ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

TEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get specific here, name one or two of these radical feminists who are on this crusade.
SANTORUM: Well, I mean, uh, you know, you have, you go, you go back to, um, ah, what's her name, well, Gloria Steinem, but I'm trying to remember, ah, [tsk], eh, can't remember the woman's name. That's terrible—anyway...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that's kind of an important point. You point this broad brush ... radical feminists, village elders ... name one.

SANTORUM: (talking over Stephanopoulos) There's lots of, there's lots of, well, Gloria Steinem, there's one.*

Seven Democratic women Senators announced at a press conference yesterday that they will insist Supreme Court justice nominee John Roberts respond to questions about his position on abortion. The Senators are also demanding that Roberts clarify his position on the right to privacy, which underlies not only a woman’s right to legal abortion but also to birth control and a host of other civil rights for women and minorities. The Senators include Barbara Boxer (CA), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), Patty Murray (WA), Mary Landrieu (LA), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Maria Cantwell (WA).[...]

In an effort to give the public a say in Roberts’ confirmation hearings, the seven women senators have unveiled a new website that allows the public to submit questions that they would like the Judiciary Committee to ask of Roberts. “The Supreme Court has the last word on issues that impact all of our lives….This is a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land…We want the American people to have a voice,” say the women Senators in a joint statement on the website.

During his confirmation process, John Bolton, Bush's nominee to be the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations, inaccurately stated in a questionnaire that he had not been interviewed as part of any administrative investigation within the last five years. After initially stating that Bolton had answered the question correctly, the State Department has confirmed reports that Bolton was interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general in an investigation into the false intelligence reports in 2003 that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa, according to the Associated Press.

Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesperson, told the New York Times, “When Mr. Bolton completed his forms for the Senate he did not recall being interviewed by the inspector general.” Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), who sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday asking about the inaccurate information provided by Bolton, said, “It seems unusual that Mr. Bolton would not remember his involvement in such a serious matter … In my mind, this raises more questions that need to be answered.”

Bolton’s nomination has been stalled for months by Senate Democrats, led by Senator Biden, because of his history of hostility towards the United Nations, international law, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). President Bush has hinted that he will install Bolton in the position of US Ambassador to the UN in a recess appointment next week, even now that it has been confirmed that Bolton gave inaccurate information to the Senate during his confirmation hearing, according to Reuters.[...]

US District Judge Laurie Smith Camp has ruled that Union Pacific Railroad's failure to provide contraceptive coverage in employee health plans was discriminatory and a violation of the 1964 Federal Civil Rights Act. Many preventative medications were covered by the plan, including impotence treatments, and Camp ruled that the policy discriminates by treating “medical care women need to prevent pregnancy less favorably than it treats medical care needed to prevent other medical conditions that are no greater threat to employees’ health than is pregnancy,” reports the Associated Press.

Union Pacific argued that fertility is “normal” and therefore contraception is not “medically necessary,” although it did cover contraceptives prescribed for purposes unrelated to birth control.[...]

Planned Parenthood of Western Washington attorney Roberta Riley, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told Reuters that Union Pacific was one of the last major employers not to cover contraceptives, and that she hopes this case is “the nail in the coffin on this issue.” Union Pacific has 49,000 employees, and contraceptive coverage would affect not only the 1,300 female employees, but also the family members of all workers.

I was in Washington last week, covering a story in Congress, when a friend invited me to a panel discussion in the basement of the Capitol building. I agreed before he told me what the subject was. Boy was I bummed when I saw the title on the e-circular:

What went wrong in Ohio? A Harper's Magazine Forum on Voting Irregularities in the 2004 Election.

Oh, Christ, not that, I thought. Like a lot of people in this country (and like most all of my colleagues in the journalism world), my instinctual reaction to the Ohio electoral-mess story has always been one of revulsion and irritation. Almost on principle I had refused even to look at any of the news stories surrounding the Ohio vote; there is a part of me that did not want to be associated with any sore-loser hysteria of the political margins, and in particular with this story, the great conspiratorial Snuffleupagus of the defeated left.

It had always seemed to me that I understood the psychology of the Ohio story without having to examine the facts involved. I thought the story appealed most directly to a group of people who were still reeling after 2000, an election which George W. Bush not only lost according to the popular vote, but plainly stole in the electoral college. The evidence for this theft has been there for everyone to see for five years now; few serious thinkers even dispute the matter anymore, just as few Democrats would even bother denying now that John Kennedy stole the 1960 election.

• As was the case in Florida, the secretary of state (Kenneth Blackwell, in Ohio), who is in charge of elections, was also the co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign.

• In a technique reminiscent of the semantic gymnastics of pre-Civil Rights Act election officials, Blackwell replaced the word "jurisdiction" with "precinct" in an
electoral directive that would ultimately result in perhaps tens of thousands of provisional ballots—votes cast mainly by low-income residents—being disallowed

• Blackwell initially rejected thousands of voter registrations because they were printed on paper that was, according to him, the wrong weight.

• In conservative, Bush-friendly Miami County, voter turnout was an Uzbekistan-esque 98.55 percent.

• In Warren county, election officials locked down the administration building and prevented reporters from observing the ballot counting, citing a "terrorist threat" (described as being a "10" on a scale of 1 to 10) that had been reported to them by the FBI. The FBI made no such report. Recounts conducted during this lockdown resulted in increased votes for Bush.

• In Franklin County, 4,258 votes were cast for Bush in a precinct where there were only 800 registered voters.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take another look at the nationwide injunction the National Organization for Women (NOW) obtained seven years ago against the Pro-Life Action Network (PLAN), Joe Scheidler and others, to stop violent attacks on women's health clinics.[...]

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the injunction after a jury concluded that the defendants' actions violated Rackteer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. After that decision, instances of clinic violence plummeted, and the defendants have relentlessly challenged this injunction against violent acts.

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that while anti-abortion groups did commit crimes and interfere with clinic operations, the lower court's injunction could not be supported by these acts of extortion because no money or property had been obtained from the clinics as a result. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals for further action, where NOW argued that even if defendants' acts of extortion were not covered by RICO, their acts and threats of physical violence were.

The 7th Circuit Court did not decide that issue, instead sending the case back to the district court to hear arguments and make an initial ruling. The defendants then appealed to the Supreme Court, demanding that the injunction be lifted without further proceedings in any other court.

"Of course they want to have the injunction lifted," Gandy said. "They want to return to the days of using physical assault to terrorize patients and providers as a way to shut down these clinics. But even if they win, they won't be able to do that—if they return to the violence we will pursue them under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act."[...]

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has urged the U.S. government to create blacklists of condemned political speech--not only by those who advocate violence, but also by those who believe that U.S. government actions may encourage violent reprisals. The latter group, which Friedman called "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists," includes a majority of Americans, according to recent polls.

Friedman's July 22 column proposed that the State Department, in order to "shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears," create a quarterly "War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others." But Friedman said the governmental speech monitoring should go beyond those who actually advocate violence, and also include what former State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin calls "excuse makers." Friedman wrote:


After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us why imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq explains why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow "understandable" is outrageous. "It erases the distinction between legitimate dissent and terrorism," Mr. Rubin said, "and an open society needs to maintain a clear wall between them."


The "despicable" idea that there may be a connection between acts of terrorism and particular policies by Western countries is one that is widely held by the citizens of those countries. Asked by the CNN/Gallup poll on July 7, "Do you think the terrorists attacked London today mostly because Great Britain supports the United States in the war in Iraq?" 56 percent of Americans agreed. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll (7/7-10/05), 54 percent said "the war with Iraq has made the U.S....less safe from terrorism." Since they see a connection between Iraq and terrorism, a majority of Americans are what Friedman calls "excuse makers" who "deserve to be exposed."

Friedman's column urged the government to create quarterly lists of "hatemongers" and "excuse makers"--as well as "truth tellers," Muslims who agree with Friedman's critique of Islam. Friedman's proposed list of "excuse makers" would have to include his New York Times colleague Bob Herbert, who wrote in his July 25 column, "There is still no indication that the Bush administration recognizes the utter folly of its war in Iraq, which has been like a constant spray of gasoline on the fire of global terrorism."

Leading members of the U.S. intelligence community might also find themselves on such a blacklist, based on a report summarized earlier this year in the Washington Post (1/14/05):


Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.... According to the NIC report, Iraq has joined the list of conflicts--including the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand--that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical Islamic ideology.


Though Friedman calls on the State Department to compile the "Top 10 hatemongers" list in a "nondiscriminatory way," it's doubtful that such a list would, in fact, even-handedly include all advocates of violence. It would not be likely, for example, to include someone like Thomas Friedman, who during the Kosovo War (4/6/99) called on the Clinton administration to "give war a chance," writing, "Let's see what 12 weeks of less than surgical bombing does." In a follow-up column (4/23/99) he declared that "Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation," and insisted that "every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted." Despite the fact that by calling for attacks on civilian targets he was advocating war crimes, Friedman should have no fear that he'll find himself on a State Department list of "hatemongers."

Friedman's suggestion that those who seek to understand or explain political violence are not part of "legitimate dissent" comes at a time when calls for censorship are becoming more and more blatant. Bill O'Reilly (Radio Factor, 6/20/05, cited by Media Matters, 6/22/05) made a chilling call for the criminalization of war opponents:


You must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq War and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9/11, is a traitor. Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less.


The call for the arrests of Air America Radio hosts was said as though it were a joke, though O'Reilly is deadly serious when he says that the commentators on that network are "undermining" the war--and that such "undermining" is treason.

O'Reilly more recently (7/25/05) went after Herbert's column that argued that the Iraq War fueled terrorism: "Bob Herbert is most likely helping the terrorists, but his hatred of Mr. Bush blinds him to that. He's not alone, but this kind of stuff has got to stop. We're now fighting for our lives. And those helping the enemy will be brought to your attention."

"Attention," rather than arrests, is all that Friedman has threatened "excuse makers" like Herbert with. But it's a small step, as O'Reilly's rhetoric demonstrates, between marginalizing critics of U.S. foreign policy as "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists"--and criminalizing criticism itself.

ACTION: Please let Thomas Friedman know that opponents of the Iraq War do not deserve to be on a government blacklist--even if they oppose the war because they believe it encourages terrorism.

CONTACT:
Thomas Friedman
c/o New York Times Editorial Page
editorial@nytimes.com

As always, please remember that your comments have more impact if you maintain a polite tone.

A new poll found that the majority of Americans not only want to know Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' position on abortion but also want him to support a woman's right to legal abortion. According to a recent poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, 64 percent of Americans said that before the Senate votes on his nomination, Roberts should publicly state his position on abortion. Sixty-five percent said that they want Roberts to favor upholding Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the US. The poll further showed that 61 percent of Americans want Roberts to respond to questions about how he would have ruled on past Supreme Court cases.

Dear Ms. Miers:

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, I am requesting records or descriptions of any contacts between your office, the office of Karl Rove, or any other White House employee with any of the groups named below concerning Judge John Roberts prior to his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Given the pressing nature of this information, and the upcoming U.S. Senate hearings on Mr. Roberts’ nomination, I ask that you consider this request on an expedited basis. Surely, the American people have a right to the same information regarding a potential Supreme Court Justice as do representatives of ideological pressure groups.

We request information regarding contacts with any of the following groups:

American Society for Law and Justice
American Values
Christian Coalition
Committee for Justice
Concerned Women for America
Family Research Council
Focus on the Family
Heritage Foundation
Judicial Confirmation Network
National Right to Life Committee
Operation Rescue
Progress for America
Third Branch Conference
Traditional Values Coalition

It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good is the first book by Rick Santorum. Throughout, Senator Santorum emphasizes that it is the family and not the federal government that must be at the center of an ordered and just society. To advance the Common Good, public policy must act in accordance with this truth. It Takes a Family will reinforce Senator Santorum's role as the leader of reform minded conservatives in America.

"In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don't both need to," Santorum writes.

Rick and Karen Santorum, a former nurse and a nonpracticing attorney, have six children between the ages of 2 and 14, and live in Leesburg, Va., about an hour from Washington and as close to Washington as they could afford a home big enough for their family. (Karen Santorum would not be interviewed for this article.) Santorum drives himself to and from Capitol Hill in a 2001 Chevy TrailBlazer. He will not work Sundays, except in extraordinary circumstances, and he rarely stays overnight when traveling because he does not like to be away from his family. He tends a large vegetable garden and several fruit trees, cuts his own grass and does home repairs. Santorum says he does not want his home-state voters to think he feels impoverished on his $162,100 Senate salary, but it is clear that money is a concern and that he is almost certainly one of the least well-off among the 100 senators.

''We live paycheck to paycheck, absolutely,'' he says. Does he have money set aside for college? ''No. None. I always tell my kids: 'Work hard. We'll take out loans. Whatever.' '' He volunteers that his parents help out financially. ''They're by no means wealthy -- they're two retired V. A. employees -- but they'll send a check every now and then. They realize things are a little tighter for us.''

When I asked him if he viewed gay marriage as a threat to his own marriage, he answered quickly. ''Yes, absolutely,'' he said. ''It threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages. It threatens the traditional values of this country.''

One example of the consequences of no-fault freedom, he says, is how sexual freedom has resulted in "the debasement of women, mental illness, and an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, causing infertility cancer, even death."

He also rails against the "hostile cultural climate" -- influenced by the moral values shown on television shows such as "Friends" and "Sex in the City" to violent video games -- where parents must raise their kids, and praises companies such as Wal-Mart for refusing to sell some music CD's with offensive language.

FOR A GUY who just wrote a stinging book about family values, Sen. Rick Santorum sure sounded mealy-mouthed when asked about U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood's dalliances.

"I don't know how it's going to shake out," Santorum said Monday during an appearance at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Plains Township. "All I would suggest is that, again, until we know all the facts and we look at the job that Congressman Sherwood is doing and make decisions based on the facts and the work he's doing."

Santorum dodged a reporter's question about whether the allegations against Sherwood have hurt the Republican Party.

"I think what hurts and helps the Republican Party is what we're doing in serving the American people," he said, shifting the focus to the media, which he said likes to focus on racy and scandalous stories.
...
Sherwood, 64, has admitted to some sort of relationship with 29-year-old Cynthia Ore and apologized, more or less, to his wife and three daughters. Three days after a Times Leader story ran on April 30 about a 911 call Ore made to police saying Sherwood started to choke her, Sherwood issued a statement saying he's sorry for causing his family and supporters "pain and embarrassment."

Santorum is not a reader of Scripture -- ''I've never read the Bible cover to cover; maybe I should have'' -- and has no passages he clings to when seeking spiritual guidance. ''I'm a Catholic, so I'm not a biblical scholar. I'm not someone who has verses he can pop out. That's not how I interact with the faith.''

Facing an uphill battle over the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, Democrats plan to challenge President Bush's nominee on economic, social and regulatory issues, hoping to use the confirmation process to highlight their differences with the Republicans and exploit them for future electoral gains.[...]

Many Democratic strategists concede that Bush won the opening round of the confirmation battle, through his choice of a nominee who has been praised for his intellect and temperament and by a skillful unveiling that kept everyone guessing about the nominee's identity until an hour or so before Bush and Roberts appeared in the East Room of the White House.

[...] "The other side knew what moves they were making and we were necessarily reacting. . . . We quickly realized this was a candidate who needed further scrutiny. It would have been unrealistic to come out blasting John Roberts. It was time to hold our fire."

In that sense, the Democratic strategy remains a work in progress. The first goal of Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) has been to maintain a united front of neutrality among his Democratic colleagues and to avoid falling into what they see as a GOP-laid trap to vilify Roberts immediately and appear obstructionist and extreme.

[...]But Leahy suggested that the Democrats' response to Roberts is not an indication that the nominee will have an easy time in the confirmation hearings. Leahy said that, even without having had an opportunity to fully explore Roberts's record, he already has serious questions about abortion and states' rights vs. federal power.

[...]The two sides sparred yesterday over the Democrats' plan to request documents covering Roberts's tenure in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Former Republican senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), who is shepherding the nomination through the Senate on behalf of the White House, said the administration would oppose such a request, citing attorney-client privilege.

[...]Democrats face some difficult choices, individually and collectively, as they prepare for the upcoming battle, beginning with the issue of abortion. Senate Democrats have signaled their desire to broaden the challenge to Roberts and not to make his confirmation a debate about the future of Roe vs. Wade , which establishes a woman's right to an abortion. But that could frustrate some of the Democrats' most important constituency groups.

Democratic strategists fear that party activists could rebel if Senate Democrats fail to make abortion a central issue. "Women know what's at stake here, and they will make their voices heard during the process and will make their voices heard at the ballot box next November," said Ellen Moran, executive director of Emily's List.

[...]Leahy jokingly dismissed the notion that Democrats have a grand strategy but made clear that he believes the confirmation hearings will be illuminating. An aide to another Democratic senator put it this way: "At the end of the day, we don't know what will happen with Roberts. At the very least, we will show what Democrats stand for."

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) indicated yesterday that he may attach a bill to expand federal funding for stem cell research as an amendment to the Labor-Health and Human Services 2006 appropriations bill. “I don’t like to put it on the appropriations bill, but we waited long enough,” said Specter, one of the primary sponsors of the bill, according to the Washington Post. The appropriations bill will be debated and voted on after the August recess. “I’ll bring [the stem cell research bill] us as the first amendment out of the box,” Specter said, according to Reuters.

The bill, which has already passed in the House, had been tentatively scheduled to receive a full Senate vote in the month of July. However, the bill has been stalled because of Republican attempts to introduce alternative stem cell research bills that would, among other things, only allow the harvest of stem cells without destroying embryos, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I think there has been an effort to obfuscate the House-passed bill with a collection of other bills,” Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), another primary sponsor of the bill, told Reuters.[...]

This week, the Massachusetts House and Senate both overwhelmingly approved legislation to make emergency contraception available from pharmacists without prescriptions and to require hospitals to offer it to rape victims. Following a final procedural vote in the Senate, expected next week, the bill will move to the desk of Governor Mitt Romney (R).

Although Romney indicated support for emergency contraception during his 2002 campaign, he has not taken a position on this legislation, prompting speculation that he is attempting to move right on choice issues in advance of a possible presidential campaign, reports the Associated Press. Nonetheless, the bill seems likely to become law for Massachusetts. Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey (R) has expressed her support for the bill, and should it come up for approval during the Governor’s vacation would be able and willing to sign it into law, according to the MetroWest Daily News. Furthermore, the final version passed with the support of more than two-thirds of legislators, enough to override Romney’s possible veto.[...]

The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case.

British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him.

But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple of months in central Seattle at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.

A federal indictment of Aswat in 2002 would have resulted in an arrest warrant and his possible detention in Britain for extradition to the United States.

"It was really frustrating," said a former Justice Department official involved in the case. "Guys like that, you just want to sweep them up off the street."

British intelligence officials now think that in the days and hours before the July 7 bombings, Aswat was in cellphone contact with at least two of the four suicide bombers, according to The Times of London.

As law-enforcement officials in Seattle prepared to take that case to a federal grand jury here, they had hoped to indict Aswat, Ujaama, Abu Hamza and another associate, according to former and current law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the case.

But that plan was rejected by higher-level officials at Justice Department headquarters, who wanted most of the case to be handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York City, according to sources involved with the case.

Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Justice Department had funneled terrorism cases to its New York office, which had a lot of experience in that area. This frustrated law-enforcement officials in Seattle, who thought they also had a track record for handling terrorism prosecutions — such as that of Ahmed Ressam, trained by al-Qaida and arrested Dec. 14, 1999, in Port Angeles with the makings of a powerful bomb hidden in his rental car.

Justice Department supervisors in Washington, D.C., gave the Seattle office the go-ahead to seek an indictment against Ujaama only.

Elderly members of a US anti-war group called the "raging grannies of Tucson" are due in court following a protest at an Arizona military recruitment centre.

They have been accused of trespassing after entering the centre earlier this month, saying they wanted to enlist.

The group, mostly women in their 60s and 70s, said they wanted to go to Iraq so their grandchildren could come home.

An army spokeswoman says the protesters were not serious about enlisting and were harassing recruiters.

Nine people - five elderly activists and four journalists - are due to appear in court on Monday.

Should prochoicers just give up and let Roe go? With the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor, more people are asking that question. Democratic Party insiders quietly wonder if abandoning abortion rights would win back white Catholics and evangelicals. A chorus of pundits--among them David Brooks in the New York Times and the Washington Post's Benjamin Wittes writing in The Atlantic--argue that Roe's unforeseen consequences exact too high a price: on democracy, on public discourse, even, paradoxically, on abortion rights. By the early 1970s, this argument goes, public opinion was moving toward relaxing abortion bans legislatively--New York got rid of its ban in 1970, and one-third of states had begun to liberalize their abortion laws by 1973. By suddenly handing total victory to one side, Roe fueled a mighty backlash (and lulled prochoicers into relying on the courts instead of cultivating a popular mandate). In 1993 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg caused a flurry when she seemed to endorse this view: Roe, she declared in a speech, had "halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and...prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue." It's not an insane idea, even if most of its proponents (a) are men; (b) think Roe went too far; and (c) want abortion off the table because they are tired of thinking about it.

But of course, if the Court overturned Roe, abortion would not be off the table at all. It would be front and center in fifty state legislatures. According to What If Roe Fell: The State-by-State Consequences of Overturning Roe v. Wade, a report published this past fall by the Center for Reproductive Rights, abortion rights would be at immediate high risk in twenty-one states, moderate risk in nine and "secure" in only twenty.
...
Legislative control might be more "democratic"--if you believe that a state senator balancing women's health against a highway for his district represents democracy. But would it be fair? The whole point about constitutional protection for rights is to guarantee them when they are unpopular--to shield them from majority prejudice, opportunistic politicians, the passions and pressures of the moment. Freedom of speech, assembly, worship and so on belong to us as individuals; our neighbors, our families and our legislators don't get to vote on how we use these rights or whether we should have them in the first place. Alabamans may be largely antichoice, but what about the ones who aren't? Or the ones who are but even so don't want to die in childbirth, bear a hopelessly damaged baby or drop out of school at 15--or 25? If Roe goes, whoever has political power will determine the most basic, intimate, life-changing and life-threatening decision women--and only women--confront. We will have a country in which the same legislature that can't prevent some clod from burning a flag will be able to force a woman to bear a child under whatever circumstances it sees fit. It is hard to imagine how that woman would be a free or equal citizen of our constitutional republic.

Democrats need to reach out to voters who oppose abortion rights and promote candidates who share that view, the head of the party said Friday.

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told a group of college Democrats that their party has to change its approach in the debate over abortion.

"I think we need to talk about this issue differently," said Dean. "The Republicans have painted us as a pro-abortion party. I don't know anybody in America who is pro-abortion."

Dean's approach echoed similar arguments advanced in recent months by former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

"We do have to have a big tent. I do think we need to welcome pro-life Democrats into this party," said Dean.

Speaking at a conference of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, O'Connor cited the role of Ukraine's highest court in resolving the crisis over last year's presidential election as a ``transforming moment'' in the promotion of an independent judiciary in other nations.

``In our country today we're seeing efforts to prevent that, a desire not to have an independent judiciary,'' she said. ``That worries me.''
...

O'Connor said efforts in Congress to restrict federal court jurisdiction to decide particular issues were ``a new approach that's worrisome.''

Legislation introduced earlier this year would bar the Supreme Court from reviewing any government official's ``acknowledgment of God'' as the source of law or government.

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.

These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a covert intelligence agent.

About two-thirds of the women had benign lumps made up of cells that weren't actively growing. The good news is that this most common type of benign tissue didn't increase the risk of developing breast cancer much at all, over an average of ten years after diagnosis.

But, Senay points out, two other types of benign tissue did come with an increased risk. Thirty percent of the women had benign but actively growing cells, and about four percent had atypical, or abnormal-looking cells that were actively growing. Even though they're considered benign, these cells are important to identify because they do elevate the risk of developing breast cancer. They need to be monitored closely and preventive measures could be considered.

Most benign breast lumps don't raise risk

Benign breast disease increases cancer risk

Small explosions at three London subway stations and on a double-decker bus shut down part of the city's transportation system Thursday but caused no significant casualties or damage, and Prime Minister Tony Blair encouraged people to resume their normal activities.

London's police commissioner, Ian Blair, described the explosions as "attempts" to cause more serious damage. British news media reported that detonators had gone off, but not major bombs, possibly indicating that a terrorist attack meant to be similar to a devastating series of blasts two weeks ago had failed because of faulty explosives.

Much of Coulter's Jun. 29, 2005 column, "Thou Shall Not Commit Religion," bears a striking resemblance to pieces in magazines dating as far back as 1985—and a column written for the Boston Globe in 1995.

A RAW STORY examination found Coulter's work to be at worst plagiarism and at best a cut-and-paste repetition of points authored by conservative religious groups in the early 1990s. These groups sought to de-fund the National Endowment for the Arts, detailing projects paid for by the NEA they dubbed "obscene."

The campaign traces back to an assault on the NEA mounted by the American Family Association in 1989. After press conferences held by the group's leader Rev. Donald Wildon, then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) slipped an amendment into a Senate bill that would have axed federal funding for "obscene art." It never passed the House.

Coulter employs the same NEA talking points in her Jun. 29 column written in the wake of a ruling barring the Ten Commandments from public places. She lists various identical "obscene" projects she says taxpayers have funded. All of the excerpts below compare this column with earlier texts.

My wife is in heaven!

Whether or not the Senate confirms the President's nomination of John G. Roberts, Jr. to the high court may actually be up to people like you and me. We must stand together and let our voices be heard! We must urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to do its work well - to strongly approve Judge Roberts and pass his nomination on quickly to the full Senate for a vote.

"A culture of life can never be built as long as Roe v. Wade is the law of the land," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.

"We appreciate President Bush being a man of his word by appointing a judge that will respect the Right to Life acknowledged by our nation's founding documents," said Newman. "We pray that Roberts will be swiftly confirmed."

"Our nation has suffered enough under decades of liberal activist judges legislating from the bench," said OR spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger. "After 45 million dead children, we are guardedly optimistic that the confirmation of Judge Roberts will be a step toward restoring protections for the pre-born that were stolen from them in 1973."

The draft chapter, circulated discreetly in recent days, has ignited outrage among women's groups, which held a protest on Tuesday morning in downtown Baghdad at the square where a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by American marines in April 2003.

One of the critical passages is in Article 14 of the chapter, a sweeping measure that would require court cases dealing with matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance to be judged according to the law practiced by the family's sect or religion.

Under that measure, Shiite women in Iraq, no matter what their age, generally could not marry without their families' permission. Under some interpretations of Shariah, men could attain a divorce simply by stating their intention three times in their wives' presence.

Article 14 would replace a body of Iraqi law that has for decades been considered one of the most progressive in the Middle East in protecting the rights of women, giving them the freedom to choose a husband and requiring divorce cases to be decided by a judge.

Ms. Arayess, the Shiite drafter, said some of the writers were considering keeping the quota for the next two terms of the parliament before allowing it to lapse. After that, she said, women should be able to stand on their own.

Advocacy groups on the right say that Roberts, a 50-year-old native of Buffalo, N.Y., who attended Harvard Law School, is a bright judge with strong conservative credentials he burnished in the administrations of former Presidents Bush and Reagan. While he has been a federal judge for just a little more than two years, legal experts say that whatever experience he lacks on the bench is offset by his many years arguing cases before the Supreme Court.

Liberal groups, however, say Roberts has taken positions in cases involving free speech and religious liberty that endanger those rights. Abortion rights groups allege that Roberts is hostile to women's reproductive freedom and cite a brief he co-wrote in 1990 that suggested the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion.

"The court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion ... finds no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution," the brief said.

Some of the lowlights of Judge Robert's background include:

As Deputy Solicitor General, Roberts argued in a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court (in a case that did not implicate Roe v. Wade) that "[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled…. [T]he Court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion… finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."

In Rust v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court considered whether Department of Health and Human Services regulations limiting the ability of Title X recipients to engage in abortion-related activities violated various constitutional provisions. Roberts, appearing on behalf of HHS as Deputy Solicitor General, argued that this domestic gag rule did not violate constitutional protections.

Roberts, again as Deputy Solicitor General, filed a "friend of the court" brief for the United States supporting Operation Rescue and six other individuals who routinely blocked access to reproductive health care clinics, arguing that the protesters' behavior did not amount to discrimination against women even though only women could exercise the right to seek an abortion.

The Court was so accustomed to the Solicitor General and the Deputy Solicitor General arguing for the overturn of Roe that during John Roberts's oral argument before the Supreme Court in Bray, a Justice Asked, "Mr. Roberts, in this case are you asking that Roe v. Wade be overruled?" He responded, "No, your honor, the issue doesn't even come up." To this the justice said, "Well, that hasn't prevented the Solicitor General from taking that position in prior cases."

The great triangulator's point was that Democrats can't win the presidency if they don't campaign earnestly among churchgoing Christians—he noted that he got 75 percent more Evangelical votes in 1996 than John Kerry did in 2004. He suggested that Roe v. Wade was the unfortunate beginning of the end of civility between left and right. He said the Democrats are wrong to deny that malpractice suits don't drive up medical costs. And about the current war he said, "This is not Vietnam. I wouldn't set a deadline [for the withdrawal of troops]. I agree with the president." If anyone but him had said the same thing about Iraq, there would have been boos and hisses, as there had been the night Evan Thomas said he thought the administration had sincerely believed Saddam had WMD stockpiles.

Q There are news reports this morning that parents and children who were guests of the President, when they visited Congress, wore stickers with the wording, "I was an embryo." And my question is, since all of us were once embryos, and all of us were once part sperm and egg, is the President also opposed to contraception, which stops this union and kills both sperm and egg?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has made his views known on these issues, and his views known –

Q You know, but what I asked, is he opposed -- he's not opposed to contraception, is he?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, and you've made your views known, as well. The President –

Q No, no, but is he opposed to contraception, Scott? Could you just tell us yes or no?

MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think that this question is –

Q Well, is he? Does he oppose contraception?

MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think the President's views are very clear when it comes to building a culture of life –

Q If they were clear, I wouldn't have asked.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and if you want to ask those questions, that's fine. I'm just not going to dignify them with a response.

Q I have one follow up. Nineteen members of Congress from seven states have written a letter to the President saying that they are still waiting for an answer to a May 26th question: Is the President opposed to contraception. And my question is, could they now have an answer to my question? Or do you regard them, too, as not to be dignified with a response?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think we've talked about these issues before and these issues when it comes to the federal government and programs aimed at promoting abstinence and how those ought to be funded on at least equal footing with other programs, so I think we've addressed the President's views in that context.

Senate set to vote on estate tax before the end of July.
Tell your senators to reject more tax breaks for millionaires!

Say NO to yet another reckless tax cut! The Senate is planning to vote in the next two weeks on a proposal to permanently repeal the estate tax and/or a proposal to drastically reduce the estate tax. Repealing the estate tax will cost nearly $1 trillion over the first ten years of full repeal, and some proposals to "reform" the estate tax cost almost as much. At the same time, Congress is considering cuts to vital supports for women and their families.

TAKE ACTION NOW! Click here to email your Senators! Tell them to vote NO on permanently repealing the estate tax and on so-called "reform" proposals that would lose hundreds of billions of dollars in federal revenue. And call your Senators at 202-224-3121 or find their D.C. office numbers here on the NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY on WEDNESDAY, JULY 20th.

BACKGROUND:

The federal estate tax currently affects only estates larger than $1.5 million for an individual, $3 million for a couple; only the largest one percent of estates pay any estate tax at all. The estate tax is scheduled to be completely repealed in 2010 and then reinstated in 2011.

While the Senate is considering making repeal of the estate tax permanent - granting the very wealthiest Americans yet another costly tax cut - it is also debating cutting Social Security benefits. Yet, with just part of the revenues from preserving the estate tax, we could close 25 to 50 percent of the long-term shortfall in Social Security.

Meanwhile, the Senate is looking to cut billions of dollars from Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other vital supports in the budget reconciliation bill this fall. The Senate is also beginning to vote on its annual spending bills which grossly underfund critical priorities such as education and child care. Eliminating or significantly shrinking the estate tax for the wealthiest individuals while proposing to take basic supports away from those Americans who need help the most is unfair and irresponsible.

President George W. Bush said he would fire any member of his administration who broke the law as prosecutors focus on White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in their investigation of the disclosure of a covert intelligence agent to reporters.

``If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration,'' Bush said today during a White House news conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India. ``It's best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions.''

Bush's statement offers more protection for administration officials who may have discussed agent Valerie Plame with reporters, said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. On June 10, 2004, Bush answered ``Yes'' when asked whether he would fire anyone who leaked Plame's name.

``He's certainly backing off,'' Gillers said. ``Before it didn't seem to matter whether or not the revelation would be a crime.''

That's significant because the parameters for breaking the 1982 law about exposing an undercover agent are very narrow, Gillers said. A person would have had to reveal the name knowingly and with the awareness that the government was trying to conceal it. And it's only illegal if the agent worked overseas in the past five years; Plame has lived in the U.S. since 1997.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert sent out a press release assailing Democratic leaders such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for failing to focus on policy.

``The Democratic leadership has revealed that their agenda is a cynical playbook of partisan politics, which only poisons the well for members who are working together this week in a bipartisan way to move America forward,'' Hastert said.

WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain's wife, Cindy, was rumored to be a drug addict (and Senator McCain was rumored to be mentally unstable). In the 1994 Texas governor's race, Ann Richards found herself rumored to be a lesbian. The implication that Mr. Wilson was a John Kerry-ish girlie man beholden to his wife for his meal ticket is of a thematic piece with previous mud splattered on Rove political adversaries. The difference is that this time Mr. Rove got caught.

Even so, we shouldn't get hung up on him - or on most of the other supposed leading figures in this scandal thus far. Not Matt Cooper or Judy Miller or the Wilsons or the bad guy everyone loves to hate, the former CNN star Robert Novak. This scandal is not about them in the end, any more than Watergate was about Dwight Chapin and Donald Segretti or Woodward and Bernstein. It is about the president of the United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the administration and in which everyone else, Mr. Rove included, are at most secondary players.

Let me reiterate: This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock's parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops." Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in "Psycho."

So far Karl Rove appears guilty of telling reporters something he had heard, that Valerie Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, worked for the C.I.A. But because of several exceptions in the 1982 law forbidding disclosure of a covert operative's identity, virtually no one thinks anymore that he violated it. The law doesn't seem to apply to Ms. Wilson because she apparently hadn't been posted abroad during the five previous years.

The endangered spies Ms. Wilson was compared to James Bond in the early days of the scandal, but it turns out she had been working for years at C.I.A. headquarters, not exactly a deep-cover position. Since being outed, she's hardly been acting like a spy who's worried that her former contacts are in danger.

At the time her name was printed, her face was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When her husband received a "truth-telling" award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife's loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd.

And then, for any enemy agents who missed seeing her face at the luncheon but had an Internet connection, she posed with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair.

The question is whether Bush played politics with terror around the time of the Democratic National Convention in late July, 2004. Jim Lobe reminded us at the time that ' The New Republic weekly quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as saying the White House had asked them to announce the arrest or killing of any "high-value [al-Qaeda] target" any time between July 26 and 28, the first three days of the Democratic Convention. At the time, former CIA officer Robert Baer said the announcement made "no sense." "To keep these guys off-balance, a lot of this stuff should be kept in secret. You get no benefit from announcing an arrest like this." '

In response to White House pressure, the Pakistanis were in fact able to make an arrest, which was announced during the Democratic National Convention. That arrest, of a Tanzanian named Ahmad Khalfan Gheilani, in turn led to the capture of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a young computer expert who had old al-Qaeda documents on his laptop as well as a more recent archive of email correspondence with al-Qaeda in the UK. Among the old data were pre-9/11 plans for attacks in New York and elsewhere.
...
The announcement set off a frenzy of press interest in the basis for then Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge's alarm. Either from a Bush administration source or from a Pakistani one (each government blames the other), they came up with the name of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a recently arrested al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan, and published it. But it turns out that the Pakistanis and the UK had "turned" Khan and were having him be in active email contact with the al-Qaeda network in the UK so as to track them down.

On August 3, the Bush administration released the name of Abu Eisa Khan, a suspected al-Qaeda operative in the UK who had been arrested. The motive for this shocking lapse in security procedure appears to have been the desire to trumpet a specific arrest.

All of these public pronouncements by the Americans infuriated the Pakistani and British police.

For the sake of three year old intelligence, the Bush administration had helped blow the first inside double agent the Pakistanis and the British had ever developed. The British had been preparing a set of indictments and pursuing the investigation, in part by using Khan. They were forced to move before they were ready. Some suspects escaped on hearing Naeem Noor Khan's in the media. Of those who were arrested, several had to be released for lack of evidence against them.

Muhammad Sadique Khan, one of the July 7 bombers, was apparently connected to one of the suspects under surveillance in early August, 2004.

At the Senate confirmation hearing on her nomination to the CPB board in 2003, Halpern expressed agreement with Lott after he questioned the objectivity of PBS journalist and commentator Bill Moyers.

"There has to be recognition that an objective, balanced code of journalistic ethics has got to prevail across the board, and there needs to be accountability," she said at the hearing. She agreed with Lott that penalties were justified when balance fails, although she acknowledged that CPB rules prohibit interfering with programming decisions. Neither she nor Lott elaborated on what sort of penalties they favored.

She contrasted that lack of authority to her role on the federal Broadcast Board of Governors. "Going back to my BBG days, we were able to remove physically somebody who had engaged in editorialization of the news," she said, according to an account in Current, the public broadcasting newspaper.

"Bush cannot function without Rove. And the GOP is equally invested in his skills. I expect that, if the pressure gets too great, the president will move Rove out of the White House so he can continue to use his brain on congressional matters like Social Security and tort reform while not having to suffer quite as much politically with Rove still sitting in the West Wing. But I don't think Bush will make such a move, if he can avoid it. His Achilles heel is his loyalty to his friends and it always has been. Bush will stick with Rove long past the point that he ought to have cut his losses and he will endure significant political harm."

-- James Moore, Co-Author of "Bush's Brain" and Author of "Bush's War for Reelection"

Some men flip through a catalog looking for furniture
You look through a catalog looking for someone to clean the furniture

Background: *i don't do windows* (in vaguely stereotypical Asian accent)

Nothing says i will love you forever like a quick swipe of the credit card at the altar
Women wait their whole lives for a man to say "I do"
In your case "I do... agree to pay the sum of 3000 American dollars"
So crack open a bottle of Bud Light oh Catalog Casanova
Your spouse may be full price
But you'll always be our better half

President Bush said on Wednesday he would withhold judgment for now on the role of his top political adviser, Karl Rove, in a brewing controversy over who leaked a CIA agent's identity

While Democrats were clamoring for a nominee who could draw broad support, a leading conservative group came out against the idea of such a "consensus" pick.

"In this case, 'consensus' would mean compromise," said an e-mail message distributed Tuesday by Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and one of four conservative leaders who met with Mr. Card to discuss support for the president's eventual nominee. Mr. Sekulow encouraged recipients to sign an Internet petition against a consensus candidate.

It is not just Democrats that the White House is seeking out for ideas. The Bush administration has also been consulting with its political allies outside the Congress.

"Someone from the White House called me yesterday, asking for any input I might have," said the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and chancellor of Liberty University in Virginia.

Mr. Falwell said he declined to offer advice, telling the White House staff member that, because of Mr. Bush's track record appointing conservative judges, "I am willing to sit back and trust him and pray for him."

Two months ago, while his confirmation was in trouble, Bolton began efforts to double the office space reserved within the State Department for the ambassador to the United Nations, according to three senior department officials who were involved in handling the request.

Previous ambassadors have kept a small staff in Washington in a modest suite. Bolton told several colleagues he needs more space and a larger staff in Washington because, if confirmed, he intends to spend more time here than his predecessors did.

"Bolton isn't going to sit in New York while policy gets made in Washington," the administration source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the source lacks authorization to discuss this on the record. But Bolton's efforts to obtain more space have encountered resistance. Two colleagues said Bolton's request was inappropriate because he had not been confirmed.

--Sept 29, 2003: The White House dismisses as "ridiculous" the suggestion Rove was involved in disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

--June 10, 2004: Bush pledges to fire anyone in his administration found to have been a leaker in the Plame case.

--Oct. 16, 2004: Rove testifies before grand jury investigating the leak. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, says prosecutors have assured Rove he is not a target of the criminal probe.

--Nov. 3, 2004: Bush wins re-election with Rove as his chief political adviser.

--July 10, 2005: Newsweek reports that in 2003 Rove talked to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame, but did not identify her by name. Cooper later writes a story in which he uses Plame's name.

--July 11: Under intense questioning from reporters, White House spokesman Scott McClellan refuses to repeat claims that Rove had nothing to do with the leak.

--July 12: Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., say Rove should be fired. McClellan says Bush still has confidence in Rove.

After two days of questions, the White House said Tuesday that President Bush continues to have confidence in Karl Rove, the presidential adviser at the center of the investigation into the leak identifying a female CIA officer. Meanwhile, prominent Democrats are calling for Rove to be fired.

Bush did not respond to a reporter's question Tuesday about whether he would fire Rove, in keeping with a June 2004 pledge to dismiss any leakers of Valerie Plame's identity.

At a White House briefing afterward, spokesman Scott McClellan was pressed about Rove's future.

"Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn't be working here at the White House if they didn't have the president's confidence," McClellan said.

But let's look at what we can conclude from all this:

· The latest news reports indicate that Rove is the source who Cooper was trying to protect until last week -- and that Rove tipped Cooper about Plame three days before Robert Novak published his now-famous column exposing Plame's identity.

· Fitzgerald has asserted in his court filings that testimony from Cooper and now-jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller is all he needs to wrap up his investigation into whether a crime was committed. So what Rove said about Plame would therefore appear to be either one of two things -- or the only thing -- that Fitzgerald is still trying to nail down.

· Rove and his lawyer's denials that he was involved in telling reporters about Plame now appear to be at best based on Clintonian hairsplitting about whether he literally used her name and identified her as covert or he simply described her as the CIA-employed wife of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the administration critic that White House was eager to discredit at the time.

· President Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan's denials that Rove was involved in the Plame matter now appear to be at best based on the position that their responses to broad questions about Rove and Plame were met with narrowly constructed responses specifically about whether Rove leaked "classified information." Or is it possible Rove lied to them?

· And McClellan's frequent implication that, if Rove talked to reporters about Plame it was only after Novak's column had already come out, now appears suspect.

If Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, longtime friend and deputy chief of staff is actually indicted by Fitzgerald -- which now appears to be a possibility -- it would be an enormous blow to Bush's second term. Until Fitzgerald wraps up his highly secretive investigation, however, that's all just speculation.

So let's ask ourselves some more practical questions instead:

· Does Rove's current position pass the smell test?

· Taking into account Bush's previous statements about leaks, does this mean he now has no choice but to fire Rove?

· Did Rove keep all this from Bush?

· Or did Bush know, but chose to keep silent and do nothing?

Georgia political analyst Bill Shipp reports that former Sen. Zell Miller - the guy who piously brags about his own integrity - essentially stole $80,000 from Georgia taxpayers upon leaving office when he was governor.

According to Shipp, who was quoting a WSB-TV investigation, Miller "pocketed more than $60,000 in taxpayer funds earmarked for entertainment and other expenses at the Governor's Mansion." Miller "also picked up a check for more than $20,000 for 'unused leave' - a sum to which he was not entitled as a constitutional officer."

Hilariously, Zell explained himself by "say[ing] that he was technically eligible to take the mansion money as his own because no one said he could not."

I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name

On another matter, two of Bush's nominees to the D.C. Circuit are poised to have significant impact on a pair of cases involving challenges to the U.S. military's detention of foreign nationals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Janice Rogers Brown and Thomas B. Griffith, both just placed on the bench last month, were picked at random to sit on a three-judge panel that will hear the cases this fall.

In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... "

Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published. Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well. "Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper," Luskin told NEWSWEEK.

First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

A group that claimed last year's Madrid train bombings in the name of al-Qaeda today said it was also behind blasts in London that killed at least 50 people and injured 700 two days ago, according to an Islamist Web site.

The statement attributed to the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades' Europe section is the second in which a group purporting to be part of al-Qaeda has said it carried out the bombings of three London Underground trains and a bus.

``A group of mujahedeen from a division of the Abu Hafs al- Masri Brigades piled blow after blow on the infidel capital, the British capital, leaving dead and injured,'' according to the latest statement. ``First there was Madrid, then Istanbul, and now London, and tomorrow the mujahedeen will have other words to say.'' The statement has not been verified by authorities.

1.) Islamic extremism. Is it an expression of the "have nots" against the haves? If it were, then wouldn't the elmination of Islamism merely mean that the "have nots" would turn to other extremist ideologies (eg Maoism).

2.) Or is Islamic extremism the movement of a minority within Islam, a kind of elite that represents some kind of male backlash, wounded masculine pride against the west.

3.) Or is it (as the "terror experts" and Franklin Grahams say) Islam itself. Is Islam itself an extremist religion?

...
Or is it
4.) Islamic extremism is one manifestation of a right-wing, male backlash, a militaristic ideology that also includes Christian Dominionism and Likudnic Jewish nationalism?

After Time turned over its documents late last week, Newsweek reported that e-mail records showed that Rove was one of Cooper's sources on Plame and Wilson. That article led Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, to say in an interview last weekend that his client had spoken to Cooper around the time Novak's column appeared in July 2003. But he added that Rove had testified fully in the case and had been assured by Fitzgerald that he is not a target in the investigation.

More evidence points to Rove as the source Cooper was seeking to protect -- although what information was provided is not clear. Rove and Cooper spoke once before the Novak column was available, but the interview did not involve the Iraq controversy, according to a person close to the investigation who declined to be identified to be able to share more details about the case.

The White House is preparing for a potential battle with the Democrats over a Supreme Court nominee, a conflict with great consequences and in which advocates on both sides appear ready to employ all means available to promote or discredit a nominee.

White House officials make no secret that they think Democrats went beyond the boundaries to discredit the reputations of some of their nominees to the appellate courts. Now into that maelstrom could come discomforting revelations about what top White House officials may have done to discredit Wilson by questioning his motives, his wife's role in the trip to Niger and his veracity.

Washington, DC -- Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued the following response to President Bush's declaration that abortion would not factor into his decision on whom to nominate for the Supreme Court.

"We really would like to take President Bush at his word, but while I may have been born in the morning, it wasn't this morning. This President has no credibility -- to date, he has appointed more than 200 judges to the federal courts--not one of whom supported a woman's right to choose. The only hope of preserving personal freedom and the right to privacy is genuine bipartisan consultation to identify a consensus nominee," Keenan said.

Four blasts tore through London's transport system during the morning rush hour in a choreographed series of terrorist attacks.

Police said at least 33 people were killed, 21 near King's Cross station, and the ambulance service said it had treated around 350 people, with more than 40 of those in a serious condition.

Three of the blasts were on tube trains and a fourth was on a bus. Explosives were said to have been found at two blast sites.

Mr. Cooper said his situation had changed earlier in the day.

"A short time ago, in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express, personal release from my source," Mr. Cooper said. "It's with a bit of surprise and no small amount of relief that I will comply with this subpoena."

Mr. Cooper's decision to drop his refusal to testify followed discussions on Wednesday morning among lawyers representing Mr. Cooper and Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser, according to a person who has been officially briefed on the case. Mr. Fitzgerald was also involved in the discussions, the person said.

In his statement in court, Mr. Cooper did not name Mr. Rove as the source about whom he would now testify, but the person who was briefed on the case said that he was referring to Mr. Rove and that Mr. Cooper's decision came after behind-the-scenes maneuvering by his lawyers and others in the case.

Those discussions centered on whether a legal release signed by Mr. Rove last year was meant to apply specifically to Mr. Cooper, who by its terms would be released from any pledge of confidentiality he had made to Mr. Rove, the person said. Mr. Cooper said in court that he had agreed to testify only after he had received an explicit waiver from his source.

Richard A. Sauber, a lawyer for Mr. Cooper, said he would not discuss whether Mr. Cooper was referring to Mr. Rove, nor would he comment on discussions leading up to Mr. Cooper's decision.

Mr. Fitzgerald's policy is to refuse to respond to inquiries about the case.

Mr. Rove declined to comment on Wednesday.

As many as 40 people may have been killed and many more have been injured in a series of at least seven explosions in the London underground subway system and on a double-decker bus. The BBC reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was "reasonably clear" there had been a series of terrorist attacks. London's police chief Sir Ian Blair said "traces of explosives had been found at one site."

An Islamist website posted an announcement, apparently coming from Al Qaeda, that took credit for the explosions. Sky News reports that a previously unknown group calling itself "Secret Organization: Al Qaeda in Europe" took credit for the blasts, saying they were in revenge for British "military massacres" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The group also warned Italy and Denmark to withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Terrorists set off a series of bombs across London's subway system in the financial district and on a bus in the center of the capital, killing at least eight people and shutting down all public transportation.

``It's reasonably clear that there have been a series of terrorist attacks in London,'' U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the Group of Eight summit, which began today in Gleneagles, Scotland. ``Our determination to defend our values is greater than theirs to impose extremism. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed.''

Seven explosions occurred, starting at 8:50 a.m. local time, at financial district Underground stations, including Liverpool Street, Moorgate and Aldgate East, police said. Casualties were on a bus that exploded near Russell Square, a firefighter said. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks, which come a day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics.

Five explosive devices were found on the subway network, an unidentified firefighter said. Explosions were also reported at Kings Cross and Edgware Road stations in central London.

Below is a minute-by-minute timeline of the multiple explosions rocking London. All times are British Standard Time.

10:47 a.m.: Home Secretary Charles Clarke says London blasts cause "terrible injuries"

10:46 Police say serious casualties in London explosions, but no deaths confirmed

10:46 Witness to Britain's Sky News says second blast heard in Tavistock Square.

10:45 Police sources say a bomb is suspected in London bus explosion.

10:33 Police confirm at least three explosions on buses in central London.

10:25 Police confirm explosion on bus in central London in the area around Russell Square.

10:24 Scotland Yard says "multiple explosions" rock London.

10:14 News agencies report a bus has exploded in central London.

09:53 Metronet says the entire London subway network has been shut down.

Police says incidents are reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King's Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district and Russell Square in central London, near the British Museum.

09:41 London Underground reports a second explosion at a subway station in northwest London.

09:33 Witnesses say London underground says services are suspended after "power surge."

09:27 Metronet, the subway maintenance company, says power surge has caused explosion in London tube station.

09:25 Police say "there are walking wounded" in London's financial district.

09:15 British transport police say a explosion is reported in London's financial district in the area near Liverpool railway station.

In her seven-minute statement to Hogan, Miller said she "is not above the law" but that journalists must be trusted to keep sources secret. "If journalists cannot be trusted to guarantee confidentiality, then there cannot be a free press."

"I do not take our freedom for granted. I never have and I never will," she said, recalling a four-month stint as an embedded reporter covering the early days of the war in Iraq in 2003. If the military can do their job in Iraq, she said, "surely I can face prison to defend a free press."

President Bush collided with a local police officer and fell during a bike ride on the grounds of the Gleneagles golf resort while attending a meeting of world leaders Wednesday.

Bush suffered scrapes on his hands and arms that required bandages by the White House physician, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

The police officer was taken to a local hospital as a precaution, McClellan said. Police said the officer suffered a "very minor" ankle injury.

It was raining lightly at the time.

Outside Fredensborg Palace, where Bush had lunch with Queen Margrethe II and her husband, a group of people held small U.S. and Danish flags -- and a large banner proclaiming, "Happy Birthday George." A smaller group held several protest banners urging U.S. and Danish withdrawal from Iraq and "Peace."

Thousands of Danish demonstrators gathered outside the US Embassy in Copenhagen on Wednesday to protest a visit by President George W. Bush amid one of the biggest security operations Denmark has ever seen.

In an about-face, Cooper told Hogan that he would now cooperate with a federal prosecutor's investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame because his source gave him specific authority to discuss their conversation. "I am prepared to testify. I will comply" with the court's order, Cooper said.

Cooper took the podium in the court and told the judge, "Last night I hugged my son goodbye and told him it might be a long time before I see him again."

"I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions" for not testifying, Cooper said. But he told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance, he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" a direct personal communication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep the source's identity secret.

But what about Novak? He obviously knows who leaked the name to him. Why is Miller, who never even wrote an article, facing jail? If anyone should be threatened with contempt of court, it is Novak.

There are only two possibilities. Either Novak did tell the prosecutor the names of the officials who leaked the name and the prosecutor is going easy on them, or Novak refused and the prosecutor is going easy on Novak. Either explanation reeks of favoritism, selective prosecution, and cover-up.

One leading suspect of having leaked Plame's identity is the president's chief political adviser, Karl Rove. Given how utterly Machiavellian Rove is, readers who take press reports of Fitzgerald's pristine independence at face value are touchingly naïve.

Given the stakes, do you really think this administration would let a Justice Department official just pick some highly independent prosecutor to launch a wide ranging probe -- one that could net Novak, a reliable administration toady, and the chummy high officials Novak talks to, say, Rove or Vice President Dick Cheney?

It is time to recognize that there is no inherently perfect balance of work and family, and that no amount of intensive parenting can take away the sadness of not being with one's children as much as one would like. Children's needs and desires, and parents' needs and desires, are constantly in flux. If we are fortunate, we will be able to adjust our lives in accordance with them; and like any contortion, it will require some stretching, some groaning, and some pain. The tension that we feel is not the problem afflicting mothers in America today. It is the solution.

Still, Warner's wildly popular screed has obviously struck a nerve for many women. And, in a broader sense, the issues that agonize her privileged neighbors are indeed universal. From "the mommy wars" to "the opt-out revolution," the new debate about American motherhood is really the old debate about American feminism. More than forty years after Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem encouraged women to step out of the kitchen and into the workplace, the implications of this shift, and the resulting tensions between life at home and life at work, are still incompletely understood. Is it possible to "have it all"--in the words of Wendy Sachs, the author of a new book about working mothers, "to have a fantastic career and still be a great mommy"? Or, as Warner claims, has feminism betrayed today's women, who were brought up to believe they could have any job they chose, only to be forced onto the "mommy track" once they had children? Can a mother who stays home with her children defend the decision as a feminist choice? And is the "intensive parenting" that Warner deplores a guilt-induced by-product of the demands of the workplace or an inevitable consequence of society's love affair with consumerism? Mommy's evening cocktail may not actually be poisoned, but it induces a haze of confusion.

What is different about the present day is its public celebration of self-absorption. The deluge of "mommy madness" books is just part of it. According to a recent article in The New York Times, there are now nearly ten thousand parenting-themed blogs, most of them by stay-at-home mothers and fathers who in a previous age might simply have kept a journal but now are able to publish their thoughts for all to read. In one extreme example, the stay-at-home dad Ben MacNeil chronicled his daughter's every bottle and diaper change until she was a year old (the diaper total reached well over three thousand). "Parents have been parenting for hundreds of thousands of years, but this is the first time I've ever done it," he explained to the Times. But there is an irony here. What looks like an intense focus on one's baby is actually an intense focus on oneself.

"In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don't need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do… And for some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home." (It Takes a Family, 94)

"Many women have told me, and surveys have shown, that they find it easier, more "professionally" gratifying, and certainly more socially affirming, to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children. Think about that for a moment…Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders." (It Takes a Family, 95)

"But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave." ((It Takes a Family, 241)

Truth Hurts: Women Feel More Pain Than Men

However, Prof Gavin Kenny, head of Glasgow University's department of anaesthesia at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, was surprised at the study's results.

"We did a study on a similar area of pain research approximately 20 years ago, which focused on patients who were having abdominal surgery, which is extremely painful.

"A hundred patients were given buttons that they could press to give themselves addition morphine for more pain relief. We discovered through this study that male patients used 25 per cent more morphine. But this new study's results could be interesting as they raise issues about the psychological aspects that overlay it, and the psychological stresses the sexes experience."

Women feel pain more than men despite the popular notion that the opposite is true, according to research.
...
"Until fairly recently it was controversial to suggest that there were any differences between males and females in the perception and experience of pain, but that is no longer the case," said Dr Ed Keogh a psychologist from the Pain Management Unit at the University of Bath.

The government cannot raise our kids. As Abraham Lincoln observed 130 years ago: "You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

Early on, these ideas were deeply inscribed in America's self-concept. As French writer and politician, Alexis de Tocqueville noted over a century ago: "I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good -- and if America ever ceases to be good - America will cease to be great."

A century later and America is glutted with prosperity, but increasingly empty in spirit. For no accumulation of objects can truly lessen the burden of human anxiety. How do we keep this spiritual numbness from inhibiting and destroying us? The answer is straightforward: we must revel in the greatness of fundamental pleasures: family, civility, and the striving for moral excellence. Therein lies the means by which everyday Americans may ensure the survival of this country.

SIR TREVOR MCDONALD FOR TONIGHT: Mr President, the G8 summit will be chaired by Tony Blair. He wants to get new international agreements on aid, on trade and on climate change. Now, he gave you unstinting support over the war in Iraq - can he expect the same support from you over the G8?

PRESIDENT BUSH: You know, Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for the people of Great Britain, and I made decisions on what I thought was best for Americans. And I really don't view our relationship as one of quid pro quo. I view our relationship as one of strong allies and friends working together for the common good.

TONIGHT: On the question of Tony Blair, his support for you on Iraq probably damaged him politically at home. Supporting his proposals in Edinburgh might be one way of paying him back and making sure that he can probably repair some of that damage.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, again, I really don't view our relationship as one of, you know, we both make decisions and try to earn credit with each other on a personal basis. Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping the peace and winning the war on terror, as did I.

So I go to the G8 not really trying to make him look bad or good; but I go to the G8 with an agenda that I think is best for our country.

Luskin said prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald "has confirmed repeatedly, most recently last week, that he (Rove) is not a target of the investigation."

Added Luskin, "Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else ... Who outed this woman? ... It wasn't Karl."

Luskin said Rove "certainly did not disclose to Matt Cooper or anybody else any confidential information."

Rove has testified at least twice as part of the inquiry, but sources involved previously told CNN that while Rove acknowledged talking to reporters about the issue, he said he never knowingly disclosed classified information.

Luskin stressed that his client has cooperated fully with the government.

"I've been assured by the prosecutor they have no reason to doubt the honesty of anything he's said," he said.

Luskin claimed that the prosecutor "asked us not to talk about what Karl has had to say." This is highly unlikely. Prosecutors have absolutely no control over what witnesses say when they leave the grand jury room. Rove can tell us word-for-word what he said to the grand jury and would if he thought it would help him. And notice that Luskin just did reveal part of Rove's grand jury testimony, the fact that he had a conversation with Cooper. Rove would not let me get one day of traction on this story if he could stop me. If what I have reported is not true, if Karl Rove is not Matt Cooper's source, Rove could prove that instantly by telling us what he told the grand jury. Nothing prevents him from doing that, except a good lawyer who is trying to keep him out of jail.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."...

If a surgeon's primary tool is a scalpel, the primary tool of a demagogue is creating demons and scapegoats. The most fundamental hypocrisy of the demagogue is claiming divine virtue while using tactics that are base, vile and utterly dishonest.