NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST November 11, 2007

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/arts/television/11redd.html?pagewanted=print


November 11, 2007
Television

Muslims on TV, No Terror in Sight
By MRINALINI REDDY

RAJA MUSHARAFF is not the foreign exchange student the Tolchuck family offictional Medora, Wis., was expecting. Tall and gangly with gentle browneyes, Raja comes from a village in Pakistan. He is a practicing Muslim. Heis dark skinned. He is anything but the blue-eyed Euro-teen the familyenvisioned from the brochure.

The relationship that develops between Raja and the socially awkward JustinTolchuck is at the heart of the CW network’s new comedy series “Aliens inAmerica.”

Arriving at a time when the few Muslim characters who do show up ontelevision are shrouded in a web of terrorist plots and sinister motives,“Aliens in America” and a Canadian series, “Little Mosque on the Prairie,”are winning praise from advocacy groups and some critics for more rounded,lighthearted portrayals.

“They use comedy extremely well to debunk myths about Muslims,” Jack G.Shaheen, a media critic, said of the pilot episode of “Aliens.” “It’s thefirst that I can recall in a TV show that I laugh with, and also respect,the character.”

Just as Russians became Hollywood’s go-to heavies during the cold war,current events — Sept. 11, the Iraq war and nearly daily dispatches aboutviolence in the Middle East — are reflected on screen today in villains whopraise Allah while plotting the West’s destruction.

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From Anthony D. Romero - ACLU

Of all of the cases the ACLU has taken on in the last few years, our challenge to the promotion of “intelligent design” in Dover, Pennsylvania’s public schools is one that truly speaks volumes about our work -- work that ACLU supporters like you make possible.

That is why I wanted to let you know about an upcoming program highlighting this landmark case.

This Tuesday, November 13th at 8:00 PM, PBS’s award winning show NOVA will be airing a documentary on the Dover intelligent design trial. “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” is a two hour documentary that tells the story of the Dover case.

In September 2005, the ACLU went to court over the first-ever legal challenge to teaching intelligent design -- the assertion that an intelligent, supernatural entity has intervened in the history of life. The story of this case and of our plaintiffs -- 11 brave parents who took on their local school board and community -- is a real-life drama and one you won’t want to miss.

The intelligent design campaign to replace science with faith-based theories in our schools is part of a larger faith-based movement that threatens our freedoms in a profound way. Every day throughout the nation, the ACLU is carrying out the strongest possible defense of liberty by fighting to keep the government out of our religious and private, moral decisions. You can support that important work by becoming a member today.

I hope you’ll tune in on Tuesday night, or set your DVD recorder to watch this documentary and take pride in the important work that your support makes possible.


Sincerely,
Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
ACLU


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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Obit-Mailer.html

November 11, 2007

Pulitzer Winner Norman Mailer Dead at 84
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:37 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Norman Mailer, the pugnacious prince of American letterswho for decades reigned as the country's literary conscience and provocateurwith such books as ''The Naked and the Dead'' and ''The Executioner'sSong,'' has died at the age of 84.

Mailer died Saturday of acute renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital, J.Michael Lennon, the author's literary executor and biographer, said.

''He was a great American voice,'' said a tearful Joan Didion, author of''The Year of Magical Thinking'' and other works, struggling for words uponlearning of Mailer's death.

From his classic debut novel to such masterworks of literary journalism as''The Armies of the Night,'' the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner always gotcredit for insight, passion and originality.

Some of his works were highly praised, some panned, but none was pronouncedthe Great American Novel that seemed to be his life quest from the time hesoared to the top as a brash 25-year-old ''enfant terrible.''

Mailer built and nurtured an image over the years as bellicose, street-wiseand high-living. He drank, fought, smoked pot, married six times and stabbedhis second wife, almost fatally, during a drunken party.

He had nine children, made a quixotic bid to become mayor of New York Cityon a ''left conservative'' platform, produced five forgettable films,dabbled in journalism, flew gliders, challenged professional boxers, wasbanned from a Manhattan YWHA for reciting obscene poetry, feuded publiclywith writer Gore Vidal and crusaded against women's liberation.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11sun1.html?ref=opinion

November 11, 2007
Editorial

Abdicate and Capitulate

It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senateconfirmation process. As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirmMichael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of “advice andconsent” is the “consent” part.

Once upon a time, the confirmation of major presidential appointments playedout on several levels — starting, of course, with politics. It was assumedthat a president would choose like-minded people as cabinet members and forother jobs requiring Senate approval. There was a presumption that he shouldbe allowed his choices, all other things being equal.

Before George W. Bush’s presidency, those other things actually counted. Wasthe nominee truly qualified, with a professional background worthy of thejob? Would he discharge his duties fairly and honorably, upholding his oathto protect the Constitution? Even though she answers to the president, wouldthe nominee represent all Americans? Would he or she respect the power ofCongress to supervise the executive branch, and the power of the courts toenforce the rule of law?

In less than seven years, Mr. Bush has managed to boil that list down to itsleast common denominator: the president should get his choices. At first,Mr. Bush was abetted by a slavish Republican majority that balked at onlyone major appointment — Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice, and thenonly because of doubts that she was far enough to the right.

The Democrats, however, also deserve a large measure of blame. They didalmost nothing while they were in the minority to demand better nomineesthan Mr. Bush was sending up. And now that they have attained the majority,they are not doing any better.

On Thursday, the Senate voted by 53 to 40 to confirm Mr. Mukasey even thoughhe would not answer a simple question: does he think waterboarding, a formof simulated drowning used to extract information from a prisoner, istorture and therefore illegal?

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11sun2.html?ref=opinion

November 11, 2007
Editorial

Grading the Grades

Brilliant proposals are often undermined through less-than brilliantexecution. That is clearly the case in New York, where Mayor MichaelBloomberg’s new system for rating the city’s public schools has come underwithering fire from across the political spectrum.

Mr. Bloomberg should preserve the heart of the new system. It does avaluable service to students, and teachers, by holding schools accountablefor both overall performance and for how much progress students make fromone year to the next. But Mr. Bloomberg should ditch the simplistic andcounterproductive A through F rating system. It boils down the entireshooting match to a single letter grade that does not convey the full weightof this approach and lends itself to tabloid headlines instead of a reallook at a school’s problems.

The city’s new rating system is part of growing national trend toward theuse of so-called “growth models” in education. These models, now beingtested in several states, try to create a cumulative portrait of eachstudent’s progress through school as a way of identifying successful schoolsand successful teaching strategies.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11rich.html?ref=opinion

November 11, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

The Coup at Home
By FRANK RICH

AS Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrested judges, lawyers and human-rights activistsin Pakistan last week, our Senate was busy demonstrating its own civicmettle. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, liberal Democrats from America’stwo most highly populated blue states, gave the thumbs up to Michael B.Mukasey, ensuring his confirmation as attorney general.

So what if America’s chief law enforcement official won’t say thatwaterboarding is illegal? A state of emergency is a state of emergency. You’reeither willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb, oryou’re with the terrorists. Constitutional corners were cut in Washington inimpressive synchronicity with General Musharraf’s crackdown in Islamabad.

In the days since, the coup in Pakistan has been almost universallycondemned as the climactic death knell for Bush foreign policy, the epitomeof White House hypocrisy and incompetence. But that’s not exactly news. It’sbeen apparent for years that America was suicidal to go to war in Iraq, acountry with no tie to 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction, whileshowering billions of dollars on Pakistan, where terrorists and nuclearweapons proliferate under the protection of a con man who serves as a hostto Osama bin Laden.

General Musharraf has always played our president for a fool and still does,with the vague promise of an election that he tossed the White House onThursday. As if for sport, he has repeatedly mocked both Mr. Bush’s “freedomagenda” and his post-9/11 doctrine that any country harboring terroristswill be “regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11friedman.html?ref=opinion

November 11, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Democracy’s Root: Diversity
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Last Tuesday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met Pope Benedict XVI at theVatican — the first audience ever by the head of the Catholic Church with aSaudi monarch. The Saudi king gave the pope two gifts: a golden swordstudded with jewels, and a gold and silver statue depicting a palm tree anda man riding a camel.

The BBC reported that the pope “admired the statue but merely touched thesword.” I think it is a great thing these two men met, and that KingAbdullah came bearing gifts. But what would have really caught myattention — and the world’s — would have been if King Abdullah had presentedthe pope with something truly daring: a visa.

You see, the king of Saudi Arabia, also known as the Keeper of the Two HolyMosques of Mecca and Medina, can visit the pope in the Vatican. But the popecan’t visit the king of Saudi Arabia in the Vatican of Islam — Mecca.Non-Muslims are not allowed there. Moreover, it is illegal to build achurch, a synagogue or a Hindu or Buddhist temple in Saudi Arabia, or topractice any of these religions publicly.

As BBCnews.com noted, “some Christian worship services are held secretly,but the government has been known to crack down on them, or deport Filipinoworkers if they hold even private services. ... The Saudi authorities cite atradition of the Prophet Muhammad that only Islam can be practiced in theArabian Peninsula.”

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11freedman.html?ref=opinion

November 11, 2007
Op-Ed Contributors

This Is Your Brain on Politics

This article was written by Marco Iacoboni, Joshua Freedman and Jonas Kaplanof the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute forNeuroscience; Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Centerat the University of Pennsylvania; and Tom Freedman, Bill Knapp and KathrynFitzgerald of FKF Applied Research.

IN anticipation of the 2008 presidential election, we used functionalmagnetic resonance imaging to watch the brains of a group of swing voters asthey responded to the leading presidential candidates. Our results revealsome voter impressions on which this election may well turn.

Our 20 subjects — registered voters who stated that they were open tochoosing a candidate from either party next November — included 10 men and10 women. In late summer, we asked them to answer a list of questions abouttheir political preferences, then observed their brain activity for nearlyan hour in the scanner at the Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. Afterward, each subject filled out asecond questionnaire.

While in the scanner, the subjects viewed political pictures through a pairof special goggles; first a series of still photos of each candidate waspresented in random order, then video excerpts from speeches. Then we showedthem the set of still photos again. On the before and after questionnaires,subjects were asked to rate the candidates on the kind of 0-10 thermometerscale frequently used in polling, ranging from “very unfavorable” to “veryfavorable.”

We then compared the questionnaire responses with the brain data, and here’swhat we found:

1. Voters sense both peril and promise in party brands. When we showedsubjects the words “Democrat,” “Republican” and “independent,” theyexhibited high levels of activity in the part of the brain called theamygdala, indicating anxiety. The two areas in the brain associated withanxiety and disgust — the amygdala and the insula — were especially activewhen men viewed “Republican.” But all three labels also elicited someactivity in the brain area associated with reward, the ventral striatum, aswell as other regions related to desire and feeling connected. There wasonly one exception: men showed little response, positive or negative, whenviewing “independent.”

2. Emotions about Hillary Clinton are mixed. Voters who rated Mrs. Clintonunfavorably on their questionnaire appeared not entirely comfortable withtheir assessment. When viewing images of her, these voters exhibitedsignificant activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, an emotional centerof the brain that is aroused when a person feels compelled to act in twodifferent ways but must choose one. It looked as if they were battlingunacknowledged impulses to like Mrs. Clinton.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11lewis.html?ref=opinion

November 11, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Serfs of the Turf
By MICHAEL LEWIS
Berkeley, Calif.

THE three most lucrative college football teams in 2005 — Notre Dame, OhioState and the University of Texas — each generated more than $60 million fortheir institutions. That number, which comes from the Department ofEducation, fails to account for the millions of dollars alumni donated totheir alma maters because they were so proud of their football teams. But itstill helps to explain why so many strangers to football success havereinvented themselves as football powerhouses (Rutgers?), and also whyuniversities are spending huge sums on new football practice facilities, newfootball stadium skyboxes and new football coaches.

Back in 1958 the University of Alabama lured Bear Bryant with a promise of$18,000 a year, or the rough equivalent of $130,000 today; last year theuniversity handed Nick Saban an eight-year deal worth roughly $32 million.Several dozen college football coaches now earn more than $1 million ayear — and that’s before the books, speeches, endorsement deals and whoknows what else. Earlier this season the head coach at Texas A&M, DennisFranchione, was caught topping up his $2.09 million salary by selling toAggie alums, for $1,200 a pop, his private football-gossip newsletter.

The sports media treated that particular scheme as scandalous. Texas A&Mmade its coach apologize, and promise to stop writing for a living. Butreally Dennis Franchione’s foray into high-priced journalism was just aningenious extension of the entrepreneurial spirit that’s turned collegefootball into a gold mine. The scandal wasn’t what he did but how it wasmade to seem — unusually greedy.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11catholic.html

November 11, 2007

Two Faiths Divided on Women’s Ordination Ceremony
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ST. LOUIS, Nov. 10 (AP) — The Archdiocese of St. Louis and the CentralReform Congregation are on the same side when it comes to advocating forimmigrants and the poor, often finding common ground in a zeal for socialjustice.

But when the Jewish congregation offered its synagogue for an ordination oftwo women in a ceremony disavowed by the Roman Catholic Church, it drew theire of archdiocese officials, who vowed never again to work with thecongregation.

The two women, Rose Marie Dunn Hudson, 67, of Festus, and Elsie HainzMcGrath, 69, of St. Louis, are scheduled to be ordained Sunday by a formernun as part of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a small movement that began in2002 and is independent from the Roman Catholic Church.

The Reform congregation’s rabbi, Susan Talve, informed the Rev. VincentHeier, director of the archdiocese office for ecumenical and interreligiousaffairs, of the decision.

Mr. Heier told her it was unacceptable. “It’s not appropriate to invite thisgroup, to aid and abet a group like this, which undercuts our theology andteaching,” Mr. Heier said he told Ms. Talve.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110902023.html

Musharraf Goes Splat

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, November 11, 2007; B07

Pakistan is an unusual country -- a nation capable of looking into theabyss, pausing briefly to consider its options and then jumping headfirstinto darkness. The willingness to go splat has been the backbone ofPakistan's national survival strategy for its 60-year history.

Whether rattling nuclear rockets at a much more powerful India or allowingterrorist networks to use Pakistani territory to mount plots against Afghan,American and British targets, the country's leaders have raised politicalblackmail to a national and international art form. Oppose or ignore us atour -- and your -- peril is the unofficial national motto of Islamabad.

An emotionally taut President Pervez Musharraf has dragged his country andits foreign patrons to the brink again by declaring emergency rule andintensifying a triangular power struggle with the nation's secular politicalparties and with the religious extremists who expect to rise from the ashescreated by their Western-oriented rivals.

Musharraf retains the backing of the Pakistani army -- the only cohesive andenduring political movement in the country's history -- but that can changein the blink of an eye. Musharraf knows better than anyone that there isalways another political general in the wings.

The Bush administration has been slow and unsteady in coming to terms withthe rough-and-tumble nature of Pakistani statecraft and politics. Only latethis summer did U.S. and British officials conclude that Musharraf had losthis once-deft political touch in engaging the country's courts, lawyers andstudents in angry but erratic and inconclusive confrontations.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110901942.html

Curveball, Swing and A Miss

By George F. Will
Sunday, November 11, 2007; B07

In late 2002, two strong-willed CIA officers, identified only as Beth andMargaret, were at daggers drawn. They had diametrically opposing views aboutthe veracity of an Iraqi defector's reports concerning Saddam Hussein'sbiological weapons programs, especially the notorious but never-seen mobileweapons labs.

"Look," said Beth defiantly, "we can validate a lot of what this guy says."

Margaret, angry and incredulous: "Where did you validate it?"

Beth: "On the Internet."

Margaret: "Exactly, it's on the Internet. That's where he got it, too!"

Margaret was right in that episode, recounted in the new book "Curveball" byBob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times. Curveball was the code name of theIraqi defector in Germany on whose reports the Bush administration reliedheavily in its argument that Hussein's weapons of mass destruction justifieda preventive war.

In 1999, Curveball defected to Germany, which has a significant portion ofthe Iraqi diaspora. Seeking the good life -- a prestigious job, aMercedes -- he jumped to the head of the line of asylum-seekers and got theattention of Germany's intelligence agency with the word "Biowaffen," orgerm weapons. He claimed to have been deeply involved in Hussein'ssophisticated and deadly science, particularly those notorious mobile labs.Notorious and, we now know, nonexistent.

German intelligence officials refused to allow U.S. officials to interviewCurveball, partly because intelligence agencies are like this and partlybecause they thought Germany had been unfairly blamed by the United Statesfor not detecting the Hamburg cell from which three of the four Sept. 11pilots came. Yet even before then, by March 2001, the Germans wereexpressing doubts about him; by April 2002, the British were, too.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110901941.html

The Spy Who Wants Israel to Talk

By David Ignatius
Sunday, November 11, 2007; B07

JERUSALEM -- Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligenceagency Mossad, titled his memoirs "Man in the Shadows." But now that he'sout in the sunlight, the 72-year-old retired spy chief has some surprisinglycontrarian things to say about Iran and Syria. The gist of his message isthat rather than constantly ratcheting up the rhetoric of confrontation, theUnited States and Israel should be looking for ways to establish a creativedialogue with these adversaries.

Halevy is a legendary figure in Israel because of his nearly 40 years ofservice as an intelligence officer, culminating in his years as Mossad'sdirector from 1998 to 2003. He managed Israel's secret relationship withJordan for more than a decade, and he became so close to King Hussein thatthe two personally negotiated the 1994 agreement paving the way for a peacetreaty. So when Halevy talks about the utility of secret diplomacy, he knowswhereof he speaks.

Of course, Halevy looks like the fictional master spy George Smiley --thinning hair, wise but weary eyes, the rumpled manner of someone who mighthave been a professor in another life. And Halevy has the gift of anonymity:You would look right past him in a crowded room, never imagining that he wasthe man who had conducted daring secret missions. After he appeared herewith former CIA director George Tenet at a conference sponsored by theBrookings Institution's Saban Center, Halevy agreed to sit down for aninterview.

Halevy suggests that Israel should stop its jeremiads that Iran poses anexistential threat to the Jewish state. The rhetoric is wrong, he contends,and it gets in the way of finding a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclearproblem.

"I believe that Israel is indestructible," he insists. Iranian PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad may boast that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, butIran's ability to consummate this threat is "minimal," he says. "Israel hasa whole arsenal of capabilities to make sure the Iranians don't achievetheir result." Even if the Iranians did obtain a nuclear weapon, saysHalevy, "they are deterrable," because for the mullahs, survival andperpetuation of the regime is a holy obligation.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110902022.html

Labor's New Recruits

By David S. Broder
Sunday, November 11, 2007; B07

At Harvard University this week, a group of economists will hold aconference to explore a phenomenon that has gone largely unremarked in thewider world -- an organizing campaign that has added 2 million workers tothe ranks of organized labor in the past four years.

Since the campaign started as a two-state pilot project of the AFL-CIO in2003, Working America, as it is called, has expanded to a dozen states.

In a briefing for reporters last week, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney andKaren Ackerman, the federation's political director, highlighted thecontribution of Working America members to the gains that labor-endorsedDemocrats made in off-year races in Kentucky and Virginia. Democratscaptured the governorship in the former and took over control of the stateSenate in the latter.

To another Karen -- Karen Nussbaum, the head of Working America -- themessage is clear: Keep expanding the program as the 2008 election drawsnearer.

The idea of Working America is fairly simple. Surveys show that largenumbers of employees in nonunion plants and offices say they would like tohave a union, if one were available. But the workplace organizing task hasbeen much more arduous since President Ronald Reagan broke the strike of airtraffic controllers in 1981.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110901563.html

Loser CEOs, Raking It In

By William S. Lerach
Sunday, November 11, 2007; B01

"How come I don't get nothin'?"

In light of the massive payoffs that corporations are handing to failingexecutives -- most recently the ousted chiefs of Merrill Lynch andCitigroup -- that could be the legitimate lament of millions of U.S. workerswhose jobs have been sacrificed of late in the name of corporatecompetitiveness and free trade.

Cleaned up grammatically, that question would probably express thesentiments of many of the 24,000 Merrill employees fired in recent years andthe 17,000 Citi employees who are soon to get the ax. Together, formerMerrill chief executive E. Stanley O'Neal and former Citigroup chiefexecutive Charles O. Prince have lost more than $20 billion in companymoney. Yet they left with $360 million in their own pockets.

The American principles of responsibility, accountability and justicerequire everyone, even corporate titans, to pay a price when they mess up.I've dedicated my career to holding powerful corporations accountable whenthey victimized innocent people. CEOs such as Enron's Jeffrey K. Skilling,WorldCom's Bernard J. Ebbers and Tyco's L. Dennis Kozlowski all went toprison for their fraud. Now I'm being held accountable for overzealouslypursuing these corporate scam artists.

Two weeks ago, I pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge involving paymentsmade to plaintiffs in lawsuits against major corporations. Under the termsof the plea, which requires court approval, I agreed to pay the government$8 million in fines and penalties and to serve at least one year in federalprison.

But what about accountability for Wall Street CEOs who line their pocketswhile making stupid decisions that rob shareholders and pensioners ofbillions of dollars? Recently, corporate boards have been fundamentallymisinterpreting the phrase "the buck stops here" -- and handing the bucksover to their miserably performing bosses.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/07/AR2007110702280_pf.html

Those Nuclear Flashpoints Are Made in Pakistan

By Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins
Sunday, November 11, 2007; B01

George W. Bush is hardly the first U.S. president to forgive sins againstdemocracy by a Pakistani leader. Like his predecessors from Jimmy Carteronward, Bush has tolerated bad behavior in hopes that Pakistan might doWashington's bidding on some urgent U.S. priority -- in this case, acrackdown on al-Qaeda. But the scariest legacy of Bush's failed bargain withGen. Pervez Musharraf isn't the rise of another U.S.-backed dictatorship ina strategic Muslim nation, or even the establishment of a new al-Qaeda havenalong Pakistan's lawless border. It's the leniency we've shown toward themost dangerous nuclear-trafficking operation in history -- an operationmasterminded by one man, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

For nearly four years, under the banner of the "war on terror," Bush hasrefused to demand access to Khan, the ultranationalist Pakistani scientistwho created a vast network that has spread nuclear know-how to North Korea,Iran and Libya. Indeed, Bush has never seriously squeezed Musharraf overKhan, who remains a national hero for bringing Pakistan the Promethean fireit can use to compete with its nuclear-armed nemesis, India. Khan hasremained under house arrest in Islamabad since 2004, outside the reach ofthe CIA and investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency, whoare desperate to unlock the secrets he carries. Bush should be equallyadamant about getting to the bottom of Khan's activities.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/10/AR2007111001061.html?hpid=sec-religion

Romney Aides Oppose Speech on Religion

By PHILIP ELLIOTT
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 11, 2007; 1:08 AM

HOLDERNESS, N.H. -- Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney saidSaturday his political advisers have warned him against giving a speechexplaining his Mormon faith.

During a house party overlooking Squam Lake, Romney was asked by voters ifhe would give a speech outlining his religious beliefs and how those beliefsmight impact his administration, much like then-Sen. John F. Kennedy did ashe sought to explain his Catholic faith during the 1960 election.

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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/v-print/story/303247.html

Posted on Sun, Nov. 11, 2007

Spanish king tells Chavez to 'shut up'
By EDUARDO GALLARDO

The king of Spain told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "shut up"Saturday during a heated exchange that soured the end of a summit of leadersfrom Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Chavez, who called President Bush the "devil" on the floor of the UnitedNations last year, triggered the exchange by repeatedly referring to formerSpanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar as a "fascist."

Aznar, a conservative who was an ally of Bush as prime minister, "is afascist," Chavez said in a speech at the Ibero-American summit in Santiago,Chile. "Fascists are not human. A snake is more human."

Spain's current socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero,responded during his own allotted time by urging Chavez to be morediplomatic in his words and respect other leaders despite politicaldifferences.

"Former President Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people andwas a legitimate representative of the Spanish people," he said, elicitingapplause from the gathered heads of state.

Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, but his microphone was off.

Spanish King Juan Carlos, seated next to Zapatero, angrily turned to Chavezand said, "Why don't you shut up?"

The Venezuelan leader did not immediately respond, but later used time cededto him by his close ally Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to answerZapatero's speech.

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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/851/story/302055.html

Posted on Sun, Nov. 11, 2007

No one person can speak for all American blacks
By LEONARD PITTS

Beg pardon, but who died and made Al Sharpton president of the Negroes?Not that Sharpton has ever declared himself as such. But the fact that someregard him as black America's chief executive was driven home for theumpteenth time a few days ago after TV reality show bounty hunter Duane''Dog'' Chapman got in trouble for using a certain toxic racial epithet --six letters, starts with N, rhymes with digger -- on the phone with his son.

As you may have heard, Chapman was expressing disapproval of the son'sAfrican-American girlfriend. ''It's not because she's black,'' he said.'It's because we use the word `n----' sometimes here. I'm not going to takea chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 yearsbecause some f---- n---- heard us say 'n----' and turned us in to theEnquirer magazine.''

Naturally, the son sold a tape of the conversation to the National Enquirer.Which leaves me in the awkward position of simultaneously loathing whatChapman said and pitying him for having raised a rat fink son who would sellout his own father for a few pieces of silver. Anyway, with his life andcareer circling the drain, an apologetic Chapman fell back on what isbecoming standard operating procedure for celebrities who defame black folk.He contacted Sharpton.

In so doing, he follows the trail blazed by Don Imus, Washington shock jockDoug ''Greaseman'' Tracht, and Michael Richards, who sought out Sharpton(or, alternately, Jesse Jackson) atter saying what they wished they had not.They were all in turn following the news media which, whenever a quote onsome racial matter is required, turn to the right reverends by reflex. You'dthink they knew no other Negroes.

I don't begrudge Jackson or Sharpton their fame. Jena, La., might have goneunnoticed had they not used that fame to direct public attention there.Still, I question whether we ought not by now have grown beyond the notionthat one or two men can speak for, or offer absolution in the name of, 36million people.

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Orlando Sentinel

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-parker1107nov11,0,5488084.column

What's God got to do with it?
Kathleen Parker

Washington Post Writer's Group

November 11, 2007

WASHINGTON

When the founder of the Christian Coalition, who blames national disasterson abortion, gives his support to a thrice-married, pro-abortion,pro-gay-rights Catholic, does religion really matter anymore?

Pat Robertson's endorsement Wednesday of Rudy Giuliani for president justshifted "strange bedfellows" into "the weird turn pro" category. Robertson,who famously blamed Hurricane Katrina on our wanton ways -- and urged theassassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez -- announced his vote ofconfidence, saying that Giuliani has "proven time and time again that he isa social conservative."

Except that Giuliani hasn't and isn't, but that's OK because what Giulianihas proved time and again is that he was mayor of New York City on 9-11.And, as Robertson also said, Giuliani can be relied upon to defend thecountry against "the blood lust of Islamic terrorists."

Robertson's endorsement must have been a sticky moment for Giuliani, whocouldn't rightly say, "no thanks," even if he might not relish beingcaptured in the same frame with a man whose fellow evangelicals consider himonly intermittently sane.

Generally speaking, politicians can move pretty quickly when they're aboutto be caught by the camera lens standing next to a fellow known for sayingsuch things as liberal judges are a greater danger to America "than a fewbearded terrorists who fly into buildings."

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Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-richardson10nov10,1,2814970.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&track=crosspromo

Listen up, Iowa: Richardson's calling

The New Mexico governor, in his quest for the Democratic nomination, seemsdetermined to meet every potential voter in the state.

By Louise Roug
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 10, 2007

VINTON, IOWA — Gov. Bill Richardson ends all his stump speeches with thestory of a funeral:

After Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in 1945, the president's casket wasmoved by train from Georgia to New York, where he would be buried. Hundredsof thousands of people came out to pay their respects, lining the tracks asthe funeral procession moved north. A reporter traveling on the traindecided to interview people at one of the stops.

Among the crowd of mourners, he saw one particularly distraught man.

" 'You must have known the president?' the reporter asked. 'No,' said theman. 'But the president knew me.' "

Richardson pauses for effect.

"That," he says, "is the kind of president I would like to be."

Personal approach

It seems, at times, as if Richardson wants to get to know every Iowan in thestate.

He has traveled thousands of miles, visiting 87 of the state's 99 counties.With shallow coffers and a long shot at the Democratic nomination forpresident, he is making a virtue of necessity.

He doesn't have the money for a large staff or extensive advertising, so hehas no choice but to keep going from town to town, coffee shop to coffeeshop, reaching out to as many Iowans as possible.

"I'm glad that Iowa is making the decision, not the pundits in Washington,"the New Mexico governor told a crowd recently. "Iowans like underdogs . . .and I'm kind of counting on that."

Richardson's support, however, still has not reached double digits.

About 8% of likely Democratic caucus-goers say they will support him,according to the latest polls, placing him far behind the three maincontenders here: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Barack Obamaof Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

But Richardson likes to point out that there are still many undecidedIowans, and if he finishes as one of the top three, that could be a bigboost heading into Western and Southern contests, where he hopes to do well."Long shots have won," Richardson said after a weekend of campaigning ineastern Iowa. "There was a long shot named Bill Clinton. There was a longshot named John Kerry. There was a long shot named Jimmy Carter. There's along shot named Bill Richardson."

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