No Interview, No Cry

You know, here's a mistake the bloggers will never make...

A red-faced BBC apologised for requesting an interview with Bob Marley, the Jamaican reggae legend who died 24 years ago.

BBC Three, one of the public broadcaster's digital TV channels, sent an e-mail to the Bob Marley Foundation saying it wanted to do a documentary about his hit song "No Woman No Cry".

It said the project would involve Marley -- who died of cancer in May 1981 at the age of 36 -- "spending one or two days with us", and that "it would only work with some participation from Bob Marley himself".

Hey, they're only a quarter-century behind the times. That's not too bad. In their world, you can still organize a Beatles reunion tour.

This Might Help Explain the Declining Birthrates

I'm not sure if I can come with a good opening for this one...

Organizers of a major erotic festival are closing for business in Manchester due to a lack of interest, which they blame on recalcitrant northern English men.

Erotica Manchester opened on Friday, selling a range of sex aids, clothing and footwear, but ticket sales have been poor and organizers say they will not be coming back.

"We've tried to warm this city up for more than two years but northerners just haven't responded in sufficient numbers," said event director Savvas Christodoulou.

"They are happy enough to come to our London event in the autumn but they seem embarrassed about being seen at Erotica Manchester."

Organizers said their research shows northern women wanted to attend the three-day adult show but were "under the thumb of their other halves."

Look, I'm only engaged, not married. But even I know that if women wanted to attend a sex festival, they would be dragging their reluctant husbands along.

I've got a suggestion for these guys -- just set up shop on the nearest college campus for a week, preferably near fraternity row (or its English equivalent). I'm guessing sales will set records.

Someone Needs to Watch More Bravo

Stephen Green fact-checks this quote from Tom Friedman...

That is, every new secretary of state gets his or her moment on the world stage, where everyone "oohs" and "ahs" about how smart they are and what a "dream team" staff they have put together. As the first secretary of state to ever wear stiletto heels while reviewing troops, Condoleezza Rice has had a coming-out season second to none.

The savvy secretaries don't take any of this seriously. They know that eventually every secretary gets dealt a poker hand - and you never know when it'll come or what sort of cards it'll contain: the 1973 Middle East war (Henry Kissinger), the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev (George Shultz), the fall of the Berlin Wall (James Baker), Kosovo (Madeleine Albright), Iraq (Colin Powell). And this poker hand is seven-card stud, no-limit Texas Hold 'Em. How well you play this high-stakes hand usually determines your legacy as secretary of state.

(emphasis added) As Green points out, Friedman needs a poker education. Then again, this is the left-wing dishrag we're talking about -- it's not like they're good at getting things right.

Pope John Paul II

I'm not Catholic, but my thoughts and prayers go out to Pope John Paul II, who's apparently in very grave condition.

The Pope was a lion in the battle with communism -- his contributions to help free Eastern Europe often go even more unnoticed than the efforts of Ronald Reagan. In fact, the recent unearthing of East German police records demonstrate conclusively that it was the KGB that masterminded the attempt on the Pope's life in 1981. As the Lord of Truth noted, that story deserves more attention.

Then again, it's not like the Communists were ever solicitous of any Pope -- Stalin, after FDR asked whether they should consult Pius XII on the fate of Europe following WWII, was heard to ask: "How many divisions does the Pope have?" If someone could track down Stalin in whatever circle of hell he currently resides, perhaps someone could let him know that the USSR went down for the count less than 50 years later, while the Catholic Church is still going strong.

From what I know, the Pope has also been dedicated to helping the destitute and the powerless. He has had his missteps -- for example, the Church's reaction to the pedophilia scandal has been far less than what I would have expected, although the Pontiff's health may have kept him from controlling those below him.

On the whole, a very good man may be leaving this Earth after a lifetime of service to his fellow man and to his God. We should all be thankful such men exist, and hope for the best.

An Utter Joke

Sandy Berger is getting away with a slap on the wrist. No, wait, this barely qualifies as a slap on the wrist...

Samuel R. Berger, a national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and give up his security clearance for three years for removing classified material from a government archive, the Justice Department and associates of Mr. Berger's said Thursday.

A respected figure in foreign policy circles for years, Mr. Berger has also agreed to pay a $10,000 fine as part of an agreement reached recently with the Justice Department after months of quiet negotiations, the associates said.

... The material involved a classified assessment of terrorist threats in 2000, which Mr. Berger was reviewing in his role as the Clinton administration's point man in providing material to the independent commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Officials with the Archives and the Sept. 11 commission ultimately determined that despite the incident, the commission had access to all the material needed in its work.

When the issue surfaced last year, Mr. Berger insisted that he had removed the classified material inadvertently. But in the plea agreement reached with prosecutors, he is expected to admit that he intentionally removed copies of five classified documents, destroyed three and misled staff members at the National Archives when confronted about it, according to an associate of Mr. Berger's who is involved in his defense but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plea has not been formalized in court.

Let me say this -- Lanny Breuer, who's working as Berger's attorney is worth every cent he's getting paid.

Berger, based on what he will admit in the plea bargain, has done the following:

1. Stolen classified documents intentionally;
2. Destroyed some of the classified documents he stole;
3. Lied to officials about it when initially questioned; and
4. Lied to the press when the investigation started (and presumably denied the charges to investigators).

As someone pointed out to Instapundit, we sent Martha Stewart to jail for something very similar to #4, and that was in an insider trading case. This is a case dealing with national security, and Berger stays out of jail? If you think I'm making too big a deal out of this, look at the details, as per the Post...

The terms of Berger's agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.

The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an "after-action review" prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil.

Archives officials have said previously that Berger had copies only, and that no original documents were lost. It remains unclear whether Berger knew that, or why he destroyed three versions of a document but left two other versions intact. Officials have said the five versions were largely similar, but contained slight variations as the after-action report moved around different agencies of the executive branch.

He took scissors and destroyed classified documents! Great, we still have copies of the documents... but as Patrick Hynes noted to Instapundit, we don't know whether any handwritten comments appeared on the copies Berger destroyed. I guess we should note that the urban legend of Berger sticking documents in his socks has been debunked -- he apparently stuck them in his jacket pocket. So much better.

The punishment here is what's really outrageous. This man will spend no time in jail, pay $10,000 in fines and regain a security clearance in 2008. Excuse me for being disgusted, along with Jim Geraghty...

Will we be seeing any criticism of him from former President Clinton, Madeline Albright, Hillary, John Kerry, or any other prominent Democrat? Is the perception that this is no big deal, standard operating procedure for that White House, and is something to be swept under the rug?

Do any Democrats want to confront the unpleasant truths of how the Clinton White House handled terrorism?

Because there were some facts out there that were so damning, Sandy Berger was willing to break the law to make sure the public never saw them.

We may never know what those facts are. For that alone, Berger deserves a far stiffer punishment.

Hanoi Jane and Her French Follies

Oh, great. Now she apologizes...

Jane Fonda regrets her visit to a North Vietnamese gun site in 1972, the actress and fitness guru said in an interview with CBS television show "60 Minutes" to be aired Sunday.

The actress defended her trip to Vietnam in 1972, which won her the nickname "Hanoi Jane." But she said her visit to a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun site used to shoot down U.S. pilots was a "betrayal" of the U.S. military.

"The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal," she said, calling the act, "The largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine."

But she said she did not regret visiting Hanoi, or being photographed with American prisoners of war there.

"There are hundreds of American delegations that had met with the POWs," she said. "Both sides were using the POWs for propaganda. ... It's not something that I will apologize for."

Of course, if everyone was doing it, that makes it right. I'd describe Fonda in accurate terms, but I'm trying to remain civil.

Then again, this was funny...

Jane Fonda, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a prostitute in the 1971 film "Klute," solicited call girls for three-way sex with her husband Roger Vadim, the actress revealed in a television interview.

...In the interview to be broadcast Sunday on the CBS network, the actress said she indulged Vadim's sexual proclivities, despite the personal pain it involved.

"One night Vadim brought another woman into my bed and I went along with it ... I'm competitive ... I was going to keep up with the Joneses," Fonda said.

"It was the 60s and whatever," she said, adding that she was largely motivated by the fear of losing her French director husband if she refused to go along with his three-in-a-bed romps.

...Fonda said the women who made up their 'menage a trois' were generally call girls that she herself would procure.

(Hat tip: LGF) So that explains her support of the VietCong -- she was pissed at the French!

Say It Ain't So, WSJ

The Lord of Truth lets me know that Richard Gere wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal. As some of you may know, I boycott Gere's movies, and now I find out one of my favorite papers is letting him pen editorials. They don't let me pen an editorial, but Richard Gere gets to write one. Man, am I depressed.

Truth be told, it's actaully pretty good, except when he refers to Hong Kong having autonomy.

Reason # 471,263 Why I Don't Live In California

This might be the funniest 9-1-1 call in recorded history. Go listen to it. If you can't, here's the transcript, courtesy Opinion Journal's James Taranto. An excerpt, just to whet your appetite...

Caller: I want a Western Burger. Because I just got my kids from tae kwon do; they're hungry. I'm on my way home, and I live in San Clemente.

Dispatcher: Uh-huh.

Caller: OK, she gave me another hamburger. It's wrong. I said four times, I said, "I want it." She goes, "Can you go out and park in front?" I said, "No. I want my hamburger right." So then the lady came to the manager, or whoever she is--she came up and she said, um, "Did you want your money back?" And I said, "No. I want my hamburger. My kids are hungry, and I have to jump on the toll freeway [sic]." I said, "I am not leaving this spot," and I said I will call the police, because I want my Western Burger done right. Now is that so hard?

Dispatcher: OK, what exactly is it you want us to do for you?

Caller: Send an officer down here. I want them to make me the right--

Dispatcher: Ma'am, we're not going to go down there and enforce your Western Bacon Cheeseburger.

Caller: What am I supposed to do?

Dispatcher: This is between you and the manager. We're not going to go enforce how to make a hamburger. That's not a criminal issue. There's nothing criminal there.

Caller: So I just stand here--so I just sit here and block--

Dispatcher: You need to calmly and rationally speak to the manager and figure out what to do between you.

Caller: She did come up, and I said, "Can I please have my Western Burger?" She said, "I'm not dealing with it," and she walked away. Because they're mopping the floor and it's all full of suds, and they don't want to go through there, and--

Dispatcher: Ma'am, then I suggest you get your money back and go somewhere else. This is not a criminal issue. We can't go out there and make them make you a cheeseburger the way you want it.

Caller: Well, that is, that--you're supposed to be here to protect me.

Dispatcher: Well, what are we protecting you from, a wrong cheeseburger?

Caller: No. It's--

Dispatcher: Is this like, is this a harmful cheeseburger or something? I don't understand what you want us to do.

Caller: Well, just come down here! I'm not leaving!

Just remember, this woman is a parent.

McMansions

An interesting property rights battle continues to shape up in Arlington, Virginia, not too far from my own home...

In Arlington, plans for a palatial, 12,500-square-foot house on Pershing Drive call for a basement ballroom with bar, an indoor swimming pool, a hot tub, five bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a library and a prayer room. The house would be 4 1/2 times the size of the average home on the block.

"Its scale is absurd," said neighbor Alan Tober, who, along with others, worries that the house will be used for commercial purposes -- namely weddings.

But property owner Yogi Dumera said he has no such plans. He is only taking advantage of his large lot, he said.

"I'm within my rights," Dumera, a restaurateur, said of his dream home. "I don't see why people can say anything. . . . Life goes on."

Giant houses such as Dumera's are controversial virtually every time they spring up in established neighborhoods, and for years area governments have made faltering attempts to do something about them. Some jurisdictions set strict height limits, and the District has limited tree cutting in at least one area in an attempt to rein in gigantic residences.

By proposing zoning changes, Arlington County officials are going further than any area government in imposing restrictions. In the coming weeks, they will debate rules that would reduce the square footage that a house and driveway can cover on a lot. If approved, the rules would be the region's first significant limits on so-called McMansions.

The practice of tearing down smaller homes in older neighborhoods to make way for million-dollar construction has grown more popular in recent years as buildable land has disappeared inside the Capital Beltway and property values have soared. The trend mirrors what is happening in other metropolitan areas with older housing stock, such as Boston and San Francisco. Buyers have been eager to replace aging houses with newer, bigger models equipped with modern luxuries such as cathedral ceilings, great rooms and expansive bathrooms. In the past 50 years, the average size of a new home has more than doubled while lot sizes have steadily shrunk, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Driving Arlington's efforts to curb the influx of giant houses are residents worried about construction that they find at odds with the scale and character of their neighborhoods, said County Board Chairman Jay Fisette (D).

"We know we can't legislate good taste or good architecture," Fisette said. "The modifications we've been talking about will keep the worst projects from being viable."

On the other side are developers and an opposing group of residents ready to mount a robust campaign against the regulations, saying they will hurt the average homeowner who just wants to add a deck or kitchen. Arlingtonians, whose property values have increased 70 percent in the past three years, should be able to exercise their current rights, opponents argue.

Furthermore, some critics of the proposal say they suspect that much of the discontent springs from a culture clash between longtime residents of Arlington and new, richer arrivals, many of them wealthy immigrants.

"They flat out don't like these rich people moving in and building big houses. It's a bunch of old liberals, and they've just got to give up," said Terry Showman, a developer who builds homes in the county. That idea is called "silly" by Fisette.

It's a fun issue to debate. Personally, I tend to fall on the side of the new homeowners who want to use their property as they see fit. Of course, I live in a townhouse community with the normal homeowners association issues, so I tend to be sympathetic to people who pay a ton of money for a home and aren't allowed to do waht they would like with their property.

There are reasonable limits that are imposed on property use, as any first-year law student knows (well, any first-year law student who has a real property class -- I'm still questioning whether I did). The funny part of this question is that I'd think that the existence of a mansion-style home in a neighborhood would increase property value for everyone, so I'd expect most people to choose the money over aesthetics. Guess not.

Taco Bell May Want to Change Their Marketing Slogan

The Lord of Truth believes this has bad idea written all over it...

Hundreds of volunteers, some of them armed, are expected to take up positions along the Mexican border Friday and begin patrolling for illegal immigrants - an exercise some fear could attract racist crackpots and lead to vigilante violence.

Organizers of the Minuteman Project said the civilian volunteers, many of whom were recruited over the Internet, will meet first for a rally in this one-time silver mining town, then fan out across 23 miles of the San Pedro Valley to watch the border for a month and report sightings of illegal activity to Border Patrol agents.

Minuteman field operations director Chris Simcox described the project as "the nation's largest neighborhood watch group" and said one of the goals is to make the public aware of how porous the border is.

Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant from Aliso Viejo, Calif., who organized the project, said that some volunteers will carry handguns, which is allowed under Arizona law, but are being instructed to avoid confrontation, even if shot at.

Still, law enforcement officials and human rights advocates are worried about the potential for bloodshed.

Critics contend the project may attract anti-immigrant racists and vigilantes looking to confront illegal immigrants. At least one white supremacist group has mentioned the project on its Web site.

"They are domestic terrorists that represent a danger to the country and could promote a major border conflict that will have serious ramifications and consequences," said Armando Navarro, a University of California-Riverside political science professor and coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, made up mostly of Hispanic activists.

Michael Nicley, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector, said the volunteers are "not the kind of help the Border Patrol is asking for."

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said he fears immigrant smugglers might open fire on the volunteers.

I think it's a bit of hyperbole to characterize these guys as terrorists. I even have trouble viewing them as vigilantes, since the stated goal doesn't even involve the apprehension of illegals. And the fact that racists and white supremecists support a tighter border is a red herring in my mind. Terrorists probably support a looser border, don't they?

However, I'm with the sheriff here -- the potential for violence is a huge issue, and we've got an armed confrontation likely to occur. But I'm also peeved that the Minutemen have now been targeted by a Mexican crime syndicate...

Mara Salvatrucha is among the most successful smugglers of drugs, weapons and people across the U.S.-Mexico border.

It's ruthless, too: When federal authorities arrested more than 100 gang members two weeks ago in Operation Community Shield -- spanning New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Baltimore Miami, Dallas and elsewhere -- more than half of the suspects had prior arrests or convictions for murder, assault, arson, weapons offenses or charges of drug possession. Mara Salvatrucha has reportedly issued "green lights" to kill police officers in Virginia and Maryland. Such a criminal enterprise -- which, we point out, is the largest criminal syndicate in the Washington area -- benefits greatly from lax border security and under-funding of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Thus, it is clear that Project Minuteman threatens to complicate things for its smuggling and law-breaking operations. Project Minuteman's 1,000 or more observers will likely be able to spot the gangsters as they attempt to cross into Arizona. They will be able to report on suspected criminal activity involving illegal border-crossings and point the Border Patrol toward the worst offenses. Some of the Minutemen with valid licenses will be armed. The Minutemen have been instructed to holster their weapons and not to confront any suspected lawbreakers. Their only purpose is to spot offenders and report them to the Border Patrol.

But Mara Salvatrucha may well do its best to force them to react otherwise, given the stakes for a criminal enterprise like Mara Salvatrucha and its violent record inside the United States.

Two key lessons here are that criminal enterprises benefit from lax enforcement and that ordinary citizens protest when the federal government fails them.

Well, that's for sure. I think we need to figure out a way to step up border enforcement so citizens don't feel compelled to enforce the laws themselves. Until then, I think we're sitting on a powder keg. And Chris Muir in his March 30th strip has a good point. You know you're in trouble when people start comparing your policies to the U.N.

A Hero Gets His Due

Take note...

Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, killed nearly two years ago defending his vastly outnumbered Army unit in a fierce battle with elite Iraqi troops for control of Baghdad's airport, will receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, administration officials said Tuesday.

No soldier who served in Afghanistan or Iraq after the Sept. 11 attacks has yet received the medal. The last conflict to produce a Medal of Honor recipient was in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993; two soldiers were awarded the medal posthumously for actions there, later depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

Sergeant Smith led a defense of a compound next to the airport against a much larger force of Special Republican Guard troops, manning a heavy machine gun, repeatedly firing and reloading three times before he was mortally wounded. Fellow soldiers said his actions killed 20 to 50 Iraqis, allowed wounded American soldiers to be evacuated, and saved an aid station and perhaps 100 lives.

Sergeant Smith's "extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor without regard to his own life in order to save others are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service," a draft of the medal citation says.

It's the rare man who meets his death saving the lives of others without regard for his own. It's our nation's great honor to have had so many such men in our history.

Good News for Geeks Like Me

Opinion Duel is back, and it's Chait v. Goldberg. Now if Jonah could only get the Bill Goldberg music from wrestling, it would be a lot more fun.

Jokes aside, this is fun, even though I would have preferred some other topic for these two writers. I enjoy Jonah, in part because I appreciate his writing style, while Chait is one of the few liberals around who can actually pen something interesting.

Now There's Something You Don't See Every Day

I've never once seen a news article with the words "turd burgler" in it...

The hunt is on for a turd burglar. Police in San Diego are searching for a gunman who swiped a bag of poop from a woman out walking her dog.

The woman told police that she was out walking her dog, Misty, on Monday night when a man in his 20s ran up behind her and grabbed the bag she was holding.

When the gunman discovered what was in it, he threw it down in disgust, pointed his gun at the 32-year-old woman and demanded money, San Diego police detective Gary Hassen said.

He then aimed his .22-caliber semiautomatic at Misty and pulled the trigger twice but the gun didn't fire, Hassen said.

The robber ran to a waiting small, silver car and fled the scene, police said.

So what happened to the bag? A real reporter would have asked this question, as well as whether police had obtained prints from the bag.

Hollywood Commies

Yeah, the headline's out of something from the 1950's. Then again, try reading this article from Bridget Johnson...

Considering how steeped in elitism last month's Academy Awards were--with "lesser" winners forced to stay back in their aisles or dutifully line up on stage, thus robbing them of a once-in-a-lifetime trip down the aisle--Hollywood sure has embraced communism with open arms.

In a town where antiwar activism is hot, a militant icon is even hotter: "The Motorcycle Diaries," a saintly portrayal of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in his early days, executive produced by Robert Redford and the toast of the Sundance Film Festival, won the Oscar for best song. "Al Otro Lado del Rio" was sung onstage by Antonio Banderas, accompanied by Carlos Santana--clad in the ubiquitous Che T-shirt that has become the brand of wannabe suburban revolutionaries.

Now that "Motorcycle" has ridden into the awards sunset--ironically, considering the nature of communism, also picking up two Independent Spirit Awards--the sequel to Che canonization is on the horizon. Filming is scheduled to start later this year on "Che," a Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic") vehicle starring Benicio del Toro as the famed Marxist. The plot line as listed on the Internet Movie Database: "An epic about Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, who fought for the people."

... Annoying as the Che adulation is, a recent comment by a 14-year-old on an online movie message board was truly disturbing: "I just saw The Motorcycle Diaries, which further made me question: Why is communism bad? . . . Young people are told how bad communism is, but we are not told why. . . . The Motorcycle Diaries showed me how Ernesto Guevara wanted to help people. . . . But this did not explain why he was such a 'bad' person and apparently deserved to be murdered by the U.S."

Does anyone still know how much of a complete and utter waste of inhuman puss Guevera was? Jay Nordlinger recently detailed it in National Review...

The world is awash in Che paraphernalia, and this is an ongoing offense to truth, reason, and justice (a fine trio). Cuban Americans tend to be flummoxed by this phenomenon, and so do others who are decent and aware. There is a backlash against Che glorification, but it is tiny compared with the phenomenon itself. To turn the tide against Guevara would take massive reeducation — a term the old Communist would very much appreciate.

You find his items in the most surprising places. Or maybe they are not so surprising. The New York Public Library has a gift shop, and until just the other day, it sold a Guevara watch. The article featured Che's face and the word "REVOLUTION." The ad copy went like this: "Revolution is a permanent state with this clever watch, featuring the classic romantic image of Che Guevara, around which the word 'revolution' — revolves." Clever, indeed.

That one of the world's most prestigious libraries should have peddled an item puffing a brutal henchman was not big news, but some Cuban Americans, and a few others, reacted. On learning of the watch, many sent letters to the library, imploring its officials to come to their senses. One Cuban American — trying to play on longstanding American sensibilities — wrote, "Would you sell watches with the images of the Grand Dragon of the KKK?" It was also pointed out that Communist Cuba, which Guevara did a great deal to found and shape, is especially hard on librarians. The independent-library movement has been brutally repressed, and some of the most inspiring political prisoners stem from that movement.

... In any event, the New York Public Library withdrew the watch just before Christmas, offering no statement.

The fog of time and the strength of anti-anti-Communism have obscured the real Che. Who was he? He was an Argentinian revolutionary who served as Castro's primary thug. He was especially infamous for presiding over summary executions at La Cabaña, the fortress that was his abattoir. He liked to administer the coup de grâce, the bullet to the back of the neck. And he loved to parade people past El Paredón, the reddened wall against which so many innocents were killed. Furthermore, he established the labor-camp system in which countless citizens — dissidents, democrats, artists, homosexuals — would suffer and die. This is the Cuban gulag. A Cuban-American writer, Humberto Fontova, described Guevara as "a combination of Beria and Himmler." Anthony Daniels once quipped, "The difference between [Guevara] and Pol Pot was that [the former] never studied in Paris."

Well, at least the T-shirts identify the ignorant idiots among us.

Where's Dan Rather When You Need Him?

Well, it looks like that infamous "GOP Talking Points Memo" on the Schiavo case is being officially questioned, when Howard Kurtz is questioning it...

Fresh from declaring victory over CBS News and its discredited National Guard memos about President Bush, some of the same bloggers are raising questions about a strategy memo, first reported by ABC News and The Washington Post, that cast the Schiavo right-to-die case as a partisan opportunity for Republicans to stick it to Democrats.

"Fake but Accurate Again?" says the Weekly Standard headline on an article by John Hinderaker, an attorney and conservative blogger who had challenged the CBS documents.

While there is no hard evidence that the memo is fake, there are several strange things about it, including the basic fact that no one seems to know who wrote it and that the noncontroversial part of it is lifted from a Republican senator's press release.

ABC and The Post say their reports on the Schiavo memo were accurate and carefully worded. The document caused a stir because it described the Schiavo controversy as "a great political issue" that would excite "the pro-life base" and be "a tough issue for Democrats," singling out Florida's Sen. Bill Nelson. Two days after the memo was reported, the Republican-controlled Congress approved a bill, signed by Bush, to transfer jurisdiction of Schiavo's case from Florida courts to the federal judiciary in an effort to restore the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube.

"There's nothing on the face of the document to identify a source -- not only is it unsigned, there's no letterhead, no nothing," Hinderaker said yesterday. "This is literally a piece of paper with stuff typed on it that could have been written by anyone."

The controversy erupted March 18 when veteran correspondent Linda Douglass reported on "World News Tonight": "ABC News has obtained talking points circulated among Republican senators, explaining why they should vote to intervene in the Schiavo case."

Two days later, a Post article by Mike Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia said: "An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters."

Neither report said Republicans had written the memo, although they may have left that impression, and they included no comment on the memo from party leaders. ABC's Web site went further than Douglass's on-air report with the headline: "GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo."

In the flood of commentary after the reports, some bloggers even speculated that the memo could have been a Democratic dirty trick.

... A Democratic Senate official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the party is not publicly discussing the memo's origin, said: "It's ridiculous to suggest that these are some talking points concocted by a Democratic staffer. The fact is, these talking points were given to a Democratic member by a Republican senator." Democratic aides, in turn, gave the memo to reporters, as the New York Times reported last week.

I suppose the Democrats couldn't have simply concocted the memo, right? Nah, they would never do something like that. Here's some of Hinderaker's article in the Standard...

Questions about the genuineness of the memo intensified when, later the same day, the far-left website Raw Story published, for the first time, a JPEG version of the scanned memo, which it said "[a] source on Capitol Hill has leaked." The print version of the memo, as posted on Raw Story, was identical to ABC's "exact, full copy of the document," except that the four typos that ABC had identified with a "sic" were all corrected. Interestingly, however, the fifth typo--"applicably" instead of "applicable" in the sixth paragraph--which ABC did not so identify, was not corrected in Raw Story's "leaked" version of the document.

THESE MYSTERIOUS CORRECTIONS raised obvious questions. Who created the second, corrected version of the memo? Why would they have taken a Republican-created memo and re-typed it, eliminating typographical errors, before "leaking" it?

More basic features of the memo also raised questions. There is nothing on the face of the memo to indicate who authored it. Contrary to normal congressional practice, not only is it anonymous, but it is on plain white paper, not the letterhead of any congressional or Senatorial office. It could, literally, have been created by anyone.

What, then, was the evidence for the claim that it was created and distributed by Republicans? As far as the public record shows: There is none. On the contrary, the only published report identifying the purveyors of the memo on March 17 states that they were Democrats. The New York Times reported on March 22:

As tensions festered among Republicans, Democratic aides passed out an unsigned one-page memorandum that they said had been distributed to Senate Republicans. [emphasis added]

...To sum up, then: (1) The memo itself conveys no information about its source. (2) It is very poorly done, containing a number of typographical errors, failing to get the number of the Senate bill correct, and using points cribbed word-for-word from an advocacy group's website. (3) The politically controversial statements are out of place in a talking points memo, and seem, on the contrary, ideally framed to create talking points for the Democrats. (4) Somewhat bizarrely, after the contents of the memo had been reported, someone corrected those typographical errors--but only those errors that had been pointed out by ABC. (5) No one has reported seeing any Republican distributing the suspect memo; the only people confirmed to have passed out the memo were Democratic staffers.

It's pretty sad when the memo doesn't even fool Dan Rather, yet ABC and the Post ran with it, since it had been "distributed to Republican politicians." As loyal reader RB pointed out, this leaves room for much mischief. I'm wondering when people will start "distributing" memos to Democratic politicians advocating beastiality.

Not that I would ever encourage such behavior.

My Thoughts on Schiavo

I don't know what to think about the case.

Look, I'm not someone who can sit here and take solace in Congressional action, because I think Congress might have been wrong to take this action. I find it hard to come to this conclusion -- it's not cut and dried that this is some awful precedent for the future. But before we blast the GOP alone, let's remember that plenty of Democrats, including Tom Harkin, voted for the measure. Hell, as Instapundit noted, Ralph Nader supported Congressional action. I think Michael Barone may have it right...

I do not put myself forward as an expert on this case, nor am I certain that Congress and Bush made the right decision, or that the courts, state and federal, made the wrong one. But I do think much of the criticism and condescension is misguided. And I think that the response of elected officials reflects one of the great strengths in our country: a confident belief in moral principles that stands in vivid contrast with what we see in much of Europe and in the supposedly sophisticated precincts of this country.

Start with the federalism issue. During Reconstruction, Congress passed laws authorizing the federal government to protect the civil rights of individuals left unprotected or harmed by state action. Those laws have been invoked in cases where the rights of black Americans were violated and the violators went unpunished. Invoked, I would say, not often enough. The law Congress passed and Bush signed was an attempt to protect the civil rights of one individual in light of substantial evidence that those rights were not being protected by the state.

...A cynical partisan ploy by Republicans? Not really. It is possible that Democrats, if in control, might not have summoned a special session. But this was not a purely partisan issue. Democrats did vote for the bill and made its passage possible. Proceedings in the Senate could have been stopped by a single objection to a unanimous-consent request. No senator objected.

... Were all these Democrats and Republicans acting cynically? I don't think so. Take Sen. Tom Harkin, a liberal Democrat who worked for the measure. Harkin's interest arose from his long concern for the disabled -- he was a chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act -- and his desire to protect the rights of the incapacitated. Were his views informed by his Roman Catholic faith? I don't know, but what if they were? Legislators are under no obligation to have moral principles entirely divorced from religious beliefs. I can't answer for every member who voted for the bill or against it. But the quality of the debate suggests to me that large majorities on both sides were acting out of reasoned moral conviction more than political calculation.

If anything, I think people should be equally appalled by federal courts opting to ignore the clear intent of Congress' resolution. Two wrongs sure as hell don't make a right, and the courts are undercutting their own standing in the future.

There are so many voices with so many views on this. Check out Joe Ford's article in the Harvard Crimson...

The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die” and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major disability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in the name of supposed “dignity.” Polls show that most Americans believe that her death is a private matter and that her removal from a feeding tube—a low-tech, simple and inexpensive device used to feed many sick and disabled people—is a reasonable solution to the conflict between her husband and her parents over her right to life.

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.

...In the Schiavo case and others like it, non-disabled decision makers assert that the disabled person should die because he or she—ordinarily a person who had little or no experience with disability before acquiring one—“would not want to live like this.” In the Schiavo case, the family is forced to argue that Terri should be kept alive because she might “get better”—that is, might be able to regain or to communicate her cognitive processes. The mere assertion that disability (particularly cognitive disability, sometimes called “mental retardation”) is present seems to provide ample proof that death is desirable.

...Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people.

Other disabilities rights advocates weigh in here and here. And as Michelle Malkin pointed out, the public support for Michael Schiavo's position seems to rest on misinformation and loaded poll questions. I don't even want to get into the latest fake memo issue -- someone at the Post or ABC News owes the GOP an explanation if not an apology.

The bottom line is that there's no true right or wrong on this issue -- none of us know what Terry Schiavo really would have wanted, and none of us can be certain that what we believe about the case is correct. There's a ton of arrogance on each side on this issue, and it's one that's a very emotional one for many folks. In the end, I think the best lesson for all of us it make our plans accordingly for such a moment in the future, and make our wishes very clear.

I feel for the Schindlers, and even for Michael Schiavo. But I feel the most pain for Terry Schiavo, and maybe the best all of us can do is pray that she hasn't felt any pain for the last decade-plus, and won't feel any if and when she passes on. God bless her, and may we all learn our own lesson from this.

Question for The Ages

The Dukes of Hazzard movie is due out later this year. The movie's casting of Daisy Duke leads to a question that stands on the level of "Mary Ann or Ginger" -- Catherine Bach in 1979, or Jessica Simpson in 2005?

Hey, we deal with all the important issues here, folks.

Ideas for Old School II

Ideas my fraternity never had...

A California university, once ranked by Playboy magazine as the top U.S. party school, is probing a fraternity for a party where a hard-core sex film was made, a school spokesman said on Monday.

California State University Chico has suspended its 25-member chapter of Phi Kappa Tau, while it investigates the party at which professional porn actors were filmed having sex last October, said school spokesman Joe Wills.

Shane's World, a Southern California maker of adult films, including ones featuring partying college students, provided four female and two male actors for the film, a spokeswoman said.

A trailer of the toga-themed film, on sale on DVD for $24.95, appears on the filmmaker's Web site. Three Chico State students had sex on film, said Shane's World spokeswoman Nicole Henderson.

"On Friday we suspended the fraternity," said Wills. "We're trying to gather information as fast as we can right now."

I'm betting the investigators take their time and carefully review all the evidence in detail.

The NCAA Week Two Update

And they tell us it’s just a game.

For gamblers everywhere, this is the week when you’ve already lost all of your money, the week after you attempted to demonstrate your expertise by telling everyone how Old Dominion was going to beat Michigan State, the week you realized that a nine-year old was leading your brother’s NCAA office pool. But hey, at least you can still enjoy the games.

That is, until you realize that the referees are going to kill your team with a stupid phantom traveling call.

All right, enough with my gripes. Let’s get to the highlights from a four-day clinic in exciting basketball, as at least eight of the 12 games were in doubt with five minutes left to go, three games ended up decided by one point, two games went to overtime, and the last game went to double overtime. What’s really sad is that someone out there will claim the NBA is more exciting. They're probably smoking the same stuff as referee Tom O'Neill.

Our memorable moments of the weekend, as delivered (mostly) from Las Vegas:

10. The ending of the Louisville-West Virginia game in overtime. Louisville’s up eight points, about to end the miracle run of the Mountaineers. West Virginia misses a three, Louisville grabs the rebound, and Louisville’s Brandon Jenkins breaks downcourt alone for a spectacular dunk that would cap the contest… except he misses the dunk. This is made funnier by the fact that the spread on the game was 8.5 points, which means that millions of gamblers promptly tried to rip their hair out. We know -- we watched them.

9. The West Virginia fan who held up the sign “You’ve Been Pittsnogled” during the aforementioned Louisville-WVU game. Best sign of the weekend, and a verb that needs to be added to the English language.

8. The Coach K Amex commercial, which should be Pittsnogled. I’m not saying Duke is on TV too often, but I hear CBS is looking at a reality show where girls date J.J. Redick and Coach K decides whether they should make it to the next show. Next week’s episode: one of the girls calls J.J. a choke artist, then outplays him in a game on one-on-one, but loses when the ref calls her for a foul after Coach K glares at the ref. Of course, this is better than most of what appears on reality TV.

7. Illinois’ stirring comeback win over Arizona on Saturday night. 15 points down late in the game, essentially on their home court, the best team in the nation all season finally faced true adversity and fought back to win. Granted, two teams that feature orange prominently in their color schemes gave everyone a headache, but it was still fun to watch. And hey, Bill Murray hanging out at the game is always a plus – it would have been better if he’d brought along Chevy Chase and the Dalai Lama, but you can’t have everything.

6. Arizona’s Salim Stoudamire beating Oklahoma State with a gorgeous jumper in the forgotten classic of the Sweet Sixteen, a game which ended with last year’s OSU hero, John Lucas, barely missing a game-winning try. And yet another game with both teams featuring orange – maybe the NCAA should force every team to have orange in its color scheme, if we’re going to get games like this.

5. Yours truly being proven prescient… from last week’s recap:

This year’s entry into the Cinderella pantheon is the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which ripped Alabama and held off Boston College in the space of three days, which of course guarantees that head coach Bruce Pearl is receiving job offers from other schools when he goes to pick up the paper at the end of his driveway this week. Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s other prize is a date with No. 1 Illinois in Chicago. We hope they enjoy Michigan Avenue.

Illinos 77, UWM 63. Bruce Pearl is now the coach at the University at Tennessee. And I heard the Panthers enjoyed the shopping on Michigan Avenue.

4. North Carolina 67, Villanova 66, thanks in part to a phantom traveling call whistled by referee Tom O’Neill on Wildcat guard Allen Ray with 9 second left. I don’t care what Bill Raftery thinks – that wasn’t traveling unless you’re from North Carolina, and even then, you should be saying it with an embarrassed half-smile. Heck, UNC fans should be experts on players never traveling – didn’t Michael Jordan play there?

3. Hall of Fame level coaches screwing up. First, you had Lute Olsen at Arizona, whose team failed to get off a quality shot in overtime while trailing Illinois by one. That was bad enough. But then, Tubby Smith of Kentucky, another coach with a national title on his resume, watched his team fail to get off a shot in overtime against Michigan State with the game tied. Did someone forget to tell these guys a berth in the Final Four was on the line? See, this is why Coach K gets Amex commercials – his colleagues in the college game can’t even figure out a way to get a quality shot off in the last ten seconds.

2. The collective gagging sound, followed by a gasp of relief, from ACC fans on Friday night. First, Wisconsin stomped NC State with a comeback win, then Michigan State stunned Duke, then UNC barely survived Villanova. We know the ACC dominated the ACC-Big Ten Challenge early this season, but if UNC falls to Michigan State or Illinois, ACC fans might want to start taking the Big 10 seriously. Meanwhile, we Big East fans will shut up... unless Louisville wins the national title, in which case our conference will open next season with the last three national champions.

1. Michigan State-Kentucky on Sunday night, one of the five greatest college basketball games you’ll ever see. It had everything: taut throughout, back and forth action, moments of redemption, a last-second shot, a refereeing controversy, second-guessing of a coach… and Ashley Judd in the stands. Hey, she beats Bill Murray anytime.

Ridiculous at Radcliffe

Loyal reader RB lets us know why we should stop taking some members of the Harvard College faculty seriously... fine, so that wasn't a problem...

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University hosted a conference last week entitled "Impediments to Change: Revisiting the Women in Science Question." The auditorium in Agassiz Theatre in Radcliffe Yard was packed. Dedicated in 1904, the theatre has been the site of many a spirited intellectual exchange. But on this day it was a forum not for debate but for indignation over the insult that the assembled referred to as "1/14" -- the date when Harvard President Larry Summers fatefully speculated about the possibility of inborn differences between the sexes.

The six assembled panelists, four from Harvard, two from MIT, did not challenge one another -- as scholarly panelists often do -- but basked in their shared conviction that there is only one explanation for why fewer women than men teach math and physics at Harvard or MIT: sexist bias. In fact, their only motive for "revisiting" the women-in-science question, was to give a proper burial to the hypothesis that there are significant biologically-based differences between men and women.

..."In this day and age to believe that men and women differ in their basic competence for math and science is as insidious as believing that some people are better suited to be slaves and others masters," one panelist, Mahzarin Banaji, a professor in the Harvard psychology department told the Harvard Crimson.

Nancy Hopkins was another speaker. The MIT biologist has become known as the professor who fled the room on 1/14. "I felt I was going to be sick," she famously said. At the Radcliffe confab, Ms. Hopkins again talked about how Mr. Summers affected her physiology: "I had to walk out out of respect for my blood pressure." For this show of courage, the audience gave her a standing ovation. But the room soon quieted down when she told a harrowing tale of hate mail she had received. A Harvard alum had sent her some air sickness bags and urged her to consult a physician. "I would suggest a psychiatrist," he wrote. Audience members gasped at the sheer misogyny of it all.

This reminds me of an old joke. How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: That's not funny.

Someone needs to remind the folks here that if someone hurts your feelings, it doesn't mean that you're right. It might be nice for people who claim to be professionals to provide conclusive evidence to back up their claims, rather than simply calling the other side names.

The Bachelor Party Update

What happened in Las Vegas.... stays in Las Vegas.

Those responsible will receive a more personal note later, but let me put it this way -- if everyone had a bachelor party that good, more guys would be racing to get married.