the following:

• Jill Carroll forced to make propaganda video as price of freedom | csmonitor.com (March 31, 2006)


• Jill Carroll: finally free | csmonitor.com (March 31, 2006)


• Helping Jill interpret Iraq | csmonitor.com (March 31, 2006)


• Almost three months of captivity | csmonitor.com (March 31, 2006)


• Statements from the Monitor and the Carrolls: 'Today is a day of rejoicing' | csmonitor.com (March 31, 2006)


• What it took from the hearts of many people to free Jill Carroll | csmonitor.com (March 31, 2006)


• Jill Carroll statement| csmonitor.com (April 1, 2006)


• Hands Off Jill Carroll

Technorati tags: Jill Carroll, Iraq, hostage, Christian Science Monitor, Allan Enwiya, news, commentary

�Weekend Flick Fest: "The Big Dick"

Brought to you by ....

Click here to see The Big Dick from �NoEvil Productions.

Technorati tags: Dick Cheney, Satire, Humor, Video, Film

Miracles Don't Happen in Bush Land

Don't be fooled by all the media hullabaloo over upcoming staff changes at the White House. My opinion? It's a major fluff job.

Critics of BushCo have encouraged bringing in a group of better qualified personnel representing less insular points of view. In other words, getting rid of the "yes" men.

Many have recommended a major house cleaning; trade those responsible for the myriad of mistakes, like Rove (Misleader in Chief, involved in outing a covert CIA agent), Rummy (Multiple Iraq war mistakes), Cheney (all of the above), and Chertoff (Katrina Disaster Man), and draft a fresh team of less idiologically entrenched rookies.

Good luck. Miracles don't happen in Bush Land.

What we will most likely see are merely cosmetic and politically motivated changes designed to help pull Bushy-Boy out of his 8th inning slump. Expect nothing more than superficial hotdogging with an eye on luring the digruntled fans back.

If BushCo were a baseball team, there would be a whole lot of empty seats in the stadium this season. The entire managment team has arrogantly alienated their fans, forgetting that without them, there is no game. Once you stop filling up those seats, you're gonna have to do something major--like win the World Series--to win folks back. Or capture a major terrorist named Osama. Or win a disaster of a war in Iraq.

We should be so lucky.

The kind of changes being discussed by Joshua Bolten, Andrew Card's replacement, are minor league. Bolten's focus is on strengthening political ties with Congress, including possibly bringing a new ambassador to Capitol Hill, rumored to be Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.)

According to Peter Baker and Jim VandHei of the Washington Post:

While welcomed by Republicans, Bolten's promotion from director of the Office of Management and Budget did not bring in new blood, as congressional leaders have urged. "The White House has heard a loud and clear message from friends: They need bigger changes than the ones so far," said one GOP strategist.

But even if Bolten does enlist Washington veterans from outside the traditional Bush orbit, Republicans close to the process cautioned against expecting wholesale upheaval. "There's nothing that suggests there's going to be blood on the wall," said a Republican lobbyist with ties to the White House.

Like I said, miracles don't happen in Bush Land.

Photo credit: Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten takes over as President Bush's chief of staff on April 15 and is focused on rebuilding administration ties to Congress. (Pool Photo)

Also see:

• More tweak than White House shake-up

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