~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05thu1.html?ei=5040&en=10642769b100f577&ex=1160712000&partner=MOREOVERFEATURES&pagewanted=print
October 5, 2006
Editorial
Real Scandals, and Fake Ones
When it comes to sexual scandal, American voters tend to be more rational than American politicians. The House Republicans raced to impeach PresidentClinton over the Monica Lewinsky episode. But the people, shocked as theywere, showed no desire to punish him by upending the national government.
Conservative politicians frequently try to score political points by railingagainst homosexuality, but voters from very conservative areas often supportpoliticians who are living out their private - and often not particularlysecret - lives as gay men and women. Lawmakers from both parties haveannounced they were gay over the last generation, and they were almostalways re-elected.
That tolerance obviously does not extend to Representative Mark Foley'se-mail pursuit of under-age Congressional pages, an unforgivable - and verypossibly illegal - abuse of public trust. But there's reason to worry thatthe scandal could tempt Republican politicians and their defenders to try toturn it into an anti-gay witch hunt in the Capitol.
=
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/10/05/santorum_struggles_for_voter_approval?mode=PF
Santorum struggles to win voters' hearts
By Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press Writer | October 5, 2006
HERSHEY, Pa. --Rick Santorum has spent 12 years in the Senate -- andmillions of dollars on TV ads for a third term. Yet a lot of Pennsylvaniavoters just plain don't like him.
Polls show Santorum's approval rating is in the 30s, just about what it wasa year ago. Roughly the same number of voters view him unfavorably asfavorably.
Questions over the use of Pennsylvania tax dollars to pay for the cyberschooling of his six children in Virginia continue to dog him.
Anger lingers over comments he made in a book last year criticizing someworking parents, as well as statements he made in opposition to same-sexmarriage and in support of keeping Terri Schiavo alive.
"Santorum's real problem is Santorum," said Clay Richards, a Quinnipiac University pollster.
=
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/accent/content/accent/epaper/2006/10/05/axe_chmom_hpv_vaccine_1005.html
Be armed with facts about HPV vaccination
Thursday, October 05, 2006
In June, the FDA approved the first vaccine to protect against cervicalcancer, preventing infection by the two strains of human papillomavirus(HPV) responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancers - an almostunheard-of rate.
Soon an awareness campaign for the vaccine urged women to tell someone elseabout it. This month, the folks at Prevention magazine would like to suggesta specific someone: your young daughter.
The October issue of Prevention delivers a compelling case for why girls,even as young as 9, should get vaccinated. It offers advice for talkingabout the virus and the vaccine with young girls, and answers many commonquestions about the vaccine.
=
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/05/misreading_the_tea_leaves_us_missteps_on_foreign_policy?mode=PF
The Boston Globe
STEPHEN M. WALT
Misreading the tea leaves: US missteps on foreign policy
By Stephen M. Walt | October 5, 2006
JUST WHEN YOU think that US foreign policy couldn't possibly get worse, the Bush administration manages to take it down another notch. Iraq is a debacle; the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan; and Osama bin Laden is still at large. North Korea has become a nuclear weapons state and Iran's nuclear ambitions remain unchecked. The quixotic campaign to ``transform" the Middle East has fueled several violent conflicts and empowered Islamic extremists in Iraq, Iran, the Palestinian Authority, and Lebanon.
This disastrous record is not just a run of bad luck. These setbacks occurred because the Bush administration's foreign policy rests on a deep misreading of contemporary world politics. Conducting foreign policy on the basis of flawed premises is like designing an airplane while ignoring gravity: it won't get off the ground, and if it does, it is bound to crash.
What did the administration get so wrong?
First, officials misunderstood how other states see US primacy. Convinced that American power was a force for good, Bush thought other states would welcome US leadership as long as he acted decisively. In fact, US primacy made even longstanding allies nervous because they didn't know whether America would use its vast power in ways that would help or harm them.
=
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15679907.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Ethics committee ready to launch investigation of Foley case
LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Speaker Dennis Hastert's job is on the line as members of the House ethics committee decide how to launch a credible investigation offormer Rep. Mark Foley's salacious computer messages to teenage pages.
An extraordinary political spectacle surrounded the committee's firstscheduled meeting Thursday. Republicans publicly blamed Hastert for failingto take action after he was warned about the messages, and a former Foleyaide said he told Republican leaders about the Florida congressman's conductyears earlier than they have acknowledged.
With Republicans concerned about maintaining their congressional majority inthe Nov. 7 elections, political support for Hastert was ebbing. Republicanofficials said at least a few disgruntled members of the GOP rank and filehad discussed whether to call on the speaker to step aside. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the issue.
=
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100400616_pf.html
Ex-Aide To Foley Cites '03 Warnings
Former Staffer Says He Alerted Hastert's Office
By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 5, 2006; A01
A longtime chief of staff to disgraced former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) approached House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office three yearsago, repeatedly imploring senior Republicans to help stop Foley's advancestoward teenage male pages, the staff member said yesterday.
The account by Kirk Fordham, who resigned yesterday from his job withanother senior lawmaker, pushed back to 2003 or earlier the time whenHastert's staff reportedly became aware of Foley's questionable behaviorconcerning teenagers working on Capitol Hill.
It raised new questions about Hastert's assertions that senior GOP leaderswere aware only of "over-friendly" e-mails from 2005 that they say did notraise alarm bells when they came to light this year.
=
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/05/BL2006100500289_pf.html
More Finger-Pointing
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 5, 2006; 7:22 AM
The curious case of Kirk Fordham helps explain why the GOP has got Foleygateproblems that go well beyond Maf54.
I broke this angle on Monday, reporting that Fordham, Foley's former chiefof staff, had tried to cut a deal with ABC's Brian Ross to suppress theseamier details of the scandal. If Ross would withhold the sexually graphicIMs from the Florida congressman,Fordham said, ABC could have the exclusive on Foley's resignation. Ross, notsurprisingly, refused.
What I quickly learned was that Fordham had another job: chief of staff toRep. Tom Reynolds, the New York Republican who happens to head the House GOPcampaign committee.
So you had the top aide to the House's senior GOP campaign guy trying tokeep the seedy details out of the media. No wonder some critics are chargingcover-up.
=
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05thu2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
October 5, 2006
Editorial
Deeper and Deeper
There is fresh evidence, if any more were needed, that excessive borrowingduring the Bush years will make the nation poorer.
For most of the past five and a half years, interest rates have been low,allowing the government to borrow more and more - to cut taxes whilefighting two expensive wars - without having to shoulder higher interestpayments.
That's over now. For the first time during President Bush's tenure, thegovernment's interest bill is expected to rise in 2006, from $184 billion in2005 to $220 billion this year, up nearly 20 percent. That increase - $36billion - makes interest the fastest-growing component of federal spending,and continued brisk growth is likely. According to projections by Congress'sbudget office, the interest bill will grow to $249 billion in 2007, and $270billion in 2008.
All of that is money the government won't have available to spend on otherneeds and priorities. And much of it won't even be recycled back into theUnited States economy. That's because borrowing from foreign countries hasexploded during the Bush years. In 2005, the government paid about $77billion in interest to foreign creditors in China, Japan and elsewhere.
=
A Note from Paul Harris
Dear Friends,
I've just pledged to help turn out the winning margin of voters for Democrats in November by bringing at least one voter with me to the polls. Stand with me and EMILYs List and do your part to put Democrats back in control of our government.
http://emilyslist.org/do/women-vote/pledge/
Thanks for voting this year! Perhaps, in not the most important, at least tremendously important to putting the once respected USA back on a path of sanity.
#####
