September 29, 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 –  Friday, September 29, 2006

1. Can the Democrats Beat Bush's Beliefs With Poll Politics? - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
The Democrats are back in the national-security game alright, but the playbook is opinion polling first, with belief a second option. One result is their national-security offensive has taken on a surreal unseriousness.

2. Terrorists' Excuse du Jour - Salt Lake Tribune Op-ed
If you've ever stood up to a bully, you know how this works. Confrontation tends to increase the chances of violence in the short term but decreases its likelihood in the long term. Iraq is the excuse du jour for jihadists, but before Iraq it was Afghanistan. Does that mean we shouldn't have toppled the Taliban?

3. Goldilocks and the Dow - Chicago Tribune
Six years after the dotcom bomb, five years after the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, American investors and consumers are showing they're bullish on the future of the U.S. economy.

4. In Close Races, Local Issues Still Dominate - Washington Post
Though the campaigns have been jousting for months, it is clear in interviews that, six weeks before Election Day, most voters are just starting to tune in. Good luck to those who want to tune out.

5. Henry Hyde: 'A Lion of the Right' - Human Events
As this session of Congress draws to a close, so draws to a close the storied career of a lion of the right, Henry Hyde of Illinois.


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

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1. Can the Democrats Beat Bush's BeliefsWith Poll Politics? - Wall Street Journal Op-ed

September 29, 2006; Page A16

When pundits confronting the modern sport of extreme politics want to step back from it all, a favored tactic is to ask: What would a man from Mars think? The spectacle currently on display for the man from Mars is a full-throttle election-year fight over the meaning of national security. The Democrats want voters to view the November election through the fogged and bloody prism of the war in Iraq; Republicans want voters at 30,000 feet with a war on terror spread to the horizon.

We don't need the proverbial man from Mars to assess the fight between Democrats and Republicans over national security. Over the past year, I've exchanged messages with several American soldiers in Iraq, now a planet in our political system, and I asked one recently for his opinion of the political landscape back home. He sounded like he might prefer Mars.

"We are very cut off from big political debates here," he said. "We have access to email and the Internet, but as a ground combat arms guy, my pace precludes the close following of national political news that I enjoyed prior to deploying, so I can't say that these debates weigh heavily on us." Thank God for that.

It is difficult to imagine that the U.S. soldiers in Iraq would regard the political debate back home as measuring up to the seriousness of what they do every day. How would you like to roll out of your bunk in al Anbar province, Mosul or Baghdad on a Sunday morning and read across the top of the local U.S. paper that everything you've done in Iraq for three years has merely made the terrorism threat worse? You just might lose heart a notch, a dangerous thing when fighting a war.

But at this late stage of the campaign, Iraq-as-failure has become the central narrative in the Democrats' strategy. A memo sent out to Democrats last week by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a strategy group led by former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg, discusses Mr. Bush's "failure in Iraq, which energized Democrats and dispirited Republicans." It urges Democrats: "On Iraq, stress Bush/GOP 'mismanagement' and need for a 'new direction.'"

There is general agreement in Democratic circles that the party made a mistake by not confronting the national-security issue more forcefully in 2002 and 2004. Paul Begala cited the two elections on the "Today" show Monday and said al Qaeda is "coming back to get us because of the failed policies of George Bush."

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner says it has polled each element of this strategy, and that the poll numbers suggest public support for these Democratic positions. A poll-certified national-security strategy just might work with the out-of-sorts 2006 electorate. But there was a reason for 2002 and 2004. Those Democrats who did get elected channeled their energies into denouncing the Bush antiterror programs and backing the Lamont Insurrection. So there's a problem with the current hand-the-war-to-us strategy: Their hearts and minds really aren't in it. They don't want the war.

No one doubts that George Bush's war on terror is based in belief and principle. Yes indeed, many Democrats say this is precisely the problem. But voters are going to have to make a net judgment between these two variations on a theme. What's before them?

On the GOP side, they've seen George Bush give three major policy speeches this month, pushing the Bush Doctrine with commitment and consistency. Today Congress may send for his signature the bill he sought on terrorist detainees.

The Democrats are back in the national-security game alright, but the playbook is opinion polling first, with belief a second option. One result is their national-security offensive has taken on a surreal unseriousness.

A fortnight ago, the big political story suddenly became ABC's made-for-television movie, "The Path to 9/11." Out of the woods to dominate the news cycle came the ghosts from the Clinton past -- Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright -- condemning the film as a slander on their long years before the antiterror mast. Up to this point, Democratic candidates had seemed to be surfing smoothly toward control of the House on waves of bad media news out of Iraq. Suddenly they've got to deal with a movie suggesting we're in Iraq because their president failed to pull the trigger on Osama bin Laden.

This sideshow culminated last Sunday morning in a bizarre exchange between Bill Clinton and Chris Wallace of Fox -- Mr. Clinton wagging a familiar finger at Mr. Wallace and accusing the anchorman of smirking at him. Personally, I think Mr. Wallace generally looks bemused, which is a distant, more innocent cousin of the smirk. Bill O'Reilly, now there's a big-league smirk.

Some pundits surmised that the Clinton eruption was planned to rally the liberal base, depressed at the sight of bad Bush's approval rating crawling back above 40%, and rising. This was Bill Clinton so my guess is it was both -- planned and over the top. The fact is, the Democrats found themselves back in Afghanistan with Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright, rather than where they wanted the news to be, amid Baghdad's bombs. A messy week.

Then came the leaked NIE story in the New York Times this past Sunday. What a bombshell. This would put them back on message: Iraq as failure. But by now it's evident that the whole workweek invested in the National Intelligence Estimate story was a colossal waste of the time devoted to it. What began Sunday as the Times's towering bonfire -- 16 intel agencies and 12 anonymous sources writing off Iraq -- by Wednesday had burned down to embers.

After the White House released the NIE summary late Tuesday afternoon, reporters reading it for the first time on the Web undoubtedly kept hitting the Page Down button on their PCs. This is it!? Three crummy pages that anyone could have boiled down from a Foreign Affairs "Wither Iraq?" symposium.

The Democrats' problem is this: They are trying to beat policy with politics and weaken belief with polls. This may work for Social Security. I don't think it works with war. Don't be surprised if come November, Democrats are still on message -- Iraq as failure -- and still in the minority.

 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115949258253977538.html?mod=opinion_main_featured_stories_hs
 

2. Terrorists' Excuse du Jour - Salt Lake Tribune Op-ed

By Jonah Goldberg

Of course the war in Iraq has made us less safe, and I didn't need the National Intelligence Estimate to tell me so. Who could possibly deny that Iraq has become, in the words of the NIE, a "cause celebre" for jihadists? One need only read the newspaper to conclude that Iraq is spawning more terrorists. (Indeed, one fears that all the NIE authors did was clip from the newspapers.)

If you've ever stood up to a bully, you know how this works. Confrontation tends to increase the chances of violence in the short term but decreases its likelihood in the long term. Any hunter will tell you that the most dangerous moment is when you've cornered an animal, and any cop will tell you that standing up to muggers puts you in danger. American colonists were less safe for standing up to King George III, and the United States was certainly safer in the short term when we stood on the sidelines while Germany was conquering Europe. Heck, we would have been safer in the short run if we'd responded to Pearl Harbor by telling the Japanese they could have the Pacific to themselves.

After 9/11, there were voices on the left warning that an attack on Afghanistan would only perpetuate the dreaded "cycle of violence." Today, Democrats tout their support of that "good" war as proof they aren't soft on terrorism. Fair enough, I suppose. But guess what? That war made us less safe too -- if the measure of such things is "creating more terrorists." A Gallup poll taken in nine Muslim nations in February 2002 found that more than three-fourths of respondents considered the liberation of Afghanistan unjustifiable. A mere 9 percent supported U.S. actions. That goes for famously moderate Turkey, where opposition to the U.S. ran three to one, and in Pakistan, where a mere one in 20 respondents took the American side.

In other words, before Iraq became the cause celebre of jihadists, Afghanistan was. Does that mean we shouldn't have toppled the Taliban?


Going back further, it's conventional wisdom that we helped "create" Osama bin Laden, or his Taliban and mujahedin comrades, when we supported the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union. So we shouldn't have done that either?

Every serious analysis of the Islamic world today describes a genuine tectonic shift in a vast civilization, an upheaval that cuts across social, religious and demographic lines. This phenomenon dwarfs transient issues such as the Iraq war. Are we to believe that once-moderate and relatively secular Morocco is slipping toward extremism because we toppled Baathist Saddam Hussein? Do we believe that the mobs who burned Danish embassies in response to a cartoon wouldn't have done so if only President Bush had gone for the 18th, 19th or 20th U.N. resolution on Iraq? Millions of young men yearning for meaning and craving outlets for their rage would have become computer programmers and dental hygienists if only Hussein's statue still towered over central Baghdad? Would the pope's comments spark nothing but thoughtful and high-minded debate from the Arab street if only Al Gore or John Kerry were in office?

Iraq is the excuse du jour for jihadists. But the important factor is that these are young men looking for an excuse. If you live your life calculating that it's a mistake to do anything that might prompt murderers and savages to act like murderers and savages, you've basically decided to live under their thumb and surrender your civilization in the process.

For me, the truly dismaying news this week didn't come from the NIE but from the German media. A German opera house announced that it would cancel its staging of Mozart's "Idomeneo" because Berlin police concluded that staging the opera -- which includes a scene in which Jesus, Buddha, Poseidon and Muhammad are beheaded -- would pose an "incalculable security risk" from jihadists. Germany, recall, proudly opposed the Iraq war -- but still narrowly missed a Spain-style terrorist attack on its rail system this summer.

A leading Muslim spokesman in Germany explained that he was all for free speech, as long as it didn't offend Muslims. The Germans' all-too-typical appeasement of terrorism no doubt makes them "safer" and "creates" fewer terrorists.

And all it cost them -- for now -- is Mozart.

 You can write to Jonah Goldberg by e-mail at JonahsColumn@aol.com.

 
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4411881

3. Goldilocks and the Dow - Chicago Tribune

Published September 29, 2006

The next time you hear someone complain about the state of the U.S. economy, you might point out that the Dow Jones industrial average is right on the edge of setting an all-time high. And this time around, the stock market is reflecting solid underlying growth. It isn't soaring like a helium balloon untethered to reality like it was the last time the Dow reached this lofty level, 6 1/2 years ago.

The Dow closed Thursday at 11,718, just a hair below the all-time record of 11,722. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 stock index has risen 72 percent since hitting its low point four years ago. Even the battered Nasdaq has more than doubled in that time. The healthy state of the stock market means investors have weighed the alternatives and are betting on the ability of U.S. companies to make them money.

If that's not enough to warrant breaking out the bubbly, then point to this: Since the brief 2001 recession, the American economy has created more than 5 million jobs and grown 15 percent in real terms (that is, factoring out the effects of inflation). Inflation is still running a little on the high side, 3.8 percent a year. But one of the chief drivers of that--the surging price of energy--is abating. Oil prices have dropped to about $60 a barrel from more than $78 earlier this year. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the Chicago area has dropped nearly 58 cents in the last month, to $2.58.

The burst of the housing bubble has plenty of people worried, but so far it has not rippled through the economy. Housing starts have dropped about 20 percent. That makes this a medium-sized contraction after five scorching years of housing growth and appreciation. That's about the size of the decline in housing starts in 1991 and is nowhere near the 50 percent drop from 1978 to 1982. The bursting of the housing bubble may be painful to anyone who borrowed to the hilt at the market peak and has to sell at a lower price. But there are signs that the worst of the steep slide in housing may be over. Just a day after it was reported that home prices fell in August, the first monthly decline in 11 years, came news that new home sales posted their biggest gain in five months.

We are enjoying a Goldilocks economy, not too hot and not too cold. American consumers remain remarkably confident about the future and continue to spend money, according to the Conference Board's latest consumer confidence survey. They've been buoyed by the drop in gas prices and believe there are jobs available--not without reason, unemployment remains relatively low at 4.7 percent. They believe their incomes will rise in coming months.

Six years after the dotcom bomb, five years after the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, American investors and consumers are showing they're bullish on the future of the U.S. economy.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0609290248sep29,0,1246127.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

4. In Close Races, Local Issues Still Dominate - Washington Post
 

By Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 29, 2006; A01

MORGANTOWN, W.Va., Sept. 28 -- Spend nine days traveling through one of this year's most contested political regions and there is no mistaking the mood of voters: They are angry.

Nor is there any doubting the mood of incumbent politicians: They are anxious.

But it is a mistake to assume that anger and anxiety look and sound the same in these coveted precincts as they do in Washington.

The debates over Iraq and President Bush shadow virtually every competitive race, but they do not dominate the conversation -- which suits many Democrats just fine. This month's intense debate over policy toward terrorism detainees, meanwhile, carried hardly any echo at all.

Here is what has people talking in Kentucky's 3rd District: a new bridge over the Ohio River that would ease traffic for Louisville residents. In Indiana, voters are plenty steamed -- over the Republican governor's decision to privatize a toll road that runs through or near the seats of three embattled GOP representatives.

In Ohio's 6th District, visitors are likely to get an earful about what might be called earmark-envy: Why residents of neighboring West Virginia are getting a bigger slice of the federal budget pie.

The Washington Post logged a thousand miles traveling up the Ohio River Valley, where nine of the nation's most competitive House districts are clustered in a continuous line. The trip began in the tobacco fields of Kentucky and ended in this college town. Interviews with voters, candidates and operatives made plain why the old line about all politics being local is a truism: It really is true.

This is not to say the Ohio River Valley is insulated from national debates. They are clearly contributing to the uneasy mood evident in so many places along the dividing line of the upper South and industrial Midwest, even if that mood is often expressed in highly individualistic ways. Virtually every Republican candidate said they are concerned about what a sour electorate means for them on Nov. 7.

"I have never seen such anxiety," said Joy Padgett, a Republican running for the Ohio seat being vacated by GOP Congressman Robert W. Ney, who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges growing from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. "I believe that spills over onto the skepticism about virtually everything."

This free-floating angst, she lamented, is influencing attitudes about the economy, terrorism and politics in general.

If voters' snappishness is unmistakable, its impact remains far from clear. Take Laurie Pitcock. She lives in Ney's district and said she is dismayed by Republican inaction on environmental issues and other matters. Even so, she said, "I am still proud to be a Republican."

Her reaction was a commonplace one in these nine districts -- people expressed disgust with the Republican leadership in Washington but not necessarily toward the Republicans representing them.

Against this ambiguous backdrop, Republicans and Democrats are pursuing two very different strategies in this region.

Republicans all seem to be reading out of the same playbook. To a person, they seek to localize the elections, and accuse Democrats of wanting to raise taxes and put liberals -- a bad word in these culturally conservative districts -- in charge of Congress. Voters are seeing a lot more of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in GOP-sponsored television ads than of President Bush.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, for instance, is hitting Democrat Brad Ellsworth -- an antiabortion and anti-gun-control candidate in Indiana's 8th District -- for helping support an "extreme liberal."

"How can he possibly stop their liberal agenda?" the NRCC asks in an ad blanketing the district. Similar ads are popping up in other races.

There is one hitch in this strategy. Unlike in some past elections, Democrats have picked the kinds of candidates who have shown that they can win in heartland districts. Their positions on abortion, same-sex marriage and other fault-line issues are often indistinguishable from Republicans'.

Ellsworth has jumped out to a double-digit lead over GOP Rep. John N. Hostettler while running ads that highlight his social conservatism. "I fit the district well," Ellsworth said when asked the secret of his success. "People appreciate my conservative values."

The Democratic strategy differs from district to district but features one common theme: a need for change.

That appeal takes many forms, but in the Ohio River Valley races it is focused especially on the nation's energy policies. Democrats argue that Republicans have sold out the country for campaign cash from oil and gas companies -- a move they say led to soaring prices at the pump.

"The government should not be subsidizing the most profitable corporations in the history of the world," said Cincinnati City Council member John Cranley, who is running against Rep. Steve Chabot (R). That argument might have been more effective, however, when gas prices were topping $3 a gallon. They have since dropped by almost a dollar in some places.

Particularly in the rural districts, Democrats and Republicans sound alike when discussing Iraq. They lament strategic errors but oppose a speedy withdrawal. But Democrats cite the war as evidence that a divided government is essential to imposing accountability on the White House.

In Kentucky, Ken Lucas, a former Democratic representative seeking to return to his old job, repeatedly criticizes first-term Rep. Geoff Davis (R) for voting with Bush more than 95 percent of time. "You can send a robot to vote the party line," Lucas said -- twice. Because the two candidates differ on few issues, Lucas said, his race is likely to come down to voters' desire to shake up Washington.

That anti-Washington message has real resonance in this part of the country, where anyone who carries a Washington aura -- including out-of-town reporters -- is viewed skeptically at first.

This is also a region where memories run long. Former Kentucky state Senate president Joe Prather is a case in point. Prather, the Democratic candidate in the 1994 special election in Kentucky 's 2nd District, refused to be interviewed last week because of lingering resentment about a story written by The Post 12 years before that he believes cost him the seat in Congress. Mike Weaver, the Democratic candidate in this year's race in that district, said he did not much trust the Washington media either.

Though the campaigns have been jousting for months, it is clear in interviews that, six weeks before Election Day, most voters are just starting to tune in. Good luck to those who want to tune out. In Louisville, where the television market reaches into three competitive races, it is not uncommon while watching the evening news to see a cascade of political ads, uninterrupted by pitches for cars or soap.

Back in Ohio, as in other places, the air wars have a partisan edge, often aimed at voters who insist this is not how they want elections to be waged. "I'd love to get beyond party lines and get things done," said voter Laurie Pitcock -- a wish not likely to be granted between now and Nov. 7.
 

5. Henry Hyde: 'A Lion of the Right' - Human Events

by Rep. Mike Pence
Posted Sep 28, 2006

As this session of Congress draws to a close, so draws to a close also the storied career of a lion of the right, Henry Hyde of Illinois.

As the chairman of several major committees at the center of repeated national controversies, Henry Hyde, as members on both sides of the aisle know, has been a paragon of dignity, civility and commitment to principle, and I would add he has been a lion of the right to life, and this chamber will miss his roar.

I'll offer legislation today to name the Rayburn International Relations Committee room after this storied legislator, and I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

When I think of Henry Hyde's career, I of think 'Ulysses' by Alfred Lord Tennyson, who wrote:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Let us honor this rare leader, and may God bless the golden years of the gentleman from Illinois.


http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17278