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STUMPIN' FOR UNCLE JOE

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:52:18 GMT

Even more great feedback from the trail. On Monday, I stopped by the offices of the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire. Afterwards, this is what they had to say:

"Afterward, on the conduct of foreign affairs, the war in Iraq, the right course in Afghanistan, on immigration, energy policy and health care, we found that we too were saying, "Joe's right," or at least more right than most. His depth of knowledge is enriching the debate and providing a reality check - especially when others make promises that Biden's experience tells him they can't keep.

Biden has spent three decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now chairs it. He knows the world's leaders and their nations, and he has long been privy to information most members of Congress, let alone most Americans, never see. That allows him to speak with authority...

Biden decided long ago that fostering the division of Iraq into three or more regions that govern themselves as part of a Iraqi federation offered the best hope for stability in that nation. Eventually, he convinced Congress, which voted to adopt Biden's plan. So far, no one has offered a better, more well-thought-out plan to withdraw American troops without leaving chaos behind."

Holier Than They

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 14:40:25 GMT

BY JUDITH WARNER

For years, the left – and moderates – permitted the right to frame itself as the sole custodian of “family values” in the United States. It was only when vast numbers of American families woke up to the fact that they were not being valued at all – that, in fact, they were being fleeced – that non-conservatives shook themselves into a sentient state and began to talk about replacing empty words with substantive promises about health care, child care and college aid.

Now a similar thing is happening with religion. We are, we’ve repeatedly been told in the past week, in the grip of a faith war. There has been a lot of interesting discussion of Mormonism and Evangelical Protestantism, about Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee outdoing themselves to appeal to Christian conservatives, and about John McCain’s belief in a “Christian nation.” There has been dismay about a political moment in which it seems a candidate must pass a religious litmus test to gain national viability. There have been comparisons to John F. Kennedy, talk of the Founding Fathers, of the separation of church and state, and of how the Puritans’ rather intolerant vision of religious freedom continues to trickle down to our day.

But one line of questioning, it seems to me, is missing. One point of view is inexpressible, taboo. I am not referring to atheism – the one belief system that clearly had no place in the vision of America Romney painted in his much-anticipated speech on faith last week. Rather, I’m thinking of the now entirely muted issue of whether the basic ethical foundations of Romney, Huckabee et al’s political views truly are “Christian” – in the good-neighborly sense of the word.

I am referring here to the sentiments that lie behind the candidates’ attitudes toward gays, which may have found their most honest and open expression in Huckabee’s recently resurrected 1992 suggestion that AIDS patients should be forcibly isolated. I am thinking too of Christian conservative opposition to progressive taxation, public spending for the needy and government “meddling” in such matters as anti-discrimination policies. And, of course, of the willingness to sacrifice women by genuflecting before a segment of the population that is scared witless by modernity and sugar-coats its fear and hate in the name of the sacred. (As governor, Huckabee, according to veteran Arkansas political journalist Max Brantley, once “stood in the hospital door, at least figuratively, to prevent state funding” for a mentally handicapped teenage girl who’d been raped by her stepfather and needed to have an abortion.)

In the run-up to the presidential election, some Democrats have made an effort, with greater or lesser success, to reclaim and redefine some of the religious terrain previously grabbed by religious conservatives.

“We cannot abandon the field of religious discourse,” Barack Obama, the most eloquently convincing of them all, said back in June of 2006. “Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.”

These days, however, for all the talk of religion, there is little public soul-searching about the absence of care and compassion, love, acceptance and inclusion – the things that many consider to be the essence of Christianity – in the words of our purported Christian leaders.

The Christian conservative vote is, apparently, splintering. Younger evangelicals are increasingly said to be interested in putting their faith to greater use than bashing gays, promoting guns and putting God on the presidential ticket. That would seem to indicate that we’re facing a moment of opportunity: a chance to expand and amplify the reach of the voice of religious moderation. The silence I’m hearing makes me think, though, that as a society we’ve come to accept the slippage of prejudicial and hateful attitudes into religious doctrine as somehow normal. Whether that’s due to cynicism or due to cowardice, it’s very troubling.

Last week, on the very day that Romney’s faith speech dominated the news, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former member of the Dutch Parliament driven into United States exile for her outspokenness against radical Islam, published an op-ed in the Times that pleaded for “Islam’s Silent Moderates” to step forward and denounce the horrific violence against women being carried out in Islamic countries.

Writing in particular about the case of the 20-year-old woman in Saudi Arabia who was gang-raped and then sentenced to six months in prison, she asked: “Where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say … that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted – and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?”

In the winter of 2004, Howard Dean – a man who considers himself a faithful Christian – raised similar questions about the nature of American fundamentalism. ‘’Don’t you think Jerry Falwell reminds you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does of the teachings of Jesus?'’ he asked in Iowa. ‘’And don’t you think this campaign ought to be about evicting the money-changers from the temple?'’

This may well have been the beginning of the end for Dean’s campaign. But what a moral, values-driven (if politically foolhardy) thing it was, what a breath of fresh air it was, to suggest that Christian conservatives ought actually to be Christian in spirit as well as in name. It would be nice today to hear a candidate step up and oppose all that is “appalling, brutal and bigoted” in the limited religious views that substitute for spirituality in American politics today. Who knows — it might even be good politics.

STUMPIN' FOR UNCLE JOE

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:15:51 GMT

Biden Campaigning With Ease After Hardships

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

IOWA CITY — Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a back-in-the-pack Democratic candidate for president, was answering a voter’s question last week about negative campaigning when he abruptly began talking about his first, euphoric run for the Senate, in 1972, and the personal tragedy that nearly destroyed his life afterward.

“Let me tell you a little story,” Mr. Biden told the crowd at the University of Iowa. “I got elected when I was 29, and I got elected November the 7th. And on Dec. 18 of that year, my wife and three kids were Christmas shopping for a Christmas tree. A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly — and I never pursued it — drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly, and killed my daughter instantly, and hospitalized my two sons, with what were thought to be at the time permanent, fundamental injuries.”

The crowd was silent as Mr. Biden continued. His wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were gone, but his sons, not quite 3 and 4 years old at the time, made full recoveries. “They’re both, thank God, healthy and well,” Mr. Biden told the crowd.

One of them, Beau, 38, is now the attorney general of Delaware and a captain in an Army National Guard unit headed for Iraq. The other, Hunter, 37, is a lawyer in Washington. Both spend weekends in Iowa on their father’s campaign. Mr. Biden’s second wife, Jill, whom he married five years after the accident, is working on the race as well, as is their 25-year-old daughter, Ashley.

Mr. Biden has rebuilt his life, but the long-ago accident has become part of the narrative of his campaign and the most horrific of three major crises — including life-threatening cranial aneurysms in 1988 and the blowup in 1987 of his first presidential race over accusations of plagiarism — that have created the liberated 65-year-old candidate of today.

Mr. Biden has survived so much personal and political catastrophe that not much about this race — not his distant standing in the polls nor his own missteps — seems to get him down. It is the last, great ride of his White House ambitions, and this time, unlike 20 years ago, he seems determined to make it right.

“This has been the easiest campaign I’ve ever run in,” Mr. Biden said cheerfully in an interview in a van at the Iowa City Airport, where he was about to board a four-seat airplane and head off into the icy December blackness for an event at Grinnell College. “I haven’t had to game anything. For real. I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.”

Some would say that Mr. Biden, the extraordinarily talkative chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is far too comfortable saying whatever pops into his head. When he announced in January that he was running for president, Mr. Biden’s big day was overshadowed by his hapless description of another Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Six months earlier in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden said that “you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

As a candidate, Mr. Biden is just as often bracingly direct. “The American people don’t give a darn about any of this stuff that’s going on up here,” he said in the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas last month as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York brawled with her competitors and then accused them of slinging mud at her.

At a debate in October in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden dispensed with the Republican presidential candidate, Rudolph W. Giuliani, by cracking that “there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.”

Despite his fondness for verbiage, Mr. Biden has only recently begun talking publicly about the accident that killed his wife and daughter. For decades he refused.

“The thing I hated, I was this tragic young figure,” he said in a follow-up phone conversation from Iowa last weekend. As the years passed, the tragedy receded in people’s memories, only to resurface when Mr. Biden, at a publisher’s insistence, included the story of the accident in a campaign autobiography, “Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics” (Random House), which was released last summer.

Mr. Biden said the accident became the first question from a new generation of reporters unaware of his past. This time he found he could talk about it, while still avoiding the painful details, as a way of connecting to people.

“Someone will stand up and say, ‘Well, I’ve lost this and I’ve lost that, and you guys don’t understand,’” Mr. Biden said. “And I say: ‘Look, I was a single parent for five years, and I understand what it’s like. I don’t understand your situation, but I’m not devoid of an understanding of the problems ordinary people face.’”

Joe Biden first met Neilia Hunter poolside in the Bahamas during spring break his junior year at the University of Delaware. He was one of four children in a middle-class, Irish-Catholic family who grew up in Scranton, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., and who had overcome an embarrassing stutter as a child; she was from a more affluent family in the Finger Lakes resort town of Skaneateles, N.Y.

They were married two years later, in 1966. Mr. Biden went on to become, in his words, an “arrogant and sloppy” student at the Syracuse University College of Law. He briefly practiced law in Delaware, was elected to the New Castle County Council and stunned everyone, including himself, when he won the Senate race against a popular incumbent. He was in Washington interviewing staff members for his new office when he got a call that there had been an accident back home.

Mr. Biden left his sons’ hospital room only for the memorial service. “I began to understand how despair led people to cash it in; how suicide wasn’t just an option but a rational option,” he wrote. He was sworn in at their bedside and arrived in Washington a hollow man, with no appetite for the Senate. Staff members from other offices, he later learned, were taking bets on how long he would last in the job.

To spend time with his sons, he made a daily commute on Amtrak from his home in Wilmington to Washington, 80 minutes one way, a habit he continues to this day. In 1977, he married a Delaware teacher, Jill Jacobs, and by 1987, his life and career back in order, he announced he was running for president.

But in a debate at the Iowa State Fair that summer, at a time when Mr. Biden was seen as a Kennedy-esque hope in a desultory Democratic pack, he lifted large portions without attribution from an address by the British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. A top aide in the rival presidential campaign of Michael S. Dukakis circulated a video showing the similarities, and although Mr. Biden had credited Mr. Kinnock in earlier appearances, his failure to do so at the fair — he called it an oversight — created a media storm.

The furor began just as Mr. Biden, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was about to preside over the explosive hearings of President Ronald Reagan’s choice for the Supreme Court, the conservative jurist Robert H. Bork.

Mr. Biden was opposed to Judge Bork and was determined to defeat him, although he was overcome with anxiety — and pounding headaches — as he faced the pressures of the hearings and his unraveling campaign. In late September, he gave up his bid for the White House.

“Aside from health, it was the most difficult decision I ever made, to get out of the race,” Mr. Biden said. He saw his choice as trying to save his candidacy or fulfilling what he saw as his responsibility to keep Judge Bork off the court. “I didn’t want it to be ‘Biden selfishly decides he’s going to save his own skin.’”

In October, the Senate rejected Judge Bork. Four months later, Mr. Biden collapsed in a hotel room in Rochester and was soon on an operating table in Washington undergoing surgery to remove an aneurysm. One risk was loss of speech. “I kind of wish that had happened last summer,” Mr. Biden said he told the surgeon.

Mr. Biden pulled through the operation and then another for a second aneurysm that May. He returned to the Senate in September 1988 and spent the next 19 years honing his expertise on foreign policy. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Biden now offers himself to voters as the candidate who will need no on-the-job training.

“I’ve forgotten more about these issues than most of these guys who are running know,” Mr. Biden told the crowd at the University of Iowa. Still, he insisted that he was not running for secretary of state, even though he said that Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, told him at the time that he would offer him the job if he became president.

Looking back, Mr. Biden said he had learned something different from each of the three crises in his life. The accident taught him, he said, “to always let the people you love know you love them, and never let something go unsaid.” The aneurysm taught him that “it’s a hell of a lot easier being on the operating table than in the waiting room.” As for the 1987 race, Mr. Biden said he learned that he could pull himself back up after the crippling experience of having his character questioned, “particularly when it’s your own fault.”

These days, life looks good. “I wouldn’t trade places with anybody right now, in or out of the race,” Mr. Biden said. A short time later, he tempered his enthusiasm. “I’m almost superstitious saying this,” he said. “Everything could change tomorrow.”

Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Iowa City and Des Moines last week and added updated information from Washington. Shawn Gude contributed reporting from Iowa City.

PUNDITS STUMPIN' FOR UNCLE JOE

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:36:04 GMT

Washington Post, Cillizza:
WINNERS:
Joe Biden: We can't help it, we like the guy. Biden is regularly the life of these debates -- launching self deprecating one-liners one minute and riffing on how he was introducing legislation before some of the candidates on the stage were even born the next. Biden is at his best when talking foreign policy and he got plenty of opportunities to do that last night. He spoke eloquently about the dangers posed by Iran and scored points on Pakistan by noting that he had spoken to both President Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto before President Bush had.

Later: Debate Fairness Complaints: Going into these events, everyone knows the deal: the candidates at the top of state and national polls are going to get the most questions directed at them and the majority of the speaking time. If you aren't in that top tier, you have to find your own way to stand out (see Biden, Joe). Politics ain't beanbag.

Time, Mark Halperin:
Joe Biden: B (second highest grade of all candidates) Funny, sharp and relaxed -- either because he feels some momentum in Iowa or because he feels he has nothing left to lose. Best rapport with the audience of any of the candidates. Let a little bit of his inner braggart run free when talking about his foreign policy cred and resume, but was offered -- and grabbed -- plenty of chances to show off his best sides.

NBC, Chuck Todd:
As for the rest of the field, Biden, again, had a good night. He keeps doing well at these debates; we'll see if he can use this to propel himself in Iowa.

CNN Political Ticker, Emily Sherman:
Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware came out swinging for speaking time in Thursday night's Democratic debate. His first punch went straight to the top three presidential contenders: Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of South Carolina. "This is not about experience, it's not about change. It's about action," Biden said. "Who among us is going to be on day one step in and end the war?"

ABC Political Radar:
We're seeing again why Joe Biden is a strong sleeper candidate in the race. This is a straight-ahead presentation -- and he hit that out of the park...

As all of the democratic candidates discuss change, Sen. Joe Biden noted, "it's not about change, what it's about is action," as he touted himself as the best candidate to put in place a plan to end the war in Iraq. Biden told supporters that he would work across party lines, but had a stern warning for the republicans. "There are things upon which I will not compromise. I am sick and tired of hearing the republicans talk about values. Give me a break," said Biden adding, "they confuse ideology with morality."

Fox News:
Biden once again proves he's the most experienced foreign policy hand on the stage. On Pakistan, he says he spoke to President Pervez Musharraf and recently returned former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto even before the President did after Musharraf declared what some say amounts to martial law in that country....

Not afraid to correct an audience member on the Patriot Act and racial profiling - Biden looked very presidential as he explained the nuance of the law and stressed the importance of having a forward-looking plan for national security. While the Patriot Act has become synonymous with an infringement on civil liberties, Biden argues that it was not the Patriot Act that caused the questioner to be profiled, it would have been illegal regardless. Biden also added that Clinton and Obama voted for an expansion of Gitmo, while he didn't. Point Biden.

STUMPIN' FOR UNCLE JOE

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:50:49 GMT

From THE NATION magazine

by JOHN NICHOLS

I'm not in the habit of making campaign endorsements, and if I was, I'd probably urge a write-in vote for Russ Feingold, Joe Biden's colleague on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who combines Biden's political smarts with a record on military adventurism and civil liberties that's far more to my liking. But I do endorse realism, and as such I can't buy the argument that Biden is significantly less acceptable than the Democratic front-runners. Biden maintains 100 percent ratings from Planned Parenthood, the League of Conservation Voters, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Citizens for Tax Justice, the Children's Defense Fund and the NAACP; and 93 percent from the AFL-CIO--these numbers are every bit as liberal as his competitors'.

I don't forgive Biden's wrong vote to authorize George W. Bush's attack on Iraq, but neither do I forgive those of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Unlike either of them, Biden tried to constrain the Administration when he and Senator Richard Lugar fought in 2002 to require diplomatic efforts before military options could be considered. As Foreign Relations Committee chair, Biden remains far more engaged than his opponents in the debate about how to address the Iraq crisis. That does not mean his "solutions" are better, but it does mean he is more agile than most Democrats when it comes to debating policy.

It is, to be sure, a hard-won agility. Biden has more bruises than his fellow Democrats because he has gotten in the ring more often than most of them. His bruises are the marks of experience and determination, which ought not to be underestimated. At a time when too many Democrats are prone to pulling punches, he knows how to throw them. No Democrat with an eye on the 2008 prize failed to thrill when Biden used an otherwise forgettable October debate to kneecap the GOP front-runner. While the other Democrats poked one another to uninspired effect, Biden ridiculed Rudy Giuliani for waging a campaign based on "a noun, a verb and 9/11." This was Biden at his best: fast on his feet, muscularly partisan, devastatingly effective at tossing barbs. These strengths have kept the Delaware senator on the national scene for thirty-five years, and they make him the most quick-witted of this season's Democratic contenders.

Of course, Biden is not always at his best, as a failed 1988 presidential quest and several false starts since then can attest. He's a big talker, and he's made some big gaffes. But no Democratic contender has been so steadily "on" during this campaign. And even if Biden's poll numbers remain soft, that October debate confirmed his ability to stir things up.

In the blood-sport competition for the presidency, Biden's flair for finding the GOP jugular ought to count for something among Democrats who grumble about their last two nominees' failure to play offense. Of an old breed of Democrats who fought their way out of the back rooms of urban East Coast politics, Biden beat an entrenched Republican to enter the Senate, held his seat during GOP landslide years, used his Judiciary Committee chairmanship in the 1980s to block some of Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominees and corporate-sponsored tort "reform," and not only wrote the Violence Against Women Act but got it reauthorized by two Republican-led Congresses. Biden is best understood as a relatively rare political archetype: a Democrat who pays less attention to internal party politics than to winning elections and governing. This skill makes him the one Democrat Republicans feel compelled not merely to attack but to answer. That's because Biden has so far been the one Democrat who has consistently understood the importance of taking the fight to the other guys.

STUMPIN' FOR UNCLE JOE

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:48:54 GMT

A NEW APPROACH TO PAKISTAN
November 8

JOE BIDEN ON PAKISTAN:

I've been saying for some time that Pakistan is the most complex country we deal with - and that a crisis was just waiting to happen. On Saturday night, it did.

President Musharraf staged a coup against his own government. He suspended the constitution, imposed de-facto martial law, postponed elections indefinitely, and arrested hundreds of lawyers, journalists, and human rights activists. He took these steps the day after Secretary Rice and the commander of all American forces in the region appealed to Musharraf not to take them.

America has a huge stake in the outcome of this crisis - and in the path Pakistan follows in the months and years to come. Pakistan has strong democratic traditions and a large, moderate majority. But that moderate majority must have a voice in the system and an outlet with elections. If not, moderates may find that they have no choice but to make common cause with extremists, just as the Shah's opponents did in Iran three decades ago.

But unlike Iran, Pakistan already has nuclear weapons.

It is hard to imagine a greater nightmare for America than the world's second-largest Muslim nation becoming a failed state in fundamentalist hands, with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a population larger than those of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea combined.

To prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality, I believe we need to do three things:

First, deal pro-actively with the current crisis.

Second, and for the longer term, move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy that gives the moderate majority a chance to succeed.

And third, help create conditions in the region that maximize the chances of success, and minimize the prospects for failure.

Resolving the Crisis

To help defuse the current political crisis, we must be far more pro-active, not reactive and make it clear to Pakistan that actions have consequences. President Bush's first reaction was to call on President Musharraf to reverse course. Given the stakes, I thought it was important to actually call him - which is exactly what I did. I also spoke to opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. President Musharraf and I had a very direct and detailed discussion. I told him how critical it is that elections go forward as planned in January, that he follow through on his commitment to take off his uniform, and that he restore the rule of law to Pakistan.

It was clear to me that President Musharraf understands the consequences for his country and for relations with the United States if he does not return Pakistan to the path of democracy. Now, President Bush finally got around to calling Musharraf yesterday. As a few of you may know, I'm running for President and I can tell you this: if I'm elected, I won't wait five days to pick up the phone or delegate matters of this magnitude to my secretary of state or to my ambassador. There is too much at stake to leave this kind of conversation to others.

If President Musharraf does not restore his nation to the democratic path, U.S. military aid will be in great jeopardy. I would look hard at big-ticket weapons systems intended primarily to maintain the balance of power with India, not to combat the Taliban or Al Qaeda: hardware like F-16 jets and P-3 maritime surveillance aircraft. President Musharraf doesn't want this aid suspension - and neither does the military establishment whose support he needs. Nor can they afford for this crisis to undermine confidence in Pakistan's economy, which has already taken a hard hit. So I believe there is incentive for cooler heads in Pakistan to prevail. But if they don't and if President Bush does not act, Congress almost certainly will.

Building a New Relationship

Beyond the current crisis lurks a far deeper problem. The relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan is largely transactional -- and this transaction isn't working for either party. From America's perspective, we've spent billions of dollars on a bet that Pakistan's government would take the fight to the Taliban and Al Qaeda while putting the country back on the path to democracy. It has done neither.

From Pakistan's perspective, America is an unreliable ally that will abandon Pakistan the moment it's convenient to do so, and whose support has done little more than bolster unrepresentative rulers.

It is time for a new approach.

We've got to move from a transactional relationship -- the exchange of aid for services -- to the normal, functional relationship we enjoy with all of our other military allies and friendly nations. We've got to move from a policy concentrated on one man - President Musharraf - to a policy centered on an entire people... the people of Pakistan. Like any major policy shift, to gain long-term benefits we'll have to shoulder short term costs. But given the stakes, those costs are worth it.

Here are the four elements of this new strategy.

First, triple non-security aid, to $1.5 billion annually. For at least a decade. This aid would be unconditioned: it's our pledge to the Pakistani people. Instead of funding military hardware, it would build schools, clinics, and roads.

Second, condition security aid on performance. We should base our security aid on clear results. We're now spending well over $1 billion annually, and it's not clear we're getting our money's worth. I'd spend more if we get better returns--and less if we don't.

Third, help Pakistan enjoy a "democracy dividend." The first year of democratic rule should bring an additional $1 billion -- above the $1.5 billion non-security aid baseline. And I would tie future non-security aid -- again, above the guaranteed baseline -- to Pakistan's progress in developing democratic institutions and meeting good-governance norms.

Fourth, engage the Pakistani people, not just their rulers. This will involve everything from improved public diplomacy and educational exchanges to high impact projects that actually change people's lives.

This plan would fundamentally and positively shift the dynamic between the U.S. and Pakistan. Here's how:

A drastic increase in non-security aid, guaranteed for a long period, would help persuade Pakistan's people that America is an all-weather friend - and Pakistan's leaders that America is a reliable ally. Pakistanis suspect our support is purely tactical. They point to the aid cut-off that followed the fall of the Soviet Union to our refusal to deliver or refund purchased jets in the 1990s and to our blossoming relationship with rival India. Many Pakistanis believe that the moment Osama bin Laden is gone, U.S. interest will go with him.

When U.S. aid makes a real difference in people's lives, the results are powerful. In October 2005, after a devastating earthquake, American military helicopters delivering relief did far more to improve relations than any amount of arms sales or debt rescheduling. And the Mobile Army Surgery Hospital we left behind is a daily reminder that America cares.

To have a real impact on a nation of 165 million, we'll have to raise our spending dramatically. A baseline of $1.5 billion annually, for a decade, is a reasonable place to start. That might sound like a lot - but it's about what we spend every week in Iraq. Conditioning security aid-- now about three-quarters of our package-- would help push the Pakistani military to finally crush Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Aid to the Pakistani people should be unconditioned -- that is, not subject to the ups and downs of a particular government in Islamabad or Washington. But aid to the Pakistani military and intelligence service should be closely conditioned -- that is, carefully calibrated to results. Like it or not, the Pakistani security services will remain vital players - and our best shot at finding Bin Laden and shutting down the Taliban. Their performance has been decidedly mixed: we've caught more terrorists in Pakistan than in any other country-- but $10 billion later, Pakistan remains the central base of Al Qaeda operations. We must strike a much better bargain.

A "democracy dividend" - additional assistance in the first year after democratic rule is restored -- would empower Pakistan's moderate mainstream. The Bush Administration's Musharraf First policy was understandable -- at first. Musharraf had broad support, and in the wake of 9/11 he seemed committed to the fight against Al Qaeda. Six years later, the General is diverting his military, his police, and his intelligence assets from the fight against the terrorists to a crackdown on his political opponents.

The Pakistani people have moved on. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest Musharraf's unconstitutional rule-- and hundreds have been killed or gravely injured in the process. The Democracy Dividend would help restore the moral currency this administration has squandered with empty rhetoric about democracy. And it would enable the secular, democratic, civilian political leaders to prove that they--more than the generals or the radical Islamists--can bring real improvement to the lives of their constituents.

Last, we've got to engage the Pakistani people directly, and address issues important to them, not just to us. On Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinians, Kashmir, Pakistanis want a respectful hearing. We owe them that at least that much.

Ask an ordinary Pakistani to list his top concerns about America and you may get answers unrelated to international grand strategy: our visa policy and textile quotas.
Or she might raise Abu Ghraib and Gitmo or water-boarding and other forms of torture the Bush Administration still refuses to renounce. Pakistanis don't see these as mere "issues." They see these things as a moral stain on the soul of our nation. In my judgment, so should we.

Creating the Conditions for Success

This new Pakistan policy cannot succeed in isolation. Conditions in the region and in the broader Muslim world - conditions that the United States can affect - will make a huge difference, for good or for bad. We've got to connect the dots - to be, as I suggested at the outset, smart as well as strong.

First, there's what we should do. To increase the prospects that Pakistan will take the lead in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, we should rededicate ourselves to a forgotten war: Afghanistan. When we shifted resources away from Afghanistan to Iraq, Musharraf concluded the Taliban would rebound, so he cut a deal with them.

Redoubling our efforts in Afghanistan - not just with more troops but with the right kind and with a reconstruction effort that matches President Bush's Marshall Plan rhetoric - would embolden Pakistan's government to take a harder line on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Second, there's what we should not do. Consider all this talk of war with Iran. It is totally counter-productive to achieving our ends in Iran but also in Pakistan. In Iran, it allows President Ahmadinejad to distract the Iranian people from the failures of his leadership and adds a huge security premium to the price of oil, with the proceeds going from our consumers to Iran's government. And in Pakistan and also Afghanistan, anything the fuels the sense of an American crusade against Islam puts moderates on the defensive and empowers extremists. It is hard to think of a more self-defeating policy.

History's Verdict

History may describe today's Pakistan as a repeat of 1979 Iran or 2001 Afghanistan. Or history may write a very different story: that of Pakistan as a stable, democratic, secular Muslim state. Which future unfolds will be strongly influenced--if not determined-- by the actions of the United States.

I believe that Pakistan can be a bridge between the West and the global Islamic community. Most Pakistanis want a lasting friendship with America. They respect and admire our society. But they are mystified over what they see as our failure to live up to our ideals.

The current crisis in Pakistan is also an opportunity to start anew - to build a relationship between Pakistan and the United States upon which both our peoples can depend - and be proud.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:37:07 GMT

Pat Loves Rudy

By GAIL COLLINS

Back in mid-2001, when Mayor Rudy Giuliani was busy committing adultery, lurching into his divorce and third marriage and rooming with a gay couple he promised to marry as soon as the law allowed, who among us would have imagined that one day he would be endorsed for president by Pat Robertson? Truly, Sept. 11 changed everything.

Actually, Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, has had peculiar positions on the terror attack. He once said it was nowhere near as big a deal as the problem of judicial activism, and on another occasion he explained that the destruction of the World Trade Center was God’s punishment for abortion and “rampant secularism” on television. It’s hard to understand what drew the two men together. Rudy has hedged his positions on quite a few issues lately — but he has yet to suggest that New York had it coming.

It’s been quite a busy time for Giuliani, who recently tried to establish himself as the toughest dude on the anti-terror block by making fun of torture victims, drawing the wrath of John (Actually Tortured) McCain. Let it be known that nothing, including the extensive evidence that prisoners being tortured confess to things that aren’t true, is going to stop a President Giuliani from wringing every last drop of inaccurate information out of the evildoers.

“They talk about sleep deprivation. I mean on that theory, I’m getting tortured running for president of the United States. That’s plain silly,” he said at a town hall meeting in Iowa. You would really think after all the trouble Mitt Romney got for equating life in the Mitt Mobile with service in Iraq, people would be a little careful about comparing the perils of the campaign trail with military service. It also gave McCain the opportunity to remind the nation that Rudy got a deferral from serving in Vietnam by convincing his boss, a federal judge, to pull strings and have him declared an “essential” civilian employee for his critical work as a law clerk. But we digress.

Robertson’s backing will surely give Giuliani a leg up among voters who believe that God sends natural disasters to punish Americans whose school board members believe in the theory of evolution, or who have the bad luck to live near an inclusive amusement park. (He warned Orlando that when Disney World welcomed gay patrons it was letting them in for terrorist attacks, “earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.”)

Yesterday, Robertson said that America’s Mayor had won him over because “to me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorists.” (So much for judicial activism.) “Our second goal should be the control of massive government waste and crushing federal deficits.”

Now this is the part that I have never been able to get. When did government spending become part of the divine agenda? Is there something in the Bible about smiting down federal bureaucrats?

Even within the ranks of the social conservatives, Robertson is regarded as a tad over the top. Who among us will forget the time he claimed that the special protein shake he was marketing had enabled him to leg-press 2,000 pounds? Or the time he said God had given Ariel Sharon a massive stroke because he let the Palestinians run Gaza? (He did apologize for saying the United States should assassinate the president of Venezuela.)

Still, the endorsement must have been a blow to Mitt Romney. He has gotten a couple of social conservatives on his side. But given the way he’s prostrated himself before the right wing, renouncing every position he’s ever held, all the way down to stem cells, you’d think he’d do better. It’s a mystery why even someone as loopy as Robertson would pass up the exhaustingly virtuous family man for a longtime hound dog like Rudy, who has been qualifying his liberal social positions but never really retracting them.

“Persuasion is an important part of politics. It may be for some leaders, Giuliani is more persuasive, particularly in private,” suggested John Green, who studies conservative religious movements for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

It does seem true that miraculous things happen when conservative leaders meet with Giuliani behind closed doors. Maybe they just find Mitt Romney extremely irritating. Maybe Rudy has a secret grip, like the Vulcan mind-meld or one of those sleeper holds they used to have in professional wrestling, that fills his victims with an irrational degree of trust. Or maybe his leadership is so powerful that people exposed to it find it impossible to doubt the sincerity of his every word.

In which case I’ve got a protein shake I’d like to sell you.

STUMPIN' FOR UNCLE JOE

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:36:43 GMT

Yesterday, I was proud to receive the endorsement of State Senator Herman C. Quirmbach, an Associate Professor of Economics at Iowa State University. This is our 12th endorsement from an Iowa State Legislator.

Polls are not capturing the rapidly changing conditions on the ground in Iowa. Our campaign is getting incredible feedback everywhere we go and it is more important than ever that our Iowa Field program contact voters with these developments, but I need your help for this to happen.

Also yesterday, I talked to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on the telephone. We had a very frank and detailed discussion. I told President Musharraf how critical it is for relations between our two countries that elections go forward as planned in January, that he follow through on his commitment to take off his uniform and that he restore the rule of law to Pakistan. I will send updates on Pakistan as events unfold.

Joe Biden

Ghosts of Campaigns Past Spin Forward

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:52:59 GMT

By FRANCIS X. CLINES

Where are the political smears of yesteryear? They’re right at hand in a graphic archive for voters who can’t wait for the election cycle to descend to maximum attack mode.

The nation’s neatly cataloged television ads are available for a nostalgic laugh or wince at the Museum of the Moving Image. The museum is worth a trip to Astoria, Queens, but the graphic history of presidential commercials is also just a mouse click away (livingroomcandidate.org). Once a modern visitor finally views that notorious black-and-white TV ad that most 1964 voters never saw — the “Daisy Girl” mushroom cloud assault on Barry Goldwater as a nuclear war monger — the ads become as addictive as junk food.

The Daisy Girl, with the child’s sweet petal countdown morphing into a booming mushroom cloud, points perfectly to the modern tactic by which strategists float a slashing, artfully underhanded attack in just a few smaller outlets and thereby ignite reams of “free media” repetition as cable, bloggers and mainline news organizations blanket the subsequent controversy. (The ubiquitous Swift Boat ad of 2004 actually ran 739 times in just three states; Daisy Girl ran just once.)

The question of what fresh deviltry awaits us across the next year nags forth from the moving images. The archive for 2004 featured a new sub-file, ominous or not: Web Ads, pointing to their warp-speed, uninhibited power of “viral” redistribution across the electorate.

The museum charms with one of the first-ever 20-second spot ads of 1952, pioneered by Madison Avenue for the candidate known as Ike. It features pre-rap doggerel (“Let’s get in step with the guy that’s hep”) but also the first tinge of putting down the other guy (“Adlai goes the other way”). The images evolve to color in 1968, where one Democratic ad is simply a round of screaming laughter off camera at the very idea of Spiro Agnew getting anywhere near the White House.

The killer instinct of politics is starkly displayed in ads categorized as Backfire. There’s Michael Dukakis’s tank ride to folly, of course, with a link to the Democrats’ desperate antidote ad. This begins with Mr. Dukakis at his TV, crying foul as he angrily turns off the G.O.P. ad that, yes, perpetuates his unfortunate tank ride where he’s grinning like a Mouseketeer.

The ultimate point, as the latest professionals hone their weaponry, is that attack ads surely work and are difficult to ever roll back. A troubled viewer can seek refuge in rosier reams of 30-second promises past. There’s candidate George Bush’s “world of terror” ad in 2000 — a year before 9/11 — in which he is promising voters “a foreign policy with a touch of iron.”

Who's running against Ol' "memory pills" Pat?

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:49:22 GMT

For those who don’t know who "the guy running against Roberts" is…his name is Jim Slattery.

He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 1995 in the Kansas delegation. Prior to his election to the Congress, Slattery served in the Kansas House of Representatives, as a reserve Army officer and founded a successful real estate company.

Slattery served on the Energy & Commerce, Veterans' Affairs, Budget, and Banking Committees. He was a central player on many key issues, including environmental protection, health care, telecommunications, and budget cutting efforts. He worked to limit production of the B-2 bomber, and was the chief sponsor of the successful amendment to terminate spending on the Superconducting Super Collider in 1993.

Slattery gained success as Democrat in a relatively conservative congressional district, Kansas's 2nd congressional district. He considered running for governor in 1990 but did not run and Joan Finney became the first female governor of Kansas.

*****************************************************************

Labette County Democrats

3^{rd annual Chili Cheese Frito Pie Dinner on 10/25, 5-7PM.}

^{Parsons Municipal Building, basement.}

^{Tickets are $4 each, include beverages, and 2 years & under eat free. We are trying to bring Mr. Slattery here to speak.}

^{The Labette Dems use the money raised to participate in local events such as the Relay For Life, The Arts & Crafts Fair (where they hand out free bottled water), and other area activities, as well as to support our candidates running for office.}

SMILING JOE ON THE STUMP

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:21:33 GMT

Federalism, Not Partition

Published: 10/03/2007

By Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Leslie H. Gelb

The Washington Post

The Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki greeted last week's Senate vote on Iraq policy -- based on a plan we proposed in 2006 -- with misrepresentations and untruths. Seventy-five senators, including 26 Republicans, voted to promote a political settlement based on decentralized power-sharing. It was a life raft for an Iraq policy that is adrift.

Instead, Maliki and the administration -- through our embassy in Baghdad -- distorted the Biden-Brownback amendment beyond recognition, charging that we seek to "partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means."

We want to set the record straight. If the United States can't put this federalism idea on track, we will have no chance for a political settlement in Iraq and, without that, no chance for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind.

First, our plan is not partition, though even some supporters and the media mistakenly call it that. It would hold Iraq together by bringing to life the federal system enshrined in its constitution. A federal Iraq is a united Iraq but one in which power devolves to regional governments, with a limited central government responsible for common concerns such as protecting borders and distributing oil revenue.

Iraqis have no familiarity with federalism, which, absent an occupier or a dictator, has historically been the only path to keeping disunited countries whole. We can point to our federal system and how it began with most power in the hands of the states. We can point to similar solutions in the United Arab Emirates, Spain and Bosnia. Most Iraqis want to keep their country whole. But if Iraqi leaders keep hearing from U.S. leaders that federalism amounts to or will lead to partition, that's what they will believe.

The Bush administration's quixotic alternative has been to promote a strong central government in Baghdad. That central government doesn't function; it is corrupt and widely regarded as irrelevant. It has not produced political reconciliation -- and there is no evidence it will.

Second, we are not trying to impose our plan. If the Iraqis don't want it, they won't and shouldn't take it, as the Senate amendment makes clear. But Iraqis and the White House might consider the facts. Iraq's constitution already provides for a federal system. As for the regions forming along sectarian lines, the constitution leaves the choice to the people of its 18 provinces.

The White House can hardly complain that we would force unwanted solutions on Iraqis. President Bush did not hesitate to push Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari out of office to make way for Maliki, and he may yet do the same to Maliki.

The United States has responsibilities in Iraq that we cannot run away from. The Iraqis will need our help in explaining and lining up support for a federal solution. With 160,000 Americans at risk in Iraq, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and with more than 3,800 dead and nearly 28,000 wounded, we also have a right to be heard.

Third, our plan would not produce "suffering and bloodshed," as a U.S. Embassy statement irresponsibly suggested. And it is hard to imagine more suffering and bloodshed than we've already seen from government-tolerated militias, jihadists, Baathists and administration ineptitude. More than 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes, most for fear of sectarian violence.

The Bush administration should be helping Iraqis make federalism work -- through an agreement over the fair distribution of oil revenue; the safe return of refugees; integrating militia members into local security forces; leveraging the shared interest of other countries in a stable Iraq; and refocusing capacity-building and aid on the provinces and regions -- not scaring them off by equating federalism to partition, sectarianism and foreign bullying.

To confuse matters more, the administration has conjured a "bottom-up" strategy that looks like federalism and smells like federalism -- but is, in reality, a recipe for chaos.

"Bottom-up" seems to mean that the United States will support any group, anywhere, that will fight al-Qaeda or Shiite extremists. Now, it always made sense to seek allies among tribal chiefs to fight common terrorist enemies. But to simply back these groups as they appear, without any overall political context or purpose, is to invite anarchy. Nothing will fragment Iraq more than a bottom-up approach that pits one group against another and fails to knit these parts into governable wholes.

Federalism is the one formula that fits the seemingly contradictory desires of most Iraqis to remain whole and of various groups to govern themselves for the time being. It also recognizes the reality of the choice we face in Iraq: a managed transition to federalism or actual partition through civil war.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Leslie H. Gelb is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Uncle Joe....moving kinda' slow...

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:17:35 GMT

In my never-ending quest for the perfection of mediocrity, I have decided to announce that I will support smiling Joe Biden. He has great teeth, mediocre hair, and he's one powerful SOB on the hill. Besides that, I think he's got bigger balls than Hillary. That's important. ~ Tracy

Here's some cutnpaste from his website:

The question for those who reject this plan is simple: what is your alternative?

A Five Point Plan for Iraq

1. Establish One Iraq, with Three Regions

Federalize Iraq in accordance with its constitution by establishing three largely autonomous regions - Shiite, Sunni and Kurd -- with a strong but limited central government in Baghdad
Put the central government in charge of truly common interests: border defense, foreign policy, oil production and revenues
Form regional governments -- Kurd, Sunni and Shiite -- responsible for administering their own regions

2. Share Oil Revenues

Gain agreement for the federal solution from the Sunni Arabs by guaranteeing them 20 percent of all present and future oil revenues -- an amount roughly proportional to their size -- which would make their region economically viable
Empower the central government to set national oil policy and distribute the revenues, which would attract needed foreign investment and reinforce each community's interest in keeping Iraq intact and protecting the oil infrastructure

3. Convene International Conference, Enforce Regional Non-Aggression Pact

Convene with the U.N. a regional security conference where Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, pledge to support Iraq's power sharing agreement and respect Iraq's borders
Engage Iraq's neighbors directly to overcome their suspicions and focus their efforts on stabilizing Iraq, not undermining it
Create a standing Contact Group, to include the major powers, that would engage Iraq's neighbors and enforce their commitments

4. Responsibly Drawdown US Troops

Direct U.S. military commanders to develop a plan to withdraw and re-deploy almost all U.S. forces from Iraq by the summer of 2008
Maintain in or near Iraq a small residual force -- perhaps 20,000 troops -- to strike any concentration of terrorists, help keep Iraq's neighbors honest and train its security forces

5. Increase Reconstruction Assistance and Create a Jobs Program

Provide more reconstruction assistance, conditioned on the protection of minority and women's rights and the establishment of a jobs program to give Iraqi youth an alternative to the militia and criminal gangs
Insist that other countries take the lead in funding reconstruction by making good on old commitments and providing new ones -- especially the oil-rich Arab Gulf countries

THE 'OTHER' CANDIDATES

Mon, 07 May 2007 11:41:03 GMT

From the DNC, an overview of what they would like for you to know about the GOP candidates.

I'll make this a series.

RUDY GIULIANI: GETTING TO KNOW THE RUDY YOU DON’T

Rudy’s Real Record as NYC Mayor: Giuliani is spinning his record as Mayor of New York City as

a cornerstone of his campaign. But about all we hear about is 9/11 and some vague claims about taxes.

A closer look at those eight years is in order. His ratings were tanking prior to 9-11; contrary to his

claims, he actually raised taxes increased the city payroll, and left with a budget deficit. Giuliani has

yet to demonstrate that his record and temperament as New York City mayor translate as a

qualification for the presidency.

What’s Behind the 9-11 Record? 9/11 is the keystone of Giuliani’s campaign. He wants us to

believe that a Democratic president will lead to more attacks, and that his leadership was exceptional.

But little is said about his performance on terrorism before and after 9-11. The truth about his record is

a little more complicated.

Rudy’s Moneymaking Career After He Left Office: Giuliani has become a multi-millionaire selling

his reputation, influence and name. He’s worked to advance the interests of the prescription drug

companies, nuclear power plants and his firm even lobbied for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

How does a businessman who got rich off clients opposed to the interests and safety of middle class

Americans convince them he can fight for their interests as president?

Rudy’s Gang: Who Are His Friends and Business Associates? Bernie Kerik was one of Rudy’s

closest associates during and after his Mayoral career. He even urged President Bush to appoint him to

be Homeland Security Secretary. Now Kerik is under federal investigation. Kerik is just the tip of the

iceberg of characters that will surface during Giuliani’s campaign.

ANYBODY REMEMBER PAT'S MEMORY PILLS?

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 14:20:16 GMT

Still Waiting for Answers

Surely no one beyond a handful of the most self-deluded Republicans in Congress was surprised at the disclosure by George Tenet, the former intelligence director, that there was never a serious debate in the Bush administration about whether Iraq actually posed a threat to the United States.

It has long been evident that President Bush decided to invade Iraq first, and constructed his ramshackle case for the war after the fact. So why, after all this time, are Americans still in the dark about the details of that campaign?

For that matter, why don’t Americans know the full truth about Mr. Bush’s illegal domestic spying program or his decisions on how to handle prisoners of the war on terror? And now there are new questions begging for answers — about the purge of United States attorneys and about campaign pep rallies in executive branch agencies that might well have violated federal law.

For six years, the Republican majority in Congress ignored the administration’s power grabs, misdeeds and incompetence or, worse, pushed through laws that gave legislative cover to some of Mr. Bush’s most outrageous abuses of power. Now that the Democrats control Congress, they have opened the doors of government in welcome ways. But the list of questions just seems to grow.

We hope Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, enforces the subpoena of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss prewar claims about Saddam Hussein’s long-gone weapons programs. Ms. Rice, who was national security adviser before the war, says she has answered every possible question. Actually, we don’t have room for all our questions.

Just a few: Did she vet the briefing Mr. Bush got from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s rogue intelligence shop on Iraq’s alleged efforts to acquire uranium? The Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department thought, correctly, that the report was false. So why did Ms. Rice permit the president to repeat it to the world? Or did Mr. Bush also know what he was claiming was wrong?

The same applies to other claims about Iraq, including a false report about the purchase of aluminum tubes for bomb building, talk of mushroom clouds and fairy tales about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. When it became clear the intelligence was false, why didn’t Ms. Rice make sure the public found out? Before the war, Ms. Rice was not in a post requiring Senate confirmation, but she is now. If she refuses to testify, the House should hold her in contempt.

It is imperative for Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, to finish two remaining studies on prewar intelligence that his Republican predecessor, Senator Pat Roberts, had no intention of completing. The first, on the errors made by the intelligence agencies in predicting what would happen after the invasion of Iraq, is expected to be finished next month. The final piece of the report will compare what administration officials said about Iraq with the actual information they had. Both reports are essential for understanding how this country got into this mess. Mr. Rockefeller will have to make sure the White House does not drag out the declassification procedure.

And then there are the questions about the purge of federal prosecutors. There is mounting evidence that many of the eight fired United States attorneys were punished for refusing to prosecute Democrats on phony election-fraud charges. Who ran this purge? And is it true, as it now seems, that others were rewarded for bringing weak corruption cases timed to close races?

For the last six years, the White House has also conducted seminars in each election cycle that certainly seem like an effort to use government agencies to help G.O.P. candidates. Did they violate the law that forbids the use of federal offices for campaigning?

Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s political “architect,” is at the center of both of these scandals. Congress needs to issue, and enforce, subpoenas to compel him and other top White House officials to testify.

Mr. Bush’s supporters are already arguing that Congress’s much-needed investigations are politically motivated and backward looking. Actually, the baldly political act was the Republicans’ refusing to do their constitutional duty of oversight for the last six years. Mr. Waxman said his panel issued four subpoenas to the Bush administration under Republican leadership. The same leadership issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to the Clinton administration.

As for looking back, Mr. Bush has hardly given up the habit of stonewalling Congress, or shown that he has learned the limits of his power. The war in Iraq not only continues, but Mr. Bush is escalating it and repeating many of the same myths about Saddam Hussein. The country does not need any more myths. It needs answers.