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June
Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press! Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary
The Morning Murmur – Tuesday, June 20, 2006
1. North Korea's Incredibly Bad Idea - New York Times Op-ed
Why North Korea would want to increase its isolation and antagonize its few
friends is hard to comprehend. Washington, for its part, has reacted
sensibly, delivering a clear message to North Korea not to proceed with a
missile test.
2. Murtha's Fuzzy Math - RealClear Politics
Congressman John Murtha continues to make a fool of himself by suggesting we
can effectively fight the terrorist insurgency in Iraq by "redeploying" our
troops to a military base in Japan. Murtha is free to spin the absurd notion
of pulling out of Iraq as a simple "change of direction," but at least he
could do it without misstatements and mischaracterizations.
3. The English Franchise - National Review
The Senate recently voted overwhelmingly to recognize English as the common
language of the United States. An amendment to the Voting Rights Act that
calibrates bilingual ballot assistance to those naturalized citizens who
aren't required to read English would facilitate that commonality.
4. The Pelosi standard - Washington Times Op-ed
Contrast the ethical standards Mrs. Pelosi has applied in the case of Mr.
Jefferson with the ethical standards related to her widely reported
intention to install Rep. Alcee Hastings as the top Democrat next January on
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
5. Church mulls 'phrasing' change for Holy Trinity - Associated Press
Proving that political
correctness knows no bounds, at some Presbyterian churches the Holy Trinity
-- "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" -- will be out. "Mother, Child and Womb" is
in.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. North Korea's Incredibly Bad Idea - New
York Times Op-ed
No one can claim a very good track record for figuring out
what North Korea is up to and why, and that plainly applies to the North's
reported preparations for testing a long-range missile that one day may be
capable of reaching the United States. Maybe North Korea is just jealous of
all the attention Iran has been getting as a result of Tehran's recent
nuclear bad behavior, and craves a spotlight of its own. Maybe Pyongyang,
which hasn't tested such a long-range missile in eight years, wants to see
if its new, more advanced model actually works.
Or maybe North Korea is perversely eager to see the United States speed up
its missile-defense plans, Japan to become more hawkish on military issues
and South Korean politicians who favor talking and trading with the North
lose next year's elections.
But if we cannot be sure of North Korea's motives, we can be reasonably sure
of the consequences if Pyongyang does go ahead and launch the missile -
which Washington says, citing satellite photos, is now fully fueled and
ready to go. And those consequences will be thoroughly bad for North Korea,
for its region and for just about everyone else. They will immensely
complicate negotiating the kind of nuclear deal North Korea is thought to
want - a grand bargain that would give it desperately needed economic help
and long-sought security guarantees in exchange for abandoning its nuclear
weapons program.
The consequences could be exceedingly grim for the rest of Northeast Asia as
well. North Korea's previous long-range missile test in 1998 flew over
Japanese airspace, shocking Japan out of its long postwar complacency about
national defense. The main result has been a rise in military nationalism
among Japanese politicians and the public. Another direct consequence has
been increased Japanese reluctance to deal with North Korea.
Why North Korea would want to increase its isolation and antagonize its few
friends like China and South Korea is hard to comprehend. But North
Korea-watching is full of such mysteries.
Washington, for its part, has reacted sensibly, not wasting a lot of time on
diplomatic rigmarole and delivering instead a clear and direct message to
North Korea not to proceed with a missile test. We hope that North Korea's
next surprise is to respond equally sensibly and cancel whatever plans it
has for such a self-destructive move.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/opinion/20Tues2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
2. Murtha's Fuzzy Math - RealClear
Politics
Tom Bevan
Mon Jun 19, 9:36 AM ET
Congressman John Murtha continues to make a fool of himself by suggesting we
can effectively fight the terrorist insurgency in Iraq by "redeploying" our
troops to a military base in Japan. Here's what he told Tim Russert
yesterday in the course of arguing that we don't need a presence in Iraq to
conduct the sort of quick-strike missions like the one that killed Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi:
REP. MURTHA: So--and we don't have to be right there. We can go to Okinawa.
We, we don't have--we can redeploy there almost instantly. So that's
not--that's, that's a
MR. RUSSERT: But it'd be tough to have a timely response from Okinawa.
REP. MURTHA: Well, it--you know, they--when I say Okinawa, I, I'm saying
troops in Okinawa. When I say a timely response, you know, our fighters can
fly from Okinawa very quickly.
They can? The two 500-lb bombs that killed Zarqawi were dropped by F-16
fighter aircraft. According to the U.S. military:
In an air-to-surface role, the F-16 can fly more than 500 miles (860
kilometers), deliver its weapons with superior accuracy, defend itself
against enemy aircraft, and return to its starting point.
Okinawa is 4,899 miles from Baghdad. Do the math.
Murtha also continued to play fast and loose with certain poll data points.
He once again said "80 percent of the Iraqis want us out of there" a claim
which many people questioned and which was eventually sourced by the liberal
Think Progress to a single poll question from March 2006 contained in this
report put out by the Brookings Institution. The question is worded "do you
approve the government endorsing a timeline for U.S. withdrawal." Not to be
a stickler, but Iraqis endorsing a "timeline for withdrawal" is not quite
the same as saying they "want us out of there."
Another example: Murtha stated flatly to Russert yesterday, "The public is
two-to-one against what we're doing, and they want a change in direction."
That was news to me, because I distinctly remember the latest NBC/WSJ poll
results on the question of whether Iraq was worth it or not: 40% said 'yes,'
52% said 'no.' Same thing with the most recent CNN poll (54% said the Iraq
war was a mistake, 42% said it was not) and the latest USA Today/Gallup poll
(51% say mistake, 46% not). You do not need an advanced degree in
mathematics to know these numbers aren't even close to two-to-one.
So where did Murtha get his "2-1" ratio? It looks like he cherry picked it
from the latest CBS News poll in which 33% responded the war in Iraq was
"worth it" and 62% said it was "not worth it." As you can see, however, the
CBS numbers are by far the worst of the entire batch of polls - which is no
doubt why Murtha chose to cite them. Ironically, the next question on the
CBS survey asks the following: "Looking back, do you think the United States
did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the
U.S. have stayed out?" Forty-four percent said we did the right thing, 51%
said we should have stayed out.
Congressman Murtha is free to spin the absurd notion of pulling out of Iraq
as a simple "change of direction" as he did yesterday, but at least he could
do it without misstatements and mischaracterizations.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20060619/cm_rcp/murthas_fuzzy_math
3. The English Franchise - National
Review
Amending bilingual voting.
By Peter Kirsanow
The Senate is in the midst of hearings concerning reauthorization of the
temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The House version of the bill
that would reauthorize such provisions for another 25 years is named the
Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights
Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. It's difficult for any
politician to oppose, or even propose amending, a piece of legislation with
a name like that, regardless of its merits, without being vulnerable to
considerable demagoguery. This is especially the case in an election year.
Indeed, it looks as if Congress is moving rapidly toward reauthorization,
although the Senate Judiciary Committee seems to be considering a few
amendments that might strike most Americans as just common sense. Yet,
because the amendments would be attached to a bill that's at least
tangentially related to race/ethnicity, passage is far from assured.
Take, for instance, Section 203, the minority language assistance provisions
that require hundreds of jurisdictions in 30 states to provide election
materials, including ballots, in at least one language other than English.
Several witnesses during both the House and Senate hearings on the
requirement testified in favor of wholesale reauthorization.
But some senators expressed puzzlement about the standards for triggering
the requirement. In essence, a jurisdiction must provide ballots in a
foreign language if (1) more than 5 percent of its voting age citizens are
members of a language minority group who do not speak or understand English
well enough to participate in the electoral process, and (2) the illiteracy
rate of the persons in such a group is higher than the national illiteracy
rate. "Illiteracy" for purposes of Section 203 means not having completed
the 5th grade.
What troubled the senators was obvious: if certain citizens do not
understand English well enough to participate in the electoral process, how
did they become citizens in the first place? After all, in order to become
citizens most applicants must take a test demonstrating that they can read,
write, speak, and understand English. They must also comprehend basic civics
well enough to correctly answer (in English) a series of questions
concerning U.S. history and government. Anyone who can pass the test should
easily qualify as being able to read at least at a 5th-grade level. Here's a
sample of the type of questions contained in the citizenship test:
How many amendments are there to the Constitution?
What is the Bill of Rights?
Which of the following amendments does not address or guarantee voting
rights? (multiple choice)
Who becomes president if the president and vice president die?
Who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court today?
What are the original thirteen states?
Whose rights are secured by the Constitution?
Whose rights are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights?
It's probable that a significant percentage of English-speaking citizens
who've completed the 12th grade can't answer most of the above questions
correctly. It's also likely that anyone who can read - let alone answer
correctly - these questions in English can also negotiate the following
ballot provision without need for translation into another language:
President of the United States (Vote for one) William Jefferson Clinton (D)
Robert Dole (R)
Proponents of unedited reauthorization contend that some ballot propositions
contain language much more complex than a simple choice between two
candidates. But many who attended the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing
noted that ballot propositions are confusing not because the language they
are in, but because of the way in which they are written. Moreover, ballot
initiatives and propositions are a function of state and local concern. It
remains a matter of debate whether Congress has authority under Article I,
Section 4, to mandate the provision of bilingual ballots for other than
federal elections.
Since in order to become a citizen one must read well enough to cast a
ballot, there's a good argument that Section 203 should be narrowed to apply
primarily to the small cohort of applicants who are exempt from the
citizenship test-taking requirements noted above. The exempt cohort consists
primarily of individuals who are lawfully admitted into the U.S. and either
(a) are over 55 and have had permanent residence totaling 15 or more years,
(b) are over 50 with permanent residence totaling 20 or more years, or (c)
are suffering from a medically determinable mental or physical impairment
that affects their ability to learn English.
The amendment needn't take effect immediately. It could be phased-in to
provide affected individuals sufficient notice and opportunity to become
proficient enough in English to choose between candidates Smith and Jones.
Moreover, bilingual requirements in other sections of the Voting Rights Act
pertaining to or affecting, for example, American Indians, Native Alaskans,
or residents of Guam, Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands would remain
undisturbed.
The Senate recently voted overwhelmingly to recognize English as the common
language of the United States. An amendment to the Voting Rights Act that
calibrates bilingual ballot assistance to those naturalized citizens who
aren't required to read English would facilitate that commonality.
-Peter Kirsanow is a member of the National Labor Relations Board. He is
also a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. These comments do not
necessarily reflect the positions of either organization.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGQ1NTFiMjM1YjhiNDBmMzU0MzQyNmQwOTIyMGVjZDY=
4. The Pelosi standard - Washington Times
Op-ed
Published June 20, 2006
In justifying her commendable efforts to expel scandal-tarred Louisiana
Democratic Rep. William Jefferson from the Ways and Means Committee even
though he had never been indicted, much less convicted, House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi asserted recently, "This is about a higher ethical
standard, and you know when it isn't being met." She was referring to the
fact that the FBI recently revealed that it had videotaped Mr. Jefferson
accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from a government witness; $90,000 of that
sum was later discovered in Mr. Jefferson's freezer. Two people -- one of
Mr. Jefferson's former business partners and one of his former top aides --
have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe him.
On Thursday, the House Democratic caucus voted 99-58 to remove Mr. Jefferson
from the committee. Denying that she was being unfairly harsh, Mrs. Pelosi
explained her actions thusly: "I told all my colleagues, anybody with
$90,000 in their freezer, you have a problem at that point." On Friday, in a
voice vote without dissent, the entire House officially stripped Mr.
Jefferson of his position on the tax-writing committee.
Contrast the ethical standards Mrs. Pelosi has applied in the case of Mr.
Jefferson, who was the ninth-ranking minority-party member of Ways and
Means, with the ethical standards related to her widely reported intention
to install Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings as the top Democrat next January on
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. If Democrats become
the majority party in the House, Mr. Hastings would become the chairman of
the intelligence committee. Otherwise, he would become the ranking Democrat.
In both cases, he would become one of only five House members who are
designated by law to receive the most sensitive intelligence briefings
involving the nation's most classified national-security secrets.
Mr. Hastings has glaring ethical problems, which Mrs. Pelosi has known about
for nearly two decades. Indeed, in 1988, she joined 412 other House members
in voting 413-3 to approve 17 articles of impeachment involving then-U.S.
District Court Judge Hastings. Those articles of impeachment included
conspiracy to obtain a $150,000 bribe in exchange for granting leniency in
the sentencing of two convicted racketeers (his alleged co-conspirator was
convicted and imprisoned); 14 acts of perjury committed during his 1983
bribery trial, which ended in acquittal; undermining confidence in judicial
integrity; and leaking highly confidential information he obtained in 1985
from wiretaps that he supervised as a federal judge. All of these charges
resulted from a special judicial investigation conducted by a committee of
judges empaneled by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That judicial
committee concluded that Mr. Hastings secured his acquittal by lying and
fabricating evidence. The Senate convicted Mr. Hastings on the
bribery/conspiracy charge and on seven of the eight perjury charges for
which a Senate vote was held. He was then removed from the federal
judiciary.
Appointing the chairman or ranking member of the House intelligence
committee should be, to use the words of Mrs. Pelosi, "about a higher
ethical standard, and you know when it isn't being met." In the glaring case
of Mr. Hastings, Minority Leader Pelosi, who aspires to become Speaker
Pelosi, clearly knows no such thing. And that may be more frightening than a
corrupt public official accepting a bribe. To paraphrase a famous quip: It's
worse than a crime. It's a blunder -- a wartime blunder, no less.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060619-093948-6119r.htm
5. Church mulls 'phrasing' change for
Holy Trinity - Associated Press
By Richard Ostling
June 20, 2006
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- At some Presbyterian churches the Holy Trinity --
"Father, Son and Holy Spirit" -- will be out. "Mother, Child and Womb" is
in.
Delegates to the national assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted
yesterday to "receive" a policy paper on sex-inclusive language for the
Trinity, a step short of approving it. Church officials are enabled to
propose "experimental liturgies" with "alternative phrasings" for the
Trinity, but congregations won't be required to use them.
Besides "Mother, Child and Womb" and "Rock, Redeemer, Friend," options
include:
* "Lover, Beloved, Love"
* "Creator, Savior, Sanctifier"
* "King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love"
"This does not alter the church's theological position, but provides an
educational resource to enhance the spiritual life of our membership,"
legislative committee chairman Nancy Olthoff, an Iowa laywoman, said during
yesterday's debate on the changes.
The assembly narrowly defeated a conservative bid to send the paper back for
further study, which would have killed it.
A panel that worked on the issue since 2000 said the classical language for
the Trinity still should be used, but Presbyterians should seek "fresh ways
to speak of the mystery of the triune God" to "expand the church's
vocabulary of praise and wonder."
The language used for hundreds of years to describe the Father and Son "has
been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to
women," the panel said.
Conservatives responded that the church should stick close to the way that
God is referred to in the Bible and noted that the Lord's Prayer, which
Christ instructed his followers to say, was addressed to "Our Father."
The delegates sang a revised version of the familiar Doxology, "Praise God
from whom all blessings flow" that avoids male nouns and pronouns for God.
Youth delegate Dorothy Hill, a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological
Seminary in Massachusetts, protested that the paper proposing changing the
language of the Trinity "suggests viewpoints that seem to be in tension with
what our church has always held to be true about our Trinitarian God."
Miss Hill reminded delegates that the Ten Commandments say "the Lord will
not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name."
The Rev. Deborah Funke of Montana warned that the paper would be
"theologically confusing and divisive" at a time when the denomination of
2.3 million members faces other troublesome issues.
The assembly votes today on a proposal to give local congregations and
regional "presbyteries" leeway on ordaining clergy and lay officers living
in homosexual relationships. Ten conservative Presbyterian groups have
warned jointly that approval of what they call "local option" would "promote
schism by permitting the disregard of clear standards of Scripture."
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060620-123037-1024r.htm
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