July27, 2006

September:   Sept. 29, 2006   Sept. 28, 2006   Sept. 27, 2006   Sept. 26, 2006   Sept. 21, 2006   Sept. 20, 2006   Sept. 19, 2006   Sept. 14, 2006   Sept. 13, 2006   Sept. 12, 2006   Sept. 07, 2006   Sept. 06, 2006 JULY:   Jul. 28, 2006   Jul. 27, 2006   Jul. 26, 2006   Jul. 25, 2006   Jul. 24, 2006   Jul. 20, 2006   Jul. 19, 2006   Jul. 18, 2006   Jul. 17, 2006   Jul. 13, 2006   Jul. 12, 2006   Jul. 11, 2006   Jul. 10, 2006 JUNE:   Jun. 29, 2006   Jun. 28, 2006   Jun. 27, 2006   Jun. 26, 2006   Jun. 22, 2006   Jun. 21, 2006   Jun. 20, 2006   Jun. 19, 2006   Jun. 16, 2006   Jun. 15, 2006   Jun. 14, 2006   Jun. 13, 2006   Jun. 12, 2006   Jun. 9, 2006   Jun. 8, 2006   Jun. 7, 2006   Jun. 6, 2006 MAY:   May 25, 2006   May 24, 2006   May 23, 2006   May 22, 2006   May 19, 2006   May 18, 2006   May 17, 2006   May 11, 2006   May 10, 2006   May 4, 2006   May 3, 2006   May 2, 2006 APRIL:   Apr. 27, 2006   Apr. 26, 2006   Apr. 25, 2006   Apr. 6, 2006   Apr. 5, 2006   Apr. 4, 2006 MARCH:   Mar. 30, 2006   Mar. 29, 2006   Mar. 28, 2006   Mar. 16, 2006   Mar. 15, 2006   Mar. 14, 2006   Mar. 9, 2006   Mar. 8, 2006   Mar. 7, 2006   Mar. 2, 2006   Mar. 1, 2006 FEBRUARY:   Feb. 28, 2006   Feb. 16, 2006   Feb. 15, 2006   Feb. 14, 2006   Feb. 8, 2006   Feb. 1, 2006 JANUARY:   Jan. 31, 2006 DECEMBER:   Dec. 16, 2005   Dec. 15, 2005   Dec. 14, 2005   Dec. 13, 2005   Dec. 8, 2005   Dec. 7, 2005   Dec. 6, 2005 Archives

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 –  Thursday, July 27, 2006

1. Al-Zawahri warns al-Qaeda will not stand idly by during Mideast crisis - Associated Press
Al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader warned in a new videotape released Thursday that the terrorist group would not stand idly by while Israeli bombardments "burn our brothers" in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

2. The Mideast War and the Midterm Elections - RealClear Politics
The Israeli-Hezbollah war in the Middle East has become this summer's obsession, and rightly so. This unexpected and nasty war is an unwelcome reminder of just how quickly the political sands can shift, and it is further warning that predictions about an election months away are often as unreliable and unsteady as those sands.

3. Annan's crooked finger - Washington Times Op-ed
In the salons of Turtle Bay, blaming Israel remains very much in vogue, as was manifest by Kofi Annan's preposterous allegation that an Israeli attack on a U.N. post in southern Lebanon was "apparently deliberate."

4. Rep. Hefley defends Mollohan - The Hill
Former House ethics committee Chairman Joel Hefley last week quietly inserted a statement into the Congressional Record defending Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan's service on the panel and scolding GOP leaders for attempting to change ethics rules at the start of the 109th Congress.

5. Oliver Stone's tribute - Washington Times Op-ed
Beginning with "United 93," and now with "World Trade Center," Hollywood has proven that it is indeed capable of creating a truthful work of art with the ability to touch all Americans and not simply cater to one political group.

For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1. Al-Zawahri warns al-Qaeda will not stand idly by during Mideast crisis - Associated Press

Updated 7/27/2006 7:03 AM ET

CAIRO (AP) - Al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader warned in a new videotape released Thursday that the terrorist group would not stand idly by while Israeli bombardments "burn our brothers" in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

In the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said that al-Qaeda now saw "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."

The Egyptian-born physician said the Hezbollah and Palestinian battles against Israel would not be ended with "cease-fires or agreements." The fighting began last month following a Palestinian cross-border raid in which an Israeli soldier was captured, then expanded to Lebanon after Hezbollah militants captured two other soldiers in a raid earlier this month.

"The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires. ... It is a Jihad for God's sake and will last until (our) religion prevails," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere."

Al-Zawahri wore a gray robe and white turban. A picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the wall behind him along with pictures of two other militants.

The Arab satellite station appeared not to have transmitted the entire tape, using instead selected quotes interspersed with commentary from an anchor.

"The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price," al-Zawahri said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-07-27-zawahri-warning_x.htm
 

2. The Mideast War and the Midterm Elections - RealClear Politics

By Larry Sabato

The Israeli-Hezbollah war in the Middle East has become this summer's obsession, and rightly so. The dangers of a wider war are ever present, and no story is equal to the misery of armed conflict in the world's tinderbox.

Nonetheless, one wishes that the television media could walk and chew gum simultaneously. Loads of important stories, like trees falling in the forest, are making no sound because they are not recorded. The bloodshed in Iraq is worse than ever; if this isn't a civil war now raging there, it's a good imitation. On the home front, President Bush's first veto of a critical stem-cell research bill and his first White House appearance at an NAACP convention were barely one-day stories--major political events that got short shrift and deserved better.

It's the same with the 2006 midterm elections, which have essentially fallen off the radar screen for the time being (and this might be a lengthy war). However, the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is having, and will continue to have, an impact on the midterms in several ways.

First, the absence of the usual level of media coverage makes it more difficult for many challengers to get the attention needed to defeat incumbents. The public is also distracted, so even when well-funded challengers try to buy their coverage with paid TV ads, voters look elsewhere. Meanwhile, incumbents scarf up free media (TV news time) by virtue of their offices, commenting on the Mideast troubles.

Disproportionately, this effect of war helps Republicans, since they are in the majority in both houses of Congress, and most endangered incumbents this year are from the GOP.

The Republicans benefit in another way. Democrats still are not the GOP's equal on the national security issue--though the gap is not as great as it was in the years immediately after 9/11. In times of international tension and trouble, there is a natural focus on the White House, and President Bush has the security credentials to take advantage of this issue on behalf of his party. Whether Bush fully does so, of course, remains to be seen. Only now is U.S. diplomacy and influence beginning to be exerted in the region.

The final advantage for Republicans in the current conflict is the all-encompassing nature of the coverage. The near black-out of news on Iraq can only help the White House. Were it not for the bombs falling on Beirut and the rockets raining down on Haifa, the nearly unprecedented carnage throughout the blood-soaked nation of Iraq would surely be leading the news. Bush owns Iraq, and GOP candidates would surely suffer from the chaos, just as they have been doing for a year or more.

Also, is there any doubt that the GOP would have taken some major hits on the stem-cell veto had it received more sustained scrutiny? The American people substantially favor embryonic stem cell research, even many normally pro-life voters; Nancy Reagan, Bill Frist and Orrin Hatch all represent this sizeable segment of the electorate. Bush's veto may play to some conservative Christians, but it has the potential to alienate the independents and moderates necessary for a broad-based GOP victory in the fall.

Having said all this, Democrats may not be disadvantaged by the Mideast war come November. After all, even the Israelis suggest that they may be ready for a ceasefire and an international peacekeeping force after a few more weeks of fighting, once they have "cleaned out" Hezbollah missiles and fighters in southern Lebanon. The focus of the public and the media shifts rapidly, and only a terrible game of war dominoes could keep this conflict at the top of the news through the American elections.

Democrats can also score points along the way. The slow rescue of Americans from Lebanon reminded many Democrats (and others) of the inadequate government response to Hurricane Katrina. Any failures in American diplomacy can be attributed in part to the nation's costly commitment in Iraq. Furthermore, the alienation of many allies in Europe and some Arab states as well has restricted U.S. flexibility to mediate the conflict.

The final electoral truth is that the Mideast war would somehow have to help President Bush and the Republican Congress to climb out of the polling cellar in the time remaining before Americans stream to the polls. While there may appear opportunities ripe for exploitation by the GOP, so far nothing of the sort has happened as the fighting rages on.

This unexpected and nasty little war is an unwelcome reminder of just how quickly the political sands can shift, and it is further warning--if any were needed--that predictions about an election months away are often as unreliable and unsteady as those sands.

Dr. Sabato, the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, founded the Center for Politics in 1998.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/07/the_mideast_war_and_the_midter.html

3. Annan's crooked finger - Washington Times Op-ed

TODAY'S EDITORIAL
July 27, 2006

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan betrayed his apolitical guise yesterday, as was manifest by his preposterous allegation that an Israeli attack on a U.N. post in southern Lebanon was "apparently deliberate." Mr. Annan knows full well that Israel would never, even if it suited its interests, deliberately attack U.N. personnel or other innocents -- not when the entire world is waiting to unleash its righteous indignation against any perceived "disproportionate" Israeli response to ongoing Hezbollah terror.

Most tellingly, Mr. Annan's comments did not come during an impromptu press conference with reporters, where any number of silly things are often mistakenly said. Rather, they came via a prepared statement, released by Mr. Annan's Rome office, meaning, the secretary-general had ample time to consider his words. That being the case, perhaps Mr. Annan's intent was to increase pressure on Israel to accept terms of a ceasefire, especially since he later called for participants in a Middle East conference to push for an immediate halt to hostilities. Regardless, that his first instinct was to blame Israel seems to have lifted the curtain on Mr. Annan's pre-existing prejudices against Israel.

The curious part is that if anyone -- aside from Hezbollah -- should be blamed for the deaths of the four U.N. observers, it's the secretary-general himself. The purpose of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, is primarily to support the Lebanese government's re-establishment of authority in the area. Judging by Hezbollah's re-entrenchment of southern Lebanon over the last few years, UNIFIL seems to have utterly failed in that mission. But since the start of the current hostilities, UNIFIL personnel have been acting as humanitarian agents, mostly shuttling Lebanese out of targeted areas. At times, UNIFIL has even coordinated its evacuation efforts with Israel to ensure that the Israeli military is aware of the location of a U.N. convoy.

Nevertheless, U.N. posts near Hezbollah targets have been accidentally hit or caught between small-arms fire, and several U.N. workers have been wounded. Despite this, according to a July 23 UNIFIL press report, "All UNIFIL positions in the area of operation remain permanently occupied." Mr. Annan surely knew this, yet he elected to keep his workers in the middle of a war zone and surrounded by Hezbollah anyway. As they say, it was only a matter of time.

This all makes Mr. Annan's accusation even more despicable. Alas, in the salons of Turtle Bay, blaming Israel remains very much in vogue.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060726-100852-3998r.htm

4. Rep. Hefley defends Mollohan - The Hill
 

By Alexander Bolton

Former House ethics committee Chairman Joel Hefley last week quietly inserted a statement into the Congressional Record defending Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan's service on the panel and scolding GOP leaders for attempting to change ethics rules at the start of the 109th Congress.

Hefley (R-Colo.) is playing the role of gadfly to his party's leadership nearly two years after he was removed from the panel, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, and complicating GOP efforts to defeat Mollohan (W.Va.) in November.

On Wednesday, the same day he defended Mollohan - Hefley also introduced legislation that would ban the use of so-called leadership political action committees by members of Congress, taking a direct swipe at the fundraising culture that former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) helped institute in the House in the mid- to late '90s.

Mollohan, who stepped down as ranking Democrat of the ethics committee in April, had become a pivotal figure in the partisan ethics battle that has flared since 2004.

Republicans sought to portray him as marching to the orders of the Democratic leadership and to blame him for the stalemate that paralyzed the ethics committee for most of the past two years. They have also seized upon allegations that Mollohan used his seat on the Appropriations Committee to enrich himself and his friends to fight Democratic charges that they have fostered a "culture of corruption in Congress."

GOP officials are targeting Mollohan's seat this fall.

Hefley staunchly supported Mollohan's conduct in his fight with Republican leaders over the House ethics rules.

"If I put myself in Representative Mollohan's position, I am not sure I would have acted any differently," Hefley said in his statement. "As I review the events at the start of the 109th Congress, it leads me to the conclusion that several important actions were conducted by the majority without consulting the minority. These partisan actions were contrary to the nature and spirit of the way business has been, and should be, conducted by the ethics committee.

"If I had been the ranking member of the ethics committee and the majority party had arbitrarily and unilaterally changed the rules I would have had an obligation to react, just as Representative Mollohan did."

Hefley also rebuked the Democratic leadership for attempting to politicize the ethics process for "partisan gain" but vouched that Mollohan took "no instructions from his leadership."

At the start of the Congress about a year and a half ago, GOP leaders changed the chamber's rules in response to an admonishment of DeLay by the ethics committee.

The changes made it more difficult to initiate ethics investigations, allowed lawmakers implicated of wrongdoing to defend themselves in adjudicatory hearings before an investigation had run its course and permitted defense counsel to represent multiple lawmakers. The changes effectively made it more difficult for the committee to probe and punish suspected ethics offenders.

Mollohan took advantage of the committee's unique bipartisan structure, which empowers member Republicans and Democrats equally, to block the committee from organizing.

Republican leaders backed down and reversed the rules changes, but a fight flared again when Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), who succeeded Hefley as committee chairman, fired staff director John Vargo and attempted to replace him with Ed Cassidy, the chief of staff in his personal office. Mollohan objected and again refused to allow the committee to organize. Hastings eventually relented and hired William O'Reilly, an anti-trust lawyer, to manage the panel's staff.

Hefley criticized his party's leadership and defended Mollohan's actions in this episode.

"If I had been the ranking member and the majority party unilaterally fired the senior committee staff in contradiction to rules which say both the majority and minority must agree, I would have had to react, just as Representative Mollohan did," he said. "If I had been the ranking member and the majority party tried to put a partisan chief of staff in as the staff director for the ethics committee, in contradiction to the standards of a nonpartisan staff, I would have had to react, just as Representative Mollohan did."

Hefley, however, stayed quiet on the allegations that Mollohan improperly benefited from real-estate investments he entered into with friends who benefited from federal funds that the senior member of the Appropriations Committee inserted into spending bills.

Hefley's bill on campaign-finance reform is a shot at the broader culture that has taken root since Republicans captured the House 12 years ago. Since Republicans ascended to the majority, the number of leadership PACs, which lawmakers use to raise money for their colleagues, has proliferated wildly. And the amount of money raised for colleagues has become a major factor in determining the assignment of committee chairmanships and other plum panel spots.

Hefley experienced this firsthand four years ago when House leaders passed him over for chairman of the House Resources Committee and gave the gavel to Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Colo.), who had less seniority but had raised more money for the party.

The Hefley bill would give existing PACs one year to give away their stockpiles.

A coalition of self-described good-government groups have reacted enthusiastically to the proposal and are expected this week to circulate a letter on Capitol Hill calling for the ban of leadership PACs.

Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, said that these PACs are the "perfect vehicle for lobbyists and trade associations and PACs to gain access and influence with members."

Many of these same groups have criticized the pending GOP-crafted lobbying-reform bill as a woefully inadequate response to recent scandals. Hefley too has been a critic of the lobbying-reform bill and voted against it when it was on the House floor.

In an interview yesterday, Hefley said he thought Mollohan was "getting a bum rap" on his record as ethics committee ranking Democrat. He said Mollohan did not ask for the support and didn't even know Hefley planned to declare it.

Hefley said that during a trolley-car ride from the Rayburn House Office Building to the Capitol last week he hinted to Mollohan that he should check the Congressional Record but did not tell him explicitly what he had said.

Hefley, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, said he inserted his remarks into the record instead of making a speech on the floor because he didn't know how much attention Mollohan wanted on the subject.

Mollohan and Hefley were spotted leaving the chamber last week chatting amiably. When asked about their conversation, Mollohan said he and his former ethics-committee colleague were merely discussing the economy in Colorado and the hot weather.

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/072506/news4.html

5. Oliver Stone's tribute - Washington Times Op-ed

Published July 24, 2006



"And so it was," we said last summer, "with the greatest regret that we heard Paramount Pictures had chosen Oliver Stone, the conspiracy-addled director with a soft spot for dictators, to direct Hollywood's first major movie about that day of days." The day was September 11; the movie, to be released Aug. 8, is "World Trade Center." A year later, having seen the finished product during a special screening for Washington journalists, it is with the greatest regret that we recall those words. For with "World Trade Center," Mr. Stone has made a truly great movie.

The story follows the real-life heroics of Sgt. John McLoughlin and Officer William J. Jimeno, two New York Port Authority Police officers who found themselves trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center. With painful intimacy, Mr. Stone forgoes the political prognostications that imbue so much of his previous work, and instead lets the viewer be an invisible witness to the drama of two men buried beneath 20 feet of steel and concrete -- a certifiable "hell," as Michael Pena's Jimeno puts it.

Meanwhile, as the outside world watches and waits, Mr. Stone also tells the story of the officers' families, especially their wives, and how one former Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes, trades his civilian clothes for military fatigues like a real-life Superman and sets off to do what Marines are trained to do: finish the mission, no matter the danger, no matter the price.

What makes all of this so especially welcome is how Mr. Stone tells this remarkable American story without a hint of Hollywood cynicism. For instance, when Staff Sgt. Karnes talks about how God has called him to New York, what the audience doesn't get is a character countering his faith with any of the secular liberalism currently dominating the usual Hollywood fare. The movie is, in so many ways, a return to Hollywood's halcyon past, as if the last 30 years of anti-military, anti-American movie tradition suddenly was unable to answer the question of how men become heroes and what makes America great. To his credit, Mr. Stone lets his characters answer it themselves, as they did on that day of days.

Beginning with "United 93," and now with "World Trade Center," Hollywood has proven that it is indeed capable of creating a truthful work of art with the ability to touch all Americans and not simply cater to one political group. The greatest praise we as an editorial page can give Mr. Stone is that his movie reminded us that presumptions based on political disagreements often ignore common bonds of patriotism. "World Trade Center" proved us wrong -- and we're happy it did so.
 

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060723-093638-8062r.htm

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