Arguments Yard

A few journalists got arrested, but who's to quibble?

I have faith that Mugabe would only allow a free and fair vote.

And if you buy that, I've got some prime farmland to sell. Just call me at 1-866-U-A-SUCKER.

Trade Goods, Not Insults
By Rich Tucker
Who would have expected a soccer game could be noteworthy?

On March 27, some 100,000 fans packed a stadium in Mexico City to watch a game between Mexico and the United States. That's not really news. Soccer is a big deal south of the border. It's also not newsworthy that the Mexicans prevailed, 2-1. Most Americans were too busy watching NCAA basketball that day to care about a soccer game.

The real news is that, during the countries' national anthems, the Mexican fans booed "The Star Spangled Banner." Some even chanted "Osama, Osama" after we scored our only goal. Shame on them.

But in that shame, an opportunity. After all, if they're booing our national anthem on a Sunday, maybe they've decided to remain in Mexico, rather than make a run for the U.S. border on Monday. And let's face it: The only way to prevent illegal immigration is to convince immigrants to stay home. If they want to come here, there's no way to stop them.

Consider: The Department of Homeland Security plans to add an additional 500 agents along the border, to augment the 9,900 it already has. Also, a private group plans to launch the Minuteman Project. About 1,000 volunteers will watch a 40-mile stretch of border and report illegal immigrants to the border patrol.

That's fewer than 12,000 people, trying to guard 2,000 miles of border and block 2 million (or more) immigrants. The arithmetic doesn't add up.

Besides, Mexicans are motivated to come here. Per capita income in the United States is $37,800, four times higher than in Mexico. Free-market economics says people are going to risk everything to cross that border. And not only is life better here, but it offers opportunities to those who remain behind. In 2003 Mexico's president announced that emigrants had sent back some $12 billion. Such payments "are our biggest source of foreign income, bigger than oil, tourism or foreign investment," Vicente Fox declared.

But there's a way to enable Mexicans to be as financially successful at home as they are here. Free trade.

For an example, let's look a little further south, to El Alto, Bolivia. That city seems an unlikely place to find supporters of free trade. In October 2003 street protests there helped topple the country's pro-U.S. leader, Sanchez de Lozada. But during those protests, when rioters tried to destroy the United Furniture plant, Bolivian employees of the plant fought off those rioters.
No wonder. About 100,000 El Alto residents have jobs because they're able to export products to the U.S. duty-free. As Juan Carlos Machicado, a supervisor at the plant, put it, "I'm in favor of free trade. It's helping us move forward. I wouldn't have thought this way five years ago. But now I work here."

The people in El Alto probably don't love the United States. But they're gainfully employed, and they're not risking their lives to come here. The same thing can happen in Mexico, if we maintain our free-trade policies and convince the Mexican government to privatize inefficient state-owned industries.

Of course, charity begins at home, and so does the battle against illegal immigration. It's pretty clear that illegal immigrants are working here; how else did they earn that $12 billion they sent home? Not by hitting the lottery. But for some reason, our government isn't punishing those who employ illegals.

TIME magazine reports that in 2002, even as millions of illegals poured across our border, the Immigration and Naturalization Service opened only about 2,000 investigations of employers. That's down from 7,000 in 1992. Even worse, the magazine notes that, "fines for immigration-law violations plunged 99 percent, from 1,063 in 1992 to 13 in 2002."

Employers see that they can easily hire illegal aliens, save money by not paying benefits to those employees or paying taxes on their wages, and never face any penalties. So why wouldn't they hire illegals?

The necessary laws already exist. In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which said employers could be fined as much as $10,000 for each illegal they hire. Repeat offenders could be locked up.

This law's never really been enforced. But imagine if it was. Suddenly, employers would face a true risk for employing illegals. And if we made the risk greater than the reward, the problem would swiftly go away.

We can't round up everyone who crosses the border illegally. And we don't have to.

Let's help the Mexicans help themselves, by encouraging free trade and by enforcing our own laws. Then, maybe we can play soccer with our neighbors, without hearing from the boo-birds.

Zimbabwe's president seems pretty confident he'll be re-elected.

I guess you can destroy a country's ecomony, as long as you rig the election.

Here’s the key to today’s intelligence report:

“Through attention-grabbing headlines and repetition of questionable data, these [flawed intelligence] briefings overstated the case that Iraq was rebuilding its WMD programs.”

Hum. You mean things like this? “Presidential Daily Briefing bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US”.

In retrospect, many used that memo to blast the Bush administration for not preparing for 9/11, when in fact the memo was vague and didn’t contain much that was really actionable.

for the most part, anyway. Six months from now, everyone will agree it was a "tragedy" and nobody will want to say much beyond that.

Well, check that. Some brave souls, smarter than the rest of us and oh so much more astute, see the case as part of a much larger conspiracy. A conspiracy to take over the country and kill liberals. Really.

Here’s village idiot Paul Krugman in the NY Times yesterday. Using the Schiavo case as a springboard, he writes, “The desire to show respect for other people's beliefs all too easily turns into denial: nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself.”

That’s an interesting take on this. Who knew that the democratic majority had decreed that Schiavo’s feeding tube should be removed? Oh, sure, there are vague polls. But polls aren’t votes, as John Kerry knows all too well.

In fact, Krugman is confusing the action of one judge with the democratic will of the country. Just one Florida judge made the ruling that the tube should be pulled; all the other courts, state and federal, merely reviewed that ruling and let it stand.

It’s the Florida legislature that exercises “democracy.” And it did, in 2003, writing a law that allowed Florida’s governor to have Schiavo’s tube reinserted. This author disagrees with the legislature’s action. But like it or not, it’s far closer to democracy than Krugman’s judges are. If the people of Florida disagree with their legislature, or their governor over this case, they can express their opinion at the polls.

Krugman goes on to claim, “One thing that's going on is a climate of fear for those who try to enforce laws that religious extremists oppose.” And “Another thing that's going on is the rise of politicians willing to violate the spirit of the law, if not yet the letter, to cater to the religious right.”

Well, again, judges don’t write laws. Krugman and other liberals don’t seem to get this simple point. They interpret the laws passed by legislators – who are almost always “politicians.”

Politicians are certainly capable of breaking the law. They kite checks, commit adultery, whatever. And in fact they may write laws that cater to the religious right. But if that’s so terrible, well, they still have to face voters and explain why they did what they did.

As far as the “spirit of the law” goes, well, the legislature passed the law. I’d expect it to have a better sense of its “spirit” than a judge does. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with legislature acting when a judge is wrong – with the lawmakers saying, “No, this is what we meant when we passed the law.” That, also, is a form of democracy.

That’s why it’s laughable when Krugman writes, “Everyone knows about the attempt to circumvent the courts through ‘Terri's law.’” Yes, how dare those lawmakers, the ones who passed the damn law, attempt to circumvent a judge’s reading of it.

Krugman wraps up with one of his silly overstatements. “America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here.”

I love that “yet.” And I love the logic. “If we don’t starve this woman in Florida to death, every liberal politician could be at risk of being murdered.”

Krugman is engaged in a clever attempt to deflect attention away from the death of one particular woman, by bringing up the frightening specter of the future deaths of unnamed prominent people.

Well, I doubt that anyone is planning to kill John Lewis or Charlie Rangel. If anyone is, he should be arrested and locked up forever. That’s what we do with people who attempt to commit murder. Unless, of course, that person is a judge.

Everyone is against killing, even – and in this case, especially – Krugman’s so-called “extremists.”

It’s insulting and frightening that he could think that because some of us disagree politically with liberals that we’d go out and kill them – or even support the killing of them. And it’s embarrassing that a newspaper like the Times would print such idiocy.

I actually wrote this yesterday, putting in plenty of links (’cuz I know how much you like ’em!) and then the program ate the whole thing. But I’ll try again now.

Yesterday’s NY Times featured an interesting piece by former Senator Bill Bradley. He actually agrees with me about something important: Liberals lack ideas.

“Democrats who run for president have to build their own pyramids all by themselves,” Bradley writes. “There is no coherent, larger structure that they can rely on. Unlike Republicans, they don't simply have to assemble a campaign apparatus - they have to formulate ideas and a vision, too.”

In other words, they don’t have any core ideas to fall back on. Conservatives do have those ideas, Bradley says, because they’ve built up a “pyramid” of support.

“Big individual donors and large foundations - the Scaife family and Olin foundations, for instance - form the base of the pyramid. They finance conservative research centers like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, entities that make up the second level of the pyramid.”

He’s missing the point here, though. Conservatives don’t have ideas because we’ve got funding; we have funding because we have ideas. Wealthy people and foundations aren’t out there tossing greenbacks around, saying, “Bring me some ideas.”

The way it works is, we conservatives have ideas, and ideas that work -- welfare reform, lower taxes and so forth. Others see that our ideas work, see that those ideas are helping build a better society, and spend money to support those ideas.

And let’s not forget that the left has tried to build the very structure Bradley calls for. Remember the Center for American Progress? John Podesta launched it with the express purpose of generating liberal ideas. “We've got to fill the intellectual pail a little,” he warned supporters.

Instead, CAP has become little more than an attack factory, just another Democratic National Committee. Subscribe to their daily e-mail, but be prepared to yawn. Not a new idea in the bunch.

Bradley also goes astray when he writes, “And then there's the fourth level of the pyramid: the partisan news media. Conservative commentators and networks spread these finely honed ideas.”

Ah, yes, the powerful conservative news media. Look – I read the Washington Times occasionally, and even watch FOX News. But, like most conservatives, I’d gladly hand those fine outlets over to liberals – if doing so meant we’d get to control ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, The New York Times, the Washington Post and the LA Times, as liberals do now.

Think anyone wants to swap? I doubt it. Even though, in some ways, the liberal domination of the media hurts liberals.

Bradley is on to something. Liberals need ideas. Sadly, none seem to be forthcoming. Consider Social Security. We’re many months into a national debate, and so far there hasn’t been a single liberal proposal laid out. Just “everything’s fine, don’t worry about it.” That’s not going to be enough for the Democratic nominee in 2008.

Former Sen. Howell Heflin of Alabama has died.

Supposedly, he was once shown a photo of Sen. Kennedy frolicking on the deck of his yacht with a lively young woman. And he supposedly said:

"Seems the Senator has changed his position on off-shore drillin'."

Who could have imagined we'd have Jesse Jackson, Randall Terry and Jerry Falwell in the news, all on the same day?

I feel as if I've been transported 20 years into the past, when these folks were at least marginally influential.

Paging George Shultz: Your country needs you. Again.

59 former American diplomats have sent a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urging him to reject President Bush's nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

As CNN put it: "The former diplomats also chided Bolton for his 'insistence that the U.N. is valuable only when it directly serves the United States.'

That view, they said, would not help him negotiate with other diplomats at the United Nations."

Hum. I could have sworn that American diplomats were supposed to want what was best for, well, the United States. It is, after all, their country.

And I suspect China's ambassador to the U.N., for example, considers it his job to work tirelessly to advance his country's interests, rather than to get along with other ambassadors.

Maybe these former diplomats need a crash course in George Shultz-style diplomacy. Here's how Paul Wolfowitz describes Shultz's approach:

"Every new ambassador heading out to his post or her post would go to George Shultz's office for a picture with the Secretary of State to hang proudly in their office in their embassy.

"Each time they came in, George would take them to this enormous globe that sat on the floor of the office—it was some three or four feet tall—and casually say, 'Just for this picture, turn the globe to your country.'

"The new diplomat would eagerly spin the globe around to France or Germany or Mali, at which point the Secretary of State would say, 'No, let me explain something,' as he slowly turned it back to the United States of America."

The problem with the U.N. is that it treats all nations equally. For example, despite the fact that Libya is a notorious abuser of human rights, the U.N sees fit to place it in charge of the Human Rights commission.

Bolton realizes that the United States shouldn't be sitting down and breaking bread with nations that break the bones of their citizens. That's why Bolton should be confirmed.

...we would call it "backing into the lead."

Near the end of his Saturday NY Times column, Nick Kristof notes, "Christianity is thriving where it faces obstacles, like repression in China or suspicion of evangelicals in parts of Latin America and Africa. In those countries where religion enjoys privileges - Britain, Italy, Ireland, Spain or Iran - that establishment support seems to have stifled faith."

He's hit on the exact reason that our founders favored "separation of church and state." It wasn't because they wanted to protect us all from religion, as some today seem to believe (Rev. Barry Lynn, call your office).

Instead, the founders wanted to make sure that religion remained strong. That strength would come through competition. As Madison put it in Federalist 10, "A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source."

In other words, the government is safe when we have many strong religious factions operating. Hence, we ought not have a single, state sponsored church. We ought to separate church and state, to protect both.

Kristof is an intelligent liberal who often writes about religion, Christianity in particular. He makes other excellent points in his piece -- noting that, in Africa, "The denominations gaining ground tend to be evangelical and especially Pentecostal; it's the churches with the strictest demands, like giving up drinking, that are flourishing."

Plus, he says, "it seems possible to me that in a few decades, China could be a largely Christian nation."

It'll be interesting to see if Kristof's willing to accept the conclusion that this column leads to and write something about the misuse by the left of the concept of "separation of church and state."

my weekly piece:

Bad Influence
By Rich Tucker

Maybe it’s time for me to stop writing a column. After all, I can’t write with the best of them.

Who represents that unreachable ideal? Maureen Dowd.

That’s right. Dowd “is the most influential columnist of our time,” as Michael Kinsley claimed in the March 20 Washington Post. Luckily, Dowd also had a column that day, her usual Sunday New York Times offering. Here’s a sample of what Ms. Influential had to say:

“Size matters, so some experts have suggested that in 10 million years or even much sooner -- 100,000 years -- men could disappear, taking Maxim magazine, March Madness and cold pizza in the morning with them.”

Dowd was writing about the genetic differences between men and women. Scientists have apparently proven that the Y chromosome -- the thing that makes a man a man -- is slowly disintegrating. Dowd seems overjoyed that, some day, the human male may evolve out of existence.

She’s visited this topic before. In July 2003 Dowd wrote, “What if nature played a cruel trick and demoted men, so they had to be judged merely by their appearance, pliability and talent for gazing raptly at the opposite sex, no matter how bored?” Influential opinion, indeed.

Some might wonder what would happen if the editors of the New York Times played a cruel trick and actually judged a columnist on the quality of her ideas. For example, on Jan. 9 Dowd wrote, “The Iraqi election that was meant to be the solution to the problem -- like the installation of a new Iraqi government and the transfer of sovereignty and all the other steps that were supposed to make things better -- may actually be making things worse. The election is going to expand the control of the Shiite theocrats, even beyond what their numbers would entitle them to have, because of the way the Bush team has set it up and the danger that if you're a Sunni, the vote you cast may be your last.”

Maybe Dowd’s not as influential in the Middle East as she is on the op-ed pages.

Since the Jan. 30 election, the Sunnis who boycotted the Iraqi election have begged to be allowed to have a hand in forming a new government, and the majority Shiites have agreed. Freely elected Iraqis are governing Iraq for the first time, well, ever.

Good news seems to be breaking out all over, perversely ignoring Dowd’s wisdom. An elected Palestinian government is sitting down with an elected Israeli government to discuss their differences. Egypt’s president says he’ll willingly face a challenger in the next election. Still, Dowd still seems surprised that the “Bushies like the results of their war,” as she wrote on March 17. Go figure.

Of course, while we’re discussing influential figures, Kinsley is no slouch himself. He’s editorial editor at the Los Angeles Times, and writes a regular columnist. On March 18, he lit into my employer, The Heritage Foundation, over Social Security.

In a recent paper, Heritage cited a new study proving “stock market returns are actually higher on average in slower growing economies than they are in rapidly growing ones.” An interesting and provocative fact.

Kinsley took issue with that, sniffing that “Heritage did not actually conduct this study.” We seem “to have read about it in the Financial Times,” he wrote, as if that mattered. He then wondered off into academic-sounding weeds, citing figures for GDP, stock values, trillions of dollars, etc.

All of which misses the point.

Even if the economy grows quickly for years to come, which would generate more tax revenue, Social Security benefits are tied to wages. So higher salaries simply mean higher promised benefits in years to come. In other words, we can’t grow our way out of the Social Security shortfall.

Unless, that is, we allow workers to invest some of their Social Security taxes in accounts they would control. This money, invested over decades, would grow in a personal accounts. Instead of increasing future liabilities, PRAs would actually make those liabilities smaller, by creating wealth a workers wouldn’t otherwise be able to earn. PRAs would work. Even for those with the lowest salaries.

A columnist’s influence ought to be measured by the quality of his ideas and by the way he expresses them. Maybe we ought to take a month and erase all the names and photos from the op-ed columns in the paper. Let readers judge which columnists are influential and which aren’t. A write-off, of sorts.

Come to think of it, that would be better than quitting the column business. Michael, Maureen -- are you game?

Today's Washington Post finally gets around to front-paging (is that a verb?) the political implications of the Schiavo case.

Now, as I've written before, the problem on the left is a lack of ideas. They seem to be hopeful that the right will split over something or other (they seem to have given up on gambling, for now, but I'm sure they'll return to it) and allow them to return to power.

Anyway, they're now hanging their hats on the Schiavo case splitting up the right:

"Democrats, who note that the action is identified with the GOP-led Congress and the president, hope that the public's negative response could translate into a more general unease with Republican rule. 'They look out of step,' said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a Clinton White House adviser who runs the House Democrats' campaign committee. 'This Congress is getting involved in things they shouldn't be getting involved in, and not getting involved in things they should be.'"

Now, regardless of your stand on the case, think about it this way: The Republicans in Congress voted to attempt to keep this woman alive. Folks will argue about whether lawmakers had standing to do what they did.

But what would be the Democratic position that's supposed to get so many votes in 2006? "We favored allowing this woman to die?" Forgive me if that doesn't sound like a winning bumper sticker.

The Schiavo case is a difficult one. In the long term, I'm with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), on this.

He told the Post, "It was not a partisan issue. It was one of conscience. People will remember that the majority attempted to address a very difficult situation and did it with a real seriousness of purpose."

Despite what these polls supposedly show, I suspect that this case is a wash politically.

...there's nothing like bad practices driven by good, even patriotic intentions. Why would someone so incompetent at checking backgrounds be the background checker?

lo those many years ago, we used to joke that any report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest would automatically lead any news cast.

When they came out against movie popcorn, chinese food, whatever, it would be the hour's top story, hour after hour.

These days, there's a different sort of food story in the news. But CSPI is still at it.

This time, they're against salt.

I don't know about you -- but reading all this has given me a hankering for popcorn. With plenty of salt. Oh, and for lunch, maybe chinese. Any takers?

Must be no news of any sort today.

Here's the Wash Post above the fold lead story:

Cheney Defends Bush Appointments.

Really? The VP supports the president's policies and nominees? Who woulda thunk it.

Barry Bonds says he's out for a big chunk of this season.

Says he's "tired."

He's 11 shy of Babe Ruth's career total of 714 home runs. So here's that prediction:

Bond's will return in, say, August, hit 12 homers and retire after the year. He'll pass Ruth, but not even make a run at Aaron's 755.

...before the odds get even worse.

Maybe she chews a lot of gum.

"Top-heavy teen queen." That's pretty good.

Here's an idea: President Bush ought to run again.

After all, liberals insist he didn't actually win in 2000. So that should make him eligible to run again.

Maybe, if he wins a third time, Alec Baldwin will finally take a hike.

That CNN fired so many hundreds of people (including me!) back in 2001 and 2002.

Hope it saved at least $300 million.

"In my opinion the sanctity of life overshadows the sanctity of marriage."

So sayeth Tom Delay.

This has to be one of the most frightening political statements this year. It sounds innocuous enough, but think about it in the context of the Shiavo case - he's essentially saying a spouse should not have the right or responsibility to decide the fate of the other spouse in a life-or-death situation. Rather, through his actions and posturing in the case, Delay has made it clear that he thinks the federal government should enforce the survival of a person, regardless of spousal wishes.

It is said that bad cases make bad law, and this is among the worst. The parents are pushing for custody of their child, and that's emotionally justifiable. No parent wants to let go, even if the overwhelming amount of medical science tells us that you can't recover once your cerebral cortex has largely disappeared and been replaced by spinal fluid. But even given that, what if the parents wanted the tube pulled too? If sanctity of life trumps sanctity of marriage, then surely it also trumps sanctity of parenthood. So who'd get custody of Terri then, Tom Delay?

Tom Delay, in his words, "does not care" what Michael Schiavo says in the case of his wife. Well, that's quite high and mighty from a guy whose party has been pushing "preserving the sanctity of marriage" as a reason to prevent some small fraction of a percentage of Americans from marrying on account of their being the same sex. Homosexual marriage will send the country to hades in the proverbial handbasket, but apparently the federal government and Tom Delay know better than your spouse how to make decisions on your behalf in the most wrenching of life and death situations. Sanctity indeed.

This story is a disgusting spectacle of political exploitation. ABC News reports that Republicans are circulating a talking points memo on the issue. Quoting from the story, "Among [the talking points], that it is an important moral issue and the "pro-life base will be excited," and that it is a "great political issue — this is a tough issue for Democrats." Delay describes this memo as "disgusting", but then goes out and holds a news conference that includes Biblical quotes to rally the base and a speakerphone appearance from Jeb Bush.

Disgusting, indeed.

As someone married 9 years, it is absolutely between my wife and I what happens in these situations. I should have a living will (and I now plan to get one, though who knows if my "personal choice" trumps the "sanctity of life"), but even without one, my wife knows exactly how I feel about end of life measures, and I trust her to carry them out.

If, of course, people like Tom Delay will let her...

Well, OK. It's personal.

A few weeks back, columnist Michael Kinsley wrote a piece saying a few things that were, well, untrue. He also called out The Heritage Foundation by name. (Scroll down to "Don't know much about..." to read more of my response to that column)

Reasonably, we responded.

Now, so has he. And this time, it's personal. "The granddaddy of this form of pseudo-academia is the conservative Heritage Foundation, which produces studies by the crate-load. No one would mistake Heritage for Swarthmore," Kinsley writes.

Now, if one is going to call an institution pseudo-academic, one had better be prepared to cite chapter and verse to prove the pseudo part. He isn't.

He comes closest when noting that the Heritage paper cited, "a new study show[ing] that stock market returns are actually higher on average in slower growing economies than they are in rapidly growing ones."

"Heritage did not actually conduct this study," Kinsley sniffed. We seem "to have read about it in the Financial Times."

Well, as stunning as it may be to believe, indeed the pseudo-academics at Heritage do read the papers. Something columnist Kinsley is also guilty of, one assumes.

Anyway, Kinsley takes issue with the fact that the study shows that "the ups and downs of the economy don't coincide with the ups and downs of investments in stocks." The columnist then wonders off into academic-sounding weeds, citing figures for GDP, stock values, trillions of dollars, etc.

All of which sounds good, but misses the point.

As David John notes in his paper, the rate of GDP growth isn't really important. Even if the economy grows quickly today, generating more tax revenue, Social Security benefits are tied to wages. So higher salaries today mean higher promised benefits in years to come. In other words, we can't grow our way out of the Social Security shortfall.

Unless.

Unless we allow workers to invest some of their Social Security taxes in accounts they would control.

This money, invested over decades, would grow in a personal account. Instead of increasing future liabilities, PRAs would actually make those liabilities smaller, by creating wealth a worker wouldn't otherwise be able to earn. PRAs would work. Even for those with the lowest salaries.

So let's stop arguing and start getting things fixed.

Why is Terri Schiavo alive today?

Oh, sure, the scientific reason is that she's got a tube that delivers her nourishment. She's been in that situation since 1990, and her husband insists she'd rather die than continue living this way.

Maybe.

But let’s think back to the turn of the century (and let’s not argue about whether the century began in 2000 or 2001…)

The first week of 2000 saw an alarming jump in deaths in New York City. But experts at the time said that was understandable. Many people who were dying in 1999 willed themselves to live so they could see the year 2000. (The story’s on the right side of the page, half way down).

Assuming that’s true, it’s likely the opposite is also true – if somebody wants to die, he can probably will himself to do so.

So isn’t it at least possible that her husband’s wrong when he says Terri wants to die? Shouldn’t we at least consider that, if she wanted to die, she could have willed herself to death any time over the past 15 years?

And that because she hasn’t died, maybe that’s because she’s willing herself to live, just in case they ever find a way to restore normal brain functions? It’s worth considering before we shut off her feeding tube.

Always beware the passive voice. It's what people use when trying to avoid something. "Mistakes were made" probably means "I made mistakes, but I'm not willing to say so."

Mark McGwire was extremely passive in his congressional testimony.

As the Washington Post notes, "While McGwire acknowledged 'there has been a problem with steroid use in baseball,' he responded to questions about his own involvement by saying, 'I'm not here to discuss the past,' or, 'I'm here to be positive about this subject.'"

Well, the problem is, McGwire's retired. All he has to discuss is the past.

He claims he wants to help future players avoid steroid use. "McGwire volunteered to be a 'spokesman for Major League Baseball and the players association to convince young athletes to avoid dangerous drugs of all sorts.'" is how the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch puts it.

Why would he care what future players do? Is he afraid that his drug-fueled records will eventually be broken by somebody using newer, stronger and better steriods?

CNN has signed Larry King to a long-term deal that should keep him on the air at least until the end of the Bush administration. He’ll pull down some $7 million per year.

What a great investment of resources for the network that’s rapidly heading for third place among the “Big Three” news networks. Too bad they’re not going to spend any of it on, say, newsgathering.

The deal’s especially difficult to figure out since Larry hasn’t exactly been setting the ratings world on fire. But maybe the suits in Atlanta figure he’s the best they’ve got.

If that’s the case, CNN should be afraid. Very afraid.

The Associated Press presents an odd juxtaposition:

In a story about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Afghanistan, the writer points out that, "Minutes before Rice and Karzai appeared together, a roadside bombing killed at least five people and wounded 32 in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar about 280 miles away."

Now, why does the time frame matter? Whether the bomb went off a minute before Rice spoke or an hour after she left, it went off in a completely different city. So , really, BFD.

The president got it right. Although he paused a bit on it ...

E Pluribus Unum: Out of many, one.

You might recall that former presidential contender Al Gore once mangled it as "out of one, many."

An interesting Nicholas Kristof piece today.

He notes Hillary Clinton's recent moves to the right, and claims that "Senator Clinton, much more than most in her party, understands how the national Democratic Party needs to rebrand itself. She gets it."

He's on to something. One big problem liberals have is that so many of them are from the Michael Moore wing. To quote Al Gore from 1998, they're "so far left they've left America." Or at least, they've left most Americans behind.

Anyway, Kristof takes pains to show Hillary acting conservative, then blows away his entire thesis by saying that her changes don't matter, anyway. "Ambitious, high-achieving women are still a turnoff in many areas, particularly if they're liberal and feminist," he writes. Translation: The rubes would never go for Sen. Clinton.

Well, I suspect ambitious women are just as welcomed in our land of opportunity as ambitious men are. There's a simpler reason why Hillary won't be elected president in '08: Folks know her conversion to conservatism isn't for real.

Americans can spot a phony -- that's why the flip-flopper charges dogged John Kerry. People sensed that he was hiding something, and probably wouldn't govern as he claimed he would. Meanwhile, they appreciated President Bush's straightforwardness.

For a specific example of Clinton's unseriousness, look at abortion. Kristof lauds her for pointing out that it's a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women." Well, big deal. Probably 98 percent of the country knows that. The question is: Would she do anything to limit the number of abortions? Answer: No.

Recall her husband's soundbite line about abortion: "It should be safe, legal and rare." Well, by the time he was sworn in, the first two had been the law of the land for 20 years. So can we assume he "focused like a laser" on making abortion rare? Let's recall the initiatives Pres. Clinton undertook to limit abortions:

1)

2)

3)

I could go on, but you get the point. Americans sense the same thing is true with Hillary. She'll tell them what they want to hear, but they realize her heart's in a different place.

Oh, and finally, Kristof writes that liberal women aren't popular here or overseas. "Margaret Thatcher would never have been elected prime minister if she'd been in the Labor Party." Well, that's true. But that would have been because, if she'd been in the Labour party, she'd have been attempting to come to power in the late 1970s, when Britain's economy was in the tank because of policies enacted by: Britain's Labour Party.

Thatcher rose to power because she espoused conservative ideas. "There is no other way," I believe is the quote she frequently used. She was right. Liberalism isn't dead -- but it's dying.

This may be difficult to read. Maybe next year some Web-head can come up with an uploadable bracket? Please?

Anyway, it's Illinois-Gonzaga and Syracuse-Uconn in the Final Four. Illinois-Uconn for the championship. Uconn 75-70 in the title game. See you April 4.

First round winners:
Illinois

Nevada

Wis. Milw.

Boston Coll.

LSU

Arizona

Saint Mary’s

Ok St.


Wash

Pitt

Ga. Tech

Louisville

Texas Tech

Gonzaga

West Vir.

Wake Forest

North Carolina

Iowa St.

Villanova

Florida

Wisconsin


Kansas

NC State

Uconn


Duke

Miss. State

Mich. State

Syracuse

Utah

Oklahoma

Iowa

Kentucky

Second round winners:

Illinois

Bost. College

Arizona

OK State

Pitt.

Ga. Tech

Gonzaga

Wake

UNC

Villanova

Kansas

Uconn

Duke

Syracuse

OKlahoma

Iowa

Regionals:

Illinois

Arizona

Ga. Tech

Gonzaga

North Carolina


Uconn

Syracuse

Oklahoma

Final Four

Ill.-Gonzaga
Uconn-Syracuse

Anne Applebaum today does an excellent job taking on the silly idea that there ought to be a quota on the number of female columnists.

But here's an idea: Why not have papers just agree to remove the names and photos from their op-ed columnists for, say, one month.

There are plenty of columnists who've been coasting on name recognition for years. It would be interesting to see exactly which columns readers want to read when they have no idea if the author is male or female, young or old, black or white.

Might make for an interesting experiment. Force the columnists to come up with compelling ideas and express them well. And even open up opportunities for up-and-coming young columnists ... nudge, nudge.

Norway's Robert Sorlie is the Iditarod winner.

Says he "overcame insomnia." So, he was able to sleep on his sled?

I hope that, for safety's sake, he also used a hands-free cell phone.

Kerry deserves credit for spread of democracy, experts say

News Analysis

By Dana Milbank, Robin Wright, Bob Woodward, Mike Allen and David Von Drehle

These days it seems that everything is coming up roses.

Over the weekend, Syrian president Basher Assad agreed to begin withdrawing Syrian troops from Lebanon. One-third of its 15,000 troops and 5,000 intelligence agents will be pulled out by the end of March.

In Iraq, that country’s first-ever elected parliament is meeting.

Egypt’s president recently announced that he’d like to see more democracy, so he’ll allow competition in this fall’s presidential election.

All across the Middle East, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, the region seems to be moving swiftly toward freedom and democracy. Experts say the lion’s share of the credit should go to President John Kerry.

“During last year’s presidential campaign here in the U.S., Kerry made a point of remaining above the fray,” noted former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. “He didn’t politicize the Iraqi situation, instead focusing on the importance of holding elections there. We all knew all along that Iraq was ready to vote, that it would be the catalyst to a new Middle East.”

President Kerry’s Jan. 20 Inaugural Address is also cited as a critical moment. “We stand ready to fight with all those who favor freedom and democracy,” Kerry intoned from the steps of the Capitol, igniting a fire that continues to spread, unidentified administration sources say.

In addition, the new president has already taken steps to mend fences with Europe’s democracies. Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke completed a successful tour of European capitals last month and plans to visit Asia next. And Kerry himself has broken bread with European leaders, who often opposed the United States during the George W. Bush administration.

Indeed, Kerry’s beneficial effects were evident even before he took office. During the waning days of the Bush administration, president-elect Kerry let it be known through subordinates that he expected Russia to allow free and fair elections in Ukraine. Newly elected President Viktor Yushchenko thanked Kerry for that support by immediately withdrawing all Ukranian forces from Iraq, a policy that, Yushchenko claimed, was inspired by the policies former president Bush had advocated while on the campaign trail.

A representative of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation claimed that the changes in the region were all triggered by policies put into place by former President Bush. “It’s notable the President Kerry hasn’t actually changed much. I think he’s just benefiting from the policies Bush advocated,” Rich Tucker says.

Experts disagree. “Clearly everything changed on Nov. 2,” said Jamie Rubin, new undersecretary of state. “Winning the war in Iraq has made us safer, as John Kerry knows, and has often said. But it was Kerry’s brilliant plans that allowed us to move forward and remake the Middle East.” …

Howard Maffucci writes back to note he's not a member of a teachers union. So he's not a part of that problem. And he's a good sport.

"I violated one of my cardinal rules of living... never argue with someone who owns the ink... glad to see we have a similar agenda... to improve the education of children... we just go about it differently."

Indeed.

The bottom line, which I expect he'd agree with me on, is that every child ought to get a good education -- or at least have the chance to get one. And after all, this is America -- if we set our minds to something, we'll succeed.

Hopefully you've read my latest column.

A fellow named Howard Maffucci did, and he disagreed with me. As this is Arguments Yard, I think it's only fitting that I give him a chance to argue his case.

"As a working superintendent in a public school, I don't have much time to respond to the latest political rhetoric. Every once in while a column like yours appears, and I feel the need to politely respond.

"Yes, Rich, let's consider education policy. First, you do what many conservatives do and that's engage what I call “repetition-speak.” That is you repeat a lie over and over so that it becomes a false fact. For instance, the phrase "the failing public schools.” The public schools in aren't failing. In fact, they’re better than ever. Just ask the people who use them. I suggest you read the September 2004 edition of Phi Delta Kappan. Check out what people are saying about the public schools their children attend."

Hum. Well, I haven't read this particular article. Must have missed it on the local news stand. But I know that politicians here in D.C. support vouchers. They don't seem to think things are going so well in the public schools that they themselves are in charge of.

I'll also note that Milwaukee's voucher program is paying dividends by increasing graduation rates.

Not to get too personal here, but Howard should also subscribe to the listserve I'm on for parents with autistic children. Safe to say there are a good number of unhappy parents commenting on the public schools every day on that list.

Howard continues: "Now, for your “repetition-speak.” You write, "Virtually everyone agrees that our current education system isn't working." Nice try, but simply not true! Yes, Bill Gates does have his opinion about the quality of high school education. And he is entitled to it even though he isn't a teaching and learning expert. Unfortunately, Mr. Gates would be better served spending less time criticizing high schools and more time "fixing" his browser. If Internet Explorer is any example of the quality of Microsoft's products it’s no wonder its stock is stuck in such a narrow trading range. I use Mozilla regularly to get away from the perils of IE."

Well, talk about "repetition." Howard simply insists the current public schooling system is working without citing any evidence (unless you've got an old copy of Phi Delta Kappan sitting around on your coffee table). Then he launches into a diatribe against Bill Gates. Difficult to see how that relates to education, but let's deal with it.

The fact is, Gates is a successful businessman. His products have probably generated more jobs in this country than any company's except maybe GE's. Literally millions of people have jobs today because they know how to work on Microsoft software. So when he says children today aren't learning what they need to know, that carries a lot of water with me.

Howard concludes, "I could really be offended by some of the other “repetition-speak” in your column. But I don't have the time. I'm too busy helping deliver a wonderfully well-rounded education to the children in my district. And, I also understand your agenda and that of The Heritage Foundation.

When talking about public education, please try to tell the truth."

Ah, yes, the "agenda" of The Heritage Foundation. If wanting to ensure that every child gets a quality education is an agenda, consider me guilty of having an agenda. And consider me proud of that agenda.

As an educator, can we assume that my correspondent is a member of a teacher's union? If so, I wonder what its agenda is? Higher pay for educators, shorter hours, longer vacations, that sort of thing. Its agenda certainly doesn't include educating children.

And as for telling the truth, well, the truth hurts sometimes. As I say in my piece, liberals have NO ideas to improve education. Note that while Howard criticizes me, he doesn't bother to offer any ideas, either. In fact, he simply says, "things are great. No changes needed here."

Sadly, he could be stating the liberal position on Social Security or tax reform, too. That lack of ideas is the problem; accusing me of not telling the truth doesn't help solve it.

We on the right used to enjoy a good laugh every few years at film critic Pauline Kael's expense. She's the woman who, in 1972, famously wondered about President Nixon's landslide, "How could this happen? I don't know a single person who voted for him!" But lately I've been wondering if the growing political divide in this country is going to make all of us into Kaels.

In this country, the red states seem to be getting ever-redder, while the blue states seem to be getting ever bluer. As my cousin in Philadelphia told me, there was hardly a Bush sign to be seen there last November.

I also noted that during an October trip; to walk the streets of Philadelphia, one would assume that Kerry was going to win by about 90 percent to 10 percent. A Philadelphia newspaper certainly made that assumption.

Of course, this is mirrored in the heartland, as my friend Colin recently noted. I'll quote him liberally:

"At one time, bumper stickers were primarily the province of the activist or hippie left - "Question Authority", that kind of thing.

"Anyway, I'm wondering now if the pendulum has swung back to the other end. Maybe it's just because I live in a strong red state, but the vast majority of stuff on people's cars now is of a different ilk. Seldom do I see the left-wing-papered bumper. Now I'm more likely to see one that includes "Abortion stops a beating heart", three flags and two ribbon magnets."

The point here is that there are plenty of real people who've probably never met somebody who voted for "the other guy." That's a big problem. I think that feeds into all the conspiracy theories about the 2000 election; since so many people really don't know anyone who voted for Bush, they simply assume he must have lost.

Colin also raises an important point that the Mainstream Media won't like to hear:

"As an aside (or maybe a related note), I think I've decided that the culture war in our country started May 26, 1991. Prior to that, musical culture was defined by radio DJs, record store clerks, etc.

"On that date the Soundscan system was introduced, to measure accurately which albums were selling the most. And the big lesson was that Americans were buying a lot more country music and a lot more rap than anyone ever thought. Suddenly marketers and media found themselves scrambling to cater to these divergent groups and tastes, and things have never been the same since."

Indeed, and note that the two musical genres Colin cites -- rap and country -- tend to be staunchly liberal and staunchly conservative, respectively.

Hum. Everybody says blogs have changed everything. Could it be that we're already late, and that music has already changed everything? Maybe I'll invest in an iPod after all. Even if the dude in the ad looks as if he's been shot in the back...

This time of year is college basketball.

Yesterday I was able to attend the ACC Championship game at MCI Center in DC.

Now, of course Duke is always going to get all the calls from the refs. But there are some things that are simply not judgment calls.

For example, in the second half a Duke player ran the end-line before inbounding the ball after a foul. That's a travel. The refs missed it. Duke came down and hit a three. Talk about changing the momentum of a game.

A short time later, Duke called a time-out before it had gotten the ball across midcourt. Now, you have to get the ball across midcourt within ten seconds. Even if you call a time out, you still have only until the shot clock is at 25. On this play, Riddick had the ball and was a good two strides short of midcourt as the shot clock rolled to 24. Should have been a turnover. Wasn't called.

The refs can make all the judgment calls they like -- but if they don't know the rules and enforce them, what's the point of even playing the game? Let's just give the trophy to Duke and get all the suspense over with.

Yesterday's paper featured this photo.

I know I'm not allowed to think this way, but the moment I saw it I thought, "why do they have a woman escorting this vicious killer?" About a millisecond later I realized -- he must have stolen the gun from a female deputy on Friday. I hadn't been following the case, but of course that was correct.

So let's review: What we have is a 6' 1", 200 pound man. He was walking in civilian clothes, no handcuffs. I wouldn't have wanted to be escorting this dude. The lone deputy escorting him is a 5' (that's probably generous) woman.

Some will argue that "you can't stop every crazy guy." Well, you can't stop 'em if you don't try. Why did the Fulton County sheriff's department send a woman to do a man's job? And do it alone?

The answer is political correctness. We're not supposed to think there are any gender differences between men and women. When Harvard's president suggests there might indeed be differences, an MIT biology professor storms from the room. "I felt I was going to be sick," Nancy Hopkins announced.

I guess that disproves the theory that women are too emotional.

Of course, we've seen this in the military, as well. Training standards are lowered because women simply aren't physically capable of meeting the old, all-male standards. That hurts readiness and capability throughout the military, except in the Marines, where a bunch of jarheads continue to insist that men and women are, in fact, different.

Folks, there are differences between men and women. Any society that pretends there aren't isn't going to be too successful in the long-term.

Al-Jazeerah, in this case.

A writer named K Gajendra Singh gives the U.S. credit for sweeping changes around the globe. He writes we're promoting democracy in Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon, "after having organized it successfully in Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia." For some reason, Singh seems to think this is bad.

Anyway, Singh's best idea is actually a throw-away line. "Political analyst Yevgeni Volk , Director of the Heritage Foundation in Moscow, one of the leading US institutions which promote right wing US interests by organizing franchised revolutions..."he writes.

In fact, there's currently no way to "franchise" a revolution. But creating one might not be a bad idea.

Think about it: We could provide "Revolution in a box." Each kit comes with 10 flags (name your country), pre-printed signs "Down with (blank)," magic markers (so the natives can fill in the blank). Maybe some bottled water and granola bars to fuel freedom marches. Oh, and some of those Martha Stewart ponchos for the long winter nights on the front lines.

Let's see -- we could assemble kits for North Korea, Libya, Pakistan. The sky's the limit. I'd put China on this list, but we'll probably need their support, since the kits will no doubt be "Made in China." Although, maybe even the Chinese will eventually get tired of exporting freedom to others and demand it for themselves.

Hey, a guy can dream.

My friend Colin writes in to ask, "as a person of strong Christian faith, is it proper for you to hope someone, even one as evil as Osama, goes to hell, as opposed to hoping for him to repent for his sins prior to death?"

Fair question.

Since 9/11, I'll admit I've been wrestling with it. I know that as a Christian, I'm required to forgive. I know some Christians have. I'm trying.

But so far, I've failed. Just thinking about Osama makes my blood boil.

I also recall having discussions with folks in my church in the fall of 2001, when the U.S. was first moving into Afghanistan, an invasion I strongly favored. Their view was that, as Christians, we needed to stand for peace.

But I believed, and still believe, that the United States is not a Christian nation. (Certainly liberals would agree with me on this point!) While I'm required to forgive as a Christian, I'm not required to forgive as an American. In fact, if we want America to endure, we can't forgive our enemies; we need to defeat them.

So I guess the answer is complex. I hope the U.S. captures and punishes bin Laden. Meanwhile, I pray I'll find the spiritual strength to forgive him.

You hate to wish anyone ill.

Well, that's not true. I hope Osama bin Laden goes to Hell for what he's done. And the sooner the better.

Now it seems there might be some Muslims who share that sentiment. Spanish Muslims have put a price on Osama's head.

By the way, the world's most famous terrorist has been sort of quiet since he endorsed John Kerry for president last October. Here's a piece I wrote back then:

A Dead Give-Away

Wow -- talk about giving your position away to the enemy. It shouldn’t be difficult to track down Osama bin Laden now. After all, we can be pretty sure that, wherever he is, he’s on Terry McAuliffe’s blast e-mail list. He’s clearly been reading the Democratic talking points.

The world’s most wanted terrorist crawled out from under his rock on Oct. 29 to surprise those of us who’d assumed he was dead. It was even more surprising that, with what he said, he could have been introducing John Kerry at a campaign rally.

“Despite the fact that we are into the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still misleading you and hiding the real reason from you, which means that the reasons to repeat what happened remain,” bin Laden said.

It’s an article of faith with the Kerry campaign that the president is “misleading” us; they’ve been saying so for months. As USA Today put it on March 18, “Kerry and his aides talk about how Bush is ‘misleading’ the nation on issues ranging from the war in Iraq to Medicare costs. In one [recent] statement, Kerry’s spokeswoman used that word six times.”

In his taped address, bin Laden also repeated one of the favorite slanders of the Kerry campaign: That Bush was somehow negligent on 9/11. “It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone,” bin Laden said. “It appeared to him [Bush] that a little girl’s talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers.”

Clever. And lifted straight from the Massachusetts senator and his aides.

“Had I been reading to children and my top aide whispered in my ear that America was under attack, I would have told the kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States has something he needed to attend to,” Kerry announced to cheers from a throng of self-proclaimed journalists at the UNITY conference on Aug. 5

His spokesman repeated the charge a few weeks later. “John Kerry is not the type of leader who will sit and read ‘My Pet Goat’ to a group of second graders while America is under attack,” Stephanie Cutter said on Aug 20. Perhaps not. But he’s clearly the type of leader who will say whatever it takes to get elected.

Bin Laden, like Kerry-supporter Michael Moore before him, even managed to bring the Florida recount into his tape. “Bush the father did well in placing his sons as governors and did not forget to pass on the expertise in fraud from the leaders of the [Mideast] region to Florida to use it in critical moments,” he claimed.

Hum. Where have we heard about fraud in the Sunshine State recently? Oh, yes -- it was while John Kerry was campaigning in a black church on Oct. 10. “Never again will 1 million African Americans be denied their right to exercise the right to vote in the United States of America,” Kerry said, repeating the lie that blacks were somehow disenfranchised in Florida in 2000.

As Peter Kirsanow wrote in National Review on July 12, a “six-month investigation of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found absolutely no evidence of systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.” Kirsanow is a member of that commission, so he presumably would know more about fraud than Osama or Kerry would.

Bin Laden’s a murderer who’s finally taken “credit” for the 9/11 attacks. He’s a liar, who claims the United States brought those attacks on itself. “Any state that does not mess with our security, has naturally guaranteed its own security,” he claimed on the tape. Of course, that ignores the fact that we’d never done anything to bin Laden or Muslims. In fact, the U.S. is the best friend Islam has ever had. Americans fought for Muslims in Kosovo and died for them in Bosnia.

The fact is that bin Laden’s running scared, because we’re finally on the offensive against him and terrorism in general. When al Qaeda attacked two of our embassies in 1998, we responded weakly, lobbing a few missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan. When they attacked one of our warships in 2000, we didn’t respond at all. But now, under President Bush, we’re responding to 9/11.

Bin Laden knows he’ll eventually be either captured or killed, as the vast majority of his supporters have already been -- if we stay the course. That’s why bin Laden’s so afraid Bush will be re-elected.

You’d think -- or at least hope -- that Kerry would be embarrassed to have our sworn enemy cribbing from his press releases. Nope. He used the opportunity to lash out at the president once again. “I can run a more effective war on terror,” he intoned.

Sure you can, senator. That’s why you’ve just been endorsed by Public Enemy No. 1.

That the Left Wing was even still on the air? I find myself drawn to Alias, although I have no idea why...

Apparently Alan Alda is now playing a GOP senator. His campaign theme must be, "I hate myself and everything I stand for."

In a couple of recent columns, Michael Kinsley of the LA Times has done an excellent job of proving that, as an economist, he's a great columnist. He must be, as he's still got the job.

Consider his Feb. 27 piece, also carried in my hometown Washington Post. Kinsley wants to prove that housing values are about to collapse.

"In Washington, where house prices have doubled over five years, the Post says, 'Experts Predict Steady Gains in 2005, but More Moderate Than in Past Years.' But whatever 'experts' say, it is not the nature of price explosions to segue gracefully into more moderate growth. When today's run-ups are based on beliefs about tomorrow's run-ups, the self-feeding frenzy goes into reverse when those assumptions are dashed," he writes.

That sounds scary. Should I sell my home now and lock in my gain? Oh, but wait -- that's the big hole in Kinsley's theory: Then where would I live?

He's correct that most bubbles pop violently. When tech stocks plunged in 2000 it wasn't an orderly retreat; it was a flat-out collapse. When the Maryland Terps lose in the ACC tourney, their NCAA hopes won't "slip away," they'll have been "shattered."

But the housing market isn't like the commodities exchange. If we discovered tomorrow that soybeans were poisonous, the price of soybeans would almost immediately drop to zero, and everyone would start eating corn, or wheat or whatever else instead. But if we've all sold our homes, where are we gonna cook it?

Housing prices are fairly stable because everyone needs a place to live. The population is getting larger, yet the physical size of the country remains the same (unless we annex Canada. That's a column for a different day). So while housing prices probably won't double between now and 2010, they're likely to continue to rise.

Kinsley's also a bit "obsessed" (his word, not mine) with Social Security reform. You see, it simply can't work. Rob Reiner says so. Really.

This column contains any number of factual errors that undermine his thesis. But I'd like to focus on one interesting comment in particular. "But this new system as a whole — Social Security plus the private accounts — must somehow produce more money than Social Security alone, or there is no point," he writes.

Sadly, he's entirely missing the point, which is that today's Social Security doesn't produce any money. Not one red cent. It's merely an income redistribution program, where today's employees are taxed to provide benefits to today's retirees. Instead of being invested in a way that would allow it to actually earn something, the current surplus is "lent" to the government to spend as it wishes. It creates a future liability, but doesn't generate income to cover that liability. Welcome to the famed Social Security "trust fund."

Think about it this way: current Social Security is akin to sticking your money under the mattress. It's not gaining anything. Even if you moved it to a passbook savings account at 1.5 percent interest, you'd be doing better.

That's the secret to Personal Retirement Accounts. They'd allow today's workers to put a portion of their payroll taxes into accounts they'd control. This money would grow over decades, earning the returns Kinsley says are necessary.

That's why reform adds up over the long term.

And now there is one.

Now that Dan Rather has finally hung it up, Peter Jennings is the only of the "Big 3" anchors still in the chair. Before departing, Rather encouraged all of us to have "courage." Maybe that's because he realizes his post has become obsolete.

At one point, it probably made sense to have a single man be the face of CBS news, just as it may make sense to have a single CEO who's supposedly responsible for everything that goes on in a company. Because these folks supposedly have big responsibilities, they make the big money. Rather, for example, earns some $10 million per year.

But like a CEO, the network anchors are overpaid and underworked. Remember MCI's Bernie Ebbers? He recently told a court he had NO IDEA there was fraud happening on his watch. "I know what I don't know," Ebbers said. "I don't, to this day, know technology. I don't know finance and accounting." Well, Ebbers was happy to cash the big check, and with the big check comes big responsibility. If he didn't know about the fraud, he should have.

Similarly, Rather should have been held responsible for the fraudulent documents he peddled on 60 Minutes More back in September. Instead, he survived while three other CBS newsies walked the plank. For his $10 mil, Rather should have been gone, too.

If CBS is smart, they'll get rid of the high-paid anchor position and instead hire one of the newswomen from Fox News or MSNBC. Any of these women would probably be happy to work for, say, $500,000. CBS could spend the other $9.5 million on producers and foreign correspondents. We'd get better news coverage, and a more attractive presenter. A win-win.

Of course, if CBS insists on hiring another $10 million man -- I've got the perfect candidate.

It's usually worthwhile to read Robert Fisk in the London newspaper The Independent -- if only so you can enjoy the mental exercise of wondering: What's he talking about?

His column today (link requires registration -- sorry about that) is about the pro-Syrian protests in Lebanon yesterday. He offers this pearl of wisdom: "They came in their tens of thousands, Lebanese Shia Muslim families with babies in arms and children in front, walking past my Beirut home. They reminded me of the tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia Muslims who walked with their families to the polls in Iraq, despite the gunfire and the suicide bombers."

Hold on, judge (as Dr. Beeper might say). The group of people marching to say they'd prefer that their country remain under Syrian domination somehow reminds Fisk of a group of people who risked their very lives to vote?

That's odd, since in fact the message is completely different. The message of Jan. 30 was "we want to run our own country, please." The message of yesterday was "we want Syria to run our country, please."

Fisk concludes by asking, "If the Shia of Iraq can be painted as defenders of democracy, the Shias of Lebanon cannot be portrayed as the defenders of "terrorism". So what does Washington make of yesterday's extraordinary events in Beirut?"

Well, I'm not Washington, but I work here, so I'll take a whack at that: I think that the Hezbollah-sponsored protests yesterday are the last gasp of a dying ideology.

The protesters claimed they would do everything possible to keep their country from being dominated by Israel. Well, Israel pulled out of Lebanon five years ago. It was part of Ehud Barak's last-gasp attempt to hold on to power. Their country has been -- and remains --dominated by Syria. As the protesters surely realize, Lebanon won't be independent until the Syrians leave.

As to the idea that the United States might not like the government that arises in Lebanon, well, that's a risk I think we're willing to take. It's the risk that's inherent in a democracy.

I wouldn't have been too happy if John Kerry had been elected president -- although it would be fun to have seen the left attempt to give Kerry credit for the successful outcome of policies that he himself had opposed, like, say, the Iraq war. (I know, I know -- Kerry voted for that war before he voted against funding it).

But the bottom line here is that if there's a true democracy, the United States won't be in charge of it, and we shouldn't. The Lebanese people would be in charge, and should be. As the president put it in January, "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

A peaceful march like yesterday's is a critical milepost on the road to democratic reform, just as the peaceful anti-Syrian protests have been. We may not like the government that eventually comes to power in Lebanon, and we certainly won't agree with all of its decisions. But, if it's democratically elected and respects the rights of those who support it and those who oppose it, it'll be a huge step in the right direction.

All around the world, smart people are scratching their heads and wondering: "Was Bush right after all?"

Let's review: On Jan. 30, millions of Iraqis voted for the first time -- well -- ever. Since then, we've enjoyed a series of positive newspaper headlines. Sunni Muslims who boycotted the vote begged to be allowed to participate in the new government; the majority Shiites said "sure."
Egypt's president-for-life has decided he's tired of running unopposed, and he'd love to have some competition next time around.

The Palestinians have elected a moderate leader. The man who was the left's favorite terrorist for decades has died and become "Yasser who?"

Syria has decided -- after decades of occupation -- to pull its troops back from Lebanon.
Luckily, we still have the American left to tell us that, as good news erupts everywhere, it all has nothing to do with President George W. Bush or his policies.

"Recent positive democratic developments in the Middle East have prompted pundits to ask, 'Was President Bush right?' The clear, emphatic answer – on Iraq, on the war on terror, and on democracy promotion – is No," according to The Progress Report, a daily report from the mis-named Center for American Progress.

Right ... the president has done everything wrong.

It's just that, you see, somehow, in spite of his numerous errors, things are turning out OK. What a coincidence!

The bottom line here is that the Middle East was broken, long before Bush took office. Our misguided attempts to support "stability" by propping up dictators had failed, over and over again.

You can agree or disagree with the president. But at least he's got an idea, and he's doing something about it. If the CAP has a better idea (instead of its usual empty criticism), we'd love to hear it.

According to the old cliche, "May you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse. Assuming that's true, we're certainly cursed. It's difficult to imagine how things could get more interesting than they've been over the past -- say -- five years. And yet I have little doubt that things will in fact become more interesting in the weeks and months to come.

That's why I'm starting this blog. As a writer and a conservative, I'm always looking for ways to add my voice to the conversation. Hopefully everyone's been reading my weekly column. If not, well, you should be.

What I'm going to attempt to do here is add my views (rants?) on a daily basis, since I'm always stumbling across stories that are interesting, but aren't important enough to weave into a complete 750 word column. Whether you agree or disagree with me, I hope you'll drop me a line at comments@richtucker.net.

Enjoy.