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Politics : Those Damned Democrat's -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (875)	12/19/2002 11:30:19 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1604

Charles Krauthammer URL:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer.html Lott fiasco exposes conservative split newsandopinion.com \| The Lott fiasco has had a clarifying effect on contemporary conservatism. Its three major strains--paleo, traditional and neo--have been thrown into rather sharp relief. The paleoconservatives, the lean mean unreconstructed circa-1964 Goldwaterites, are for Lott. "One of the ugliest mob lynchings I've seen in my life in Washington,'' said Pat Buchanan with characteristic pugnacity and bad taste. Columnist Robert Novak cannot see what the whole fuss is about, other than a bid by the Congressional Black Caucus and the media to dictate to Republican wusses who their leadership should be. Then there are the traditional conservatives, whose major interests are low taxes, less government and general social quiescence. They came out against Lott, some rather strongly, for reasons of good government and party politics. "We have long considered Lott a clumsy and ineffective Republican leader,'' declared the editors of National Review, "and his controversial Strom Thurmond birthday remarks are a spectacular confirmation of that judgment.'' Therefore, this is a great opportunity to get rid of a guy who should have been deposed for other--non-ideological, non-racial--reasons long ago. Other traditional conservatives are less concerned with inside baseball and individual performance than with the positioning of the Republican Party in the American political landscape. The Lott issue revived the charge of Republican racism and thus jeopardized the party's drive for majority status. It not only forfeits any potential black support. It fatally alienates moderates who correctly view decency on race as a proxy for political decency in general. Lott must go, therefore, because he stands in the way of consolidating a Republican majority. These arguments are fine. They are also inadequate. Even if none of these claims were true--even if Lott were not a clumsy and ineffective leader, even if this did not affect Republican chances for winning future elections--Lott would have to go. It is not a matter of politics. It is a matter of principle. The principle is colorblindness, the bedrock idea enshrined in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that guides the thinking of the third strain of conservatism, neoconservatism. Neocons have been the most passionate about the Lott affair and most disturbed by its meaning. Why? Because many neoconservatives are former liberals. They supported civil rights when it meant equality between the races, and they turned against the civil rights establishment when it began insisting that some races should be more equal than others. Neoconservatives oppose affirmative action on grounds of colorblindness and in defense of the original vision of the civil rights movement: judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Having thus staked their ground for decades on colorblindness and a reverence for the civil rights movement as originally defined, neoconservatives were particularly appalled by Lott's endorsement of its antithesis, Thurmond segregationism. Not to denounce it--on grounds not of politics but of principle--would be to lose all moral standing on matters of race. Lott has subsequently provided even more evidence of his moral unfitness for leadership. In desperation to save himself, the clueless Lott has now groveled his way to supporting affirmative action. Two weeks ago he was pining for 1948 segregation; now, on BET, he embraces 2002 racial preferences--without even a pit stop at 1964 colorblindness! It's an amazing trajectory, and a disgraceful one. It can only happen to a man without a principled bone in his body on the issue of race. In his multiple confessions, Lott has practically pledged himself to enacting the modern liberal agenda of racial preferences. It is an ironic recapitulation of what happened 40 years ago. Out of shame and atonement for the racist past, liberals abandoned racial blindness and became apologists for racial preferences. Lott's newfound shame and atonement are as phony as it gets, but the result is the same: He, too, has gone from one kind of racialism to another. He set the indoor record, however, by doing it in a week. A man who has no use--let alone no feel--for colorblindness has no business being a leader of the conservative party. True, if Lott is ousted, he might resign from the Senate and allow his seat to go Democratic, thus jeopardizing Republican control of the Senate and undoing the great Republican electoral triumph of 2002. So be it. There is a principle at stake here. Better to lose the Senate than to lose your soul. New elections come around every two years. Souls are scarcer

To: calgal who wrote (875)	12/20/2002 2:28:41 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1604

Misjudging Gore's departure Tony Blankley URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/blankley.htm While Al Gore made his formal announcement that he would not run for president on CBS's "60 Minutes"Sunday evening, he effectively announced it the night before on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," when he appeared bare-chested in a hot tub with a decidedly unmasculine version of a Joe Lieberman doppleganger. Although funny, that appearance was several magnitudes less presidential than Bill Clinton playing a saxophone with sunglasses back in the 1992 election cycle. Actually, Mr. Gore showed more talent as a light comedian through out the show than he has as a politician over the last three years. He certainly acted more convincingly than Leslie Stahl on CBS the next evening, pretending to be surprised by Mr. Gore's announcement. (Mr. Gore said he informed "60 Minutes" of the decision the day before the interview.) An even better acting job was carried out by Washington's pundits and network newsreaders the next day. Suddenly, the error-prone politician became Saint Albert. Leading commentators wrote: "A good and generous thing that former vice president Al Gore did for his party." "Gore becomes a stronger and more important Democratic spokesmen for not running." While none of us, nor even the non-candidate himself, may be aware of all the psychological factors that went into such a career-ending decision, on the surface there were three obvious reasons: Tipper didn't want him to run again, DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe was squeezing potential Gore contributors not to pony up the dollars for Mr. Gore, and his recent flurry of media activity had not gained him much media respect. Contrary to some expectations, this is pretty much the last we will see of Mr. Gore. Initially, his policy speeches will be cited briefly in political potpourri columns. After a few months, only obscure and rabid Internet sites will bother to report his considered opinions. Within six months, even pathological Gore haters will succumb to the boredom of reporting non-news stories. Those of us who have kicked him around over the last 10 years will miss him. Even second-rate pundits and political opponents could land a few blows on him. He was a slow moving 6-foot-4-inch human bull's eye wandering through the murderer's row of Washington politics and journalism. Elderly wildebeests on the African savanna provided more evasive targets. But there was something endearingly authentic about his inauthentic efforts to express his newly authentic selves. But if he couldn't add anything to the Democratic presidential campaign, he surely subtracted a lot. He was the only broadly known, broadly supported Democrat in the field. Moreover, as a former vice president he (along with obscure Vermont Gov. Howard Dean) held the only offices from which a presidency has sprung in the last 40 years. The last sitting senator to get elected president was Jack Kennedy in 1960. Since then, only sitting presidents, sitting or former vice presidents or sitting or former governors have gained the prize. Indeed, since 1960, out of 20 men who have gained the Democratic and Republican nominations, only three have been sitting senators — Barry Goldwater, George McGovern and Bob Dole. And they all lost by historic landslides (Mr. Goldwater and Mr. McGovern got less than 40 percent of the vote. Mr. Dole eked out 40.8 percent.) While history is not destiny, it suggests that a sitting senator or congressman is poorly positioned to ride in on a white horse and make the inevitably winning promise to "fix the mess in Washington." Executives such as presidents, vice presidents and governors seem to be able to be seen to stand above the petty politics of legislators. Ronald Reagan was even able to get re-elected, still running against the Washington over which he governed. And yet, with the exception of the obscure, ultra-liberal Gov. Dean, all the remaining Democratic hopefuls are legislators — either senators or soon to be former minority leader Dick Gephardt. White House politicos may be bragging today that they will miss Mr. Gore because they knew how to beat him. But over half the country has already voted for Mr. Gore once. If things don't go too well for President Bush in the next 18 months, Mr. Gore well might have been the only candidate in the Democratic field with the perceived experience, stature and national familiarity to take advantage of such a contingency. Democratic professionals in Washington may be expressing genuine relief that Mr. Gore has withdrawn from the race. But both parties' pros may have it wrong. I wonder whether they will still have those sentiments in the fall of 2004, when the Democrats are saddled with a liberal, non-southern Senator who has been sullied by two more years of hard and heavy legislative logrolling — the only national Democratic heavyweight having left the ring. This is a bigger event than it is currently reckoned. Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. His syndicated column appears on Wednesdays. E-mail: tblankley@washingtontimes.com.

To: calgal who wrote (875)	12/21/2002 10:57:45 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1604

Democrats warn Govt to stay out of Iraqi war URL:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2002/12/item20021222002302_1.htm The Australian Democrats are urging Australia to stay out of any war on Iraq, saying we have become too closely tied to the United States. Democrats leader and defence spokesman Andrew Bartlett says the Australian Government should concentrate its military resources closer to home. Senator Bartlett says Prime Minister John Howard's decision not to allow a parliamentary vote before any decision on sending troops was arrogant. He says Australia could be at war before Parliament sits again in February. "Certainly I think there's a lot of concern across the community about (it) becoming more imminent but also that Australia's involvement in it is basically being dictated by the decision that the United States Government is going to make," he said. Senator Bartlett says Australia's resources are needed to ensure security closer to home. "Any resources in the military or defence or intelligence arena should be focused in our own area, where the threat is obviously very real and very direct," he said. "We also believe if there's going to be any form of commitment of Australian troops that it should be considered and debated by the Parliament as a whole before any decision is made." Intelligence The United States is to provide UN weapons inspectors with intelligence on Iraqi weapons. US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the information-sharing plan on Thursday. "With respect to providing them additional forms of support, that would make the inspection effort perhaps more targeted and effective," Mr Powell said. "We are prepared to start doing that," he said. "That process has started," a US government official told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity. Mr Powell's decision was an about-face on previous US secrecy, which had been repeatedly criticised by chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix. "The most important thing that governments like the US or the UK could give us would be to tell us the sites where they are convinced that they keep some weapons of mass destruction," Dr Blix said in an interview with the BBC on Friday. "This is what we want to have." The United States and Britain, the two countries pushing most strongly for a hard line towards Iraq, say Baghdad is in "material breach" of the latest UN disarmament resolution, a term widely interpreted as a pretext for war. "Should we ever use the military, it will be the full force and might of the United States military, as well as others joining with us, and the idea will be to disarm (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein," Mr Bush said in an interview in the latest edition of US News and World Report. "And obviously that would include, if (Saddam) chooses not to disarm, it would include his removal," he said. Saddam has denied that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction. Asked in the BBC interview on Friday about what access his inspectors had been given to US and British intelligence, Dr Blix said: "Not very much, not yet. I hope we will and now that we are in full operation. I hope it will come." "They have the methods to listen to telephone conversations, they have spies, satellites ... they have a lot of sources which we don't have." Washington has rebuffed such criticisms for weeks, saying its first priority was to protect its sources and secondly it wanted time to thoroughly evaluate Iraq's arms declaration handed to the United Nations two weeks ago. "We won't have any sources and methods if, around the world, people think the United States is willing to just share sources and methods everywhere," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Friday. Evidence While the United States and Britain have repeatedly claimed to have evidence of Iraqi programs to build weapons of mass destruction, more than four weeks of arms inspections in Iraq have turned up little hard evidence. Washington's about-face comes as it is trying to garner international opinion against Iraq and toward a military strike to forcibly remove these weapons of mass destruction. US media reported that intelligence could be transmitted to the United Nations as early as this weekend, as the international organisation has beefed up its internal security to avoid security breaches. According to The New York Times, Washington will share mostly satellite pictures of locales where US intelligence believes Iraq has been developing chemical and biological weapons taken by spy satellites. The photos are more detailed and of a higher quality of those Washington has already shared, an official told the daily on the condition of anonymity, adding that information was to be sent to both the UN weapons inspectors in New York and the nuclear teams based out of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Washington seems to have learned a lesson from the inspections following the 1991 Gulf War. The inspections were plagued by a series of leaks, from which, Washington said, Iraq could have benefited. "The sharing will happen," one official told The Washington Post. "But (intelligence officials) just don't want to screw up what (assets) they have there."