This has been a long time coming. A great deal of FUD (fear, uncertainly, doubt) had to be overcome. Opponents have plead their case by lying to the ignorant...and we have all suffered as a result.

Nevertheless, the good guys may yet prevail.

Two separate groups of companies have formed recently with an eye toward applying for licenses that could allow the first new U.S. nuclear power plant to be built in more than 25 years.

And, in case you think it's a trivial process:

The application process is expected to take six years and cost about $500 million, said David Christian, senior vice president of nuclear operations at Dominion Resources, which is part of the consortium.

Obviously the licensing process needs to be streamlined with the focus on safety, not obstruction. But this is a great start.

Tom Blankley writes in the Washington Times about Kerry's many illnesses:

He is already on record as lying about his cancer condition last year — first denying the condition, then admitting it when the fact could not be avoided. Even The Washington Post yesterday reported: "Kerry, 60, who appeared athletic and robust during his recent skiing holiday, has nonetheless faced medical issues in the past year that have raised questions about his overall health."

We have speculated about the possibility that the Kerry campaign is a bait and switch operation--that he will provide an easy target for the Bush campaign for the next few months, then withdraw at the last minute. If the Dems were in fact planning such a scheme (scheming such a plan?) unspecified "health problems" would provide the perfect cover story.

More goodies from Political Diary:

"We now know how Campaign 2004 will unfold: A Democrat will accuse President Bush of having started the Chicago fire, or poisoning Halloween candy, or whatever. The news media will trumpet the charges, no matter how preposterous. When Bush aides deny the charges, and provide evidence refuting them, journalists will accuse Mr. Bush of making 'personal attacks'" -- Military affairs columnist Jack Kelly in the March 29 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Fantastic news via Political Diary:

Tim Giago, who grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and publishes the Lakota Journal, announced last week an intention to challenge Mr. Daschle in the state's Democratic primary. This week he changed his mind: Now he'll run as an independent in the general election. This is terrible news for Mr. Daschle. Instead of being a purely symbolic candidate, now Mr. Giago could have a real impact on the race between the incumbent and his Republican opponent, John Thune, a former U.S. congressman who lost South Dakota's 2002 Senate race to Democrat Tim Johnson by the slimmest of margins.

Is it too early to break open the champagne?

There are seven months left in the campaign this year, and we're all going to sit through a lot of political ads. Lets hope they're all this good.

NATO now has 7 new members, all of whom are former Eastern Bloc countries or actual members of the Soviet Union.

We extend a grateful and warm welcome to each new NATO member, with the possible exception of Romania. Decades of captivity under one of history's most evil regimes has taught these nations the true meaning of freedom. We hope they'll remind us from time to time.

Two distinguished professors have released a study concluding that music downloads do not reduce music sales.

"From a statistical point of view, what this means is that there is no effect between downloading and sales," said Oberholzer-Gee [of Harvard's Business School].

That sounds right to us. Downloads are analogous to radio play. Yes, you are getting it for free, but the result is that you are more likely to buy the song, not less.

Sometimes you have to wonder: What the hell is wrong with the Germans?!!

Here's a Reuters story about a German man who decapitated his mother with a Samurai sword after she told him to move out.

You were supposed to cut the cord, not cut her head off!

StrategyPage reports on Iraq:

NATO and the UN are discussing a joint operation to send more peacekeepers to Iraq. While both organizations have loudly condemned the American led coalition that overthrew Saddam Hussein, it's becoming clear that Iraq is headed for peace, prosperity and democracy. While the news media accentuates the violence of Saddam loyalists and Islamic radicals, European and UN officials are aware of the fact that the Iraqi economy is reviving at a robust rate and that most of the country is at peace and awaiting elections. While neither NATO nor the UN will admit, any time soon, that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of democracy there will do more to defuse Islamic radicalism than anything else being done, they don't want to be frozen out of the process either. Eventually, kudos will be handed out, and they want their share.

Also, the Marines have arrived in the Sunni Triangle ready to take out the garbage:

The marines have made their point in the Sunni Triangle ("don't mess with the marines") and are now patrolling frequently and getting a friendly response from Sunni Arabs. The anti-government Sunnis, who thought the marines might be an easier mark than the paratroopers they replaced, are now laying low and rethinking their tactics. Four days of fighting in Fallujah left dozens of anti-government Iraqis dead and many more wary of shooting it out with marines. The marines are out making contacts and collecting information so they can make raids on the anti-government forces. This worked for the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne division, but the marines plan to try a tactic of working harder to establish contacts with less hostile Sunni Arab groups.

Brookes News has an article on how the media are handling the Clark nonsense.

We don't pretend for a minute to be "balanced," so we can get away with calling Clark's allegations "nonsense." Seems that many in the media, who do hold themselves out as fair, balanced and nonpartisan, are nevertheless more free with their editorializing than we. Sheesh!

Glenn Reynolds suggests that Condi Rice should testify, if she starts out with the following:

This administration came into office to discover that al Qaeda had been allowed to grow into a full-blown menace. It lost six precious weeks to the Florida recount – and then weeks after Inauguration Day to the go-slow confirmation procedures of a 50-50 Senate. As late as the summer of 2001, pitifully few of Bush’s own people had taken their jobs at State, Defense, and the NSC. Then it was hit by 9/11. And now, now the same people who allowed al Qaeda to grow up, who delayed the staffing of the administration, who did nothing when it was their turn to act, who said nothing when they could have spoken in advance of the attack – these same people accuse George Bush of doing too little? There’s a long answer to give folks like that – and also a short one. And the short one is: How dare you?

Electoral Math Fun:

We had occasion to look over an electoral map of the 2000 Presidential election. Obviously Florida was close, but so were a lot of other states. By our count, 7 states representing 70 electoral votes were within 2% or less. Four of those states representing 49 electoral votes had margins of 0.5% or less.

Of the 7 "close" states, Bush took 2 (New Hampshire and Florida) for 31 electoral votes. The remaining 5 states and 39 electoral votes went to Gore. Put another way, more than half of the close states went for Gore (55.7% by electoral college--71.4% by the number of states).

Bush had a solid lock on 28 of his 30 states. The Democrats, on the other hand, had razor thin margins of victory in 5 of Gore's 21 states.

While there's nothing scientific about our analysis, it seems to suggest that the Democrats face an uphill battle. Despite a favorable break in the close states, they lost in 2000. Also, demographic changes have shifted 7 electoral college votes to the states Bush won in 2000. As a result Bush starts out ahead, targeting gains in 5 states and defending only 2. The Dems start behind, targeting gains in 2 states and defending 5.

That said, we don't think the story of the 2004 election will be Bush's strengths. We think it will be John Kerry's many weakness.

The more you see, the less you like.

Mickey Kaus has this to say about John Kerry (hat tip Instapundit):

Is it just a coincidence that Kerry's return to the campaign trail last Thursday corresponded precisely to the sharp reversal of his previously rising fortunes in the Rassmussen robo-tracking poll?... Democrats demand more elective surgery for Kerry and more ambitious elective surgery for Kerry, with longer recuperation periods!

It would certainly be an interesting campaign strategy--hide the candidate--but in Kerry's case we see the appeal...

CNN has a story about a Russian "mystery" weapon that would render the "prospective U.S. missile defense useless."

We blogged this over a month ago. The only change since then, as far as we can tell, is that the Russians have dropped the pretext that their countermeasures are not related to US missile defenses.

Senator Clinton, in a speech to the Brookings Institution, a left wing think tank, seems to be saying that Iraqi woman had more rights under Saddam. Judge for yourself:

When I was there and met with women members of the governing councils and local--of the national governing councils and local governing councils in Baghdad and Kirkuk, they were starting to express concerns about some of the pullbacks in the rights that they were given under Saddam Hussein. He was an equal opportunity oppressor, but on paper women had rights; they went to school; they participated in the professions; they participated in government; and business and, as long as they stayed out of his way, they had considerable freedom of movement.

Here's an interesting article on what appears to be an informal alliance between radical Islam and leftists in the West. An excerpt:

The possible electoral defeat of President Bush by John Kerry raises the question of whether the Global War on Terror ultimately requires a war on the Left. That is to say whether a political defeat of the Left is a prerequisite for stamping out worldwide terrorism. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many in the Left, at least, believes that the GWOT is a war on them. America, not Osama Bin Laden is the putative enemy, and their fire is directed accordingly.

Read the whole thing. (Hat tip Winds of Change).

There are initial reports that Mullah Omar, leader of what's left of the Taliban, has been wounded in a US airstrike.

Should have used a bigger bomb...

Here's a thoroughly awful name for a warship: The USS Jimmy Carter

Let's be honest. The man proved to be a much better carpenter than President. Maybe Sears could name a framing hammer after him, and spare our military the embarrassment of naming a ship after a man who once claimed to have been attacked, in a boat, by a killer rabbit.

Nuclear power is making a slow and long overdue comeback.

The business case for nuclear power is getting easier to make. Within recent years, existing nuclear power plants have become desirable sources of electricity because of their relatively reliable production of emission-free, low-cost power. According to Mr. Baxter, TVA nuclear power costs 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to 4.5 cents for coal and 6 cents for natural gas.

Read the whole thing.

Here's an idea. If the Democrats want to keep insisting that Bush was "selected" not "elected" then why not take them at their word and run again in 2008! After all, you can be elected President twice...

Desperate Democrats threaten to block all federal judicial nominees. Sigh. November is coming.

We haven't been following the Clark kerfuffle closely. For those who are interested, Instapundit has been documenting Clark's unraveling. It's gotten so bad that Glenn Reynolds joked that Clark must be a Karl Rove plant to discredit Clark's supporters.

Well enough, but this was interesting. Mr. Clark, it seems, has been testifying under oath, and investigations are now under way to determine whether his "change of heart" is really just simple perjury. That ought to drive those book sales!

John Lott notes that, with the "assault weapons" ban set to expire in September, the anti-gun crowd is changing its tune:

So why the conversion? The simple reason is that gun-control groups' credibility is on the line. A year from now, it will be obvious to everyone that all the horror stories about banning what have been labeled "assault weapons" were wrong.

Treat yourself to the whole thing.

The Israelis have stopped another child suicide bomber. While using Palestinian children as terrorists is not new, it seems to be getting more common. This one was paid about $23 by Arafat's Fatah.

We've also noticed a trend in these stories. The US press is listing this boy's age as 16, while the Israeli press says he was 14.

Haaretz has a list of Israel's Most Wanted (hat tip Rantburg).

We heard a disturbing theory recently and wanted to pass it on. What if Kerry isn't the Democratic nominee?

If you think about it, the Democratic party has been most successful in presidential elections with unknown candidates: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton come to mind. Both were obscure southern governors who sprang from nowhere to win. We've heard this called the "none of the above" or "somebody else" phenomenon. The idea is that the more Dems know about their candidates, the less they like them. So they vote for an unknown...somebody else. They have no reason to favor the unknown candidate, but at least they don't know him well enough to dislike him either.

Even this year's primary seems to follow the trend. Dean took an early lead and as a result took all the attention and all the hits. Then Dean crashed and burned and an untried, untested Kerry coasted to victory.

Now that Kerry is the presumptive nominee he's getting more attention, and the more we see and hear the less we like him. What happens over the coming months when Kerry's numbers fall to the low 40's and nothing he does will raise them? Even the convention boost will be wasted if the nominee is already DOA.

The answer is: Don't nominate Kerry. Bait and switch. Let Kerry take all the heat for the next few months. Let Bush spend his money. Let the clock run out. Then at the last minute when all seems lost, Kerry withdraws from the race. "Someone else" is nominated at the convention. The Democrats are reinvigorated just as they were after Kerry replaced Dean. The media love it. The Republicans have no time to respond. McCain/Feingold prevents third parties from launching their own ads during the final 2 months of the campaign. Viola! It's the ultimate "somebody else" strategy, and probably the only chance they have to beat Bush.

Crazy, right? Well, back in 2002 the Democrats were losing the Senate race in heavily Democratic New Jersey. Their candidate, Robert Torricelli, was plagued by scandals. Rather than lose the election Torricelli pulled out and the Democratic party replaced him with the well known Frank Lautenberg. The only problem was that this all happened 36 days before the election, and New Jersey state law stated that replacements had to be made at least 51 days before the election. Well, it went to court and a unanimous New Jersey state supreme court thought it was just fine so today, Frank Lautenberg is New Jersey's junior senator. Crazy indeed.

So, are the Dems planning a "somebody else" surprise this year? We wouldn't put it past them.

We've blogged before about Libya's nuclear program. Here's some information on its chemical weapons program, courtesy of the BBC.

What an amazing coincidence that Qaddafi decided to give it all up during G.W. Bush's presidency, and right after the liberation of Iraq too!

After the tragic loss of his parents, ElectionProjection.com's Scott Elliot posted today that he will continue updating his site.

God Speed, Scott.

Hamas founder and spiritual leader Yassin has been killed in Gaza, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Palestinians are promising to retaliate with terrorism. So what's new? One less bad guy by our count.

We've blogged before (here and here) about the Iraq insurgency transitioning from predominately Iraqi Baathists to foreign terrorists or "Jihadis." An article today in MSNBC confirms our view.

Would you take a bullet for John Kerry?

His next trip down, a reporter and a camera crew were allowed to follow along on skis — just in time to see Mr. Kerry taken out by one of the Secret Service men, who had inadvertently moved into his path, sending him into the snow.

When asked about the mishap a moment later, he said sharply, "I don't fall down," then used an expletive to describe the agent who "knocked me over."

For those following the fighting in Pakistan, Dan Darling has the best coverage.

Today is the one year anniversary of the US led invasion of Iraq. None of the doomsayers have been right. There was no bloodbath going in. There was no regional war. US forces were not bogged down or stuck in any quagmire. There has been no refugee crisis. There has not been a Shi'ite uprising.

In fact, mostly the opposite has been true. The war went quickly with historically low casualties on both sides. Baghdad fell ahead of schedule. Today the economy is booming, reconstruction is well advanced, the insurgency is all but defeated and the Iraqis themselves are poised to take over. Well done!

As for opponents of the war, it's come out that many, like the French, were simply bought and paid for. Others like Susan Lindauer weren't really anti-war. They were on the other side. Perhaps most disturbing, though, are the anti-war folks who are still unwilling to concede that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in it. We can fathom no rational reason to prefer a world with Saddam. Perhaps, denied a military disaster, they are hoping to create a political one.

Speaking of the irrational, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin today repeated a common canard:

"Terrorism didn't exist in Iraq before," Le Monde newspaper quoted him as saying. "Today, it is one of the world's principal sources of world terrorism."

Just for the exercise lets parse this claim.

1. Terrorism didn't exist in Iraq: Sure, and terrorism today does not exist in Iran or Syria. That's because they export it. Iraq had also been an exporter of terror. Now it isn't.

2. Iraq is now a principal source of world terrorism: This statement is even more ridiculous than the first. Iraq had been one of the world's principal exporters of terrorism. Now it is ground zero for fighting terrorism. Terrorists from around the globe have flocked there to fight and be killed by Americans. Far from being a source of terrorism, as it was prior to the war, Iraq has become the principal burial ground for the world's terrorists.

Mr. de Villepin's statement gives the impression that US activities in Iraq have somehow made the world terrorism problem worse. In fact the opposite is true. Invading Iraq did not create new terrorists. It brought existing terrorists out of their various hiding places to Iraq where, according to StrategyPage, already several thousand have been killed. The few Baathists who remain in Iraq fighting coalition forces are certainly not contributing to world terrorism, though they may very well have been in their official capacities under Saddam.

Contrary to Mr. Villepin's specious claims, the invasion of Iraq has been a dramatic blow to world terrorism. They have lost bases, funding, technical assistance, intelligence assistance and thousands of fighters. At the same time the world has gained a budding new democracy. Why doesn't Mr. Villepin care about that?

Those, like Mr. de Villepin, who refuse to admit that the invasion of Iraq has dealt a body blow to world terror are not people we can trust to fight it. The Spanish elections have proved that the anti-war crowd is not prepared to stand up to terrorists. Instead they will instantly surrender. That, gentle reader, is the difference between Bush and the anti-war crowd. Fight or surrender. Bush made the right call in Iraq, and the world is better off for it.

It is said that if you repeat a lie often enough people begin to believe it. The inveterate left seems to be following this line of thinking as they continue to claim that Iraq was a mistake and a failure.

Meanwhile, in the real world, here's yet another good thing to come from toppling Saddam: Libya's WMD program is no longer hidden in secret, underground labs. It's on display in Washington DC.

French opposition to the War in Iraq was bought and paid for.

This kind of thing is all too common:

When a CBS News poll found John Kerry leading George W. Bush by 48 to 43 percent amongst registered voters, Dan Rather reported it on the February 16 CBS Evening News, and when another CBS News poll two weeks ago put Kerry up by a mere one point over Bush, by 47 to 46 percent with registered voters, the February 28 CBS Evening News highlighted the finding. But on Monday, while the CBSNews.com home page, for much of the afternoon and into the evening featured the results of a new CBS News/New York Times poll, with a headline which declared, "Bush Moves Ahead of Kerry," the CBS Evening News didn't utter a word about the new numbers which put Bush up over Kerry by 46 to 43 percent with registered voters.

FoxNews has an article about political pressure on the administration to allow reimportation of prescription drugs from other countries. Canada, for example, has strict price controls. Similar price controls would never get through Congress, but reimportation advocates hope to accomplish the same thing buying from Canada.

Now, if the US decided to allow reimportation from Canada, and you were a US drug manufacturer what would you do? Stop selling in Canada of course. Give up the barely profitable market in order to keep the very profitable one. Cynical money grabbing? No, the drug manufacturers wouldn't have much choice. Canadian prices barely cover the cost of manufacturing drugs. There is nothing left over for researching new ones, which manufacturers need to stay in business over the long run. Oh yeah, and curing new diseases is a good thing too.

The bottom line with reimportation is that US prices would stay the same and Canadians would not have access to new drugs. There is a little bit of just desserts in that. As things stand today Canadians are getting all the benefits of expensive new medicines without paying for them--or at least they would be if their health care system worked, but that's another story.

Spain's humiliation is now complete. In response to Spain's withdrawal from Iraq, an al Qaeda affiliate has announced that it will cease operations against that nation.

There is much to dislike about the recent Spanish elections. The 1300 Spaniards who will be leaving Iraq represent more troops than all coalition combat deaths to date in both Afghanistan and Iraq. By that measure alone it is al Qaeda's biggest victory.

We grieve for Spain's dead. At the same time we feel the contempt and disgust that one must feel witnessing the cowardice of others.

Spain's actions have emboldened al Qaeda. Of course the terrorists will always attack when and where they can, but the stakes have now been raised. We can expect al Qaeda to focus more resources and be willing to take greater risks attempting to influence additional elections. Spain has not only dishonored its own dead. It has in a very real sense condemned other westerners to death as well.

The US has sent its crack terrorist hunting unit, Task Force 121, to Afghanistan to search for Osama bin Laden (who isn't dead, BTW). We support the effort and wish our troops Good Hunting!

That said, we can't help but note that finding bin Laden now could hurt Bush in November's election. The Dems would argue that bin Laden's capture marks the end of the War on Terror.

Of course, while bin Laden's capture will be a triumphant achievement in the War, it would be no means end it. The Dems know this, but because they are viewed (correctly) as weaker on terror than Bush they would nevertheless jump at the chance to take the issue off the table.

There is a reason why the word "politics" is an epithet.

Environmentalists try to ban water. Really! (Hat tip Instapundit)

There is no left wing media bias. Done laughing? More chuckles await in this Mark Steyn article:

Anyone who wants to understand why the media are held in such low regard by the public -- in polls of the most respected professions we usually come somewhere between Nigerian e-mail scammers and serial pedophiles -- should consider the following headline from an Associated Press story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last week:

''Accused Spy Is Cousin Of Bush Staffer''

...

Before she allegedly became an Iraqi agent, Lindauer spent a decade in Washington working for four members of Congress: Peter DeFazio, Ron Wyden, Carol Moseley Braun and Zoe Lofgren. What do these four legislators have in common?

Answer: They all have a ''D'' after their name.

But to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's headline writer the salient fact about Lindauer is not her 10 years of work for the Democratic Party but the amazing revelation that she is a second cousin of Bush chief of staff Andrew Card.

A second cousin! Hold the front page!

Read the whole thing.

Initial reports were that the Madrid bombings were the responsibility of the Basque separatist (i.e. terrorist) group ETA, but it now looks like al Qaeda did it.

Millions marched in Spain to protest against terrorism. Aren't they worried about squandering international goodwill?

The bombings came just days before Spain's national elections. Exit polls indicate that the Popular Party, which has supported the War on Terror, is losing ground to Spain's Socialists. If that's true, then the bombers got exactly what they wanted.

Kerry is broadening his base. In addition to the Iranian Mullah vote, he is now leading in the pro-terrorist vote.

The poll of 800 registered voters, taken in February, showed 60 percent thought terrorists would be happier with Mr. Kerry, while just 25 percent said the terrorists would prefer Mr. Bush.

As Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit says: Sometimes they aren't anti-war, they're just on the other side.

Speaking of which, Susan Lindauer has been charged with spying for Iraq. She's a former aid to several Democratic members of Congress: Rep. Pete DeFazio of Oregon, then-Rep. Ron Wyden of Oregon, then-Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California.

More good news from Iraq: The economy in Basra is booming.

Kerry's Open Mike Moment:

Kerry-Bashing is proving more fun than we would have thought. We'd expected a tired, dowdy liberal endlessly droning on about the environment, taxes, the UN and other sedative pedantries. Instead, we've got an unhinged, blue-blood supremacist with Tourettes Syndrome. Good times!

In his latest attack, Kerry spat out the following:

These [Republicans] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary.

Scary all right. Kennedy off his meds scary.

Our own view is that Kerry's outburst was no accident. The Senate is a tight, fraternal body. With very few exceptions the various Senators get along famously once the speeches are over--and Kerry's been there a long, long time. The Senators also work closely with the administration, some of whom are also former Senators. Kerry knows better, and for that reason we doubt very much this was a glimpse into his private thoughts.

If it wasn't an accident then it must have been planned. Why? Maybe Kerry was reminding his base that he still knows what this election is all about: Hating Bush.

Here's a must have gadget: Robotic Legs. These are straight out of Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), but we think we'll use ours to climb Mt. Everest someday.

A brief word on polls:

We are skeptical about many things. One of them is election polls. We just don't think that so many people change their minds so often. Consider, for example, a not at all uncommon 10% change in the same poll over a few weeks. If 70 million people vote in a presidential election, then 10% of the electorate is 7 million people. Are there really 7 million people who change their minds every few weeks? If those people exist, we've never met one. In our experience most people have long since made up their minds. If they change it's a one time, not weekly, phenomenon.

That said, we always like seeing our candidate ahead in the polls, flawed or not. We like it enough that we sometimes buy the paper that published it--which is probably what polls are all about.

Arizona Senator--and Republican--John McCain has said he would consider running as Kerry's VP. While the press would eat this up it probably wouldn't change the Presidential race much. People do not vote for the Vice President. That's a little like buying a car because you like the stereo. Some people might do that, but for most the primary consideration is the car. Are you getting a Mercedes or a Yugo?

That said, what would McCain bring to the ticket? He would probably deliver Arizona, where he is quite popular. His effect in other southwestern states would be nominal. As a middle of the road Republican McCain would probably also help moderate the ticket. We think, however, that would likely backfire. Will moderate Republicans trust Kerry on guns, trade, the economy and the War on Terror because McCain is his VP? Probably not. On the other hand, the left-most fringes of the Democratic party would not like the idea of putting McCain within a heartbeat of the presidency--or even just setting up McCain for a run to succeed him. For that reason it's not unrealistic to think that a Kerry/McCain ticket would lose a point or two to Nadar that Kerry could otherwise have held.

A Kerry/McCain ticket? We say bring it on!

Here's a very brief report about Iraq's improving economy. We think this is excellent news, better even than the dramatic reduction in attacks on Coalition troops. Political freedom is a nice thing, but economic freedom is arguably even more important. It's better for everyone--Iraqis included--if they spend their time saving up for a new car, bigger home or to send their kids to college. The alternative is that they continue to sit all day in coffee shops complaining that the Americans aren't fixing their country fast enough.

When you think about it, that's the entire point. Bringing democracy to the Middle East is not an end in itself. The point is to create a middle class--people with something to lose--who will take an interest in preserving their own peace and prosperity.

California Congressman Chris Cox writes about the so-called "assault weapons" ban in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The debate is not really about so-called "assault weapons." It's about banning guns. It's about gun prohibitionists searching for the easiest target of opportunity. They're going after guns claiming, without a shred of credible evidence, that these guns are the "weapons of choice" of criminals. It's a lie. A day after Clinton signed his gun-banning crime bill into law, a Washington Post editorial admitted: "Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control."

You must absolutely read the whole thing.

Kerry voted against body armor for US troops just last year! Hat tip Rantburg.

Bush on Kerry:

My opponent clearly has strong beliefs--they just don't last very long. . . .

Speaking of democratically elected presidents who become dictators, here's an update on Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

We are getting really tired of hearing Haiti's Aristide described as "democratically elected." This is repeated so often that one might think it was part of his name. While it's true that Aristide won the 2000 election, there is more to the story.

On Jan. 12, parliament’s term expired and due to the political logjam there were no new elections. Mr. Aristide is now ruling by decree.

Here's more:

Most of his opposition, which now includes many groups that once supported him, have also withdrawn from a negotiating stance, demanding instead his resignation. The opposition wants the U.S. government to support its position on the grounds that the systematic intimidation and brutality that is being employed by the president to achieve absolute power is flatly undemocratic.

There is a word for democratically elected presidents who overstay their elected terms and rule by decree and intimidation. That word is "dictator."

Holman W. Jenkins Jr. writes:

John Edwards was right: There are two Americas. One is the America of our self-image: sturdy, can-do, plain-speaking and non-whiney. The other is the America we don't like to brag about: the side that revels in victimhood, the America that's always beating its breast self-righteously about somebody else's trumped-up offenses against "sensitivity."

Iraq now has an interim Constitution, a prerequisite for the planned July 1 transfer of power. We are skeptical. The interim Constitution states that Sharia, or Islamic Law, will provide a basis for Iraq's national law. That is actually a step backward from Saddam's rule.

Because he was not himself religious (except when it suited his purposes to appear religious in public), Saddam didn't much care what religion people practiced under his otherwise ironfisted rule. Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister, was a Christian. The Baath party itself, a derivative of Stalinism and fascism, has always been hostile to religion. The result was a secular state with de facto freedom of religion.

If Iraq is now on track to become an Islamic state then we may very well have won the battle only to lose the war. Five years from now no one will be bragging about our accomplishments in Iraq if it is just another medieval cesspool where women can't go to school and men are beaten for shaving their beards.

Here's an excellent article by Dick Morris, a former advisor to President Clinton, on how Bush should campaign against Kerry. You should read the whole thing. Here's an excerpt:

But if Bush uses the next eight months to educate voters on Kerry's opposition to the death penalty, his vote against the 1991 Iraq war, his poor attendance record in the past year and his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, he could put this election away by defining Kerry right now.

This observation from today's Best of the Web is priceless:

The San Francisco Chronicle's Debra Saunders got a chance at an editorial board meeting last week to quiz John Kerry about his claim that President Bush "misled" him into backing the liberation of Iraq:

Kerry says he believed the resolution tied President Bush to promises to build an international coalition, to work with the United Nations and only go to war as a last resort. A disappointed Kerry now says Bush failed in all three venues. . . .

A month before Kerry's "yes'' vote, Bush went to the United Nations and said the following: "Saddam Hussein has defied the United Nations 16 times. Not once, not twice--16 times he has defied the U.N. The U.N. has told him after the (Persian) Gulf War what to do, what the world expected, and 16 times he's defied it. And enough is enough. The U.N. will either be able to function as a peacekeeping body as we head into the 21st century, or it will be irrelevant. And that's what we're about to find out.''

Bush told the U.N. that if it failed to act, America and its allies would--as indeed they did. So where's the deception? Saunders:

Kerry's answer was that Washington insiders believed that Bush didn't mean what he said. "I think that you had a hard-line group (then Pentagon adviser) Richard Perle, (Deputy Defense Secretary) Paul Wolfowitz and probably (Vice President Dick) Cheney. But when Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker (former advisers to the first President Bush) weighed in, very publicly in op-eds in the New York Times and the (Washington) Post, the chatter around Washington and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell in particular, who was very much of a different school of thought, was really that the president hadn't made up his mind. He was looking for an out. That's what a lot of people thought."

What about what Bush said to the U.N.? That was "rhetorical," Kerry answered. And "a whole bunch of very smart legitimate people" not running for president thought as he did. "So most people, actually on the inside, really felt that (Bush) himself was looking for the way out to sort of satisfy Cheney, satisfy Wolfowitz, but not get stuck." Kerry continued, "The fact that he jumped and went the other way, I think, shocked them and shocked us."

So Bush "misled" Kerry by telling the truth! As Saunders observes, "The scariest part is that Kerry looked as if he believed what he said."

A friend writes:

Have been reading Hanson's book on (i.a.) Sherman, in my opinion clearly -- along with Grant -- the greatest field commander the U.S. has ever produced.

"It is a hard thing for contemporary liberalism to envision war as not always evil, but as sometimes very necessary and very necessarily brutal if great evil is to disappear. Sherman did not make up out of thin air the three hundred thousand who had to be killed; there really were than many and more courageous Confederates who would kill and die for the reality though not always the open admission that black people were to be perpetually enslaved. Some historians often fail to see that a humane manner of waging Civil War gives us someone like McClellan, whose battle incompetence only prolonged the killing, and whose tolerance for slavery might, if Sherman had not taken Atlanta in September 1864, have allowed bondage to continue in America under a McClellan presidency."



Victor D. Hanson, The Soul of Battle (1999, p. 229)

(on Sherman's March through Georgia)

Yesterday John Kerry received his coronation as the Democratic candidate for President. Let the buyer's remorse begin!

Kerry has been running on a platform of "electability." He'll make some noises about health care, the UN, class warfare and other Democratic favorites, but we suspect that "electability" will continue to be the centerpiece of his campaign. Why? Bush is running against George Soros, not Kerry. Soros and the "independent" groups he funds will spend the next 8 months trashing Bush with impunity. Their goal is to damage him enough that people will be willing to default to someone less controversial...someone "electable." Sounds crazy? It worked in the Democratic primaries.

To counter Soros and his minions we need to make an issue of Kerry's claim of "electability." That will accomplish two goals. The first is to get attention back to the fact that Kerry is the candidate. The second is two put the lie to Kerry's claims that he can win. He can't, but Bush could lose. We need to say so.

The message is easy enough. Kerry has no chance in the south. He loses on national security, taxes and the economy. He is a far-left northeastern liberal blue blood with no national base. He's not even a Governor, and history has not been kind to Senators running for President. Any way you slice it he's a hundred to one shot. We just need to keep reminding people.

The Soros strategy is not something that Bush can counter directly. It would risk a backlash for them to come out and say the obvious--that Kerry is not "electable" in this life or the next. Nor will the media touch it. They hate Bush and aren't going to do anything that might help him. That leaves the blogosphere. You know what to do.

Larry Sabato, in his March 3 Political Crystal Ball newsletter:

"This will be the dirtiest, filthiest presidential campaign in modern American history... Kerry knows he'll be given a pass by the media and his party faithful for anything he says and does on the road to defeating Bush, who has become the news media's least popular chief executive since Nixon... [If] he is to avoid his father's fate and get his message out, Bush must be tough and unrelenting despite the predictable media cluck-clucking about the 'harshness' of the Bush campaign"

The Washington Post has a piece on Libyan WMD.

One thing that stood out is that Libya had binary chemical weapons. These are stored as two inert and harmless chemicals which are mixed at the last minute to make weapons. What's the big deal? Well, third world countries under sanctions are generally not thought capable of manufacturing advanced weapons such as binary agents. The assumption has been that they can only make more primitive agents that, while deadly, do not last long in storage. Sounds like maybe it's time to take another look at those assumptions.

It's been a strange day in the Senate. Earlier today they passed 2 amendments to a bill which would shield gun manufacturers from lawsuits based on the illegal use of their products. The first amendment was a 10 year extension of the 1994 "assault weapons" ban. The second was a requirement for "unlicensed dealers" at guns shows to run background checks.

Last week the Senate had also passed an amendment requiring that all new handguns be sold with child safety locks.

We'll post more on the topic later. The amount of outright lies on the topic is staggering. For now just know that the Senate has killed the bill and the amendments. In all likelihood there will be no gun liability bill this year, and the "assault weapons" ban will sunset in September.

More good news from Iraq. There is a brand new national telephone system up and running. Imagine trying to run a business without a telephone or fax machine. Well, thanks to Coalition Forces, Iraqis no longer have that problem.

Some additional information on Pacepa from The Washington Times.

We've blogged Ion Mihai Pacepa before, and are delighted to see not one, but two new items today. The first is an article in National Review in which he criticizes those who attack the CIA for partisan reasons. Here's an excerpt:

After I finally defected, in 1978, I was sure that other heads of enemy espionage services would follow in my footsteps. But it didn't happen. I believe it was because yet more investigations hit the press revealing CIA bungling with its agents and defectors. Had I still been in Romania then, I sometimes wonder whether I would be here now.

The second is an interview in FrontPage Magazine in which he discusses many topics including terrorism, the KGB and Saddam's WMD. Again, an excerpt:

Contemporary political memory seems to be conveniently afflicted with some kind of Alzheimer's disease. Not long ago, every Western leader, starting with President Clinton, fumed against Saddam's WMD. Now almost no one remembers that after General Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, defected to Jordan in 1995, he helped us find "more than one hundred metal trunks and boxes" containing documentation "dealing with all categories of weapons, including nuclear." He also aided UNSCOM to fish out of the Tigris River high-grade missile components prohibited to Iraq. That was exactly what my old Soviet-made "Sarindar" plan stated he should do in case of emergency: destroy the weapons, hide the equipment, and preserve the documentation.

Read them both. Then thank your lucky stars that there are people like Pacepa who are willing to risk everything to promote freedom.

Reason has an excellent article on Iraq. You really need to read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:

"Where were the U.N. and our ‘fellow Arabs’ when we were suffering?" Hasan asked. "Where were the peace activists and leftists? How can they all accept the crimes of a dictator for so many years, then rise up in protest when a war begins to remove that dictator?"

Note to Mr. Aristide: It's never a good sign when your departure has people dancing in the streets.

Next dictator to fall: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez?

David Skinner writes in the Weekly Standard about the homework controversy--are kids getting too little or too much? We think he's missing the real story.

When schools assign more homework it doesn't necessarily mean the kids are doing more. Sometimes it means the schools are doing less, and forcing parents to pick up the slack.

Tim Blair has a post up comparing press coverage of unemployment under Bush (5.7% is high) and Clinton (5.6% is low). (hat tip InstaPundit).

Even more interesting, scroll down and you'll see the following comment:

Full employment: In principle, this is when all of our economy's resources are being used to produce output. This is one of the five economic goals, specifically one of the three macro goals (the other two are economic growth and stability). In practice, our economy is considered to be at full employment when the unemployment rate is around 5 to 5 1/2 percent and the capacity utilization rate is about 85 percent. This unemployment rate includes structural and frictional unemployment.

This is consistent with what we learned in school--that 5-6% unemployment is considered "full" employment. It's certainly better than the double digit unemployment that is common in Europe right now. It also may be why the press has been talking more about "jobs lost" than the actual unemployment figures.

The Chicago Sun Times reports preliminary new job creation numbers for January (112,000) and February (125,000).