The David Zucker Ad

Republicans have moved with force into YouTube, posting a new video ad by David Zucker yesterday which criticizes former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Democrats for treating the safety of the U.S. as a "game." The ad depicts Albright serving cookies to terrorists, singing "Kum Ba Ya," mowing their grass and changing a flat tire. The ad was filmed by David Zucker, who directed "Naked Gun" and a number of other parody films. Zucker switched to the Republican party in 2004, citing his concerns about security. The YouTube video has been seen by nearly half a million viewers so far and has a nearly perfect rating. Wikipedia has more.

YouTube video (1:32)

John Zogby: 650,000 Number Highly Reliable

CNN International interviewed pollster John Zogby, of Zogby International, about the statistical methodology used in the study, published in The Lancet, which concluded that more than 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion, about 600,000 of them violently. Zogby said:

I can't vouch for it 100 percent, but I'll vouch for it 95 percent, which is as good as it gets in survey research. I know PIPA, the group at the university that conducted the polling in the U.S. I know of the group that -- the university that published and conducted the survey on the Iraq side. In fact, we've used them ourselves. These are good researchers. I have read their methodology statement. It is a good one and a sound one . . . in terms of the sampling of methodology that was used, this is sound and this is going to generate quite a bit of debate.

I don't think that there's anybody in my business who responsibly believes that 30,000 to 40,000 or 45,000 Iraqis have been killed since March of 2003.

Earlier today, President Bush dismissed the study, saying it was not credible.

Americans have an urgent responsibility to discover the truth about the number of Iraqi deaths. As Colin Powell famously said in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, "If you break it, you own it." Our elected president made the decision to invade. He was supported by our elected representatives in Washington, who funded the invasion. As a nation, we are responsible for the consequences.

The numbers of dead revealed by the study are shocking, but future numbers are likely to be even more shocking. Our own Department of Defense uses a 10% rule-of-thumb for civilian deaths in any civil war. Based on these new numbers, one can only conclude that the civil war is well underway, as many experts have warned. We can therefore expect at least 2 million Iraqi deaths before this conflict has finished. Are we, as a nation, prepared to accept responsibility for those deaths and what are we doing to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people? Has the Defense Department done the necessary planning for such a death toll? The study raises many troubling new questions about the mission in Iraq to which Americans must demand urgent answers.

YouTube video (7:22)

Must-See Video: Olbermann on "Tempting Faith"

As we wrote last Friday, October 6, David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith, is appearing at the worst possible moment for Republicans. The book, scheduled for release on October 16, contains some hard-hitting allegations about how the Bush administration, which privately referred to evangelical leaders as "the nuts," used the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for political projects, while directing a minimal amount of money to charities, faith-based or otherwise. Kuo served as the Office's deputy director during Bush's first term.

Keith Olbermann obtained an advance copy of the book and is doing a two-part analysis of its contents. The first was aired this evening.

Kuo writes, "“White House staff didn't want to have anything to do with the Faith-Based Initiative because they didn't understand it any more than did congressional Republicans. They didn't lie awake at night trying to kill it. They simply didn't care."

Instead the White House used the office for political purposes, sponsoring campaign events under its aegis. The Machiavellian uses of the faith-based initiative, once described by Kuo as the "cross around the White House's neck," appear to be amply documented in the new book.

This is a video everyone should definitely watch. Even more than the Foley affair, Kuo's explosive book promises to drive a deep wedge between Republicans and their religious base, by exposing the cyncism and contempt with which Republicans treat that base. (Urgent criticism of Olbermann: Stop comparing the Southern Baptist Convention to Islamic extremists. That's not Kuo's point and it's not helping.)

Video (wmv) and transcript at Crooks and Liars.

Bush: Lancet Study Not Credible

Speaking at a news conference today at the White House, President Bush said he did not consider the study published in today's Lancet, which concludes that 654,965 Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion, to be credible.

From the transcript:

QUESTION: Back on Iraq, a group of American and Iraqi health officials today released a report saying that 655,000 Iraqis have died since the Iraq war. That figure is 20 times the figure that you cited in December at 30,000. Do you care to amend or update your figure? And do you consider this a credible report?

BUSH: No, I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does General Casey and neither do Iraqi officials. I do -- I do know that a lot of innocent people have died, and that troubles me. And it grieves me. And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I am, you know, amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- you know, that there's a level of violence that they tolerate. And it's now time for the Iraqi government to work hard to bring security in neighborhoods so people can feel -- can feel, you know, at peace. No question it's violent. But this report is one -- they put it out before. It was pretty well -- the methodology is pretty well discredited. But I, you know, talk to people like General Casey. And, of course, the Iraqi government put out a statement talking about the report.

QUESTION: So the figure's 30,000, Mr. President? Do you stand by your figure, 30,000?

BUSH: I, you know, I stand by the figure a lot of innocent people have lost their life. 600,000 or whatever they guessed at is just, it's not credible. Thank you.

Video (wmv) via Crooks and Liars (1:49)

Minuteman Founder Storms Off Democracy Now!

Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist abruptly ended an interview on Democracy Now! this morning, citing "legal advice" after Columbia student Karina Garcia, of the Chicano Caucus, accused the Minutemen of attacking protestors during his speech last week. Univision coverage of the event shows a man, identified as a member of Gilchrist's organization, kicking a student in the head from the stage.

Transcript and video/audio links at Democracy Now!

Stewart Blasts CNN North Korea Reporting

Jon Stewart correctly points out that while nobody had confirmed North Korea's "nuclear test," CNN reported it as though a test had actually occurred. (As you might imagine, Fox News was even worse.) The test still has not been confirmed, and some intelligence analysts are now saying privately that the event recorded in North Korea was not nuclear.

YouTube video (1:28)

Study: 601,027 Violent Deaths Since Iraq Invasion

Defense Department's own data confirms latest household survey?


Deaths due to violent sources per Governorate. Source: The Lancet.

A startling study (pdf) published today in The Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, estimates that 601,027 Iraqis have died of violent causes since the 2003 invasion, and that there have been 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths in the same time period. The study was conducted by Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy and Les Roberts. Burnham, the lead author, is an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The study estimate, based on household interviews, is dramatically higher than the death toll reported by other organizations, such as Iraq Body Watch, which are based on passive surveillance methods like monitoring newspaper accounts. The authors note:

Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance measures. This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict, when access is restricted and fatal events could be intentionally hidden. Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population based methods. In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more when compared with populationbased estimates.

The death rate found in this study compares favorably with data collected by the Department of Defense itself (via the Multi-National Corps-Iraq), according to a figure in the study report in which the death rates estimated for the May 2004 to May 2005 and the June 2005 to June 2006 periods are virtually identical to those of the household survey. But it is not clear from the report where the DoD data was obtained. The study estimate implies nearly 700 violent deaths per day in Iraq, but the MNC-Iraq estimates only 117 violent civilian deaths per day. The DoD estimate is based only on violent deaths in incidents to which coalition troops respond.

Data from all surveys show a dramatic increase in the Iraqi death rate, which has virtually doubled from 2005 to 2006. Deaths attributable to coalition forces account for 31% of violent deaths, according to the household survey, and the authors note that:

Most violent deaths were due to gunshots (56%); air strikes, car bombs, and other explosions/ordnance each accounted for 13–14% of violent deaths. The number of deaths from gunshots increased consistently over the post-invasion period, and a sharp increase in deaths from car bombs was noted in 2006.


Trends in number of deaths reported by the Iraq Body Count and the MultiNational Corps-Iraq and the mortality rates found by this study. Source: The Lancet.

The authors note that the mortality rate estimates, which have more than doubled since the invasion, meet the Sphere standards for a humanitarian emergency, concluding that, "We continue to believe that an independent international body to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian standards in conflict is urgently needed."

Foley Interest Fades; Did Scandal Tip Public Opinion?

Traffic data from Alexa for a major Democratic blog and a minor blog that spent a lot of time covering the Foley scandal suggests that interest in the topic has already faded. Traffic to both sites saw an upswing when the scandal broke, peaked in the middle of last week and has now returned to a baseline value.

While public curiosity has waned, the most recent polls of likely voters by CNN and USA Today/Gallup, showed dramatic gains by Democrats on a generic ballot, where they are now favored by 21% and 23%, respectively. Both polls were conducted from October 6-8 and represented a gain of about 10 points for Democrats, compared to September polls by each agency.

What that might mean for the November elections is anyone's guess at this point. Even if the polls stick, it is unclear how they will translate into individual races, some of which are so close that a change of only a few points could determine the outcome. By the weekend, the political fallout from the scandal may be clearer.

Awaiting Confirmation of North Korea Test with Dread

As in previous addresses about things nuclear, President Bush seemed to be struggling not to laugh this morning as he pronounced the words "nuclear" and "proliferators" during his brief news conference. Undoubtedly, like the infamous "where's the WMD" video he filmed for the Washington press corps, his difficulty with pronouncing those words correctly is a subject of great White House mirth. As usual, Americans watched in dread as our president struggled to put the interest of the nation and the world above his own urgent narcissistic instincts and it was a relief when he concluded without having giggled aloud.

The Bush administration's carelessness over nuclear weapons extends far beyond the president's inability to pronounce the words "nuclear" and "proliferators." In the march to war in Iraq, the administration effectively trivialized them by lumping them with unconventional biological and chemical weapons, which kill limited numbers of people in confined spaces. A nuclear bomb is the only true weapon of mass destruction.

The administration has spoken repeatedly of developing new nuclear bombs, for use as bunker busters, and has effectively threatened Iran with a nuclear strike by leaking "plans" of such a strike to the press. Those positions are abhorrent to the entire world, not least because the United States is the only nation ever to have used nuclear bombs in war.

President Bush and key advisors allowed the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network to operate for nearly three years without intervention, according to a February 13, 2006, article in the New Yorker, written by Steve Coll and unfortunately unavailable on the Internet. The administration chose to monitor the network, from early 2001 to late 2003, rather than shut it down, according to Coll. Perhaps that decision made good sense from an intelligence perspective, but in light of Iran and North Korea's success in acquiring nuclear technology from Khan and the international crises that have resulted, Americans deserve more information about, and a justification for, that decision. It is ironic that, while the administration foisted fake intel on the American public about aluminum rods and yellow cake uranium in Iraq, it may have been monitoring a real, ongoing transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Radiation and seismic signature studies will have to be concluded, perhaps as early as this evening, before the world knows whether North Korea actually conducted a nuclear test or not. Ironically, the international Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that would have allowed nations to quickly confirm the test has not been ratified and awaits the signature of both the United States and North Korea. A confirmation of the test would mean that one of the world's most dangerous and unpredictable dictators now has the world's deadliest weapon. It is an announcement the world awaits with dread.

Dems Flub Another Meet the Press Debate

Claire McCaskill speaks in campaign soundbites

It's impossible to know how important the Meet the Press debates are for the elections, but Democratic candidates have certainly not used them to advantage. Virginia's Jim Webb gave a disastrous performance on September 17 when he became mired in a discussion about sexist comments he had published. Maybe it didn't hurt him, but it certainly didn't help, as his poll numbers continue to hover outside the range that would pose a serious threat to incumbent Senator Allen.

Claire McCaskill is locked in a much closer battle with incumbent Senator Jim Talent in the bellwether state of Missouri, the all-important race that will determine where the Senate balance of power falls for the next two years. Her performance yesterday was certainly not what one might have hoped. Our critique follows:

Style: McCaskill began well, projecting a warm, relaxed, almost folksy image that would appeal to any voter, but became increasingly tense and nervous as the debate wore on. Talent projected the image of a technocrat, sure of his facts, but not particularly affable. His demeanor was relaxed and unflappable throughout the debate. Advantage to Talent.

Time: Talent controlled the time, without appearing to hog it. We did check that, because it appeared to us he spoke far more than McCaskill did, and these are the numbers: Talent used 58% of the time while McCaskill used only 42%. McCaskill frequently gave one word answers ("yes," "no," "certainly"), like a beaming school child who knows the right answer, when she could have elaborated, however briefly.

Substance: Again, it was Talent who controlled the facts, while McCaskill often spoke in disjointed campaign soundbites. She did the best she could in defending an earlier remark that, "George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black." She became mired in a discussion of her own, personal plan for Iraq that was far too specific and she seemed generally to have a poor grasp of foreign policy. We could all have lived without this comment on Bill Clinton: "I think he's been a great leader, but I don't want my daughter near him." It was tasteless and bound to provoke disagreement from everyone, one way or the other. Compare that to Talent's comment on Bush, "Certainly, he's going to end up better than Jimmy Carter, probably not as good as Ronald Reagan." Properly nuanced, plenty of wiggle room and offensive to hardly anyone. McCaskill did not capitalize on the stem cell issue, her greatest strength, on which she should have spoken at length. Instead, she took the bait as Talent goaded her into a discussion of partial birth abortions. What is surprising is that, after so many years of abject Republican failure on everything from Iraq to Katrina to the invasion of Americans' personal privacy to its rejection of science, Democrats can not find a clear, simple message and express it forcefully. Anyway, the debate goes to Talent.

Maybe the stem cell issue can carry the election for McCaskill or perhaps the Foley thing will tip the scales in Missouri, but it would have been very nice to see a convincing debate performance, too. Is it possible the Democratic party has no debate coaches to polish candidates for these appearances? Why spend millions of dollars on ads if you're going to blow millions of dollars worth of time that's offered, at no charge, by a national network? Thank goodness the only Meet the Press debates remaining are Minnesota and Maryland, not New Jersey and Tennessee.

MSNBC video of the debate here.
Transcript here.

Republicans Knew of Sexually Explicit Foley Messages in 2000

The plot thickens, as the Washington Post reports Republican congressman Jim Kolbe (AZ8) knew about sexually explicit e-mails sent by Mark Foley to a page as early as 2000. Kolbe, the only uncloseted gay Republican in Congress, confronted Foley directly about the e-mails, but it is unclear whether he notified other House members. His press secretary denied the e-mails contained explicit language and said "corrective action" was taken at the time.

The report appears to push the timeline for when House Republicans were first told of Foley's sexual communications with pages back by at least three years.

Rep. Kolbe, himself a former page, is resigning at the end of his current term. Like Foley, Kolbe was outed by gay publications after voting for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Kolbe decided to openly declare his sexual preference, and won five more elections, while Foley decided to keep his a secret from constituents.

Patrick McHenry's Unseemly, Short Career

McHenry dated Susan Ralston, disgraced Rove aide

Not surprisingly, the homework on Republican Representative Patrick McHenry (NC10) has already been done. Washington Monthly published an unflattering profile of the ambitious young congressman in its October 2005 issue. This well-written article, by Benjamin Wallace-Wells,explores McHenry's giddy ascent through the Republican ranks from his days as a College Republican. How did McHenry rise so quickly? It's easy. He has no shame and his district is overwhelmingly Republican so he doesn't need to worry about reelection.

From the article:

No political movement can survive on talking points alone. It requires an endless succession of faces, flesh and bone, elected officials willing to impose their smiling mugs in front of the camera even when the talking points are ridiculous. In the nine months since he came to Washington, McHenry has cultivated a role as a kind of fraternity pledge for the House leadership, willing to do the dirty work on behalf of crusades that the rest of his caucus will no longer touch. He was still pumping Social-Security privatization this summer, months after the GOP leadership had given up on the bill. He was still attacking Terri Schiavo's husband after other Republicans, with an eye toward opinion polls, clammed up. And in June, he was summoned by the cable networks to defend Karl Rove after it began to appear likely that the president's chief strategist had identified Valerie Plame as a CIA agent while talking to reporters.

McHenry is perhaps the most successful and precocious of the endless string of those guys, the youngish Republican representatives who show up on cable television to defend the indefensible. But McHenry has also mastered, far more quickly than most, the inside game, the art of cultivating personal relationships with the powerful. Soon after moving to Congress, McHenry hired Grover Norquist's press secretary as his own. More recently, he's been dating Karl Rove's executive assistant.

We assume that would be Miss Susan Ralston, who resigned Friday after a House Government Reform panel report revealed that she received tickets to sporting and entertainment events from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, for whom she'd previously worked, in exchange for inside information about the White House.

Late Edition: Republican Groundwork All for Naught

Dana Bash, CNN's congressional correspondent, made an interesting point during a Late Edition discussion on the Mark Foley scandal this morning. Bash observed that the groundwork Republicans have carefully laid in preparing for this election, like forcing congressional votes on a marriage amendment, flag-burning, etc., is "all for naught" because of the Foley scandal. The "do-nothing" Republican Congress has been wasting time all year on those non-issues, when it isn't on vacation.

Mark Halperin and John Harris, authors of The Way to Win, discussed the Republican response in terms of the phenomenon they call "freak show politics," the Republican tactic of polarizing a discussion to the point that there is no agreement even on basic facts. Certainly we're being treated to a giant helping of freak show politics as Republican after Republican appears to blame the current scandal on Nancy Pelosi, CREW and Bill Clinton, talking points that were, according to the Washington Post, distributed by Republican party operatives to sympathetic talk show hosts, conservative blogs and, obviously, congressmen like Patrick McHenry.

The Wall Street Journal has called The Way to Win "a well-sourced, dispassionate look at the grim realities of running for president." You can read the first chapter here.

Late Edition on the Foley Scandal

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC10) appeared on CNN's Late Edition this morning with Rep. Chuck Rangel (D-NY15) . He mounted what can only be described as a moronic attack on Nancy Pelosi, claiming that she and others in the Democratic party had information about Mark Foley and timed its release for political gain.

Pressed by Wolf Blitzer about whether he had any evidence to support his allegation, McHenry tried to sidestep the question and even asked, at one point, "Do you have any evidence that they weren't involved?"

(Do you have any evidence I don't own a purple cat? No scholar, McHenry studied history at North Carolina State University and Belmont Abbey College, run by the Dominican order. He might have learned about logical fallacies had he studied with the Jesuits.)

At the age of 30, McHenry is the youngest member of Congress. His only previous experience, aside from his activities as a College Republican, was a single term in the North Carolina legislature. As a political favor, he was appointed special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor by President Bush in 2001. Like a surprising number of House Republicans, McHenry is a real estate salesman. He was one of only 20 Republicans who wanted to change House ethics rules to protect Tom DeLay.

McHenry, who would have been 25 when he first went to Washington, said he didn't know Foley well and denied knowing he was gay. "It's not something I'm interested in, to be honest with you," he said.

Asked whether he thought House Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign, McHenry said there was no evidence the speaker had broken the law. Pressed on whether he should resign for committing an error of judgment, McHenry said no.

At that moment, Chuck Rangel piped up and said that he agreed because if Republicans started resigning for their mistakes, many of them would have to leave.

In other news, Tom Reynolds was nowhere to be seen this morning and cancelled his scheduled appearance on ABC's "This Week," citing "flu-like" symptoms. Reynolds apologized (sort of) for his role in the Foley scandal in a TV ad that began running yesterday.

Patrick Buchanan appeared next on Late Edition, and, impossibly, managed to look even sillier than McHenry. His contribution to the national discourse was an announcement that Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton have marched in Gay Pride parades.

More later as we live blog the discussion . . .

Correction: McHenry was 23 when he first went to Washington in 1999, to work for DCI commuications group, the heart of the Republican slime machine. He was 25 and had no relevant experience when appointed by Bush to the Labor Department as a special assistant.


Rep. Patrick McHenry among his constituents.

Sunday Reading on Foley

The Washington Post has provided two excellent analyses of the Mark Foley scandal in its Sunday edition, from the perspective of information gleaned during the past week.

1. If you're confused by the holes in the story that have sent professional pols into overdrive, don't worry. You're not alone. The Post provides a clear, succinct summary of what is and isn't known about how Republicans in Congress dealt with Foley. For anyone who doesn't have time to follow every twist and turn in the plot line, this is the article for you. It opens:

Despite countless hours of TV coverage and reams of newspaper reporting on the House's handling of the Mark Foley page scandal, numerous fundamental questions remain unanswered as the FBI and the House ethics committee begin their first full week of inquiries.

Gaps and inconsistencies in the public accounts include such basic matters as when House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his top aides first learned of concerns about Foley's relationships with male pages, and what they did about it. Also unclear is which GOP officials decided that only two members of the six-person House Page Board should confront the Florida lawmaker.

The author, Charles Babington, proceeds to identify some basic questions in the case and explain what is or isn't known at this point. Nothing could be simpler.

2. The second article examines possible political consequences of the scandal. Beyond almost certainly losing Foley's seat in Florida, Republicans may also lose Tom Reynolds' New York seat, for example. The authors quote analysts who expect full-tilt coverage to continue through the coming week. The Republican strategy will be to wait until the furor subsides, while accusing Democrats of exploiting the scandal. They write:

Party operatives are distributing talking points to talk radio and conservative blogs detailing the Democratic ties of groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and American Family Voices -- two interest groups working to promote the scandal around the country. Republicans have also been working to remind conservatives of Democratic reaction to past sex scandals including those of President Bill Clinton and then-Rep. Gerry Studds (Mass.), who admitted to sexual contact with a page and went on to serve a decade longer in the House.

So we'll also be treated to the time-tested "liberal conspiracy" and "it's all Clinton's fault" defenses from Fox News and other Republican shills for at least another week. It's nothing we haven't been through before. The most important thing is to enjoy the spectacle. Republican scandals are more fun than a barrel of, well, macacas.

The Reynolds Mea Culpa Ad

Republican apologies as a genre

Republican Representative Tom Reynolds (NY26) began airing an ad today, in which he apologized (sort of) for not doing more in the Foley affair. Reynolds, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), encouraged Foley to remain in Congress and accepted a $100,000 donation from him, even after he had been advised of the disgraced congressman's e-mails to pages. Reynolds' chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, resigned on Wednesday as a result of his involvement in the scandal.

It's interesting to compare this ad to the Don Sherwood ad we posted earlier, in which Sherwood apologized (sort of) for his 5-year extramarital affair with a Washington mistress. With a few more examples, we could begin to explore the Republican mea culpa ads as a genre. The two ads share some interesting similarities. The open collars of the button-down shirts express a touch of informality, but are not as informal as, say, a sweater or polo shirt. In both ads, blurry family photos lurk in the background, to remind us the congressmen are family men, and heterosexuals to boot. Both men speak in measured, somber tones, with a worried brow and a pursed mouth. Both convey strikingly similar messages: I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm sorry anyway.

Here's the text of Reynolds' 60-second ad, from ABC's Political Radar blog:

I'm Tom Reynolds and I approve this message to let you know the facts. This spring I was told about odd, but not explicit emails between Mark Foley and a page. I never saw a single email, not one. Even so, I reported what I'd been told to the speaker of the house. At the time, I thought I'd done the right thing. I have since learned that newspapers in Florida and the FBI had copies of the emails for months and that Foley had been confronted about them and lied. But, last week, we all learned of other emails, worse than anything I'd heard before. I immediately forced Foley to resign. Nobody's angrier and more disappointed than me that I didn't catch his lies. I trusted that others had investigated. Looking back, more should have been done and for that, I am sorry.

YouTube video (1:00)

Meanwhile, Back at the Alamo . . .

It was Representative Joe Barton (R-TX6) who, perhaps subconsciously, compared the Republican defense of House Speaker Dennis Hastert to the stand at the Alamo when he wrote last Thursday:

We, the House Republican Conference, ironically a little over 200 strong, have a decision to make, just like the defenders of the Alamo some 170 years ago. We can cross the line and stand with our Speaker in defense of conservative values and common decency, or we can retreat.

But Hastert's boys at the Alamo are decidedly skittish and more than a few are sneaking out of the garrison, at least until they see how the political winds are blowing.

Already, at least four Republicans (Ron Lewis - KY2, Mike Sodrel - IN9, Joy Padgett - OH18 and Shelley Sekula Gibbs - TX22) have cancelled campaign appearances with the House leader.

Republican representatives Martha Rainville (VT1), Rick O’Donnell (CO7) and Peter Roskam (IL6) said they would await results of the Justice Department investigation before deciding whether to support Hastert as leader, according to The Hill. GOP candidates Gus Bilirakis (FL9) and Randy Graf (AZ8) have refused to comment on Hastert.

Rep. Jim Gerlach (PA6) cancelled an appearance with Republican House majority leader John Boehner.

Rep. Christopher Shays (CT4) issued a statement saying, "I will not vote for any leader who knew or should have known about Mark Foley’s conduct." That would seem to cover Hastert.

Senate GOP candidate Thomas Kean, Jr. from New Jersey will presumably not be invited back to the Alamo after calling yesterday for Hastert's resignation. "Hastert should resign as speaker. He is the head of the institution and this happened on his watch. I urge House leaders to go further by appointing an outside panel to review the matter immediately," Kean said.

Democrat Jim Webb Still Spouting the Wrong Answer

Unbelievably, Democrat James Webb, who hopes to oust Senator George Allen from his Virginia seat in November, has still not learned the proper answer to questions about his 1979 "horny women" comment. For the second time on national television he has spoken of a "rhetorical excess" and tried to justify his remark rather than simply admit it was wrong, in any context and at any time.

Democrats should have been the first to demand that answer and their failure to do so might very well cost them this seat and majority control of the Senate. It is an issue that transcends partisan politics and Webb's answer, for Democrats and Republicans alike, is simply unacceptable. Perhaps he still has time to understand why he was wrong and to state, openly and unequivocally, that he was wrong. Otherwise, it is not immediately clear why he belongs in the Senate any more than George Allen does.

Webb gave his first wrong answer during a debate on Meet the Press. Here's a video of the most recent exchange, with Wolf Blitzer last Thursday, October 5.

YouTube video ( 7:41)

Ethics Committee Investigation Stumbles Out of the Gate

Committee letter asks congressmen to investigate themselves

The House Ethics Committee investigation into abuse of pages may have already doomed itself to failure, by committing one of the most glaring errors possible in any investigation: Asking those with a potential interest in witholding facts to discover the facts. The committee sent a letter to House members yesterday, asking each representative to contact pages they've sponsored and get back to it with any information:

In order to assist the Investigative Subcommittee with its inquiry, we also request that you contact current and former House Pages sponsored by your office for the purpose of learning whether any of those individuals had any inappropriate communications or interactions with former Representative Foley or any other Member of the House.

The letter is signed by committee chairman Doc Hastings and senior minority member Howard Berman.

Let us assume, in the worst case scenario, that a congressman had "inappropriate interactions" with a House page he himself had sponsored. How would that information find its way into the clumsy hands of the Ethics Committee?

Furthermore, the congressmen are apparently not expected to contact House pages from their districts who had been sponsored by their predecessors. In the worst case, for freshmen representatives, the investigation will therefore only encompass the years 2005 and 2006.

It seems clear that the "investigation" does not have a broad mandate, that it has been cobbled together in the infrequent moments its members can spare from their reelection campaigns and that the House leadership is dedicating a minimum of time and energy to it, in hopes of buying time until the issue fades from public memory.

Anti-Sodrel Ad

As the campaign season intensifies, the Foley scandal has re-opened the much larger issue of congressional corruption, which Republicans hoped voters had forgotten. This ad, now being run by Democrat Baron Hill in Indiana's 9th district, places the Foley scandal in the broader context of that corruption and the relentless efforts of congressional Republicans to conceal it. Hill is trying to regain the House seat he lost to Republican Mike Sodrel by only 1,500 votes in 2004. Sodrel has a rating of 0 (yes, that's zero) from the Children's Defense Fund.

Ad transcript:

Washington is a mess and Mike Sodrel is part of it. Convicted congressman Cunningham gave Sodrel $2,000 for his campaign. Indicted majority leader Tom DeLay gave $20,000. And $77,000 from the House leadership, who knew about but did nothing to stop sexual predator congressman Foley. Meanwhile Mike, he says nothing, and refuses to return the money. You want change in Washington? Then change the people you send.

The ad doesn't even mention the phone sex money Sodrel obtained through Roy Blunt's "Rely on Your Beliefs" PAC.

Click to watch the ad (Real Player, 0:29)