September 28, 2006

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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, September 28, 2006

1. Good Economic News Cheers Republicans - Wall Street Journal
A wave of positive economic news, capped by this week's run-up in the stock market and a continuing drop in gasoline prices, seems to be coming at an ideal time for Republicans worried about the November elections.

2. Leakers and Liars - New York Post Op-ed
The Democrats - and their newsroom allies - thought the NIE would prove to be their smoking gun. But if Americans actually take the time to read the report, it will be seen for what it is.

3. Despite U.N. resolution, no one is moving to disarm Hezbollah - Associated Press
Six weeks after the end of the Lebanon war, the militant Hezbollah group is facing little on-the-ground pressure to give up its weapons and disarm - despite a U.N. cease-fire resolution demanding just that.

4. Going Off On Citgo - Investor's Business Daily
Hugo Chavez has made hay for years about America's addiction to foreign oil. He's always been firm in the belief that Americans were soft and would never go without buying it. He was wrong.

5. Checkout for an Undemocratic Checkoff - Washington Post Op-ed
Unalloyed good news is rare, so rejoice: The foremost achievement of the political speech regulators -- a.k.a. campaign finance "reformers" -- is collapsing. Taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns, which was in parlous condition in 2004, will die in 2008.


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

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1. Good Economic News Cheers Republicans - Wall Street Journal

Party Leaders Hope Improvements Will Help Shift Voter Mood Before Midterm Elections

By JOHN D. MCKINNON and CHRISTOPHER CONKEY
September 28, 2006; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- A wave of positive economic news, capped by this week's run-up in the stock market and a continuing drop in gasoline prices, seems to be coming at an ideal time for Republicans worried about the November elections.

But as President Bush knows, good economic news doesn't always translate into votes.

"We've had a little history of that in our family, you might remember," he said at a Rose Garden news conference this month, to laughter from assembled reporters. Mr. Bush's reference was to the experience of his father, President George H.W. Bush, who lost his bid for re-election in 1992 even though the economy actually was recovering nicely through much of the election year. The elder Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton -- whose mantra became "It's the economy, stupid" -- in part because voters were slow to believe good economic news or see it seeping down to them.

Many political analysts say it can take several months for good economic news to change voter psychology. Still, the improvement in some key economic sectors at least gives Republicans a chance to turn around some impressions in the six weeks before this year's midterm elections. "There's no question the Republicans have been due for a break and they've finally gotten it, between the stock-market rise and the fall of gasoline prices," said Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma. Gas prices have "an enormous impact on [voter] psychology and their belief that the incumbents are doing the right thing."

While the war against terrorism, in Iraq and elsewhere, remains a dominant theme in the campaign debate, the economy provides the crucial backdrop. Democrats have sought to score points on a variety of economic worries, including pressures from gas prices, health-care inflation, college tuition and overseas competition for jobs. That's been particularly true in key states in the industrial Midwest, where economic anxieties are more prominent than elsewhere.

That's why Republicans are particularly happy to see recent positive news in some closely watched symbols of economic performance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday came within a whisker of setting a record high, closing at 11689.24, up 9.1% this year.

Perhaps more important politically, gas prices, which voters identified as the most important economic issue in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this month, have fallen more than 60 cents a gallon since last month. "The temporary relief has taken a lot of the anger out of that issue," said Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee.

There is no telling which way gas prices will move in the weeks before the election. Yesterday, for example, the price of oil rose nearly $2 to roughly $63 a barrel on the prospect that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will limit production to boost prices.

On other fronts, consumer spending and business investment are holding up well, unemployment is holding steady at 4.7% and yesterday, the Commerce Department reported that the pace of new-home sales in August rose 4.1% from July, a possible sign that the slowdown in the residential real-estate market may be stabilizing.

Republicans also see hints that they will finally be able to tout statistical increases in ordinary workers' wages too, thanks to falling gasoline prices.

There are plenty of trouble signs as well. The Commerce report also said the sales pace in recent months was even weaker than initially thought, a more ominous warning sign. And overall economic growth, while healthy, isn't stunning. After surging earlier this year, the economy downshifted into slower growth this summer as it absorbed the impact of higher interest rates, elevated energy prices and a weakening housing market. Many economists now expect the economy to grow at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of roughly 2.5% over the second half of the year, down from a pace of over 4.0% in the first half.

Overall, President Bush appears to believe that the economy ranks among Republicans' strongest weapons in the 2006 fight. In recent days he's been talking up his tax cuts frequently out on the campaign trail, and warning that Democrats will roll them back.

In response, Democrats argue that the type of good economic news now being seen isn't translating into good news for average workers. "We're seeing an economy that is doing very well for the wealthiest five or ten percent ... [but] middle and working and poorer families aren't seeing a raise," said Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is in a tight race for the Senate with incumbent Republican Mike DeWine. "The economy is not there to serve only to make profits ... for corporations."

In any case, there are doubts about when good news affects voter behavior. Voters' impressions of the economy for at least nine months running up to a presidential election appear to be relevant to their decisions at the polls, according to Ray C. Fair, a Yale University economist who has developed perhaps the best-known model for predicting presidential-race outcomes. And unusual economic performance going back as far as 15 quarters before an election can be relevant, he says.

That suggests, among other things, that along with happiness about easing gas prices, voters in November also will be remembering the sting of $3-a-gallon gas during the summer.

It's also possible that voter views of the economy are changing in ways that could be unwelcome for most Republicans, particularly in light of the war on terrorism. Mr. Bush and his advisers worry that the difficult war on terrorism -- coupled with the pain and uncertainty of accelerating globalization -- could be fueling more protectionist sentiment in the U.S. and around the world. In the face of such worries, short-term economic improvements might not matter as much as they used to, some experts believe.

The growing polarization of American politics also appears to be coloring the way people say they view the economy, so it's hard to tell how big a factor it will really be, says Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. Still, "as long as it's not exceptionally bad or good it's probably a neutral factor," he says.
 
 
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115941003089576300-yya23X5iuGM3IU0bNvUFkMS52pA_20070928.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top
 

2. Leakers and Liars - New York Post Op-ed

September 28, 2006 -- President Bush, by releasing a de- classified version of that controversial intelligence report on terrorism and the Iraq campaign, has put the lie to claims that even his own spies say toppling Saddam Hussein was a bad idea.

Yes, the report says that the war in Iraq is one of four factors that have energized the jihadists.

But it also maintains that the greatest threat to America and the West will come if the insurgents are seen to have won in Iraq - and that the way to prevent that is to defeat them, not to follow the Democrats' cut-and-run formula.

"Perceived jihadist success [in Iraq] would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," the report notes, adding: "Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

Repeat: Showing the terrorists that America will stay the course until they are defeated will dissuade others from joining the jihadist movement.

What else, besides military power, can dissuade the terrorists?

"Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim-majority nations would alleviate . . . [some] grievances jihadists exploit," says the report.

"Over time, such progress, together with sustained . . . programs targeting the vulnerabilities of the jihadist movement and continued pressure on al Qaeda, could erode support for the jihadists."

One more time: More responsive political systems, combined with increased pressure on al Qaeda.

Which pretty well sums up President Bush's policy of encouraging democracy in the Muslim world.

Indeed, the report says, "the jihadists' greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution . . . is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims."

The Bush administration has combined that approach with targeting of al Qaeda's operational ability. And the NIE also concludes that U.S.-led efforts "have seriously damaged the leadership of al Qaeda and disrupted its operations."

Now, none of this was apparent in the weekend reporting on the intelligence survey found in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.

Of course not.

There are at least two possible reasons for this:

* The leakers cherry-picked the report, intending to undermine the administration's war policies, and the reporters bit - hook, line and sinker.

* Or the reporters - and editors - themselves collaborated in disseminating deliberately deceptive "news."

Either way, the original newspaper stories amounted to distribution of propaganda - witting or otherwise - that materially aided the cause of the enemy in time of war.

And somebody needs to be held to account for that.

Yes, the situation in Iraq has emboldened the terrorists.

But, as the president noted Tuesday, there were no American troops in Iraq long before 9/11 - when al Qaeda first began targeting the United States.

"If we weren't in Iraq [today]," he said, "they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions. They kill in order to achieve their ambitions."

To suggest otherwise, Bush rightly said, is just plain naive.

Actually, it's worse than naive - it's dangerous: Leading Democrats are playing politics with the lives of U.S. troops in Iraq. By undermining U.S. policy there, they are emboldening the very terrorist movement they say they hope to defeat.

The Democrats - and their newsroom allies - thought the NIE would prove to be their smoking gun. But if Americans actually take the time to read the report, it will be seen for what it is.

Nothing of the sort.
 
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09282006/postopinion/editorials/leakers_and_liars_editorials_.htm

3. Despite U.N. resolution, no one is moving to disarm Hezbollah - Associated Press

Posted 9/27/2006 3:00 PM ET

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (AP) - Six weeks after the end of the Lebanon war, the militant Hezbollah group is facing little on-the-ground pressure to give up its weapons and disarm - despite a U.N. cease-fire resolution demanding just that.

The leaders of a U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon say the job is not theirs. And Lebanon's ill-equipped army, some of whose soldiers wear tin-pot helmets and carry outdated M-16 rifles, shows no signs of diving into a confrontation with battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters.

For now, all sides say it's likely full disarmament will happen only in the future as part of a political solution - despite the U.N. resolution that ended the 34-day war on Aug. 14 and required disarmament.

The commanders of the U.N. force say that under the resolution, their job is merely to assist the Lebanese army in regaining control of southern Lebanon and to ensure the area cannot be used for launching rocket attacks into northern Israel.

Meanwhile, Lebanese security officials say the army's mission in the south is based on what they call an "understanding" with Hezbollah that the army will not search for and seize weapons, but only confiscate those shown in public.

At one Lebanese military checkpoint near the town of Marjayoun, some eight miles from the Israeli border, soldiers recently waved most cars through - although some were stopped so identity papers and registration documents could be checked.

The Lebanese government, which for years allowed Hezbollah to run a "state within a state" in the south, has long argued that disarming the militants could be done only through agreement among the country's major political groups.

Israel says the resolution makes clear that Hezbollah must be disarmed south of the Litani River. Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said of the current situation, "It's a process."

He said Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, at a rally last week, "publicly stated that he is out to flout the will of the international community and to prevent the implementation of what was an unanimous resolution of the Security Council."

At the rally in the Beirut suburbs Friday, Nasrallah vowed his guerrillas will not surrender their weapons and said: "There is no army in the world capable of making us drop our weapons as long as there will be people who believe in this resistance."

The current U.N. peacekeeping contingent is far larger and better-armed than a previous 2,000-member force. Some 15,000 troops, more than half from Europe, will eventually be deployed with tanks, artillery cannons and other heavy armor.

But the multinational troops, who now number 5,000, are acutely aware that their presence could become unpopular if they are viewed as supporting Israel's attempts to eliminate Hezbollah's arms.

French peacekeepers setting up base near the town of Deir Kifa noted they had encountered a less-than-friendly reception from some residents, who defiantly waved yellow Hezbollah flags.

"We mustn't be seen as an occupying force - the people can reject us very quickly," said Col. Jerome Salle.

He said the U.N. troops would mount patrols but would not establish checkpoints on public roads, to avoid inflaming residents.

Gen. Alain Pelligrini, the French officer who commands the U.N. force, said the peacekeepers wouldn't even act if they saw weapons being carried openly by Hezbollah fighters.

"No, I would ask the Lebanese army to intervene and if the Lebanese army has difficulties in intervening, then we would see what we need to do," he said last week.

Halim Sarhan, who runs a dental laboratory in the market town of Nabatiyeh, expressed a common sentiment when he said no one should try to disarm Hezbollah by force. "There must be political consensus on the issue first," he said.

Hezbollah has said it would agree to disarm only if the government is strong enough to defend Lebanon against Israel - a stance that reflects its own ambitions to become the country's dominant political force.

It has also linked the issue to Israel's return of the Shebaa farms, a 25-square-mile contested area where Lebanon, Syria and Israel meet.

Some weapons and explosives have been found in a few Hezbollah positions that were either overrun or abandoned during the fighting, said Lebanese security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Hezbollah is thought to have a great deal of experience in concealing its weapons. Many are believed to be in underground tunnels, buried in groves or in remote parts of the mountainous south.

The U.N. forces and the Lebanese army are likely to have more teeth when it comes to preventing new weapons shipments.

A German naval force is to patrol the waters off southern Lebanon and Lebanese authorities are tightening controls at the country's only international airport in Beirut and on the Syrian border.

But Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose country has long been a route for arms deliveries to Hezbollah believed to come from Iran, said this week that it was "Mission Impossible" to cut off the guerrillas' supply of weapons altogether.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-09-27-hezbollah-arms_x.htm

4. Going Off On Citgo - Investor's Business Daily
 

Posted 9/27/2006

Energy: President Bush may have been loath to reply to last week's U.N. speech by the sulfur-tongued Hugo Chavez, but the American public wasn't. Its boycott of Venezuela's Citgo gas has set off alarms in Caracas.

The big blow came Wednesday when 7-Eleven announced it would not renew a 20-year contract with Venezuelan-owned gas supplier Citgo. Instead, it would start selling its own brand, to be supplied by three U.S. oil firms.

7-Eleven admitted Chavez was a public relations disaster for the firm after his United Nations speech, denouncing President Bush as "the devil," and affected its decision.

"Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president," said a 7-Eleven spokeswoman, who'd obviously been hearing from the public. "Chavez's position and statements over the past year or so didn't tempt us to stay with Citgo."

That's about 2,100 gas stations off the books for Citgo, cutting total outlets to 11,000.

The rest are likely to remain targets of the infuriated American public's wildcat boycott of Venezuelan crude. If so, it would be the first time in modern memory a spontaneous consumer boycott had such a commercial impact.

Watching from Caracas, Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela's energy minister, said he was stunned at the "brusque" tone of 7-Eleven's announcement, calling it "bitter to swallow."

He blamed sentiment in "middle America," not quite grasping that Chavez's words have consequences in the country that is Venezuela's leading oil customer.

Citgo doesn't release earnings, but it would be surprising if the fury unleashed by Chavez's insult at Bush is not being felt at Citgo beyond 7-Eleven's move. In the hours after Chavez's devil speech, public reaction was everywhere.

U.S. editorial pages were flooded with letters calling for a boycott of Venezuelan gas, and blogs and bulletin boards showed a swift creative vehemence.

The Miami Herald reported recipients of Chavez's charity fuel program were having second thoughts about taking the aid from the Venezuelan dictator.

Democratic congressmen who otherwise had rancorous relations with Bush felt enough public heat to condemn Chavez's remarks. "You do not come into my country, my congressional district, and you do not condemn my president," thundered Rep. Charles Rangel of New York after Chavez's speech.

A Florida congressman introduced a bill to remove Citgo signs from the state turnpike. And in Boston, home of the Citgo sign at Kenmore Square, another politician sought to remove that landmark and replace it with an American flag.

As Ramirez indicated, the reaction from the slow-to-anger American public was more than Venezuela expected.

What Caracas is staring at, dumbfounded, is the realization that Americans can use their formidable buying power to tell Chavez something he cynically thought he'd never hear: that his oil was not all that necessary.

That's bound to send a strong message to Caracas because Venezuela needs the $4 billion in U.S. yearly oil revenue to stay afloat and continue to throw its weight around on the world stage.

Chavez has made hay for years about America's addiction to foreign oil. He's always been firm in the belief that Americans were soft and would never go without buying it. He was wrong.
 

5. Checkout for an Undemocratic Checkoff - Washington Post Op-ed

By George F. Will
Thursday, September 28, 2006; A23

Unalloyed good news is rare, so rejoice: The foremost achievement of the political speech regulators -- a.k.a. campaign finance "reformers" -- is collapsing. Taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns, which was in parlous condition in 2004, will die in 2008.

In 2000 and 2004 George W. Bush declined public funding -- and its accompanying restrictions on raising and spending money -- for the primaries, as did Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004. In 2004 candidates accepting taxpayer funding were restricted to spending $45 million before the conventions. Bush and Kerry raised $269.6 million and $234.6 million, respectively, before the conventions. Any candidate who accepts public funding in the 2008 primaries will be considered second-tier. And almost certainly neither party's nominee will accept public funding for the fall campaign.

Taxpayer funding, enacted in 1974, empowered taxpayers to direct, by a checkoff on their income tax forms, that $1 of their tax bill be used to fund presidential campaigns. Even though the checkoff did not increase anyone's tax bill, participation peaked in 1981 at 28.7 percent -- a landslide "vote" of 71.3 percent against it. In 1993 Congress increased the checkoff's value to $3, thereby enabling fewer people to divert more money from the government's pool of revenue collected from everyone, including the 90 percent of taxpayers who now decline to participate.

It is delicious that the McCain-Feingold law, the reformers' most recent handiwork, is helping kill taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns. Before McCain-Feingold, limits on contributions of private money -- set in 1974 and not indexed for inflation -- became steadily more restrictive, so candidates accepted public funding. But McCain-Feingold, by doubling the permissible size of campaign contributions, made it easier for candidates to raise sums far larger than taxpayer funding provides.

Public funding was supposed to increase voter turnout by decreasing the cynicism supposedly caused by privately financed politics. But Bradley Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, notes that turnout did not surge until 2004. Then, the dramatic increase correlated with a surge of private money, much of it devoted to voter turnout efforts. Reformers considered this surge evidence of increasing corruption and, of course, evidence of the need for more regulation of speech.

John Samples of the Cato Institute, in his new book, "The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform," demolishes the argument that taxpayer funding has increased voters' choices by increasing the number of presidential candidates. The seven elections before 1976 had an average of 10.7 candidates who received at least 1 percent of the votes in the two major parties' primaries. Since taxpayer funding was enacted, the average has been 7.8 candidates. In the 15 elections since 1945, the two most successful independent candidates -- George Wallace in 1968 and Ross Perot in 1992 -- did not use government funds. Taxpayer financing, which liberals love, did help Ralph Nader win 2.7 percent of the 2000 vote, including 97,488 Florida votes that cost the liberals' candidate, Al Gore, the presidency.

Does anyone argue that the $1.3 billion in tax dollars given to candidates since 1976 has purchased more elevated campaigns? About 10 percent of public funding pays for the two parties' conventions -- vacuous festivities for a few thousand activists. Major broadcast organizations no longer cover conventions extensively because the public, which considers them unimportant, will not watch.

Sen. Mitch McConnell rightly says that taxpayer funding of politics has been the subject of the largest, most sustained and most accurate polling in American history. The polling occurs every year when 90 percent of taxpayers refuse to participate. Could it be that Americans recoil from funding political advocacy with which they disagree -- Republicans funding Democrats, Democrats funding Republicans, everyone funding fringe candidates such as the felon Lyndon LaRouche, who got infusions of taxpayers' money for a campaign he ran while in jail for fraud and conspiracy?

Nevertheless, reformers want to again enlarge the value of the checkoff -- the lever by which a small minority spends general tax revenue against the wishes of a vast majority. The reformers' ultimate objective is to make government the sole source of money for all federal elections. Then government money, supplied in much smaller amounts than voluntary contributions provide, would fund the (much reduced) amount of political speech about government that the government deems appropriate.

Reformers desperate to resuscitate taxpayer funding cite the supposedly scandalous fact that each party's 2008 presidential campaign may spend $500 million. If so, Americans volunteering to fund the dissemination of speech about candidates for the nation's most consequential office will contribute $1 billion, which is about half the sum they spend annually on Easter candy. Some scandal.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092701757.html