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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: haqihana who wrote (745499)	7/17/2006 1:05:16 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

William F. Buckley...old line conservative...interesting. __________________ ONE FLAG TOO HIGH By William F. Buckley Jr. Fri Jul 14, 8:04 PM ET President Bush is a victim of his idealistic certitudes. These have their place. It is hard to imagine how Great Britain would have survived the year 1942 without Churchill's apocalyptic reassurances, never mind that when they were spoken, they must have been the cause of laughter in the Nazi high command, which brought them in via radio antennas sitting on top of the Eiffel Tower. The problem has been that without Bush's high calls for global political reform, the American public would have gone along only reluctantly with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And enthusiasm for these wars is now flagging because we have assured ourselves that we aren't there to choke off nuclear arms development. We are there to save the locals from the kind of government they would have if left to their own resources. We are struggling hard, but not hard enough, to reanimate our far-flung missions abroad. The distortions are by no means exclusively the result of Republican shortsightedness. We are acting out, in Iraq and Afghanistan, ideologies that trace back to the universalization of the American creed. We pronounced, in the Declaration of Independence, ideals we conceived of as universally appealing, but which no one had the least intention of exporting beyond the boundaries of the newly independent country. All of that came much much later, becoming full-blown U.S. policy only in the reign of Woodrow Wilson, whose espousal of ideological diplomacy caused desperate problems for himself, his administration and the League of Nations. Missions for world reform came back in the late '30s, provoked by the universalist aims of Soviet communism and, though more finite in its appetites, the far reaches of the Nazis' Third Reich. The rhetoric of the Four Freedoms and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was there to justify international activity on the part of the United States: the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the hundred meetings of native idealists who reasoned, with great appeal, that the liberties we would not ourselves do without were written in a universal idiom, leaving us as chief agents of evangelism. More has happened than merely the difficulties we are having in Iraq and the reappearance of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Critics of our failed policies there can come up with plausible excuses. There is the factor of a lack of manpower, and of the dissipation of unified activity because of local separatisms. No one can doubt that the divisions among Kurds and Shia and Sunnis are responsible for much that is awry, and Peter Galbraith's proposal that Iraq be divided immediately into three sovereign political entities is attractive. But what has not happened is any deep growth of democratic roots, let alone branches and leaves -- bills of rights, judicial procedures, the division of power -- that one associates with organically secure liberal societies. And it is worse even than that. The faith of Islam is in fighting trim. In millions, the Islamists are traveling and settling abroad. From these reserves we get occasional irruptions of high-tech loathing, in lower Manhattan and Washington, D.C., in Spanish trains, in British subways. The elderly voices of Islam that stressed toleration and cohabitation are so quiet they might as well be silent. Columnist Pat Buchanan gives us a prickly rundown: "Islamists are taking over in Somalia. They are in power in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood won 60 percent of the races it contested in Egypt. Hezbollah swept the board in southern Lebanon. Hamas seized power from Fatah in the West Bank and Gaza. The Shia parties who hearken to Ayatollah Sistani brushed aside our favorites, Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, in the Iraqi elections. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most admired Iranian leader since Khomeini. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is staging a comeback." All the world is waiting to see what is going to happen in Egypt after three decades of the most expensive U.S. patronage in history (matched only by our patronage of Israel). And what of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Indonesia? Not many are predicting that the future there will be pacific and liberal. Two challenges are posed. The first is relatively manageable: Lower the flag on American universalism -- not to half-mast, but not as toplofty as it has been flying since the end of the Second World War. The second is tougher. Why is Islam burning bright? What on earth do they have that we don't get from Christ our King? If what they want is a religious war, are we disposed to fight it?

To: haqihana who wrote (745499)	7/17/2006 2:43:05 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

A Lampson - Delay matchup would be great! Imagine the Lampson ads if Delay has to stay on the ballot..."He didn't want to be here. He moved to Virginia. the GOP didn't want him on the ballot. They fough to keep him off. But you Texans finally get to settle matter by voting against him!". _______________________ Lampson war chest at $3 million Associated Press Nick Lampson, the Democrat who faced former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the November ballot until DeLay resigned, has raised more than $600,000 during the most recent reporting period, bringing his total raised to about $3 million, his campaign said today. DeLay resigned in June and wants his name off the ballot, leaving the district without a representative in the U.S. House until after the election and Lampson without an opponent. While the Republican side of the ballot is undecided, Lampson has been raising money, campaigning and beginning television advertising in the largely Republican district that sweeps across Houston's southern and western suburbs. "Texans respond to the fact that I will return to Congress with eight years seniority and that, in 2001, I brought home more resources than any member of the Texas delegation — including Tom DeLay," Lampson said in a statement. "That's why seventy-one percent of the money raised this quarter came from right here in Texas." Lampson raised $609,000 in the three months ending June 30. His campaign said he had raised $2.9 million since launching his campaign and has more than $2 million in cash on hand. A federal judge ruled last month that DeLay's name must stay on the ballot, but Republicans have appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. DeLay resigned from Congress, has made his condominium in Virginia his primary residence and isn't actively campaigning. But DeLay has said he will wait until after that court rules before deciding whether to jump back in the race. "They may get exactly what they want," he told supporters in Sugar Land last week. Calls to DeLay's spokeswoman were not immediately returned. The GOP wants DeLay replaced with another candidate. Meanwhile, DeLay is awaiting trial on state conspiracy and money laundering charges connected to the funding of state legislative races in 2002. Lampson served four terms in Congress representing a district that was redrawn in a DeLay-engineered redistricting that cost Lampson his seat in 2004.

To: haqihana who wrote (745499)	7/17/2006 5:12:38 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Nearly One Third of Companies: July 17, 2006 Study Finds Backdating of Options Widespread By STEPHANIE SAUL nytimes.com More than 2,000 companies appear to have used backdated stock options to sweeten their top executives’ pay packages, according to a new study that suggests the practice is far more widespread than previously disclosed. The new statistical analysis, which comes amid a broadening federal inquiry of the practice of timing options to the stock market, estimates that 29.2 percent of companies have used backdated options and 13.6 percent of options granted to top executives from 1996 to 2005 were backdated or otherwise manipulated. So far, more than 60 companies have disclosed that they are the targets of government investigations, are the subject of investor lawsuits or have conducted internal audits involving the practice, in which options are backdated to days when the company’s shares trade at low prices. They include Apple Computer, CNet and Juniper Networks. Last week, the United States attorney in San Francisco announced a task force to investigate the backdating of options, which appears to have been particularly popular in Silicon Valley during the 1990’s dot-com boom. The study found that the abuse was more prevalent in high-technology firms, where an estimated 32 percent of unscheduled grants were backdated; at other firms, an estimated 20 percent were backdated. An author of the study said the analysis suggested that the disclosures so far about backdated stock options may be just the tip of the iceberg. “It is pretty scary, and it’s quite surprising to see,” said Erik Lie, an associate professor of finance at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. Professor Lie said the findings were so surprising that he asked several colleagues to check his numbers. Together, they concluded that the numbers probably erred on the low side. The study by Professor Lie and Randall A. Heron, of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, was posted Saturday to a University of Iowa Web site. Using information from the Thomson Financial Insider Filing database of insider transactions reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the two men examined 39,888 stock option grants to top executives at 7,774 companies dated from Jan. 1, 1996 to Dec. 1, 2005. The findings were based on an analysis of whether share values increased or declined after option grant dates. “Half should be negative and half should be positive,” said Professor Lie. “That’s the underlying logic.” But the analysis revealed that the distribution was shifted upward. “This is not random chance. It’s something that’s manipulated, clearly,” said Professor Lie. Of the companies examined, 29.2 percent, or 2,270, had at some point during the period manipulated stock option grants, the study estimated. “Over all, our results suggest that backdated or otherwise manipulated grants are spread across a remarkable number of firms, although these firms did not manipulate all their grants,” the authors said. The study concluded that before Aug. 29, 2002, 23 percent of unscheduled grants — as distinguished from grants that companies routinely schedule annually — were backdated. Unscheduled grants are easier to backdate. On that day, the S.E.C. tightened reporting requirements to require that executives report stock option grants they receive within two business days. After that, the backdating figure declined to 10 percent of unscheduled grants, the paper said. Professor Lie said that a number of companies simply ignored the new reporting rule. “You still see problems. The rule is not enforced,” he said. Professor Lie, who first alerted S.E.C. investigators to problems with backdating after an analysis that he conducted in 2004, said there was some positive news in his new research. “It has been suggested that some accounting firms have been pushing this practice more than others,” he said. “There’s actually very little evidence of that, which to me is very comforting.” The study found that smaller auditors rather than larger ones were associated with a larger proportion of late filings and unscheduled grants, which most likely lead to more backdating and manipulative practices. It also singled out two firms — PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG — as being associated with a lower percentage of manipulation. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company