Our Godless Constitution

thenation.com
Our Godless Constitution

by BROOKE ALLEN

[from the February 21, 2005 issue]

It is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George Orwell, but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. The lesson the President has learned best--and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him--is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration's current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.

Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we forgot." But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.

In the eighty-five essays that make up The Federalist, God is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses the word, as Gore Vidal has remarked, in the "only Heaven knows" sense). In the Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and the famous line about men being "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." More blatant official references to a deity date from long after the founding period: "In God We Trust" did not appear on our coinage until the Civil War, and "under God" was introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance during the McCarthy hysteria in 1954 [see Elisabeth Sifton, "The Battle Over the Pledge," April 5, 2004].

In 1797 our government concluded a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:

As the Government of the United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Musselmen--and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history. There is no record of debate or dissent. The text of the treaty was printed in full in the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, but there were no screams of outrage, as one might expect today.

The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a wall of separation between church and state." John Adams opined that if they were not restrained by legal measures, Puritans--the fundamentalists of their day--would "whip and crop, and pillory and roast." The historical epoch had afforded these men ample opportunity to observe the corruption to which established priesthoods were liable, as well as "the impious presumption of legislators and rulers," as Jefferson wrote, "civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time."

If we define a Christian as a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then it is safe to say that some of the key Founding Fathers were not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were deists--that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected revelation and all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the Creator, they believed, could best be read in Nature. John Adams was a professed liberal Unitarian, but he, too, in his private correspondence seems more deist than Christian.

George Washington and James Madison also leaned toward deism, although neither took much interest in religious matters. Madison believed that "religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize." He spoke of the "almost fifteen centuries" during which Christianity had been on trial: "What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." If Washington mentioned the Almighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful to refer to Him not as "God" but with some nondenominational moniker like "Great Author" or "Almighty Being." It is interesting to note that the Father of our Country spoke no words of a religious nature on his deathbed, although fully aware that he was dying, and did not ask for a man of God to be present; his last act was to take his own pulse, the consummate gesture of a creature of the age of scientific rationalism.

Tom Paine, a polemicist rather than a politician, could afford to be perfectly honest about his religious beliefs, which were baldly deist in the tradition of Voltaire: "I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.... I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." This is how he opened The Age of Reason, his virulent attack on Christianity. In it he railed against the "obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness" of the Old Testament, "a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." The New Testament is less brutalizing but more absurd, the story of Christ's divine genesis a "fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by any thing that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients." He held the idea of the Resurrection in especial ridicule: Indeed, "the wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told, exceeds every thing that went before it." Paine was careful to contrast the tortuous twists of theology with the pure clarity of deism. "The true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical."

Paine's rhetoric was so fervent that he was inevitably branded an atheist. Men like Franklin, Adams and Jefferson could not risk being tarred with that brush, and in fact Jefferson got into a good deal of trouble for continuing his friendship with Paine and entertaining him at Monticello. These statesmen had to be far more circumspect than the turbulent Paine, yet if we examine their beliefs it is all but impossible to see just how theirs differed from his.

Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. By his own definition he was a deist, although one French acquaintance claimed that "our free-thinkers have adroitly sounded him on his religion, and they maintain that they have discovered he is one of their own, that is that he has none at all." If he did have a religion, it was strictly utilitarian: As his biographer Gordon Wood has said, "He praised religion for whatever moral effects it had, but for little else." Divine revelation, Franklin freely admitted, had "no weight with me," and the covenant of grace seemed "unintelligible" and "not beneficial." As for the pious hypocrites who have ever controlled nations, "A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law"--a comment we should carefully consider at this turning point in the history of our Republic.

Here is Franklin's considered summary of his own beliefs, in response to a query by Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale. He wrote it just six weeks before his death at the age of 84.

Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any particular marks of his displeasure.

Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the teachings of Jesus had undergone. "The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded [Christianity] with absurdities and incomprehensibilities" that it was almost impossible to recapture "its native simplicity and purity." Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New Testament put an intolerable strain on credulity. "The day will come," he predicted (wrongly, so far), "when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." The Revelation of St. John he dismissed as "the ravings of a maniac."

Jefferson edited his own version of the New Testament, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," in which he carefully deleted all the miraculous passages from the works of the Evangelists. He intended it, he said, as "a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." This was clearly a defense against his many enemies, who hoped to blacken his reputation by comparing him with the vile atheist Paine. His biographer Joseph Ellis is undoubtedly correct, though, in seeing disingenuousness here: "If [Jefferson] had been completely scrupulous, he would have described himself as a deist who admired the ethical teachings of Jesus as a man rather than as the son of God. (In modern-day parlance, he was a secular humanist.)" In short, not a Christian at all.

The three accomplishments Jefferson was proudest of--those that he requested be put on his tombstone--were the founding of the University of Virginia and the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The latter was a truly radical document that would eventually influence the separation of church and state in the US Constitution; when it was passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786, Jefferson rejoiced that there was finally "freedom for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindu and infidel of every denomination"--note his respect, still unusual today, for the sensibilities of the "infidel." The University of Virginia was notable among early-American seats of higher education in that it had no religious affiliation whatever. Jefferson even banned the teaching of theology at the school.

If we were to speak of Jefferson in modern political categories, we would have to admit that he was a pure libertarian, in religious as in other matters. His real commitment (or lack thereof) to the teachings of Jesus Christ is plain from a famous throwaway comment he made: "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." This raised plenty of hackles when it got about, and Jefferson had to go to some pains to restore his reputation as a good Christian. But one can only conclude, with Ellis, that he was no Christian at all.

John Adams, though no more religious than Jefferson, had inherited the fatalistic mindset of the Puritan culture in which he had grown up. He personally endorsed the Enlightenment commitment to Reason but did not share Jefferson's optimism about its future, writing to him, "I wish that Superstition in Religion exciting Superstition in Polliticks...may never blow up all your benevolent and phylanthropic Lucubrations," but that "the History of all Ages is against you." As an old man he observed, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!'" Speaking ex cathedra, as a relic of the founding generation, he expressed his admiration for the Roman system whereby every man could worship whom, what and how he pleased. When his young listeners objected that this was paganism, Adams replied that it was indeed, and laughed.

In their fascinating and eloquent valetudinarian correspondence, Adams and Jefferson had a great deal to say about religion. Pressed by Jefferson to define his personal creed, Adams replied that it was "contained in four short words, 'Be just and good.'" Jefferson replied, "The result of our fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the four words, 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our inquiries must end; as the riddles of all priesthoods end in four more, 'ubi panis, ibi deus.' What all agree in, is probably right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong."

This was a clear reference to Voltaire's Reflections on Religion. As Voltaire put it:

There are no sects in geometry. One does not speak of a Euclidean, an Archimedean. When the truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to arise.... Well, to what dogma do all minds agree? To the worship of a God, and to honesty. All the philosophers of the world who have had a religion have said in all ages: "There is a God, and one must be just." There, then, is the universal religion established in all ages and throughout mankind. The point in which they all agree is therefore true, and the systems through which they differ are therefore false.

Of course all these men knew, as all modern presidential candidates know, that to admit to theological skepticism is political suicide. During Jefferson's presidency a friend observed him on his way to church, carrying a large prayer book. "You going to church, Mr. J," remarked the friend. "You do not believe a word in it." Jefferson didn't exactly deny the charge. "Sir," he replied, "no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning Sir."

Like Jefferson, every recent President has understood the necessity of at least paying lip service to the piety of most American voters. All of our leaders, Democrat and Republican, have attended church, and have made very sure they are seen to do so. But there is a difference between offering this gesture of respect for majority beliefs and manipulating and pandering to the bigotry, prejudice and millennial fantasies of Christian extremists. Though for public consumption the Founding Fathers identified themselves as Christians, they were, at least by today's standards, remarkably honest about their misgivings when it came to theological doctrine, and religion in general came very low on the list of their concerns and priorities--always excepting, that is, their determination to keep the new nation free from bondage to its rule.

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Time to punt, Bill

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Rationing free speech

February 14, 2005 | 7:14 p.m. ET

Rationing free speech (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS - I never knew that freedom of speech came with an on/off switch.

Ward Churchill says some detestable things about 9/11 victims, so the Governor of Colorado wants to squeeze him out of the University there. Marine Corps Lieutenant General James Mattis tells an audience in San Diego “it’s fun to shoot some people,” particularly in Afghanistan, and his superior officers ask him to please not say stuff like that again. Eason Jordan makes a remarkable gaffe, implying that the U.S. military is hunting journalists. He backs off within moments of the remark, apologizes, and still gets forced to resign from CNN. Brit Hume and other political commentators twist Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words to make it look like he would’ve supported President Bush’s partial privatization of Social Security, and nobody corrects their journalistic blunders, let alone resigns.

Remarkable, all of it — perhaps the Jordan story most of all. While some bloggers are parading his head around on a pike as another example of victory over the MSM, they — and the MSM — seem to have entirely forgotten, and excluded from their coverage, the fact that Eason Jordan had sealed his own doom as long ago as April, 2003. It is one thing to acknowledge that your news organization may have buried stories that would’ve illuminated the atrocities of Saddam Hussein, in order to preserve your access (and perhaps the lives of your staff) in Baghdad — it is another to have voluntarily written those facts up as an Op-Ed for The New York Times.

That was about the time Jordan stopped actually running CNN’s international coverage, and began being basically a spokesman for it. Between the misguided idea to boast in The Times about what he called “The News We Kept To Ourselves,” and the stomach-churning, much-publicized news that he’d left his wife and family to take up with Daniel Pearl’s widow, Jordan had become a resignation waiting to happen. The irony of the right-wing bloggers’ delight over Jordan’s resignation from what they perceive as the left-wing CNN, is that by publicizing his faux pas in Davos, they did CNN executives’ dirty work for them. They enabled CNN to squeeze him out.

The Fox News folks, of course, specifically Brit Hume, squeezed the whole FDR thing. ‘Media Matters For America’ has done much of the legwork on breaking this down, and both on his radio show and at his website, Al Franken has done much of the publicizing. Hume, and others like those bastions of public conduct John Fund and Bill Bennett, have taken a bunch of 70-year old quotes out of context to make it look like Franklin Delano Roosevelt is endorsing President Bush’s plan to partially privatize Social Security.

Here’s the full relevant segment from Roosevelt’s message to Congress on Social Security and other similar programs from 1935: “In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.”

The syntax is a little ancient but the message is pretty straightforward. For 1935, people who would only take money out of Social Security and not put any in, should have their contributions covered half by the federal government and half by the states. Later on, those contributions should be replaced by the “self-supporting annuity plans” — which Roosevelt has already defined (“Second…”) as the actual Social Security system. Buried in the formality of his third point, FDR is talking about things we would later know as IRA’s and Keoghs and 401k’s.

But look at how Hume mixed and matched the original Roosevelt quotes on February 4th (and we’re quoting this verbatim from Fox’s website) “…it turns out that FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it. In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, ‘Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age,’ adding that government funding, ‘ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.’”

Roosevelt said no such thing. The “voluntary contributory annuities” are the IRA’s and Keoghs and 401k’s. What “ought to ultimately be supplanted” was the special government contributions to Social Security on behalf of people born in the 1870’s and earlier, and the “self-supporting annuity plans” constitute Social Security itself.

It’s premeditated, historical fraud, but you will not see Hume nor Fox News backpedal from it (as Jordan did for his misdemeanor), nor apologize for it (as Jordan did), nor save their masters from its shame (as Jordan did — of course there is no shame at Fox).

The Ward Churchill case, of course, is the most complex of them all (until the saga of “Jeff Gannon” resurfaces some time this week, when it could turn into the political scandal of the year — more in a subsequent blog).

Free speech in this country seems to have been created almost specifically to protect people like Churchill. He’s a tenured professor at a public university. He made outrageous statements about what is the symbolically still-burning pyre of The World Trade Center. When a baseball general manager (Jim Bowden, of the Cincinnati Reds), made two tasteless jokes about 9/11 in 2002, I wrote and broadcast repeatedly that he should be fired.

But universities and colleges — particularly public ones — are designed to collide popular, mainstream ideas, with contentious, contrarian ones (and unlike ballclubs, they are not private institutions, from which anybody can be fired for just about anything that embarrasses or harms said institution — also known as the ‘boomerang’ caveat to free speech). Hell, I had a professor at Cornell whose version of American history started with his explanation that the constitution was the elite’s successful attempt to co-opt the rights of the citizens. Students stood up in the lecture hall and swore at him. Now that was a marketplace of ideas.

It’s galling to know that Churchill’s oversimplified, insensitive vision of the horrors of September 11th are being underwritten by tax dollars. But it would be more galling to know that there is a line somewhere past which a professor at a public university can’t go. Where would that line be drawn? Our hypothetical professor could say that people at the Pentagon had always thought of themselves as a military target, even if the “military” consisted of a bunch of terrorists, but he couldn’t say that in the minds of the terrorists, the U.S. might have provoked them by its actions in the Middle East? The first wouldn’t get you fired, but the second would?

Nope.

You gotta live with this guy (just as you gotta live with Lieutenant General Mattis, also known as “The Way Too Happy Warrior”) and hope that students stand up and scream at him in class, or boycott him, or respond in the way you’re supposed to respond to free speech - with more free speech, not less.

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The Fighting Moderates

The New York Times
February 15, 2005

The Fighting Moderates
By PAUL KRUGMAN

"The Republicans know the America they want, and they are not afraid to use any means to get there," Howard Dean said in accepting the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. "But there is something that this administration and the Republican Party are very afraid of. It is that we may actually begin fighting for what we believe."

Those words tell us what the selection of Mr. Dean means. It doesn't represent a turn to the left: Mr. Dean is squarely in the center of his party on issues like health care and national defense. Instead, Mr. Dean's political rejuvenation reflects the new ascendancy within the party of fighting moderates, the Democrats who believe that they must defend their principles aggressively against the right-wing radicals who have taken over Congress and the White House.

It was always absurd to call Mr. Dean a left-winger. Just ask the real left-wingers. During his presidential campaign, an article in the muckraking newsletter CounterPunch denounced him as a "Clintonesque Republicrat," someone who, as governor, tried "to balance the budget, even though Vermont is a state in which a balanced budget is not required."

Even on Iraq, many moderates, including moderate Republicans, quietly shared Mr. Dean's misgivings - which have been fully vindicated - about the march to war.

But Mr. Dean, of course, wasn't quiet. He frankly questioned the Bush administration's motives and honesty at a time when most Democrats believed that the prudent thing was to play along with the war party.

We'll never know whether Democrats would have done better over the past four years if they had taken a stronger stand against the right. But it's clear that the time for that sort of caution is past.

For one thing, there's no more room for illusions. In 2001 it was possible for some Democrats to convince themselves that President Bush's tax cuts were consistent with an agenda that was only moderately conservative. In 2002 it was possible for some Democrats to convince themselves that the push for war with Iraq was really about eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

But in 2005 it takes an act of willful blindness not to see that the Bush plan for Social Security is intended, in essence, to dismantle the most important achievement of the New Deal. The Republicans themselves say so: the push for privatization is following the playbook laid out in a 1983 Cato Journal article titled "A 'Leninist' Strategy," and in a White House memo declaring that "for the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win - and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country."

By refusing to be bullied into false bipartisanship on Social Security, Democrats have already scored a significant tactical victory. Just two months ago, TV pundits were ridiculing Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, for denying that Social Security faces a crisis, and for rejecting outright the idea of diverting payroll taxes into private accounts. But now the Bush administration itself has dropped the crisis language, and admitted that private accounts would do nothing to improve the system's finances.

By standing firm against Mr. Bush's attempt to stampede the country into dismantling its most important social insurance program, Democrats like Mr. Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin and Barbara Boxer have, at a minimum, broken the administration's momentum, and quite possibly doomed its plan. The more time the news media spend examining the details of privatization, the worse it looks. And those Democrats have also given their party a demonstration of what it means to be an effective opposition.

In fact, by taking on Social Security, Mr. Bush gave the Democrats a chance to remember what they stand for, and why. Here's my favorite version, from another fighting moderate, Eliot Spitzer: "As President Bush embraces the ownership society and tries to claim that he is the one that is making it possible for the middle class to succeed and save and invest - well, I say to myself, no, that's not right; it is the Democratic Party historically that created the middle class."

For a while, Mr. Dean will be the public face of the Democrats, and the Republicans will try to portray him as the leftist he isn't. But Deanism isn't about turning to the left: it's about making a stand.

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Ex-Aide Questions Bush Vow to Back Faith-Based Efforts

washingtonpost.com
Ex-Aide Questions Bush Vow to Back Faith-Based Efforts

By Alan Cooperman and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 15, 2005; Page A01

A former White House official said yesterday that President Bush has failed to deliver on his promise to help religious groups serve the poor, the homeless and drug addicts because the administration lacks a genuine commitment to its "compassionate conservative" agenda.

[Note: Complete David Kuo article can be found below this one]

David Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for much of Bush's first term, said in published remarks that the White House reaped political benefits from the president's promise to help religious organizations win taxpayer funding to care for "the least, the last and the lost" in the United States. But he wrote: "There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda."

Analyzing Bush's failure to secure $8 billion in promised funding for the faith-based initiative during his first term, Kuo said there was "snoring indifference" among Republicans and "knee-jerk opposition" among Democrats in Congress.

"Capitol Hill gridlock could have been smashed by minimal West Wing effort," Kuo wrote on Beliefnet.com, a Web site on religion. "No administration since [Lyndon B. Johnson's] has had a more successful legislative record than this one. From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the 'poor people stuff.' "

Kuo's remarks were a rare breach of discipline for an administration that places a high premium on unity among current and former officials, and they mark the second time a former high-ranking official has criticized Bush's approach to the faith-based issue.

In August 2001, John J. DiIulio Jr., then-director of the faith-based office, became the first top Bush adviser to quit, after seven months on the job. In an interview with Esquire magazine a year later, DiIulio said the Bush White House was obsessed with the politics of the faith-based initiative but dismissive of the policy itself, and he slammed White House advisers as "Mayberry Machiavellis."

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said yesterday that Kuo is wrong about the president's commitment.

"The faith-based and community initiative has been a top priority for President Bush since the beginning of his first term and continues to be a top priority," Duffy said. "The president has mentioned the initiative in every State of the Union and fought for full funding."

In his first major policy speech as a presidential candidate in 2000, Bush proposed an $8 billion program to promote religious charities and other community groups. The idea quickly became the centerpiece of his call for compassionate conservatism. But it met stiff resistance in Congress, where Democrats said it threatened the separation of church and state, while Republicans showed little enthusiasm for new welfare-related spending.

After Congress balked at allowing religious groups to receive government funding and still hire, fire and promote employees on the basis of their faith, Bush issued executive orders to make it easier for religious groups to compete for government grants to run homeless shelters, counseling centers for teenagers and a wide range of other social programs.

"I think some good progress has been made, especially administratively," said John Bridgeland, White House director of domestic policy during Bush's first term. He added that Bush's decision to give chief speechwriter Michael J. Gerson responsibility for expanding the initiative should give the effort a lift in the second term.

In his Beliefnet column, Kuo said it was "a dream come true for me" when Bush promised in 2000 that in his first year in office he would provide $6 billion in tax incentives for private charitable giving, $1.7 billion for groups that care for the poor and $200 million for a Compassion Capital Fund to assist local faith-based organizations.

"Sadly, four years later these promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact," he wrote.

In June 2001, the promised tax incentives were stripped at the last minute from the $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation "to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy," Kuo said. The Compassion Capital Fund has received a cumulative total of $100 million in the past four years, and new programs for children of prisoners, at-risk youth and prisoners reentering society have received a little more than $500 million over four years, he said.

"Unfortunately, sometimes even the grandly-announced 'new' programs aren't what they appear," Kuo wrote, citing as an example the three-year $150 million "gang prevention" effort Bush announced in this year's State of the Union address. In reality, Kuo said, that money is being taken out of the "already meager" $100 million request for the Compassion Capital Fund.

Kuo, 36, served as a special assistant to the president for 2 1/2 years and was deputy head of the faith-based office from February 2002 to December 2003. Before joining the White House, he worked for several prominent conservatives, including John D. Ashcroft and William J. Bennett. But before that, he had been a campaign volunteer for former representative Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) and an intern for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

"I have always sought to try and figure out what's the best way for government to care for the poor. I went to the left and to the right, and I've ended up pretty much in the center," he said in a telephone interview yesterday.

In the Beliefnet column, Kuo said that he continues to have "deep respect, appreciation and affection for the president." Kuo added: "No one who knows him even a tiny bit doubts the sincerity and compassion of his heart."

Asked whether that meant he believes that Bush was sincere about the faith-based initiative but other White House officials were not, Kuo said he would "let the column speak for itself."

"The point of the column is that the poor need to be dealt with by everybody. There was phenomenal promise in the original vision for compassionate conservatism . . . and to try to pin blame on any one institution, one person, one body, one policy, is wrong," he said. "It's not about the White House, it's not about the Congress, it's not about interest groups. It's about everybody."

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Please, Keep Faith

beliefnet.com
Please, Keep Faith

Former Bush Aide: 'Minimal commitment' from the White House plus Democratic hostility hinder the faith-based plan

David Kuo

Four years ago, while visiting a small urban charity, President Bush launched the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He called it "one of the most important initiatives" of his administration.

It was hard evidence of the "compassionate conservatism" that Texas Governor George Bush embraced in his first major policy speech of the Presidential campaign, "It is not enough for conservatives like me to praise [compassionate] efforts. It is not enough to call for volunteerism. Without more support and resources, both private and public, we are asking them to make bricks without straw." That day a conservative Texas governor promised more than $8 billion during his first year in office to help social service organizations better serve "the least, the last, and the lost." More than $6 billion was to go for new tax incentives that would generate billions more in private charitable giving. Another $1.7 billion a year would fund faith-based (and non-faith-based) groups caring for drug addicts, at-risk youth, and teen moms. $200 million more would establish a "Compassion Capital Fund" to assist, expand and replicate successful local programs. Legislation would ensure that reported government discrimination against faith-based social service organizations would end. A new White House Faith-Based Office would lead the charge.

It was more than a bunch of promises. It was a new political philosophy of aggressive, government-encouraged (but not controlled) compassion that simultaneously rejected the dollars-equal-compassion equation of the "War on Poverty" mindset and the laissez-faire social policy of many conservatives. It was political philosophy of the heart as much as the head.

This was a dream come true for me. Yes, I actually dream of social policy. But since the early-1990s I've been what columnist E.J. Dionne termed a "com-con" or "compassionate conservative." I worked for William Bennett and John Ashcroft in the mid-1990s on issues like immigration, welfare, and education as they tried to promote a more compassionate Republican approach. While pure com-cons were never terribly powerful in Republican circles, Bush's endorsement of this progressive conservatism was exciting. And when he became the president, there was every reason to believe he'd be not only pro-life and pro-family, as conservatives tended to be, but also pro-poor, which was daringly radical. After all, there were specific promises he intended to keep.

Sadly, four years later these promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact. In June 2001, the promised tax incentives for charitable giving were stripped at the last minute from the $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. The Compassion Capital Fund has received a cumulative total of $100 million during the past four years. And new programs including those for children of prisoners, at-risk youth, and prisoners reentering society have received a little more than $500 million over four years--or approximately $6.3 billion less than the promised $6.8 billion.

Unfortunately, sometimes even the grandly-announced "new" programs aren't what they appear. Nowhere is this clearer than in the recently-announced "gang prevention initiative" totaling $50 million a year for three years. The obvious inference is that the money is new spending on an important initiative. Not quite. The money is being taken out of the already meager $100 million request for the Compassion Capital Fund. If granted, it would actually mean a $5 million reduction in the Fund from last year.

This isn't what was promised.

I served in the White House for two-and-a-half years as a Special Assistant to the president and eventually as Deputy Director of the Faith-Based Initiative. I have deep respect, appreciation, and affection for the president. No one who knows him even a tiny bit doubts the sincerity and compassion of his heart. Likewise, the people around the president are good and caring people. I know this firsthand because I experienced it during a health crisis in my own life when their kindness was evident.

That is why writing this is difficult.

I take solace in realizing that the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives that now sits outside the White House gates has effected change. The Office has used regulations and executive orders to end overt religious discrimination in the government grant-making process. Groups like the Metropolitan Council for Jewish Poverty, once denied an HHS application because it had "Jewish" in its name, are now welcome partners. Tens of thousands of faith-based social service groups, churches, synagogues, mosques, and secular non-profits attended free White House conferences where they were given information needed to navigate the federal grants labyrinth and the rules about what to do with money if they get it. A website now allows all social service groups to sort potential grants by category. These are good things.

But they are a whisper of what was promised. Irony of ironies, it leaves the faith-based initiative specifically, and compassionate conservativism in general, at precisely the place Gov. Bush pledged it would not go; it has done the work of praising and informing but it has not been given "the resources to change lives." In short, like the hurting charities it is trying to help, the Initiative has been forced to "make bricks without straw."

Why?

The first reaction might be that the recession or 9/11 made it impossible to do the full faith-based initiative. And, to be sure, 9/11 - with the ensuing effort to secure America, hunt down terrorists, and eliminate Saddam Hussein - made the world a very different place from what it was when Gov. Bush made domestic promises during his run for the White House. There are two things worth noting, however; first, the White House didn't even come close to fulfilling those promises before 9/11. More important, since then it has pushed an ambitious domestic agenda: three huge budgets have been submitted, each of which had billions of dollars for other domestic "priorities" but lacked any new money to pay for "compassion agenda" promises, which are ever more in need of fulfillment. After all, there are now more poor Americans than ever before.

So what happened?

1) On Capitol Hill, Republican indifference couldn't overcome knee-jerk Democratic opposition.

The moment the president announced the faith-based effort, Democratic opposition was frenzied. Hackneyed church-state scare rhetoric made the rounds; this was "radical" and "dangerous" and merely an "attempt to fund Bob Jones University." One Democratic African-American congressman came to the White House to back the president but was threatened by influential liberal groups that they would withhold funding if he didn't denounce the President. The next day he was forced to retract his statement. All of this came despite the fact that former Vice President Al Gore had endorsed virtually identical faith-based measures during the 2000 campaign.

Congressional Republicans matched Democratic hostility with snoring indifference. Sen. Rick Santorum spent endless hours alone lobbying Senate Leadership to give some floor time, any floor time to get a bill to help charities and the poor - even after 9/11 when charities were going out of business because of a decline in giving. He was stiff-armed by his own party.

At the end of the day, both parties played to stereotype -- Republicans were indifferent to the poor and the Democrats were allergic to faith.

2) There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda.

Capitol Hill gridlock could have been smashed by minimal West Wing effort. No administration since LBJ's has had a more successful legislative track record than this one. From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the "poor people stuff."

Not only were the tax items dropped from the 2001 tax relief bill, they were also ignored on numerous occasions when they could have been implemented. In December 2001, for instance, Sen. Daschle approached the Domestic Policy Council with an offer to pass a charity relief bill that contained many of the president's campaign tax incentive policies plus new money for the widely-popular and faith-based-friendly Social Services Block Grant. The White House legislative affairs office rolled their eyes while others on senior staff yawned. We had to leave the offer on the table.

They could afford to. Who was going to hold them accountable? Drug addicts, alcoholics, poor moms, struggling urban social service organizations, and pastors aren't quite the NRA. Charities haven't quite figured out the lobbying thing yet. More significantly, over time it became clearer that the White House didn't have to expend any political capital for pro-poor legislation. The initiative powerfully appealed to both conservative Christians and urban faith leaders - regardless of how much money was being appropriated.

Conservative Christian donors, faith leaders, and opinion makers grew to see the initiative as an embodiment of the president's own faith. Democratic opposition was understood as an attack on his personal faith. And since this community's most powerful leaders - men like James Dobson of Focus on the Family - weren't anti-poverty leaders, they didn't care about money. The Faith-Based Office was the cross around the White Houses' neck showing the president's own faith orientation. That was sufficient.

At the same time, the White House discovered urban faith leaders had been so neglected for so long that simple attention drew them in. Between 2002 and 2004 more than 15,000 white, Hispanic, and African-American religious and social service leaders attended free White House conferences on how to interact with the federal government. The meetings, held regularly in battleground states, were chock-full of vital information and gave thousands of groups invaluable information about government grants. They were hardly pep rallies for the President. But the conferences sent a resounding political message to all faith-oriented constituencies: President Bush cares about you.

Some liberal leaders have been quoted as saying the administration was looking to "buy minority votes." Nothing could be further from the truth. There wasn't enough money around to buy anyone. The conferences actually underscored how difficult it was to even get a grant. But by traveling across the country, giving useful information, and extending faith-based groups an open hand, powerful inroads were made to "non-traditional" supporters. One senior Republican leader walked into an early conference, stared wide-eyed at the room full of people of diverse ethnicities and said to me, "This is what Republicans have been dreaming about for 30 years." This is more damning of Democrats than anyone else. Where, exactly, has their faith outreach been for the last decade?

3) Liberal antipathy magnified the Initiative's accomplishments.

Secular liberal advocacy and interest groups attacked every little thing the faith initiative did. When Executive Orders were issued permitting an organization to simply display a cross or a Star of David, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State called it "a crusade to bring about an unprecedented merger of religion and government." When we helped Boston's historic Old North Church (of Paul Revere fame) get new windows through a historic preservation grants program at the Department of the Interior, the clamor was the same. The net effect of all the jabbering was the appearance that great progress was being made.

Had these liberal groups or an alliance of charities held the White House accountable for how little was being done -- especially compared to what was promised -- there is no telling what might have happened...or what might still happen.

I left the White House in December 2003. By that time, I'd grown quite frustrated with White House and Congressional approaches to faith-based issues and I let those in power know it. Virtually everything I've written here I told to those above me more than a year ago. I hoped things would change. But frankly I didn't quite trust my own judgment. I'd survived an intense health crisis but quickly returned to work; I wondered if my grumpiness came from fatigue, stress, or something my doctors secretly did to me while I was sick. I left, and went fishing. Literally. I joined the professional bass fishing tour and spent a chunk of my time on my (loaned) Skeeter boat stalking fish, clearing my head, and pursuing God. I figured that with time, my anger would subside.

I was right. The anger did. The sadness hasn't.

I'm writing this now because there is a lot of time left. There are more budget supplementals to come for Social Security and Iraq totaling scores of billions. The White House can still do a great deal for the poor. It can add another few billion to insure every American child has health care. It could launch a program to simply eliminate hunger. Groups like America's Second Harvest have the plan. Bump up the Compassion Capital Fund to $500 million a year and be marveled by change.

Given new budget realities, climates, and conditions it is easy to dismiss these suggestions as naive. But no one ever said faith was easy...or cheap. In 2000, Gov. Bush said, "I know that economic growth is not the solution to every problem. A rising tide lifts many boats, but not all." He then went on to propose a new approach to those who were still stuck behind. The promises are still there and I am trying to keep the faith.

David Kuo served as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He is now a Contributing Editor of Beliefnet.

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Bush Renominates 12 previously blocked Judicial Nominees

washingtonpost.com
Bush Tries Luck Again With Judicial Nominees
12 Candidates For Federal Courts Blocked in 1st Term

By Michael A. Fletcher and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 15, 2005; Page A05

Following through on a promise he has made repeatedly since his victory in November, President Bush yesterday renominated 12 candidates for federal appeals court seats whose confirmations were blocked by Senate Democrats during his first term.

The renomination of the judicial candidates promises to once again ignite an intense partisan battle with Senate Democrats. They have vowed to thwart Bush's nominees, whom they consider too conservative.

The battle over the makeup of the federal bench is also a key issue for conservative evangelicals and others at the core of the president's political base who see judges as crucial to their efforts to outlaw abortion, allow for a broader religious presence in daily life and limit the influence of the federal government.

Bush has said that his nominees are well qualified and deserve a vote in the Senate. "Every judicial nominee deserves a prompt hearing and an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate," he said yesterday.

Word of the nominations, which the White House had signaled in a December statement, was met with dismay from Senate Democrats and the activist groups that support them. Democrats vowed to continue opposing the candidates they had previously blocked.

"We should not divert attention from other pressing issues facing this nation to re-debate the merits of nominees already found too extreme by this chamber," said Sen. Harry M. Reid (Nev.), the Senate minority leader.

"To replay this narrow and completed debate demonstrates the Bush administration's failure to craft a positive agenda for the American people," added Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal activist group.

Among the most controversial nominees are Terrence W. Boyle, a federal district judge in North Carolina and nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, whom Democrats have criticized for his stances in civil rights cases; Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Richman Owen, a nominee for the 5th Circuit, whose jurisprudence in abortion, civil rights and environmental cases has been criticized; California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to a seat on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who Democrats say has referred to the New Deal as a "socialist revolution"; and William J. Haynes II, who served as Pentagon general counsel when controversial detainee policies were set that allowed enemy combatants to be held indefinitely without charges and access to counsel. He was again nominated for the 4th Circuit.

During Bush's first term, Democrats did not allow a vote on 10 of the 52 appeals court nominations that reached the Senate floor. As a result, conservative groups have been putting increasing pressure on Senate Republicans to force votes on Bush's judicial nominees.

Last year, Republicans held 51 seats and never mustered more than 55 votes in their attempts to end filibusters of the 10 disputed judges whose nominations reached the floor. Now they hold 55 seats, five short of the number needed to halt a filibuster. If they are unable to attract enough Democratic support to overcome a filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has warned, he may seek a rule change that would bar filibusters of judicial nominees. Democrats have vowed to bring the Senate to a standstill if he does so.

GOP sources said Judiciary Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has told colleagues he would like to select one of the least controversial nominees and try to win enough Democratic support to defeat a filibuster, then push for other victories. Specter's office said yesterday that the most likely choice would be William G. Myers III, tapped for a seat on the 9th Circuit. Two Senate Democrats -- Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) -- voted against the filibuster of Myers last July, and Republicans hope to pick up the support of freshman Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.).

The nominations sent to the Senate yesterday also included the renomination of eight candidates for federal district courts as well as the nomination of four candidates to the D.C. Superior Court bench.

Also yesterday, during a swearing-in ceremony for new Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush reiterated his support for the USA Patriot Act, calling on Congress to renew the sweeping anti-terror law enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Parts of the law expire at the end of the year.

Some members of Congress have called for revoking provisions that they say infringe on civil liberties.

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$200 Billion and counting!!

washingtonpost.com
President Requests More War Funding
Money for Iraqi Forces Rises Sharply

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 15, 2005; Page A04

President Bush asked Congress yesterday for $82 billion in emergency spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the Indian Ocean tsunami, making good on a pledge to dramatically scale up efforts to train and equip Iraqi security forces ahead of an eventual U.S. withdrawal.

The package includes $74.9 billion for U.S. military forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $5.7 billion to train and equip Iraqi forces. The latter sum represents more than a tenfold increase in spending on Iraqi forces over last year's request. An additional $1.3 billion would go toward training and equipping security forces in Afghanistan.

"With the help of the United States and coalition partners, the Iraqi and Afghan people have set their countries on the path of democracy and freedom," Bush said in a statement. "As both nations work to cement this great progress, our troops and assistance will continue to play a critical role. . . . I urge the Congress to move quickly so our troops and diplomats have the tools they need to succeed."

White House officials announced several weeks ago that they would request around $82 billion for the current fiscal year; they released details yesterday. It is one of the largest emergency requests in recent U.S. history, coming on top of $25 billion already allocated for the war in 2005. The sum exceeds the president's combined 2006 funding request for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development, and it is nearly five times the savings Bush is seeking next year in cuts to discretionary spending.

"This is a lot of money," said Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

If enacted, the president's request will push Pentagon war costs since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to more than $275 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. The cost of the Iraq war alone is approaching $200 billion.

"We're now officially about to hit a $200 billion war, with a likelihood of hitting $300 billion, a near-certainty it will reach 250 [billion] and a distinct possibility we'll reach 400 [billion]," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution.

In the Request

Major components of the White House's $82 billion supplemental spending request for fiscal 2005.

In the Request

There appears to be little doubt Bush will get his request. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) said the panel will take up the measure in early March, with a House vote shortly thereafter. "It is my hope that we can have this important bill on the president's desk in early April," he said in a statement.

The bill reflects, in part, the monetary cost of a war in Iraq that has not gone as expected. Of the total, $12 billion would go toward repairing or replacing military equipment chewed up by a grinding guerrilla war in the desert. That includes $3.3 billion for armoring vulnerable convoy trucks, adding new defense systems to helicopters and buying other armored vehicles and night-vision equipment.

Nearly $460 million is designated to replace Black Hawk and Apache helicopters destroyed in Iraq. Another $2.4 billion would be used to repair Bradley Fighting Vehicles, upgrade Abrams tanks and armored personnel carriers, and bolster armor protection in vehicles bound for Iraq. About $475 million would fund ammunition for the Army.

Defense Department war planners had hoped to avoid much of that cost, replacing used equipment slowly as more modern weapons systems became available. But with about 150,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq, the Pentagon does not have that luxury.

A large part of the request, $36.3 billion, would go to the combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another $5 billion would be used to help the Army break down its huge divisions into smaller, more mobile "modular" brigades as part of a major reorganization.

Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank, which has research contracts with the Pentagon, said such "modularity" costs -- while necessary -- hardly constitute an emergency and should have been included in the president's base budget unveiled last week. Much of the costs of replacing equipment will probably turn out to be regular weapons-procurement costs not related to Iraq emergencies, Thompson suggested.

"Why this funding is in an emergency supplemental [request] is hard to explain. It looks as though they want a bigger defense budget without admitting it," he said.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans and Democrats have criticized the Pentagon's reliance on the supplemental request, saying it curtails congressional oversight and distorts understanding of defense spending. "It removes from our oversight responsibilities the scrutiny that these programs deserve," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told military service chiefs at a hearing Thursday.

But the biggest questions will likely revolve around the tenfold increase in funding for Iraqi security forces. Republican and Democratic defense appropriations aides in Congress said the $5.7 billion request raised numerous questions about how much would go to training, how much would be for equipment, and how much might be used simply to pay beleaguered Iraqi police and national guard units.

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.

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Bush Pension Plan Faces a Brick Wall in the Senate

The New York Times
February 15, 2005

Bush Pension Plan Faces a Brick Wall in the Senate
By ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 - Nobody ever thought that President Bush's effort to overhaul Social Security would be easy. Even so, his campaign for private investment accounts has had a rocky ride in recent days.

Six weeks into this Congressional session, Mr. Bush faces an almost solid wall of Democratic opposition to the idea of diverting payroll taxes to private investment accounts. On the major legislative battles of his first term, notably tax cuts and Medicare, the president managed to prevail with a significant number of Democratic votes. But Democratic leaders say it has not been hard to maintain unity on Social Security, at least so far.

The near unified Democratic opposition is important for several reasons. As Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, often notes, nothing can pass the Senate without bipartisan support because of Senate rules that require 60 votes to break a filibuster. (The Republicans have 55.) But a wall of Democratic opposition can also stoke the fears of already anxious Republicans.

Many Republicans have concerns of their own about the Bush proposal, still sketchy on details, which has prompted numerous questions about its financing, its effect on the federal deficit and how it would affect traditional guaranteed benefits. Republicans also worry about the political fallout, meaning some will have little appetite for pushing this legislation through on a party-line vote, without the bipartisan cover so useful in election season. This is particularly true in the House, where lawmakers have felt in the past they were forced to take political risks the Senate was not.

Against this backdrop, the Democratic leaders, day in and day out, are trying to hold the line. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the secretary of the Democratic Conference, drove home her party's message at a news conference on Monday, saying Mr. Bush's private accounts were fiscally "reckless" and "off the table" in terms of any bipartisan deal.

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, said the politics of Social Security were quite different from the 2003 struggle over Medicare. Prescription drug coverage for the elderly, which led many Democrats to sign on with Mr. Bush, was an immensely popular cause with unrelenting support at the grass roots. In contrast, Mr. Durbin asserted, support for the concept of private accounts "was not that overwhelming," and as the details began to emerge, "it began to crumble."

Senator Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate leadership, countered: "It's very early in the game here. I don't think anyone was expecting after a few speeches by the president and a couple trips around the country that the other side would flock to support this." He added, "I see this as an external and internal process that will take some time."

Republicans point to polls showing that personal accounts are, in fact, viewed positively, particularly among younger Americans.

Still, Republican leaders have been arguing, publicly and privately, that Mr. Bush cannot prevail on Social Security until he builds more intense grass-roots backing for his ideas. In recent days, Republican leaders have sent up what amount to a series of political flares to the White House, basically making the case that, as the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, put it, "You can't jam change down the American people's throats."

Republican strategists say that until Democrats begin feeling the heat from a mobilized electorate, there is little incentive for them to join any bipartisan effort.

"If they perceive no political threat, they'll stay where they are," said a Republican strategist in the Senate, who asked for anonymity to speak more candidly. "It's a big issue. The president is banging on it, but the most important thing is for there to be a recognition of its political potency. And if that doesn't come, Democrats will feel quite comfortable staying where they are."

There have been a few cracks in the Democratic wall. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who is up for re-election in two years, was the only Democratic senator who did not sign a letter protesting the president's plan because of its effect on the deficit. "I'm waiting for the president to detail his plan," Mr. Nelson said in an interview. "It's not appropriate for me to take a side for or against it because we don't know what it is yet."

Senator Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware, indicated recently that he had not ruled out private accounts in Social Security, but only if they did not add to the deficit or result in any decrease in benefits.

In the House, Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat, is a co-sponsor of legislation that would also overhaul Social Security and create private accounts. There are also, less formally, bipartisan conversations occurring on the issue, particularly under the auspices of Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. The chemistry in the Senate is especially important because, increasingly, the Senate is expected to move first on the legislation.

Democrats are aware of the risks of their opposition; some Republicans are already portraying them as naysayers, ignoring a problem that most Americans want to deal with. "If they're smart, they'll see this as an untenable position for 2006, much less 2008," Mr. Santorum said.

Increasingly, Democrats are saying they are happy to work with the Republicans on shoring up Social Security over the long term, although they argue that private accounts only worsen the program's solvency. Democrats are arguing that a bipartisan commission, like the one headed by Alan Greenspan in the early 1980's, would be a good first step.

In the end, though, Democratic leaders say they are not afraid of being accused of obstructionism, a charge that was raised repeatedly against former Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader defeated last year. "We didn't buy the obstructionist argument to start with," Mr. Durbin said. "Once you buy that, you might as well fold your tent as a minority party."

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Resignation at CNN Shows the Growing Influence of Blogs

The New York Times
Resignation at CNN Shows the Growing Influence of Blogs
By KATHERINE Q. SEELYE

This article was reported by Katharine Q. Seelye, Jacques Steinberg and David F. Gallagher.

With the resignation Friday of a top news executive from CNN, bloggers have laid claim to a prominent media career for the second time in five months.

In September, conservative bloggers exposed flaws in a report by Dan Rather; he subsequently announced that on March 9 he would step down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." On Friday, after nearly two weeks of intensifying pressure on the Internet, Eason Jordan, the chief news executive at CNN, abruptly resigned after being besieged by the online community. Morever, last week liberal bloggers forced a sketchily credentialed White House reporter to quit his post.

For some bloggers - people who publish the sites known as Web logs - it was a declaration that this was just the beginning. Edward Morrissey, a call center manager who lives near Minneapolis and has written extensively about the Jordan controversy, wrote on his blog, Captain's Quarters (captainsquartersblog.com): "The moral of the story: the media can't just cover up the truth and expect to get away with it - and journalists can't just toss around allegations without substantiation and expect people to believe them anymore."

Mr. Jordan, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, apparently said, according to various witnesses, that he believed the United States military had aimed at journalists and killed 12 of them. There is some uncertainty over his precise language and the forum, which videotaped the conference, has not released the tape. When he quit Friday night, Mr. Jordan said in a statement that, "I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists."

Some of those most familiar with Mr. Jordan's situation emphasized, in interviews over the weekend, that his resignation should not be read solely as a function of the heat that CNN had been receiving on the Internet, where thousands of messages, many of them from conservatives, had been posted.

Nonetheless, within days of his purported statement, many blog sites were swamped with outraged assertions that he was slandering American troops. In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Jordan declined to be interviewed.

But while the bloggers are feeling empowered, some in their ranks are openly questioning where they are headed. One was Jeff Jarvis, the head of the Internet arm of Advance Publications, who publishes a blog at buzzmachine.com. Mr. Jarvis said bloggers should keep their real target in mind. "I wish our goal were not taking off heads but digging up truth," he cautioned.

At the same time, some in the traditional media are growing alarmed as they watch careers being destroyed by what they see as the growing power of rampant, unedited dialogue.

Steve Lovelady, a former editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal and now managing editor of CJR Daily, the Web site of The Columbia Journalism Review, has been among the most outspoken.

"The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail," he lamented online after Mr. Jordan's resignation. He said that Mr. Jordan cared deeply about the reporters he had sent into battle and was "haunted by the fact that not all of them came back."

Some on line were simply trying to make sense of what happened. "Have we entered an era where our lives can be destroyed by a pack of wolves hacking at their keyboards with no oversight, no editors, and no accountability?" asked a blogger named Mark Coffey, 36, who says he works as an analyst in Austin, Tex. "Or does it mean that we've entered a brave new world where the MSM has become irrelevant," he asked, using blogger shorthand for mainstream media.

His own conclusion is that the mainstream media "is being held to account as never before by the strong force of individual citizens who won't settle for sloppy research and inflammatory comments without foundation, particularly from those with a wide national reach, such as Rather and Eason."

It was a businessman attending the forum in Davos who put Mr. Jordan's comments on the map with a Jan. 28 posting. Rony Abovitz, 34, of Hollywood, Fla., the co-founder of a medical technology company, was invited to Davos and was asked to write for the forum's first-ever blog, his first blogging effort. In an interview yesterday, he said that he had challenged Mr. Jordan's assertion that the United States was taking aim at journalists and asked for evidence.

Mr. Abovitz asked some of the journalists at the event if they were going to write about Mr. Jordan's comments and concluded that they were not because journalists wanted to protect their own. There was also some confusion about whether they could, because the session was officially "off the record."

Mr. Abovitz said the remarks bothered him, and at 2:21 a.m. local time, he posted his write-up on the forum's official blog (www.forumblog.org) under the headline "Do U.S. Troops Target Journalists in Iraq?"

He did not think it would get much attention. But Mr. Jordan's comments zipped around the Web and fired up the conservative bloggers, who saw the remarks attributed to Mr. Jordan as evidence of a liberal bias of the big American news media.

"I think he was attacked because of what he represented as much as what he said," said David Gergen, who moderated the panel at Davos and who has served in the White House for administrations of both parties. He said he was troubled by the attacks on Mr. Jordan and said that his resignation was a mark of the increasing degree to which the news media were being drawn into the nation's culture wars.

While over the years Mr. Jordan had helped vault CNN to some of its most celebrated triumphs - it was largely through his diplomatic efforts that CNN was able to broadcast the first live footage from the first Gulf War, in 1991 - he also drew criticism. In one case, he wrote an article for the Op-Ed page of The New York Times in April 2003, saying that CNN had essentially suppressed news of brutalities so the network could maintain access and protect its people in Iraq.

Through the latest uproar, the substance of Mr. Jordan's initial assertion about the military targeting journalists was largely lost. Those who worked closely with Mr. Jordan at CNN, as well as on behalf of other news organizations, said he was aggressive and passionate about making life safer for journalists working in Iraq.

Ann Cooper, executive director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said that 36 journalists, plus 18 translators who worked for journalists, had been killed in Iraq since 2003. Of those 54, she said, at least nine died as a result of American fire.

"From our standpoint, journalists are not being targeted by the U.S. military in Iraq," Ms. Cooper said. "But there certainly are cases where an atmosphere of what, at best, you can call indifference has led to deaths and other problems for journalists."

As an example, Ms. Cooper cited the shelling by American troops of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, well known as the residence of journalists, in April 2003, killing two journalists. .

But the notion that journalists are "targeted" by the military did not first emerge with Mr. Jordan at Davos. Nik Gowing, a presenter, or anchor, for the BBC, has advanced the theory in writings and speeches that because the media can now convey instantaneously what is happening in a war zone, military commanders may find journalists a hindrance. The Pentagon has dismissed such theories.

In any case, on Feb. 2, Rebecca MacKinnon, who worked under Mr. Jordan when she was a producer and bureau chief at CNN, and organized the blog from Davos, contacted him after seeing that conservative blogs had picked up on his remarks.

"I e-mailed him and said the same people who were after Rather appear to be after you," said Ms. MacKinnon, now a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

Later that evening, she posted a response from Mr. Jordan, who wrote that on the panel he had meant to say that when journalists are aimed at and shot, as opposed to being killed by wayward bombs, "such a killing is a tragic case of mistaken identity, not a case of 'collateral damage.' "

At about the same time, CNN became aware that trouble was brewing online, and in the wake of Mr. Rather's downfall, it tried to try to head off the storm. When he returned to Florida on Feb. 2 from the conference, Mr. Abovitz said he had messages from Mr. Jordan and from CNN. He sent an inquiry back to CNN but said he did not get a response.

Also that day, CNN's public information division sent an unsolicited e-mail message to many of those who were writing about the controversy. Someone at CNN apparently posted the same statement on several blogs.

The message, which was unsigned, read: "Many blogs have taken Mr. Jordan's remarks out of context. Eason Jordan does not believe the U.S. military is trying to kill journalists. Mr. Jordan simply pointed out the facts: While the majority of journalists killed in Iraq have been slain at the hands of insurgents, the Pentagon has also noted that the U.S. military on occasion has killed people who turned out to be journalists. The Pentagon has apologized for those actions."

Christa Robinson, senior vice president for public relations for CNN, said that CNN sent the statement to those who sent e-mail messages to CNN or had written about Mr. Jordan online. Asked if the network was consciously seeking to head off the protracted criticism that devoured Mr. Rather last fall, Ms. Robinson said that the network was acknowledging the speed with which news now travels.

Mr. Morrissey of Captain's Quarters said he was surprised to receive the message. "I'm sure that what they were trying to do was get people to stop talking about it," he said.

The only way for the network to really clear up the controversy, he and others said, would have been to push for the release of the videotape of Mr. Jordan's remarks.

Ms. Robinson of CNN said that the network had no transcript of the session or a videotape because the conference organizers said that they considered the session off the record. She said that the content of Mr. Jordan's remarks was not in dispute, but that assertion has not satisfied those critics on the Internet who contend Mr. Jordan and CNN have something to hide.

The online attack of Mr. Jordan, particularly among conservative commentators, appeared to gain momentum when they were seized on by other conservative outlets. A report on the National Review Web site was followed by editorials in The Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as by a column in The New York Post by Michelle Malkin (a contributor for Fox News, CNN's rival).

Mr. Abovitz, who started it all, said he hoped bloggers could develop loftier goals than destroying people's careers. "If you're going to do this open-source journalism, it should have a higher purpose," he said. "At times it did seem like an angry mob, and an angry mob using high technology, that's not good."

originally published February 14, 2005

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Seven Steps to Raise World Security

english.daralhayat.com
Seven Steps to Raise World Security

Dr. Mohamad El-Baradei Al-Hayat

Four months from now, in New York, the world will have a rare opportunity to make significant improvements in international security. The question is whether we will be smart enough to use it.

In recent years, three phenomena have radically altered the security landscape. They are the emergence of a nuclear black market, the determined efforts by more countries to acquire technology to produce the fissile material useable in nuclear weapons and the clear desire of terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

We have been trying to solve these new problems with existing tools. But for every step forward, we have exposed vulnerabilities in the system. The system itself - the regime that implements the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) - needs reinforcement. Some of the necessary remedies can be taken in May, but only if governments are ready to act.

The opportunity in New York will come in the form of a conference. If that sounds like yet more bureaucracy - addressing nightmarish nuclear security scenarios with more meetings - I sympathize. But this is no ordinary conference. Every five years, the NPT Review Conference brings world leaders together to focus on combating the threat of nuclear weapons. All but four countries will participate as treaty members. Given the global nature of the threats, these four - India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea - should also be encouraged to contribute their insights and concerns.

With seven straightforward steps, and without amending the treaty, this conference could reach a milestone in strengthening world security. The first step: put a five-year hold on additional facilities for uranium enrichment and plutonium separation. There is no compelling reason to build more of these facilities; the nuclear industry has more than enough capacity to fuel its power plants and research centers. To make this holding period acceptable for everyone, commit the countries that already have the facilities to guarantee an economic supply of nuclear fuel for bona fide uses. Then use the hiatus to develop better long-term options for managing the technologies (for example, in regional centers under multinational control). To advance these ideas, I have engaged a group of international nuclear experts, and their proposals will be put forward at the conference.

Second, speed up existing efforts, led by the U.S. global threat reduction initiative and others, to modify the research reactors worldwide operating with highly enriched uranium - particularly those with metal fuel that could be readily employed as bomb material. Convert these reactors to use low-enriched uranium, and accelerate research on how to make highly enriched uranium unnecessary for all peaceful nuclear applications.

Third, raise the bar for inspection standards by establishing the "additional protocol" as the norm for verifying compliance with the NPT. Without the expanded authority of this protocol, the International Atomic Energy Agency's rights of inspection are limited. It has proven its value recently in Iran and Libya and should be brought into force for all countries.

Fourth, call on the United Nations Security Council to act swiftly and decisively in the case of any country that withdraws from the NPT, in terms of the threat the withdrawal poses to international peace and security.

Fifth, urge states to act on the Security Council's recent resolution 1540, to pursue and prosecute any illicit trading in nuclear material and technology.

Sixth, call on the five nuclear weapon states party to the NPT to accelerate implementation of their "unequivocal commitment" to nuclear disarmament, building on efforts such as the 2002 Moscow treaty between Russia and the U.S. Negotiating a treaty to ban irreversibly the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons programs would be a welcome start.

Last, acknowledge the volatility of longstanding tensions that give rise to proliferation, in regions such as the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, and take action to resolve existing security problems and, where needed, provide security assurances. In the Middle East, urge all parties to pursue a dialogue on regional security as part of the peace process. One goal of this dialogue would be to make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone.

None of these steps will work in isolation. Each requires a concession from someone. But with leadership from all sides, this package of proposals will create gains for everyone. This opportunity will come again - in 2010. But given current trends, we cannot afford to wait another five years. As a UN panel put it recently: "We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation." The stakes are too high to risk inaction.

originally published 2/7/05

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A Case for Truth

washingtonpost.com
A Case for Truth

WHEN MAHER ARAR filed a lawsuit last year over the government's sending him to Syria against his will, the case seemed like an opportunity to clear the air over one of the stranger episodes in the war on terrorism. Mr. Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian who was detained in New York while traveling between Tunisia and Canada in the fall of 2002. Unbeknownst to him, his name had been placed on a terrorist watch list, and when his flight path took him to New York, authorities detained him as a suspected al Qaeda operative. He was held for several days, and then, despite his pleas to be sent to Canada, he was packed off to Syria, where he was held for 10 months and, he alleges, savagely tortured. The government denies any wrongdoing. But unfortunately, the Bush administration is not going to use the lawsuit to make clear what happened. In fact, it has decided not to say anything. In a recent court filing, the government asserted what is called the state secrets privilege to avoid releasing any information about the circumstances of Mr. Arar's detention and removal to Syria. And because it refuses to release any information, the Justice Department argues, Mr. Arar will not be able to prove his case, which should therefore be largely dismissed.

As unfair a Catch-22 as that may sound, the government may actually have a claim here, legally speaking. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey have filed sworn declarations in the case, saying that litigating Mr. Arar's major allegations would require disclosing information that "reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave or serious damage to the national security of the United States and its foreign relations or activities." This may well carry the day in court. Whether or not their assertion is sustained, however, the government owes more than silence, and not just to Mr. Arar.

We had hoped that the litigation would shed light on two key questions: First, whether Mr. Arar, who has become a kind of cause célèbre in Canada, is really an innocent man wrongly accused or (as the government alleges) a dangerous terrorist operative, and second, whether (as he alleges) he was sent to Syria, instead of Canada, precisely so that he could be tortured. The government should not be subcontracting torture, as Mr. Arar alleges it did. If, as the government claims, he was an al Qaeda operative whose return to Canada could not have been accomplished safely, and if he was sent to Syria only after the government received what it has termed "reliable assurances that Mr. Arar would be treated humanely," the picture would look different. Leaving aside whatever rights Mr. Arar might have to litigate his claim, the American public is entitled to some assurance that the government didn't intentionally send a man to be tortured by Syria and isn't now covering that wrongdoing with a smear.

originally published Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page A18

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Missile Defense Fails Test Again

CBSNews.com
Missile Defense Fails Test Again
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2005


A test of the national missile defense system failed Monday when an interceptor missile did not launch from its island base in the Pacific Ocean, the military said. It was the second failure in months for the experimental program.

A statement from the Missile Defense Agency said the cause of the failure was under investigation.

A spokesman for the agency, Rick Lehner, said the early indications was that there was a malfunction with the ground support equipment at the test range on Kwajalein Island, not with the interceptor missile itself.

If verified, that would be a relief for program officials because it would mean no new problems had been discovered with the missile. Previous failures of these high-profile, $85 million test launches have been regarded as significant setbacks by critics of the program.

In Monday's test, the interceptor missile was to target a mock ICBM fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska. The target missile launched at 1:22 a.m. Monday EST without any problems, but the interceptor did not launch.

The previous test, on Dec. 15, failed under almost identical circumstances. The target missile launched, but the interceptor did not. Military officials later blamed that failure on fault-tolerance software that was oversensitive to small errors in the flow of data between the missile and a flight computer. The software shut down the launch; officials said they would decrease the sensitivity in future launches.

Before the Dec. 15 launch, it had been two years since a test. The program had gone five-for-eight in previous attempts to intercept a target.

No date for the next test has been announced. It is unclear how continued test failures would affect two experimental interceptor bases in Alaska and California.

Those two bases, Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., are positioned to oppose the threat of attack from North Korea. Both are still classified as experimental but, officials say, they could fire interceptors in an emergency.

The Pentagon has not declared those bases "operational," but officials say they would work anyway once certain mechanical blocks are removed from the interceptors themselves. Six interceptors are at the Alaska site, with two more in California as a backup. Up to 10 more will go into silos in Alaska this year, officials say.

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U.S. ad blitz targets bin Laden

Chicago Tribune
U.S. ad blitz targets bin Laden

By Rudolph Bush Tribune staff reporter

Radio spots promoting a $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and another $25 million for his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are airing in the rural mountains of northwest Pakistan for the first time.

Television ads promising that fortune in return for bin Laden ran on two Pakistani stations last weekend, and will run regularly on the country's biggest station starting Tuesday.

And last month, newspaper ads appeared for the first time in major cities featuring bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and other top Al Qaeda lieutenants.

The ads are the result of legislation written by Rep. Mark Kirk (news, bio, voting record) (R-Ill.) and pushed into law late last year by a fellow Illinois Republican, Rep. Henry Hyde (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the House International Relations Committee. The two took action after learning that little had been done since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to publicize the rewards program to capture Al Qaeda's leaders where they may be hiding.

Trail growing cold

Kirk, who in late January returned from a trip to the Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan, said he could remember the moment he realized the trail to bin Laden had gone cold.

On a trip to Islamabad in January 2004, he visited the U.S. Embassy and asked then-Ambassador Nancy Powell about who was overseeing the publicity for the rewards program.

"The ambassador said, `I don't know who is working the rewards program,' which was stunning to me," Kirk said.

On the same trip, Kirk and a senior staff member on the International Relations Committee noticed boxes of matchbooks with information about the rewards gathering dust in the basement of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan (news - web sites).

There were no radio ads about the program, even on the Voice of America station where they cost the government nothing, said the staff member, who asked not to be named. "We came back saying, `What a disaster.'" A State Department spokesman had no comment on why the program was not being publicized in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but he said the department's approach has changed.

As a congressional staffer on the International Relations Committee, Kirk wrote the rewards legislation to include those charged with war crimes. When he learned last year that the program was stalled, he was livid and complained to then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Since then, there is a new ambassador in Pakistan and the embassy has hired an advertising agency to handle the ad campaigns that will air on Pakistani stations and the BBC station that tribal leaders have said their people prefer.

So far, the U.S. has spent $100,000 on the print and broadcast advertising.

In the days after the first newspaper ads hit the streets in January, two people provided tips about bin Laden's whereabouts that are still being vetted, the International Relations Committee staff member said.

The television ads got off to a rockier start. After running briefly on two stations during the first weekend in February, they were quickly pulled. And the country's largest station, GEO, initially refused to run them for fear of a backlash over their content, according to a U.S. Embassy document.

Last week, a mob broke into the station's headquarters in Karachi after it aired a controversial program unrelated to the rewards program. But after reviewing the ad, station officials agreed to run them regularly beginning Tuesday.

Turning up heat

The ads will increase the odds of finding bin Laden, said Vance Serchuk, a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute.

"Is this going to be a magic bullet that nets bin Laden? I'm not sure there is a magic bullet," he said. "Might this benefit on the margins? Yes."

Kirk and Hyde's measure also enables President Bush (news - web sites) to sweeten the pot; it authorizes him to increase the bounty on bin Laden to $50 million.

More important, Kirk says, it also made the reward more flexible and comprehensible to the rural Pakistani tribesmen he hopes will one day turn over bin Laden: Payments can be in farm equipment and livestock as well as new trucks and motorcycles.

"In some parts of the world people understand what a herd of cattle or herd of goats means," the State Department spokesman said. "That's more realistic to them than a number such as $25 million."

The State Department agrees the rewards program has been successful when publicized. So far, it has netted tips that led U.S. agents or soldiers to the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef, who is serving a life term in the United States, as well as Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s sons, Udai and Qusai, who were killed during a shootout with U.S. troops in 2003. The government has paid out more than $57 million for the tips.

Kirk and Hyde hope now for a similar result in Pakistan.

originally published Sat Feb 12, 9:40 AM ET

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