The Lies in the "Truth About Hillary"

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Klein nailed on falsehoods in Al Franken Show grilling

Hosts Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher, and guest Joe Conason confronted author Edward Klein on the many factual errors, distortions, and misleading claims in his attack book on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), The Truth About Hillary (Sentinel, 2005). On the June 24 edition of the Al Franken Show on Air America Radio, Klein acknowledged his falsehood in portraying the chronology of the reporting of Clinton's Jewish step-grandfather and her controversial meeting with Suha Arafat, first noted by Media Matters for America. He also admitted that he had never seen Clinton's chief of staff Melanne Verveer (whose name he misspelled in the book), although he described her appearance as "mannish-looking." But he refused to retract other false claims when confronted by Franken, Conason and Lanpher.

Following is a transcript of the interview in its entirety:


LANPHER: You're listening to the Al Franken Show. I'm Katherine Lanpher.

FRANKEN: And I'm Al Franken. In the studio with us is Joe Conason, and in Washington is Ed Klein. Ed Klein's new book is The Truth About Hillary. It's published by Sentinel from Penguin, which is my publisher, at Dutton. I'm just thrilled about that. He joins us from the Center for American Progress in Washington D.C. Thank you, Ed, for joining us.

KLEIN: Thank you for having me, Al.

FRANKEN: Okay, and now would you call this book your best work?

KLEIN: I think this is the best book I've written, yes.

FRANKEN: Oh, good. Okay, good. Now I think I found a mistake.

KLEIN: Congratulations.

FRANKEN: Yeah, now do you have the book?

KLEIN: In front of me, no.

FRANKEN: Okay, but you wrote it, so you know the book.

KLEIN: I think so.

FRANKEN: Yeah. Okay, and on page 172 --

KLEIN: Yes.

FRANKEN: This is a thing about [Sen. Daniel Patrick] Pat Moynihan [D-NY] and not being able to say her [Clinton's] name [during a press conference to announce her candidacy for the New York seat in the U.S. Senate from which Moynihan was retiring], and now let me quote the book and then I'll quote what...anyway, I'll just quote what you wrote:

"God, I almost forgot," he said, with a mischievous grin."

Or mischievous grin. That's talking about Pat Moynihan, the late senator from New York whose seat Hillary took.

"God, I almost forgot," he said, with a mischievous grin. "I'm here to say that I hope she will go all the way, I mean to go all the way with her. I think she's going to win. I think it's going to be wonderful for New York. For Moynihan, apparently, it was easier to say "she" than 'Hillary.'"

Now did you leave anything out there, in between the two sentences you quoted?

KLEIN: Are you reading from my book?

FRANKEN: Yes.

KLEIN: What's the title of my book? I don't think you mentioned it.

FRANKEN: The Truth about Hillary. Now did you -- well, I did, and I actually did mention it in the lead-in, and I think I just did.

KLEIN: Well, in any case, let me answer your question. Pat addressed -- as Joe Conason who's sitting there with you can, I'm sure, attest -- Pat addressed the assembled press and mentioned Hillary's name three times.

FRANKEN: Now did you leave anything out in between the two sentences that you quoted?

KLEIN: Not that I'm aware of.

FRANKEN: Well, you did, you know. And what you said after you quote the two sentences from Moynihan was --

KLEIN: Were there ellipses between the two sentences?

FRANKEN: No.

KLEIN: No. No. So in other words, there's something that is missing.

FRANKEN: Yeah.

CONASON: Al, this is Joe. Why don't you read the actual, what Senator Moynihan really said --

FRANKEN: This was --

CONASON: -- as opposed to what's in Mr. Klein's book.

FRANKEN: Well, this is what Moynihan said, and this is how he got into it. He said, "Now I have the great pleasure to welcome Mrs. Clinton to the farm and turn over the microphone to our candidate. Before you do, before I do... Oh, my God, I almost forgot. Yesterday Hillary Clinton established an exploratory committee as regards to her candidacy for the Senate, United States Senate from New York, a seat which I will vacate in a year and a half." And then you pick up with, "I'm here to say, I hope she will go all the way. I mean to go all the way with her. I think she's going to win. I think she's going to be wonderful for New York." So you leave out --

KLEIN: I left out an ellipsis.

CONASON: You did not.

FRANKEN: You didn't leave out an ellipsis. You deliberately left out the --

KLEIN: There's no --

CONASON: I know you don't have the book in front of you. How much would you like to bet there's no ellipsis on that page?

FRANKEN: No, he's saying that's what he left out.

KLEIN: That's what I'm saying, Joe.

CONASON: No, there's no ellipsis.

FRANKEN: No, he's saying he left it out.

KLEIN: I should have put in an ellipsis.

CONASON: Oh. And why would you have cut out the two references to her name and put in an ellipsis? That would have been equally dishonest.

FRANKEN: You know why? Because I -- here -- this is what I think, Ed, and you may take issue with this. I think you deliberately left it out because it would have hurt the sentence where you say, "For Moynihan it was easier to say 'she' than 'Hillary.' " I think that's why you left out the sentence that says, "Hillary."

KLEIN: Well I --

FRANKEN: Really, honestly now, could you address that?

KLEIN: I'd be happy to.

FRANKEN: Yeah.

KLEIN: First of all, I didn't know that you were a mind-reader, so that you're reading why I did something.

CONASON: Oh, you're not in a good position to say that --

KLEIN: No? Why not?

CONASON: After writing this. Because you've read her mind over and over again, and I doubt you've ever met her.

KLEIN: Oh, really?

CONASON: Oh, there's quite a bit about what's in her mind in this book that you could have no possible way of knowing.

KLEIN: Well, let's start with the Moynihan --

CONASON: But answer this. Where, if you had put in an ellipsis, wouldn't the purpose of that have been to deceive?

KLEIN: No, absolutely not. Joe, this is ridiculous. You know, we know you know very well that the Moynihans had no use for Hillary.

FRANKEN: No, no, no. I'm just asking you about this specific --

CONASON: I happen not to agree with that, but --

KLEIN: You don't agree with that?

CONASON: But why -- if that were true -- why would you need to deceive the readers into thinking he hadn't mentioned her name?

FRANKEN: That's true, you know, usually when you have a good case, you don't have to deceive people.

CONASON: I mean, I'm not able to read Sen. Moynihan's mind. He's gone. I didn't know then, and I know he had disagreements --

KLEIN: You didn't have to read his mind.

CONASON: I know he had disagreements. You've also ... You got a lot of things wrong about Moynihan in here, but certainly you didn't need to, if he really disliked her so much, why would you need to deceive the readers about what he actually said that day? Did you not look it up?

KLEIN: My intention in this book was not to deceive anybody.

CONASON: Why did you do that, then?

KLEIN: Well, I didn't do it intentionally, and if I left out some words, I'm sorry.

FRANKEN: And how was it vetted?

KLEIN: That certainly was not my intention, and we know that when Pat finally came to do the endorsement, he didn't use her name.

CONASON: What?

FRANKEN: What? This is the endorsement!

CONASON: This is the endorsement. There's video, there's audio, it's on a transcript.

FRANKEN: Oh, come on, Ed! You can do better than that.

CONASON: He used her name. He used her name twice and you left it out.

FRANKEN: Just, just admit it that you did this, you left it out so you could make your point which is "for Moynihan apparently it was easier to say 'she' than 'Hillary.' "

CONASON: I don't understand how you could write the sentence "It was easier to say 'she' than 'Hillary' " if you read the transcript where he mentioned her name twice.

FRANKEN: Three times. Anyway, Ed, we're going to have to come back. This is gonna be fun. This'll really be fun. Honest.

CONASON: You think about the answer while we're taking a break.

LANPHER: We'll come back to our conversation with Ed Klein, the author of, of The Truth about Hillary here on the Al Franken Show.

FRANKEN: See, it's -- it'll be fun, Ed. Really. Honest.

[break]

FRANKEN: Hey, welcome back to The Al Franken Show. I'm Al Franken.

LANPHER: I'm Katherine Lanpher, and sitting with us, of course, is Friday regular Joe Conason. We're continuing our conversation with Edward Klein, who has out the new biography, The Truth About Hillary, published by Sentinel.

FRANKEN: And, and Ed, ah, we, we want to give you a chance to, to kind of respond, because, you know, you might get the feeling it's like three against one, but I've got to tell you, Katherine just loves the book.

KLEIN: Well, that's good to know. Let me ask you a question, Joe.

CONASON: Sure.

KLEIN: I'm sorry. Al.

FRANKEN: Yeah?

KLEIN: Let me ask you a question.

FRANKEN: Sure.

KLEIN: When you, uh, asked me on this program --

FRANKEN: Mmmm.

KLEIN: -- ah, and spoke to my publisher --

FRANKEN: Yes.

KLEIN: Ah, did you tell them that Joe Conason was gonna be on?

FRANKEN: Yes!

KLEIN: You did? Well, I -- nobody told me.

FRANKEN: Well, your publisher should have told you, because I, I, I couldn't have emphasized it more. I said, you know, Joe, I, we must have discussed this, ah, the publisher's name, again, is Adrian --

KLEIN: Zackheim.

FRANKEN: Zackheim. No, no, no. I discussed that at great length.

KLEIN: Good. Well, he didn't discuss it with me, but in any case, in the interest of full disclosure, don't you think you should tell your, ah, audience where Joe has stood on this book, what -- what he's done up to now?

CONASON: We talked about that last week.

FRANKEN: In -- in full dis -- ah, yeah. We have done that.

KLEIN: OK.

FRANKEN: We really have.

KLEIN: Fine. Fine.

FRANKEN: And, you know, he's not alone. There are critics of the book that are even, like John Podhoretz on the right. He says -- writes -- he's a conservative. He writes, "This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word." Now this is a conservative, and I gotta say that it wasn't that bad.

CONASON: Yeah, I've gotten, actually, I have to say, more positive mail from conservatives about my column about this book in the Observer than I have from, from right-wingers in a long time.

FRANKEN: But I'm sorry that Adrian didn't tell you, because you should have known that, but that's really your publisher's fault.

KLEIN: OK.

FRANKEN: OK?

LANPHER: And we were getting back to a question that was asked right before the break about just how conscious you were of putting deception in the book.

KLEIN: I don't believe there is deception in the book --

CONASON: [unintelligible]

KLEIN: -- and if I've left out, as I said, an ellipsis, I'm sorry. I certainly didn't intend to.

FRANKEN: OK. Ah, let's talk about the FBI files that you talk about, sort of what was called "Filegate." And you call it the "Purloined FBI Files," and you write about it on page 39.

KLEIN: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: And later, in a Salon interview, you said, "Like Nixon, Hillary has used FBI files against her enemies."

KLEIN: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: Now, you know that she was absolved of this by the Office of Independent Counsel.

KLEIN: Well, she may --

FRANKEN: I mean, shouldn't you have written about that? Shouldn't you have given that information to your readers?

KLEIN: It's still my -- it's still my belief and contention that Craig Livingstone was responsible for taking those files, and that he was operating under direct orders from Hillary.

CONASON: Do you know whose files those were? I mean, did you ever look at the names of the people whose files they were?

KLEIN: They were a lot of Republican activists --

CONASON: There were not, actually. They were not. Can -- name one Republican activist whose file was taken. One.

KLEIN: I couldn't do that 'cause I --

CONASON: You couldn't! 'Cause you haven't looked at the names! Did you ever look at the names?

KLEIN: No, I haven't.

CONASON: Okay. Ah, you've never looked at the names, but you know they're a lot of Republican activists. How would you know that if you've never looked at the names?

KLEIN: I've read it in The New York Times and other publications.

CONASON: Oh, no, you didn't. You did not. You did not.

FRANKEN: You know, Ed, the first --

CONASON: Because the people whose names were on that list were former White House employees. Most of them were people like gardeners and janitors and people like that. I've looked at every name on that list --

KLEIN: Former White House employees --

CONASON: That's correct.

KLEIN: in the previous Republican administration.

CONASON: Oh, no. James Carville's name was on that list!

KLEIN: Well, ah, yes, but there [inaudible] --

CONASON: Why was his name on the list?

KLEIN: Many Republican officials on that list, as well.

CONASON: There were --

KLEIN: Are you saying there weren't?

CONASON: No, I'm saying there was no, there were no Republican activists of any note on that list. If you look through that list, it's hundreds of names of people that you had never heard of and that the Republican Party had no significant connection to.

KLEIN: OK --

CONASON: And the fact is that those names were taken by mistake, which is what the Office of Independent Counsel determined, and that Mrs. Clinton never used them for any purpose. And you know what, Ed? If you'd done any reporting, you would know that, but you didn't even look at the list.

KLEIN: No, I haven't seen the list. I --

CONASON: You didn't bother to look at the list!

KLEIN: Well, I didn't look at the list because I wasn't doing a book, Joe, on the list. I was doing a -- that was one paragraph in a 300-page book, and --

CONASON: But, but --

KLEIN: -- it was a summary of what the charges, if you recall --

CONASON: But you --

KLEIN: -- were against her. What about --

FRANKEN: But you've been going on, you've been going on like, like, ah, talking in interviews saying, "Like Nixon, Hillary has used FBI files against her enemies." Now, that's a very serious charge.

KLEIN: How about the, how about the, the, um, Internal Revenue Service --

CONASON: Don't change the subject, Ed.

FRANKEN: Oh, wait a minute. I asked you -- let's address --

KLEIN: Why can't we talk about various --

FRANKEN: Because I want you to --

KLEIN: -- organs of the government?

FRANKEN: I want you to answer --

CONASON: Because he can't answer the question, that's why.

FRANKEN: Because I want you to answer one question at a time. "Like Nixon, Hillary has used FBI files against her enemies." I think that's a very, very serious charge. Would you characterize that as a serious charge?

KLEIN: I certainly would.

FRANKEN: Yeah.

KLEIN: And I would say that there are many publications who have said the exact same thing.

CONASON: Name one that has any, any, any --

KLEIN: The New York Times, for one.

FRANKEN: Said that, no, it never --

KLEIN: The Washington Post, for two.

FRANKEN: Baloney!

CONASON: The New York Times? You mean William Safire wrote that? Is that who you're talking about? 'Cause he had no evidence for it, either.

KLEIN: Well, you think -- you think Safire's a congenital liar -

CONASON: I do. I think he -- I've said it many times in print.

KLEIN: [laughing]

CONASON: He said a lot of things about Hillary Clinton that were totally wrong. He predicted that --

FRANKEN: You know what, let's move on to something --

CONASON: He predicted she would be indicted and said that he would "eat crow" if she wasn't. And she wasn't.

FRANKEN: Well, but, but -- and, and he did eat the crow, and I saw it. Okay. Let's, ah, let's turn to page 188 and Suha Arafat and that hug and Hillary's step-grandfather. Would you like to correct the record on that?

KLEIN: Yeah, one should have gone before the other, and that was a mistake.

FRANKEN: Okay, now, now what was the significance of that mistake, do you think?

KLEIN: Well, I think that Hillary was trying to position herself with the Jewish voters in New York. I think we can all agree on that.

FRANKEN: But what you said was --

CONASON: Unlike every other politician.

KLEIN: Yeah, yeah.

FRANKEN: Well, you said --

KLEIN: But she had a particular problem, which was that she was perceived by many Jewish voters, I think Mr. Conason even would admit to this, as not being sufficiently pro-Israeli -- pro-Israel.

FRANKEN: Well, but what you do is you try to draw a cause and effect. You say that --

KLEIN: I said that that was, in fact, a chronological mistake. She in -- discovered her grandfather, great grandfather or grandfather, step-grandfather, had been partly Jewish --

FRANKEN: Let me read --

KLEIN: And then she went to the Middle East. That's true.

FRANKEN: Let me read you what you wrote. "At the end of Mrs. Arafat's speech, Hillary applauded enthusiastically, then gave Suha Arafat a big hug and kiss."

KLEIN: Is that true?

FRANKEN: The photo -- the photo --

KLEIN: Is that true, Joe?

FRANKEN: Let me read the thing, and, and then you can respond. "The photo of the two women kissing, which played around the world, sewed serious doubts about Hillary in the mind of many Jewish voters. When Hillary realized that she had gotten herself in a jam with Jewish voters, she suddenly turned up a long lost Jewish step-grandfather-an announcement" okay, "that was dismissed by many"--

CONASON: This is such sloppy work.

FRANKEN: Well --

LANPHER: Hang on! I want--

FRANKEN: No, no. But what I'm saying --

LANPHER: -- Ed Klein to respond.

FRANKEN: Yeah, and Ed, but what I'm saying, what I'm saying is, Ed, the, the, the chronology there is there for a reason. You're saying, you're saying that she suddenly discovered this because of the hug.

KLEIN: Yeah, well, we -- this is a chronological mistake in the book, and I've admitted to it.

FRANKEN: Okay.

CONASON: Okay.

FRANKEN: Okay. How about the, ah, LAX thing? The haircut that supposedly held up traffic at LAX.

KLEIN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: Now you know that that's not true, right?

KLEIN: No, I don't know that's not true.

CONASON: Again because you didn't do any reporting. That was, that story was debunked at the time that it came out 12 years ago. You, you, I mean it's just astonishing to me --

KLEIN: What?

CONASON: -- how little work was put into this book --

KLEIN: Well, you know --

CONASON: -- in terms of trying to establish whether any of this stuff that you've written here is true!

KLEIN: So, you're saying, Joe, that the president did not hold up traffic --

CONASON: Yeah.

KLEIN: -- at LAX?

CONASON: I'm saying that not only would I say that, but that's the established fact that's been reported after that story came out in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the FAA made it very clear that not one flight was held up as a result of that.

KLEIN: Well, Joe --

CONASON: And that was established a long time ago.

KLEIN: You and I are reading different, ah, newspapers, I think.

CONASON: No It's, it's not a matter of reading different newspapers; it's a matter of what the Federal Aviation Administration said about this incident. It was debunked at the time.

FRANKEN: Do you want to read -- do you want to hear what the, ah, St. Louis Post-Dispatch said?

KLEIN: Well, if you'd like to read it, that's -- it's your show.

FRANKEN: Well, okay. The story that -- was the planes were kept circling as President Bill Clinton had his hair clipped on Air Force One at Los Angeles Airport. This was 1993, not last month. The haircut by Beverly Hills stylist Christophe became such a metaphor for perceived White House arrogance that the president himself felt compelled to apol...ah, apologize for reported flight delays. But the reports were wrong. According to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the haircut May 18th caused no significant delays of regular scheduled passenger flights, no circling planes, no traffic jams on runways. Commuter airlines that fly routes routinely affected by the President's haircut confirmed that they had no record of delays, etc. etc. etc.

CONASON: What's peculiar to me is, you don't seem to care whether you get these things right or not.

KLEIN: What's peculiar to me, Mr. Conason, is that you're still stuck back in 1993 instead 2005. This book is --

CONASON: No, you were, you were writing about something that happened in 1993.

KLEIN: Yeah, but this book is about whether Hillary Clinton is qualified by virtue of her character --

CONASON: You mean whether you --

KLEIN: -- to be President of the United States.

LANPHER: Well, let me ask you a question, Edward Klein, and that is, when you have so many errors that accumulate, why should we take your interpretation seriously?

KLEIN: Well, but I dispute that there are so many errors accumulating.

CONASON: Well, let's ask about another one. There's a woman you name in this book named Nancy Pietrafesa--

KLEIN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative].

CONASON: Who you say was rumored to be Hillary's lesbian lover.

KLEIN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative]. That's true.

CONASON: Now there are two things about that -- well, I don't know if it's true or not.

FRANKEN: That's true, that she was rumored?

KLEIN: There were rumors, yes.

CONASON: Yeah, those are great journalistic standards. But you misspell her name throughout the book, did you know that?

KLEIN: Well, do you know that three other authors have also misspelled her name?

CONASON: Yes, I figured they must have because that's where you got it from.

KLEIN: Yeah, well, I certainly didn't get it from the three, the other two who spelt it differently than I did.

CONASON: You, you, you got it --

KLEIN: But her name appears in Gail Sheehy's book --

CONASON: Right.

KLEIN: -- on Hillary--

CONASON: On Hillary. Is that where you got it?

KLEIN: It appears in, um --

CONASON: Is that where you got it?

KLEIN: Roger Morris's book.

CONASON: Right. Is that where you got it?

KLEIN: And it also appears in David Maraniss's book.

CONASON: So you're a terrible reporter, but a good stenographer.

KLEIN: All three of these writers spelt her name in three different ways. I'm sorry that I misspelled --

CONASON: Did you try to find them?

KLEIN: -- used an "E" instead of an "A."

CONASON: Well, let me ask you something. Did you try to find her so you could ask her about this rumor?

KLEIN: Of course I did!

CONASON: You did.

KLEIN: Of course!

FRANKEN: And you had trouble, because The New York Post didn't seem to have trouble.

CONASON: Did you try with all the different -- you tried with all the different spellings?

KLEIN: No. I, I --

CONASON: I guess not!

KLEIN: I tried, I tried to reach her, and in fact, left messages for her.

CONASON: Really? Where?

KLEIN: Where she lives!

CONASON: Which is -- where's that?

KLEIN: Listen, Joe, I don't have her address in front of me.

CONASON: You have no idea where she lives, and you're lying right now.

KLEIN: I'm not lying, Joe.

CONASON: Yeah, you are.

KLEIN: Okay, let's - look -- let's, ah --

LANPHER: I'd like to go back to the --

FRANKEN: No, I want to go back to something.

LANPHER: All right, you can. Go ahead.

FRANKEN: Melanie Vermeer.

CONASON: Verveer.

KLEIN: Verveer.

FRANKEN: Yeah.

CONASON: Who is Melanie Verveer?

KLEIN: She was her chief of staff for a while.

FRANKEN: Yeah. You know what?

CONASON: There is no person named Melanie Verveer. There's Melanne Verveer, who you refer to as "mannish looking," which she's not. But her name is Melanne, M-E-L-A-N-N-E.

FRANKEN: Now, I know Melanne.

CONASON: Now, since you don't know the first name of her chief of staff, why should anybody think that you know anything at all about Hillary Clinton?

FRANKEN: Well, I want to go to --

LANPHER: It's not -Please --

FRANKEN: Oh, let him, let him, let him.

LANPHER: Please, let him respond!

KLEIN: I don't think the question is worth my responding.

CONASON: Because you don't know, right?

KLEIN: Not -- no.

CONASON: You don't know, you didn't know her real name.

KLEIN: She was referred to as "Melanie" to me many, many times, and --

CONASON: By who? [laughing]

LANPHER: Really?

KLEIN: I think that's how --

CONASON: No one calls her "Melanie."

KLEIN: Well, I think that's how a lot of people referred to her.

CONASON: Nobody refers -- nobody calls her that.

FRANKEN: Now I know Melanne. I know her husband, and I have to take offense on calling her mannish, 'cause I know Melanne, and she's -- ah, I think she's a good-lookin' woman. And like, let's say, Ed, someone referred to your wife in a book as "simian," say. You know. Would you -- which, by the way, I doubt your wife is simian looking. I'm sure that she's very beautiful, because you're a very manly looking man. You're very heterosexual looking, I must say, in the back of the book. You look like you're in really good shape. So...

CONASON: I have this feeling that he's never seen Melanne Verveer, whose name he doesn't know. Have you ever seen her?

KLEIN: Ah, no, I have not.

CONASON: But she's mannish-looking to you? Even though you've never seen her?

KLEIN: She has been described to me that way, yes.

CONASON: She's been ... Who described her to you that way?

KLEIN: Several people who worked -- knew her,

FRANKEN: Who knew her as "Melanie"?

KLEIN: Yes, and who called her "Melanie" to me.

CONASON: Well, maybe they knew someone else. This could all just be a -- another case of terrible reporting or mistaken identity.

FRANKEN: There is a Melanie. There is a Melanie who is -- used to be a male, and is a tennis player, you know, a professional tennis player.

CONASON: You know, Ed, you've been a reporter for a long time, or I know at least purporting to be a journalist. Isn't it true that the first thing you learn when you're starting to be a journalist is to spell the names right?

FRANKEN: Oh, come on --

KLEIN: It's such a silly comment, Joe, that it's beneath --

CONASON: You got a lot of them wrong.

KLEIN: I got some of them wrong, but I, I'm sure you've misspelled names in your career.

CONASON: I try to correct them. And I didn't pretend --

KLEIN: Well, I will try to correct these in my second edition.

FRANKEN: Okay, let me --

KLEIN: And third and fourth edition.

FRANKEN: Okay, let's go to your, your, your -- just your motivation. Ah, you write, "Isn't it Dr." -- or you said, I'm sorry, to Salon, "Isn't it Dr. Johnson who said that any writer who doesn't write for money is a fool? What I do for a living is write popular non-fiction, and the more popular it is, the more books I sell, and the more money I make." Now that, I, I write books, too, and I just gotta tell you that that's not my motivation.

KLEIN: No, you're a political analyst. I'm not.

FRANKEN: Oh. Okay.

KLEIN: You're a political person. I'm a biographer.

FRANKEN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative].

KLEIN: There's a difference.

FRANKEN: And do you think that maybe some of these, ah, conservatives who are reacting to the book, like Peggy Noonan and John Podhoretz and others --

KLEIN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: Are reacting because it feels like you're just cashing out here?

KLEIN: No. That's...I don't think that's the reason. If you'll let me answer, I'll answer that.

FRANKEN: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

KLEIN: I think there's a great deal of confusion on the part of the conservatives, how to deal with Hillary. They don't know whether to deal with her directly and in a forcible manner, because the last time they tried that with the Clintons during the whole Whitewater and impeachment imbroglio, they were criticized for going overboard and for being too extreme. And they felt they were, um, burned by that experience. So they have recently been cozying up to her and debating how they're going to handle her. And I think this book, which, um, I've written, is a book that could be written about a man. In other words, it takes, ah, Hillary Clinton seriously, and it treats her as I would have treated a male subject of a biography. And there's a great deal of concern on the part of conservatives that this is gonna turn her into a victim and make her stronger than ever. So that's the fundamental reason there's been this split among conservatives about this book.

FRANKEN: Okay. Well, thank you, Ed. And I will say that John Podhoretz did write his -- the headline on his thing was "Smear for Profit." So I think that he actually does believe that, ah, that you did this for money, which actually you do say that that's why you write books. So -- but I want to thank you for joining us, and I know that this couldn't have been, ah, fun, because it really was us ganging up on you, so I really appreciate it. And, you know, talk to Adrian, because I really did tell him that Joe was gonna be here. Thank you! Really, honestly, thank you for coming on.

KLEIN: You're welcome.

FRANKEN: And we'll be back with the Al Franken Show here on Air America Radio.

— J.S. & D.Y.

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ID cards 'will not make us safer'

BBC NEWS
ID cards 'will not make us safer'

Plans for ID cards are in turmoil as the government gears up for Tuesday's vote on the issue, the shadow home secretary David Davis has said.

The cards are "unnecessary, unworkable and unlikely to make our streets and communities safe", he says in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.


But minister Patricia Hewitt said the cabinet had had "lengthy discussions" and it was the right thing to do.

A second reading of the Identity Card Bill is due to take place on Tuesday.

Health minister Mrs Hewitt, a former chairman of the National Council for Civil Liberties, told Sky News the controversial cards could be used to "deal with the growing problem we have got with identity theft and fraudulent use of benefits and other services".

Commons test

The Commons vote comes days after Home Secretary Charles Clarke dismissed claims that the ID cards would cost £300 to buy.

It represents an unhealthy shift in the balance of the relationship between the citizen and the state
David Davis

Tuesday's vote will be first test of MPs' opposition to the bill since it was abandoned before the general election.

Then, 19 Labour MPs rebelled over the issue.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have both pledged to vote against the proposals in this parliament.

But BBC political correspondent Reeta Chakrabarti said rebels did not think a government defeat was on the horizon, although they did want to push forward their arguments against the bill.

'Stealth tax'

Continuing in the Mail on Sunday, David Davis said: "In Labour's Britain there is a sense that we are all now guilty until proven innocent.

"As if to reinforce this point, they now want us to carry around a plastic card with our name, address and photo on it so we can prove who we are all at all times.

"This is something which I instinctively oppose. It represents an unhealthy shift in the balance of the relationship between the citizen and the state."

The cost of carrying card was "another stealth tax", he added.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke recently dismissed suggestions the cards could cost as much as £300 - but did concede that the official estimate charge of £93 per card was "merely indicative".

[It will be a] failure of Dome-like proportions, only infinitely bigger
Bob Marshall-Andrews, Labour

The Home Office predicts the total cost of running the scheme, in conjunction with a new biometric passport system, over 10 years would come to £5.8billion.

Mr Davis said the money could be "better spent".

He said: "It would, for example, cost just £26m to introduce proper checks on people entering and leaving the country through our ports.

"That would be a simpler way to achieve some of the objectives for which ministers claim they need ID cards."

'National scandal'

Labour rebel Bob Marshall-Andrews also spoke of MPs' concerns at the proposals, saying there was a "very heavy groundswell of opinion" against the legislation.

He predicted between 20 and 30 Labour MPs would sign up to a rebel amendment to the bill.

Speaking on GMTV's Sunday programme, the MP for Medway said the scheme would be a "failure of Dome-like proportions, only infinitely bigger.

"It is going to be a national scandal," he said.

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Obama's Stand Against Patriot Act Cheered

ABC News
Obama's Stand Against Patriot Act Cheered
Thousands of Librarians Applaud U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's Stand Against Patriot Act
By CARLA K. JOHNSON Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

Jun. 26, 2005 - To the cheers of thousands of librarians, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday called for the Senate to rewrite the USA Patriot Act to prevent investigators from scanning library records and bookstore sales slips.

Libraries should be "sanctuaries of learning where we are free to read and consider what we please without the fear that 'Big Brother' may be peering over our shoulder," Obama said in the keynote address at the American Library Association's annual conference.

Last week, despite a White House veto threat, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to restrict investigators from using the anti-terrorism law in libraries and book stores. Obama said he hopes the Senate follows suit.

"I hope we can pass a provision, just like the one that the House of Representatives passed overwhelmingly, that would require federal agents to get search warrants from a real judge in a real court, just like everyone else does," Obama said.


The conference, which runs in Chicago through Wednesday, drew more than 13,000 attendees, some of whom will discuss strategies for amending the Patriot Act, which was passed by Congress in the days following Sept. 11, 2001.

One attendee, Merryll Penson, executive director for library services for the University System of Georgia, said librarians "are not people who want to help terrorists," but want to see reading lists protected from automatic surveillance.

"For a lot of librarians, it's the principle," she said.

On the Net:

American Library Association: http://www.ala.org/

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Rove Speak - Put it to work in your life

Rove Speak - Put it to work in your life

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1,382 DAYS AFTER 9/11

progressreport.org
The Progress Report
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Mipe Okunseinde and Christy Harvey

6/24/2005

TERRORISM

On October 26, 2001, President Bush said, "The elected branches of our
government, and both political parties, are united in our resolve
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011026-5.html) to
fight and stop and punish those who would do harm to the American
people." That was before the administration's unwise, unfocused and
unsuccessful approach to combating terrorism helped push Bush's approval ratings
to historic lows (http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm) . Out of
answers, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove went back to his biggest
strength, political mudslinging
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1165126,00.html)
. On Wednesday, Rove said that "[l]iberals saw the savagery of the 9/11
attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and
understanding for our attackers (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8324598/) ." We
don't need an apology, we need a new anti-terrorism strategy.

1,382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 -- TERRORIST ATTACKS AT AN ALL TIME HIGH: By
objective measures, the Bush administration's approach to combating
terrorism is an abject failure. Last year "[t]he number of serious
international terrorist incidents more than tripled.


(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601623.html)
" According to State Department data, "attacks grew to about 655 last
year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003." How did the
administration respond? By halting the publication of the State Department report.
The year before, "the State Department retracted its annual terrorism
report and admitted that its initial version vastly understated the
number of incidents."

1,382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 -- OSAMA BIN LADEN STILL AT LARGE: More than
three and a half years ago Bush vowed to capture terrorist mastermind Osama
bin Laden " dead or alive
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/18/wbush18.xml)
." He's failed. The administration wants you to think we are hot on his
tracks. CIA Director Porter Goss said he had " an excellent idea
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160039,00.html) " where bin Laden
is hiding. Vice President Cheney said he had " a pretty good idea
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050623-8.html) of a
general area that he's in." Note to the Bush administration: close
doesn't count in terrorist manhunts.

1,382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 -- IRAQ WAR MAKING THINGS WORSE: According to the
CIA, "[t]he war in Iraq is creating a training and recruitment ground
for a new generation of "professionalized" Islamic terrorists
(http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0114-01.htm) ." An in-house CIA
think tank concluded that, since the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq has served
as " a training ground, a recruitment ground
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7460-2005Jan13.html) ."
In the poorly planned aftermath of the invasion "hundreds of foreign
terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders." There is a
serious risk Iraq is now " creating newly radicalized and experienced
jihadis (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0208/p06s01-wome.html) who return
home to cause trouble in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere."

1382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 - LOOSE NUKES: The Bush administration has
repeatedly asserted that nuclear weapons in the hands of our enemies is the
greatest threat to America
(http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/05/debate.transcript/index.html)
. Yet administration efforts to stop nuclear proliferation have been
lackluster. In May, " a monthlong conference to review the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty ended in complete failure.
(http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/28/news/nations.php) " U.S.
diplomacy was so anemic the parties "never engaged in a detailed discussion of
how to fix the gaping loopholes that many experts say have allowed a
resurgence in the spread of the most dangerous nuclear technologies." And
the pace at which we secured fissile materials -- the "gunpowder" used
to spark nuclear explosions -- in the former Soviet Union did not
accelerate after 9/11, according to a May 2005 study by scholars at Harvard
University
(http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/documents/thebomb2005.pdf) .

AN INDEFENSIBLE PHILOSOPHY: Rove said that after 9/11 conservatives "
prepared for war
(http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-rove24jun24,1,6643365.story?coll=la-headlines-politics)
." He's right. Immediately after the attacks Paul Wolfowitz and others
in the Bush administration prepared for war in Iraq
(http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html)
-- a country that, by the president's own admission, had nothing to do
with the 9/11 attacks (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3118262.stm)
. After years of deception, more Americans understand what happened.
That's why now most people think the war in Iraq wasn't worth it
(http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm) and hasn't made us safer
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700296.html?nav=rss_nation)
. Now, Rove is desperate to create distractions.

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A Painful Omission

huffingtonpost.com
Nellie B
A Painful Omission

Granted, covering annual meetings of big organizations is a big, boring job, and pretty much everything that happens is already in the presskit, just awaiting a few more quotes and a quick rewrite. But, by golly, there was some actual news percolating at the American Medical Association's annual meeting in Chicago, and practically everybody missed it. (Thanks to The News Blog.)

While the AP headlined "AMA to Seek Limits on Tanning, Video Games," The Chicago Tribune did a little better by telling its readers: "The American Medical Association voted Monday to put its weight behind legislative initiatives around the United States that would require pharmacies to fill legally valid prescriptions in the wake of recently publicized refusals by pharmacists opposed to dispensing the morning-after contraceptive."

But the problem actually goes well beyond that, reports MedPage Today in its story "AMA: Physicians Charge Pharmacists With Interference in Medical Care":

"It's not just contraceptives," said Mary Frank, M.D., a family physician from Mill Valley, Calif., during a discussion of the issue. "It's pain medications and psychotropics. And not only are the patients not getting prescriptions filled, but pharmacists are refusing to return the prescriptions and they are lecturing the patients about the drugs."


Excuse me? Pharmacists are denying patients needed pain relief and mental-health medication prescribed by their doctors? And nobody is covering this? Well, NPR did have a brief item, but I've been unable to find any followup coverage on either the veracity or the depth of the problem. Sure, chronic pain is significantly less sexy than contraception -- or tanning beds and video games, for that matter -- but it might actually be a little bit newsworthy. Ya think?

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Karl Rove's "Understanding of 9/11"

huffingtonpost.com
Kristen Breitweiser
Karl Rove's "Understanding of 9/11"

Mr. Rove, the first thing that I would like to address is Afghanistan - the place that anyone with a true “understanding of 9/11” knows is a nation that actually has a connection to the 9/11 attacks. One month after 9/11, we invaded Afghanistan, took down the Taliban, and left without capturing Usama Bin Laden - the alleged perpetrator of the September 11th attacks. In the meantime, Afghanistan has carried out democratic elections, but continues to suffer from extreme violence and unrest. Poppy production (yes, Karl, the drug trade) is at an all time high, thus flooding the world market with heroin. And of course, the oil pipeline (a.k.a. the Caspian Sea pipeline) is better protected by U.S. troops who now have a “legitimate” excuse to be in that part of Afghanistan. Interesting isn't it Karl that the drug “rat line” parallels the oil pipeline. (Yet, with all those troops guarding that same sliver of land, can you please explain how those drugs keep getting through?)

Now Karl, a question for you, since you seem to be the nation's self-styled sensei with regard to 9/11: Is Usama Bin Laden still important? Lately, your coterie of friends seems to be giving out mixed messages. Recall that in the early days, Bin Laden was wanted “dead or alive.” Then when Bin Laden slipped through your fingertips in Tora Bora, you downgraded his importance. We were told that Bin Laden was a "desperate man on the run,” and a person that President Bush was not "too worried about". Yet, whenever I saw Bin Laden's videos, he looked much too comfortable to actually be a man on the run. He looked tan, rested, and calm. He certainly didn't look the way I wanted the murderer of almost 3,000 innocent people to look: unkempt, panicked, and cowering in a corner.

Karl, I mention Bin Laden because recently Director of the CIA, Porter Goss, has mentioned that he knows exactly where Bin Laden is located but that he cannot capture him for fear of offending sovereign nations. Which frankly, I find ironic because of Iraq--and let's just leave it at that. But, when you say that “moderation and restraint” don't work in fighting terrorists, maybe you should share those comments with Mr. Goss because he doesn't seem to be on the same page as you. Unless of course, Porter is holding out to announce that Bin Laden is in Iran. (Karl, I want Bin Laden brought to justice, but not if it means starting a war with Iran - a country that possesses nuclear weaponry. The idea of nuclear fallout in any quadrant of the world is just not an acceptable means to any ends, be it capturing Bin Laden, oil or drugs. But, Afghanistan and Bin Laden are old news. Iraq is the story of today. And of course, it appears that Iran will be the story of next month. But, I digress.)

More to the point, Karl when you say, “Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war,” what exactly did you do to prepare for your war? Did your preparations include: sound intelligence to warrant your actions; a reasonable entry and exit strategy coupled with a coherent plan to carry out that strategy; the proper training and equipment for the troops you were sending in to fight your war? Did you follow the advice of experts such as General Shinseki who correctly advised you about the troop levels needed to actually succeed in Iraq? No, you didn't.

It has always been America's policy that you only place soldiers' lives in harm's way when it is absolutely necessary and the absolute last resort. When you send troops into combat you support those troops by providing them with proper equipment and training. Why didn't you do that with the troops that you sent into Iraq? Why weren't their vehicles armored? Why didn't they have protective vests? Why weren't they properly trained about the rules of interrogation? And Karl, when our troops come home – be it tragically in body bags or with missing limbs – you should honor and acknowledge their service to their country. You shouldn't hide them by bringing them home in the dark of night. Most importantly, you should take care of them for the long haul by giving them substantial veteran's benefits and care. To me, that is being patriotic. To me, that is how you support our troops. To me, that is how you show that you know the value of a human life given for its country.


For the record Karl, does Iraq have any connection to the 9/11 attacks? Because, you and your friends with your collective “understanding of 9/11” seem to be contradicting yourselves about the Iraq-9/11 connection, too. First, we were told that we went to war with Iraq because it was linked to the 9/11 attacks. Then, your rationale was changed to "Iraq has WMD". Then you told us that we needed to invade Iraq because Saddam was a "bad man". And now it turns out that we are in Iraq to bring them "democracy."

Of course, the Downing Street memo clarifies many of these things, but for the record Karl: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; there were few terrorists in Iraq before our invasion, but now Iraq is a terrorist hot-bed. America had the sympathy and support of the whole world before Iraq. Now, thanks to your actions, we find ourselves hated and alienated by the rest of the world. Al Qaeda's recruitment took a nose-dive after the 9/11 attacks, but has now skyrocketed since your invasion of Iraq; and most importantly, nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed because of your war in Iraq. These facts speak for themselves. (And, they speak very little about effectively winning any war on terror.)

Karl, you say you “understand” 9/11. Then why did you and your friends so vehemently oppose the creation of a 9/11 Independent Commission? Once the commission was established, why did you refuse to properly fund the Commission by allotting it only a $3 million budget? Why did you refuse to allow access to documents and witnesses for the 9/11 Commissioners? Why did we have to fight so hard for an extension when the Commissioners told us that they needed more time due to your footdragging and stonewalling? Why didn't you want to cooperate so that all Americans could “understand” what happened on 9/11?

Since the release of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report, have you helped bring to fruition any of the commission's recommendations? Have you truly made our homeland safer by hardening/eliminating soft targets? Because, to me rebuilding a tower that is 1,776 feet tall where the World Trade Center once stood seems to be only providing more soft targets for the terrorists to hit. Moreover, your support for the use of nuclear energy seems to be providing even more soft targets. Tell me, while you write your nifty little speeches about nuclear power, do you explain to your audience how our nuclear plants will be protected against terrorist attack or infiltration? What assurances do you give that nuclear waste will not find its way into terrorist's dirty bombs and onto our city streets? And, how do you assure your audience that the shipment of radioactive material will not become a terrorist target as it rolls through their own backyards?

To date, you have done practically nothing to secure our ports, nuclear power plants, and mass transportation systems. Imagine if the billions of dollars you spent in Iraq were spent more wisely on those things here at home. Imagine what sort of alternative energy resources (bio-diesel, wind power, solar power, and hybrid automobiles) could have been researched and funded in the past three years. Talk about regaining the respect and support of the world, that is the one way to do it.

Karl, if you “understand 9/11”, then why don't you understand that until we have a more environmentally friendly energy policy, we cannot effectively fight the war on terrorism. By being dependent on foreign oil, we have no choice but to cozy up to nations that sponsor terrorists. Moreover, because of oil, we may end up placing our troops and our nation at greater risk by having to invade certain oil-rich countries. Our invasion of these countries merely serves to inflame would-be terrorists by reinforcing their notion that we are gluttonous and self-centered -- invading sovereign nations solely to steal their oil. Forgive me Karl, but is that how you think you "win hearts and minds"? Does that help in any way to "spread democracy"?

Finally Karl, please “understand” that the reason we have not suffered a repeat attack on our homeland is because Bin Laden no longer needs to attack us. Those of us with a pure and comprehensive “understanding of 9/11” know that Bin Laden committed the 9/11 attacks so he could increase recruitment for al Qaeda and increase worldwide hatred of America. That didn't happen. Because after 9/11, the world united with Americans and al Qaeda's recruitment levels never increased.

It was only after your invasion of Iraq, that Bin Laden's goals were met. Because of your war in Iraq two things happened that helped Bin Laden and the terrorists: al Qaeda recruitment soared and the United States is now alienated from and hated by the rest of the world. In effect, what Bin Laden could not achieve by murdering my husband and 3,000 others on 9/11, you handed to him on a silver platter with your invasion of Iraq - a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Which leads me to my final questions for you Karl: What are your motives when it comes to 9/11 and are you really sure that you understand 9/11?

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ABC vs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

ABC vs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Huffington Post

Last week ABC canceled a story about a dangerous chemical in child inoculations. Last night, the network broadcast a recut version of its original story that had been edited into a piece of industry propaganda.


ABC’s original program showed how the vaccine industry, working with public health officials from the CDC and the federal government’s Institute of Medicine (IOM), may have poisoned a generation of American children with the mercury-laced vaccine preservative thimerosal. ABC had made an exclusive agreement to air the story after reading early drafts of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s article on the thimerosal scandal which appeared simultaneously in Salon.com and Rolling Stone last Wednesday. ABC was to air pre-taped stories on Kennedy’s piece on ABC Nightly News and Good Morning America. The shows were reportedly “in the can,” having been thoroughly edited by “several layers” of ABC staff. The night before the scheduled airing, the shows were cancelled by high-level ABC officials. After a news item on the incident ran, ABC received hundreds of angry emails from the parents of autistic children demanding the show be aired. The network re-edited the show into an "industry" piece, trotting out a parade of scientists from IOM and CDC to denounce Kennedy and defend thimerosal. The most vocal of these, Steve Goodman, participated in the controversial IOM panel that exonerated thimerosal. ABC failed to identify his bias in the piece. ABC produced its in-house doctor, Tim Johnson, who used entire phrases pulled directly from an IOM press release. He ended by pronouncing IOM “impeccable.” ABC bracketed the Kennedy story with two advertisements from pharmaceutical industry sponsors.

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BeNow All You Can Be

huffingtonpost.com
Marty Kaplan
BeNow All You Can Be

This week the Pentagon began working with a private company called BeNow to create a marketing database of Americans 16- to 18- years old. According to the Washington Post, the product being marketed to these kids, you will not be shocked to learn, is enlistment in the military.

It’s bad enough that the data that the No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to compile are being provided to military recruiters, so that they can call kids at home and pitch them a swell career in the armed forces.

But this new database will contain even more information: birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, even what subjects the kids are taking.

So just as Amazon.com can send you an email saying that you might want to buy the new Anne Coulter book because you bought Mussolini’s memoirs in the past, now the Pentagon can pick off kids whose grades aren’t scholarship material and whose zip codes aren’t high-income, and paint a rosy picture of their future in uniform.

And that’s not to mention the identity theft issues. Imagine what a treasure-trove the BeNow database will be to hackers in Uzbekistan. The Pentagon, of course, assures us that all this information will be secure. But coming within days of our learning that 16 million American credit-card holders can kiss their privacy goodbye, the Defense Department’s promises aren’t very comforting.


Serving our country in the armed forces is a courageous and patriotic choice. But that’s not what this new Big Brother offensive is about. It’s about military recruiters failing to make their quotas, because kids don’t want to serve in a war they don’t believe in. It’s about none of the children of the chickenhawks and of the right-wing pundits in Washington enlisting, because war’s fine as long as someone else's kids fight it for them.

At the height of the Vietnam War, a raging issue was whether to permit military recruiters and reserve programs on campus. Today, the battle has moved to the high schools, and in a virtual world, no one can be kept out of our homes and our lives. Before we offer up the next generation on a silver platter to the war machine, shouldn't we be demanding that Jenna and Barbara Bush put in their time in Iraq?

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China 'is more popular' than US

BBC NEWS
China 'is more popular' than US
America's image is still so tattered abroad after the Iraq war that China is viewed more favourably than the US in many countries, a global poll finds.

Its image has not recovered in Western European countries, the US-based Pew Research Center found.

In none of the 16 countries surveyed, the US included, does a majority of the public think the war leading to Saddam Hussein's removal made the world safer.

But hostility towards the US has eased in some parts of the Muslim world.

"It's amazing when you see the European public rating the United States so poorly, especially in comparison with China," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which carried out the survey.

China is well considered in Europe and Asia, although there is considerable wariness about its growing economic and military power.

Solid majorities in every European nation except Turkey would not like to see China rival the US as a military superpower, the survey said.

'Hardworking'

A majority of the public in 10 of the 15 countries surveyed holds unfavourable opinions of the US.


President George W Bush's calls for greater democracy in the Middle East and US aid to tsunami victims in Asia have been welcomed in many countries.

"We should keep plugging away on democracy," said former Senator John C Danforth, who co-chairs the Pew Global Attitudes Project with former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

"But we need to do a better job of communicating what we're trying to do."

However, the survey finds that America continues to be viewed as largely indifferent to the interests of other countries in setting its foreign policies.

The US image remains relatively poor in Muslim countries like Jordan and Pakistan, but has bounced back in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country.

In most countries surveyed, Americans are seen as "inventive" and "hardworking", but they are also seen by many in both Western and predominately Muslim countries as "violent" and "greedy" - a judgement with which many Americans agree.

The survey was conducted among nearly 17,000 people from 20 April to 31 May with samples of about 1,000 in most countries, with more interviews in India and China and slightly fewer than 1,000 in the European countries.

The margin of sampling error ranged from two percentage points to four percentage points, depending on the sample size.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4124164.stm

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The Sun exposes UK ID theft racket at Indian call centre

theregister.co.uk
The Sun exposes UK ID theft racket at Indian call centre
By John Leyden

Update:
An undercover reporter was able to buy the details of thousands of UK banking accounts, password particulars and credit cards numbers from crooked call centre workers in India, The Sun reports.

The paper says one of its journalists bought details of 1,000 UK banking customers from an IT worker in Delhi for £4.25 each. He was also able to buy the numbers of credit cards and account passwords. An unnamed security expert hired by the paper verified that the details were genuine. The information sold could be readily exploited by ID thieves to apply for credit cards or loans under assumed identities or to simply loot compromised accounts. The call centre worker bragged that he could sell up to 200,000 account details each month.


The Sun handed over a dossier on its investigation to the City of London Police. In a statement, the City of London Police said: "Unfortunately we have no jurisdiction to prosecute this in the UK. However we have passed information through Interpol to the Indian authorities and will be working with them to secure the prosecution of this individual.".

Amicus, the union, said the case highlighted possible data protection risks about moving financial services overseas. "Companies that have offshore jobs need to reflect on their decision and the assumption that cost savings benefiting them and their shareholders outweigh consumer confidentiality and confidence," Dave Fleming, senior finance officer, told the BBC

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Pro-Bush group's ad faults Democrats for criticisms they haven't yet made, about a Supreme Court nominee who hasn't been named, to . . .

factcheck.org
A Premature Attack
Pro-Bush group's ad faults Democrats for criticisms they haven't yet made, about a Supreme Court nominee who hasn't been named, to a vacancy that doesn't yet exist.

Summary

A pro-Bush group fired the opening salvo - they call it "a warning shot" - in what threatens to become a multi-million dollar advertising and public relations campaign over a possible Bush appointment to the Supreme Court. The ad predicts "Democrats will attack anyone the President nominates," saying that " a Supreme Court nominee deserves real consideration, instead of instant attacks."

But this ad itself is an attack that goes beyond "instant" - it was launched without waiting for Bush to name a replacement for the ailing Justice William Rehnquist, or even for Rehnquist to say publicly whether or not he will retire as he is reported to be considering. And whether or not Democrats will criticize "anyone" Bush names can't be known for sure at this point - it may or may not turn out to be true.

To support its case, the ad cites editorial blurbs from Republican newspapers criticizing Democrats over their treatment of Supreme Court nominees in the past. But the ad fails to note that the blurbs were about the Robert Bork nomination fight that happened nearly 18 years ago.


Analysis

The Republican group Progress for America released the television ad "Get Ready" on June 22. In a news release, the group reports that the ad will run through July 1 as part of a $700,000 effort to "warn opinion leaders in Washington, DC and beyond that some Democrats will soon unleash a fury of dishonest and ugly attacks about any Justice that President Bush nominates to the Supreme Court should a vacancy occur."

The group will air the television ad nationally on CNN and the Fox News Channel. In the Washington, D.C. area, the group plans to air the spot on MSNBC, CNBC, a number of Sunday morning political talk shows like NBC's "Meet the Press," and a local news channel. The group will sponsor banner ads linking to its www.UporDownVote.org site on the websites of several newspapers, including The New York Times and Washington Post, and blogs, including the Drudge Report and Instapundit.

What They Said

The ad begins by recounting some controversial statements from a pair of prominent Democrats. The quotes are accurate and only slightly out of context.

Howard Dean is pictured as the narrator says, "Republicans 'never made an honest living in their lives.'"

Dean's actual comments referred to "a lot of" Republicans and not, as the ad implies, all Republicans. Dean was speaking to the Campaign for America 's Future about election reform, arguing that long waits at the polls might discourage voters who can't take much time away from their jobs:

Howard Dean, June 2:The idea that you have to wait on line for eight hours to cast your ballot in Florida , there's something the matter with that. You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or whatever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote?
Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them never made an honest living in their lives. But for ordinary working people who have to work eight hours a day, they have kids, they've got to get home to those kids--the idea of making them stand for eight hours to cast their ballot for democracy is wrong . . .

That remark was too much even for some fellow Democrats. Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said June 5 on ABC's "This Week" that Dean "doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric, and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats." And the party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, John Edwards, called Dean "a voice" that "I don't agree with."

The ad also shows a picture of Senate Minority leader Harry Reid while the announcer quotes him as calling President Bush both a "loser" and a "liar."

Reid originally called Bush a "liar" in 2002 after a speech that Bush gave about storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, saying, " President Bush is a liar. He betrayed Nevada and the betrayed the country."

Reid questioned Bush's truthfulness again in late April of 2005 in the midst of the battle over judicial filibusters in the Senate. In a press release, Reid said:

Harry Reid, April 5: Last week, I met with the president and was encouraged when he told me he would not become involved in Republican efforts to break the Senate rules. Now, it appears he was not being honest, and that the White House is encouraging this raw abuse of power.

Reid made another personal attack on Bush at Del Sol High School in Nevada on May 6, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Reid, May 6: The man's father is a wonderful human being. I think this guy is a loser.

Later, in an interview with Rolling Stone from June 2, Reid confirmed that he had called Bush both a "liar" and a "loser":

Q: You've called Bush a loser.
Reid: And a liar.
Q: You've apologized for the loser comment.
Reid: But never for the liar, have I.

The ad invites viewers to conclude that "the liberals" will make similar comments about a future Bush nominee to the Supreme Court. That, however, may or may not turn out to be the case.

Old Criticisms

The ad then turns to Democratic attacks on nominees of "past Presidents," while briefly showing images of Ronald Reagan and of Bush's father: "Some Democrats instantly attacked. Newspapers called some of these liberal attacks a 'smear,' 'dishonest,' 'ugly.'" The articles that the ad cites are editorials that ran in September and October of 1987 about then-President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

It is true that the newspaper opinion pieces cited were extremely critical of liberal interest groups who were accusing Bork of being an extremist and a judicial radical. The Chicago Tribune lamented that "the campaign to smear him has become, quite simply, a disgrace." The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page similarly bemoaned that "none of Judge Bork's friends, including us, could believe that this dishonest, despicably anti-intellectual campaign could succeed against the nation's outstanding jurist." The Chicago Tribune said the Bork fight "has sunk to an ugly level."

Worth noting, however, is that the Tribune - a newspaper that habitually endorses Republican presidential candidates - also stated that the Bork fight wasn't the first such "ugly" nomination battle. It observed that Democratic President Jimmy Carter's nominee to the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Abner Mikva, "had a hard time with conservatives."

It has been almost 18 years since the uncommonly contentious and bruising fight over Bork's nomination. He was rejected by the Senate, then controlled by Democrats, by a vote of 58 to 42. Since Bork's ill- fated nomination, five other justices have been nominated and confirmed - Anthony Kennedy in 1988, David Souter in 1990, Clarence Thomas in 1991, Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993, and Stephen Breyer in 1994 - under both Republican Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush and Democratic President Bill Clinton.

The ad predicts that "Democrats will attack anyone the president nominates." Perhaps so. But that is, of course, an opinion. Democrats have criticized Supreme Court nominees in the past, but it remains to be seen whether - when there is actually a vacancy to fill - President Bush will nominate someone who Democrats might at least tolerate.

-by Matthew Barge

Sources

Howard Dean, Remarks to the Campaign for America's Future, FDCH Political Transcripts, 2 June 2005.

Greg Pierce, "Inside Politics , Washington Times, 6 June 2005.

Erin Neff, "Political rift could hurt state's Yucca fight ," Las Vegas Sun , 5 March 2002.

"Meet the Press," trans cript , 05 December 2004.

Harry Reid, "Bush Goes Back on Word and Encourages Irresponsible Abuse of Power," press release , 22 April 2005.

Erin Neff, "Del Sol High School Appearance: Reid Calls Bush 'A Loser,'" Las Vegas Review-Journal, 7 May 2005.

Eric Bates, "The Gunslinger ," Rolling Stone, 2 June 2005.

"The Disfigured Debate Over Bork," editorial, Chicago Tribune, 6 September 1987.

"Nuts," editorial, Wall Street Journal, 8 October 1987.

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Why aren't the media screaming about the latest proofs of Bush's war scams?

sfgate.com
Downing Street Is For Liars

Why aren't the media screaming about the latest proofs of Bush's
war scams? Don't you know?

- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

This is the white-hot question right now gushing forth from many
on the Left, from progressive blogs and liberal patriots and blue
staters and angry anti-Bushers alike, and it is like a plea, a
rallying call, an indignant stomp of deep frustration. It is this:

Why are major American media not swarming all over the Downing
Street Memos thing? Why is the entire nation not just appalled and
disgusted and aghast at finding seemingly irrefutable proofs about
what we all already knew, which is that BushCo planned to invade Iraq
long before 9/11 and needed to find a way to justify it?

And, we now know, he was even willing to go so far as to rig the
intelligence and "fix the facts" and screw the U.S. economy and screw
any sort of exit strategy and screw the potential for lost lives and
let's just blindly stomp on in there and bomb the living crap outta
Saddam despite the undeniable pre-Iraq evidence that Saddam had zero
WMDs and that his nuclear program was "effectively frozen," and
despite how BushCo and the CIA and FBI and DOD and the Clinton
administration and your grandma all knew it?

This is what the infamous Downing Street Memos allegedly contain,
more undeniable proofs in the form of meeting notes with higher-ups in
Britain and the U.S., talking about the supposedly "dire" threat of
WMDs and nailing Iraq well before Bush was handed the tragic and
morose political gift of 9/11 to leverage and whore and turn into his
own personal Jesus.

And to be sure, the outcry from the Left is healthy and good and
appropriate and only now are a handful of newspapers and magazines
(you go, Newsweek) taking up the Downing Street Memo debacle, asking
slightly more inflamed questions of BushCo.

So then, why aren't U.S. media roaring more angrily about this?
Why aren't the major players up in arms and trumpeting banner
headlines and screaming for Bush to answer for his obvious and
plentiful crimes against the nation and the Earth and peace?


Answer: Because it's not really news. Not anymore.

Because, to be honest, what the memos actually reveal is not quite
as much as the Left wishes they did, and while they certainly do
reveal that Bush is a noted liar and distorter of fact and that we can
easily deduce that his snarling war hawks torqued the Brits into
complicity and mangled the U.N. laws and misled the American people
into war perhaps more deviously and violently than any administration
in recent American history, well, there is not a single thing in the
words you just read that most of us did not already know.

It's true. There is, unfortunately, nothing here that not already
been trumpeted to death by the Left, and therefore to try to trumpet
it all again as some sort of irrefutable revelation that should change
the face and temperament of the nation is sort of like beating a dead
horse we all knew was already dead but that is only now taking on a
new dimension of stink.

Look at it this way: The majority of the nation knows Bush lied
like a dog to drive us into an unwinnable (but, for his cronies,
incredibly profitable) war. The rest either refuse to believe it, or
they claim, with equal parts ignorance and blind jingoism, that the
ends (ousting a pip-squeak dictator who was no real threat to anyone
and who had been successfully contained for 20 years) justify the
means ($200 billion, 1,700 dead Americans, over 10,000 wounded and
disabled U.S. soldiers, countless tens of thousands of dead innocent
Iraqis, staggering economic debt, the open disrespect -- if not
outright contempt -- of the entire international community).

Here is the American cynic's view: It is almost too late to care
about the lies. It is almost pointless to scream and rant and point
fingers of blame. We all know who is to blame, and it ain't Saddam,
and it ain't Osama, and it ain't "terror," and it ain't our
"freedoms." Bush has driven us so deep into the Iraq hellhole it
serves almost no purpose to whine about the obvious deceptions and
blatant whorelike pre-9/11 machinations that got us here.

We are now, instead, focused on endurance. On gritting teeth and
getting through and getting the hell out of this new Vietnam Bush has
imbecilically driven us into, all while surviving 3.5 more years of
one of the most abusive, secretive cadres of warmongering leadership
in American history.

Oh, and rest assured, Iraq is indeed a new Vietnam. The parallels
are undeniable and mounting -- all the elements are in place:
staggering civilian death tolls, inmate abuse and torture,
international embarrassment, economic pillaging, executive impudence,
a vicious drive toward empire and power, a false sense of "victory"
and the overpowering sense we are so deeply entrenched in this
violent, chaotic quagmire, it will take many more years and many
thousands of more U.S. dead and countless more billions before we are
anywhere near stabilization.

But oh, you might cry (and this column might regularly wail),
shouldn't Bush be held accountable? Shouldn't he be made to answer for
these lies, these obvious abuses of power?

Answer: You're goddamn right he should. He should also be strapped
to an incredibly uncomfortable chair and made to look at the smoking
bones of ten thousand dead Iraqi children. But that's just me.

The lies that led us into this war are indeed staggering,
appalling, make Clinton's lies about his stupid little affair sound
like, well, a stupid little affair. As Dubya's tanking poll ratings
prove, even many moderate Republicans are backing away from calling
Iraq a success, or even a necessary action. And Dems have recently
begun demanding that BushCo develop some kind of exit strategy to
begin pulling out U.S. troops within a year.

BushCo's answer? No way in hell, bucko. Impossible. And why?
Because we are in way too deep. The violence is escalating, not dying
down. Every major U.S. general, strategist, policy wonk says we are
far too screwed to leave anytime soon. And "Mission accomplished" has
become perhaps the most tragic punch line to one of the most bitter
jokes ever told in your lifetime.

Let's just say it outright: Of course Bush deserves to be
impeached. But of course Bush will not be impeached, because
impeachment requires a massive federal investigation and an act of
Congress and the support of countless senators and representatives,
and right now the GOP controls Congress with a little iron penis, and
therefore any sort of uprising or scandal or suggestion of punishment
gets immediately slammed down or scoffed away or buried under an
avalanche of shrugs and yawns and neoconservative smugness. Isn't that
right, Mr. Gannon? Mr. DeLay? Abu Ghraib? Gitmo? Saddam? Et al.

BushCo survived the illegal sanctioning of inhumane torture. They
survived a gay male prostitute acting as a journalist. They survived
Enron and Diebold and the rigging of the first election and they will
survive Downing Street simply because all the people who should be on
the attack about these atrocities all work for the guys who committed
them.

So then, the question is not merely when will the stack of lies,
of abuses become so high, so unstable, so inexcusable that the entire
nation finally takes notice and the whole house of cards comes
crashing to the ground in a big nasty soul-jarring spirit-cleansing
patriotism-redefining whoomp and smothers the whole lot of them, but
rather, can it be soon enough?

And to that question, we all know the answer.

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Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

Yahoo! News
Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights.

Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."

Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.


The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.

New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.

The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.

City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.

New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.

Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.

The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.

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House Approves Flag-Burning Amendment

Yahoo! News
House Approves Flag-Burning Amendment

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

The House on Wednesday approved a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to ban desecration of the American flag, a measure that for the first time stands a chance of passing the Senate as well.

By a 286-130 vote — eight more than needed — House members approved the amendment after a debate over whether such a ban would uphold or run afoul of the Constitution's free-speech protections.

Approval of two-thirds of the lawmakers present was required to send the bill on to the Senate, where activists on both sides say it stands the best chance of passage in years. If the amendment is approved in that chamber by a two-thirds vote, it would then move to the states for ratification.

Supporters said the measure reflected patriotism that deepened after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and they accused detractors of being out of touch with public sentiment.

"Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center," said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. "Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment."

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said, "If the flag needs protection at all, it needs protection from members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents."

The measure was designed to overturn a 1989 decision by the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that flag burning was a protected free-speech right. That ruling threw out a 1968 federal statute and flag-protection laws in 48 states. The law was a response to anti-Vietnam war protesters setting fire to the American flag at their demonstrations.

The proposed one-line amendment to the Constitution reads, "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." For the language to be added to the Constitution, it must be approved not only by two-thirds of each chamber but also by 38 states within seven years.


Each time the proposed amendment has come to the House floor, it has reached the required two-thirds majority. But the measure has always died in the Senate, falling short of the 67 votes needed. The last time the Senate took up the amendment was in 2000, when it failed 63-37.

But last year's elections gave Republicans a four-seat pickup in the Senate, and now proponents and critics alike say the amendment stands within a vote or two of reaching the two-thirds requirement in that chamber.

By most counts, 65 current senators have voted for or said they intend to support the amendment, two shy of the crucial tally. More than a quarter of current senators were not members of that chamber during the last vote.

The Senate is expected to consider the measure after the July 4th holiday.

_

The amendment is H.J. Res 10.

_

On the Net:

House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov

Senate: http://www.senate.gov

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Tribe Told to Reroute DeLay Checks

Tribe Told to Reroute DeLay Checks

By ADAM NOSSITER
Associated Press Writer

ELTON, La. (AP) -- A casino-rich tribe wrote checks for at least $55,000 to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's political groups, but the donations were never publicly disclosed and the tribe was directed to divert the money to other groups that helped Republicans, tribal documents show.

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, now under criminal investigation, told the Coushatta Indian tribe, a client, to cancel its checks to the DeLay groups in 2001 and 2002 and route the money to more obscure groups that helped Republicans on Medicare prescription drug legislation and Christian voter outreach.

DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority and Americans for a Republican Majority never reported receiving any checks from the Louisiana tribe to federal or state regulators, their reports show. The donations, however, are recorded in memos and ledgers kept by the tribe.

"Enclosed please find a check for $10,000 to the Texans for a Republican Majority. This check needs to be reissued to America 21," Abramoff wrote the Coushattas in a May 2002 letter obtained by The Associated Press.

America 21 is a Nashville, Tenn.-based Christian group focused on voter turnout that helped Republican candidates in the pivotal 2002 elections that kept DeLay's party in control of the House.

Several months earlier, the tribe was asked to cancel a $25,000 check to Americans for a Republican Majority and to send that money instead in August 2001 to a group called Sixty Plus that helped Republicans in their two-year effort to get a Medicare prescription drug benefit through Congress.

People familiar with Abramoff's transactions with the Coushattas, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of ongoing grand jury and Senate probes, said Abramoff re-directed the checks at the request of one of DeLay's assistants.

The aide asked Abramoff to get the checks changed, expressing concern that donations from tribal casinos shouldn't appear on the rolls of DeLay's conservative political groups, the sources told the AP.


Don McGahn, a lawyer who represents one of DeLay's groups, said he had no immediate comment Tuesday. Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff, declined to comment.

Abramoff is currently under investigation by the Senate and a federal grand jury over allegations he and a colleague overcharged Indian tribes for their lobbying. Abramoff, whose ties to President Bush and DeLay are also under scrutiny, denies wrongdoing.

Kent Cooper, a former federal election regulator, said the transactions show how powerful leaders and special interests can hide money from a system that relies on public disclosure as its ethical safeguard.

"This shows how easy it is for interest groups, lobbyists or politicians to manipulate or redirect money into whatever avenue is dark and free of roadblocks, and the average person never sees any of it," Cooper said.

Tribal leaders who watched $32 million of their casino profits go to Abramoff's lobbying efforts now question why money they intended to benefit DeLay causes was often disguised or routed elsewhere.

"There's a pattern of trying to keep high profile entities out of the picture," Coushatta council member David Sickey said. "To me it tells me there's some effort at concealment."

The Coushatta tribe had hired Abramoff, a well-connected Republican lobbyist and fundraiser for Bush, to lobby in Washington on various pieces of legislation affecting their casinos such as the Indian Gaming Act, labor provisions and efforts to make it tougher to approve new gambling facilities, according to lobbying reports filed on Capitol Hill.

The tribe was flush with cash at the time from its booming casino.

Internal memos show Abramoff specifically advised the tribes when to send political donations and to whom.

Invoices show that among the charges was a $185,000 payment for use of a Washington arena skybox Abramoff leased. The AP reported earlier this year that DeLay treated some of his donors to a May 2000 performance of the Three Tenors opera singers in Abramoff's skybox.

A few weeks later, DeLay took a trip to Europe arranged by Abramoff. The House leader reported that the trip was paid for by an interest group, when in fact it was underwritten in part by Indian tribes.

DeLay has said he was never told that tribes bankrolled his trip.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee chaired by Republican John McCain is set to examine the relationships between Abramoff and the tribes further at a hearing Wednesday in Washington.

In August 2001, more than a year after the skybox and European trip, the Coushatta tribe was told that a $25,000 check to DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority should be "voided and reissued" to Sixty Plus, the memos show.

Sixty Plus, based in Arlington, Va., says it is "often viewed as the conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)" and played a key role in advocating the GOP Medicare precription drug plan.

Later, one of Abramoff's assistants would ask the tribe to void and reissue a second check to ARMPAC, this time for $20,000.

"Jack Abramoff asked me to forward these checks to you that have been returned from the various groups because they need to be re-issued with either different addresses or names," the assistant wrote in April 2002.

A month later, the request came in to reroute the $10,000 donation from Texans for a Republican Majority to America 21, the Christian organization that works on voter turnout.

America 21 calls on Americans to "repent" and says September 11, 2001, showed "America has lost the full measure of God's hedge of protection."

A ledger entitled "Coushatta Requests" shows thousands of dollars next to the names of dozens of congressmen and political action committees, Democrat and Republican alike - though mostly Republicans. A tribal official said the "requests" were actually demands made by Abramoff.

Around a long wooden table, the Coushattas' new leaders are going through each invoice and memo, trying to get a grip on a financial disaster for their tribe.

The men who signed the invoices for Abramoff and his colleague Michael Scanlon are not at the table. They were thrown out of office in tribal elections over the last several weeks.

Hundreds turned out for the new leaders' swearing-in two weeks ago, and some Indians here say they look forward to a thorough housecleaning.

"We still haven't gotten to the bottom of it," said Verlis Williams, on his first day on the job at the tribal council office. "We have no idea of the extent of it."

---

Associated Press writers John Solomon and Sharon Theimer in Washington contributed to this report.

---

On the Net:

The documents cited in this story can be viewed at: http://wid.ap.org/inv/050621tribaldonations.html

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U.S. troops to stay in Iraq despite 'progress'

Reuters

U.S. troops to stay in Iraq despite 'progress'

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite reported successes against the insurgency in Iraq, a top U.S. military commander said on Tuesday the United States was unlikely to reduce its 135,000 troops there before elections late this year.

"At this point, I would not be prepared to recommend a draw-down prior to the election, certainly not any significant numbers," Army Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of coalition forces in Iraq, told reporters.

But Vines said significant reductions could begin early next year following a referendum on a planned constitution this October and a subsequent national election on a new Iraqi government in December.

Vines spoke a day after President Bush acknowledged the Iraq war was "tough" going. But Bush refused to back down from assertions that progress was being made.

With his popularity falling amid mounting casualties, Bush will spend the next few weeks defending the war and will make a speech to mark next Tuesday's anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty.

Since the United States formally turned over power to Iraq on June 28, 2004, more than 860 U.S. troops have been killed.


Vines said, "Since that time, there's been significant progress throughout the country."

More than 1,720 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and with 80 deaths, May was the deadliest month for American forces since January. The continued deployment of 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq also is putting strains on the U.S. military and the Army has fallen far behind in its recruiting.

Vines said the insurgency was fueled by foreign fighters from such nations as Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and was "driven in large measure by money." Ordinary Iraqis were paid from $150 to several hundred to plant bombs.

Bush has come under fire for an overly optimistic view of the war. Many have urged him to make a public acknowledgment of the difficulties facing the United States.

'AS BAD AS IT WAS'

The Democrats' leading foreign policy spokesman, Sen. Joseph Biden, warned on Tuesday that Iraq's disintegration is a "real possibility" and proposed a plan to try and salvage the U.S. military intervention.

In a speech, Biden said the insurgency "remains as bad as it was a year ago."

An influential Republican lawmaker, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, however, said the U.S. effort in Iraq ranked as a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being disaster.

"The key to it is telling the American people it's going to be long and it's going to be hard," McCain told NBC's "Today" show.

Vines warned that polls in the United States showing a majority of Americans now oppose the U.S. military presence in Iraq suggested "they don't have a good perception of what is at stake here."

"There is a bit of a complacency with elements of our population," he said.

Speaking as U.S. and Iraq troops moved against insurgents in Iraq, Vines said the insurgency currently appeared to be "static," neither shrinking nor growing.

"I don't have any reason to believe there is going to be a significant change in four months, absent a political breakthrough," Vines said. "I suspect we will probably draw down capability after the elections because Iraqi security forces are more capable."

He said U.S. forces could be cut by four or five brigades early next year. An average American brigade numbers about 3,000 troops.

Some U.S. lawmakers, including a few from Bush's own Republican Party, have called for a deadline to begin withdrawing American troops.

But the White House and Pentagon have rejected that saying insurgents would simply wait for a withdrawal and then renew their violence.

In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said "much progress" had been made in Iraq in the past year.

"There will no doubt be frustrating delays and difficult setbacks. But let us not lose sight of the fact that all over Iraq today, Iraqis are debating nearly every aspect of their political future."

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U.S. was big spender in days before Iraq handover

Reuters

U.S. was big spender in days before Iraq handover

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States handed out nearly $20 billion of Iraq's funds, with a rush to spend billions in the final days before transferring power to the Iraqis nearly a year ago, a report said on Tuesday.

A report by Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, said in the week before the hand-over on June 28, 2004, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority ordered the urgent delivery of more than $4 billion in Iraqi funds from the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York.

One single shipment amounted to $2.4 billion -- the largest movement of cash in the bank's history, said Waxman.

Most of these funds came from frozen and seized assets and from the Development Fund for Iraq, which succeeded the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. After the U.S. invasion, the U.N. directed this money should be used by the CPA for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

Cash was loaded onto giant pallets for shipment by plane to Iraq, and paid out to contractors who carried it away in duffel bags.

The report, released at a House of Representatives committee hearing, said despite the huge amount of money, there was little U.S. scrutiny in how these assets were managed.

"The disbursement of these funds was characterized by significant waste, fraud and abuse," said Waxman.

An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said U.S. auditors could not account for nearly $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds and the United States had not provided adequate controls for this money.


"The CPA's management of Iraqi money was an important responsibility that, in my view, required more diligent accountability, pursuant to its assigned mandate, than we found," said chief inspector Stuart Bowen in testimony.

CASES OF ABUSE

Auditors found problems safeguarding funds including one instance where a CPA comptroller did not have access to a field safe as the key was located in an unsecured backpack.

Bowen's office has referred three criminal cases to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the past two weeks for misuse of funds. Bowen declined to provide details at the hearing.

In one e-mail released in Waxman's report with the subject line "Pocket Change," a CPA official stressed the need to get money flowing fast before the handover.

Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, a Democrat, questioned why so much money had to be transferred so fast.

Senior defense official Joseph Benkert said an infusion of funds was needed to address a wide variety of needs before the new Iraqi government took over.

Part of the challenge in tracking how money was spent was the cash environment and lack of electronic transfers.

Contractors were told to turn up with big duffel bags to pick up their payments and some were paid from the back of pick-up trucks.

One picture shows grinning CPA officials standing in front of a pile of cash said to be worth $2 million to be paid to a security contractor.

Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a Republican, said the photograph disturbed him. "It looks a little loose to me," he said, of the smiling officials.

"I share your concern," said Bowen.

Citing documents from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York, Waxman said the United States flew in nearly $12 billion overall in U.S. currency to Iraq from the United States between May 2003 and June 2004.

This money was used to pay for Iraqi salaries, fund Iraqi ministries and also to pay some U.S. contractors.

In total, more than 281 million individual bills, including more than 107 million $100 bills, were shipped to Iraq on giant pallets loaded onto C-130 planes, the report said.

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White House rebuffs independent probe of Guantanamo

Reuters

W. House rebuffs independent probe of Guantanamo

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday rebuffed Democratic calls for creation of an independent commission to investigate treatment of foreign terror suspects at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

And Assistant U.S. Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin yielded to a drumbeat of largely Republican criticism and apologized for comparing U.S. interrogation methods at Guantanamo to those used by the Nazis and other repressive regimes.

"I sincerely regret if what I said causes anybody to misunderstand my true feelings," Durbin said in the Senate. "Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."

On the other side of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Democrats in the House of Representatives said an independent commission to investigate treatment of detainees was needed because of questions about the integrity of the Pentagon's probes and to prove to the Muslim world the United States had nothing to hide.


White House spokesman Scott McClellan countered that "the Department of Defense has taken these issues head-on and addressed them."

"They continue to look into allegations of abuse. People are being held to account, and we think that's the way to go about this," McClellan said when asked whether the White House would support creation of an independent commission.

APOLOGY OFFERED

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California had earlier on Tuesday described Republican criticism of Durbin as an attempt to divert attention from sinking public support for the Iraq war.

Yet Durbin decided to try to end the controversy, saying, "I offer my apology for those offended by my words."

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and among those who had criticized Durbin, thanked the Illinois Democrat for the "heartfelt statement, one of apology."

"All of us, I believe, who have had the opportunity to serve in public life, from time to time have said things we deeply regret," said McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I believe we can put this issue behind us."

House Republican Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, among those who had criticized Durbin, said there was no need for an independent commission to investigate treatment of detainees. "This is strictly politics," DeLay said.

The military detention camp at Guantanamo has been criticized as a modern "gulag" by Amnesty International and it has become a hated symbol for many Muslims.

Earlier this month, President Bush left the door open to an eventual closing of the prison. Other top officials argued it should remain open.

Bush on Monday defended the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and challenged reporters to go and see for themselves.

Pelosi announced legislation on Tuesday that would create an independent commission to investigate. Advocates said the commission could be modeled after the one created to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Democrats said they had 170 sponsors for the legislation, all House Democrats. Pelosi said she believed enough House Republicans would cross the aisle to pass the measure if the Republican leadership allowed a vote.

"Our national interest demands a thorough independent review of the detention system," said Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat. "We need answers to basic questions. What happened? Who is responsible? And how do we move forward?"

"The Pentagon's internal investigations certainly do not meet this standard," Waxman said. "The resulting reports have contained conflicting conclusions and some have been little more than whitewashes."

McClellan said the detainees were "treated humanely" at Guantanamo. He called them "dangerous enemy combatants," sent to Guantanamo because "they are individuals who seek to do harm to the American people."

(Additional reporting by Tom Ferraro)

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Senate Republican balks at Bush's private accounts

Reuters

Senate Republican balks at Bush's private accounts

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate Republican said on Tuesday President Bush had encouraged him to introduce Social Security legislation that omits Bush's signature proposal for private retirement accounts in a bid to break the legislative logjam.

Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah said Bush's preference was to have private accounts included in Social Security legislation. But the senator quoted the president as telling him: "I like your bill."

"The president is on top of this and is fully aware of what we are doing and is encouraging me to go forward," Bennett told reporters after a closed-door session with Bush and other Senate Republicans at the White House.

Bennett's comments suggested that Bush might be willing -- for now -- to move legislation that does not include private accounts in order to overcome Senate opposition to overhauling the Social Security system.

Bush proposed letting workers divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into individual accounts that would be invested in stocks and bonds.

Bennett said private accounts would be proposed in separate legislation that would be considered later.


The White House said Bush was not abandoning his private-account plan and urged Democrats to negotiate.

Polls put Bush's approval ratings at the lowest levels of his presidency, in part because of skepticism over his private-account plan, his top legislative priority. Bush has been shifting his focus increasingly to other issues, including the war in Iraq, the economy and Medicare.

Bennett said he hoped to introduce his Social Security bill as early as next week, and asserted that some Democrats had privately expressed an interest in supporting it.

"We have a lot of hope that we can use this bill to break the logjam and move forward on Social Security," Bennett said.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said private accounts were a nonstarter. "Until the president and the Republican leadership agree that their misguided attempt to privatize Social Security is over..., Democrats will continue to refuse to enter negotiations," he said.

'NOTHING HAS CHANGED'

White House spokesman Scott McClellan played down Bush's comments to Bennett.

"Nothing has changed in terms of the president's belief that personal accounts are an important part of any solution," McClellan said.

"I think we need to deal with it all at once (private accounts and Social Security's solvency), and that's still our strategy and our goal," White House communications director Nicolle Devenish told CNN.

Another Senate Republican, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, plans to introduce his own alternative Social Security legislation that would avoid politically unpopular benefit cuts and tax increases but retain a private-account provision.

Congressional aides said House Republicans may unveil a plan on Wednesday similar to DeMint's.

The White House has shown increasing flexibility on its Social Security plan in a bid to attract support in Congress. The private-accounts plan faces stiff opposition from Democrats, and some Republicans are reluctant to support it for fear of a backlash in the 2006 elections.

"I've decided that the Democrats have made it clear they will not back personal accounts. And in response to the president's position that 'let's try to get something done,' I will be proposing a bill that does not include personal accounts," Bennett said. "The president is aware of that and he indicated that I should go forward and do that."

After the White House comment, Bennett said on CNN he did not want to "over stress the president's kind words as being a signal that he was more than willing to jettison personal accounts, because he never said that."

But Bennett said: "Let's see how many supporters we can get for a bill without personal accounts, and then we'll have the discussion about personal accounts later."

Although private accounts are not included, Bennett's legislation incorporates a proposal -- backed by Bush -- to slow the growth of benefits for middle- and upper-income workers by linking them to prices rather than wages. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland)

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Lawmakers chide Pentagon over U.N. treatment

Reuters

Lawmakers chide Pentagon over U.N. treatment

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers took aim at the Pentagon on Tuesday for hiding information from U.N.-mandated auditors about U.S contractor Halliburton, with Republicans calling it an embarrassment.

"This is a self-inflicted wound, a needless failure to meet transparency obligations," Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, told a U.S. House of Representatives panel.

The hearing was called to look at U.S. management of Iraqi funds after the 2003 invasion. An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found the U.S.-led authority there could not properly account for $8.8 billion of Iraq's money.

Texas-based Halliburton -- run by Vice President Dick Cheney until the 2000 race for the White House -- was paid about $1.7 billion out of these funds to bring in fuel for Iraqis under a sole source deal its unit Kellogg Brown and Root had with the U.S. military.

U.N. auditors asked for a full accounting of Iraqi money given to KBR and documents were finally handed over after much wrangling but portions detailing potential overcharges by KBR were blocked out.

"It hid almost every meaningful number or reference to question an unsupported contract cost, the very matters of most concern to them and, frankly, to us," said Shays.

U.S. congressional committees, including Shay's Government Reform Committee, are investigating the U.N.'s now-defunct oil-for-food program and Shays said moves to hide or edit U.S. documents undermined the U.S. credibility in these probes.

Such moves also made it look as if the Defense Department had something to hide. "Sometimes, lawyers can get you out of jail but can make you look as guilty as hell in the process."

He added: "It really ticks me off. It seems senseless."


DEFENDS MOVE

David Norquist, under deputy secretary of defense, said his department tried to be as transparent as possible in its dealings with U.N.-mandated auditors.

"It was our intent to see that (U.N. auditors) received as full an answer as possible, consistent with the law," said Norquist.

Defense Department officials at the hearing, who were chastised for not preparing written testimony, said lawyers had advised them the KBR information was proprietary and could not be released to the public.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which was in charge of the KBR contract, said KBR made all the redactions and all of these were accepted by the Defense Department.

KBR spokeswoman Cathy Mann said the criticism of the company was unfounded, adding any claims that figures in these audit reports were overcharges are "flat-out wrong."

"These redactions were ultimately reviewed and evaluated by KBR's customer and some were accepted and some were over-ruled. KBR plays no role in this decision-making process," she said.

The Democrats asked the Republican-run committee to subpoena the Pentagon to hand over all records relating to who made the decision to redact the documents and why.

Democrats have in the past accused Halliburton of being given favorable treatment in Iraq because of the company's former ties to Cheney.

Shays, who chaired the hearing, gave the Pentagon until Monday to hand over the documents or face a subpoena.

Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich from Ohio said the United States should look at its own record.

"Through systematic mismanagement, a lack of transparency, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has discredited the United States," he said.

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