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Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/386580.html
Hugo Chávez: Latin America's money man
BY TYLER BRIDGES
Posted on Sun, Jan. 20, 2008
For two hours, President Evo Morales huddled in this jungle city with adozen area mayors as they pitched public-works projects -- to be financeddirectly by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
The Venezuelan and Cuban ambassadors to Bolivia flew here aboard thepresidential jet to join the talks. The public was kept out.After the money was divided up, Morales invited the media in and offered themayors, one by one, a handshake and a Venezuelan embassy check for up to$150,000. In all, Venezuela gave about $1.5 million that day last November.
''I admire the Venezuelan government for showing this solidarity,'' said a beaming Walter Valverde, mayor of the town of Puerto Rico, holding a $28,917check to build a new hospital.
Flush with oil profits, Chávez is making an unprecedented effort to win thehearts and minds of citizens from Buenos Aires to Boston as he seeks toexport socialism and challenge the United States' traditional role as theregion's dominant player.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/us/politics/20carolina.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
McCain Has Big Win in South Carolina; Huckabee Falls Short
By MICHAEL COOPER and MEGAN THEE
January 20, 2008
CHARLESTON, S.C. - Senator John McCain staved off a spirited challenge by Mike Huckabee to win the South Carolina primary on Saturday, exorcising theghosts of the attack-filled primary here that derailed his presidentialhopes eight years ago.
Mr. McCain's victory here, on top of his win earlier this month in NewHampshire, capped a remarkable comeback for a campaign that was all butwritten off six months ago. In an unusually fluid Republican field, his aides said they hoped the victory would give Mr. McCain a head of steamgoing into the Jan. 29 Florida primary and the nationwide series of nominating contests on Feb. 5.
"It took us a while, but what's eight years among friends?" Mr. McCain saidat a boisterous victory celebration that broke out into shouts of "Mac isback! Mac is back!"
Mr. McCain did best among voters who said experience was the most importantquality in a candidate, among those who said the Iraq war and terrorism weretheir top concerns and among the state's veterans, who made up a quarter ofthe vote. He ran about even with Mr. Huckabee, who pressed a populistmessage here, among the many voters who said their top concern in the election was the economy. He also continued to draw strong support fromindependents.
Mr. Huckabee's loss in a Southern state with a strong turnout of religiousvoters was a setback to his campaign as it heads toward potentially lesshospitable states.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20wwln-ethicist-t.html?scp=6&sq=gay
The Ethicist: Anonymity Breach
By RANDY COHEN
January 20, 2008
Our university requires us students to write anonymous evaluations of ourprofessors.
On one evaluation, a student made derogatory comments about a professor's sexual orientation.
The university hired a handwriting expert to confirm theidentity of the culprit so punishment could be administered. The university claims the student broke the code of conduct, but if anonymity was promised, is this investigation ethical? - S.C., GEORGIA
The university should not pursue this investigation. Even if a studentviolated its code of conduct by making a homophobic slur, for the universityto abandon its pledge of anonymity is a cure worse than the disease. While such remarks are vile and rightly discouraged, the actual harm here is minimal; the call-the-cops response will do greater damage, discouraging students from providing information important to the university's functionand subverting students' trust in the university.
Some situations would require the school to override its promise ofanonymity. If a student wrote, "Professor X is an old bore, and by the way,I intend to burn down the gym tonight during the big game," the school would have to investigate the latter claim because it is a serious, imminent threat. But an odious comment does not carry the same weight.
Instead, the school should amend its policy and give students advancenotice. Anonymity should be guaranteed only for comments about a professor's work, not as a get-out-of-jail-free card for making sexist or racist cracks or threatening a fellow student. There should also be a process for determining if a transgression has occurred, akin to what our legal system requires before a search warrant is granted.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902310.html?hpid=topnews
McCain Beats Huckabee in S. Carolina; Clinton and Romney Win in Nevada
Florida Now Looms as Key GOP Primary
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2008; A01
COLUMBIA, S.C., Jan. 19 -- Sen. John McCain conquered the South CarolinaRepublican primary Saturday, giving his once-embattled presidential campaign another significant boost and helping to wipe away bitter memories of his defeat here eight years ago.
McCain (Ariz.) opened his victory speech in Charleston by alluding to that loss. "It took us a while, but what's eight years among friends?" he said, a big smile crossing his face.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, looking for a victory in the first Southern primary of the 2008 nomination battle, finished second to McCain, but not getting a victory in this conservative state is a blow to his underdog hopes of winning the GOP nomination.
Earlier in the day in Nevada, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney easily won the Republican caucuses. It was his second victory in five days and kept alive a candidacy that was on life support after early losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney finished fourth in South Carolina.
The candidates move on to Florida, whose Jan. 29 primary could prove pivotal in shaping what has been a confused and volatile Republican nomination battle. McCain has the opportunity to take control of the Republican race: A victory there would establish him as the clear front-runner heading toward Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when nearly two dozen states will hold contests.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/opinion/20sun1.html?ref=opinion
Editorial: Pump-Priming the Economy
January 20, 2008
After months of denial, President Bush seems to be bowing to the need to stimulate the faltering economy. He has also given up, for now, his effort to use the economy's deepening woes as an excuse to extend his tax cuts for the wealthy past their 2010 expiration date.
Still, Congressional Democrats face a battle with the administration to draft a final package that will quickly help those Americans most in needand provide the most economic bang for the buck.
Urged by testimony on Thursday by Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bush seems to have acknowledged that extending his tax cuts would do little to mitigate an economic slowdown in 2008 and 2009. OnFriday, Mr. Bush called for a package of tax rebates and investment incentives amounting to about $145 billion - or 1 percent of the nation's economic output - to be rolled out as soon as possible. The White House says it embraces some sound principles for an effective fiscal boost - that they be temporary and timely, hitting the economy this year, while it is weak. But what we know of the package does not meet a fundamental requirement: that it put cash into the hands of low- and moderate-income people, who need it most and are most likely to spend it right away.
The White House has provided few details, but in conversations with lawmakers, he mulled provisions to let businesses partly deduct new capital investments, coupled with income-tax rebates of $800 for individuals, or $1,600 for households.
The idea, Mr. Bush said on Friday, was to let people"keep more of their own money."
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/opinion/20rich.html?ref=opinion
Op-Ed Columnist: Ronald Reagan Is Still Dead
By FRANK RICH
January 20, 2008
CONTEMPLATING the Clinton-Obama racial war, some Republicans were so excited you'd have thought Ronald Reagan had risen from the dead to slap around a welfare deadbeat.
Never mind that the G.O.P. is running on empty, with no ideas beyond the incessant repetition of Reagan's name. A battle over race-and-gender identity politics among the Democrats, with its acrid scent from the 1960s, might be just the spark for a Republican comeback. (As long as the G.O.P.'s own identity politics, over religion, don't flare up.)
Alas, these hopes faded on Tuesday night. First, the debating Democrats declared a truce, however fragile, in their racial brawl. Then Republicans in Michigan reconstituted their party's election-year chaos by temporarily revivifying yet another candidate, Mitt Romney, who had been left for dead.
The playing of the race card by Hillary Clinton's surrogates to diminish Barack Obama was sinister. But the Clintons are hardly bigots, and the Democratic candidates all have a history of fighting strenuously for inclusiveness. By contrast, the Romney victory in Michigan is another reminder of how Republicans aren't even playing in the same multiracial American sandbox.
The conservatives who hyperventilated about the Democrats' explosion of identity politics seemed to forget that Mr. Romney also dragged Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into this campaign - claiming that he "saw" his father, a civil-rights minded governor of Michigan, march with King in the 1960s. The point of Mitt Romney's invocation of the race card was to inoculate him selfagainst legitimate charges of racial insensitivity; he had never spoken outabout his own church's discrimination against blacks, which didn't end until 1978. Instead, the tactic ended up backfiring.
Late last month The BostonPhoenix exposed this touching anecdote as a fraud. George Romney and King never marched together.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/opinion/20kristof.html?ref=opinion
Op-Ed Columnist: Hillary, Barack, Experience
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
January 20, 2008
With all the sniping from the Clinton camp about whether Barack Obama has enough experience to make a strong president, consider another presidential candidate who was far more of a novice. He had the gall to run for president even though he had served a single undistinguished term in the House of Representatives, before being hounded back to his district.
That was Abraham Lincoln.
Another successful president scorned any need for years of apprenticeship inWashington, declaring, "The same old experience is not relevant." He suggested that the most useful training comes not from hanging around the White House and Congress but rather from experience "rooted in the real lives of real people" so that "it will bring real results if we have the courage to change."
That was Bill Clinton running in 1992 against George H. W. Bush, who was then trumpeting his own experience over the callow youth of Mr. Clinton.
That year Mr. Bush aired a television commercial urging voters to keep America "in the hands of experience."
It might seem obvious that long service in Washington is the best preparation for the White House, but on the contrary, one lesson of American history is that length of experience in national politics is an extremely poor predictor of presidential success.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/opinion/20sun4.html?ref=opinion
Editorial: No Place to Hide
January 20, 2008
Skeptics about global warming often point to Antarctica to show that Al Gore and others who worry about climate change have exaggerated the dangers greatly. They may concede that the Arctic is melting and even that Greenland is beginning to appear a bit shaky. But look at Antarctica, they will say.
It's actually growing colder, and the ice sheet is thickening.
That argument is becoming harder to sustain. According to a study published last week in the journal Nature Geoscience, changes in water temperature and wind patterns related to global warming have begun to erode vast ice sheets in western Antarctica at a much faster rate than anyone had previously detected.
The study pointed out that the ice loss is very small compared with the continent's miles-deep ice sheets. Even so, the study suggests that if the trend continues, global sea levels could rise higher and more swiftly than previously supposed. The findings give more urgency to the search for a new global agreement to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
There has always been uncertainty over Antarctica's weather, partly because it is so hard to find what is happening in large parts of the continent. And there are, in effect, two Antarcticas. East Antarctica, which makes up about 90 percent of the total, sits above sea level and is relatively stable, with increased snowfall compensating for any loss of ice.
A study in 2002 concluded that the interior had actually cooled over the previous decade.
Then there is the western shelf, an expanse of ice and snow roughly the size of Texas and largely below sea level. Using measurements from satellites that scanned about 85 percent of Antarctica's coasts from 1996 to 2006, the study's authors found that West Antarctica has been losing ice at a rate that is 60 percent faster than 10 years ago.
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The New York Times
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/mind-the-gender-gap/index.html?ref=opinion
Mind the Gender Gap
By Andrew Kohut
January 18, 2008, 8:00 pm
A lot of attention has been paid to the women's vote in the first two Democratic nominating contests. In the Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama won a narrow victory over Hillary Clinton among female voters. But in New Hampshire women rallied to the former first lady giving her a huge 46 percent to 34 percent margin, which was the deciding factor in her come backwin.
In contrast, the voting preferences of men have not drawn as much attention, perhaps because men voted the same way in both states: a strong plurality of men backed Obama. According to the Edison/Mitofsky entrance polls in Iowa, 35 percent of male caucus-goers supported Senator Obama, compared with 23 percent who backed Senator Clinton. In the New Hampshire primary, Senator Obama carried the male vote by a similarly large 40 percent to 29 percent margin, despite his narrow defeat there.
What's going on here? Does Senator Clinton have a problem with male voters or does Senator Obama simply appeal more to men? A look at the exit polls and latest national polls suggests that the answer is a little bit of both, but the anti-Clinton sentiment is a somewhat larger factor among men. In particular, Hillary Clinton seems to turn off younger and moderate to conservative male Democrats. As many as one-in-five of them say there is no way they will support the former first lady for the nomination.
But this sentiment aside, Senator Obama has some qualities that strongly appeal to male Democrats. Indeed, men more so than women find him inspiring and trustworthy. The Illinois senator also draws much more support from men who are college graduates than from those with less education.
Signs of these patterns were evident among New Hampshire primary voters.
Looking at favorability ratings rather than votes, exit poll respondents voiced more positive views of Senator Obama (84 percent) than of Senator Clinton (74 percent). Her rating lagged his because only 67 percent of men expressed a favorable view of the former first lady compared with 80 percent of women who did so. Senator Obama's favorable ratings were generally about the same for men and women.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-cuba-vote.html
Cubans Vote For Parliament That Could Retire Castro
By REUTERS
January 20, 2008
Filed at 9:02 a.m. ET
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cubans voted on Sunday for deputies to the national legislature that included ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, even though he has not appeared in public for almost 18 months.
On the slate of 614 uncontested candidates for 614 seats in the state's National Assembly were the main leaders of Cuba's ruling Communist Party.
The assembly will hold its first session on February 24, acting President Raul Castro told Reuters after voting early at a school near Havana's Revolution Square.
That meeting to approve the executive Council of State will confirm whether the elder Castro, 81, will continue as Cuba's head of state or be formally succeeded by his brother, 76, or a younger leader.
Castro, who has run Cuba since a 1959 revolution that created a communist state just 90 miles away from the United States, hinted in December that he does not intend to cling to power.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/world/middleeast/20iran.html
Radical Left, Iran's Last Legal Dissidents, Until Now
By NAZILA FATHI
January 20, 2008
TEHRAN - In early December, a surprising scene unfolded at Tehran University: 500 Marxist students held aloft portraits of Che Guevara to protest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's policies. Smaller groups of Marxist students held similar protests in several other cities.
Political protest has been harshly suppressed under the current Iranian government, especially dissent linked to the West. But the radical left, despite its antireligious and antigovernment message, has been permitted relative freedom. This may be, analysts say, because, like the government, it rejects the liberal reform movement and attacks the West.
"The government practically permitted the left to operate starting five years ago so that they would confront religious liberals, " said SaeedLeylaz, a political analyst in Tehran. "But that led to the spread of a new virus."
In recent weeks, the leaders of the Marxist student movement have been arrested, suggesting that the government is worrying about the size of the demonstrations and the growing attraction of an ideology that is deeply antithetical to its own.
Morad Saghafi, a political analyst and the editor in chief of Goftegoo magazine, said that it was not so strange that there were leftists but that it was significant that they were radical leftists.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902310.html?hpid=topnews
McCain Beats Huckabee in S. Carolina; Clinton and Romney Win in Nevada
Florida Now Looms as Key GOP Primary
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2008; A01
COLUMBIA, S.C., Jan. 19 -- Sen. John McCain conquered the South Carolina Republican primary Saturday, giving his once-embattled presidential campaign another significant boost and helping to wipe away bitter memories of his defeat here eight years ago.
McCain (Ariz.) opened his victory speech in Charleston by alluding to that loss. "It took us a while, but what's eight years among friends?" he said, a big smile crossing his face.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, looking for a victory in the first Southern primary of the 2008 nomination battle, finished second to McCain, but not getting a victory in this conservative state is a blow to his underdog hopes of winning the GOP nomination.
Earlier in the day in Nevada, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney easily won the Republican caucuses. It was his second victory in five days and kept alive a candidacy that was on life support after early losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney finished fourth in South Carolina.
The candidates move on to Florida, whose Jan. 29 primary could prove pivotal in shaping what has been a confused and volatile Republican nomination battle. McCain has the opportunity to take control of the Republican race: A victory there would establish him as the clear front-runner heading toward Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when nearly two dozen states will hold contests.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011802742.html
An Establishment Teeters, in Kenya and Beyond
By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, January 20, 2008; B07
Other people's violence is not a deep concern for most of us, particularly if it occurs in remote Africa or overpopulated Asia. But the outbreak of tribal killings and widespread rioting in Kenya hits me where I live.
Rather, it hits me where I lived. The upheaval threatens to put Nairobi on a list of foreign capitals where I once resided or visited regularly but which have become dangerous ground for foreign tourists or business people, journalists and, in many cases, the local population. A curtain of violence and of hostility toward outsiders has fallen over many parts of my journalistic history.
So when Kenya seems to be collapsing, I take it personally. It revives memories of seeing Lebanon tear itself apart around me, or watching from a distance as Algiers, Tehran, Baghdad, Mogadishu, Khartoum, Harare and a few of the other places I traveled to as a young foreign correspondent have been enveloped by long nights of horrific destruction, xenophobic revolution or both.
The list is not exhaustive, nor, as you may have suspected, is it truly just about my own experiences living or working in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. I cite it to make the point that the world increasingly needs to take the number of failing capitals personally -- and to commit more international resources and energy to helping struggling nations right themselves.
The forces of globalization and of immediate, intrusive electronic communication have connected the lives of Americans and Europeans much more closely to the people of the developing world -- on the surface. But the increase in communication has not been matched by an increase in understanding of the Third World's dilemmas or a commitment to help resolve them.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011802937.html
Patience in Iraq
We Need to Guard the Progress Being Made
By Jack Keane, Frederick W. Kagan and Michael O'Hanlon
Sunday, January 20, 2008; B07
Iraq's new de-Baathification bill, which awaits only expected approval by the presidency council before becoming law, is good news. During Saddam Hussein's day, if you wanted a professional job in Iraq, you basically had to join the Baath Party. For most of the 1 million-plus who did so, this hardly implied involvement or even complicity in crimes of the state.
Hussein was so paranoid that only his very inner circles were entrusted with information or influence. The Shiite-led government now seems willing to recognize as much. Coupled with the pension law passed in late fall, this legislation means that many former Baathists will have a real stake in post-Hussein Iraq.
The legislation is one of half a dozen key political "benchmarks" we have expected Iraqi leaders to address. Others are hydrocarbon legislation; a provincial powers act; a law to facilitate the next round of local elections; a process for holding a referendum on the political future of Kirkuk, the disputed northern oil city; and a better process for purging sectarian extremists from positions of government authority. Apart from de-Baathification reform, major steps have been taken only on the last of these. But there has been real progress on other important matters, including Baghdad's sharing of oil revenue with the provinces, even without a hydrocarbon law; the hiring of Sunni volunteers into the security forces and the civilian arms of government; and improvements in the legal system, such as more trained judges and fewer indefinite detentions of prisoners.
Iraq's political glass remains more empty than full, but trends are clearly in the right direction.
This progress resulted from a year's worth of substantial effort to reduce violence in Iraq. Proponents of the "surge" always said that getting violence under control was an essential prerequisite to reconciliation, not the other way around. The full surge has been in place and operating for just over six months, and already violence has fallen dramatically across the country. The achievement in such a short time of significant legislation requiring all sides to accept risk and compromise with people they hadrecently been fighting is remarkable.
The progress of the past year also required American political pressure. The ongoing engagement of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Gen. David Petraeus and others in cajoling Iraqi political leaders into making make compromises across sectarian lines has been crucial.
American politicians of bothparties have sometimes applied useful pressure. But they have acted counterproductively when threatening to withdraw U.S. forces rapidly, without regard to conditions or to whether Iraqi leaders are trying to make compromises across sectarian lines.
As Crocker said last spring, "The longer and louder the debate gets, the more danger there is that Iraqis will conclude that we are going," leading to "a hardening of attitudes" among sectarian factions. Iraq's institutions are too weak, and its sectarian wounds still too raw, for us to expect thegains of the past year to endure in the face of a quick and nearly completeAmerican withdrawal.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902016.html
A Forgotten Crisis: The United Nations pledged to act on Burma. Instead, it has allowed itself to be bullied and shamed.
Sunday, January 20, 2008; B06
WAS IT only four months ago that the world was pledging to stand by the brave thousands who were marching peacefully for democracy in Burma? Was it so recently that the United Nations Security Council was proclaiming its readiness to promote reconciliation after those same thousands were swept off the streets and into prisons or unmarked graves?
As the U.N. effort sputtered to a complete stall last week, it was impossible not to wonder whether those brave pledges were anything but a summer dream. While the movement of Buddhist monks and hundreds of thousandsof sympathizers held the world's attention, the odious regime in Burma, a Southeast Asian nation of 50 million people, promised to engage in dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy leader living under house arrest and in near total isolation. It promised, too, to permit U.N. Secretary General BanKi-moon to send his special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, any time he wanted. But no dialogue has taken place, and the regime won't give Mr. Gambari a visa until April, if then. And the Security Council's response to this extraordinary insult to its mandate and prestige? Last week, it mustered, not without controversy, a statement of "regret" at the "slow pace of progress."
Progress? Here's what's happened since Mr. Ban put his, and the United Nations', prestige on the line. More monks have been arrested. The death toll from the fall has yet to be made known.
The regime raised the fee for satellite dish licenses from $5 per year to $800, or three times the average annual salary, so that its people -- already impoverished by economic mismanagement and corruption -- will be further cut off from the world. And meanwhile, Mr. Gambari flies from Asian capital to Asian capital, hoping that someone will put in a good word for his visa.
Bush administration officials are pushing China, India and the Europeans to pressure the Burmese, but without much luck. China didn't even want Mr. Gambari to brief the Security Council. Japan, ever attuned to its commercial interests in Burma, recently resumed aid. South Africa, which has emerged under President Thabo Mbeki as a leading opponent of human rights in other countries, has sought to stymie U.N. involvement. There are options beyond pleading: arms embargoes, stricter banking sanctions aimed at the junta members and their relatives, and more. Whether they come into play depends on whether the secretary general and and leaders of nations that claim to respect the United Nations object even a little to its humiliation by a band of Burmese bullies.
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The Washington Post
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/19/new_clarity_for_both_parties.html?hpid=topnews
New Clarity, for Both Parties
By David S. Broder
COLUMBIA, S.C.
-- The New Hampshire verdicts were reinforced Saturday in Nevada and South Carolina, bringing a degree of clarity to both parties'nomination fights.
Hillary Clinton's victory in the Nevada caucuses and John McCain's win in the South Carolina primary were close enough to keep the competition going on both sides. But the winners gained significant advantages for the coming rounds.
Mitt Romney remains a serious challenger for the Republican nomination, with
a win in Nevada Saturday on top of earlier victories in Michigan and Wyoming, and second-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Barack Obama, winless since Iowa, nonetheless continued to draw the kind of independent support that could fuel a comeback for him, starting next Saturday in South Carolina.
Mike Huckabee, the upset winner among Iowa Republicans, was damaged by his inability to roll up comparable margins among South Carolina evangelicals.
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The Washington Pos
thttp://www.washingtonpost.com/
South Carolina Republican Primary
- CandidateVotes%
John McCain 143,224 33
Mike Huckabee 128,908 30
Fred Thompson 67,897 16
Mitt Romney 64,970 15
Other 26,197 6
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Nevada Democratic Caucus - Candidate %
Hillary Clinton 51
Barack Obama 45
John Edwards 4
Other 0
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902231.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Administration Rankles Some With Stance in Handgun Case
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2008; A04
The Bush administration's position in the case before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the District of Columbia's ban on handguns has created an unexpected and serious backlash in conservative circles, disappointing gun enthusiasts and creating implications for the presidential campaign.
The government's brief, filed by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement just hours before the court's deadline Jan. 11, endorses the view that the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to gun ownership, a finding long sought by gun rights activists.
But it also said an appeals court used the wrong standard when it struck down the District's ban on private handgun ownership, and it urged the Supreme Court to return the case to the lower court for review.
If the justices accept that advice when they hear the case in the spring, it could mean additional years of litigation over the controversial Second Amendment and could undo a ruling that was a seminal victory for gun rights enthusiasts.
Some were livid. One conservative Web site said the administration had "blundered in catastrophic fashion," and another turned Clement, usually a pinup for conservative legal scholars, into a digital dartboard. Rep. EricCantor (Va.), the Republicans' chief deputy whip, called the brief "just outrageous," and Republican presidential candidate and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) accused the Justice Department of "overlawyering" the issue.
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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902465.html?hpid=sec-religion
China's Leader Puts Faith in Religious
Hu Sees Growing Spiritual Ranks as Helpful in Achieving Social Goals
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 20, 2008; A21
BEIJING, Jan. 19 -- There was Hu Jintao, head of the Chinese Communist Party, warmly shaking hands at a party-sponsored New Year's tea party with one of the country's main Christian leaders. To make sure the message got through to China's 68 million party faithful, a large photograph of the moment was splashed across the front page of the official party newspaper, People's Daily.
Hu's display of holiday courtesy to Liu Bainian, general secretary of theChinese Patriotic Catholic Association, was one in a series of recent signals that China's rulers, despite the party's official atheism, are seeking to get along better with the increasing numbers of Chinese who find solace and inspiration in religion. The shift in tactics does not mean the Politburo has embraced religion, specialists cautioned, but it indicates adesire to incorporate believers into the party's quest for continued economic progress and more social harmony.
The move away from traditional Marxist attitudes evolved from Hu's campaign for what he calls "a harmonious socialist society." The concept, in effect an appeal for good behavior, was designed to replace the moral void left when the party long ago jettisoned historical Chinese values and, more recently, loosened the zipped-tight social strictures of communism under MaoZedong.
Religion, the party has decided, can also be useful in encouraging social harmony because it urges its followers to hew to a moral code.
"We must take full advantage of the positive role that religious figures and believers among the masses can play in promoting economic and social development," Jia Qinglin, a member of the Politburo's Standing Committee, told a meeting of government-connected religious officials Wednesday.
Hu presided over a special Politburo study session last month on the expanding role of religion in China. Two of the party's religion specialists were called in to explain the phenomenon to China's 25 most powerful men, most of whom grew up with the Marxist idea that religion is a hostile force and, in China, foreign infiltration with ties to the colonial past.
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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011901135.html?hpid=sec-health
New Generation of Homeless Vets Emerge
By ERIN McCLAM
The Associated Press
Saturday, January 19, 2008; 11:52 PM
LEEDS, Mass. -- Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran.
There was a happy homecoming, but then an accident _ car crash, broken collarbone.
And then a move east, close to his wife's new job but away from his best friends.
And then self-destruction: He would gun his motorcycle to 100 mph and try to stand on the seat. He would wait for his wife to leave in the morning, draw the blinds and open up whatever bottle of booze was closest.
He would pull out his gun, a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol. He would lovingly clean it, or just look at it and put it away. Sometimes place it in his mouth.
"I don't know what to do anymore," his wife, Anna, told him one day. "You can't be here anymore."
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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902155.html?hpid=sec-world
Ex-Prosecutor Targets Corruption at U.N.
He Leads Agency's Task Force in Effort to Halt Combat Bribery, Bid Rigging
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2008; A08
UNITED NATIONS -- Robert M. Appleton, a senior U.N. crime fighter, has pursued corruption from New Delhi to Manhattan's swank W Hotel, where two U.N. officials wound down a $6,000 night of drinking, strip clubs and prostitutes, courtesy of a corrupt executive seeking to do business with the United Nations.
"Quite frankly, it's just fun work," the former Connecticut federal prosecutor told reporters at a recent news conference. As head of the two-year-old U.N. Procurement Task Force, Appleton oversees a team of as many as 19 international investigators, who have identified more than $610 million in tainted contracts and $25 million in misappropriated funds.
The alleged crimes include bid rigging of multimillion-dollar contracts for fuel, food and helicopters; petty bribery; and millions in overcharges for such things as office curtains in Kenya and Lipton tea in Sudan.
"Corruptionis not unique to the United Nations," he said in an interview. "But the U.N. is in some sense unique because of its geographical breadth. It's at risk for a lot of reasons."Appleton's team has employed white-collar anti-fraud tactics in an organization that has traditionally relied on former police investigators to conduct complex financial corruption probes. His investigations have resulted in an unprecedented number of misconduct findings against 17 U.N.staff members, and have led to the conviction of a procurement officer who steered more than $100 million in contracts to a state-owned Indian company.
"They are like a bulldog," said Andrew Toh, a senior U.N. procurement official from Singapore who is the target of an ongoing probe into influence peddling. Toh has been charged with misconduct for not cooperating fully with the investigators and not fully disclosing his financial records, but the task force has so far not proved allegations that he illegally steered contracts to companies.
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Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top12jan20,0,3687547.story
Leavitt Says Key Health Issues Divisive
By KEVIN FREKING
Associated Press Writer
7:51 AM EST, January 20, 2008
WASHINGTON
The Bush administration's health agenda this year will consist largely of fending off Democratic lawmakers until a new president and Congress take charge.
In a preview of what's ahead, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt says the administration will work to limit the government's role in the delivery of health care. That goal is at odds with several Democratic proposals, such as giving the health chief the power to negotiate drug prices and greatly increasing enrollment in federally sponsored health insurance for children.
Leavitt sees the philosophical divide playing out in numerous ways before the November elections.
Most policy analysts see little chance for compromise on almost all the major health issues before Congress -- a view shared by the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees most health issues.
Based on last year's experience in the first year of Democratic control, "I'm not expecting too much cooperation or bipartisanship," Texas Rep. JoeBarton said.
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Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/story/385097.html
Unsung heroes deserve credit for victories
LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@miamiherald.com
Posted on Sun, Jan. 20, 2008
You want to know who deserves credit for the victories of the civil rights movement? Mother Pollard.
She's been largely forgotten over the last two weeks as the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination bicker over who did what in the 13-year epoch that crumbled the walls of American apartheid.
Should the lion's share of the recognition go to the president who staked his legacy on enacting laws that made real the promises of democracy? Should it go to the civil rights leader whose courage and eloquence roused the sleeping conscience of the nation?
If you've just got to choose, give it to Mother Pollard. She was one of the elders of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., during the bus boycott of 1955-56. When her pastor, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., suggested she go back to the buses because she was too old to keep walking, she told him, ``I'm gonna walk just as long as everybody else walks. I'm gonna walk till it's over.''
King marveled. ''But aren't your feet tired?'' he asked.
''My feet is tired,'' she replied. ``But my soul is rested.''
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