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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PROLIFE who wrote (2675)	6/24/2003 11:03:12 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

Presidential atmospherics By Jonathan V. Last URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030623-084136-6751r.htm You may be shocked at how little you know about Air Force One, the world's most famous plane. But don't despair. One needn't get a hefty treatment of the subject. What is needed are more books like Kenneth T. Walsh's "Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes." While Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to travel abroad, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first president to fly. On Jan. 11, 1943, he boarded a Pan Am Dixie Clipper called the Flying Boat and flew to a meeting with Winston Churchill in Casablanca. The meeting and the flight were secret because the military planners didn't want the Axis powers to know that the president was traveling, and thus vulnerable. Wary of air travel, FDR would only fly twice more during his presidency. Harry Truman's plane was a DC-6 named the Independence and Dwight Eisenhower flew a Lockheed Constellation called Columbine II. But after a call-sign mix-up, Ike's pilot, Bill Draper, decided to call it Air Force One. That name stuck, even when Eisenhower changed planes in 1959 and adopted a Boeing 707. This workhorse jet, with its 16-member crew and 50-passenger capacity, became the symbol of what we now think of when we picture Air Force One. That 707 flew, with some internal modifications, for eight presidents. Then in 1985 Ronald Reagan ordered a new plane, and the engineers at Boeing went to work designing the 747-200B. It took five years and some $660 million to get the new plane off the assembly line, and only two were made. On Sept. 6, 1990, the 28000 (the designation of the plane's tail number) made its inaugural flight; its sister jet, the 29000, was ready a few months later. The new Air Force One — which is still in service today — is a marvel. With a cruising speed of 600 miles per hour and a range of 9,600 miles, it can go non-stop from Washington, D.C. to Tokyo. It has a crew of 26 and can accommodate 76 passengers. Mr. Walsh gives readers every bit of technical information they could reasonably ask for (he prudently avoids getting into the specifics of the plane's air-defense countermeasures), but what distinguishes his book is that while half of it is Jane's, the other half is a readable, genial, oral history of how the plane was used and the men who used it. There is perhaps no clearer example of how America has changed than the example Mr. Walsh gives of Harry Truman's escapades. Mr. Truman gave the pilots a standing order to inform him whenever they crossed into Ohio airspace so that the president could use the facilities in honor of his nemesis Robert Taft. He also offers this account of May 19, 1946: "The president decided suddenly to fly off to visit his mother. It was a Sunday and he managed to escape the White House with only two Secret Service agents and his flight crew in tow — itself something of a minor miracle. "Then, as they took off, Truman remembered that his wife, Bess, and daughter, Margaret, were supposed to be on the roof of the White House watching a local air show. 'Could we dive on them?' he asked the pilot. '. . . like a jet fighter? I've always wanted to try something like that.' " And so it came to pass that the president's plane buzzed the White House. Other presidents were less whimsical. Lyndon Johnson, obsessed with power and control, demanded magnifying mirrors in his bathroom and had a pneumatic chair installed in the plane's conference room so that he could always be the tallest man at the table. As Mr. Walsh maps out the evolution of the office through the lens of the presidential plane, he notes how some things do not change. When the president of the United States flies, he goes to Andrews Air Force Base, where his plane is waiting with its engines revving. He walks up a flight of steps to the hatch and then turns and waves. You've seen it 100 times, but what you probably don't know is that he always waves — even on those rare occasions when no one is there to watch him. Jonathan V. Last is an online editor of the Weekly Standard.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (2675)	6/24/2003 11:05:25 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10965

Cal Thomas The battle for the Constitution newsandopinion.com \| Gregory Peck, who died earlier this month, had many roles for which he will long be remembered. The one that may have had the most influence on this country was the "voice-over" he provided in 1987 for a TV commercial falsely characterizing Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork as favoring poll taxes and literacy tests, among other horrors. The same liberal groups that "Borked" Bork are preparing a campaign against President Bush's nominee, should one or more justices retire. Sens. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) have called on President Bush to "consult " with them to avoid a "divisive confirmation fight." What this nearly 40-year battle has been about is not just specific issues but the Constitution itself. Did the Founders know what they were doing when they wrote the greatest document ever penned by human hands that organized self-government for individuals, based on certain immutable principles, or were they merely creating an outline, the rest of which could be filled in as it pleased the courts? The answer to that question will determine the future of our country. We cannot afford to continue to get it wrong. Since he was denied a seat on the court for which he was uniquely qualified, Robert Bork has produced a body of work that makes the case for returning to the "original intent" and understanding of the Constitution. He has consistently begged Americans to consider the history of the document and not how it has been "spun" by judges and advocacy groups into meaning what they want it to mean. In a compelling essay, Bork again has taken on the argument for a "living Constitution" advanced by liberals who have used the courts, instead of the legislatures, to enact an agenda that would never have been embraced by elected officials for fear of voter backlash. Writing in the publication The New Criterion (Nov. 21, 2002), Bork reviewed New York attorney Martin Garbus' book, "Courting Disaster: The Supreme Court and the Unmaking of American Law." Right (or in his case Left) from the start, Garbus claims the Supreme Court has been taken over by right-wingers (David Souter? Anthony Kennedy? Sandra Day O'Connor?). He sets up the ideological preview of coming liberal attractions that will demand Bush be stopped from putting "extremist " judges on the court. None of Garbus' assertions are true, but this is the "reality" liberals will create, and much of the media will willingly follow their lead. The real issue, as Bork writes, is not naming "ultra-right ideologues" (Garbus' phrase), but whether "(Bush) will try to appoint justices and judges who interpret laws according to the understanding of the principles of those laws when they were enacted." This is an important point, because if laws are to be made by the courts, what is the purpose of Congress? Are we to be guided by the idea enunciated in 1803 at the dawn of our nation by Chief Justice John Marshall: "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws and not men"? Constitutional attorney John Whitehead has written, "This meant that even the state, its agencies and its officials were under the law, not above it." The opposite (and currently prevailing) view of the Constitution is the judicial philosophy of Justice Felix Frankfurter. Speaking of Supreme Court justices, Frankfurter said, "It is they who speak and not the Constitution." That view was echoed in a 1958 Supreme Court decision (Cooper vs. Aaron): "Article VI of the Constitution makes the Constitution the 'supreme law of the land' .. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is .. It follows that the interpretation of the (Constitution) enunciated by this Court . is the supreme law of the land .." When the Constitution is not the supreme law, the Supreme Court will inevitably come to see itself as the supreme law. Charles Evans Hughes, who became chief justice in 1930, remarked earlier: "The Constitution is what the judges say it is." President Bush needs to give the public a brief history lesson as he nominates federal judges, and especially Supreme Court justices, if he is to counter the disinformation campaign now being prepared by those who would discard the Constitution and make up the law as it suits them.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (2675)	6/24/2003 11:11:12 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

Public policy light weights URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030623-084135-3490r.htm Watching the Democratic presidential candidates as they try to fashion a coherent critique of President Bush's policies can be a painful process these days. Take, for example, Sen. John Kerry, who is seeking to manufacture a case that President Bush misled the American people about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). "He misled every one of us," Mr. Kerry said in a campaign speech last week. "That's one reason why I am running to be president...because if he lied, he lied to me personally." Asked about Mr. Kerry's charge on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia Democrat, who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, strongly suggested that his Massachusetts colleague's remarks were not supported by the facts. "The senator is running for president," Mr. Rockefeller replied when asked about Mr. Kerry's attack on Mr. Bush. "I make a distinction between people who are running for president and therefore need to capture attention, and what we on the Intelligence Committee have to do, which is to get the facts." Also, during an appearance that same day on NBC's "Meet the Press," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (yet another harsh critic of Mr. Bush's approach toward Iraq), ran into a buzzsaw of skeptical questioning from moderator Tim Russert. Mr. Russert quoted Rep. Martin Frost, Texas Democrat, who likened Mr. Dean's stance on national security issues to that of 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, who lost 49 states. In his reply, Mr. Dean said without explanation that Mr. Bush was exercising American power in a way that showed "contempt" for other nations, and that the president's policies could somehow transform this country into a "secondary military power." Mr. Russert also noted that in April, Mr. Dean, referring to the fall of Saddam Hussein, stated that "I suppose that's a good thing." "Suppose?," an incredulous Mr. Russert demanded. "The Iraqi people are not better off without Saddam Hussein?" Mr. Dean replied with several mini-filibusters suggesting that Mr. Bush told falsehoods about Iraqi WMDs. But, when Mr. Russert pressed Mr. Dean — who criticized the administration for failing to send enough troops to police Iraq and Afghanistan following the military victories there — about how many American soldiers were already in the region, it turned out that Mr. Dean didn't know the number. Asked how many troops the United States has on active duty, the former Vermont governor protested: "I don't know the exact number, and I don't think I need to know that in order to run in the Democratic Party primary." Expecting him to know such things, Mr. Dean complained, is "like asking me who the ambassador to Rwanda is." And that was hardly Mr. Dean's lone misstep: The candidate also displayed ignorance of the fiscal crisis facing Social Security, asserting that the trust fund would not run into trouble until 2040 (after many of the Baby Boomers will be dead). In truth, most actual studies suggest that the crisis will be upon us by 2020 at the latest. Running for president is a serious business. Candidates for the highest office in the land show disdain for the voters when they fail to develop substantive knowledge of even the major issues and attempt to get by with one-liners and rehashed talking points that are factually incorrect. If Messrs. Kerry and Dean's attacks on Mr. Bush are representative of the Democratic Party's approach to next year's presidential campaign, the party is in serious trouble.