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

To: calgal who wrote (3035)	7/5/2003 10:01:34 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

GOP warns against 'praying for failure' By Charles Hurt THE WASHINGTON TIMES URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030705-120836-8764r.htm Republicans say Democrats are running a substantial political risk by preaching doom and gloom about the economy and President Bush's record on job growth. "They're praying for failure," said Don Stewart, spokesman for Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Senate Budget Committee. "Pessimism and failure usually don't go over very well." With the news of rising unemployment last week, every major Democratic official, including most of the Democrats running for president, blasted Mr. Bush. Unemployment reached a nine-year high of 6.4 percent last quarter. "This Fourth of July, 9.4 million unemployed Americans don't need to see any more political fireworks from the administration. They need to see real job creation," said Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called the current economy the "perfect storm," and House Democrats called it the "worst record since Herbert Hoover," the president best known for preceding the Great Depression. Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat and White House aspirant, issued a release saying, "The only person in this country who deserves to be laid off is George W. Bush." But several conservatives said Democrats run a risk by spinning too much rhetoric out of bad news. Jonathan Collegio of Americans for Tax Reform warned against reading too much into the just-released unemployment figures. Unemployment rates usually lag behind other indicators such as the stock market, which has been rising recently, he said. Of the stock market gains, Mr. Collegio said, "A lot of that has to do with the president's tax cut on dividends and capital gains." Democrats say, however, that unemployment is endangering the economy's effort to rebound and that their concern is far more than political rhetoric. "No president since Hoover has actually lost jobs over the course of a four-year term," according to a report released by Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. "In order to restore sufficient jobs to the American economy to avoid that distinction, the Bush administration will have to add an average of 151,000 jobs per month between now and October 2004. That would be a "stark reversal from the average monthly job loss of 83,000" since Mr. Bush took office, the Democrats say. Many Democrats compare Mr. Bush's situation today to that of his father when he lost re-election in 1992 during a poor economy after enjoying dizzying popularity because of the first Persian Gulf war victory. But, Mr. Collegio said, there are a number of differences. "In the last election, 70 percent of voters owned stock," he said, a considerable increase from 1992. That makes voters much more sophisticated about the economy and its natural fluctuations. In addition, he said, most economists agree that Mr. Bush inherited a faltering economy. "If a president takes over a recession two months into his presidency, these voters are going to see through all the doom and gloom." Democrats "are walking down a platform of pessimism, hoping voters are not as sophisticated as they are," Mr. Collegio said. "And they're crossing their fingers that the economy stays bad for the next year and a half, which is a kind of sick and twisted way for politics to work."

To: calgal who wrote (3035)	7/5/2003 10:07:51 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Fourth of July in different stripes By Suzanne Fields Americans have thrived in the melting pot. We haven't been a pure-bred strain since Capt. John Smith married Pocahontas. Intermarriage and immigration make us a lumpy and colorful stew. We frequently askeachother about our origins. In the bad old days of segregation, originsabetted racism. Identification with the "old country" was a tool for discrimination, too. Today, curiosity about roots is rarely sought to elicit prejudice, but used (and now validated by the Supreme Court) to confer victimhood. That's too bad. Most Americans are a tolerant lot. We take pride in our mixed heritage. We celebrate all of us on the Fourth of July. While our original independence meant the English here separated from the English over there, a lot of the ocean blue has passed under a lot of ships since then. My bloodlines, like most of the people I know, are decidedly mixed. My father was born in Russia, my mother in Canada. Four grandparents came from Russia, Poland and Lithuania. My three children were born in Washington. Our two grandsons have a Chilean father who was raised a Catholic by a mother whose roots go back to Spain before the Jews were evicted in 1492. His father was French and English. The boys can probably appeal to "diversity" on the basis of their "Hispanic" father when they are old enough to apply to college. That's an irony Sandra Day O'Connor might appreciate. My grandparents, who rarely talked about the "old country" because the memories were too painful, had suffered through pogroms and ghettos, anti-Semitic laws and state-supported prejudice. They were poor and unlettered but they never felt like victims here. My father said, "Pop wasn't the smartest man in the world, but he was smart enough not to miss the boat to America." When I was growing up I went to segregated schools, ate in segregated restaurants and watched movies in segregated theaters. After a summer at camp, where I spent all day in the sun, my skin turned a dark tan and my friends joked that I wouldn't be admitted to the Sheridan Theater on Georgia Avenue. I met the first black person who wasn't a handyman or a maid when I went off to the University of Wisconsin. My grandsons attend a charter school where the children of different colors never notice the color of skin (But they do notice that the boys have red hair). My story is neither typical nor unusual, but American to the core. As we celebrate the 227th anniversary of our independence, it testifies to what's wonderful about America — our ability to rectify what was awful (slavery and segregation), absorbing immigrants who endured prejudice in other lands, while working to make America better. Tiger Woods, the championship golfer, and Erika Harold, the reigning Miss America, boast of the mix of minorities in their heritage. Tiger once described himself as "Cablinasian," a blend of Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian. Miss America's mother traces her ancestry to black slaves and her great-great grandparents were Choctaw and Cherokee. Her father tells of traces of Greek, German, Welsh and English forbears. She jokes that her background is so mixed that she checked the box for "other" on her college applications. But increasing numbers of college students refuse to reveal any information about racial and ethnic backgrounds on their application forms. Almost 10 percent of the applicants at the University of California at Berkeley last year left the space blank, up from 6 percent a decade ago. Nearly 18 percent of those who took SAT exams last year also left the space blank, up from 10 percent in 1997. Caucasians and Asians are especially suspicious that their ethnicity will be held against them. Ward Connerly, the black California businessman who works to dismantle affirmative action quota programs, wants states and local governments to ban the collection of all data relating to race and ethnicity for schools, jobs and government contracts. He's sponsoring the "Racial Privacy Initiative" in California. If approved, such initiatives could spread to other states and hinder affirmative action (It could also deprive us of valuable information about ourselves). Americans have worked hard, if imperfectly, to treat all men and women as equal. The wrongs of the past occurred when we did not live up to our democratic ideals. It's sad that the Supreme Court has given its imprimatur to an undemocratic process falsely labeled "diversity." In the words of black writer Shelby Steele: "We use the old sin to correct its own damage." That's not what the Fourth of July should celebrate. URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030702-094318-5376r.htm

To: calgal who wrote (3035)	7/5/2003 10:16:17 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

Chief Moose A good jury can be hard to find. At least that's the opinion of sniper suspect John Muhammad's lawyers, who want to temporarily block a book about the shootings by former Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose. It's their contention that the opinions of jurors could be tainted by information in the chief's memoirs. The book is scheduled to be released Sept. 15; Mr. Muhammad's trial begins Oct. 14. We do not intend on joining the mob that is trying to strongarm a committed public servant into giving up his time in the spotlight. The events surrounding Chief Moose's book controversy are rather straightforward. He had originally planned to write it while still in charge of the suburban Maryland police force. The usual — and legitimate — howls about conflict-of-interest followed, and a Montgomery County ethics panel ruled that the chief could not do the book and continue to undertake his official duties at the same time. While there was no specific clause in his contract pertaining to book deals, he was required to obtain permission for outside income from the panel. The problem was solved when Chief Moose resigned, though media attention still made his use of official information for personal profit as problematic. In the meantime, the county has tried to guarantee itself a cut of the eventual profits. Much of this opposition comes off as mere greed or jealousy. The charge that Chief Moose might leak sensitive information to generate attention for a book tour is purely speculative. Besides, no one knows if the book will even contain any secrets. We certainly do not condone any kind of judicial review to determine whether a book can be published or not. The manhunt across the region was so public that it is unlikely much has been left uncovered. It's also a joke for Mr. Muhammad's legal team to blame a cop for the media frenzy that is sure to surround the trial. This excitement will be caused by the randomness of innocents getting gunned down on the highway, not a book. It is true that Chief Moose was not a successful police chief, particularly under fire. The capture of the two suspects resulted from their own phone calls to authorities, and not the Moose investigation. His decision to wait 24 hours to announce the profiles of the suspects is also questionable, especially after he had erroneously trumpeted that the snipers were white and distracted the search with incorrect information about a white van. But these issues have nothing to do with his right to write his memoirs, which could help him explain his well-publicized failures. Bestsellers occur when the right topic hits the shelves at the right time. Chief Moose has the right to test the market. Public servants writing memoirs about their official duties are nothing new. Public servants should use good judgment and appeal to their consciences when going public with their experiences, but public pressure should not bar publication of a work which the law allows. URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030704-090213-7268r.htm

To: calgal who wrote (3035)	7/5/2003 10:17:28 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10965

Hill probers investigate U.S. Muslim extremists By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES Congressional investigators have targeted extremist Muslims in America, those described as members of the Wahhabi movement who have become increasingly influential throughout the United States — buoyed by foreign state-sponsored doctrines and a wellspring of cash used to recruit and train international terrorists. "The extremist ideology is Wahhabism, a major force behind terrorist groups like al Qaeda," said Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, whose Senate Judiciary subcommittee on technology, terrorism and government information held recent hearings on the terrorist threat in the United States. "It is widely recognized that all 19 of the [September 11] suicide pilots ... were Wahhabi followers," he said. "Since then, many questions have been asked about the role in that day's terrible events and in other challenges we face in the war against terror of Saudi Arabia and its official sect, a separatist, exclusionary and violent form of Islam known as Wahhabism." Mr. Kyl noted that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi subjects, adding that Wahhabism is the source of the "overwhelming majority of terrorist atrocities in today's world." The congressional probe, according to Capitol Hill sources, has focused on unpublished U.S. intelligence information stating that Wahhabi agents from Saudi Arabia have been responsible for terrorist attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. It also has focused on government documents showing that the Wahhabi movement has stepped up its efforts to penetrate the United States. Federal law enforcement authorities believe cash from Saudi Arabia has been a significant source of funding for global terrorism, particularly the al Qaeda network founded by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire. The authorities also said al Qaeda "sleeper cells" working in the United States have begun recruiting operatives who might be harder to detect in an effort to defeat the country's heightened state of security since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Potential operatives include U.S. citizens with valid passports, they said. Part of the effort, the authorities said, also has targeted black Muslims in this country believed to be sympathetic to Islamic extremism — using mosques, prisons and universities throughout the United States. The Wahhabi movement seeks to advance a global agenda of holy war, or jihad, and to impose Wahhabism on the international Islamic community, the authorities said. They also noted that the movement continues to seek a U.S. base to fund recruitment and tactical support of terror operations in this country and overseas. Mr. Kyl noted during a recent hearing that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a former top al Qaeda lieutenant captured in Pakistan last March, had "reached deep into the heartland," lining up agents in Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; and Peoria, Ill. Authorities believe that terrorists operating in this country include groups committed to international jihad and that they have demonstrated a keen ability to withstand numerous and significant setbacks. Since the September 11 attacks, they said, al Qaeda terrorists have been involved in at least a dozen terrorist attacks around the world directed against the United States and its allies. "To examine the role of Wahhabism and terrorism is not to label all Muslims as extremists. Indeed, I want to make this point very, very clear," Mr. Kyl said. "Analyzing Wahhabism means identifying the extreme element that, although enjoying immense political and financial resources thanks to support by a sector of the Saudi state, seeks to globally hijack Islam, one of the world's three great Abrahamic faiths. "It means understanding who our worst enemies are and how we can support the majority of the world's Muslims, ordinary, normal people who desire to live in a safe, secure and stable environment in their own effort to defeat terror," he said. "In the end, Islamist terror must be defeated to a significant extent within Islam, by Muslims themselves." Mr. Kyl noted that without oil and the creation of the Saudi Kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained "a lunatic fringe." The ruling House of Saud in Riyaddh belongs to the Wahabbi clan. Since the September 11 attacks, the authorities said the FBI has investigated more than 4,000 terrorist threats to the United States and that the number of active FBI investigations and the potential terrorist activity has quadrupled. More than 35 potential terrorist incidents inside the United States have been disrupted by the FBI since the attacks through preventive actions, arrests, the seizure of funds and disruption of terrorist recruiting and training efforts, they said. URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030705-120848-4014r.htm