Doolittle


Printer Friendly
 

September 21, 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

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 –  Wednesday, September 20, 2006

1. The thug-of-the-day club - New York Post Op-ed

The U.N. circus continued Wednesday in New York. Yesterday's featured clown was Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez - who took to the floor of the General Assembly to rip President Bush as "the devil." Predictably, the applause was significant.

2. Warner holds up chaplain freedom - Washington Times
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner is blocking a House defense bill provision that would give military chaplains more freedom to pray as they see fit, saying he wants to put the matter off until 2007, a stance that angers House Republicans and conservative groups.

3. Torturing the Law - RealClear Politics
That Sen. John McCain is willing to stake his presidential ambitions on the battle to legislate the interrogation of terrorist prisoners is a testament to his courage. And it should cost him the White House. McCain's personal experience makes his posturing on the law of terrorist interrogation all the more puzzling.

4. How should this country treat its terror suspects? - Dallas Morning News Op-ed
It is time for Congress to stop behaving as if the terrorists in our custody are modern concentration camp survivors in need of a rescue from the allies.

5. For Bush, cheaper gas is premium - USA Today
When it comes to President Bush's approval rating - the number that measures his political health - one factor seems more powerful than any Oval Office address or legislative initiative. It's the price of a gallon of gas.

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

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1. The thug-of-the-day club - New York Post Op-ed

September 21, 2006 -- Will the U.N. circus never stop?

Yesterday's featured clown was Venezuelan strongman Hugo Cha vez - who took to the floor of the General Assembly to rip President Bush as "the devil."

Predictably, the applause was significant.

This, just a day after that crackpot from Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, fingered the United States for just about every problem under the sun.

Also to applause.

It makes you wonder: Given that America coughs up some $1.3 billion a year to keep the U.N. & Co. afloat, how much would it have to pay to have the organization shut down?

It would be well worth every penny.

Honestly, why should Americans pony up that kind of cash (Washington is Turtle Bay's top sugar daddy) to fund a forum for anti-American leftist kooks like Chavez or an unhinged, suspected terrorist from the '79 Iranian hostage crisis like Ahmadinejad? (And why should New Yorkers pay to live with endless traffic jams every fall?)

On Tuesday, the world body gave the Iranian president a prime-time televised forum in which to . . . bash America.

And lie through his teeth.

Then, yesterday, Chavez performed Act II, insulting Bush and railing against U.S. "domination, exploitation and pillage of peoples of the world."

That wasn't all, of course.

He charged that "hegemonistic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very existence of the human species." Whatever that might mean.

And he demanded that Bush be hauled before a court on charges of genocide.

Right.

U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, to his everlasting credit, refused even to dignify Chavez's slurs - what he called "comic-strip" diplomacy - with a response.

(Bolton did defend Chavez's right to state his views, though, whether at the United Nations or in Central Park - adding that it's "too bad the people of Venezuela don't have free speech." Will somebody remind us why the Senate is giving Bolton such a tough time with confirmation?)

On his worst day, of course, Chavez is a cut above his buddy from Tehran - whose tirade not only libeled America, but championed the elimination of Israel while denying the Holocaust.

Same-old, same-old, you say?

True.

But Turtle Bay is supposed to be a serious place, where serious leaders meet to resolve serious problems.

Like, say, Iran's nuclear threat.

Alas, the Security Council's Aug. 31 deadline for Tehran to stop enriching uranium or face possible sanctions has come and gone - with Iran vowing to keep the program going.

The council's response? French President Jacques Chirac actually backed off sanctions Monday, arguing for yet more "dialogue."

On a more mundane (though no less critical) level, the world body can't find the will to send in troops to protect the Sudan's war-torn Darfur region - just as it failed to prevent the Rwandan genocide in the '90s.

(On the other hand, U.N. officials did manage to pull off the biggest scandal in the history of the world - the $64 billion Oil-for-Food heist.)

But let's give Chavez credit for one good idea: He suggested the United Nations be moved to Venezuela.

Hey, there you go!

We'll pay for the moving van.

And then Donald Trump can build condos with a great East River view.
 
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/the_thug_of_the_day_club_editorials_.htm
 

2. Warner holds up chaplain freedom - Washington Times

By Amy Fagan
Published September 20, 2006

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner is blocking a House defense bill provision that would give military chaplains more freedom to pray as they see fit, saying he wants to put the matter off until 2007, a stance that angers House Republicans and conservative groups.

"It's so important. Should two or three members of Congress try to resolve it when there's many people who want to be involved?" Mr. Warner, Virginia Republican, said yesterday.

He said he hasn't taken a position on the language itself, but will "strongly recommend" House and Senate hearings on the dispute early next year.

The prayer provision is one of about three issues delaying a final agreement on the defense bill, he said.

House Republicans and conservative grass-roots groups accuse Mr. Warner of blocking their efforts to resolve a big problem. Many Republican lawmakers have long complained that military chaplains feel restricted in how they can pray publicly and have been encouraged by higher-ups in some instances not to pray in Jesus' name.

A blogger on redstate.com yesterday afternoon posted a comment that read: "What Does John Warner Have Against Jesus? Excuse Me, I Meant J***s."

Mr. Warner said that he is being "besieged" by bloggers and phone calls but that he takes issue with anyone who questions his faith.

"I just will stand my ground against anyone who wishes to challenge my religion," he said.

At the heart of the fight is language added to the House defense bill by Republican Reps. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, Todd Akin of Missouri and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter of California.

The provision establishes that, in each branch of the military, chaplains "shall have the prerogative to pray according to the dictates of the chaplain's own conscience, except as must be limited by military necessity."

Whenever such military necessity is cited, the language said, it would be "imposed in the least restrictive manner feasible."

The Senate didn't include such language in its version of defense bill. Differences are being worked out in negotiations.

"Senator Warner maybe doesn't understand the depth of the issue," Mr. Jones said yesterday, adding that military chaplains have told him repeatedly that they were denied the right to publicly pray in Jesus' name.

"I don't know how anybody could be opposed to any chaplain -- be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian -- being able to pray based on the tenets of their faith," he said.

But Mr. Warner said that the Defense Department opposes the House language and that senior chaplain officials have told him that they've been able to do their jobs for years without Congress intervening. Mr. Warner said before Congress forges ahead and writes such a law, "all views" should be considered.

He said House Democrats have alternative language that would clarify that chaplains should demonstrate "sensitivity, respect and tolerance for all faiths present" when they pray publicly. Mr. Warner hasn't decided which language he supports.

But Mr. Akin, in a blog yesterday afternoon, said such an approach "would replace religious freedom with misguided attempts at religious tolerance and prevent chaplains from praying as they feel they ought."

Mr. Jones said Mr. Warner should hear more stories like that of Capt. Jonathan Stertzbach, a Christian Army chaplain serving in Iraq, who told The Washington Times early this year that he and chaplains of other faiths were being pressured to offer only nonsectarian prayers. He was silenced by his supervisors soon after his public statements.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060919-115528-5223r.htm

3. Torturing the Law - RealClear Politics

By Jed Babbin

That Sen. John McCain is willing to stake his presidential ambitions on the battle to legislate the interrogation of terrorist prisoners is a testament to his courage. And it should cost him the White House. McCain's courage was never an issue. Anyone who reads of his bravery under torture in the infamous North Vietnamese "Hanoi Hilton" cannot doubt it. McCain's personal experience makes his legislative posturing on the law of terrorist interrogation all the more puzzling.

In 1996, two years after making Senate ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) conditional on implementing legislation, Congress enacted Title 18 US Code Section 2340 which made torture committed outside the US by a US soldier or civilian government employee, a federal felony. The US statute defined torture in clear terms. It said that torture was, "...an act committed by a person under color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than incident to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control." To avoid being struck down as unconstitutionally vague, the law went on to define terms undefined in UNCAT including "severe mental pain or suffering." US law defines it as, "...the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from..." (1) intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or threatened administration of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; (3) threat of imminent death; or (4) a threat to do those things to a third person.

US courts, deciding a variety of cases, further defined what was torture and what wasn't. Mostly, they decided claims based on whether the person allegedly tortured suffered prolonged mental or psychological harm. (In one case, people who were held at gunpoint overnight didn't suffer torture because they lacked long-term harm. In another, people who had been forced to play "Russian roulette" repeatedly had suffered long-term psychological damage and were found to have been tortured.) As the courts ruled on more and more cases, the law was further clarified. Enter John McCain with his clarity-destroying legislation.

Last year, Sen. McCain and his acolyte Sen. Lindsay Graham, authored and then grandstanded through an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that the media advertised as a new, bold step to outlaw torture. It wasn't that, but it did two things. First, it limited of interrogation methods to those authorized in the Army Field Manual on intelligence interrogation. Second, it befogged the law on torture by adding that, "No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Instead of defining those broad terms, the McCain Amendment punted. It said they should be defined in accordance with the US Constitution, and the US reservations in ratifying UNCAT. The Defense Department and the intelligence community opposed McCain strenuously, arguing unsuccessfully for clarity in the law. The McCain amendment was enacted and undid almost ten years of precedent under Section 2340.

The administration's actions to implement the June Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld only added to the problem McCain's amendment created. The Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3 held applicable to the military commissions in Hamdan prohibits, among other things, "...outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." Those terms, like the language in McCain's amendment, are undefined. The president has stated that Common Article 3 is being applied not only to the military commissions, as Hamdan requires, but to every aspect of treatment of terrorist detainees. I have asked, repeatedly, why the administration is extending Hamdan beyond its terms, and the only answer I've gotten is that it's too hard to parse it out. The president should get some more capable lawyers. Nevertheless, at this point, no one in the intelligence and defense communities knows what is or is not allowed in terrorist interrogation.

To correct this, the president's legislative proposal seeks to undo most of the damage created by McCain and the Supreme Court. It would not make torture lawful.

Instead, it clarifies the rules under which terrorist detainees can be interrogated by providing a specific list of prohibited practices that would be regarded as war crimes and states that by the previously-enacted Detainee Treatment Act, America has performed its duty under Common Article 3. Now, McCain's opposing bill - which thwarts the whole clarification movement and insistently leaves the critical terms undefined - has passed the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Majority Leader Bill Frist said Tuesday that the McCain bill will not pass the Senate, and that he may lead a filibuster against it. Four liberal House Republicans - Christopher Shays (Ct), Michael Castle (Del), Jim Leach (Iowa) and James Walsh (NY) - have thrown their support behind the McCain bill and announced opposition to the president's bill.

McCain's tenacious grip on vagueness is counter-intuitive. Given his personal experience with torture, we should expect him to be insisting on clarity. And given his - and Lindsay Graham's - military experience we should expect them to be taking every step to protect the soldiers and civilians who interrogate terrorists by providing them with clear rules of conduct. They demand, instead, to leave our interrogators subject to second-guessing by every ambitious prosecutor who may want to make a name for himself in a flashy show trial about cruel and degrading treatment. Whatever some jury may decide it is in the safety of a courtroom years after the event.

The White House is now apparently bargaining away its position, and the legislation may not pass any time soon. The longer Congress leaves the law unclear the longer our people will be at risk in interrogating prisoners. They, the interrogators, shouldn't have to risk their futures on a slap to Khalid Sheik Muhammed's cheek. Our Constitution demands clarity in our criminal laws. Regardless of what McCain, Graham and the rest say, we owe it to our people, and we owe it to them now.

Sending these brave men and women into a holding cell to interrogate an al-Queda tough without clear rules of law is tantamount to sending a Marine out in the streets of Ramadi without body armor. Any military officer who did that would - and should - be fired. So should members of Congress who send our interrogators into those cells without cleaning up the McCain mess.

Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration. He is a contributing editor to The American Spectator and author of Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States (with Edward Timperlake, Regnery 2006) and Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think (Regnery 2004).


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/torturing_the_law.html

4. How should this country treat its terror suspects? - Dallas Morning News Op-ed
 

If we're committed to winning this war, we can't back down.

I promised myself that I was not going to return from a visit to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility brandishing a know-it-all condescension.

I will keep to that promise, but the debate over detainee rights hits me in very pointed ways as politicians argue over how to treat people I stood a few yards from less than three weeks ago.

The debate over the Geneva Conventions seemed specious to me before I ever set foot in Cuba. Devised as a compact between nations seeking at least a base coat of civil wartime behavior, they are rules that apply in a specific set of circumstances, none of which pertain to our current war.

We are not engaged in battle with any particular nation that might claim signatory status to the Geneva Conventions. We are not fighting any uniformed entity that remotely aspires to the pleasantries enumerated within.

As such, it is tragically inane to hear United States senators whine about our obligations to afford terrorist combatants certain dignities out of fear of what enemy captors might do to us.

Think about that: What they might do to us? Do we need to review what they already do to us? These enemies are very fond of the videotaped beheading, for starters. They also have a penchant for hanging our charred bodies from bridges. Spare me the absurdly phony concerns about what our enemies "might" do if we fail to throw them the bone of Geneva Conventions protection.

This is sad to say, but I would expect Democrats to clumsily equate American standards of detainee treatment with those of our enemies. But when so-called Republicans join them, it is time to begin identifying, without regard to political party, who is serious about keeping this nation safe and who is not.

The GOP senators complaining about our inattention to detainee rights include Virginia's John Warner, somewhat of a surprise in this regard, and three more who are not: South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, an increasingly squishy moderate who calls for us to "take the moral high ground" as if it is immoral to do all we can to get vital information from terrorists; Susan Collins of Maine, long known as a RINO (Republican in Name Only); and John McCain, who brings his own credentials as a torture victim to the debate.

Those credentials are impossible to ignore. But they do not make him right. Texas Rep. Sam Johnson was no more favorably treated by his Vietnamese captors, yet he knows the ill wisdom of going soft on this enemy. He knew it when he disagreed with Mr. McCain on the national self-emasculation that is the Detainee Treatment Act, and he knows it now that we are engaged in a hand-wringing exercise that flogs the integrity of the people charged with securing information that could help us win the war.

It really is this simple: Even without making them full-fledged beneficiaries of Geneva Conventions rules, we are treating this enemy with a dignity unmatched in the history of warfare. From the dietary and religious favors we bestow to the perpetual reviews of their combatant status, it is specious to argue that we are somehow not generous enough with basic rights.

We have released detainees who have later been found back on the battlefield working to kill more Americans. Against this backdrop, any effort to place senseless roadblocks in the path of military or CIA interrogators is evidence that we truly may not be committed enough to winning.

If lawmakers can ever get around to clearing the way for them, the tribunals determining the disposition of hundreds of detainee cases will be conducted with the care and professionalism on display every day at Guantánamo. It is time for Congress to stop behaving as if the terrorists in our custody are modern concentration camp survivors in need of a rescue from the allies.

What we need a rescue from is the election-year posturing that undeservedly characterizes this phase of the U.S. war effort as sinister when it is arguably not tough enough.

The Mark Davis Show is heard weekdays on News/Talk WBAP-AM (820) and nationwide on the ABC Radio Network. WBAP airtime is 9 a.m. to noon. His e-mail address is mdavis@wbap.com.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/mdavis/stories/DN-davis_20edi.ART.State.Edition1.3e2f11e.html

5. For Bush, cheaper gas is premium - USA Today

By Susan Page, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - When it comes to President Bush's approval rating - the number that measures his political health - one factor seems more powerful than any Oval Office address or legislative initiative.

It's the price of a gallon of gas.

Statisticians who have compared changes in gas prices and Bush's ratings through his presidency have found a steady relationship: As gas prices rise, his ratings fall. As gas prices fall, his ratings rise.

For some Americans, analysts speculate, gas prices provide a shorthand reading of the general state of the economy. Even though prices at the pump are largely outside the president's control, he gets credit when they fall - and blame when they rise.

"Gas prices are a price everybody knows because it hangs on the street in big letters," says Stuart Thiel, an economist at DePaul University in Chicago who has been tracking the trend for several years.

A statistical analysis by Doug Henwood, editor of the liberal newsletter Left Business Observer, found that an "uncanny" 78% of the movement in Bush's ratings could be correlated with changes in gas prices. Based on trends in crude oil prices, Henwood predicted last Thursday that it "wouldn't be surprising to see his approval numbers rise into the mid-40s."

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, Bush's rating rose to 44%, his highest in a year. Average gas prices, which peaked at more than $3 a gallon in August, had dropped under $2.50, the lowest since March.

A renewed focus on terrorism contributed to Bush's turnaround, analysts say. "When they put the terror issue out there, they tend to get political points," says sociologist Robb Willer of the University of California, Berkeley.

Gas prices may be "a proxy for larger developments in the political economy," Henwood says. For instance, the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, which drove up fuel costs, also eroded Bush's support.

The ratings of Bush's three immediate predecessors weren't closely tied to gas prices, Henwood found. Volatile prices and a supply crunch did contribute to President Jimmy Carter's political travails.

For Bush, too, prices have been volatile, and his background as an oilman may be a factor affecting public attitudes. In the USA TODAY poll, two in five said the administration has deliberately manipulated gas prices to decline before the fall elections.

Routine market forces are likely to deliver more good news to Bush, says Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service. Absent an international crisis, he predicts gas prices will drop an additional 10 to 20 cents a gallon by Election Day.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-20-bush-gas-prices_x.htm

###