Campaign2008

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The "Infidel": Power and Grace

2007-03-31T17:22:00.000-07:00

“[Ayaan Hirsi Ali is] a charismatic figure . . . of arresting and hypnotizing beauty . . . [who writes] with quite astonishing humor and restraint.” (Christopher Hitchens)

I mentioned sometime ago that the first time I saw Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of the best-selling book Infidel, was on C-Span, which I rarely watch. Christopher Hitchens, the brilliant English author and enemy of Islamo-fascism, was in the audience.

She may have been the most articulate and compelling speaker – even though English was not her first-language – I’ve ever heard. I’d read that she was a strong critic of Islam, and that she was under a death threat from the adherents to that profoundly flawed religion.

In the C-Span production, a Muslim man in the audience – he was in a distinct minority – asked her how she “dared” to utter such thorough-going criticisms of his faith. His comment reflected the Islamic belief that the religion should never be subject to challenges, not from the faithful (which Ali no longer is) and certainly not by an infidel (which she now calls herself proudly).

Perhaps the man’s question implied something else, that people who dared to take the life path she has are taking a great risk. A significant portion of the Muslim doesn’t debate its critics. Rather, it kills them, always in the name of its “faith.”

If you read the introductory paragraphs in Infidel, you’ll get a sense of the book’s power:

“One November morning in 2004, Theodore van Gogh got up to work at his film production company in Amsterdam. He took out his old black bicycle and headed down a main road. Waiting in a doorway was a Moroccan man with a handgun and two butcher knives.”

“As Theo cycled down the Linnaeusstraat, Muhammed Bouyeri approached. He pulled out his gun and shot Theo several times. Theo fell off his bike and lurched across the road, then collapsed. Bouyeri followed. Theo begged, ‘Can’t we talk about this?’ but Bouyeri shot him four more times. Then he took out one of his butcher knives and sawed into Theo’s throat. With the other knife, he stabbed a five-page letter onto Theo’s chest.”

“The letter was addressed to me.”

Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Ali had made a short film together. It had portrayed the brutal and disgusting subjugation of Muslim women by Muslim men assuming they are carrying out the “will of Allah.” The film was Theo’s – and Ayaan’s – supposed crime against Islam. In short, to tell the truth is somehow an offense against the Supreme Being.

What will be the fate of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, this incredibly beautiful, intelligent, and courageous woman? Unfortunately, the Muslim world being the global embarrassment it has become, there’s a good probability she will go the way of her friend Theo van Gogh. There are many ignorant, fanaticized, violence-prone Muhammed Bouyeri’s out there, with their guns, knives, and other implements of death.

Ali never goes anywhere without an armed guard. She may need one for the rest of her life. Born a Somali, Ali is now a Dutch citizen. I sincerely wish the U.S. would do for her what it did for Churchill, give her honorary citizenship – and also provide her with Secret Service protection.

I urge everyone who loves liberty and the worth of the individual to buy Ms. Ali’s book. I got it from amazon.com for about $13, plus shipping. For anyone who wants to understand why most of the Muslim world hates us – and hates her – it’s important reading.

In some ways, Ali reminds me of my friend Diana Lynn Irey of Washington County, Pennsylvania. Like Diana, she’s a person who with an uncommon combination of physical and spiritual beauty. Also, she's scrupulously honest and boundlessly caring. She attracts friends and supporters much the same way a magnet attracts iron filings.

Diana is an unusual woman, but Ali is the type that comes along about once a century. She’s a dark-skinned, highly educated version of Joan of Arc. Unlike Joan (and unlike Diana), Ali has not yet seen the tremendous power for good that Christianity at its best can unleash in individuals and societies. If that comes to her, and I pray it will, she could realize her full capacity to transform the world for good.

As women (and men of good will) come out of Islam, as they will in great numbers, they will need an alternative to the barbarism they have left behind. They will benefit from understanding a Supreme Being who is an endless fountain of mercy and compassion – a God who, unlike the one in Islam, wants to engage us in an endless dialogue.

Whatever the exact path Ali follows, she is a woman deserving of our admiration, emulation, and gratitude.

Note: I’ll write at least one more piece in the coming days about Ms. Ali.

The American Scholar Magazine: Go Buy It

2007-03-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am renewing my subscription to The American Scholar. I like the editor’s (Robert Wilson’s) self-confidence in telling me that if I didn’t like his choice of articles, I should perhaps consider other publications. If our roles were reversed, I would have told him the same thing.

The Scholar has some of the best pieces written in today’s America. The book review section is excellent, the kind that puts one in a buying mood at amazon.com. On the negative side, some of the articles are written by academics who don’t get out nearly as much as they should. I don’t like articles that would get rave reviews at all known Faculty Clubs. I like writing that peeks into the abyss and tells us what the writer saw – and what he or she has learned.

For example, in the Summer, 2006 issue, Jay Tolson (a U.S. News senior writer and expert on novelist Walker Percy) reviews a life-of-the-mind book (An Argument for Mind) written by super-psychologist Jerome Kagan. Prof. Kagan is one of the 20-or-so most important academic thinkers of the past century.

In the late 1950s, Kagan became involved in a famous study of “typical American children” (mostly white, mostly middle-class, as befitted the 50s). The study explored key assumptions that psychologists and baby-rearing experts believed in then – and that many still affirm.

Kagan describes four assumptions: “The first swore allegiance to the significance of experience, especially maternal love and effective socialization of good character. The second held that habits, values, and emotions established early would be preserved indefinitely. The third alleged that psychological growth was gradual, and the last declared that ‘freedom from coercion’ [apparently coercion on or by the child] was the ideal state every child should attain.”

Admittedly, most studies seem somehow to confirm their organizers’ beliefs. In this case, Kagan’s study called all four assumptions into question. In fact, some of them turned out to be dead wrong, including one that’s a core of progressive thinking about child development.

As reviewer Tolson says, “The idea that the earliest years of infancy were the most determinative, for example, took a strong hit. Finding that behavioral differences in the infants first three years had little bearing on their psychological differences as adults [!!!!!!], Kagan discovered that behavior exhibited in the years between six and 10, after a child entered school, was a fairly good predictor of adult behavior.”

Obviously, Kagan’s book is a must-read. Tolson’s review shows his own value as a great generalist, who seeks to understand – and then explain in clear terms – some very complex thoughts. Reading Tolson on Kagan turned out to be one of those illuminating experiences that occur too rarely in life.

There’s another superb piece in the Summer 2006 edition. It’s “Feckless and Reckless,” by novelist and journalist Alan Peter Ryan. Once a New Yorker, he’s lived in Rio de Janeiro for about five years.

It’s impossible to do justice to the quality of this brief (2000 words?) article. It’s a tidy monument to good writing.

Consider one paragraph devoted to explaining why Rio-ites (Cariocas) are scary, if skilled, drivers. “Brazilians, so soon after the crushing military dictatorship, haven’t gotten over the habits of silence and caution. A restaurant in my neighborhood . . . provides a card you can fill out to rate the quality of food and service. The choices are: Excellent, Good, and Reasonable. Reasonable?”

Ryan continues: “The things other people would rate somewhere between unacceptable and criminally culpable – from food to dishonest government to incompetent repairmen to unreliable telephone or electric service to the terrifying crime rate – the Brazilian would, with a shrug, call ‘reasonable.’ But I doubt that anyone has ever checked that word on the card – or even filled out the card at all. Brazilians don’t like to behind evidence that might come back to haunt them. They prefer anonymity.”

In terms of essayistic prose, that’s about as good as it gets. In one extended paragraph, it gives great insight into the psyches and the hearts of Brazilians. It’s a shorthand version of what it would take months (years?) to learn about the people of Rio.

I hope everyone who reads this column follows my lead in getting a subscription to The American Scholar. Ignore the occasional pieces that show academics posturing and preening for one another; read the good stuff, which is available in abundance.

To subscribe, call 1-800-821-4567. Costs for individual subscriptions are: $25 for one year, $48 for two years, and $69 for three years. Y’all call – today!

John Murtha in Congress, Uncle Henry in the Attic

2007-03-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

In the March 30, 2007 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the talented Jerome L. Sherman wrote a story titled “Murtha Praises [Defense Secretary] Gates for His Candor.” The writer notes that Gates “regularly receives praise from top Congressional Democrats, including Pennsylvania’s Rep. John Murtha.” Truthfully, if I ever received praise from said congressman, I’d wonder what I’d done wrong.

What had John Murtha, known affectionately as The Prince of Pork, purring away this week was the following statement by Gates: “’Terrorism has always been a tactic of the weak against the strong, and I think you won’t eliminate it altogether ever,’ Mr. Gates told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that Mr. Murtha chairs. ‘I think that we and other nations need to look at the social, economic and political conditions that give rise to the kind of despair that would lead people to strap on suicide vests,’ the defense secretary said.”

Murtha chimed in: “Let me tell you, that’s as good an answer as I’ve heard, Mr. Secretary, and I appreciate what you’re saying.”

As I’ve explained to Jerome Sherman (longsuffering enough to be a frequent reader of my urgent e-mails to him), I have a problem – a very serious one – with Gates’s statement and Murtha’s comment.

My problem is that the Gates statement just isn't true. Consider, for example, the many cases in the past century of the strong terrorizing the weak.

For example, the Nazis, who had absolute power in Germany, regularly terrorized Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, and any other minority group they could find. In the Soviet Union under Stalin, the Communist Party terrorized kulaks, Christians, "white Russians," and anyone else that Joseph Stalin didn’t like. In the Middle East, authoritarian governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, and others) regularly terrorize weaker groups.

Consider the behavior of al Qaeda in Iraq. A month or so ago, they used a car bomb on an athletic field, killing 18 high school-age soccer players. Yesterday, they bombed a market in a Shiite neighborhood, killing – according to CNN – mostly women and children.

I don’t think either Gates or Murtha would characterize this as the weak using terrorism against the powerful. Soccer players? Women and children? Americans in an office building -- or embassies?

Remember what Alexander the Great said in response to a question about the fundamental reality of life? “The weak give what they must; the strong take what they wish.” Therefore, terrorism – other than the relatively incidental variety (Tim McVeigh?), is primarily inflicted by the strong on the weak.

So, I ask in all candor, “Exactly what the h--l are Murtha and Gates talking about?” What they’re doing is spouting the old liberal Democratic view that, when we find people engaging in mass murder (the purpose of strapping on those suicide vests), our duty is to enquire into – but never truly discover – the root causes, social, political, and economic.

Of course, if we were ever good enough – or lucky enough – actually to pinpoint those causes, we wouldn’t have a clue what to do next. After all, how would one go about transforming dozens of economically and social backward countries, making up most of the Islamic world, to the point where their citizens actually would beging engaging in something resembling civilized behavior?

In other words, Secretary Gates blows smoke up John Murtha’s butt and the Johnstown Democrat moos contentedly. It is not a pretty sight. Where is Don Rumsfeld when he need him?

Of course I recognize that Jerome Sherman and other reporters have to treat John Murtha in a balanced manner. That is, they can’t treat him with the contempt he so rich deserves – and that I dole out whenever he merits it, which is almost always.

John Murtha regularly says things that are absurd. He told “Meet the Press” that the U.S. should redeploy the troops in Iraq to Okinawa, which is 5,000 miles from where the terrorists gather. He also told “Meet the Press” that there was no terrorism, “none,” as he put it, in Iraq in the good old days under Saddam – an assertion I and others have shown is demonstrably false.

So, what are people like Jerome Sherman to do about our elderly (i.e., eight years old than I) cantankerous, embarrassing Congressman? I suggest, with my usual humility, that they should ignore him. That is, they should treat like old Uncle Henry, who spends most of his time babbling away in his attic bedroom.

If John Murtha ever comes up with an idea about how to fight terrorism, which he has not done to this point, the press should note it. In this regard, they won’t need to keep their pen and paper at the ready.

Note to editors: Like every other column printed here, this one is available for reprinting. Please note where you got it (Campaign2008) and who wrote it (moi).

Advice to Academics: Consider Suicide

2007-03-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

"After such knowledge, what forgiveness?" (T. S. Eliot)

In my column yesterday, March 28, 2007, I discussed my correspondence with Robert Wilson, editor of The American Scholar, a readable but intellectually flawed academic magazine. I (rather clumsily) accused the Scholar (and of course, Mr. Wilson) of lacking "balance," a criticism the editor deflected skillfully and quickly. What I really meant was that the Scholar lacked depth, that it presented -- in the main -- a shallow, academic view of reality.

If the unexamined life is not worth living, then many of the Scholar's contributors might follow Albert Camus' advice and consider suicide.

Most novels about academic life -- Richard Russo's Straight Man is an excellent one -- are satirical views of the professorial life. They portray the academic world as relentlessly petty, constantly inward looking, rigidly conformist, and invariably obsessed with sex involving undergraduates or other faculty members. The much-ballyhooed "commitment to scholarship" often turns out to look suspiciously like a fascination with collecting the intellectual version of pet rocks. It's not a pretty scene.

However, most academics seem to regard the satirical novels, most of them written by academics, as somehow a badge of honor. "Of course our critics condemn us. After all, we're scholars, custodians of the icons of mankind's past." In my experience, they really think the following: "Yes, those novels are right on target. Of all men and women, we are among the most miserable."

Early in my academic career, I heard the situation described in these words: "A faculty is a gaggle of humanity held together only by a common concern about the parking problem."

Most academics claim to be politically liberal. I believe that means they know what acceptable to affirm on their particular campus -- and what's not. It's not a hard-earned philosophical commitment; it's a survival tactic.

Right now, it's NOT acceptable at colleges and universities to say anything supportive of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, (former) Senators Rick Santorum and George Allen, (former) Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, (any living) neoconservatives -- especially Paul Wolfowitz or Richard Perle, Tony Blair, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and a host of other people. In the case of someone like Ann Coulter, who used what academics call the "F-word," part of a growing list of terms one speaks at one's peril, such people truly are beyond the pale.

In the case of the Iraq War, if you're an academic in good standing, you should view it as America's version of the attack on the Warsaw Ghetto. You should use the words "BUSH LIED TO US" with regularity. You should see the constant bombings in Iraq by Islamo- fascists as somehow the fault of the U.S. You should say occasionally that "you support the troops" -- without ever actually doing so. You should not know personally ANYONE who has ever served in Iraq (or Afghanistan). To the best of your ability, you should "understand" why al Qaida wants to kill Americans (including you).

What prevails at many colleges and universities, not to mention academic publications, is what sociologist David Riesman (in The Lonely Crowd) called "other-directedness." It's a word that means conformity, which basically refers to going along to get along.

What results is a situation where only a minority -- at some institutions, a very SMALL minority -- of college people can have serious discussions about complex issues. When there are many things you aren't allowed to discuss, scholarship and analysis become a case of "recite after me, George Bush is evil, the violence in Iraq is America's fault, things were better under Saddam, etc, etc."

In my long piece about corresponding with editor Wilson, I quoted a passage borrowed by super-historian Niall Ferguson from an Italian journalist. It dealt with mass murder in Romania, not so much different in some ways from the homicidal behavior we see in the Middle East. It read as follows:

"Hordes of Jews pursued by soldiers and maddened civilians armed with knives and crowbars fled along the streets; groups of policemen smashed in house doors with their rifle butts; windows opened suddenly and screaming disheveled women in night gowns appeared with their arms raised in the air; some threw themselves from windows and their faces hit the asphalt with a dull thud. Squads of soldiers hurled hand grenades through the little windows level with the street into cellars where many people had vainly sought shelter . . . Where the slaughter had been heaviest the feet slipped in blood . . ." and on and on.)

What do the academics (not all, but the type I've been pillorying) say we should do in response to such situations in our own time? In general, they say -- or at least think -- we should ignore them. If we're having an especially bad day, we should blame them on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Halliburton Corporation.

At all costs, we must avoid saying something like the following: "This is horrible, and we must stop it!" However, stopping fanatics busily killing men, women, and children requires more than signing a petition, or holding a campus rally, or singing "Give peace a chance." It requires taking up arms and physically resisting the killers. That's not exactly the academic "style."

After all, how did Americans at colleges and universities respond to the massacres in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur? I don't remember a lot of cocktail parties being canceled, or departmental meetings being rescheduled, or graduations being delayed. Life went on as usual. If a tree falls in the forest and CNN doesn't record it, did a tree -- or a Rwandan -- really fall? Pretty much the same thing happened in Europe when six million Jews disappeared, although Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and The American Scholar still stood.

What do I want editor Wilson and The American Scholar to do? I want them to grab the horrors of our time by the throat. I want them to rub their readers' noses in those depravities and force their readers to do something. I want them (Gulp!) to urge college students to join the military. I don't want them to chant "Stop the Killing!" I want them to take up arms and bring it to an end.

In one piece in the Scholar, there was a discussion of 18th century French mathematician Pierre Louis-Maupertuis. He's the one satirized by Voltaire as "Dr. Pangloss," the man who insisted "We live in the best of all possible worlds." In fact, there's a fairly serious academic argument about whether our world is "optimal," something we see suggested in the popular bumper sticker that says, "Shit happens!"

In other words, do we live in a world that's the best it could be, given the circumstances (including evolution and human nature). Dr. Freud refused to join peace movements because he believed war is part of the nature of humanity, that bad things do happen to good people, and there's basically nothing we can do about them.

I don't believe that's true (much as I respect Dr. Freud's work). I prefer the view of Father Keller and the Christophers, who used to say: "It's better to light one little candle than to curse the darkness." Sometimes that "candle" may come in the form of a hand grenade or a Stealth Bomber.

When people are being tortured and murdered, it is our obligation -- and I include editor Wilson and all those who write for his publication -- to prevent those homicides. In most cases, that will involve physical resistance. If we don't do that, we are in fact accessories to the murders.

I submit that George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, those betes noire of the academic world, understand these simple points. I would bet editor Wilson also does, at least in some part of his being, although it's certainly not in his professional interest to say so. "If not now, when? If not us, who?"

Will Al Qaeda Win? Is Valerie Plame Related to Anna Nicole? Wither The American Scholar?

2007-03-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

I spent a good chunk of the day writing to and responding to articles and editors in The American Scholar, an academic (not in the worst sense) publication that's been around for many years. As you'll see, I love the book reviews in the Scholar, but I'm much less enthusiastic about the articles there, which in most cases tend to work too hard making points with the authors' liberal colleagues. Often, the prose is good, but the arguments generally strike me as tendentious.

My original note dealt with an article in the Winter, 2007 edition about an author's boyhood friend, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who served as a top aide to Vice President Cheney and was recently convicted of making false statements to the FBI in regard to the Valerie Plame situation. She was the CIA agent "outed" by a government official, and Libby ended up taking the fall. As you'll see below, I'm not a big fan of Lewis Libby -- or of any Washington types who go around gossiping to reporters.

I say Libby took the fall because -- and this may surprise you -- he absolutely did NOT LEAK THE NAME/IDENTITY OF VALERIE PLAME (Mrs. Joseph Wilson). The person who did that was Colin Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, who revealed her identity to Robert Novak and Bob Woodward. Strangely, Armitage was never indicted for anything. Libby, who had no reason to lie to FBI investigators -- and might not have done so -- was indicted and convicted. Armitage was known as a notorious gossip, and Libby apparently wasn't much better. Plame, with her long blonde hair, convertible, and celebrity status, was about as under-cover as Anna Nicole Smith.

The author of the Libby piece, Nick Bromell, is the son of a man and woman who served as members of the U.S. diplomatic corps in the Middle East. In Bromell's article he talked about how his father and mother had tried to align U.S. policy with "the realities on the ground" in the MidEast. That comment stuck in my throat like a ham bone.

Dear Mr. Wilson:

As one of those neoconservatives apparently identified these days as loathesome Public Enemies, I read Nick Bromell's Winter, 2007 piece ("Scooter and Me") with interest-- and alarm. Lewis Libby and his bosses, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, may or may not be right in their view of the world and the Middle East, something that won't be clear for many years, but they deserve a much more serious discussion than Bromell provided.

He noted that Libby and his neoconservatives have undermined the efforts Bromell's mother and father made as diplomats in Baghdad, Amman, Kuwait, and Cairo. In fact, he says, the neocons "destroyed my father's lifelong effort to make U.S. policy in the Middle East more responsive to the realities on the ground."

Actually, U.S. policies prior to the Bush Administration were deeply respectful to such "realities." Unfortunately, what existed "on the ground" were policies like authoritarian governments, the subjugation of women, intolerance of other religions, a propensity (at least on the part of Baghdad and Cairo) to initiate wars on their neighbors, as well as economic and social backwardness.

Those were the "realities on the ground" that fueled religious fanaticism and homicidal behavior that led to the rise of terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, that people like Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, George Bush, and I abhor.

We neocons, for all our imperfections, believe that business as usual in the Middle East, the legacy of Bromell's father and many others, is no longer acceptable. Neocons are people who believe, with Abraham Lincoln, that all men (and women) in all lands at all times desire freedom.

Frankly, there's not a whole lot more to neoconservatism, which emphasizes the main points contained in the "Declaration of Independence." Accepting the Middle East as it was became an unacceptable policy about 9 a.m. on September 11, 2001. I have a hunch that Nick Bromell could learn a few things from Lewis Libby.

Stephen R. Maloney
Ambridge, PA

Mr. Wilson responded to me with a thoughtful letter that stressed that: (1) The American Scholar did publish people with conservative views (including Princeton Emeritus scholar Bernard Lewis); (2) If I was looking for "balance" of conservatives and liberals -- not exactly what I was saying -- that perhaps I should proceed directly to the book reviews; (3) he selects articles he likes, an approach I support, since I did the same thing in my tenure as an editor at the Georgia Review. Here's how I responded to him.

Dear Mr.Wilson:

You don't have to reply again -- you're busier than I am, because I'm semi-retired, well, maybe a quarter-retired -- unless you feel the need to.

I'm a big fan of Bernard Lewis, and he's the kind of scholar I admire. He gave a speech at Hillsdale College where he argued there was a tradition (not one that lasted a long time) of tolerance in many Muslim communities, perhaps not exactly what one might expect from Prof. Lewis.

A few years ago, a couple of Muslim scholars teaching in the U.S. were on PBS. One of them -- forget his name -- was a professor at Brandeis, and he said that there was a real chance of building the "first tolerant Muslim community in the world." It turned out that community would be in . . . the United States.

In my experience, that's the kind of comment that can bring out a lot of demonstrators on American campuses, even though it happens to be true. Many things are true, or at least seem to be, that some of us would wish were not.

Niall Ferguson, the historian mentioned in your Winter issue, is apparently making a reputation as a teller of unpleasant truths, and that's a good sign. In the review of Ferguson's book, there was a quote about 4,000 Romanian Jews being run down and killed by local authorities and their "neighbors."

(Here's the article Ferguson quotes in his book: "Hordes of Jews pursued by soldiers and maddened civilians armed with knives and crowbars fled along the streets; groups of policemen smashed in house doors with their rifle butts; windows opened suddenly and screaming disheveled women in night gowns appeared with their arms raised in the air; some threw themselves from windows and their faces hit the asphalt with a dull thud. Squads of soldiers hurled hand grenades through the little windows level with the street into cellars where many people had vainly sought shelter . . . Where the slaughter had been heaviest the feet slipped in blood . . ." and on and on.)

What is the proper response of civilized people to such situations? That strikes me as the ultimate question for anyone committed to doing something positive in the world. The proper response is NOT to go around beating drums (as one liberal group of academics was doing recently in response to Darfur) or signing a petition for publication in the Times. With the drums and the petition, the 4,000 Jews -- or the million Rwandans or the half million Shias or the 200,000 Sudanese Christians -- are still dead, and the example has been set.

In the review of Ferguson's book there's a quote about the fecklessness of the British military (such as it was) in the face of Hitler's rise. Those military people didn't want to irritate Hitler. They wanted peace, like the million-plus singers of the "King and Country" resolution ("Resolved, we will not fight for King or Country). The British military wanted, in the face of tyranny, to hide under the bed.

The military's reaction was shameful, as was the denigration of the supposed warmonger Churchill. Being "for peace" is not enough when you're dealing with psychopaths.

I don't find academics generally dealing with these kind of heart-breaking realities. What does one do when there are several options, all of them bad? In a sense, Niall Ferguson seems to be willing to wrestle with some of those questions, but he's a rare breed.

By the way, on Lewis Libby: I think his playing around with the role of Valerie Plame was immoral. If I'd been in his position, I would not have revealed the name of any CIA agent, covert or overt. If I'd been ordered to do so, I would have resigned. He should have done the same. (I'm not a big fan of the CIA as an "intelligence" group.)

One writer I'd love to see in your pages is Michael Oren, who wrote The Six-Days War and a more recent book on America in the Middle East. I've heard he's been teaching at Harvard and Yale, and he's a veteran of the first war in Lebanon. He is very, very good. He gave me a much better understanding of the situation Israel faces. I wish he'd write about his own military experience.

One last word: in last Sunday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, columnist Jack Kelly (a conservative generally, but not robotically) wrote about the new movie "The 300," a not-so-great film dealing with Leonidas and Themopylae (where 300 Spartans and 1100 other Greeks died fighting 250,000-plus Persians some 2500 years ago).

Jack revealed a lot of the "real history" (the Spartans being an early version of the Waffen SS and the Persians under King Cyrus being relatively benign) and also talked about the military virtues (honor, discipline, courage).

As I read and re-read the article, it became clear he was talking about American and the West in conflict with al Qaeda and the Mohammed Atta types. Jack, a former Marine, a former Army Ranger, and very pro-American, was saying that al Qaeda is the Spartans and we're the Persians. In other words, he was saying that we're probably going to lose the War on Terror.

He wasn't beating the Democrats over the head. He was talking about us a people. He was talking about the limitations of an affluent society that hates to see real dead people on the nightly news.

Oddly enough, it's a view of America he shares with bin Laden. Kelly's article appeared last Sunday, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I wish we'd gotten more articles like that at the Georgia Review. I wish you'd get more at the Scholar. I think what I'm calling for is creative "imbalance" more than balance. I'm looking for writers who make us think in truly new ways.

Regards, steve maloney

Time to Join Team Rudy? Not Just Yet

2007-03-27T17:20:00.000-07:00

I got an invitation from the Giuliani Campaign to join "Team Rudy," basically to commit now to support the candidate. I'm not ready to do so just yet.

In 2008, God willing and the creek don't rise, I will vote for the Republican candidate for President. That won't come as a great surprise to those who know me. I did favor John F. Kennedy in 1960 (seems like only yesterday!), but I wasn't old enough to vote. In 1964, I knew in my heart that Barry Goldwater was right, and I cast my first ballot for him.

Strangely enough, one of my fellow Goldwater supporters in those days was Hillary Rodham of Wellesley College. It appears that my politics have remained relatively consistent, while hers have changed dramatically.

However, I think she's by far the Democrat's best candidate this year. Obama is largely a media creation, popular because he doesn't sound like Jesse Jackson or look like Al Sharpton. Edwards is getting a small bump in the polls -- what's traditionally called the sympathy vote -- but he will soon revert to being "The Breck Girl," a pretty boy pretending to be a populist.

Hillary's position on the Iraq War, whatever exactly that position is, won't wound her severely in the primaries. As she adjusts her position rightward in the general election, she will become a formidable candidate. As the saying goes, a lot of people have gone broke underestimating Hillary.

Rudy is very tempting. Unless Fred Thompson enters the race, Rudy will be a big -- and early -- winner. If Thompson, potentially a very strong candidate, does enter the race, Rudy will have a tough fight, but he'll still win the nomination. He'll do so by winning primaries in states like California, New York, and Illinois.

As a social conservative, I'm heartened by his statement that he would appoint judges who are strict constructionists. That's more than we got from George H. W. Bush (who gave us David Souter!), let alone Bill Clinton, who appointed cartoon liberals Ruth Ginsburg and Steve Breyer.

John McCain and Mitt Romney are good men, and I'm interested in hearing -- soon -- what they have to say. For example, how do they intend to conduct the War on Terror? What steps are they going to take to build the Republican Party in swing states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey? What do they intend to do to rebuild the Republican Party in New York, California, and Illinois? I'd like to hear the same from Rudy.

So, I'm not ready to join Rudy's team now, 10 months ahead of the primaries. But right now, I'm leaning strongly toward the former Mayor of New York, also known as "America's Mayor." Can he lead the nation? He's already done so, in the dark days that began on September 11, 2001.

John Murtha's "Demonstrably False" Comment About the Links Between Saddam and Al Qaeda

2007-03-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

"There was no terrorism in Iraq before we [the U.S.] went there. None. There was no connection with al Qaeda. There was no connection with terrorism in Iraq itself." (Rep. John Murtha, speaking to Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press," spring, 2006)

"Iraq and terrorism had nothing to do with one another. Zero." (A Kerry presidential campaign spokesman in 2004)

Iraq's connections to terrorism are 'fictive" (a Washington Post columnist)

Speaking about comments like the one above, an expert on Iraq and terrorism said they are "demonstrably false." That expert, Stephen F. Hayes, a Senior Writer for The Weekly Standard, authored The Connection: How al Qaeda's collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America.

On the Internet, the best source of information about Saddam's close links with terrorists is Mark Eichenlaub's web site: www.regimeofterror.com. Mark's a freelance journalist, a history teacher, and graduate of Eastern Illinois University. With his relentless gathering of information, Mark is performing a major public service. He is an important figure in what I've called "The Warrior Nation," which refers to Americans doing great work for their country and way-of-life.

If you want an easy -- but highly informative -- read about Saddam's connections with al Qaeda, get a copy of Imprimis (see below), a publication of Hillsdale College, which printed Stephen Hayes speech called "Saddam's Iraq and Islamic Terrorism: What We Know Now." (Go to www.hillsdale.edu to order your own copy of the speech.)

In the Mainstream Media (MSM), what you'll hear about Iraq and terrorism will resemble the absurd comments of John Murtha, who either knows nothing about the subject or is being disingenuous. Apparently, people like Murtha and Kerry long ago "went over to the other side" and have no willingness to conduct a vigorous defense of the U.S. against terrorism. They don't want to know about Saddam's continuing support of terrorist murderers because it would undermine everything they've said about the Iraq War. As I said previously, they're sleeping with the enemy, and from all appearances they're sleeping soundly -- peacefully.

In Stephen Hayes's speech, he talks about the long-ago investigation into the terrorist rocket attack on the famous al Rashid Hotel, where Hayes was a guest. He says, "Everywhere investigators looked, they turned up evidence that pointed to a collaborative effort between Saddam loyalists and Islamic fundamentalists affiliated with al Qaeda. It was the kind of cooperation -- between secularists and Islamic radicals -- that the U.S. intelligence community had long assured us would never happen [and that Murtha and MSM mistakenly believe has not happened].

Hayes adds, "And yet it did [happen]. Again and again and again. And it is still happening throughout Iraq today." It happened in the 1990s, and it is occurring with greater intensity in the 21st century.

That isn't what you're hearing from Murtha, Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Keith Olberman, Richard Ware, Anderson Cooper and the rest of the group that blames George W. Bush for all the world's known problems. They don't want people like Stephen Hayes and Mark Eichenlaub to confuse them with the facts. Five-and-a-half years after 9/11, Bush-haters would prefer that you believe the War on Terror is a mirage. They also want you to believe that Saddam, bad as he was, was a force for peace and stability in Iraq and the Middle East. They are terribly, disastrously wrong.

What's the evidence of Saddam's participation in terrorist activities?

First, Saddam's regime had long provided refuge to some of the most murderous terrorists in the Middle East, including Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal.

Second, Saddam's regime provided cash payments to the families of Hamas suicide bombers killing innocent Israelis and Westerners.

Third, Saddam's government, working through an ambassador named Hisham Hussein provided funding to a Phillilippine subsidiary of al Qaeda known as Abu Sayef, which carried out terrorist attacks against Filipinos and Americans in that country. The Immigration Commissioner in the Philippines said Hisham had "an established network" of terrorists in that country. A fax from the Iraqi Embassy in the Philippines to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry confirms that Iraq provided weapons to Abu Sayef.

Fourth, a major figure in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was Abdul Rahman Yasin, who had come to the U.S. from Iraq six months before the attack at the WTC. Iraq helped Yasin exit the U.S. and financed him -- and the government employed him -- throughout the 1990s. Yasin apparently was a skilled bomb-maker, and Iraqi financial records confirm that the government paid him for many years.

Fifth, Saddam -- as we know from the many captured documents associated with his fall -- had a senior Iraqi intelligence officer meet in 1995 with Osama bin Laden. As Hayes indicates, "After the meeting, Saddam Hussein agreed to broadcast al Qaeda propaganda on Iraqi government-run television and to the let the relationship develop . . . ."

Sixth, Saddam allowed a bin Laden confidante to visit Baghdad in 1998. The man stayed in the Iraqi capital for two weeks at government expense

Seventh, shortly after the fall of Saddam the U.S. government found a blueprint for what became the terror-intensive insurgency. In the words of Paul Bremer, "The document . . . listed orders for . . . a strategy of organized resistance, which included the classic pattern of forming cells and training combatants in insurgency. 'Operatives' were to engage in 'sabotage and looting.' Random sniper attacks and ambushes were to be organized. The order continued 'Scatter agents in every town. Destroy electric power stations and water conduits. Infiltrate the mosques, the Shiite holy place.'"

Eighth, another finding was described by Bush Administration critic David Durford: ". . . One document that we found . . . was a list of jihadists . . . coming into Iraq from Saudi Arabia before the war." The jihadist material indicated that "hundreds and hundreds" of fighters were coming into Iraq from Algeria, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, and elsewhere.

Ninth, the Iraqi Perspective Project, a major Pentagon effort pointed out that the Saddam Fedayeen, one of many domestic Iraqi terrorist groups, trained more than 7,200 would-be terrorists in its first year, 1994.

Tenth, also in the Iraqi Perspective Project, we read the following: "The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout the Middle East. In a document dated May, 1999, Saddam's older son, Uday, ordered preparations for 'special operations, assassinations, and bombing, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran, and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan].' Preparations for Blessed July,' a regime-directed wave of 'martrydom' operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion."

I haven't talked about Saddam's botched effort to assassinated the first President Bush, his tolerance of al Qaeda-like Ansar al Islam, and many other examples of terrorism under the leadership of the Butcher of Baghdad.

The Murthas and Russerts of the world are just plain wrong about Iraq's links to terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular. Since the points I've made can't come as revelations to them, what exactly is their agenda? It certainly isn't the defense of the West, including America.

I've relied heavily on Stephen Hayes's work in this piece. Paraphrases and quotes are reprinted by permission from Imprimis, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College, www.hillsdale.edu. I have been an ally of this college for nearly 40 years, and I revere the pro-American, pro-Christian work they do in serving as a model for American higher education.

Publications (print or online) are free to re-publish this article without compensation. Just mention Stephen R. Maoney and reference Campaign2008.

Is Your Doctor Bad for Your Health? To Find Out, Answer Some Key Questions

2007-03-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

I've had some pretty bad doctors over the years. I had one in Athens, Georgia, who wrestled for many years with drug and alcohol problems and, I learned from one of his associates, had spent a good chunk of time in rehab. That doctor told me that he'd been a "straight-C" student at the University of Tennessee Medical School. When I'd sit with him in his office, he'd light up one of his cigarettes as he discussed his problems with anxiety. I can't say anything about his nurse or receptionist, because he didn't seem to have either one. When you entered the office you signed in, and he called your name. If you wanted a prescription of just about any kind, including a nice big bottle of Valium, you got it.

In the integration-conscious 1970s, this doctor still retained TWO separate -- but mostly equal -- waiting rooms, one for us (Whites) and one for them (Blacks), even though no one demanded any longer that anyone sit anywhere in particular.

That doctor wasn't the worst one I've had -- not by a long shot. The worst one was in the Pittsburgh area. For a time, he also served as the physician for my brother, who basically had no money and lived with us for a year as he recovered from a stroke. My brother (Billy) qualified for free drugs under the Prescription Assistance Program (the one Montel Williams pitches on TV). The drug companies insist on sending the drugs directly to the physician, who should be the responsible one, right?

Wrong -- at least in this case. This doctor, actually there were two of them working together, had one receptionist working (perhaps a better word is present) in the office, and it was her task to do little things like answering the phone and receiving medications sent by drug makers.

On three occasions, this doctor's office LOST my brother's free drugs. All of them were branded pharmaceuticals (read, expensive) and came in three-month supplies. The drugs lost would have cost in total about $900 at retail, and of course since we didn't get them, we had to buy others. To get new supplies from the drug companies, we had to have the doctor re-order them, which he wasn't especially enthusiastic about doing.

After the third lost drug shipment, we finally changed doctors, long after we should have. Yes, they were nice enough people. Yes, they were convenient, no more than a two-minute walk from our home. Yes, they always seemed to have plenty of flu medicine in the fall. But were they good doctors? Nope.

How can you tell if your family doctor is is not exactly a candidate for ER or Gray's Anatomy? Take the following test.

(1) Does your doctor see patients (including you of course) for an average of 10 minutes or more, which is the national average? If your answer is no, you've got a problem. Your doctor may be patient-churning, racing people in-and-out to make more money. Figure it out: six patients an hour at approximately $75 per visit, the going rate in our area, generates hourly revenues of $450 . Getting one more patient per hour in raises that number to $525, which adds up to some big bucks rather quickly. For your $75 bucks, you deserve your ten minutes, trust me.

(2) Does your doctor write prescriptions for chronic illnesses (diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression, and the like) with five refills? If the answer is no, he's like the Pittsburgh-area doctor I described earlier. He wrote prescriptions with two -- or at most, three -- refills. Then, when you needed a refill, his "office" (consisting of the one lousy receptionist) insisted that you had to come in to "see the doctor." Essentially, this is another case of patient-churning, getting you to visit the office more often and to keep plunking down your $75. With the two refills, it's a case of doubling not your pleasure but your payments. (Yes, I realize that "insurance" may pay most or all of your $75, but insurance is not a philanthropic enterprise, and in fact you end up paying, directly or indirectly.) By the way, prescriptions for controlled substances, such as anti-anxiety drug Ativan (Lorazepam) many require a doctor's authorization to get a refill. In general, however, you can tell a whole lot about your doctor's motivations by how many refills he or she circles on your prescriptions.

(3) Does your doctor check regularly your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and heart rhythms? If the answer is no, flee immediately to another caregiver. He or she should also remind you to get your flu shot and, when you start into your 60s, to get a pneumonia shot. Before then, as Katie Couric and I will insist, you should have a colonoscopy, a stress exam (bicycles are better than treadmills), and other basic tests.

(4) Does your doctor prescribe a medicine to treat an illness AND discuss lifestyle adjustments that will help in dealing with the condition? If your answer is no, he's not doing -- or she's not doing -- the job. Lifestyle adjustments, eating better or exercising more, might not lower your cholesterol or your elevated blood pressure substantially, but then again they just might. If you're a diabetic, as I am, medication will help keep your glucose levels down, but you also need to stop ("just say no!") scarfing down white bread, soda pop, ice cream, and alcohol. Otherwise, your habits will undermine the medicine.

(5) Does your doctor have a good awareness of what drugs cost? If the answer is no, the physician is not unusual, because (1) most of them have great health plans; and (2) they can get all the free samples they want from those well-dressed phamaceutical representatives. Two years ago, I didn't have any prescription drug coverage, and my Pittsburgh-area doctor decided I needed Avandia (R) for my adult onset diabetes. It cost about $160 per month. Later, my Ambridge-area doctor suggested I try a generic, Metformin. It worked just as well as the Avandia, and it costs me $4.00 per month -- about one-fortieth what I was paying for Avandia. A doctor who doesn't know what the meds prescribed cost is deficient in a key area of medicine. The fine Bridgeville doctors I saw briefly -- Nicolette Chiesa and Don McFarland -- had a generic drug facility next to their office.

(6) Does your doctor have enough staff to get the job done well? If the answer is no, you need to find another doctor. The Pittsburgh-area doctor I saw had one mediocre staff member. That meant the doctors had to do all their own poking and prodding, and sometimes they weren't very good at it. The doctors in Bridgeville and Ambridge have relatively big staffs, nurses, receptionists, and clerks. Doctors shouldn't be doing work -- like asking basic questions, taking temperatures, checking blood pressure, and drawing blood samples -- that are better left to others. They shouldn't be answering their own phones. They shouldn't be wandering around looking for shipments of free meds misplaced by incompetents.

There are a other questions -- not by any means an infinite number -- you need to ask about your physician. Sure, it helps if a doctor has a pleasant manner, but if you're really sick, medical amiability isn't going to help much. Also, make sure your doctor, amiable or otherwise, isn't ripping you off, something that seems to be going around a lot these days.

The Post-Gazette Forum: Prof. Khan & the Oxymoron of "American Islam"

2007-03-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

In my columns, I talk from time to time about the Sunday "Forum" (opinion) section of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I urge my readers (all 99 of you!) to take a look at the March 25, 2007 "Forum" to see a typical issue, some very good, much very bad. Let's focus today on the latter.

The worst piece is "American Islam," written by M. A. Muqtedar Khan, who's an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware and a senior nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institute. He's authored American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom. Professor Khan is what passes for an "Islamic scholar," a popular oxymoron.

I'd suggest to Khan that when it's necessary to "bridge" faith and freedom, there's a big problem. In fact, faith without freedom (of speech, of religion, of press) is a frightening thing. Freedom should be the essence of faith. It shouldn't be some major dilemma.

As a good Muslim dedicated mainly to the cause of spreading his religion, Khan makes many of the usual patronizing comments about America -- praising the country for its freedoms, while neglecting to note that such liberties are present nowhere in the Islamic world. He makes his main point in the lead, saying: "American foreign policy sins are numerous and some are even unforgivable [!] -- like the invasion of Iraq, which was based on false accusations and has resulted in much death and destruction."

He adds that it be wrong to judge "Islam by what some radical, violence-prone Muslims have done around the world." Yet one might ask: what are the much-discussed, but rarely evident, moderate Muslims (another oxymoron) doing to resist and overcome the omnipresent violent Muslims? They're doing little, either because they support the violence or they're afraid. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity," as W. B. Yeats said.

The U.S. did not initiate "death and destruction in Iraq." Under Saddam and his Sunni brethren, Iraq launched two major wars in the Middle East, resulting in the death of perhaps a million Muslims in Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait. It killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shias. The number of Iranians killed in the war might have been half a million or more, with a similar number of Iraqi fatalities. After the occupation of Kuwait, Saddam attacked a village in Saudi Arabia.

He regularly used weapons of mass destruction, mainly poison gas, against the Iranians. He also bombed Kurdish villages with Mustard gas and nerve gas, killing many, many women and children. He killed people in Israel and Saudi Arabia with Scud missiles, which have WMD characteristics in that they kill indiscriminately.

For more than two decades, Saddam tried to develop nuclear weapons. Israel foiled Saddam's initial nuclear efforts by bombing his facilities. Right into the 1990s, Saddam was exploring the nuclear option. Great Britain's Butler Commission said that the report of Saddam trying to purchase yellowcake in Africa "was very well founded."

However, in the mind of a good Muslim like Professor Khan, it's the fault of the U.S. that there's death and destruction in Iraq.

I have news for him: the Muslim world has no better national friend in the world than America. It's the U.S. that has been the main protector of Muslims in the Balkans, in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and elsewhere.. Our continuing purpose in Afghanistan is to free the people there from Muslim tyranny and give them the same human rights Khan has in America.

What did the "moderate Muslims" of the world do to protect the people terrorized and massacred by Saddam, the Taliban, and the various mullahs and Ayatollahs? Frankly, they did nothing. Correction: they generally intensified their efforts to blame world's problems on Israel and the West, especially the Americans.

Saddam was a vigorous supporter of Muslim terrorists, especially the Gaza-centered suicide bombers of Hamas, whom he rewarded financially. He had his own terrorist training center at Salmon Pak. He was remarkably tolerant of the Ansar al Islam, an Al Qaida-like group, with its center in northeastern Iraq. He tried on many occasions to work out cooperative deals with Al Qaida itself. (Note: I'll have an article soon exposing Saddam's deep links to terrorists, including Al Qaida.)

Frankly, the U.S. could fire at will in Iraq for a decade without doing half the damage inflicted by the Muslim leader known as Saddam Hussein. No, he wasn't the most devout of Muslims in his "real life," but his last words on the gallows were the Islamic words "Allahu Akbar," meaning God is Great.

Are the issues I've raised unknown to Professor Khan and the many Muslims who think the way he does? No, but mass murder over a period of decades by Muslims -- especially Saddam and his Sunnis -- is somehow irrelevant. When Muslims are slaughtering Muslims, it's not nearly as bad as a bunch of infidels (we Americans) trying to save lives and establish democracy.

Professor Khan's praise of America's tolerance of people like him is bizarre. In other words, this country provides him with liberties scorned by Muslim nations around the world. Christians or Jews who publicly practice their religion -- or criticize their host nations -- in Islamic countries are putting their lives at risk. They're lucky if they escape with deportation.

When you read Professor Khan's article, you'll find it's mostly a celebration of himself. He enthuses about the number of speeches he gives, the articles he publishes, the academic and other institutional positions he holds. He cites a number of other "Muslim scholars" who, like him, use the benefits of American freedoms without really comprehending how they came about.

He never gets to the real point: the systemic deficiencies of Islam and its sharia law that prevent his having Western-oriented counterparts in Muslim countries. He doesn't grasp the fact that there's an inverse relationship between the percentage of Muslims in a nation and the amount of liberty. Perhaps the reason he doesn't reflect on these matters is that doing so would cause him to call his Muslim faith into serious doubt.

Why does the Post-Gazette publish such claptrap? It does so because of its commitment to a witless "tolerance" directed toward those it would like to engage in "dialogue." Yet how does one spark real discussion among peoples and religious traditions that have zero understanding of or respect for a candid exchange of views?

If Professor Khan and others like him want to do some real good in the world, they should return to the Islamic world. They should, in essence, risk their lives by expounding the values of liberty. I doubt there's much chance they'll do so.

Unfortunately, there is no real "American Islam." Instead, there are Muslims in America, some of them good people, who unfortunately don't yet realize their Islamic beliefs are incompatible with American ideals. When they seriously ask themselves why that's so, fewer of them will continue to espouse Islam.

Stephen R. Maloney is an independent journalist (not an oxymoron). He has a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and worked for many of America's largest countries. He is not a big fan of Islam, because of its basic incompatibility with human rights.

Altmire, Murtha, and Doyle: Doing Their Three Stooges Imitation?

2007-03-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

I sent the following note to Jerome Sherman, who writes on national politics for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Jerome, on your Saturday, March 24, 2007 story about the 218-212 House vote to set a ttimetable for Iraq withdrawal: you may remember when I said earlier that 4th District congressman Jason Altmire would end up voting the way Nancy Pelosi told him to, which in fact is exactly what happened. You point was that he had real concerns about voting for a timetable, and my point was that his concerns were mainly for local political consumption.

I never heard exactly what "reservations" he had about setting a timetable. Me being me, I doubt he had any reservations of consequence, especially given the fact that he never expressed them in any detail. He never seems to express his views fully on any issue.

When Altmire voted for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, which involves the destruction of a form of life, he portrayed his stand as pro-life, in keeping with his campaign promises. Does he regard some forms of abortion as pro-life, and if so which ones?

What exactly is his thinking about how the timetable vote will play with Al Qaida, the Taliban, and the various insurgent groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? Was that the source of his supposed "reservations," if he in fact had any of consequence, and how did he resolve the question in his own thinking?

In fact, how exactly Altmire thinks the U.S. should conduct the overall War on Terror -- if he thinks we should be conducting it -- is a mystery to me. Perhaps you could get him to illuminate his views, again assuming he has any.

There's a major problem with portraying Altmire as moderate/independent/pro-life, etc., as his votes so far show no signs of such commitments on his part. In this regard, he's about as independent as Congressman Mike Doyle, who always votes with the leadership, aside from an occasional Western PA vote ('we love coal, we love steel, we love union bosses," etc.)

There's a problem with your use of the phrase "fractious majority" in regard to the Democrats. Since only a handful of Democrats voted against the resolution, the majority doesn't seem all that fractious. If you're talking about a few people who posture constantly for the Party's left-wing (individuals like Dennis Kuchinich), they aren't being fractious. I believe they almost all fell into line when the vote was taken, didn't they?

Additionally, I wonder exactly what role the insertion of billions of dollars of "pork" played in getting the majority vote for the timetable. How many Representatives voted from the timetable in order to get the pork? Was it a half-dozen or more, as appears to be the case?

Overall, we read a lot in the papers about the "Blue Dog" Democrats (fiscal conservatives), as well as socially conservative and "moderate" Democrats. Is there any hard evidence that more than a few such people really exist, or they mainly media creations? I don't see how any fiscal conservatives could vote for a bill containing so many earmarks (i.e., pork).

Finally, does Congressman Murtha still think it's a good idea to redeploy the troops to Okinawa, as he suggested to Tim Russert? I haven't heard him speak out on this lately. Does he continue to believe Okinawa is the best place from which to conduct military action against Al Qaida and associated terrorists?

Jerome, obviously I'm very skeptical about the actions and explanations of Congressmen Altmire, Murtha, and Doyle. When they vote on proposed legislation, I'd like to hear why -- in some detail -- they did so. The sloganeering favored by Jack Murtha does not constitute an explanation -- and does not communicate an understanding of the pros and cons involved in any vote of significance. I don't get the sense that any of the three men have done the kind of reflection necessary with complex issues.

It's not the obligation of any member of Congress to agree with me. However, when they disagree, I'd like to have some sense of why they do so.

Thanks as always for your consideration of my thoughts.

Steve Maloney, Ambridge (Member of "Jerome Sherman Frequent Reader Club")

Memo to the Post-Gazette: Fire Wasaleski and Norman NOW!

2007-03-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

In today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, assistant editor Tony Norman writes a "boo-hoo" column about all the heat the paper's editorial board is taking for not writing critically about corruption in city government. In fact, the P-G bears heavy responsibility for many of the area's problems, including the dismaying situation in the violence-infested Black community and the de facto establishment of one-party government in Allegheny County.

I have condemned Tony Norman, an African-American, in the past for his lack of concern about the widespread misery in Pittsburgh's Black neighborhoods. We have a lot of such areas, since our community is about as segregated as Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960s. Violence -- murders and assaults, mainly on young Blacks -- is a constant presence.

A couple of years ago, after a period when a young Black woman had been raped and abandoned in a cemetery by four Black males and another young woman, a top student at Westinghouse, had been killed in a drive-by shooting, Tony Norman wrote a column.

No, it wasn't about the above outrages, it was about the wonders of Barack Obama. Norman was excited by Obama's message, then as now, one loaded with generalities about "The Audacity of Hope." At the time, I noted the young woman who'd been viciously raped and the one who'd been murdered were neither audacious nor hopeful. Year-in-and-year out, dozens of young Blacks are gunned down in our streets, but to the Post-Gazette that seems to be just an inevitable fact of life rather than what it really is: the continuing destruction of Pittsburgh's Black community.

The same week as Norman's puff-piece about Obama, Jesse Jackson came to town. Perhaps he was here to express his dismay at the rape and killing? No, he was on a (photo op) bus tour dealing with "Poverty in Appalachia." If he wanted to visit truly impoverished places, I'd suggest first Pittsburgh's Black communities -- and then the editorial board of the P-G.

On another occasion, elementary-age children in Homewood were afraid to go to school because of the many drive-by shootings. I demanded that the Governor call out the National Guard to protect those children -- a step he did not take. As for Tony Norman, well, he lives not in Homewood but in Squirrel Hill, where it's safe for children to walk to school.

As for the Post-Gazette editorial board overall, it has played a central role in taking Allegheny County politics to where it is now, an undemocratic, one-party system. Under the leadership of editorial page editor Tom Wasaleski, the P-G has used its power to ensure that we have democracy in name only.

When our politicians -- from John Murtha to Mayor Luke Ravenstahl -- misbehave, the P-G sometimes chides them. More often, it says nothing.

Of course, the result of one-party rule is that have a Culture of Political Corruption, with a steady stream of Democratic politicians (including the Sheriff and his key aides, various City Council types, a former Mayor, and the long-time head of the county's Democratic Party, as well as several judges) being either indicted or otherwise cited for violating the public trust.

In the recent past, one state legislator much favored by the Post-Gazette provided a much-remembered response to a (recorded) exchange where someone asked him if the main role of elected office was not to serve the public. The legislator's response was "F--k the public." That was Mr. Gigliotti, later led off in leg-irons.

Now, we have "a young mayor," Ravenstahl, who appears to a seasoned practitioner of "the old corruption." He appoints a cyncial deal-maker, Dennis Regan, as head of the Public Safety Committee. When an outstanding policewoman, Catherine McNeilly, complains about Regan's improper use of influence in police matters, the "young mayor" approves her demotion. Later, she sues, the City loses, and she gets reinstated, reportedly with the city getting ready to pay her a six-figure settlement.

Sounds like we should be voting out the "young Mayor," right? Well, in Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, voting is more a symbolic gesture than an electoral statement.

Will the P-G endorse Luke Ravenstahl, the only candidate running for Mayor? Is the Pope Catholic? Yes, Ravenstahl, inexperienced, ethically challenged, and obsessed with celebrities, has no Democratic opposition and no (token) Republic opposition. Apparently, he can be Mayor Forever.

Republicans should stop playing along with the occasional appearance (if not the reality) of a democratic politics. In fact, we're a one-party community, and it's time for Republicans to stop getting 20% of the votes in elections and go on to more worthwhile endeavors. Raking leaves would be superior to participating in political shams.

In an editorial a month ago, the P-G mentioned that Gov. Rendell has proposed six tax increases, all of which he'd forgotten to mention in his campaign against African-American Lynn Swann. Of course, the paper thought that he might be moving too quickly (!!!!!!) and that perhaps he should delay some of the tax increases.
In fact, if Ed Rendell had proposed 66 increases -- or 666 -- during his campaign, the P-G would still have endorsed him. After all, Lynn Swann, one of the finest people I've ever met, was a (shudder) Republican.

Republican candidates dutifully go in for "interivews" with an editorial board supposedly weighing which candidate to endorse. Hint: it's the DEMOCRAT folks.

Consider the experience of Republican Diana Lynn Irey, campaigning in 2006 against Congressman-For-Life John Murtha. When the P-G editorial board inteviewed her, they treated her with contempt. They did everything but stick her head in the toilet. The atmosphere was one of: "How dare you run against the sainted John Murtha!?"

As she retreated from the P-G Building, one newspaper staffer (Bill Toland?) sought to comfort her -- and apologize for the behavior of his colleagues.

The proper response -- the decent one -- for the board was to say: "Look, Diana, we don't support conservative candidates, even when they're running against someone universally regarded as corrupt, like John Murtha. But we do want to salute you for making the democratic process something other than a sham. We realize the time and effort you're putting into this campaign to raise issues in which you believe deeply."

Sadly, Tony Norman and Tom Wasaleski don't have the cojones to say anything stand-up to a fine person like Diana.

It's time for Republicans to stop providing nominal candidates who are nothing more than fig leaves for an undemocratic and thoroughly corrupt process. In this area, "Republican opposition" is an oxymoron.

Republicans should not to present themselves for "show trials" with the P-G editorial board. In fact, don't stand for office at all in a climate where media editorialists are nothing more than a cheering squad for Democratic candidates, many of whom have the ethical substance of a cockroach.

It's time for Republicans and others who believe in competitive, fair elections to just say NO!

John and Elizabeth Edwards: The Politics of Personal Deceit

2007-03-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

The Democratic presidential candidate in 2008 will not be John Edwards, who languishes at about 10% in the national polls. Basically, Edwards is running for vice-president, a position he's also not going to get. If his role in 2004 was to help Kerry win at least one border South state, he was a failure, with the Democratic ticket losing badly even in North Carolina.

Yes, Edwards and, especially, his wife were impressive today as they discussed the recurrence of Mrs. Edward's cancer. However, my view of John Edwards is that he's a thoroughly dishonest and cynical candidate, the lilting Southern accent notwithstanding. I take Elizabeth Edwards seriously enough -- not just as "that poor lady with cancer" -- to see her for what she is: an enabler for her husband's deceit and self-absorption.

John Edwards is a Southern populist, running in the tradition established by people like Huey Long, Eugene Talmadge, and George Wallace -- although he's doing it without their highly visible racial politics. In fact, Edwards' use of race is the kind increasingly popular in Democratic politics: portraying himself as someone who will accelerate the process of redistributing income (a key term) to "poor people."

When he ran for the Senate in North Carolina, Edwards ran not so much as a moderate as a Southerner. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana runs the same way. It's the politics of "I talk like you, therefore I am one of YOU."

The "I'm-like-you" is the essence of Southern populism. In one campaign appearance before his "wool-hats," poor whites, Huey Long said, "They [the New Orleans newspapers] say I stole. Well, my brethren I DID steal, but I stole for you!" The crowd roared its approval.

Edwards' presidential primary campaign in 2004 emphasized "The Two Americas," one poor, one supposedly rich. (The middle-class doesn't play a big role in Southern populism.) Basically, it was the politics of envy at work.

Is Edwards really one-of-them, the huddled masses of America? In a U.S. Senate filled with gazillionaires, Edwards was one of the richer ones. He may in fact have been the son of a mill worker, but in his career as a plaintiff's attorney, he traveled a long way from the mill. According to federal filings, Edwards' net worth may be roughly $20 million. So, when he goes on about the "Two Americas," we know which one he inhabits.

When Edwards as a personal injury lawyer was taking a hefty chunk of his clients' settlements, did he explain fully to them how the system worked? For example, did he acquaint them with the exhaustive study done by Progressive Insurance? It pointed out how clients who engaged attorneys received LESS in settlements that those who didn't use. It also took them MUCH LONGER to receive their settlements, often a year more.

(Yes, the monies the insurance companies paid out were generally larger when lawyers were involved, but after the attorneys consumed their 30% or 40%, plus expenses, the injured parties ended up with less money overall.) If this all sounds like a great way to raise the cost of insurance premiums, well, you get it.

Granted, Edwards inearly as rich as Senators like Herb Kohl (D, WI, worth as much as $200 million), or John Kerry (D, MA), rich with Teresa's money, or Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), or Ted Kennedy (D, MA), or a host of other Democratic senators.

Of course, Edwards, as a good populist, sharply criticizes the "Bush tax cuts." He wonders how Bush can cut taxes on "the wealthiest Americans."

In fact, Edwards and his fellow Democrats aren't really talking about taxing the wealthy. In fact, that would put them in the uncomfortable position of taxing people like, well, themselves. They would also be talking about taxing all those Hollywood moguls and Wall Street plutocrats (like George Soros) who channel all those mega-bucks into Democratic campaigns.

See, wealth (net worth) is what you have (like Rockefeller's hundred-million plus and Teddy Kennedy's $50 million and Nancy Pelosi's $50 million -- all made by her husband of course, whereas income is what you're making annually. So, iur Democratic elected officials don't want to tax wealth. They want to tax income, including yours.

If you're working hard ("in the sweat of your brow, as the Bible puts it), the Democrats really don't want you to get rich. They want more of your money, in the form of taxes. They want you to make a lot of money, but they want you to keep a smaller portion of it.

Thus, all the liberal clatter about taxing those "wealthy" Americans has no real meaning. It's just the same old demagoguery. It's the policy favored by those extremely wealthy Americans known as John and Elizabeth Edwards.

I'm very sorry Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. I'm even more sorry that she and her husband are pushing policies that will do great damage to the economic health of Americans.

Defecating on and Murdering Women: Are They "Free Speech?"

2007-03-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

Somehow I don't think I got my points across to Post-Gazette reporter Paula Ward in my blog. Perhaps the problem is that she generally accepts "the world as it is" (the perception that the presence of smoke means there's a fire) and I often don't (sometimes what we're seeing is a smoke machine).

Let me highlight one part of Ms. Ward's article, regarding pornography cases: "The federal grand jury in Pittsburgh indicted a California couple who ran Extreme Associates, a company that makes graphic pornography featuring women being tortured, defecated on and murdered."

"That case -- which was thrown out by a district judge but later reinstated by the appeals court -- is being watched by First Amendment scholars across the country. It is expected to go to trial later this year."

Everything Ms. Ward tells us here is true, but there's something wrong with it notwithstanding. Let me use this analogy: If she was writing a story about a woman who claims she was impregnated by a alien and quoted the woman's comment that the baby looked like the father, I'd feel somewhat the way I do about her Extreme Associates story.

In her U.S. Attorney story generally, she's assuming things to be true that are widely believed but highly questionable.

Extreme Associates is claiming that showing women being defecated on and murdered is legal under the First Amendment to the Constitution. The problem is that there is in a fact a written version of that Amendment, which prohibits Congress from abridging the right to free speech.

I submit that Madison, Hamilton, and others knew what the word speech meant, even if their modern counterparts don't. The Supreme Court ruled long ago that the Founders, who created Congress, didn't know what it was they were creating, and the Bill of Rights (aside from the 10th Amendment?) also applied to the states.

Is defecation (or murder) really speech? No. Is it, however, a form of speech? No, unless you twist language to such an extent that words lose all their meaning.

Did any of the Founding Fathers -- as in ANY -- every take a position that defecating or other bodily functions were forms of speech? If sexual relations are a form of speech, then God Save the Queen.

The whole notion of non-speech being speech is ridiculous. Excretion is not speech. Urination is not speech. A dog baying at the moon is not speech. In fact, writing is not speech, as the Founding Fathers knew in their designation of a separate freedom relating to the press.

There's a provision in the Constitution (the one written, not the one imagined or hoped for by the supposed "First Amendment scholars") for amendment. In fact, the speech clause itself is part of an amendment.

The Founders did not assume the original Constitution was all that would be necessary for all times. If modern society wants to assume that defecation -- or a baby's throwing a rattle, or a motorist honking his horn at 3 a.m. -- is a form of speech, there's a way to do so: through amending the Constitution. It would require the vote of 67 Senators, as well as two-thirds of House and ratification by most states.

I doubt one Senator or Representative would vote in the affirmative. But some "learned" First Amendment scholars beg to differ, on grounds that one can hardly imagine. A scholar is not someone totally detached from reality -- except perhaps for legal scholars.

I fear for a society where defecating on women, of which Paula Reed Ward is one as are our five daughters, is defensible under the law. In societies where ethical and social considerations count for little, what is legal has a way of becoming normative. Life imitates art -- does it ever!

When 12-year-old Dakota Fanning (a wonderful young actress) is portrayed, however briefly, as being raped in a film, the presentation gets its defenders. One of them is Dakota herself, who says, "That's why they call it ACTING." I call it shameful. Presumably, pederasty is illegal, except of course when it's "art."

Yes, when women get raped and murdered in real life -- as they do in great numbers -- the perpetrators are "making a statement." But it is an odious statement, one that should not be permitted, even if Extreme Associates say that it's all fun and games.

Am I making one of those arguments known as "slippery slope?" I'm saying that, human nature being what it is, it's more like a trap door.

I guess what I'm saying to Paula and all journalists is this: When the Emperor traipses by the buff, it's not necessary to assume he must have clothes.

Twisting the Constitution into something that has a legally protected place for Extreme Associates' dreck is to turn it into something loathesome. Granted, the ACLU will continue to worship it, but most people will look at it as an object of scorn.

I know the objection Paula and other journalists would make to my position: if editor David Shribman's assumption is that the Emperor does have clothes, then she'd better go along to get along. If that's the case, then we truly need a modern version of Jonathan Swift.

steve maloney
ambridge, pa

"Stop Stabbing our Troops in the Back": The Limits of Free Speech

2007-03-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

After putting 90,000 words -- about the length of a 300-page book -- into this blog, I'm delighted with the way things are going. I thank all those who've read and/or responded to pieces I've written. To those I've criticized, I thank you for existing, because you have inspired me to keep writing.

In recent weeks, I've launched some mild criticisms of Jack Kelly, mainly for his rebuking Ann Coulter for being, well, herself. Jack writes columns that are hard-hitting, but in the thinking of people like Ann (and me), hard-hitting is not really enough to spark truly serious debate about such issues as: (1) the need for America to win in Iraq; (2) the need to call liberal Democrats to account for their dangerous and cynical views.

A so-called reasoned debate is not enough. It's like the Confederate artillery barrage before Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. The shells fall far short and don't do any real damage. And what qualifies metaphorically as General Pickett's rush to futility? I'd suggest the Republican efforts in the election of 2006.

That was the election where the best appeared to lack all conviction, while the worst were full of passionate intensity. Now, some of the best are striking back.

Recently, Jack Kelly questioned Sean Hannity's relatively benign treatment of Coulter on Fox News. Unfortunately, Jack also wondered about the depth of Sean's Christianity -- and by extension, Ann's own faith. On all the evidence I've seen, there's little doubt either person's Christian faith.

Ann has said she won't vote for Rudy Giuliani, because of his stand on abortion. I don't agree with her on that point, even though I'm strongly pro-life, as is Sean. My view is that if we don't vigorously conduct the War on Terror, as Rudy surely would (so would McCain), then most other issues could become moot.

Also, Rudy rejuvenated New York City, restoring most of its economic robustness. At the same time, his policies cut sharply into the city's crime rate -- especially the number of murders. Saving thousands of lives is by definitions a pro-life activity.

Also, Rudy has promised he would appoint judges who are "strict constructionists." He is using a code-term there to reach out to social conservatives, such as Sean Hannity and Steve Maloney. In fact, it wasn't strict constructionists who came up with novel interpretation of the Constitution that led to Roe v. Wade.

On the overall question of Christians taking tough political stands: I have to remind Jack (gently, but firmly) that Christians aren't society's punching bags. The Jesus who drove the moneychangers from the temple was not a Milquetoast. There's not really a contradiction between loving our enemies and confronting them with some hard truths. As Jesus said, "I come to bring not peace, but the sword."

On the "Hannity and Colmes" program earlier this week, Sean confronted his co-host Allen Colmes, who was talking his usual claptrap about Iraq. Hannity said, "When are you liberals going to stop emboldening America's enemies?"

Then, as the feckless but facile Colmes blathered on, Hannity asked, "When are you going to stop stabbing our troops in the back?"

Colmes, shaken, replied (in essence): "Look, if we have to give up our constitutional right to speak out, then the terrorists have won."

Yes, we do have a right to speak out -- to make reasoned arguments pro or con related to Iraq. However, free speech presupposes a recognition of the consequences of our speech. Frankly, speech that does nothing but encourage people who hate the concept of liberty is highly suspect speech. What precisely is it purpose?

Sean Hannity was right to say: "Stop." Allen Colmes was wrong to reply: "No." Somehow, I don't think the concept of right and wrong has a lot of meaning for Colmes and those who think like him.

Some forms of speech can do a lot more harm than shouting fire in a crowded theater. They can result in the deaths of American men and women. As I've suggested before, Al Qaida reads the public opinion polls, as well as the remarks of American liberal politicians. Osama bin Laden has said as much.

The Constitution is not a perfect document, and the rights outlined in it are not absolute. That understanding is what moved Mr. Justice Arthur Goldberg to say: "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." In the same sense, it should not be a death trap for soldiers protecting the very rights that others are abusing.

To put it in Coulteresque Terms: When your speech is leading to the death of my son or daughter, or my nephew or niece, then I will do what I can to inhibit your particular exercise of speech. For me to do otherwise would be immoral and would be a breach of faith with our best and bravest.

The U. S. Attorneys "Scandal": The Dems and Their Media Cheerleaders

2007-03-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, I write "reviews" of articles and columns appearing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I do so because it's important for reporters and columnists to engage in a dialogue with readers. In the age of the Internet, the days when reporters basically lectured us as if we were a bunch of fourth-graders learning about the pyramids (or, nowadays, the post office), are over. News must be a back-and-forth process, where readers ask questions, make observations, and indicate where they think the reporter has fallen short.

First, some background: The issue of the Bush Administration's firing of eight U. S. Attorneys has been much in the news recently. Basically, it's a non-story that certain members of the media and some Democrats in the Senate -- especially the noisome Senator Leahy -- are trying hard to turn into a big deal.

In the firings, did the Bush Administration act clumsily? Yes. As the National Review put it in a cover story (using an old Casey Stengel line about the N. Y. Mets), "Can't Anybody Here Play this Game?"

But did the Bush Administration do anything unethical, illegal, or especially unusual? No.

U.S. Attorneys get appointed and continue to serve entirely at the discretion of the President (and his representatives). They are political appointees. Their job is to carry out the initiatives established by the President and the Justice Department -- period. They're not carrying out missions of their own choosing.

It's not rare for Presidents to fire U.S. Attorneys. In 1993, Bill Clinton got rid of not eight such Attorneys, but 93 of them. The President appoints people with he feels comfortable, and Clinton felt more comfortable with 93 Democrats than he did with a like number of Republicans (who'd in turn been appointed by the first George Bush, "Bush 41").

In the case of some, if not all, the Sacked Eight, the Bush Administration felt they were not sufficiently vigorous in their actions taken against political corruption, especially voter fraud. So, they got rid of them and replaced them with people they felt would do the job better.

In this situation, some in the mainstream Media (MSM) may believe that "where there's smoke there's fire." All too often, however, where there's smoke there's someone -- in the press or politics -- operating a smoke machine. When an Administration fires POLITICAL appointees, it's "news" only in the minds of certain left-wing Democrats and their cheerleaders in the media.

Paula Reed of the Post-Gazette probably should have mentioned some of the above points in her article on Mary Beth Buchanan, U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania ("No Trouble for Buchanan to Stay in Line," P-G, March 18, 2007). Reed did a great deal of work researching this article, citing various past U. S. Attorneys about the nature of the position and the job Buchanan is doing.

Reed describes her subject as "loyal, hard-working, and smart," but also as "a self-promoter" who has gained several prestigious roles in the Justice Department, including her being the acting director of the Office on Violence Against Women." Frankly, if fighting violence against women is "self-promotion," then three cheers for self-promotion.

In general, Reed's article is a good one, but it could have been better. She makes the case that U. S. Attorneys generally -- and Buchanan specifically -- bring a lot more public corruption cases against Democratss than Republicans. The national numbers she gives are 298 Democrats, 67 Republicans, and 10 Independents.

Reed notes that Democratic officeholders nationwide outnumber Republicans by 51% to 40%, with the implication that corruption cases should mirror those numbers. Reed could have noted that most such cases take place in big cities, where Democrats dominate political offices. In understanding this, it helps to think about places like Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Newark, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where Republican officeholders are few and far between.

Political corruption takes place just about everywhere, but the big-time version takes place in big cities. Relatedly, some cities -- think of Chicago and Pittsburgh -- have cultures of corruption, where bribery, extortion, and self-dealing are almost a way of life. Recently, the elected sheriff of Allegheny County and three of his top associates were found guilty of "macing," essentially a tactic of pressuring subordinates for political campaign contributions.

The sheriff, Pete DeFazio, told a broadcast journalist that he'd been in the Sheriff's Department for 38 years and he wasn't doing anything unusual. The sheriff has retired with a huge pension and full benefits, if not "with the thanks of a grateful community." He reflects everything that's wrong with this county's politics.

There are very good reasons why more Democrats get indicted than Republicans. They're larger in number, they stay around much longer, and they commit more crimes. Frankly, in Allegheny County, many officeholders feel it's their right to get a little (or a lot of) money on the side. Bribery and other misdeeds are much too common among politicians, judges, and others.

Of course, many of the malefactors -- prior to their getting caught by Mary Beth Buchanan or others -- originally received enthusiastic endorsements by the Post-Gazette. That fact can put reporters in a somewhat awkward position.

In her article, Reed quotes one unnamed source, an assistant to Buchanan, who says of her, "She's not independent [from the U.S. Justice Department], and I don't think she wants to be." Admittedly, the comment is innocuous.

However, people like me are always uncomfortable with unnamed sources, which shouldn't be used except under extraordinary circumstances. Why not? Because such sources often have an agenda of their own, and since they don't get named, they can't get questioned further by others. At worst, a few reporters -- Reed is NOT one -- make up sources on the reasoning that no one will ever know about the "creative writing."

In the article, Reed relies on some people whose comments seem to be petty. Some assistant attorneys don't like the fact she expects them to write speeches, which seems like a minor offense on her part.

Another person thinks she travels too much to fulfill her "full-time" job. In fact, however, she gets high marks from a predecessor for the high number of cases she brings and the talents of the assistant attorneys she's hired.

In trying for balance, Reed may be finding some special pleaders who are envious of Buchanan's success. People who criticize her essentially for doing too much aren't being fair.

Allegheny County is lucky to have someone the quality of Mary Beth Buchanan. Yes, her job is political -- in the sense the Bush Administration expects her to carry out its legal initiatives. That's not too much to expect.

It's fascinating to compare Reed's article with one cheek-by-jowl to hers, a piece that appeared in the New York Times. It's a sad case of two journalists trying to manipulate a story, as they write about New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

He was investigating a case involving voter fraud by someone working for the "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now." What the article doesn't mention is the organization's acronym, which is ACORN.

That group is synonymous with voter fraud, not only in New Mexico but also in Philadelphia and elsewhere. In Philadephia, my nephew, a lawyer, determined that ACORN had registered 20 homeless people who all had the same address: an abandoned building. A few doors away were the local ACORN headquarters. Of course, giving a false address when registering is against the law, but it's a very common practice.

The old Philadelphia Political Machine, a monument to cynicism and corruption, is very much alive. In some precincts, a 100% vote for Democrats is common. In a certain precinct, the polling place was in an individual's residence. He announced to a Republican poll-watcher, "No Republicans are allowed in this house!" The poll-worker had to obtain a court order to enter. The vote there (in 2004) was five for Bush (how did THEY get in?) and 317 for Kerry.

Voter fraud cases are difficult to bring -- and even harder to get convictions. With a group like ACORN, its reason for being is to register people who will vote for Democrats. My own experience is that the group believes the end -- having Democrats win -- is much more important than the means used. ACORN pays its registration solicitors, and that is an invitation to pass money to potential voters and to commit fraud.

I'm sure that ACORN's people have mastered the Claude Rains' line in "Casablanca" and would be "shocked, shocked, to find that voter fraud is taking place."

All in all, Ms. Reed's article is a good one, although imperfect in some ways. It's a lot better than the Times piece, which is journalism at its worst. The Times should be ashamed of itself, but I don't think shame is its strong suit.

Good News Tonight: Surge Working, CNN Improving

2007-03-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

Don't look now, but George W. Bush's "surge" in Iraq, combined with the superb leadership of General David Petraeus, is working. My good friend Pete Glyptis would say that Petraeus is just leaving up to the high standards set by Americans of Greek descent.

Question: if the surge does work and America "wins" the war, does that mean GWB no longer has assume the role of the most wretched of the wretched of the earth? I've said that George Bush is a great man but probably not a great President. He may be proving me wrong, and I devoutly hope he is.

As Joe Scarborough, Craig Crawford, and Pat Buchanan said on MSNBC (of all places!) said today, the positive effects of the surge put the Democrats' presidential hopefuls in an awkward place. If you're the anti-war candidate (Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Al Gore, Dennis Kusinich, or Homer Simpson), what do you do if the war is going well -- and, eventually, winding down? I guess you then run as the gentleman dressed in a white flag, and of course you lose big-time.

Remember George McGovern, the anti-war candidate who ran at the high point of resistance to the Vietnam War? In the election, he held on to South Dakota and lost the other 49 states. Barack Obama, beware the curse of George McGovern.

You are asking by now: where are my swipes at Hillary Clinton. Well, you better sit down, because I'm about to praise her, perhaps for the first time in nearly two decades. In an era where everyone is expected to apologize for just about everything, she refuses to apologize for the authorization of the Iraq War. In fact, she revealed this past weekend that, after she's elected (she can dream too, I see) and takes office January, 2009, she might keep 30,000 or so troops in Iraq.

In this world, that's an amazing -- and amazingly responsible -- statement by a leading Democrat. What's up with Hillary? Doesn't she know that her stand on Iraq is going to make her the most hated -- and most demonstrated against -- of presidential candidates?

After the "Hillarycare" debacle of her husband's first term, she apparently swore off losing causes. I think her current stand means she's swearing off becoming a female version of George McGovern.

Hillary doesn't want to win the Democratic nomination -- if doing so would make her a sure loser in the general election. She knows that, if she takes a militantly anti-war stance and the war starts going well, she would be a sure loser. She wouldn't win New York --or South Dakota, or anything else aside from the District of Columbia. She doesn't want to spend election eve with three electoral votes in her pocket. Unlike most Democrats, she doesn't have a political death wish.

I'm also guessing she doesn't want to be President at a time when Iraq is a failed state -- and the Middle East is aflame with bin Ladenesque fervor. Perhaps she also read the confession of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, the part apart him decapitating Daniel and then hoisting his head, and grasps exactly the perverted nature of the enemy.

In any case, I don't agree with her new Iraq policy, but it's a lot better than anything else the Democrats are offering. What are the policies of Barack Obama and John Edwards for dealing with Al Qaida? In asking the question, surely you jest. In facing antagonists -- bin Laden and his merry men -- who are full of passionate intensity, the Obamas of the world lack all conviction. Shouting slogans about the "audacity of hope" won't exactly impress the people who gave us 9/11 and the bombings in London and Madrid.

If you watch the television series "Jericho," you know what Al Qaida has in mind for the U.S. The recent evidence indicates Hillary Clinton may know it also. Two cheers for her.

There are some interesting going on at CNN. Part of the network seems to be competing with MSNBC for the tiny liberal audience. (Fox has more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined.) But there are signs that some forces at CNN want to be good presenting news and analysis very well. In contrast, MSNBC is stuck with people like Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews, both of them shrill leftists who might as well wear donkey suits.

One very good thing CNN has done is to replace Arwa Damon, its long-time Baghdad reporter, with Kyra Phillips, who happened to be Art Buchwald's youngest friend.

I first saw that Kyra was the real deal when she asked hard questions of Nancy Pelosi, who was expecting the usual soft balls. At one point, Ms. Pelosi of "carrying water for the Bush Administration." Pelosi is one of the Democrats who assumes that a tough reporter -- and Kyra is nothing if not tough -- must be someone from the camp of the enemy.

Arwa Damon in Baghdad was not as bad as, say, Tokyo Rose in Tokyo, but she came close. An American citizen (I think), Arwa is an Arab, a fact CNN didn't exactly highlight. In her reporting, she was relentless glum and gloomy. She was one of the primary authors of the "hell-in-a-handbasket" view of Iraq. At times, she acted as if the situation was just another case of the infidels barging in and creating an unending scene of horror. If there were lots of car bombings -- and boy were there ever -- it was not really an indictment of the mass murderers but perhaps a result of Americans coming in where they weren't wanted.

She was a disaster. Her stringy hair and what may be a genetic inability to smile or to find any good news made her a good partner for CNN's other man in Iraq, Richard Ware. His hair looks worse than Arwa's, and if he ever saw the Coalition do anything positive in Iraq, he forgot to mention it. He has a strong British accent and seems to take the view popular at the BBC, basically that all the ills of the world are a result of Western decadence.

He and Arwa would be great at al-Jazeera.

Kyra Phillips is one of the best electronic journalists in the U.S. Her presence in Baghdad -- especially at a time when thing will be going better -- will be a major plus for CNN and its viewers.

I don't suggest that the Republicans run Kyra Phillips (who may be a Democrat) against Hillary Clinton, but in fact the GOP could do worse. Three cheers for Kyra.

One other big plus for CNN is its reliance on Gen. David Grange as its military analyst. Today, he quoted Lincoln (I'll paraphrase) that all men in all nations at all times desire freedom, something that would come as major news to Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Confessions of a (Conservative) Wingnut: If the T-Word Fits, Wear It

2007-03-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

In today's (March 18, 2007) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, national security columnist Jack Kelly followed up on his story criticizing Ann Coulter for using what's now generally known as the "F-word" ("Faggot," referring to John Edwards). The headline of the new Kelly column is "Fanatic Fantasies," and the sub-head is: "Fringe types on the left and right are pushing their agendas over a cliff."

In the column, he points out that some left-wingers call people on "the extreme right" by the derogatory term "wingnuts" and those on the right retaliate by calling extreme leftists "moonbats." Supporters of Ann Coulter, of whom I'm one, supposedly are "wingnuts."

Personally, I like most wingnuts. They pay their taxes, take care of their own kids, go to work, stop for red lights, and generally vote Republican. Most of them also agree a lot with Jack Kelly, mostly because they know he loves his country, including its liberties (which he took arms to defend) and its soldiers.

Kelly talks about "mean-spirited" folks on the right who sent him nasty e-mails about his criticism of Coulter. What I sent him was my blog piece indicating why I thought Ann Coulter was raising the rhetorical temperature of the national debate in a basically positive way. Yes, she was seeking attention, but she was doing so in the cause of issues that cry out for attention.

To be heard in the current climate, one must sometimes shout.

Normally, Jack Kelly's columns (such as his famous one in praise of global warming) get nasty letters-to-the-editor. The Coulter piece, however, got a veritable outpouring of praise -- three letters praising his Coulter column directly and one indirectly. Frankly, if I were Jack Kelly, those letters would make me suspicious about what I said regarding Ann-of-a-Thousand Quips.

I think he very much would like to have a debate with moderate liberals although not with the extreme left. I have news for him: most American liberals don't want to engage in a debate about key issues, including Iraq. The Democrats, moonbats and others, didn't get elected last November by engaging in debates. That achievement came about by reading polls and, for the most part, keeping their mouths shut and letting the electorate vote against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld. No national debate occurred.

Here's the problem: In a recent column, Kelly noted that "The last thing the Democrats [he didn't say "moonbat Democrats"] seem to want is a victory in Iraq." He adds, "Democrats have invested so much political capital in an American defeat that their electoral prospects in 2008 could be devastated if we win."

I'm sure that column generated some angry e-mails and maybe a hostile letter or two. Unfortunately, the world at large will little note nor long remember what Jack Kelly said about the Democrats basically rooting for the enemy. His language had an edge to it, but not enough firepower to create any sort of productive controversy.

If Jack Kelly is right about the Democrats and Iraq -- and I deeply believe he is -- then that Party is doing more than the stock phrase about "emboldening the enemy." In fact, they're sending a message to Al Qaida and other mass murderers in Iraq that if they kill enough Americans, the American leftists will cause us to flee in disgrace. I would submit that the enemy in Iraq reads the public opinion polls as assiduously as, say, Jack Murtha.

In Kelly's column on Iraq, he talks about the Democrats' "'slow bleed' strategy to hamstring the war effort . . . ." I realize the T-word -- treason, as Ms. Coulter called it in a recent book -- is one of those proscribed by the verbally squeamish, but hamstringing a war effort seems to this wingnut something akin to, well, the T-word. It's certainly an effort that could generate many more deaths and injuries for American soldiers.

Unfortunately, the Democrats' admonition to "bring our boys and girls home" seems to translate in reality into bring them home in body bags.

If I misread the implications of what Kelly is saying, then I apologize in advance. If I don't, then he is outlining behavior by elected officials that should be intolerable to everyone who cares about this country.

I have opposed Jack Murtha (and supported Diana Lynn Irey) with my money, time, moral support, and writings. I haven't gone to all that effort because Murtha and I have a philosophical or political disagreement, one best solved by the exchange of non-controversial words. I've done so because I believe Murtha is sleeping with the enemy, that for cynical personal and political reasons he's bailed out on America.

If there is evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it. As Johnnie Cochran didn't say, "If the T-word fits, use it." Somehow I don't think that proposing "come let us reason together" is going to impress the Jack Murthas of this world. When they start rooting for America and American soldiers, then we'll have something to discuss.

On the F-word question, one the media forgot about almost immediately, of Ann Coulter's joke about John Edwards: Today, on 'Youtube," there's a video of him preparing for a TV appearance.

He's having a love affair with a mirror. He's applying makeup to make him look like, well, John Edwards. He's working hard to make sure not one hair is out of place. He's ensuring that not a single eye-lash or eyebrow hair deviates from its appointed place. The video lasts a long time, and it doesn't get any better.

Earlier, I called him a sissified pretty boy. Post "You-Tube," I now fear that I was being much too kind.

Stephen R. Maloney, author of this column, is one of the world's leading experts on John Murtha. As a card-carrying wingnut, Maloney has volunteered to pay for Murtha to get a large letter "T" tattooed on his forehead.

CNN: Unreflectively Liberal, Consumed by Triviality

2007-03-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

In terms of international news, CNN takes a "moderate" position; that is, it's moderately anti-American. It does so for reasons that remain largely a mystery to me, because its own future doesn't rest with the impoverished, authoritarian, media-controlled nations that it treats with such respect. Recently, CNN has covered the Bush trip to Latin America by emphasizing: (1) the anti-Americanism of Venezuelan demagogue and dictator, Hugo Chavez; (2) the supposed large demonstrations against Bush and America.

How large were those "large" demonstrations? Elaine Quijano, one of the few decent reporters at CNN, said that in Bogota, Colombia the demonstrators totaled about 1,500. The population of Bogota and its largest suburb is approximately 8 million. In Sao Paolo, Brazil, the number of demonstrators was about 7,000, but the population of the Sao Paolo metropolitan area is roughly 19 million.

Gee, what's wrong with CNN? Why can't it get the stories right? Or at least show sense of proportion? Why are tiny gaggles of leftists the big story about the President's visit to two important countries.

The network is able to engage in tough questioning of conservatives and Republicans who aren't named Chuck Hagel. However, it seems incapable of any form of self-questioning about the way it reports the news. If need be, why not look more deeply into what kind of future the Colombian and Brazilian demonstrators have in mind for their countries? Hint: it won't be one where a free press is welcome.

William Schneider, the network's "senior political analyst" is nothing short of odious. His specialty is releasing and analyzing polls. When the polls reflect badly on President Bush, Schneider features them. When they move in Bush's favor, as they have recently, Schneider generally dismisses them as "within the margin of error." As a political analyst, he might as well be wearing a donkey suit.

When it comes to covering someone who's exercising free speech, CNN usually spins the story on the basis of whether he or she is friend or foe. When Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace expressed his personal view that homosexual acts were "immoral" (a view I don't exactly share), the network went bonkers. Apparently, the only time candid speech by "senior officials" is appropriate is when it comes in the form of a leak to someone at CNN.

That outlet's big issue seems to be whether General Pace will "apologize," which he says he won't. In fact, if he states his sincere beliefs on a controversial issue, why exactly should he apologize? With all General Pace has contributed to keeping American liberties intact -- as compared to CNN, which has done next-to-nothing -- he certainly retains his First Amendment rights. After all, freedom of speech is not exclusively the preserve of left-leaning types.

Then, we have Richard Ware, the network's Middle East correspondent. Generally, his view is that everything the U.S. (and other democratic forces) in the area is bad. His theme is: "It's unspeakably awful here -- and getting worse." If he has any understanding of the issues involved in Iraq and elsewhere, he's keeping it to himself. If he went over to al-Jazeera, it would be a smooth transition.

There are good people at CNN, including the aforementioned Elaine Quijano. Another quality performer is Kyra Phillips, one of Art Buchwald's youngest friends. She was once accused by the Democrats' Lady MacBeth, Nancy Pelosi, of "carrying water for the Bush Administration," which shocked Ms. Phillips and verified the fact that she must be doing something right.

In recent months, CNN has focused mainly on the "story" of Anna Nicole Smith, her dysfunctional relatives, her many lovers, and her six-month old child. True, Ms. Smith was a human being, but she was one worthy of very little attention. The one good line about her on CNN was Jeffrey Toobin's comment that she "was an ATM machine with a big chest."

The main relief from Anna Nicole Smith nonsense occurred one day with the "Breaking News" that Britney Spears had shaved her hair -- and then had gone into, or out of, the inevitable "rehab." These stories were in fact somewhat more interesting than when CNN spent hours watching " Michael Jackson's motorcade" go somewhere or other.

The cable new channel is a monument to all that's wrong with most electronic journalism: unreflectively liberal and consumed by triviality. It presents a view of the world that's fragementary, incoherent and ultimately pointless. It owes viewers more, but they're probably unlikely to get it.

Those Who Root FOR The Enemy ARE the Enemy

2007-03-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not going going to talk anymore about Ann Coulter, having "said my said," as they put it (or used to) in Georgia. Is that a standing ovation I hear?

One issue I raised (to Bill Toland of the Post-Gazette) a month or so back was my belief that there was going to be a decisive reaction by some members of the U.S. military to the political and military situation. In essence, his reaction was that I must be smoking some funny cigarettes. Bill is one of those journalists who take the middle ground, which can get you killed if you're walking down a highway but otherwise generally serves one's future interests.

Yes, people in the U.S. military -- all of them once among the clean-scrubbed cadets we see at West Point and Annapolis -- are very much committed to civilian control. They take an oath to the Constitution, and they mean it. However -- and this a major however -- they also have a responsibility to question policies that increase the number of deaths of men and women in their command.

Reading Nonie Darwish's book (Now They Call Me Infidel) reminds me that dictatorships have it much easier. Her discussion deals mainly with Nasser's control of all information in Egypt.

An evern more striking example is Hitler's Germany. True, it was a thoroughly disgusting regime one, but it had perhaps history's most powerful and unified military force. For many years, it did an effective job fighting the combined forces of the British Empire, the USSR, and the USA. On the homefront, the German people endured unimaginable horrors, including the destruction by firebombs of entire cities (see Slaughterhouse 5 and The Good German)

One way Germany could sustain morale was by not allowing political dissent. German soldiers heard no discouraging words, letter along utter them. Any war critics who emerged -- and there were very few -- ended up getting tortured and exterminated.

No, I'm not advocating that we have a system anything like the one that prevails in authoritarian governments.

The question is: What level of dissent is permissible in war-time. It went too far in the Viet Nam era, with mobs of American dissidents calling out, "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the NLF [National Liberation Front, the Communist side] is sure to win." Ho Chi Minh was a despicable dictator, but that didn't discourage the Jane Fondas of the time.

If rooting for the enemy is permissible, then how exactly would it be possible to keep faith with the men and women we're sending overseas, sometimes to make the ultimate sacrifice? And how do we explain it to the soldiers' families?

Let me make it perfectly clear: Those who rooting publicly for the enemy -- and supporting them in such ways as trying to delay supplies -- ARE THE ENEMY. If not, what are they? Somehow, the term "loyal opposition" has a very hollow ring.

Can a nation conduct a war with intense opposition from the home front -- including elected officials trying to "defund" the effort? Obviously, it can in a sense, because we're doing so in Afghanistan and Iraq. But is it possible to wage war effectively with so many people saying that the battle isn't worth fighting?

As for Afghanistan, it's drawing criticism from MOST of the same people who are advocating a pull-out from Iraq. I doubt this fact is lost on the Taliban.

Here's the sticking point: General Abizaid said in Congressional testimony that if the U.S. withdraws quickly from Iraq, the enemy "would follow us." In other words, if we don't win this war -- in some menaningful sense of "win" -- our problems would just be beginning. The Sunni areas of Iraq could very well end up serving as the new training grounds for the Sunni-dominated Al Qaida.

From this view, a quick exit from Iraq, justified on the grounds it would save American lives, would end up costing many more American lives. It would leave behind a large area in Iraq available for training the same kinds of terrorists who carried out the attacks on American interests, including 9/11.

In an Iraq without American soldiers, the lion would not lie down with the lamb. In fact, the lion would devour the lamb -- and then presumably set its sights on the infidels, especially those of us in the West.

What's more, we could see a situation where our "friends" in the Middle East, countries like Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan wouldn't want us around. If they did welcome in large numbers of American soldiers, they'd essentially be painting a bulls-eye on their nations, basically inviting Al Qaida violence.

These are the "inconvenient truths" you won't hear from Al Gore, or from cutters-and-runners like Pelosi and Murtha. Conceivably, the policies they advocate would not only bring "our boys and girls home" but dramatically increase their chances of terrorist attacks causing them to die at home.

As for General Abizaid and others, the situation they face is complex. How long will they willingly send Americans into battle without the strong, unified support those troops need? Presumably, not forever.

Note: As always these columsn are available for reprints by others. Just mention that you got it from Stephen R. Maloney's "Campaign2008" and e-mail me a copy.

Jack Kelly and Ann Coulter's Use of the "F-Word"

2007-03-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

If there are any journalists that I respect more than the Post-Gazette's (and Toledo Blade's) Jack Kelly, I forget who they are. However, in his fired-up criticism of Ann Coulter ("Coulter and the F Word, P-G, March 14, 2007, H-3), Kelly is wrong.

His column's sub-head, which he probably didn't writer, says: "Moonbat conservatives confuse profanity with courage." Of course, the word at issue -- "faggot" -- is not profane in the sense of being sacrilegious. It may be an offense against man, but it's not an one against God.

Yes, I wish she'd used another word (do I ever!). No, I'm not anti-gay, and I don't believe she is either. She indicated (to the New York Times) that she had a great deal more sympathy for gays than she did for John Edwards, against whom she directed the "faggot" comment.

Kelly says Coulter's "incendiary remarks can be used to taint all conservatives." He accuses her of "substitut[ing] invective for argument." He cites John Edwards' campaign manager (!) as saying, "Republican mouthpiece Ann Coulter brought hate speech politics to a new low." Finally, Kelly suggests Coulter's fiery rhetoric is just one more way for to her make money, something she's very good at. Samuel Johnson once stated that people are rarely more "harmlessly engaged" than in making money.

Of course, Ann Coulter -- as I mentioned in an earlier column -- is no newcomer to controversy. At one point, she accused a few "9/11 widows" of exploiting their husbands' deaths in their rabid support of Hillary Clinton, whose record in fighting terrorism was less than exemplary. Coulter's "underlying message," as Mary Matalin called it -- her view that the "widows" were wildly out of line -- was accurate.

After the two-day controversy about the New Jersey women died down, something miraculous happened. The widows shut up, disappearing (blessedly) from the news. Had anyone else in public life criticized them? No, they had not, apparently because deceased relatives of 9/11 victims were seen as immune from criticism. Score one for Ann Coulter.

What I think Jack Kelly is ignoring is that tough times demand tough language. Otherwise, the words get ignored. Aggressive journalism, and no one practices it better than Coulter, doesn't take its model from C-Span or even "Meet the Press." Some conservatives, I'm one and often Jack Kelly is also, recognize that reasoned responses to liberal outrages get tuned out. That is, they get ignored. They're like the trees that fall -- unheard -- in the forest.

Like all good opinion journalists, Jack Kelly himself wants to be heard. In one of his recent columns, he wrote in praise of global warming. He didn't criticize the warnings of the Al Gores of the world. Rather, he said that global warming -- and cooling -- were natural occurrences. He further indicated that global warming would be a net positive for the inhabitants of planet Earth.

That column generated the usual blizzard of angry letters and calls. The respondents weren't presenting evidence that Kelly was wrong. Instead, they were saying the P-G should fire him. His offense was that he'd said what Jonathan Swift once described (ironically) as "the thing that is not." In fact, liberals believe that it's okay for conservativees to be seen (occasionally) but not to be heard.

At times, Kelly -- unlike Coulter -- doesn't go far enough. For example, in another column he suggested that it was necessary to give the President's surge plan "a chance to work." In fact, the people who oppose Bush won't even consider such an approach. All evidence indicates that the John Murthas and Nancy Pelosis of the world don't want the plan to work. Apparently, they want it to fail. They want America to lose this war, with all the terrible implications that would have for the Global War on Terrorism.

In Coulteresque fashion, perhaps, I've written that the Iraq War "is the Democrats' best friend." As long as the War goes badly -- and as long as the insurgents as "full of passionate intensity" -- the anti-war Party, the Democrats, do very well. One imagines that if the War didn't exist, they'd have to invent one (as LBJ did with his ad suggesting Barry Goldwater would nuke the world's children).

What all outspoken conservatives need to recognize is that, because of the actions of the Murthas and Edwards of the world, we're losing things of great value. Of most importance, we're losing the lives and limbs of men and women in the military.

People like Murtha and Edwards do embolden the enemy, who are excellent in manipulating American public opinion, especially among Democrats. The terrorists believe that if they murder enough people, they eventually will win.

In such a context, using a word like "faggot" seems like a rather minor outrage. In matters of life-and-death, strong words are not necessarily out of line.

As for John Edwards, Coulter believes -- as I do -- that he's a sissified pretty boy, one of those Southerners that William Faulkner portrayed as the Snopses. He's a multimillionaire who masquerades as an advocate for the poor. He's an original supporter of the War in Iraq who withdrew his backing when it became politic to do so. He's a self-described "Southern Baptist," who shows no signs of sharing the views held by that denomination.

Yes, Coulter called him a name, and she may have some second-thoughts about choosing the one she did. But name-calling, although not the highest form of speech, can be an effective way to bring out issues in a way that gets attention. The worst thing that can happen with public comments is for them to be ignored.

I admire Ann Counter greatly for her courage. She believes passionately in her country, America, and in her religious faith, Christianity. She supports American soldiers in word and deed. She abhors the rise of political cynics like Edwards.

Coulter certainly lives up to the dictum that "politics ain't beanbag."

Nonie Darwish: A Courageous Attack on Islam and Arab "Culture"

2007-03-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

Today (Sunday), on CNN the network announced that 31 Shia pilgrims practicing their religion had been killed near Baghdad. The assumption is that they were killed by fellow Muslims supposedly acting in the name of Allah, God. Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, David Obey, Steni Hoyer, Chuck Hagel, and kindred souls couldn't be reached immediately for comment. Last week, 18 Iraqi youngsters were killed on a soccer field by a suicide bomber. There has been no comment yet on that by the aforesaid politicians, or by Steve Kurtz and other members of CAE.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. My controversy with the far-left blogger representing CAE (the "participative art" group that never met a fringe issue it didn't want to embrace) and Steve Kurtz has come to a blessed conclusion, and there's much to talk about.

I've been reading an excellent book by Nonie Darwish: Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror (Sentinel, 2006). I obtained a hard-bound copy from Half-Price Book for $11.99. The daughter of an Egyptian military "shahid," a martyr for jihad, Darwish is something of a novelty among disaffected Muslim women: a superb writer.

She says: "Why do I speak out, and what do I say? I try to help Americans face the truth about the terror threat they are up against, help them understand the mind-set of the jihadists who wish to destroy America. I realize there is fire in my heart [and how!]. I do not deny it. I am angry at my [Egyptian/Arab] culture. What arrogance and ingratitude. Who gave my people the right to destroy the world in the name of Allah? No religion should advocate that."

Darwish continues: "Who gave my people the right to destroy people of other religions, cultures, and beliefs? Who gave them the right to declare a fatwa of death on Muslim critics who speak out Islamist tyranny? Some say this is clash of civilization. The truth is that this is an attack on civilization itself by haters of civilization."

Nonie Darwish rasies a critical question: Is Islam a religion that can attract and retain decent people, those who detest intolerance, fanaticism, and mass murder? I don't expect people in organizations like CAE to fit that definition of decency, beause it would inhibit their ability to attack America, including its elected leaders and its law-enforcement institutions.

As for the Arab culture that she left behind, Darwish suggests it is nasty and brutish. Largely because of the influence of Islam, such cultures are mainly racist, intolerant, and socially backward. Much of the populace is impoverished and illiterate, and the authoritarian governments seem to like it that way. Without the hatred of Jews and Christians to hold such societies together, they'd soon collapse.

Darwish explains that, "In Arab culture, being truthful is not only considered to be naive, and stupid, but it is also considered . . . rude. . . . Thus, Western culture's 'virtue' of honesty, in the eyes of Arabs, is not a virtue at all but an opportunity to take advantage of theWesterners . . . . For example, Muslim men look at the honesty and openness of Western women as an invitation -- she's being 'easy.' If she talks openly about her life and preferences and goes to lunch with him, then she must be asking for sex!"

Is she talking about ALL Arab Muslims? No, but she makes clear she's referring to most of them, and my own reading and experience tells me she's right on target.

It's not a pretty picture at all.

I urge every American to read Nonie Darwish's book. We've all been waiting for the "moderate Muslims" to show up and denounce their co-religionists who engage in homicidal actions. Darwish suggests that unfortunately such moderates may be nearly non-existent. In the Middle East and South Central Asia, the most ignorant and uneducated preachers dominate the mosques and madrassahs, with the financial support of Saudi Arabia and Iran, and that isn't a recipe for increasing the number of voices that advocated moderation.

Would bin Laden Eat a Pork Chop? Did John Ashcroft Behead Daniel Pearl?

2007-03-10T13:24:00.000-08:00

Here's my final response to my sometimes delightful, often exasperating, correspondent on the blog. (See the Mary Thomas article and the comments section.) There are some liberals who are fine people, but one doesn't usually want them in one's foxhole. When the bullets start whizzing, they generally start fleeing. They tend to be something like Bill Clinton contempating bin Laden in the 1990s. They're mildly concerned -- but not enough to take any decisive steps to eliminate the problem. In Clinton's time, his Administration's mantra was, "It's the economy, stupid." On 9/11 and after, we learned that, well, it wasn't the economy. In the 1930s in Great Britain, the left-wing determined the problem was that warmonger . . . Churchill. It soon turned out he wasn't the problem. My correspondent seems to believe that the "focus of evil in the modern world" is . . . John Ashcroft. Alas, would that he were right, because the world would be a kinder, gentler place than the one we have.

Silly me: I thought the head of the House Intelligence Committee (Silvestre Reyes) -- no matter what his ethnicity -- should be, well, intelligent. I thought he should have some understanding of the nature of the threat that intelligence seeks to mitigate.

Overall, I still don't know what materials Steve Kurtz had in his petri dishes, or whether it's illegal to possess or transmit them. If it was, then he should bear the consequences. If not, then he has little to fear, other than the exorbitant fees charged by left-wing lawyers. I have no idea how he stands on terrorism (mass murder), whether he's for it or against it. If he's for it, then I wish him ill. If he's against it, then it may be time for him to so indicate.

Somehow, I believe Steve Kurtz reverences his status as a victim. Anyone whose art emphasizes strange microorganisms can probably use all the publicity he gets.

On torture: It may be that someone like Khalid Sheik Muhammed (KSM), who reportedly beheaded reporter Daniel Pearl and "masterminded" 9/11, was tortured. If it resulted in gathering useful information from him, THEN I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH IT. He has engaged in illegal and vile acts (to say the least) against American civilians, and as a foreign national he should have no rights under the U. S. Constitution, for which he has such contempt. The fact that he hates GWB, as do all known liberals, doesn't make KSM a good guy.

I hope to see him tried by a military tribunal and executed, preferably by a stone-wielding mob. Period. There are several others in that category. Good riddance to them all. Whatever punishment they get, it isn't cruel and inhuman enough.

My strong belief, after living on this earth and paying close attention for many years, is that most people on the far left are in fact indifferent to the real evils of the world -- to the suffering and death of people propagandized, tortured, starved, and killed by tyrants, most of them in our time adherents to the Muslim faith, in countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Uganda, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and many other lands.

My view is that the people indifferent to evil -- ones I call the extreme liberals -- invent a "virtual world," where mass murder is somehow justified because it's -- in some bizarre and complex way -- really the fault of George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, and Exxon/Mobil. The leftists' virtual world, the real one turned on its head, is really an extreme use of their human brains to do what those organs do: process and simplify stimuli in such a way as to make sense of things. If everything bad that happens -- from 9/11 to the unhappy situation of Steve Kurtz to global warming -- is really the fault of George Bush (with help from Monsanto), then it becomes easily understamdable and quickly fixable. It makes the world as simple as second-grade arithmetic.

The fix is to get rid of George Bush and all those Darth Vaders masquerading as "neocons." Neocons want a world in which democracy and human rights prevail in all lands. How dare they! Supposedly, they've wrecked the Constitution, but somehow I don't see anybody leaving. In fact, I see the tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to get into the U.S. by any means possible. "If we build a fence, they will climb it."

On habeas corpus: During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln -- unlike John Ashcroft -- suspended it, and if it saved the nation, he was right to do so. It has never in the history of humankind applied to enemy combatants, basically people illegally engaged in murder on a grand scale. The Patriot Act was passed by Congress and signed by the President of the U.S. It is the law of the land, and it is a good one. It basically harms no one not engaged in some form of violence against the U.S. or otherwise in support of worldwide terrorism (Al Qaida, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the like).

On the law of the land: many years ago, Justice Arthur Goldberg said of the U. S. Consitution: "It is not a suicide pact." When terrorists game the Constitution, that is, use hard-won freedoms to undermine freedom, then it must be modified to protect the safety and lives of the American people. To me, that's one of those truths that are "self-evident." I think even Jefferson would come around on that one.

I told my wife years ago that I didn't want to see bin Laden "brought to justice." I feared an endless trial, where some non-cadaverous version of the Right Rev. Johnnie Cochran would prance around reciting something like "If the 747 flies, the bad people dies."

If there were a trial, I fear some terrible incident revolving around the prison's serving of pork chops. I fear some patriotric guard putting his Koran not in the toilet but where the sun don't shine. I fear Madison Avenue getting carried away with the "bin Laden look." I fear some minor-league basketball team drafting the tall terrorist. I fear Steve Kurtz and the CAE cavorting outside the courthouse in an orgy of "participative art." I fear bin Laden motoring off in a white Bronco. I fear the implacable wrath of the Arab-American [sic] League.

Instead, I wanted some USMC "grunt" to bring justice to him, planting a bullet right between UBL's vacant eyes, penetrating his dwarfed brain, and sending him directly to Hell, where 70 rouged hookers in black stockings would be waiting to force him into unspeakable acts.

After that, even dour John Ashcroft might be moved to don a tee-shirt containing the words: "Let's Party!"

The Pretty Blonde with the Sweat Stain: An Encounter with Liberalism

2007-03-10T05:08:00.000-08:00

Obviously, my blog correspondent struck a nerve!

My experience with liberalism goes back to the early 1960s, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Rochester. I had some liberal friends, such as history graduate student Joel Blatt, who had a passion for getting information and reflecting on ideas, but such individuals were the exceptions in that political group. Most of the liberals I encountered, especially as the War in Viet Nam heated up, were intellectually robotic. They knew what they knew, and they weren't interested in considering anything else.

In the summer of 1970, I returned to Rochester to complete my doctoral dissertation. I'd been teaching for three years at William and Mary in Virginia, and I was moving on to an assistant professorship at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Since the University of Rochester had many students from the Northeast, my acceptance of jobs in the border South and (shudder!) Deep South were regarding as daring -- if not mystifying. One fellow graduate student, a New Yorker, told me: "I don't think I'd go any farther South than . . . Jersey."

I'd been away from Rochester since July of 1967, so there were some new graduate students inhabiting the English Lit room at the top of Rush-Rhees Library. Used for classes, the room was also a gathering place for those who wanted to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes (!!!), and gab about our discontents and the bad job market.

At one point, I met a young woman there. She was blonde, pretty, and smart, although perhaps a little dogmatic. One warm July day -- I doubt we had air-conditioning in our gab room -- she and I talked about my vocational choices. I noticed that she didn't shave her underarms (common in those days), which I regarded as producing a sexy look. Also, as a result of Rochester's hot and humid summers, she had a sweat stain (just one for some reason) in the right "pit" area of her blouse.

I told her I'd taken a job at the University of Georgia. She gave me a look that combined amazement and horror. I don't recall exactly what she said in response, but basically she questioned how I could do such a thing.

I told her that Athens, Georgia wasn't exactly like the Birmingham, Alabama where Sheriff "Bull" Connor had turned police dogs and fire hoses on Black demonstrators. In fact, I bragged that my two young children would be attending schools that were completely integrated. Of course, the integration was new, the result of federal decrees that had ended the old segregated system.

I told her, "The student body in each school will be 57% white, 43% Negro [a word that was still acceptable in those innocent days]. And the teaching staff is also integrated on about those percentages."

She looked at me and said -- I'm not making this up -- "Well, I'm sure you're wrong!" She was talking about the percentages I gave.

At this point, some other people entered the room, and our conversation came to a hasty conclusion. I never had an opportunity to expand on our discussion. I assume she was saying that I was misinformed about the racial ratios, which I was not, or that I was making it up, which I was not.

In general, students at the University of Rochester had been strongly supportive of the Civll Rights Movement, and I was among those supporters. Students, a few, had joined some of the marches in the South, including the one at Selma. We regularly had leaders in the fight for integration, including John Lewis, speak about their efforts. One U of R professor, William Gilman, got arrested at a sit-in.

However, despite all our support for integration in the South, we weren't doing that great a job at the University of Rochester. In my last year as an undergraduate, the number of Black Amercan students added up to a grand total of FOUR. In my seven years at the institution, I had exactly one Black professor (Dr. Dawes)..

At the University of Georgia, the situation was much more promising. The integration of that university had taken place in 1964, with the admission (under federal pressure) of two students, one of whom was Charlayne Hunter (later Hunter-Gault), who became one of the nation's top journalists.

By 1970, there were approximately 200 Black students at the University of Georgia. Such students had been nearly invisible at the University of Rochester, but they were a real presence at UGA. In the one class I taught at the University of Rochester, I'd had Black student (Joseph Sewer). In my classes at Georgia, I regularly had several. Among the Literature graduate students I knew at Rochester, perhaps 40 or so, the number of Blacks was zero.

I don't know exactly how many Black students are there now, but based on a fairly recent visit, I'd guess the number is in the thousands. In 1970, there were no Black football players there -- with athletic integration beginning with the freshamn class in 1971. Now, most of the football players on athletic scholarships are Black.

Of courser, the pretty blonde with the sweat stain would have taken all these positive developments for a mirage. She "knew" the Deep South, even though she'd never been there -- and probably never would be.

Letters From and To a Young Liberal: Animosity and Gratitude

2007-03-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

The following pieces grew out of my piece critical of Mary Thomas' piece regarding activist artist Steve Kurtz. In his note, my young liberal correspondent talks about Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was certainly a less-than-optimum human being. In the 1950s, McCarthy was opposing the Soviet Union and Party Chairman Joseph Stalin. McCarthy did a little good and a lot of harm. However, my problem then and now was that the left-wing in America (especially The Nation magazine) was indicating that the main villain in the world was not Joseph Stalin, who (according to Robert Conquest and others) had killed perhaps 30 MILLION people, but rather Joseph McCarthy, who had killed nobody.

lgs1967 said...
Thank you for that reply. I hope you don't mind my long repsonses, but I find it very valuable to discuss these issues with folks whose politics are different from mine. Also I'm new to the blogosphere, so please let me know if I'm overstepping any limits. I wanted to point out that actually, CAE has never taken an "anti-GMO" position; to the contrary, their assumption has been that some may be helpful, and others harmful, to people and the environment, and that therefore, risk has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. To do that, the public needs to be informed and have a basic undertanding of the science involved. CAE's work, on every subject, has been to demysitfy and inform and to cut through the hype and hysteria. (On the question of Monsanto's GMOs, the problem is more their strong-arming tactics against traditional and organic farmers to force them to grow Monsanto 'products' (see the case of Percy Schmeizer for example); a reasoned assessment would tend to conclude, I think, that consolidation of the global food supply in the hands of only a few corporations is something we should probably all be at least concerned about, based, if nothing else, on our knowledge of what has happened with monopolies in the past and the centrality of food to survival. On the subject of the 'war on terror' I highly recommend anything written by constitutional lawyer David Cole (see especially "Less Safe, Less Free: Why we are losing the war on terror" or "The New McCarthyism: Repeating History in the War on Terrorism". One of the startling statistics he points out is this: ""Of the 80,000 Arabs and Muslim foreign nationals who were required to register after September 11, the 8,000 called in for FBI interviews, and more than 5,000 locked up in 'preventive detention', not one stands convicted of a terrorist crime today. In what has surely been the most aggressive national campaign of ethnic profiling since World War II, the government's record is 0 for 93,000." When you combine this with a climate at the DoJ in which nothing assures prosecutors of the fast track to promotion more than convictions of 'terrorism', you can begin to see why this nightmare has happened to Steve Kurtz - as well as to all those other supposed 'terrorists' and 'sleeper cells' (kids with cell phones, the Christian community center in Miami, and so on) that we keep hearing about, once, on the nightly news, and then never again. But it's important to remember that innocent people's lives are being ruined, just as in the McCarthy era - even though we don't hear about *that* on the nightly news (one guy in LA is living in his garage after losing his business, his family and everything else; there are hundreds more stories like that). And the people targeted are overwhelmingly poor and lack the resources Kurtz has to launch an adequate defense. One other thing to point out is that William Hochul, the DoJ prosecutor in Kurtz's case, is the same guy who put away the "Lackawanna Six sleeper cell" shortly before Kurtz's arrest (for which of course he won huge promotions and awards). Some time afterward, he admitted that he had NO EVIDENCE AT ALL to put away those kids, but said "but we have to make examples." This is the (post) Ashcroft policy of "preventive justice" at the DoJ, and its something that many traditional conservatives who are opposed to government overreach are justifiably alarmed about (as opposed to that little cabal of neoconservatives who are busy creating the most massive and powerful federal government ever seen in this country). Best regards,
10:25 AM
Stephen R. Maloney said...
I keep finding your comments late at night when I don't always have the energy to respond adequately. I guess you're right about us being on different sides of the fence politically. Since I spent a good portion of my life in the academic world (and another portion in electoral politics), I have a lot of experience with liberals. One thing they're absolutely terrible about (and conservatives aren't much better) is examining their own views. They read very selectively. How many of them have the works of Bernard Lewis on the history of Islam -- or Ms. Ali's "Infidel"? We have Silvestre Reyes as Nancy Pelosi's choice to head the House Intelligence Committee. It turned out that Reyes, who's no more suited to BE on that committee, didn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shias, a knowledge that's central to understanding intelligence and the dynamics of terrorism. Where were the liberals, including people like Steve Kurtz, who HAD A MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL OBLIGATION TO OPPOSE THE REYES NOMINATION? The man is incompetent, but of course he's a loyal Democrat and an Hispanic, which I guess makes him untouchable. (Howard Jefferson, the Florida congressman who was found with $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer, was recently appointed by Ms. Pelosi, who ran against "Republican corruption," to the House Homeland Security Committee. Of course, Mr. Jefferson is Black, so of course liberals don't criticism him, on the off-chance someone might suggest they're being "racist.")
In terms of the FBI's anti-Muslim approach, I'm not aware of any major terrorist attack (going back to the African embassies, the USS Cole, 9/11, the Madrid Train Bombings, the London Bombings, Bali, the various attacks in Egypt, the hundreds of suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq, and many others that weren't carried out by Muslim fanatics, most of them from the Middle East and South Central Asia. Given all these horrors, your concern about John Ashcroft seems wildly misplaced. John Ashcroft???!!! As for the Lackawanna Six, I recall the neighbors saying of their trip to Pakistan that "They were just pursuing their Islmaic studies!" It turned out they were also conducting their "Islamic studies" in the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. If you and were meeting face-to-face, I'd ask respectfully why you choose your details so selectively. With the terrorist actions I've mentioned, I don't think it should be necessary for the FBI to "make up" terrorists, although I do agree that they're not nearly as effective as they should be. Some sophisticated polling in Great Britain had demonstrated that there are perhaps 200,000 Muslims in Britain who are supportive of Al Qaida style terrorism. I submit that you and Steve Kurtz should be focusing on doing something about the people represented in such statistics. They refer to people who are supportive of -- or willing to engage themselves in -- the mass murder of infidels (people like you, me, Steve Kurtz, most members of CAE, Mary Thomas, and billions of other people). My impression is that CAE is largely indifferent to the horrors I've mentioned. The members seem to get their gratification from sticking it to relatively benign institutions like Monsanto (and Halliburton, a company whose employees risk their lives every day in Iraq). On liberalism's view of the world: A couple of years ago I read Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears, an over-long novel about Muslim terrorists setting off a nuclear bomb at the Super Bowl (in Denver). Now, I hear that the film of the Clancy story doesn't touch the question of Muslim terrorists. Instead, it turns the bombers in the movie into American neo-nazis! That strikes me as the essence of liberalism: never confront a troubling reality when it's possible to rely on straw-men and stereotypes. In a world of bin Ladens, Zawahiris, and al Zarqawis, let's pretend that the real villains are John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and a handful of neo-nazi nutcases. The absolutely essential distinction between bin Laden and Gonzales is that one of them wants to kill you -- and the other wants to save your life. One deserves your total animosity, the other your gratitude. It is your obligation as a decent human being to oppose the murderer and at least understand -- if not totally support -- the lifesaver.

Mary Thomas of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Professor Steve Kurtz: Paranoid Journalism

2007-03-08T05:50:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks, I've written extensively on the strengths (many) and weaknesses (few, but significant) of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Of course, the paper has some readers who are staunch leftists, and they generally blame George Bush, Dick Cheney, "Scooter" Libby, the CIA, and the FBI for most -- if not all -- of the world's problems. A few reporters and columnists at the P-G -- Milan Simonich, Dennis Roddy, Reg Henry, and Tony Norman among them -- specialize in feeding the insatiable appetites of the "Blame America first" crowd.

A recent addition to this group is Mary Thomas, the P-G's art critic, with her bizarre piece ("Kurtz Case, Activist Art in Limbo," March 7, 2007, page C-3) on Professor Steve Kurtz, "a founding member of the widely acclaimed [by whom?] art collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) . . . ." Ms. Thomas explains that "The group explains the impact of science and technology on consumer culture through works that are activist, performative and conceptual."

Thomas' article is a monument to journalist murkiness, portraying the professor as a mixture of the strange figure in Conrad's Heart of Darkness ("Mistuh Kurtz, he dead") and the hapless "K" in Kafka's The Trial. The U.S. Justice Department has charged the professor with wire fraud and mail fraud related to certain "CAE projects."

We never learn the details of what the alleged defrauding involved. We never learn the details about a lot of things in this case.

If you read Thomas' article carefully, you will have many questions and few answers about the accusations. After Kurtz's wife died somewhat mysteriously in 2004, the FBI confiscated his computer, his books, and a variety of "microorganisms" contained in petri dishes. What these substances were and how Kurtz proposed to use them we never learn.

Apparently, Kurtz -- a very strange looking man with a greasy ponytail -- isn't a terrorist, although like most things, the article doesn't give us any definitive information on that. We do learn that the fraud charges are "based on his alleged receipt of the bacteria from University of Pittsburgh scientist Robert Ferrell." If the case goes to trial, a big "if," Kurtz and Ferrell theoretically could face sentences of 20-years.

Again, what were the bacteria and how did Kurtz intend to use them? Thomas doesn't tell us. Also, did Professor Ferrell send them to Kurtz or not? Again, the article doesn't enlighten us. Why exactly is the Justice Dept. accusing the professors of fraud? Search me, because Thomas doesn't clarify such points.

She does tell us that Kurtz is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for his defense (against precisely what?). Some of the money will fund an "international presence" at the trial, which will "include persons to conduct consciousness-raising activities [unheard of since the early 1970s?] as well as expert witnesses . . . to attest to the worth of CAE work."

In Thomas' piece, we read that the CAE -- and Kurtz -- have been associated with exhibits dealing with "Free Range Grain," as well the supposed evils of genetically modified foods and the real evils of Nazi eugenics and germ warfare.

The article suggests that there's something trendy about opposing Nazi pseudo-science and the use of weapons of mass destruction in form of germ warfare. Frankly, I haven't heard anyone advocating either.

Professor Kurtz seems to be one of those throwbacks to the hippie era. He may be one of those people who writes "Amerika" with a "k," suggesting this country is somehow the heir to Hitler's Germany.

As for CAE, one of its projects "incorporated an actual gene donor profile form." It did so "to make a point about how ingrained and myopic social values are, and how they can be manipulated." Say what?

For Ms. Thomas, mounting her soap-box in what's supposed to be reporting, "CAE, in short, provokes the kinds of questions that an informed citizenry must consider to control its destiny." That's just special pleading masquerading as journalistic insight. The facts presented in the piece don't justify the author's generalizations.

The paranoid style of reporting has lots of details. Few of them, however, advance a reader's understanding of the situation supposedly under investigation. Thomas suggests something very bad is going on, but she can't quite put her finger on what it is.

Did Professor Kurtz receive the bacteria? Did Professor Farrell send them? If so, why were they such a matter of concern to the FBI and the Justice Department? We'll never know.

Also, is Kurtz what he appears to be: an individual who defines his self-worth by his infinite capacity to stick it to the bourgeoisie? Is he, in other words, a relatively trivial figure vigorously involved in cultivating his status as a victim? The answer seems to be yes. Maybe Thomas could have explained that to us up front.

She deserves a good scolding from her editor. Apparently, she inhabits a hothouse where conspiracy theories blossom endlessly. In that word, an artist -- no matter how bizarre and self-serving -- is invariably right and the government is always wrong.

She assumes a readership that doesn't want to be confused by mundane facts. In the case of this particular reader, her assumption was dead wrong.

This will be my last column on the P-G, at least for a while. Mary Thomas and a few others will be happy to hear that.

Pharmaceutical and Credit Card Companies: Campaign Contributions and Suicide Pills

2007-03-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

The following is an expanded version of a letter I sent to an academic friend.

From 1991 (when I left a VP job in PR at Aetna), I've done a lot of consulting work and applied for two jobs, neither of which I really wanted, and have continued to do my business book summaries (7500 words, nearly every month) for AudioTech Business Books, an Illinois company.

I had a good deal of success in my business career (Phillips Petroleum, Gulf Oil, Aetna, as well as consulting jobs for Merck and Lilly, among others) but an academic in business is a polar bear in Miami.

However, academics (writers, political scientists, economists, even an art history major or two) can bring a perspective that can be very valuable to business. Even a great company like Merck (now facing the Vioxx scandal) tends to go merrily down the track without being aware what huge political boulders lie ahead.

The pharmaceutical companies have to do something they might find painful: keep reminding people that all medications, even the greatest ones, have side effects. Aspirin, one of the greatest drugs, can be harmful to certain people, even though it's a life-saver for many. On balance, drug makers really don't want to put stern warnings out about their drugs, because they don't really feel comfortable discouraging individuals from using their products.

Yet prescription drugs are a special kind of product. Misused, they can kill people. Thus, ethical companies have to provide very clear information to people who use ethical pharmaceuticals. Also, they need to report customers -- sometimes very good customers, including doctors and pharmacists -- who are providing drugs to the wrong people.

In terms of pricing, the pharmaceutical industry often seems short-sighted. I've pointed out how how one marginally superior diabetes drug, Avandia(R), costs up to 20 times as much as a generic alternative (Metformin). What's the rationale for this practice, one that's not unique in the drug industry?

Gouging people on price irritates them. It makes them receptive to politicians who volunteer to punish industries that are -- or appear to be -- offending. Also, it induces consumers to vote against politicians who are too cozy with certain industries. Companies that mistreat consumers are monuments to tunnel vision.

For example, today in Washington, DC: the credit card providers are being beaten about the head and shoulders for marketing practices that they should have been smart enough to question -- and that have damaged the companies' long-term futures.

If they'd had more people around (like me? like you?) not afraid to speak up, they could have avoided some of the problems they're facing. Recently, Citibank unilaterally did away with its "universal default" policy, a very good move because it was accelerating bankruptcies, which were not exactly good for the company. (Note: "Universal default" refers to the practice where, if you're late on paying one company, all your credit card providers will raise your interest rates.)

Making people who are having trouble paying pay more is counter-intuitive, to say the least. It's a form of economic sadism.

One member of our family is a slow-learner with a part-time minimum wage job. However, she regularly receives notifications from banks that she's been "pre-approved" for additional credit cards. Have such companies collectively lost their minds? She's not a good risk, and they should know that simple fact. There's something very wrong with their business model, which seems to consist of getting as many customers as possible, regardless of their ability to pay debts.

Banks shouldn't charge interest rates (30%-plus at times) similar to those we associate with loan sharks and La Cosa Nostra operatives. They can make plenty of money by charging rates no more than double (or at most, triple) what they pay savings depositors.

My father once told me that companies should "charge what the market will bear." But when the market consists of consumers who are also voters, companies need to know what the market -- and the political system -- will tolerate.

Campaign contributions to pro-business elected officials are all well and good, but not when they come attached to a (political) suicide pill. Politicans who associate them with companies that large numbers of voters find offensive will have a hard time staying in office.

Right now, the amount of credit card debt in the U.S. is $850 billion -- and rising rapidly. Even without an economic downturn, a lot of Americans are going to have trouble paying off this mountain of debt. When that happens, a howl of pain from the banking industry won't exactly be the appropriate response. As George Bush the Elder might have said, "it wouldn't be prudent."

People in business are smarter than they sometimes act. But like all us, they get led into temptation (as Jesus noted). They've been known to forget William F. Buckley's observation that "Self-control is the most exhilarating of pleasures."

WFB may or may not be right on that point, but it is worthy of consideration in its larger meaning that we should try to do the right thing, which of course isn't always the thing that produces the greatest short-term economic benefit.

Professor Bruce Ackerman and Congressman David Wu: Simpletons Weigh in on Iraq

2007-03-05T19:30:00.000-08:00

On CNN this morning: "At least we got today's date right, March 7." (Heidi Collins). Note: It was in fact March 6.

In recent weeks, I've been lamenting the decline of the "Forum" section in the Sunday editions of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The new editor of the "Forum,"Greg Victor, publishes one superficial, carelessly reasoned article after another. One of the worst recent articles is "The Half-Trillion Dollar Solution," co-authored by Yale political scientist and law professor Bruce Ackerman and Oregon Congressman David Wu. They might as well have called it "An Iraq Analysis For (and By) Dummies." I'm sure the piece will be popular with Ackerman's and Wu's colleagues, most of whom spend their time bending over backwards to impress one another.

Here's the boldfaced quote that sums up the article's message:

"But now, the U. S. government should end this war with a minimum of domestic name-calling, a maximum of motive and opportunity for the many peoples of Iraq to solve their own problems without killing each other and a focus on finishing the job in Afghanistan (the last known mailing address of Osama bin Laden)."

For many academics -- I was one for a decade-plus -- discussions of the Iraq unpleasantries rapidly descend into a game of "let's pretend." For example, let's imagine that the solution to the Iraq problem is to assume that it really doesn't exist. Or, let's imagine that the best way to deal with the global presence of fanatics and mass murderers is "to bring our boys and girls" home. Or, let's imagine that if we could just capture bin Laden and/or Zawahiri and/or Mullah Omar, the whole nasty, agonizing business would just go away.

Also, let's not call John Murtha's "redeployment' by its proper names of retreat and defeat. By all means let's not identify the real causes of the emerging debacle, a bunch of poll-reading leftists led by people like John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, and David Wu.

In addition, let's give violent sectarians in the Sunni Triangle some undefined "motives and opportunities" to stop killing one another. Perhaps we could do so by serenading Muktada al-Sadr with regular renditions of "Give Peace a Chance" or even inviting him to visit the Yale Faculty Club.

Above all, let's pretend Al Qaida isn't a major orchestrator (bombing mosques, blowing up marketplaces, beheading infidels) of the carnage in Iraq. The Ackerman/Wu visualization is as follows: We leave, and people who've been slaughtering each other will sit down and sing the Arabic version of "Kumbaya." These are the academic solutions to the eternal problems of war and peace.

At the same time, let's get about "finishing the job in Afghanistan," where bin Laden used to get mail -- before he moved to Waziristan in Pakistan. How exactly should we finish said job? Perhaps by having the French and Germans send more troops who actually fire a shot or two in anger. Presumably, we shouldn't finish the job by having Afghanistan look like a smaller version of Iraq, which unfortunately it is, complete with a horde of IEDs and suicide bombers.

Sooner than we wish, Professor Ackerman and Congressman Wu will be urging us to "give peace a chance in Afghanistan." They will suggest -- trust me -- that the time has come to "bring our boys and girls home from Afghanistan," where the Taliban and its supporters apparently don't like us.

Why would the Post-Gazette publish such a threadbare, manipulative essay? I think it does so because Greg Victor, along with his editorial minder Tom Wasaleski, agree with Ackerman and Wu. Like their academic and political counterparts, such editors don't have a clue about how to conduct the War on Terror.

I'm not condemning them because their political beliefs differ from mine. Instead, I'm doing so because they have no beliefs that are worthy of any sacrifice on their part. If they do, which I seriously doubt, I'd love to hear what they are.

The following (in red) is the original letter I sent to Ackerman, Wu, and Victor. I don't expect it to have any effect on them, because their main purpose in life seems to be gaining the approval of their peers. To all of them I'd repeat the old statement that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Dear Professor Ackerman and Congressman Wu (sent in separate mail): Referring to your "Half-Trillion Dollar Solution" column that appeared in the March 4, 2007 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Your concept of setting a cap on expenditures in Iraq sets a bad precedent. Which wars should we fully fund? And which should we shortchange? Should we make such determinations by conducting polls, perhaps focusing on the prevailing attitudes at Yale and in Congressman Wu's district?

In terms of health funding, you might reflect on the fact that the U.S. already is spending at least 50% more per capita on health care than other developed countries. Perhaps Congressman Wu has some ideas on how we might bring our spending more in line with those countries? I've always believed that wealthy communities, such as those in Southern Connecticut and the district represented by Wu, should pay for their own health care, but maybe that's just me.

As for the "$200 billion annual [Bush] tax cut, channeled mostly to millionaires," I wish you had said the "$200 billion annual tax cut, channeled mostly to people who pay the vast majority of the taxes." Most economists -- and perhaps even one or two at Yale -- believe the tax cuts have been responsible for the dramatic growth in the U.S. economy that's occurred during the Bush presidency, even in the face of the sharp economic downturn resulting from 9/11.

Frankly, the 80/20 Principle holds with income taxes, with a relatively small percentage of the population paying most of them. That's a point I wish congressman Wu would reveal to the Democratic Caucus at an appropriate time. For him to do otherwise would be to engage in misrepresentation.

Having been engaged in the recent campaign to unseat John Murtha, I was intrigued by your remarks that U.S. troops in Iraq (but not in Afghanistan?) should be part of "planning for a prudent departure for friendlier nearby countries or home."

You don't mention the problem with this approach. If we retreat -- hastily or prudently -- none of the nearby countries will want us. Perhaps recognizing that probability, Cong. Murtha, Mr. Wu's distinguished colleague, suggested we redeploy to Okinawa, which is approximately 5,000 miles from Baghdad.

General Abizaid indicated that if the American troops left in a hurry, "the enemy would follow us." I fear he meant places like New Haven, the 1st District of Oregon, and my tiny hometown of Ambridge, PA. Your essay neglects this probability.

As far as "rebuilding America's foreign policy on its traditional bipartisan basis," that horse left the barn in the Viet Nam War, particularly in the Ford years, when the Democratic Congress cut off funding to South Viet Nam. That resulted in military chaos and basically the enslavement of many people who depended on the U.S. to help them gain a better fate.

The problem with bipartisanship now is that most Democrats in Congress don't see it as being in their political interest. Being the "Party of Peace," even when that encourages the Saddams and bin Ladens of the world to wage war, has electoral "legs" in today's America.

I agree with the analysts who say that the most honest approach for the Democrats would be to de-fund the war. That would eliminate the temptation to prolong the war in such a way that it would help in the elections of 2008.

One problem I see with articles like yours is that something like the Iraq War becomes a purely theoretical issue. Some quick statistical work suggests that there have been more graduates of high schools in Beaver County (where I live) killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than graduates of all the Ivy League schools, plus the major universities of Oregon.

Thus, I can assure you that those killed and wounded in war zones are not mere abstractions. I fear that many academics at schools like Yale look at American soldiers and see people who are nothing like them or their colleagues. I fear many Democrats at Congress look at those same soldiers (and their families) and see people who are: (1) unlike members of Congress and their own children; (2) likely to vote Republican.

Sometime ago, the (Democratic) governor of Wyoming said that supporting the troops but not supporting their mission was to make a distinction without a difference. A smart governor he is.

Stephen R. Maloney, Ph.D.

Ambridge, PA

Three Cheers for Ann Coulter & Jack Kelly: Bearers of Inconvenient Truths

2007-03-04T18:08:00.000-08:00

In recent months, I've kept threatening to write a column about Jack Kelly, the remarkable national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade. Later this week, I'll write more about Jack Kelly, and it won't be the last column on that important writer/thinker.

How does Kelly fit into a column that's essentially about Ann Coulter? For one thing, his writings often bring a smile to one's face, just as we find with Ann-of-a-Thousand-Barbs. Like her, Kelly makes "outrageous" statements, ones designed to force people to think about realities they'd prefer to ignore. Let's call them "inconvenient truths."

Two weeks ago, Kelly wrote a column in praise of the usually ignored benefits of global warming! Ttoday's (March 4, 2007) piece has the following head: "Give War a Chance." The subhead is positively Coulteresque: "The last thing Democrats seem to want is a victory in Iraq."

On the same page as that column as four letters to the editor, three strongly in favor of John Murtha's views (whatever they are) and one calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush. Generally, the letters section features numerous attacks on Kelly, with some people questioning his right to say the things that he does.

Does Kelly have defenders? Yes, one of whom is me.

However, the P-G doesn't print my letters-to-the-editor, since I've apparently received a designation as Enemy of the Newspaper. Of course, such restrictions are a way of managing the news. Some people, including a few at the P-G, believe freedom of the press really refers to the freedom of the man who OWNS the press, a notion that would have amused the Founding Fathers.

Kelly really isn't someone who relies upon outrageousness as a way of life. In fact, if we're looking for a male version of Ann, I'd nominate myself, especially in my younger days as a bomb-thrower for The American Spectator and other conservative publications. She knows -- and I know -- that to get people to listen, you sometimes must shout.

Coulter first came to my attention when she wrote her famous post-9/11 piece for National Review Online. It said that American remedies for Islamic terrorism were to: (1) invade West-hating Muslim countries; (2) overthrow their corrupt leaders; and, (3) convert the inhabitants to Christianity. Coulter's writing that column was one cause -- perhaps the primary one -- for National Review's deciding it could live without additional contributions from her.

As a former writer for National Review, I'm sorry to see that publication swimming so vigorously to become part of the mainstream. William F. Buckley, Jr. made a career out of outrageousness and calculated impropriety.

Of course, Coulter has been much in the news lately for her March 2, 2007 comments at the American Conservative Political Action Conference. She said, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I -- so [I'm] kind of [at] an impasse, [and] can't really talk about Edwards."

For that statement, she received a condemnation from noted primal-screamer Howard Dean, as well as relatively mild criticisms from McCain, Giuliani, and Romney. On CNN, the quintessence of blandness, Rick Sanchez, was almost apoplectic about what Coulter had said. But since he couldn't bring himself to say what he called "the F-word," he represented the exact kind of squeamishness Coulter was deriding.

As someone who's worked closely with conservative gays over the years, I wouldn't have used the term Coulter chose. Speaking to the New York Times she noted (perhaps with her Lauren Bacall-like smile) that she had no intention of offending homosexuals, saying she "would never have insulted gays by comparing them to John Edwards."

Clearly, she wanted to wound Edwards, and she succeeded. She called attention to a presidential candidate, Edwards, whom she regards as particularly loathsome. Apparently, she doesn't like candidates who "apologize" for their pro-war vote when the polls begin to shift. She thinks that's a very curious way "to support the troops," which Edwards curiously claims to do.

Clearly, Coulter wanted to say that Edwards is unmanly, a word that doesn't contain quite the firepower of the one she used. She was calling him a sissified pretty boy, an exquisitely coiffed narcissist who wouldn't have a hair out of place in a hurricane.

Perhaps she regards him a person who touts his Christian (Southern Baptist) heritage but apparently has few, if any, views reflective of such a background. Perhaps she sees him as a former plaintiff's lawyer who engorged his bank account and now poses as a spokesman for America's poor.

In the presidential election of 2004, many of Edwards' constituents apparently shared some of Ann Coulter's views. The Kerry-Edwards ticket lost North Carolina badly, as it did every state in the South. Clearly, a Southern accent didn't impress voters in that region.

Today, on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Howard Kurtz asked talk-show host Blanquitta Cullum what she thought of Coulter's remarks. Cullum said she thought it was an example of "free speech." Apparently, some liberals -- including Kurtz -- think free speech is fine as long as one refrains saying anything much. How exactly -- the nude dancers' and sign language issues aside -- does one speak candidly without using words that might possibly offend someone somewhere?

In a 2006 statement by Coulter about certain 9/11 widows -- four from New Jersey -- she said they seemed to be "enjoying" their newfound celebrity status. The widows were endorsing the political activities of Hillary Clinton, whose husband's administration had treated terrorism as if it were an asteroid due to threaten the earth in the year 2271.

The widows also acted as if their status made them immune from criticism. As we've seen, the Ann Coulters and Jack Kellys of the world rarely, if ever, grant immunity.

In fact, the 9/11 widows ended up with multi-million dollar settlements for the spouses they lost in the attack on the World Trade Center. However, being rich is not the same thing as being right. Unfortunately, the widows and widowers whose husbands and wives died in Afghanistan and Iraq don't receive anything like the bloated payments given to the New Jersey women.

What Coulter was asking that those women demonstrate the same kind of sobriety, reflectiveness, and patriotism we see among soldiers and their families. That's not too much to ask.

Ann Coulter's most recent book contains in its title the rarely used T-word, Treason. She holds to the unfashionable view, one I share, that those who, in a time of war, root for the enemy are traitorous. To use the C-word, they're contemptible.

This nation urgently needs a discussion of what treason means in our time. As a rough definition, I'd say that it involves taking actions -- and action is a form of speech -- that emboldens the people who are attempting to kill American soldiers. The T-word should not be one that none dare use.

We hear a lot these days about people who supposedly "speak truth to power." Coulter deserves an award -- and so does Jack Kelly -- for speaking inconvenient truths to those who'd rather not hear them.

John McCain: The Incredible, Disappearing Candidate

2007-03-04T17:17:00.000-08:00

Brief comments on John McCain: In the 1980 presidential campaign, the Carter strategy was to portray Reagan as: (1) too dangerous for Americans to trust with the nuclear football; (2) too old to be President. In fact, especially in the debates, Reagan came across as a folksy, reasonable man. Also, he didn't act -- or look -- old.

John McCain looks old -- and generally acts the same way. He's 4 1/2 years older than I am, and he might as well be my father.The campaign has hardly begun, and he sometimes appears near exhaustion.

Also, on the critical issue of Iraq, he may be the only person in American politics who doesn't believe the "Surge" goes far enough.

On "Letterman" the other night, McCain talked about killed-in-action soldiers as representing "wasted lives." All over patriotic America, jaws dropped. A distinguished veteran and POW hero, McCain had used the same inappropriate word as the shallow non-veteran, Obama. Frankly, McCain isn't a political neophyte, and at his age he shouldn't be making idiotic gaffes. Perhaps he stayed up far past his bedtime?

One wonders: What's McCain's strategy to win the nomination? No one seems to know. If the strategy is to see his poll number decline so that he can hide in the weeds, he's succeeding. Yes, it's early, and the first primaries are 11 months away, but the fact may be that the "old and grumpy" candidate won't get any younger -- or less grumpy.

Right now, McCain is the man who "used to be a Maverick, but came over time to make peace with George Bush and Jerry Falwell." That situation isn't working at all to his favor.

In the days of yore, John Lindsay ran for Mayor of New York with the following slogan: "He is fresh, and everyone else is tired." John McCain doesn't appear or sound fresh. If he has some attractive ideas for an America under his leadership, I haven't heard them.

More and more, he looks like a loser.

Who looks like a winner? Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.

Letter to a Young Author: So You Want to Write a Book . . .

2007-03-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

The following is a letter to a young conservative author who has an excellent idea for a book. More than a decade ago, I published two books, neither of which was as successful as it could be. In the letter, I mention The Secret, a book that's been wildly successful even though it's mostly a variation on The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale's best-seller from two generations ago. (In turn, Peale built on the 18th century insights of Benjamin Franklin and the 19th century observations of Alexis de Tocqueville and Ralph Waldo Emerson.)

Dear M:

Your book idea -- one dealing with the criticality of religious faith in both personal and societal life -- is an excellent one. Because I haven't sought to publish in more than a decade, I have to think some about your questions regarding possible agents and publishers.

One (brief) research project you might do is to look into the nature/background of The Secret, which is essentially another "think good thoughts" book, but has somehow become the nation's bestselling book (at least according to amazon.com).

I used to write a couple of lines in my speechwriting days, "First, you have to conceive it. Then, you have to to believe it (can be done). At that point, you're in a position to achieve it." Maybe I should have used that simple concept as the foundation for a book -- and perhaps I will.

Your strength as a potential book-writer is that you understand the world around us (including the roles of people like Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears, who are 'significant for their insignificance" -- quoting myself). My point here is that you truly don't want to write an academic book, one that would have an adoring audience of 700 readers but would mystify everyone else.

You're dead right about the difficulty at this point of selling a collection of your essays, which I'd read avidly, but might be a little early in your career for the rest of humanity. When you have 25,000-plus readers (a la William F. Buckley, Jr.) who will buy anything you write, then the essay collection will work.

In your research, you might find the success story of The Secret a little depressing. Books that sell well generally solve "the riddle of the universe" in 25 words or less -- then expand (somewhat) on those 25 words.

The core of The Secret is that "thoughts become things." In essence, the book says that if you think the right thoughts -- positive ones -- you will be happy, healthy, and wealthy. There's at least some truth to that idea, which most academics greet with disgust. You may have noticed that most academics aren't especially happy, healthy, or rich. :-)

I realize I'm not giving a lot of practical ideas (e.g., recognizing that you must have an agent who loves the idea, understanding that most agents rely more on volume of clients than on quality of a book proposal, and realizing that the most likely publishers are ones who've published books something like yours). What you want to get across is that your idea is different -- but not so distinctive that it won't sell big.

Your own "secret" here might be with your online publishing at a certain conservative web site, where the editors and contributors can give you good ideas on agents/publishers.

My old agent -- I won't give his name -- is someone I wouldn't recommend. He's a "volume" guy, a churner of book proposals. He ended up making $200,000-plus a year, while most of his authors were in the $10,000 range.

As a conservative writer with an "attitude," you need to look into who publishes Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and others like them. However, recognize that you're not really a bomb-thrower like Ms. Coulter. Your target audience is thoughtful Christians concerned about modern secularism and a-morality.

Let's keep talking about this subject, with a view toward getting yourself at a point where thinking will lead to action -- getting the right agent and publisher.

One important thing: publishers want you to prove to them that your work will sell. So, keep a copy of the responses (thousands) you've received to your web site pieces.

Publishers do like to have bestsellers -- which I'd define as 25,000 hardbound copies (or more). The way you get to that level of sales is not to conduct focus groups, but rather to write a clear, compelling book on a subject that has real interest to many people.

I tend to "think things to death," but the move -- the action -- is the key.

I once read a book about how to write a book. It was excellent in that its advice was to write, write, write, set tough deadlines, edit, and then send it off. As you know, it's possible to spend weeks perfecting a paragraph, but that's the worst way to write a book.

To have a book, you'd need about 60,000 words (200 pages in book form). You already have the core. It should take somewhere between 90-180 days to have a manuscript in hand. As you're aware, people "who are going to write a book . . . someday" won't.

Your book audience would be the people who already like your work, plus a much larger group (evangelical Christians and traditional Catholic-Christians).

There are religious publishers, some of whom think big in terms of sales, most of whom might be difficult to abide. I'm talking about publishers who might be uncomfortable with your tendency (a good one) to write/live on the edge. They may wonder, for example, if their readers might be shocked by a mention that Britney Spears didn't always wear underpants or that Bill Clinton did some nasty business in the Oval Office.

About bestsellers:

Ken Follett (Eye of the Needle and many other blockbusters) wrote about 10 books that didn't sell -- and then he caught his stride with Needle. (He got a $20,000 advance on the American hardbound edition of that book -- and an $800,000 advance on the paperback edition. As an educated guess, I'd say his royalties after the advances on Needle are probably about a million or more.

Do I think you could make it "just" as a book writer (without continuing reliance on your day jobs as an academic? I do, but it could be a couple of tough years because it takes time for any money to flow.

One big question to ask yourself is: Could I live with my idea for a year? Could I retain my energy and interest?

Overall, you have a great idea. Let's keep talking -- in a focused way -- about this subject.

steve maloney

Siebert and Kurtz, American Heroes, Obama and Biden Something Much Less

2007-03-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

Captain Todd M. Siebert, a native of the North Hills section (Franklin Park) in Allegheny County died in Iraq on February 16, 2007. The U. S. Army issued this account: "Capt. Todd Siebert was killed in action while conducting combat operations against anti-Iraqi forces in the Al Anbar Province." The vehicle in which he was riding was "struck by an unidentified explosive projectile." He had been in Iraq for six weeks.

His wife issued the following statement: "Todd Siebert was my husband . . . and now he is my hero."

He's also my hero. The same is true of Russell Kurtz, from Bethel Park in the South Hills, an Army Sgt. burined in his hometown on February 19, 2007.

I hope the families of Capt. Siebert and Sgt. Kurtz realize how many Americans share their grief at the loss of their loved ones. Martin Luther King once said that people define themselves not by the length of their lives but by "the content of their character." It's probably impossible to exaggerate the quality of character demonstrated by Todd Siebert, Russell Kurtz, and the other men and women from this area who've given their lives for their country.

In politics, we hear a lot of empty rhetoric. For example, we have one Barack Obama engaging in the usual sloganeering, celerbrating some fantasy he calls "the audacity of hope." He doesn't comprehend in any way people like Siebert and Kurtz, who demonstrate the audacity of action, who put their lives -- rather than mere words -- on the line. Their audacity lies in doing the courageous things that give hope to others.

Is there anything a Barack Obama -- or a Joe Biden -- would think worthy of the sacrifice of their lives? Friends? Family? Country?

More than 40 years ago, John F. Kennedy delivered a remarkable inaugural address, where he asserted to "both friend and foe " that this country "would bear any burden, pay any price to ensure the survival of liberty." I submit that people like Siebert and Kurtz are the true heirs of JFK. He risked his own life for his country, and he would understand well the men and women who are willing to do the same.

Would Senators Obama or Biden -- or Teddy Kennedy for that matter -- reaffirm the promises of Kennedy's Inaugural remarks? Or would they, like the Jack Murthas of the world, consult the polls first?

Overall, the Todd Sieberts and Russ Kurtzes of America are willing to give their lives to ensure the survival of liberty. In contrast, the elected officials I've mentioned have done nothing to preserve liberty -- or to deserve it.

Have You Hugged David Shribman Today? P-G News (Good) Versus TV "News" (Ugh)

2007-03-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following to a reporter (a good one) at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the subject of several recent columns in this space.

One thing I wish the P-G (and the Tribune-Review and anyone else around would do) is to criticize the TV media for: (1) stealing all their good stories from the print media; (2) making up phony "breaking news" stories direct from the police scanner; (3) failing to verify "reports" (i.e., rumors, the most famous being Ken Rice's announcement after the Kennywood windstorm that an 8-yr-old girl had died, which was false); (4) presenting hysterical reports about the weather; (5) concocting "sweeps" news, such as the attempt to turn the Pastor Duggan story into something newsworthy -- and instead having the man commit suicide; (6) being nothing more than cheerleaders for local sports team and stadiums; (7) having "political" news in the hands of extremely biased people (e.g., Jon Delano); and (8) turning bright young journalists (Sunni Abbatta and Allison Morris being Exhibit A & B) into nothing more than news readers. Taking bright graduates from schools like CMU (!) and Yale (!) and then sentencing them to read from Teleprompters unto eternity is stupid.

A majority of people now say they get "most of their news" from TV. A majority of people get something, but it's not really news. TV news is elevator music.

Other than that, well . . . :-)

I agree with you about David Shribman. Sometimes I wonder if he knows how good his staff is. The sports section is the best I've ever seen, even grumpy Ron Cook, who's willing to tackle subjects most sports people think are verboten (e.g., why Mike Tomlin got the Steelers job). I wish Shribman would rely less on the Times and the Post, because they are constantly grinding Beltway axes. Why not make a deal with The Wall Street Journal? Or on the AP?

If the Times or the Post have a Tracie Mauriello (or a Rich Lord or a Chico Harlan or a Jerome Sherman), it's time to present them to the world. Tracie's work (with the help of others) is transforming PA government -- not exactly a minor achievement. I think the Pulitzer Prize people ought to take a good look at her work.

Sally Kalson, battling not only cancer but also people like me (who disagree with her on various issues) may be the best pure reporter I've ever seen. The stories today by Michael Fuocco (prescription drug misuse) and Steve Twedt (mine safety) are models of what journalism should be.

steve maloney

Al Gore & Steve Maloney: Guess Which One is the Environmentalist?

2007-02-28T16:29:00.000-08:00

Note: This is the kind of piece I'd like to see more in my daily newspaper, one that explains how people could save money and generally live a more fruitful life. Yeah, it's somewhat self-congratulatory, but at my age you tend to have to do your own public relations.

I was intrigued -- but not really surprised -- to read about Green Advocate Al Gore spending an average of $2439 per month for heat and power at his "posh" Nashville, Tennessee mansion. The very wealthy man who falsely claimed to have "invented the Internet" and helped create the global warming hysteria is not exactly the most appealing of creatures. He's a hypocrite of the first order, self-absorbed to an overwhelming level.

He's the ultimate consumer. He consumes the attention, even adoration, of people who care what he says more than what he does. He consumes a vast amount of electricity and other forms of energy. Clearly, he consumes a lot more food than he needs. The people who know know him best -- the residents of Tennessee -- rejected him when he ran for President in 2000.

I'll admit it: I compare myself with Al Gore, and he doesn't come off very well, especially in matters related to his supposed passion: the environment.

Let's see, he's the left-wing environmentalist whose utility bill is $30,000-plus per year. I'm the right-wing critic of environmentalism whose electric bill is a little above $200 a month (two-bedroom, three-bathroom home) about $2500 annually. He does a lot of world traveling and regularly rides in gas-guzzling limousines. I do no world traveling, and I haven't owned an automobile in more than a decade.

I live with two disabled people, my wife who had a crippling stroke in 1991 and my stepdaughter, who has a learning disability and works at McDonald's. Before my wife and I became eligible in 2006 for prescription drug coverage (Medicare Plan D), our monthly cost for medications -- out-of-pocket -- was about $600-$700 per month.

My wife -- a computer whiz and corporate manager until her stroke -- can't work, and my stepdaughter has always had a minimum wage job. She and I are both on Social Security, and I make some money -- not a lot, but enough -- writing for a company in Illinois. I have a small pension from Chevron, the San-Francisco-based oil company.

Frankly, we get along just fine. But we had to make some significant adjustments, especially in terms of transportation.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, we decided to live without an automobile. Most Americans would find that almost inconceivable, but it's been a major positive for us.

An automobile is not an investment. Instead, it's a way to hemorrhage money. Buy a car for, say, $25,000, and you get the honor of spending thousands of dollars a year not only on payments, but also on insurance, gasoline, repairs, and parking fees. Five years after you purchase the vehicle, you have something that's well on its way to becoming a piece of junk -- and that's worth perhaps half what it originally was.

For us, we figured that having one car would cost us at least $350 per month. If you have more than one car, the figure would be much higher.

Put that money in the bank! After two years, you'll have as much as $8400, plus a much interest as your account generates over the 24 months. If you can invest the $8400 in a tax-free product -- say, in IRAs -- and get 6% interest per year, within 8 years your savings will be approaching $20,000.

Keep saving the $350 over a period of, say, 10-15 years, and your savings will be well up in six-figures. Of course, if you can get more than a 6% return -- and many people do -- your savings could be much larger.
A normal lifetime spent without a car could make your a millionaire, based only on the savings from your car-less life.

The great things about what J. P. Morgan called "the miracle of compound interest" is that it's subject to the Rule of 72. What this means is that if you gain an interest rate of 6% (si, your savings will double every 12 years. However, if you can get a rate of 12%, your savings will double every six years.

Many of you may be wondering how you can get along without a car. On the whole, it's a lot easier than you might think. That was true when I lived in Carnegie, three miles from downtown Pittsburgh. It's even truer at our present home in Ambridge.

Without a car, you need to live near a bus route. The Park n Ride lot, a hub for Port Authority Transit (Allegheny County) and Beaver County busses, which come-and-go about every hour during the day. Because I'm over 65, I can ride the busses for "free." My wife can ride for half-price, because of her disability.

But we don't ride the bus a great deal.

That's because we chose a place to live where nearly everything is reachable by old-fashioned shoe leather. Within six blocks, there's a: pharmacy (actually two of them), post office, bank, library, insurance office, Chinese take-out restaurant, Subway sandwich shop, a men's store, a medical testing center, the Ambridge town offices, a high school (Ambridge High) right across the street.

Also, our doctor's office is a 15-to-20-minute walk. There are many medical specialists with offices in Ambridge (podiatrist, rheumatologist, and the like).

Getting food is more of a challenge. The Foodland is about a 1 1/4 miles away, and my wife and I walk there. We use a four-wheel cart to carry the groceries. There are several other food stores -- two Giant Eagles, Saforas in Sewickley, and Shop n Save -- all requiring a short bus ride.

How do we handle food during extremely cold periods, like the recent one? We plan ahead.

We do a lot more walking than most people our age. That's not a negative. Rather, it is a way of getting something we really need: exercise. If we don't put ourselves in circumstances where we have to walk, we won't do it.

What about when we positively, absolutely must have a car? That occurs when we need to take one of our cats to a veterinarian, or attend a wedding or funeral? In such cases, we rent one from the Enterprise that's a five-minute bus ride from our homes. In fact, since Enterprise picks us up and drops us off, we can forgo the bus ride.

As for All Gore: well, he doesn't live in Ambridge. From the outside, it doesn't look like he walks a lot. I'm also guessing that he doesn't wear long underwear and a sweater in his home -- to keep the thermostat at a brisk 65 or 66. I know Nashville can get hot and humid, so I bet he keep his air conditioners (surely he has two) humming away from May 1 to October 1.

We believe strongly in not misusing finite resources, especially oil and natural gas. Unlike former VP Gore, we don't talk much about greenhouse gases and associated subjects. We grow most of our own vegetables in the back yard.

Because we're also trying to save money, we don't "purchase" our energy from one of the various "Green" sources available in PA. Gore's spokespeople say that he does purchase "green energy," which is significantly more expensive than the traditional variety (gas, oil, and coal).

Right now, "green energy" is fine for rich people, including the Gores. It's also good for people who live in the area served by the old TVA, which provides a great deal of hydroeletric power. In most areas of the country, Green Power isn't a reasonable alternative for people don't have abundant financial resources.

The Gores talk the talk. The Maloneys walk the walk, literally and figuratively. If Gore and family would move to Ambridge, I'd be happy to teach them how to put their money where their mouth is.

Where Are the Sharks of Yesteryear? Who Killed the Bird Flu?

2007-02-27T14:49:00.000-08:00

rodgermorrow said...
You're on to something big here, Steve. It's not the role of journalism to point out everything in our lives that might bring us to some bad end (from man-eating sharks to asbestos insulation); rather, journalism must help us discriminate between dangers that should properly concern us (household accidents, metabolic syndrome, smoking) and dangers that threaten only the minutest fraction of the population.

Thanks Rodger (Morrow): He operates one of the very best blogs in America -- one worth reading regularly.

John Stossel emphasized the post hoc, ergo proper hoc ("after this, therefore, because of this") fallacy in his 20/20 program ("Scared Stiff: Worry in America"). As Rodger suggests, we worry about a multitude of things -- mostly at the urgings of the Mainstream Media (MSM) -- over which we have no control.

One great example cited by Stossel was the so-called "Summer of the Shark," which occurred in 2001. In those days before 9/11, the nation apparently had a shortage of things to worry about. So, Time magazine and the usual gaggle of left-wing, ratings-obsessed "information" outlets decided it was time to worry about . . . sharks.

We don't have a lot of sharks in the Pittsburgh area, outside the aquarium at the zoo. Thus, we kept our own shark worries in control. However, the rest of the nation became convinced there was a good chance of their being eaten by creatures right out of "Jaws."

In fact, the "Summer of the Shark" had little basis in reality. Contrary to the media's implications, the summer of 2001 was not an especially bad year for swimmers. The number of shark attacks in American waters was about average. There was no basis in fact for the national uproar. It was just a case of media hype.

The media also has a "thing" about the Ebola virus, the flesh-eating one. Of course, here in my catacomb in Ambridge my chance of getting Ebola is something less than my winning the Big One on the Powerball. If I were to move to Africa, the probability of a virus beginning to consume my flesh might be higher, but only marginally so.

But what about the "deadly" bird flu, something of a media stand-by? We've heard that, potentially, it could be as destructive as the Influenza Epidemic that occurred in 1917-1918. In fact, the number of Americans killed (or even infected) by bird flu has remained steady at zero. That same number holds for the birds afflicted in our great land, who seem remarkably resistant to avian flu.

On Stossel's program, the extremely wise Stephen Moore said, "What sells newspapers is bad news." We might add that, when it comes to the media, hysteria sells. Breathless reporting, combined with forecasts of doom, jacks up the ratings. In Pittsburgh, PA, our weather forecasters regularly predict something roughly equivalent to the end of the world. As one Pittsburgher noted recently, the reality is that we get not the Twilight of the Gods, but rather four snowflakes.

As Rodger Morrow points out, we as a people need to begin worrying about things over which we have some control. He mentions "metabolic disorders." As an individual who surprised himself by having adult onset diabetes, I know what he's talking about. I never thought much about diabetes -- largely preventable -- until I had it. Now, I think about it daily.

Ebola and shark attacks are exciting -- and scary. Diabetes is, if you don't have it, relatively boring. Shakespeare's Falstaff talked about "cakes and ale," neither of which I can consume anymore. My diet and my personality begin to converge, both of them bland. Diabetes reaffirms the old dictum, "Sin in haste, repent at leisure."

If you scare people, you get big ratings. If you tell them, Steve Maloney has diabetes, you get the sounds of silence. The reason the old street preachers carried signs saying, "The End is Near!" is that nothing less would get anyone's attention. In that sense, those bedraggled sign carriers acted as the first media consultants.

Today, in Iraq, a car-bomber -- a designation that means homicidal maniac -- killed 18 young soccer players near Baghdad. In generally, the media treated that horrific event as a "dog bites man" story, as something hardly worthy of the designation "news." The point seems to be: if we depress our viewers, we will lost them.

Perhaps media executives and news directors see the dead soccer players and ask: "What else is new?" Perhaps they think wistfully, "Where are the sharks of yesteryear?" Or, "What's Britney Spears doing lately?" Or, "Any new cases of Ebola or bird flu?"

Some years ago, I was comfortably seated -- along with a few other souls -- at "Froggy's," a Pittsburgh watering-hole of yesteryear. We'd had one of those blood curdling weather forecasts, suggesting that an Oswego-like blizzard was imminent. Actually, we got our usual four snowflakes.

Watching all his potential customers wait in traffic as they evacuated the city, Steve "Froggy" Morris muttered the following words: "Stay in your homes; you will not be harmed."

Stay in your homes; watch your TV; read your newspaper, and you will not be harmed.

Now, in the February of our discontent, "Froggy's" is closed -- and life is slightly less worth living.

John Stossel: Journalism and the Eradication of Falsehoods

2007-02-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

Over the past week, I've discussed the kind of value-based stories I believe newspapers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette should be doing. I've pointed out how certain farsighted TV journalists -- from Yvonne Zanos at KDKA to Soledad O'Brien and others at CNN to the superb John Stossel of ABC -- have been heading in the right direction, emphasizing stories of real worth and insight to news consumers. Today, I'd like to focus on Stossel's recent "20/20," where he highlighted the fears of modern Americans ("Scared Stiff").

Over the years, Stossel apparently has offended many people, almost all of them on the American Left. His supposed offense is that he does what journalists are supposed to: challenging cherished beliefs -- on subjects like the environment, education, and entertainment. In developing his views, Stossel doesn't rely a lot on polls of public opinion. Instead, he asks if there's any factual basis for common beliefs.

In his recent program, he discussed the widespread fears that vaccines might be harming American children -- perhaps by increasing the number of young people with autism. He cites various scientists who say there's no evidence that vaccines are causing diseases in children. In fact, they're preventing hundreds of thousands of serious illnesses and deaths.

But how we can explain the supposed sharp increase in the number of children with autism, a subject that's made the cover of major newsmagazines? He presents a graph from California showing two lines -- one demonstrating the percentage "increase" of California kids with autism, one showing the decline in those diagnosed with mental retardation. The two lines demonstrate what's really happened: many of the children formerly diagnosed as retarded now get classified as autistic.

There is NO increase in the percentage of autistic children. What we once called retardation, we now call autism. That's all there is to it.

If there's no factual basis for something we believe, then it's obligation as rational, responsible people to revise our beliefs. It's not a matter of being liberal or conservative, but rather of avoiding error and fantasy. We should believe only those things we can prove.

For example, there's no evidence -- as in none -- that silicone breast implants cause cancer or various immune system disorders. That's not the opinion of John Stossel or the various experts he quotes, including those at the FDA. In fact, what they're saying is that evidence doesn't exist linking silicone implants to various diseases. If such scientific evidence existed, which it does not, both Stossel and his experts would love to see it, but there's no one to present it.

But what about the juries that have bankrupted companies (Dow-Corning) and enriched trial lawyers in cases supposedly linking the breast implants to a host of diseases? Those juries were, as the FDA now indicates, wrong. They committed one of the oldest fallacies, which states: post hoc, ergo propter hoc. That means: "after this, therefore because of this."

The women awarded huge settlements did in fact have breast implants. Also, they did in fact have diseases. Yet there was no connection between the silicone and the illnesses. The judgments, the lining of the lawyers' pockets, and the financial devastation of the implant makers all occurred for no good reason.

In one remarkable episode on 20/20, Stossel talks to his college age daughter about a program he did when she was a small child. In that years-ago segment, he'd raised questions about the safety of the vaccine that prevents whooping cough. Influenced by that experience, Stossel refused to let his daughter's pediatrician finish immunizing her against whooping cough.

Subsequently, his daughter ended up in a hospital emergency room. She'd contracted whooping cough, a thoroughly preventable disease.

He told his nonplussed daughter this story. She couldn't believe he -- and his programs -- had interfered with doctors' responsibilities to take care of their patients. Her comment: "If you did that, you did a bad thing."

Can anyone imagine Mike Wallace, Keith Olberman, or Wolf Blitzer devoting a portion of their programs -- in such dramatic fashion -- to their own past errors? I can't.

In his program, Stossel used focus groups of children and parents. Members of the two group expressed their major fear: the high probability of children being kidnapped. The mothers, fathers, and children all believed that kidnapping is a real possibility in their lives. They're scared stiff. They've all heard of cases like those involving Elizabeth Smart, Jessica Lunsford, Polly Klass, and Adam Walsh.

Most people think the number of child kidnappings is much greater now than it was in the past. They're wrong.

In fact, what most of us call kidnapping -- stranger abductions -- is very rare. On the 20/20, the head of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says, "Over the years, the number of such kidnappings has remained remarkable constant."

How many stranger abductions take place in a typical week? The parents and children Stossel talked to believe there's an explosion of such horrors. Apparently, they believe there are dozens -- and perhaps hundreds -- every week.

In fact, on average, the number in a week is about TWO. That is, in an average 7-day period, two children get kidnapped by strangers. Not dozens, not hundreds -- but rather two per week, about 100 per year.

For that, we end up with tens of millions of adults and children spending much of their lives consumed by fear of being kidnapped. Many more children die in tricycle accidents.

Overall, Stossel accomplished more in a two-hour program than most journalists will in a decade. He questioned conventional wisdom. He presented information that many people -- especially trial lawyers -- would rather not hear. He refused to genuflect at the altar of public opinion.

When Stossel hears a proposition, such as that the number of kidnapped children is increasing, he doesn't take it on faith. He asks, "Is that true? Is there any evidence to support the view? Is there another explanation than the one proferred?"

This distinguished ABC journalist causes us to do something profoundly important: to question our own views. For example, in recent years, I've been fixated on the issue of terrorism in America. Stossel suggests that terrorism is much less of a real concern that I've thought.

His point is that we should worry about things that truly matter, such as auto accidents, high blood pressure, and heart diseases. Yes, Oklahoma City and 9/11 were awful, sickening, but there are other realities that kill many more people and deserve a greater degree of our concern.

Journalism should never be a tool to foster illusions, whether comforting or disturbing. Instead, it should be a way for us to check reality and re-examine our beliefs. For that reason, Stossel's "Scared Stiff" gets my vote for reality-show-of-the-year.

From time to time in the future, I'll write about ways journalism can fulfill its obligation to present accurate, valuable information.

Will You Die in a Terrorist Attack? I Know the Answer

2007-02-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

The Week of February 24, 2007: I've been writing a great deal lately about the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with emphasis on approaches that would keep the paper from folding. The P-G has been hemmorhaging red ink, and that's unnecessary if it would be wise enough -- relax, it won't be -- to emphasize writing about subjects of real value to readers. I'll have more to say about this subject in the weeks ahead.

We often hear that modern people suffer from information overload. In other words, we get bombarded with more information than we can process. To the contrary, I believe the situation is somewhat different: we live in a world where bad information -- misinformation -- drives out good. With all the supposed knowledge sources available, we should be the wisest people in the history of the human race, but we aren't.

When I lived in Carnegie, PA, I used to take the Port Authority Transit bus from Carnegie to the Shop and Save in Scott and then return. I'd often run into a woman, age 65-is, from Bridgeville. She was what I'd call a classic Democrat. She'd wait for the bus and spit out complaints about "that Bush." For her, the President's last name truly was a four-letter-word, and he was responsible for most of the ills that afflicted her and others.

She also had opinions about the weather, which has tended to be pretty bad in recent years. After Hurricane Ivan lasted just long enough to dump a foot of rain on Carnegie and other area towns, she said, "It's all those space ships and men landing on the moon!"

I said nothing, but she continued: "We never used to have this terrible weather, hurricanes and stuff, before they started putting people on the moon! It's that Bush! He can't do anything right!" I didn't have the heart to tell her that the U.S. hadn't been sending men to the moon for, well, decades.

When I read the various public opinion polls in the P-G and hear about them on CNN, I think of that woman. I wonder what percentage of the people surveyed share her attitudes. From the views expressed in the surveys, I think she may be what the public relations specialists call "an opinion leader."

I've heard that many people -- I'm talking tens of millions -- believe the moon landings themselves were staged. That is, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin didn't really burst through the surly bonds of earth and end up on the moon. Instead, it was all staged -- perhaps in Hollywood -- and we, the gullible public, were misled. Apparently, about one-in-five Americans -- 20% -- believe that's the case. I have a hunch that 20% is present in most of the surveys, on various subjects, that I read about.

During the 2004 election, the Gallup Poll came under a lot of criticism. It kept showing George Bush either leading or tied. Most people -- presumably including my fellow bus rider from Bridgeville -- believed that couldn't be the case, because well: "Bush!" So, they told Gallup to modify the way it did polls. The modified version showed Kerry doing a lot better.

Just before the election, Gallup announced (in the P-G and elsewhere) that George Bush was 4% ahead in Pennsylvania and 4% behind in Ohio. I suggested to David Shribman, editor of the P-G, that Gallup may have confused the two states. I predicted that Kerry would win Pennsylvania, which he did, and that Bush would win Ohio, which he did.

The other day I listened to John Stossel, an excellent reporter, who had a two-hour special on ABC's "Prime Time." He spent a great deal of time demonstrating a point made long ago by Mark Twain: that a lot of the things people KNOW are true . . . aren't.

He pointed out, for example, that one-third of the American people believe there's a high probability they or a member of their family will be killed or injured in a terrorist attack. In fact, however, if we add up all the significant terrorist attacks (Oklahoma City, 9/1, the anthrax mailings, and the Unabomber) since the Clinton era, the number of people killed by terrorists totals about 3200.

Frankly, we kill that many Americans every month in automobile accidents.

Your chance of slipping, falling, and dying in the shower is greater than your chance of being done in by terrorists. That's true also of your chance of being zapped by lightning -- or of expiring because of an allergic reaction to a bee sting.

The good news is that I can predict with a high degree of probability that you and your loved ones will NOT die in a terrorist attack. Lightning strikes are of course another story.

I'll have more to say this week about John Stossel's excellent program, a model for the kind of information -- the truthful, fact-based, sane variety -- we should be getting, but usually don't.

I don't much like public opinion surveys, one of the most popular subjects in the media. When someone surveys 900 or 1600 Americans, I'd like to know who they are. Specifically, when I hear what the American people think about "global warming" or "the war in Iraq," or the "chance of our dying in a terrorist attack," I'd like to be informed what the people polled actually KNOW about the subject.

I mean: if the people in the surveys are ignorant about the subjects they're evaluating, we should ignore them -- right? If it's a poll on whether America should support either the Shias or the Sunnis in Iraq, we probably should focus on the 2%-3% of the public (if that) who actually know the difference.

If most of the people are like my Bridgeville bus-rider -- and I fear that's the case -- it's okay with me if you keep your surveys to yourself. I bet 69.6% of the American people agree with me on that.

Paul Krugman in the P-G: The Decapitation of Chicken Little

2007-02-24T16:43:00.000-08:00

In my previous column, I complained about the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's featuring columnists who basically sing the same song week-after-week, year-after-year. Then, I left my catacomb in Ambridge, went upstairs, and read the Saturday, February 24 piece by Paul Krugman, an economist at Princeton and "a nationally syndicated columnist" associated with the New York Times.

Professor Krugman is a "soft socialist," someone who believes the government should manage major aspects of our lives. More precisely, I think, he believes it should do so with the advice of certain academic consultants, particularly him.

In the lead paragraph of his column ("It's pretty easy being green") he says: "The factual debate about whether global warming is real is, or at least should be, over: The question now is what to do about it."

Not so fast, Krugman: The debate about global warming may be over in Al Gore's brain -- and perhaps even in the craniums of all right-thinking Princetonians. Recently, however, 17,000 scientists subscribed to the view that global warming, as generally understood, is not a certainty.

Remember a generation ago when people like Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich announced that debate over the "population explosion" (or the "population bomb") was over? Essentially, the world of the future would see humanity tightly packed together, something like the entire population of Des Moines, Iowa residing in a single elevator.

Of course, the population explosion is a quaint footnote in 20th century history. No one talks anymore about Paul Ehrlich's warnings -- aside from a few trivia buffs like me. Now, you heard it here first: global warming will soon join Paul Ehrlich (and Ralph Nader and Al Gore) in what Karl Marx called "the dustbin of history."

In other words, Krugman's column gets off to a bad start on global warming, this decade's version of crying wolf. The last vestige of a scoundrel is to try winning a debate by pretending none exists.

The main point of the Princeton professor's column is that we must follow the example of California. He tells us "Californians use a third less energy than the rest of us."

For those of us who recognize that Californians have a temperate climate while the rest of us don't, the state's achievement isn't exactly earth-shaking. Recently, the temperature in Los Angeles was 75 degrees in California, while it was 5 degrees in Pittsburgh, and I admit we Steel City types were using a lot more energy than people at their pools in LA.

Krugman explains California's below-average use of energy this way: "In some cases conservation was mandated directly, through energy efficiency standards for appliances and rules governing new construction. Also, regulated power companies were given new incentives to promote conservation, via rule changes that 'decoupled' their profits from the amount of electricity they sold."

I find both these sentences amusing, mainly because of their attempt to avoid economic realities. In fact, people support energy efficiency standards only when it's in their economic interests to do so. Also, companies certainly will encourage conservation when you fatten their profits for doing so.

It's all called capitalism -- a term that usually evokes fear and loathing in Paul Krugman. He emphasizes that California's supposed strength in conservation has nothing to do with 21st century deregulation of the energy markets.

Then, curiously, he admits: "Yes, a variety of state actions has the effect of raising energy prices. In the early 1970s, the price of electricity in California was close to the national average. Today, it's about 50 percent higher."

The semi-mysterious "state actions" turn out to be mainly a move toward free markets in energy. I wish Krugman, an economist, would reflect on something economists call the price-elasticity of demand. That means: when something costs more, people buy less.

It also means that the factor bringing supply and demand into balance is price. State or federal regulations don't really do it. Hectoring people about the need for conservation doesn't do it. A President's wearing a sweater on a national address doesn't do it. Prices, allowed to rise or fall in response to supply-demand factors, do it.

Price-elasticity explains -- much better than Krugman does -- why Californians are consuming somewhat less energy per capita than formerly. When something costs more, people tend to waste less of it.

The amount of energy used by Californians has little to do with good intentions. It has a great deal to do with the state's climate -- compared, say, to frigid International Falls and muggy Miami -- and energy prices. It's a reflection of location (location! location!) and capitalism.

I wish Krugman had said that, but he's never going to give a simple explanation when a complicated one is available. Why does the P-G continue running him? One might as well ask why a chicken runs around with his head cut off.

Note: Stephen R. Maloney, Ph.D. never taught at Princeton University (he's available at the right price), but he did write for two decades on energy economics for Phillips Petroleum, Gulf Oil, and various public utilities in the U.S. and overseas.

The Decline of the "Forum" Section: Part III of Letter to Editor David Shribman

2007-02-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

As most readers of this column know, one of my favorite sections of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is the Sunday "Forum," which presents opinions, along with some predictable editorials reflecting the views of the Block family, which owns the paper.

In the past, the "Forum" was under the editorship of John Allison, who did an excellent job of presenting diverse opinions on a variety of subjects. The new editor is Greg Victor, who apparently is trying to make the "Forum" an extension of the editorial page. The best part of the "Forum" -- past and present -- consists of the columns of Jack Kelly, who presents a perspective much different -- and better reasoned -- than the other opinion pieces.

Recently, I wrote a letter to editor Greg Victor, with a copy to the writer (Edward Humes) of a piece on evolution. In fact, the theory -- and it is a theory -- of evolution in the Darwinian sense is not really controversial. Most people accept the idea that, over long periods of time, individual species either adapt or become extinct. Of course, evolution says nothing about creation, which most people in the world believe has its origins in the Mind of the Creator.

However, Mr. Humes's piece began with a very dubious assumption about the nature of the debate between those who believe that it's appropriate to teach the concepts of "Intelligent Design" in schools (along with the theory of evolution) and those who do not. The following (in red) is my letter to Mr. Victor.

I don't disagree with much of what Edward Humes says in the P-G's "Forum" about evolution (in "Distorting Darwin"). However, I have major problems with his use of Jefferson's one statement in his lifetime about "a wall of separation between Church and State."

Specifically, Humes says about the judge in the Intelligent Design case that his job involved "considering whether teaching intelligent design in public schools breached the wall separating church and state."

My simple question: what "wall" is that? Jefferson's statement appears nowhere in the Constitution -- and is in fact in conflict with the 1st Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which provides the same freedom for religion as it does for speech or the press.

Jefferson's statement also doesn't appear in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, his comment there is that we are "endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." I suggest that a meditation on that statement -- and its implications about where rights associated with life and liberty originate -- will be instructive. Hint: the answer is NOT the ACLU.

In any case, if the judge in the case was deciding how to erect some sort of blockage between church and state, he was barking up the wrong wall. We have no state church, a concept Jefferson surely understood quite well, so there is no subject for a court to decide. Admittedly, judges who see themselves as "Masters of the Universe" won't understand my point.

If Jefferson knew the degree to which his relatively innocent "wall of separation" remark was being turned into some sort of rhetorical Chinese Wall, he would . . . well, be unhappy. Recent scholarship shows that he was a much more religious man than we might have believed.

If the real question deals with teaching theories, including "The Theory of Evolution," then the judge was not on solid ground. In schools, including the colleges and universities where I taught, the teaching of theories -- including those about democracy and representative government -- is encouraged.

It's allowable under the First Amendment. In fact, religious beliefs and the expression thereof are of course allowable under both the religion clause and the speech clause.

I realize that Mr. Humes, along perhaps with Associate Justices Breyer and Ginsberg, may dispute my views. . However, I don't see the grounds for the disagreement. I realize this line of argument -- based on the First Amendment -- may seem novel to Mr. Humes (and Mr. Victor perhaps most of all).

However, I can't help thinking that, without the "wall of separation" red herring (and the silly reference to the Scopes Trial), Mr. Humes would not have had much to say besides the fact that people often misuse the term "evolution."

I disagree with articles in the "Forum" from time to time. Yet I believe one of the purposes of the section is to get people to do just that. If so, it succeeds with me, sometimes beyond its wildest dreams.

Steve Maloney

I believe the Forum -- and the Op Ed page in the Monday through Saturday editions -- shouldn't be boring and predictable. If people like E. J. Dionne, Paul Krugman, and Ellen Goodman have anything new to teach us, they should demonstrate it in their writing. In fact, I'd say the same for conservatives like the wildly over-rated George Will.

In other words, don't we deserve some fresh perspectives, some new ways of looking at old issues? In my next column, I'll suggest some new approaches.

Save the Paper: Letter to David Shribman, Part II

2007-02-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

"Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease it's troubling." (David Geffen, on Bill & Hillary Clinton)

"Barack Obama is Bob Casey without the five o'clock shadow." (Anonymous)

Do newspapers, such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, have a future? They don't if they continue down the traditional path presenting a combination of unfocused, episodic "news" and unreflective opinions.

They may have a bright future if they give people complelling reasons to read them. If they can help people make money (or reduce expenses) and save time, they'll justify their existence. Changes in format and various types of gimmickry will not do the job.

In yesterday's column, I suggested that in terms of providing valuable information, newspapers have an advantage over the electronic media. Today, however (February 23, 2007) CNN made me reconsider some elements of my thesis.

On February 23, beginning with its 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. "early show," featuring Soledad and Miles O'Brien (unrelated co-hosts), CNN began a day-long effort it called "Fight Back Friday." It focused on problems people have with customer service, and it provided solutions for viewers. The emphasis was on how to fight back against providers of bad service.

One reporter talked about common rip-offs experienced with auto repairs, including: flushing out oil systems and cleaning engines -- both expensive and usually unnecessary. A repairman cited several ways to find a good place to get your car fixed: (1) see if the shop is clean and orderly; (2) check with people who have had work done at the place you're considering; (3) call the Better Business Bureau to see if there have been any complaints.

Another correspondent discussed ways to avoid getting cheated on home improvements. First, find out if the company has the proper license and insurance; second, don't pay more than 25%-30% up-front -- in case the contractor mysteriously disappears after getting your money; third, have a written contract; fourth, check with your local BBB to see if there have been any complaints.

CNN's business editor talked about the problems Americans have with cell phone, of which there are now more than 230 million. He noted that "Errors on cell phone billings are the single biggest complaints consumers have."

To solve the problem, you have to call the phone company. When talking to a representative there, you must avoid the tendency to vent or debate -- and instead focus on getting the problem solved. That won't happen unless you determine if the person you're speaking to has the authority to make the adjustments necessary.

The reporter pointed out that, when you call the company and get the right person, you do have leverage. For one thing, you can threaten to leave and go to another company. In addition, if you don't get satisfaction, you can inform the person you're going to call the FCC, which has authority over cell phone providers.

The CNN examples I've cited took place in about one hour. The advice given was was excellent. In terms of value to viewers -- including this one -- the program was an excellent investment of time. It was empowering in its strong indication that we do have recourses when enountering bad service.

With viewers and readers, people providing information need to establish the worth of what they're presenting. Consumers want an answer to the WIIFM question: "What's-in-it-for-me?" In other words, they don't want to waste their time viewing or reading things of little benefit to their lives.

I know: many newspapers (and maybe even a cable outlet or two) believe they're presenting "food for the brain." However, our brains are like some other organs in that they benefit most when used wisely. Frankly, today's 24X7 presentation of information -- "all news all the time" -- doesn't seem to have produced a better-informed populace. Admittedly, we do know a great deal about Anna Nicole Smith and Howard K. Stern than might be necessary.

Generally, the electronic media -- if capable of shame -- should be ashamed of themselves. Someone asked the other day, "Does TV make too much of the doings of celebrities?" The respondent, a professor of media said, "It makes too much of everything!"

The example of CNN's "Fight Back Friday," with its insightful presentation of useful information shows what the electronic media can do at its best. On the other hand, we all fear it will soon be back to its worst (Anna Nicole! Car bombing in Baghdad! Keith Olberman's and Chris Matthews' Opinions!)

Yet another correspondent on CNN talked about protecting yourself from identity theft on the Internet. He had many good ideas (don't ask a site to preserve your credit card number, test the site -- by testing it with a bogus card number -- to make sure it isn't fraudulent). Yet his effort to show a sure-fire way to enter unique, but memorable, passwords was a failure.

CNN showed his hands keying in numbers, but the process he was advocating was unclear. Fingers moving quickly over a keyboard weren't enlightening.

In fact, precision is something where newspapers have a big advantage. The print medium allows the spelling out, in black-and-white, of something like various methods of creating memorable passwords -- ones you can use without fear that hackers will figure them out. The networks can use block print on the screen, but it always seems to disappear before the viewer can find a pen and piece of paper.

Information on paper may end up wrapping the remains of yesterday's fish fry. However, paper is preservable. If you read something important, you can keep it around. Frankly, in a world where everything moves so quickly, things in print can have a very long shelf life. I still have the September 12, 2001 P-G, and I doubt I'm alone in that.

Granted, people don't really want to fill their heads with the musings of Reg Henry and Dennis Roddy. They want to reserve brain space for information that they value, that makes their lives better, that informs them in ways relevant to their existence.

For example, Tracie Mauriello of the P-G wrote some eye-popping pieces on exactly which Pennsylvania legislators (Mike DeWeese being featured) were extracting huge amounts of "expense" money from taxpayers. For Pennsylvania voters, Ms. Mauriello basically wrote a Voter's Guide. Frankly, taxpayers need to know who's misusing their money (Rep. DeWeese and others) and who's not (Rep. Jim Marshall and others).

Yes, newspapers need to tell us what happened -- but also WHY it happened. The "why" part leads to a large point: if something bad is happening (such as the endless stream of homicides in the Black community), the paper has to suggest both causes and ways to reduce its occurrence.

Otherwise, regularly reading the newspaper becomes an endless exercise in sadness and frustration.

This is part of a continuing series. One future piece (next week) will deal with the deficiencies of the P-G Sunday "Forum" (Opinion) section, especially in its new (and profoundly depressing) incarnation under the editorship of Greg Victor.

Survival Techniques for the Print Media: An Open Letter to David Shribman

2007-02-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

The story in Iraq is "a daily accumulation of terrible moments" (Mr. Ware, CNN"s Mideast correspondent in Iraq) No, that is not the ultimate reality of Iraq, which is really about the battle of ideas -- democracy and American values versus totalitarianism and Islamo-fascism. What Mr. Ware is describing is what CNN and other cable outlets find easiest to present (explosions), whereas the cultural struggle is something in which cable news has no real interest -- because it doesn't know how to deal with things like ideas. In fact, if you want to know what Iraq is truly about, you have to read a great deal on the subject.

The general view of the print media is that it's no longer economically viable and will go out of business in the next decade or so. Mr. Sulzberger of the New York Times recently said as much -- eliciting a strangled cry of dismay from one Tony Norman, associate editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I recently re-subscribed to that newspaper for six months, so if the end is near, I hope it won't occur before mid-July.

The print press is not equipped to give us, unlike MSNBC, CNN, and FoxNews, wall-to-wall coverage about the disposition of Anna Nicole Smith's body -- or about the latest moves into and out of rehab by Britney Spears. However, the print media can do many things that the electronic version can't -- mainly discuss in depth issues of great importance to many people, if not not to most.

What does the print media have to do to survive? It has to present information of value to the intelligent people of America. The stupid people of America, roughly half of the adult population, don't want to read newspapers or weekly magazines. Rather, they want to find out what's up with Anna Nicole, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton. In regard to such celebrities, they want "breaking news," which consists of trivial developments ("Cororner says Anna Nicole's body is deteriorating!) or "reports" (rumors about whether Britney is reconsidering the value of wearing underwear or about whether X-Fed is seeking custody or not).

To succeed, the print press must emulate certain aspects of my blog. For example, I've suggested ways users of prescription drugs can save hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars on their medications. I've indicated -- and done the math -- that if many people followed my advice the nation could save tens of billions of dollars. I've told people what questions to ask their doctors and pointed out what drug stores (Wal-Mart, Target, Giant Eagle) offer the best buys. I've indicated what drugs (Avandia, Lipitor, and others) are wildly over-priced and, for most people, are terrible values.

The information I present is a more intellectualized version of what the wonderful Yvonne Zanos does on KDKA-TV. She tells which Internet-advertised products work well -- and which don't. Recently, she's been telling viewers what seasons of the year are the best times to buy certain products, including furniture and automobiles.

In short, the idea is to have people fork over their 25 cents or 50 cents for the paper -- and to receive several dollars (and maybe a lot more) in return. It's okay for newspapers to appeal to people's minds, but it's probably wiser to appeal to their wallets.

It has to make economic sense for people to read newspapers. If you're not saving money -- or increasing the amount you already have -- then go watch the entertaining stuff (Anna Nicole! Britney!) on cable.

Modern newspapers are full of material that almost nobody reads, and the P-G is Exhibit A. Do we really need additional columns by Maureen Dowd telling about what a smuck George Bush is? Do we really need more grumpy essays by George Will pointing out that American politicians in general are not as wise as, well, George Will? We badly need some fresh perspectives, and this town is full of people who can provide them.

We desperatedly require diversity of opinion. Right now, there is some, including the columns by Jack Kelly. We need fewer iterations of the obvious. In the case of the P-G, by moving some of its columnists (especially Sally Kalson and Dennis Roddy) back to the news-gathering field, it has performed a public service.

The newspaper already does some of the things I'm suggesting. For example, it provides movie reviews and book reviews, but they tend to have an academic patina that's off-putting to mere mortals. The emphasis should be on saving people money and time. (The same general point is true of more idea-based writing, which I'll discuss in a later column.)

An example of the money-time issue: Bob Hoover, the editor of the book-review session, wrote a review of Richard Ford's new book, Lay of the Land. He and I communicated back and forth about the value of reading that volume. I did read it -- twice -- and found Mr. Hoover had described its virtues and failing very well.

It's a 500-page book, and reading it carefully requires almost a week's worth of time. Time is in fact money. As poet Delmore Schwartz put it, time also "is the fire in which we burn." Was it worth burning up a week of my life to read Ford's novel? Hoover made the case for my doing so, and he turned out to be right.

Most days, my P-G is "full of an accumulation of horrible moments." In the thinking of editor Shribman and others, "that's the way it is." A mother and her children die in a terrible fire in Greene County. American women are dying in large numbers from heart disease. Pennsylvania leads the nation in inmates sentenced as juveniles with parole.

What readers should know is the ultimate answer to an overriding question: What can we do about such things? When bad things are happening, how can we eliminate or reduce their occurrence? What steps can we take? What actions can we initiate not only to save money but also to save lives?

In fact, some of the observations I've made in recent months on drug prices -- a critical concern for many Americans -- have come in part from information I've gotten from newspapers, newsweeklies, the Internet, and books. Almost none of it has come from the televison or radio media

I don't expect the newspaper to have all the answers, but it has the resources to provide at least some solutions. CNN isn't going to do it, so the task lies to the print arena.

There will be more about this subject in the coming days.

Mary Grabar: Conservative Christian Superstar

2007-02-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted that Dr. Mary Grabar has given me permission to reprint her "Letter to a Stupid Atheist," which originally appeared in www.Townhall.com. As my title suggests, I believe Mary Grabar is a "Conservative Christian Superstar." She has the potential to be more influential than Ann Coulter, another favorite of mine.

Mary is a native of Rochester, NY, where I was born and went to school. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Georgia, where I taught English for seven years -- well before her "time." A mother and a novelist, she appears regularly in Townhall.com, where she is one of the most popular regulars.

Her "Stupid Atheist" piece motivated 169 people to comment, the highest number of responses I've ever seen on Townhall's web site. You can learn more about Mary on www.MaryGrabar.com.

Letter to a Stupid Atheist
By Mary GrabarSunday, February 18, 2007
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Dear Sam Harris:

I hope you don’t mind that I’ve adapted the title of your bestselling pamphlet bound between two hard covers and foisted on to an ignorant public as a book. Of course, I am referring to your pretentious Letter to a Christian Nation.

In this little polemic you take the liberty of directly addressing those like me who believe in the divinity of Christ and in the truth of Bible. Your primary charge against me is holding thoughts and beliefs that do not square with yours. You do show some mercy and leniency toward those you deem moderate and liberal—those vaguely Unitarian, who believe Christ was a cool dude, with some nice ideas, who would have gone to peace marches--but not much more. I take your upbraiding personally, as I think you intend.

My letter is addressed also to those who fall into the category you do. I have seen them—biologists with visibly rising blood pressure at college debates, writers of angry rhetoric in “humanist” magazines, bitter middle-aged men still chasing skirts, and one college sophomore who stands out in my memory among the hundreds of students I have taught over the years.

I can’t remember the young man’s name, but I’ll call him Sammy. Since the class was a survey class on early British literature we couldn’t avoid reading distinctly Christian literature, like religious poetry and mystery plays.
Sammy sat towards the back of the class. He was bright and articulate and I believe he earned at least a B. Away from parents who apparently sent him to church most Sundays, Sammy was feeling his oats amidst 30,000-plus students, and the professors from whom he took up the challenge to think “outside the box.” He prided himself on his independence of thought, and like you, revisited the Bible. He found it did not square with what he was learning in Biology 101.

Like many liberals he assumed the mantle of bravery by speaking out in class. He ‘spoke to power’—the ultimate power you might say. (But we know who else did that; he figures prominently in a poem by John Milton.) So whenever we came to a passage that alluded to religious faith Sammy would add to class discussion by declaring it “poppycock.” He boldly used the same word on papers.

I tried to be charitable. I asked Sammy to address the concerns in more scholarly language. I marked his papers for diction. (“Poppycock” is too colloquial, I wrote.) I asked him to reconsider his assessment of all Christians as stupid and bad.

I thus avoided getting into a heated debate on religion in that public university, a place where the only debates on religion allowed in the classroom are about the various degrees to which Christians are wrong, stupid, and bad.
This young man, like you, Sam Harris, put his faith in science. I believe that he, like you, equated goodness with the absence of suffering. Although he carried a pinched, sour expression, he did not strike me as anyone who would deliberately harm another. He probably was a vegetarian.

Mr. Harris, you charge us Christians with holding back scientific research on stem cells that you insist could alleviate suffering. You charge us with crimes against humanity by our concern over “blastocysts,” clumps of cells, unable to feel pain, much less consciousness--according to science. Indeed, you present all the progress of science up to this point in the twenty-first century as the model that should replace religion, which you call superstition, as the basis for ethics. Use science to help humanity is your cry.

But this was a motto used throughout the twentieth century by other “bold” thinkers who thought for themselves; there were many around in the 1930s. I don’t want to charge you with plagiarism, but I have not found one statement in your little tract that differs in any way from their points of argument.

You seem to put an incredible amount of faith in science, Mr. Harris. But many before you did too. Were you aware that at one time a group of scientists fancied themselves on the cutting edge for their belief in the science of phrenology, or the assessment of character by skull size, shape, and topology? These men presented scientific papers on their clinical work, which involved fondling and measuring skulls. I am quite surprised, Mr. Harris, that you would put so much faith in an endeavor whose base of knowledge changes on a daily basis. Think back to all the scientific theories of even a decade ago that have been surpassed. Think about how we scoff at the foolish scientific ideas of our father’s and grandfather’s times.

You have a degree in philosophy, I see, but were you aware that science as a mode of thought came about through monotheism? You see, the idea of a single creator made it possible for human beings to view creation as separate from spirit. And thus humanity advanced from one that believed that spirits lived in trees and rocks to one that believed that one Creator created this intricately marvelous world we live in. The scientific endeavor then became one where individuals observed and studied various aspects of this creation. That is called science.

That is what was presented to my son’s Cub Scout troop by a chemistry professor and a Christian (and not of the moderate or liberal persuasion of your approved list). After amazing the boys and fulfilling their natural little-boy pyromania proclivities with shows of bubbles, bangs, and mini-explosions over Bunsen burners, the professor presented them this carry-away thought: though they might be impressed by the magic that he performed they should remember the greater magic that made all that possible to begin with.

I thought you might enjoy that little story, Mr. Harris.

And since science changes, or as you like to think, progresses, I wonder what you would say if science, forty years from now, when you are nearing 80, would find some use in the cells or organs of 80-year-old men for the benefit of those much younger and of more use to society?

You feel that an ethical system can be based on the feelings of empathy that have evolved in us. You share your colleague Peter Singer’s view. Singer, Ira DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, gushes with sympathy for little piglets—to the point where he thinks the healthy ones should be allowed to live, while the handicapped month-old baby should be put out of its misery. He begins his argument, as he necessarily must, by doing away with Biblical principles and law: the idea that we are formed in God’s image, and therefore are above animals. He, like you, thinks that Christian proscriptions—like those against killing babies or having sex with animals--are just so much “poppycock.”

You answer your critics about the atheism of twentieth-century dictators: “Christians like yourself,” you write, “invariably declare that monsters like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Kim Il Sung spring from the womb of atheism. While it is true that such men are sometimes enemies of organized religion, they are never especially rational.”

But would you hold up Professor Singer as an example of a rational person? How about the other respected professionals—the doctors and professors--who wrote academic and policy papers on their new-found procedures of gassing “idiots” and “imbeciles” in Germany? The method went through its testing phase in teaching hospitals on subjects who were too young or too retarded to be deemed rational enough to “live a life worth living.” Hitler then grasped onto this idea of “scientific advancement” and applied the procedure on a massive scale to other groups, as we know.

While you deem Hitler “delusional,” what about the doctors who gassed three-year-olds? What about Professor Singer, who feels that euthanasia is appropriate for infants—if their parents make that “choice”?

What words of comfort would you give to the father of the three-year-old child dying from leukemia (as some, in spite of the advances of science, still do). Would you advise him to euthanize the child to prevent suffering (being as tender-hearted as you are)? Would you explain that this is natural selection?

You pride yourself on your belief in equality, in democracy, and point to the “barbarism” of the Old Testament in its treatment of women and slaves (though you didn’t bother to research the translation of the term “slave” from a more general one meaning “servant” and the Biblical reference to slavery as an historical fact that Christians had to deal with, and not something they promoted). But did you know that historically Christianity was the first real democracy? Yes, even secularists and “progressives” admit that. It is a widely accepted historical fact.

But I notice that your little book, displayed prominently in the bookstore chains, even among the suggested “holiday” reading of the last Christmas season, has been flying off the tables. It entered the New York Times bestseller list almost immediately and remains at #3 on Publishers Weekly Religion Bestsellers.

I have seen the customers who fondled your book and read the jacket with self-satisfied expressions. These were the ones you blessed as “progressive” in your pages. Your condemnatory letter was not addressed to them. Your little tome at $16.95 graces their bookshelves along with those by Bill Moyers and the atheist authors you recommend. These progressives proudly display their reading material as they serve canapés and cocktails to similarly correct-minded, nipped and Botox-ed activists, who only really just want what is good for us.

Your slim, easy-to-read pamphlet is just right for trips to the salon, masseuse, and transcendental meditation retreat. Your fans cluck over the ignorance and benightedness of those like me—their gold and diamonds shining in the ambient light of their converted warehouse condos. You amaze them with your profundity, your ability to string together clichés and tired arguments, and in 91 small widely spaced pages tear down the foundations of the civilization put in place by millennia of thinkers and the Church Fathers. For your book, they whipped out the credit cards from Louis Vuitton bags.

They also paid to see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and thought it was a documentary.

Mary Grabar graduated from the University of Georgia with a Ph.D. in English and currently teaches at a university in Atlanta.

Muslim Women Writers: Asra Nomani and Aryann Hirsi Ali

2007-02-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

I sent the following e-mail to Asra Nomani (her web site is asranomani.com), an author and a friend of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal writer butchered (reportedly by Khalid Sheik Muhammed, now residing in Guantanomo, after being kidnapped by Sheik Omar) in Pakistan. Over the next few weeks I hope to write some columns about Islam, which I generally regard as a plague on humanity, and some of its critics. The author I mention in the letter, Ms. Ali, wrote a book called "Infidel," and I found her to be brilliant and compelling in her appearance on C-Span. I never watch C-Span -- it reminds me too much of the academic world -- but I'm glad I did this one time. I also hope, with Mary Grabar's consent, to reprint her superb recent article on the eternal truth of the Christian faith.

The CNN program I mention is "The Journalist and the Jihadist," which dealt with the Pearl's murder and his kidnapper, Sheik Omar. Ms. Nomani was good in the program, but the producer being CNN it had some of that "where did we go wrong?" nonsense in dealing with Omar, a Mohammed Atta-type who was educated (not well) in England.

Dear Asra: I wrote a couple of years ago when you were conducting your campaign at the Morgantown mosque [where she shocked the local Muslim worthies, mostly faculty and student at West Virginia University, by entered through the front door!]. I'm looking forward to reading your book about your struggles with Islam. Ann Rodgers of the Post-Gazette wrote an article about you and was nice enough to let me know how to e-mail you.

At the time, I was pessimistic about the direction of Islam, and I'm more so now. The frantic effort by radical Muslims to block any debate about the Prophet Muhammed or the Quran means the religion will continue to be a testament to backwardness.

In America, as you know, we keep waiting for the "moderate Muslims" to take a stand against the Islamo-fascists. I fear we shall wait unto eternity before that happens. Moderate Muslims are afraid to stand up for decency and tolerance; if they do, they fear they may be killed. It reminds me a great deal of the "good Germans" during the 1930s.

I'm sure you must be encountering (both senses of that word) Aryann Hirsi Ali, the Somalia-born author of "Infidel." I saw her on C-Span -- a channel I almost never watch -- today and I found her to be brilliant and her message riveting.

Recently, I saw you on Christiane Amanpour's "Journalist and the Jihadist." Of course, your comments were very good. On the whole, however, I wonder if the program didn't fall into the trap described by Ms. Ali. It dealt with Omar as a boy of great promise who went astray. I sensed an element of "There but for the Grace of Allah, Omar might have beome . . . Daniel Pearl." That's not at all a message reflective of what happened to Daniel, seemingly a wonderful guy who was slaughtered by a bunch of Muslim thugs.

In fact, Sheik Omar is a mass murdererer, a psychopath who has embraced a form of "religion" that is utterly despicable. To suggest that he's merely misguided, as CNN did, is to misread the man and the movement he reflects.

Ms. Ali said today that it's necessary we talk to Muslims as grown-ups, that we engage them in a debate which many of them would rather avoid. I'll have to read your book to determine if you've arrived at that point. I hope you have.

Today on C-Span Ali had made the point that three-quarters of what the Prophet said has little or no relevance to the 21st century. A Muslim man in the audience, obviously wounded by what she said, basically questioned her on how she could make such a statement.

In paraphrase, her response was: Look, this is America, where you are free to say what you believe. She added that, if she made that point in a Muslim country she would be "killed."

I respectfully submit that I don't think the CNN audience -- or the chattering classes in America, including the good people at the Wall Street Journal -- get that point.

As I said, I wish you well, Asra.

Steve MaloneyAmbridge, PA

C.S. Lewis: Bravery, Courage, and Heroic Women

2007-02-16T18:28:00.000-08:00

This column is dedicated to Professor Albert C. Labriola, who as a Captain in Viet Nam, was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry.

"At the end of C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy assume their rightful thrones as Kings and Queens of Narnia. Lewis dedicates only one sentence to describing how they governed during the Golden Age of Narnia, but it is interesting to hear his summary of their most important accomplishments. Lewis tells us that they 'made good laws and kept the peace and saved good trees from being cut down and liberated young dwarfs and satyrs from being sent to school and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live.'"

-- From Micheal Flaherty, "Let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage,' Imprimis, February, 2007. Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College, www.hillsdale.edu. Micheal Flaherty is president of Walden Media, a company that -- in association with the Walt Disney Company, produced the Academcy-award winning film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Click on the Imprimis link and you can get the publication for free.

C. S. Lewis, one of the 20th century's most wonderful individuals, didn't like busybodies and interferers. He had a lot of respect for young dwarfs and satyrs, as well as for all those ordinary people -- in America, we generally call them "Republicans" -- "who wanted to live and let live."

In having the Kings and Queens of Narnia celebrate as their first act as liberating dwarfs and satyrs from going to school, Lewis is not downplaying the importance of education. Instead, he's questioning the value of a certain kind of education, the type we generally call "practical" and that serves as a major source of yawns and clock-watching.

As Flaherty reminds us, that's a kind of education Lewis identifies in The Voyage of the Dawn Trader. He introduces us there to "a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubbs," an appelation he "almost deserved."

We get to know Eustace quickly through the description of the reading material he preferred. "He liked books if they were [ones] of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools." In Lewis' view, Eustance "had read only the wrong books."

Lewis believes a child should read books, perhaps exactly like the ones he wrote, that confront him (or her) with reality. He rejects the view that "we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil."

Basically, he's saying that the Eustaces of the world -- I think of people like John Murtha, Bararck Obama, and John Edwards -- are engaging in "escapism," failing to to understand the sometimes-tragic nature of life. The view is similar to that of Flannery O'Connor, who understood that modern secularism and realism walled mankind off from the real nature of existence.

About the needs of children, C. S. Lewis observed: "Since it is so likely they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise, you are making their destiny not brighter but darker."

I've written recently about Senator Barack Obama, who has said that "3,000 American lives" lost in Iraq "were wasted." Later, of course, the Senator apologized -- lamely and unconvincingly. Frankly, if Obama believes the Iraq War was a terrible idea right from the start, then his notion that the dead soldiers "wasted" their lives follows. He wants to be "for" the troops -- most of them voters -- but he comprehends almost nothing about who they aren what they believe.

He's a man who never has demonstrated courage in his own life. Running for safe seats and spouting leftist cliches don't constitute courage.

I was thinking about Obama while I read Ken Follett's Jackdaws, one of his many volumes featuring female heroes. The book's dedication is as follows: "Exactly fifty [British] women were sent into France as secret agents [spies and saboteurs working with the Resistance] by the Special Operations Executive [SOE] during the Second World War. Of those, thirty-six survived the war. The other fourteen gave their lives. This book is dedicated to all of them."

On the slight chance someone like Barack Obama (or John Murtha) knows about these women, do they think they wasted their lives? I fear I know the answer. In fact, before Hitler's invasion of Poland, hundreds of thousands of British people signed the "King and Country Resolution." It said, "Resolved, I will not fight for King or Country." Reportedly, the anti-war sentiment emboldened Hitler, who actually didn't need a lot of emboldening. People who signed "King and Country" presumably thought war was synonymous with wasted lives.

What do real soldiers, such as Follett's 50 women and the Coalition soldiers in Iraq think about the worth of the lives they're putting on the line?

The heroine of Jackdaws is Felicity Clairet, a British citizen known to her friends as "Flick." Her SOE code-name, an appropriate one, is "Leopardess." Married to a Frenchman in the Resistance, she's a lover of French culture.

As the book opens, she's waiting with a Resistance Group to attack a well-guarded telephone exchange in German-occupied France. We read, "Her heart's desire was that the real France would come back. It might return soon, if she and people like her did what they were supposed to."

We continue to read Flick's thoughts: "She might not live to see it -- indeed, she might not survive the next few minutes. There were a hundred things she planned to do after the war: finish her doctorate, have a baby, see New York, own a sports car, drink champagne on the beach at Cannes." The idea is that one does what one is supposed to -- which might be quite different from what one wants to.

Her thoughts continue: "But if she was about to die, she was glad to be spending her last few moments in a sunlit square, looking at a beautiful old house, with the lilting sounds of the French language soft in her ears."

On balance, C. S. Lewis would have loved Jackdaws. He had much in common with "Flick" and would have saluted her courage and passion for life.

I don't believe Bararck Obama, the quintessence of a glib pretty boy, would have understood Flick. I do believe he would have thought that she may very well be wasting her lives -- and the lives of the Resistance men and women about to attack the Gestapo-guarded chalet.

Are people like Flick Clairet, individuals willing to give their lives -- and perhaps be subjected to hideous torture by Gestapo thugs -- ones we find only in fiction? Actually, author Follett bases the character of Flick on a woman named Pearl Witherington, an SOE agent who ended up leading a force of 2,000 Resistance operatives.
Awarded a civil medal the Medal of the British Empire, or MBE, rather the Military Cross she deserved, Witherington returned it, observing that "she had done nothing civil."

There are Flick Clairets and Pearl Witheringtons serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Increasingly, they're involved in combat, and they're dying with more frequency than their British counterparts in World War II.

More than 155,000 women have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, according to the Pentagon, nearly four times the number during the Persian Gulf War.

Females now account for 15% of the active duty force. The number of women casualties — 68 dead and more than 430 injured — represents a tiny fraction of the total. Still, by one estimate, the female deaths exceed the number of military women who lost their lives in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War combined.

Two women who've served in Iraq may deserve special note, Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester and Specialist Ashley Pullen, both members of the Kentucky National Guard. Sergeant Hester is the first woman since World War II to win the nation's second-highest military honor, the Silver Star. Specialist Pullen won the Bronze Star.

Both women won their medals near Salmon Pak, formerly known under Saddam as a major terrorist training center. They were defending a convoy that came under attack by a large number of insurgents.

Specialist Pullen got her Bronze Star for "incredible courage" shown as she disregarded enemy fire and rescuing a male Sergeant who'd been badly wounded. Sergeant Hester won her award for counterattacking with her unit and killing many insurgents. Her award reads that "she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 rounds."

At the same time, she gave all the credit to her commander, Timothy Nein, also awarded the Siver Star, and her fellow soldiers in "Raven 42."

Hester gives the following advice to young women thinking of enlisting in the military: "'If you have a goal or a dream, you can do it.' noting that there are few limitations on female soldiers. 'If your heart is set on it, don't let anything stand in your way.'"

It strikes me that people like Pearl Witherington, Leigh Anne Hester, and Ashley Pullen hardly seem to inhabit the same planet as people like Obama and Murtha. The latter two presumably believe in themselves, but the women mentioned believe in something larger than themselves. Specifically, they believe in their country and their comrades.

I'm sure C. S. Lewis was proud of Pearl Witherington, his courageous countrywoman. I'm equally certain he'd be proud of Sgt. Hester and Spc. Pullen.

Following is a link to the "Military News" story about Hester and Pullen: http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/02/03/1689-new-womens-museum-exhibit-features-kentucky-national-guard-sergeant/

John Murtha: The Most Ex of Ex-Marines

2007-02-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

I sent copies of this piece to Jerome Sherman, a national politics writer for the Post-Gazette and Bill Toland, who writes on western PA issues for the same paper. Generally, Jerome does a good job, although I sometimes feel as if he's constrained by the need to have "good relations" (i.e., not to ask embarrassing questions) with federal officials, especially John Murtha (PA 12th District) and Jason Altmire (PA 4th District). Murtha is an "expert" on military matters who seems to rely mainly on public opinion polls to make military judgments. Altmire is an "expert on health care" (self-described) who is clueless about the real reforms needed in health care.

Murtha has used his position as head of the House Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations to enrich a relative (Kit Murtha), various former associates (especially Paul Magliocchetti), and big contributors to his campaign (UPMC and others). Bill Toland doesn't see a whole lot wrong with that, viewing it basically as politics as usual. It is, in fact, against the law to trade votes for money, a point the P-G historically had found difficult to grasp. Following is a copy of the note I wrote to Jerome Sherman.

Hi Jerome:

I know Bill Toland thinks that asking a journalist questions or disagreeing with him is bad form, but you -- unlike Bill -- seem open to constructive criticism. Bill apparently had an extensive interview with Murtha prior to the election, and if he threw him anything but softballs, I must have missed it. Kissy-face is NOT serious journalism, no matter how mellifluous the prose. Shame, because he "couda been a contenduh."

John Murtha: He and his mistress' voice (Ms. Pelosi's) say they "support the troops" but oppose the troops' mission. The (Democratic) governor of Wyoming said last fall that was "a distinction without a difference." I don't understand what kind of distinction Murtha is making, but it seems to make no sense, and I wish someone would ask him.

If the U.S. leaves Iraq in a hurry, the country will be dominated by terrorists: Sunni and Shia (backed by Iran, a state supporter of terrorism). Does Cong. Murtha agree with that almost universally accepted view?

Also, what strategic and tactical steps does John Murtha think the U.S. should take in the war against terrorism (Al Qadea, Hezbollah, and assorted hangers-on)?

I follow Murtha closely, and I have no idea what his response, if any, would be. In terms of his desire to "protect" American soldiers, how would threatening to cut off funds do that? If the generals in charge don't have the capacity to increase troops and to redeploy them as necessary, how in hell does that "protect" them?

Does John Murtha, the most ex- of ex-Marines, think, all things considered, it would be better if the terrorists won? If he believes this war is unwinnable, does he believe the general War on Terrorism is unwinnable?

In regard to Murtha and Pelosi: recently, Murtha threatened (the right word) the Pentagon for "leaking" information about Pelosi's desire for a plane the size of Air Force II. Ms. Pelosi denied -- falsely, I believe -- that she wanted such a plane. Apparently, Congressman Murtha, ex-Marine, made the inquiry to the Pentagon. If not, what exactly was the purpose of the threat?

John Murtha doesn't answer my phone calls -- well, I'm not in his district nor do I dole out campaign funds to him -- so I can't get answers to what I think are very good questions.

I will come clean: I don't believe John Murtha, ex-Marine, gives a hoot in hell about American soldiers or the War on Terrorism. Overall, he reminds me of John Adams' comments about the governmental seat-warmers of an earlier day: "Few die, none retire."

steve maloney
ambridge, pa

The War in Iraq: The Democrats' Best Friend

2007-02-10T12:27:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Army announced today that Sgt. Russell Kurtz, age 22, from Bethel Park, PA, a member of the 4th Airborne Combat Team, was killed in action over the weekend in Fallulujah. Russ was an excellent student and a star football player in high school. I talked briefly to him after a football game in 2002, saluting him for his good play during his career. After being notified of her son's death, his mother said the following about why he enlisted rather than going to college: "He didnÂt want others fighting and dying for him if he wasn't willing to do the same."

I don't want to be uncharitable. However, I don't see ANYTHING in common between someone like Russ Kurtz and presidential candidates like Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards. I don't see the latter three as people to whom personal courage, integrity, and selflessness are important. Because they lack any understanding of what Kurtz stood for, I don't see them as placing any special value on him as human being.

John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, doesn't have a Southwestern Pennsylvania accent, but he's a brother under the skin to people like Russ Kurtz. Howard says the terrorists in Iraq should be praying for the election of Obama and "the Democrats." Impolitic perhaps, but brutally accurate.

In this column, I've called the war in Iraq "the Democrats' best friend." I did so because it's an article of faith with Democrats such as John Murtha that opposition to "Bush's War" is good politics. It "energizes the base," the collection of left-wingers who dominate Democratic primary voting and who have absolutely no comprehension of what drives the Russ Kurtzes of the world -- the members of the Warrior Nation who fight the wars and protect our nation.

My criticism may be harsh, but it's not -- as they say in the business world -- "shrill." It happens to be the truth.

The Democratic Party won the election of 2006 mainly because the public had soured on President Bush and, by extension, the Republican Party. Democrats who are running for the 2008 presidential nomination realize that one issue will determine the nominee for President, which probably will be Hillary Clinton. Barack is of course running for Vice-President.

In Obama's announcement (surprise!) that he was running for President, he emphasized that he was against the War before it even began. Perhaps he opposed it before he was born.

His opponent, Hillary, recited her mantra, "If I knew then what I know now, I would have voted against . . . whoopty-do."

Obama's head-cheerleader, Senator Dick Durbin (D, IL) clarified his Illinois counterpart's position: he wants all U.S. "combat troops" out by March, 2008, 13 months from now. Of course, Durbin added (to Obama media-enthusiast Chris Matthews) that the 2008 deadline didn't mean there wouldn't be troops there "training" Iraqis, but all the men and women in combat would be somewhere else. Perhaps in John Murtha's Okinawa?

How exactly do Obama and Clinton propose to fight terrorism? By calling for a quick exit from Iraq -- and soon after from Afghanistan? By X-raying 11 million cargo containers? By not keeping out potential terrorists who cross our borders illegally? By handing out enough yellow ribbons to grace every remaining oak tree in America?

All Democratic candidates for President, even the thoroughly marginal ones like Vilsack, Biden, and Dodd, oppose the President's "surge," which they call the "escalation," picking a term out of the anti-Viet Nam playbook. Of course, all of them voted for -- or at least didn't vote against -- naming General David Petraeus commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq. Of course, Petraeus is the main architect of the surge. Go figure.

The poet Yeats once said "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." He was wrong about the best, people like Churchill and Roosevelt, but he wasn't wrong about the worst.

A generation ago, John F. Kennedy said, "Let every nation know, whether friend or foe, that we will bear any burden, pay any price, to ensure the survival of liberty." If Obama had said anything like that in Springfield, IL, he would have been booed off the stage. He didn't see any irony announcing in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, who managed a war in which 600,000 Americans died.

One talking point for Democrats generally is that they "support the troops, but not the War." As the Democratic governor of Wyoming said many months ago -- but probably not currently -- that's "a distinction without a difference."

When I say the war is the Democrats' best friend, I mean their support for "the troops" is mainly rhetorical. Democrats regularly cite the polls showing that a majority of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, but they also read the polls that show a majority of military people -- soldiers and their families -- continue supportorr the commander-in-chief, President Bush.

Frankly, the more horrors we see on TV each night, the better it is for the Democrats. Many left-wingers hate the sight of blood, even though it will rarely if ever be their blood. The lesson they learned from 9/11 seems to be that if we hide under the bed the Qaidaeda bogeyman won't hurt us. But as somebody like Russ knew, if he don't hurt al Qaida first, it surely will hurt us. .

Like John Kerry and Charlie Rangel, the Democrats generally know that soldiers aren't really part of their constituency. Some Democrats have implied the supposed intellectual deficiencies of soldiers and their families is the reason for their political backwardness. Admittedly, I can't see Russ Kurtz -- or the millions like him -- wearing an "Obama" or a "Clinton" campaign button.

What the Democrats are proposing is to cede the psychological and public relations wars to the terrorists. They're willing to make individuals like Russ Kurtz expendable. John Howard knows that, and so does most of the American military.

I shall miss you Russ. You knew instinctively that dying on your feet was far superior to living on your knees. RIP.

Rendell's Recipe for Health Care Disaster -- and the Real Solutions

2007-02-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

"Mitt Romney has made it officially official that he's going to be an official candidate for the Republican nomination for President." (T. J. Lemon on CNN, February 6, 2007)

In Sunday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Forum" online, Matthew Brouillette of the Commonwealth Foundation had a superb article on health care reform. Needless to say, his piece differed dramatically from the disastrous "tax-and-subsidize" plan endorsed by Gov. Ed Rendell.

You can see the Brouillette essay at: www.post-gazette.com/pg/07035/758675-109.stm.

Regarding Rendell's tax-heavy, government-dominated health proposals, Brouillette says:

". . . [T]he governor's "Prescription for Pennsylvania" will fail: He is prescribing treatment for the symptom rather than the cause of the problem. Expanding insurance coverage at taxpayers' expense without first addressing the factors that are driving up health-care costs will only exacerbate our health-care problems. Under the governor's scheme, neither the cost of health care nor the cost of insurance will ever become reasonably priced for the average Pennsylvanian. A cynic might suggest that the failure of our health-care system is precisely what Gov. Rendell hopes for in order to push for his ideal of a government-run, taxpayer-funded health-care system."

Brouillette says that truly reforming health care will require seven proposals, including:

Giving individuals the same tax benefits for purchasing health insurance as businesses;
Allowing individuals and small businesses to better pool resources to purchase private insurance;
Expanding Health Savings Accounts and access to high-deductible insurance plans;
Making health-care prices more transparent for consumers;
Permitting individuals and businesses to purchase insurance outside Pennsylvania;
Reducing insurance-coverage mandates, and,
Enacting reasonable limits on lawsuit awards for noneconomic damage.

Here's what I said in an e-mail to Brouillette in response to his article:

I want to salute you for your article in the Post-Gazette "Forum" section on Sunday. Rendell's "Prescription" Plan is a disaster; it will raise the cost of health care and lower its quality.

I'm sure you're familiar with David Gratzer's "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care." He describes his experience in Canada as a medical student who took a short-cut through a hospital emergency section. He found patients, many of them sweat- and/or urine-soaked, who'd been waiting for days on stretchers. Lucky them: they all had government sponsored health insurance.

I've written about how my experience on Medicare Plan D, a program that encourages patient choice, has saved my wife and me thousands of dollars every year -- and, if extended throughout the health care system, could save Americans tens of billions. I'm hoping that the personal approach I'm using will get through to people blinded by the "visions" of Hillary-Care or Rendell-care.

One effort I'm undertaking -- talk about Heracles cleansing the Augean stables -- is to establish an information-system online that would provide information about doctors in the Ambridge, PA. (Some of them here are wonderful.) It would contain information about costs -- and about significant matters such as how many refills doctors provide for medications taken to treat chronic conditions.

Frankly, some doctors (my old one in Carnegie) give 2-3 refills, which basically is a device to keep patients returning (at cost) to the doctor's office. My physicians in Ambridge give refills for five months, and they charge less for visits.

Sad to say, many doctors HATE to give information about treatment and service. I'm paying less in Ambridge for more service than I did in Carnegie, but for anybody to find that out now, they'd have to ask me.

In my blog, I pointed out that Wal-Mart provides me with three-months of a diabetes med (Metformin) at 10 mg. levels than CVS charges for a ONE-MONTH supply at 5 mg. How many people know such things? If they have first-dollars coverage, they wouldn't even notice the huge price disparity.

I've also pointed out that the diabetes med Avandia ($160 a month retail) doesn't work better for most people (including me) than $4 a month Metformin. Start multiplying monthly cost savings in the hundreds of dollars by millions of people and hundreds of drugs and, well, you get the idea.

There are problems with transparency and economics in health care generally. Without much better inforamtion, patients will keep making bad choices and costs will continue skyrocketing.

Overall, to solve our nation's health care problems, we need more of the following: doctors (and physician assistants), emergency rooms, information about health services and costs, more patient choices. Most of all, as Dr. David Gratzer points out in his book The Cure, we need intensified competition -- and less government control.

Note: Matthew J. Brouillette, cited above, is president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a public policy research and educational institute located in Harrisburg mjb@commonwealthfoundation.org

Senator Fumo and the P-G Editorial Staff: Brothers Under the Skin

2007-02-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

Powerful State Senator Vincent J. Fumo, Philadelphia Democrat, expects to be indicted and has stepped down from his position as minority party chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The charges apparently will be that he used a nonprofit organization for personal and political gain and -- the words of an AP story -- "that employees of his staff serve a similar purpose." ("Philadelphia senator expects indictment," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, B-1)

Senator Fumo said, "I know in my heart that I have not done anything illegal." I know in my own heart that the Senator is a human landfill of malfeasance and cynicism. In short, as legislators in PA go, he's typical.

There's no report on whether Governor Ed Rendell, himself a Philadelphia politician, assumed his Claude Rains role where he indicates that he's "shocked -- shocked" when totally predictable events like the Fumo indictment take place. The governor may be too busy proposing huge tax increases -- which he neglected to mention in his recent campaign -- to react to the relatively steady stream of indictments that take place in Pennsylvania.

As the AP article notes, one of the penalties resulting from Fumo's indictment will be his loss of the 15 (!!!!) staffers attendant on his office. Also, he'll endure a decline in salary -- from $98,690 to a mere $73,613. Poor man.

Business as usual in Pennsylvania.

Even the editorial staff of the P-G emerged from its long nap to denounce what's occurring in Harrisburg, saying that recent revelations "complete the picture of an arrogant legislative culture that reflects almost as badly on the rank and file as on the caucus leaders . . . ."

The P-G editorial criticizes the members of the legislature who elect said caucus leaders, such as the thoroughly corrupt Bill DeWeese (House minority leader). But let's go further and criticize the editorial board that consistently endorses the members -- especially the Democrats -- who vote for the caucus leaders.

As for Governor Rendell, he ran a thoroughly deceitful campaign, neglecting to mention his commitment to sharply raising taxes on individuals, small businesses, cigarette smokers, and nearly everyone else not yet escaping across the Pennsylvania border. Moreover, he ran vicious commercials against his opponent, Lynn Swann -- including one film noir doozy that bordered on racism. It made Swann look like a Harlem numbers kingpin from the 1940s.

The P-G apparently found no problem with the Rendell campaign, and it enthusiastically endorsed the Governor. The publication did no investigation into the massive amount of funds raised by Rendell. It didn't ask who was giving the money or what they were getting for their "donations."

The paper endorsed various "reform" candidates, such as Chelsa Wagner, niece of long-time professional politician Jack Wagner. Of course, Chelsa-the-reformist apparently supported the old-time leaders who've dedicated their careers to decapitating every reform that peeked up its head.

Frankly, a newspaper that enthusiastically endorses someone like Jack Murtha, "The Prince of Pork," has no business condemning political corruption. The state of Pennsylvania is strangling in political greed and self-aggrandizement, and one of its major opinion sources -- the P-G editorial page -- has a complete lack of moral and intellectual authority.

Some Fine P-G Reporters: Shining a Kleig Light on a Vampire

2007-02-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

One of the great ironies -- well, perhaps a minor irony -- is that a few people at the Post-Gazette regard me as an enemy of the publication. In fact, I've publicly praised at least 25 individuals who work there, from Ann Rodgers and Bob Hoover to Ed Bouchette, Traci Mauriello, Joe Fahy, Patricia Sabatini, and Rich Lord.

Frankly, I want the P-G to survive and even thrive. It will do so if it unleashes its best reporters, who are as good as any in the nation. Readers want information that's relevant to their lives (including their wallets), and they will buy newspapers that provide it.

Granted, I have a major problem with the ownership of the P-G, members of the editorial board, and a few staffers. However, any journalist who writes hard-hitting stories and presents information of real value to readers is someone I respect greatly. Fox News basically monopolizes the terms "fair and balanced," but the concepts are important ones.

There's a continuing problem with corruption in Pennsylvania politics -- one I first encountered with the indictment and conviction 20-plus years ago of Pittsburgh city councilman Ben Woods. It has continued up to the present, with disgraced people like Tom Murphy, Cyril Wecht, and Pete DeFazio. Part of my argument with the P-G editorial staff is that it continues to support and endorse people destined to be led off in leg irons or flushed down the political toilet.

The solution is simple: If a candidate is dishonest, don't endorse him or her. If the editorial board doesn't like the opposing individual, endorse no one. Don't go on saluting candidates who become synonymous with corruption, such as John Murtha.

In terms of stories that need telling, look at the recent contributions of Traci Mauriello, Patricia Sabatini, Jerome Sherman, and Rich Lord. Traci, Jerome and Rich are exposing corruption -- major or minor -- in the use of either taxpayer money or campaign contributions. Patricia is discussing some deficiencies in health care that are sources of out-of-control costs.

In my column, I've talked about ways that many average people can save thousands of dollars each year in their health care costs. Frankly, the P-G should be providing some of the same information. "Pick up this paper and save tens of thousands of dollars." Nice slogan, isn't it?

In terms of politics, if an elected official -- yes, I mean you Luke Ravenstahl -- is buying his best suit with campaign funds, something is very wrong. If a political leader is spending tens of thousands in taxpayer money to be chauffered around his district -- hey, Bill DeWeese! -- something is totally amiss.

In Luke's case, he's a seemingly attractive young candidate who inherited a lot of goodwill. But Luke has a bad habit of practicing the hoariest forms of old style politics, even to the point of punishing a fine young policewoman for telling the truth about a political hack. People don't contribute to a candidate to buy his clothes or support his personnel animosities.

In the area where I live, about 35% of the people would vote for Homer Simpson if he were running as the "endorsed" Democrat. After all, more than that number voted for the odious Mike Veon, Pennsylvania's last remaining proponent of the legislative pay raise.

At the same time, about 25% would vote for the Republican, even if he were residing in the Beaver County jail.

That leaves about 40% of the people -- an estimate, to be sure -- who have an interest in whether the candidate is honest -- and where he or she stands on issues. In the recent election, Mike Veon said the main reason (only reason?) for people to vote for him was that he was a "Democrat."

You remember the ad: "Mike Veon, Democrat. Jim Marshall, Republican." Then, the fat guy reciting that particular mantra grinned idiotically at the camera, having made his point about the superiority of Veon.

The response of the 40% to the ad and the candidate's behavior was: "Mike Veon, crook. Jim Marshall, honest -- even if not perhaps the sharpest knife in the drawer." Marshall won in what, for a Beaver County Republican, constituted a landslide.

What destroyed Veon wasn't the excellence of the Marshall campaign. Rather, it was the information, much of it provided by the P-G, that people had about the incumbent. It was like shining a kleig light on a Vampire.

At times, elected officials don't exactly break the laws, but sometimes they bend them into the shape of a boomerang. Then, they do everything in their power to hide the evidence.

Elected officials in Pennsylvania sometimes engage in behavior that causes one's jaw to drop -- consider the aforementioned Mike Veon, consider Jeff Haybay, and many others. However, if bad behavior occurs and no one sees it -- or hears about it -- one could argue it never happened.

It's the job -- a very tough one -- of the Tracies, Jeromes, and Richs of the world to do the digging necessary. Such people will be surprised many times at what emerges from under the political rocks in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Washington, DC.

Note: As this column and other ones demonstrate, I believe most problems in life -- including health care costs and political corruption -- are solvable with fairly simple steps. One of those steps is to provide people with information that will allow them to make wise, economically and politically sound choices. In health care, tell people what things cost and what they get for their money. In politics, tell people who the candidates are and what their actions demonstrates about their real stands on issues.

There, I just solved some of the world's biggest problems in two sentences! :-)

Ed Rendell: The Health Plan from Hell

2007-02-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

In the Feb. 5, 2007 Post-Gazette, Joe Fahy has a page-one article on Gov. Ed Rendell's health care proposal for PA ("Insurers would play big role in state health-care revamp"). After reading the article, I extract the following message: Prepare for legislation replete with low-ball cost estimates, uncontrolled spending, and a capacity to exacerbate almost everything that's wrong in American health care.

Rendell's Plan, praised lavishly in Sunday's P-G "Forum" by a consultant who helped devise it, will pour more money into health care. Will it increase the number of doctors and other caregivers? Not really. Will it help raise the incomes of doctors and hosptial adminstrators (the suppliers) through increasing demand for their services? Of course.

Question: when demand goes up and supply remains static, what happens? Answer: prices increase to bring the demand/supply equation into balance.

There's one other way to create such a balance, an approach "perfrected" by the Department of Motor Vehicles. It is to handle the heavy demand by making people wait in long lines.

Think back to Dr. David Gratzer's comment in The Cure, where he talks about the day he became disaffected with the Canadian (single-payer) health care system. He took a short-cut through a hospital emergency room, which was so crowded that patients were waiting -- many for days -- on stretchers in a long hallway. He heard many of the patients crying out for water. He smelled the stench of people soaked in sweat and urine. ALL of those people had health insurance, but none of them was getting anything like adequate care.

The PA Plan would cover up to 767,000 unisured people. Gee, are there going to be more doctors and emergency room to provide the increased care required? Nope.

In PA, the costs of providing a lower-level of care, which surely will occur, will be astronomical.
Joe Fahy discusses the kind of people who will be eligible for subsidies, writing that the Rendell Plan calls "for subsidized coverage for people up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($30,630 for an individual, $61,950 for a family of four). "

In other words, the state assumes people making up to $62,000 have incomes low enough to make their families eligible for assistance. In a typical PA town like the one where I live -- Ambridge -- the portion of families exceeding an annual income of $62,000 is probably around 2%. (Relax, I'm not one of them)

When you "subsidize" something, you make its cost APPEAR lower. People then demand MORE of the low-cost item, be it draft beer or health care.

Unforunately, when basically everyone is eligible for a subsidy, any Plan to "assist" them is economically unworkable. If everybody gets, somebody -- and something -- has to give.

The best way for the Rendell proposals to become viable would be: (1) get Bill Gates to move to PA; (2) confiscate his assets; (3) spend the newfound billions on health care, until the money runs out.

Who's to provide the abundant subsidies? Small businesses, whom the state presumes have a lot of extra money rattling around, health insurers expected to absorb some of the costs, and of course the ever-flush taxpayers. (On KDKA-TV at this moment, I hear I'm to stay tuned for "Gov. Rendell's proposal to increase the state sales tax.")

What about the lucky folks who make in exess of $62,000 annually? According to the Governor, they would pay about $280 per month per individual. However, Massachusetts and Vermont, with similar plans, estimate the average unsubsized individual will pay about about $380 per month.

Is the PA Plan better than what already exists -- with no Plan? In his article, Joe Fahy saves that pressing question for last.

He says, "In some cases, the unsubsidized cost appears comparable to that of other available coverage. One option available through Highmark, for example, offers coverage for a four-member family of about $759 per month."

Astounding! Perhaps the Governor could give the uninsured the money -- bypassing the middle man -- and let them buy their own insurance. Perhaps he could use the gambling revenues? Oops, forgot: they're already spoken for.

As a society, we need more doctors, more efficient care centers (small, lower-cost hospitals), more information about treatment options and prices, and more patient choice. If we don't get those things, Governor Rendell, along with the next five governors, won't come anywhere near solving the health problem.

If the current Plan's aims are to make doctors richer, fill already-teeming emergency rooms from floor to ceiling, and further diminish the quality of patient care, it will be a resounding success.

Note: I've promised additional comments on Tracie Mauriello's fine Sunday article on legislative cookie-jar tampering, and I'll deliver late today (Monday).

Joseph Biden: Questioning of Samuel Alito

2007-02-04T18:55:00.000-08:00

I wrote recently on Joseph Biden's remark that, among other things, Barack Obama was unique among African-American candidates for President in being "mainstream . . . articulate . . . and clean." Biden's comments did not go over well, but the tempest subsided in about one day, as I predicted it would. Biden is not a serious candidate for President. In fact, he's not a serious U.S. Senator, but some people love him. Don Imus regularly inteviews Biden, and the Senator appears with depressing regularity on Tim Russo's boring "Meet the Press."

After Biden made the "clean" remark about Senator Obama, who in fact is clean and may even be some other things, one of nameless quote machines in D.C. said, "Joe had been warned against his big mouth." Alas, Joe's big mouth will be forever open and strange drivel will be coming out of it until he departs this mortal veil.

I recently went back to one of Joe's most famous verbal fiascoes, his questioning of Samuel Alito before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Biden -- amazingly -- headed from 1987 to 1984.

Here's what Biden said in his "questioning" time (in blue):

And one of the things -- this is not part of a line of questioning I wanted to ask -- but I did ask you when you were kind enough to come to my office about the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. Were you aware of some of the other things they were saying that had nothing to do with ROTC? Because there was a great deal of controversy.

I mean, I can remember -- I can remember this. My son was -- well, anyway, he ended up going to that other university, University of Pennsylvania.

But I remember at Princeton, I had spoken on campus in the early '70s. This was a big thing up at Princeton at the Woodrow Wilson School. And I remember -- I didn't remember Bill Frist, but I remember that there was this disavowing, that Bill Bradley, this great basketball star, and now United States senator, was disassociating himself with this outfit, that there was a magazine called Prospect. I remember the magazine.

And all I want to ask you is: Were you aware of the other things that this outfit was talking about? Were you aware of this controversy going on in...

ALITO: Senator, I don't believe that I was. And when it was mentioned that Senator Bradley had withdrawn from the magazine, that didn't ring any bells for me. I did not recall anything like that.

BIDEN: Well, it was a pretty outrageous group. I mean, I believe you that you were unaware of it. But here I was, University of Delaware graduate, a sitting United States senator, I was aware of it because I was up there on the campus. I mean, it was a big deal. It was a big deal, at least in our area of the Delaware Valley, if Princeton, Penn, the schools around there had this kind -- because the big thing was going on at Brown at the time as well.

And by the way, for the record, I know you know when you stated in your application that you are a member -- you said in '85, "I am a member" -- they had restored ROTC. ROTC was back on the campus.

But again, this is just by way of why some of us are puzzled. Because if I was aware of it, and I didn't even like Princeton...

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, I really didn't like Princeton. I was an Irish Catholic kid who thought it had not changed like you concluded it had.

I admit, one of my real dilemmas is I have two kids who went to Ivy League schools. I'm not sure my Grandfather Finnegan will ever forgive me for allowing that to happen.

But all kidding aside, I wasn't a big Princeton fan. And so maybe that is why I focused on it and no one else did. But I remember it at the time.

BIDEN: Everybody wrote with [Justice] Roberts after the fact that a lot of people voted for Roberts that were doubtful. I was doubtful, I voted no. But he was replacing Rehnquist. So Roberts for Rehnquist, you know, what's the worst that can happen, quote/unquote, or the best that can happen?

(LAUGHTER)

No, I'm not being facetious. What's the best or worst? If you're conservative, the best that can happen is he's as good as Rehnquist. From the standpoint of a -- someone who's a liberal, the worst that can happen, he's as good as Rehnquist.

So, I mean -- but you're replacing -- I mean, we can't lose this and so people understand this. You are replacing someone [Sandra Day O'Connor, who had retired]who has been the fulcrum on an otherwise evenly divided court. And a woman who's -- most scholars who write about her, and in a retrospective about her, say this is a woman who viewed things from -- the phrase you've used -- a real-world perspective. This was a former legislator, this was a former practitioner, this was someone who came to the bench and applied -- to her critics, she applied too much common sense. Critics would say that she was too sensitive to the impact on individuals, you know, that -- what would happen to an individual.

So her focus on the impact on individuals was sometimes criticized and praised.

Those are Biden's opening comments. I wonder if his "Grandfather Finnegan" would have been proud. The disgraceful and incoherent remarks by the Delaware elected official show what passes for U.S. Senator in this day and time.

Signs of Life at P-G: Sabatini, Mauriello, Norman (!)

2007-02-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 4, 2007: There have been some real signs of life this week at the metronomically liberal -- and sometimes downright clueless -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. During the week, for example, columnist and Associate Editor Tony Norman wrote a piece doing something I've been asking (begging?) him to do for years: acknowledging that a major problem facing the African-American community was the continuing killing of Blacks by other Blacks. (I'll discuss that column later this week.)

Today, I'll focus on two Sunday articles -- one by Tracie Mauriello on excessive spending by PA state legislators ("Legislators' spending include $7,932 for nuts"), one by Patricia Sabatini on the absence of "transparency," information about prices and service quality, in health care ("Pricing a colonoscopy? We Tried; it isn't easy").

Regular readers of this blog will see that these are two of my favorite subjects, the corruption of elected officials and the out-of-control costs of health care. Also, Mauriello and Sabatini are doing exactly what a newspaper should: providing useful information about subjects of great significance to readers.

Before he or she writes on a subject, any good journalist should be asking: Why is this of interest to readers? Even beyond that, how is this article (or column) going to save the readers money or improve their quality of life? One reason the Mauriello and Sabatini articles are so compelling is that the women can provide very good answers to the questions I raise.

Do most Pennsylvanians know there's a good deal of cynicism and corruption in Harrisburg? Yes. Do most Pennsylvanian know there's a big problem with the cost and availability of health care. Yes. However, most Pennsylvanians presume that they're powerless to do much about the issues. Typical articles in the P-G and other outlets don't do much to convince readers that such problems are fixable -- at least in our lifetimes.

I fear most people in the Keystone state don't know what PA legislators make as salaries -- and I'm one of those ignorant of the exact figure. We don't know how much they make in travel expenses, and, more significantly, how much they're overcharging for them.

Also, we don't know how much their per diems (expenses for days spent in Harrisburg) are, although we get that figure in Mauriello's piece (ranging from $126 to $152 a day). We don't know how much double-dipping there is on meal expenses -- in cases where the meals get paid for by someone else, but the legislator still pockets the personal expense money. Finally, we don't know how much they'll get in pensions or life-time health insurance.

Mauriello answers some of these questions. The suggestion is she's onto something and will provide other answers in the days ahead. The lead in her piece reads: "Democratic House Majority Bill DeWeese paid a part-time chauffeur to drive him around his Greene County district at a cost of $32,000, not including an estimated $20,000 in mileage, which he recouped separately."

Shameful, but probably normative. In my next column, I'll discuss Mauriello's article at length. Overall, it's superb.

In the case of Sabatini, her article begins with these words: "Imagine buying a house without any idea how much it costs until after the closing. Or buying a new SUV not knowing what or how many monthly payment you owe -- until you get the bill." Her point is that those scenarios reflect the way most of us "consume" health care.

Sabatini adds, "It may sound crazy, but that's how it is when it comes to health-care services. Need a cholesterol test, chest X-ray, or your gall bladder removed? Chances are, you won't know how much the procedure costs until after it has been performed."

The article points out that doctors -- she cites some unnamed pediatricians -- and hospitals give information about prices and medical treatment grudgingly, if at all. If you don't know what you're getting or how much it costs, you as a consumer are at a real disadvantage.

The are some great physicians and hospitals that provide excellent service at reasonable costs, but good luck if you can find out who they are. In my columns, I've pointed to five doctors (Chiesa, McFarland, Osten, Craig, and Karp) who provide superb, patient-centered care, but 99.99% of people in the area have never heard of them.

I've also pointed to some terrible care my wife received in St. Clair Emergency, allowing her to suffer for many weeks with severe gall bladder pain. I've pointed to a $20,000-plus bill my brother received at UPMC for some basic tests related to "syncope" (a feeling of faintness and temporary low blood pressure). But aside from a few readers of this blog, who knows about such things?

The pharmaceutical industry offers free drugs (branded variety only) to people with very low-incomes, one of whom was my brother. The industry insists on sending such freebies to physicians or other health care centers, presumably because it doesn't trust sending them directly to patients.

One doctor in Carnegie LOST three such prescriptions, 90-day supplies of each. At retail, which was the only other way we could have obtained them, the cost for such medicines was about $1,000. I believe the doctor, a wealthy one but with a very limited staff, lost the meds because he received no payment for handling them.

That is very poor care, but who know about it?

The five wonderful doctors I've talked about, including Nicollete Chiesa and Kathleen Osten, probably make about the same amount of money -- maybe less -- than the mediocre physicians. The doctor who lost the three prescription (and failed for years to diagnose my adult onset diabetes) probably thinks the current situation is just fine.

Sabatini suggests that transparency -- information -- about health care is growing in importance. I've said that without a great deal of information there's no way to solve the health care "crisis." If people don't know what they 're paying for, then it doesn't matter whether we have the Rendell Plan or the Hillary Clinton Plan. None of them will make much difference.

However, if it's as hard as Sabatini indicates for a daily newpaper to get information, how much more difficult is for the average Joe or Jill?

Some states (New Hampshire being a leader) and insurance companies (especially Aetna) are providing more pricing information. Sabatini says, "Some [New Hampshire] providers who viewed the state [listing of prices] prototype were shocked at how expensive their prices were compared to the rest of the pack . . . ." One assume their patients might have endured even greater shock.

As I've been saying for months, if people don't know they're being overcharged, they can't exactly make wise decisions. Much of what I've written has been about my own experience comparing drug prices -- and how that's helped me and my family save thousands of dollars annually.

I've mentioned how I switched from one diabetes med (Avandia) that costs $160-plus per month at CVS to another drug (Metformin) that Wal-Mart sells for $4.00 per month.

In the past weeks, I ordered a three-months supply of 10 mg. generic Hytrin (Terazosin), a prostate drug, at Wal-Mart for $12.00. Because Wal-Mart didn't have enough in stock, it sent me the supply by mail a week later.

In the meantime, I got a one-month prescription for FIVE mg, Terazosin refilled at CVS. It cost me $6.00 in out-of-pocket costs (co-payment), plus $8.92 paid by my Medicare Plan D health insurance.

You're reading right: The overall cost of a THREE month supply of larger dosage cost less a ONE month, lower dosage supply at CVS (8th and Market in Ambridge, PA).

The costs involved don't exactly constitute a fortune. However, mutliply them by thousands of drugs and hundreds of millions of daily drug-consumers, and it adds up to tens of billions of dollars -- in prescription meds alone.

The kinds of homely examples I use should become a staple of newspapers like the P-G. A lot more information is coming out about medical costs, but there's a long way to go.

When someone reads a newspaper, he or she should be able to say that one or more articles saved him or her a lot of money. Sabatini is more than half way there with her piece, and she should take a bow. So should Tracie Mauriello, as I'll discuss soon.

Admittedly, some people have stopped reading newspapers or even listening to the news on TV. They believe the "news" confronts them with a multitiude of sad things about which they can do little or nothing. Yet they can do something about corrupt legislators -- find out who they are and vote them out of office.

Also, they can do a lot about high costs for health care and mediocre treatment. They can find the good providers and the best prices and then do their part.

Note: My plans are to analyze Tracie Mauriello's article on Tuesday (Feb. 6) and Tony Norman's column on Thursday. Soon after that, I'll discuss the "Forum" section, which is under a new editor whose early performance suggests he needs a few political and economic reality sessions with people like Mauriello and Sabatini. Future P-G-centric pieces will deal with Bill Toland, a talented journalist but a cynical one, and Jerome Sherman, another talented writer but one too willing to give a free-pass to some seedy Western PA politicians.