NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST December 4, 2007

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WashingtonPost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120300520_pf.html

New Allegations Test Craig's New Boldness
Once-Retiring Idaho Senator Keeps Fighting

By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; A03

On Labor Day weekend, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) told the nation he wouldresign within weeks because of the uproar over his arrest in a sex sting inan airport men's room. To stay and fight, Craig said in a news conferencecarried live by cable news channels, would be "an unwanted and unfairdistraction" from his work as a senator and his responsibilities to hiscolleagues.

Today, three months later, Craig returns to Congress in the wake of the mostlurid allegations about his conduct to date, vowing yet again to finish outhis term, having long since abandoned his promise to step down quietly forthe good of his constituents and his party.

Far from hiding in disgrace, Craig carries on with his odd new normal: Afterdodging television cameras in the early days of the scandal, he now quietlyattends political fundraisers, meets with Cabinet nominees and attends toconstituents.

Craig will, in fact, end his week on Capitol Hill on Thursday by casting hissecret ballot in GOP caucus leadership elections -- contests that can bedecided by a single vote -- then take off on a military jet to Bali,Indonesia, at taxpayer expense, part of a congressional delegation to aUnited Nations summit on global warming.

This stay-the-course approach comes as Craig battles detailed allegations ofhomosexual acts that conflict with his adamant statement that he is "notgay," made in August after news broke of his arrest in a sting conductedafter complaints of lewd behavior in a Minneapolis airport restroom. Craigpleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.

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Sun-Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/legislature/sfl-flfdems0927nbsep28,0,5290352.story

Squabble over Florida presidential primary may haunt Democrats

By Linda Kleindienst
Tallahassee Bureau Chief
September 28, 2007

TALLAHASSEE

The battle raging between Florida Democrats and their national leaders overthe state's primary date is already costing the party money and grassrootssupport - but now some worry it will cost votes that could be crucial if the2008 presidential contest is a squeaker.

"It's reinforcing the image of the gang that can't shoot straight," saidstate Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller of Cooper City.

And there is no end in sight.

The Florida Democratic Party refuses to yield to national pressure to usesome method other than an already scheduled Jan. 29 primary to select thestate's delegates to the national convention. The Democratic NationalCommittee has given the state until Saturday to come up with an alternatedelegate selection plan or it will not seat Florida delegates in Denver nextsummer.

The major Democratic contenders for the White House are not campaigning inFlorida, and the state's senior U.S. senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, vowed tofile a lawsuit against the national party.

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Orlando Sentinel

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/orl-run0407dec04,0,2911157.story

Troubled Florida investment fund should be divided, new money manager says

Aaron Deslatte
Tallahassee Bureau
December 4, 2007

TALLAHASSEE

The private money manager hired last week to save a state-run investmentfund rocked by withdrawals wants to split it in two -- isolating $2 billionworth of risky investments.

BlackRock, a New York-based financial-investment firm, said Monday thatputting downgraded investments in a separate fund would restore confidencein the remaining pool and encourage local governments to invest in it.

That would also allow the hundreds of cities, counties, school districts andother agencies with money still in the fund to make limited withdrawals of,perhaps, 10 percent of their principal from the roughly $12 billionremaining.

However, a "redemption fee" would be charged to agencies that want more oftheir money.

"The near-term concern, of course, is that there would be another run," saidSimon Mendelson, chief operating officer for BlackRock's cash-managementdivision, which will make final recommendations to the State Board ofAdministration today.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/washington/04assess.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

An Assessment Jars a Foreign Policy Debate About Iran

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
News Analysis
December 4, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report socompletely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debatehere.

An administration that had cited Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons as therationale for an aggressive foreign policy - as an attempt to head off WorldWar III, as President Bush himself put it only weeks ago - now has in itshands a classified document that undercuts much of the foundation for thatapproach.

The impact of the National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion - that Iranhad halted a military program in 2003, though it continues to enrichuranium, ostensibly for peaceful uses - will be felt in endless ways at homeand abroad.

It will certainly weaken international support for tougher sanctions againstIran, as a senior administration official grudgingly acknowledged. And itwill raise questions, again, about the integrity of America's beleagueredintelligence agencies, including whether what are now acknowledged to havebeen overstatements about Iran's intentions in a 2005 assessment reflectedpoor tradecraft or political pressure.

Seldom do those agencies vindicate irascible foreign leaders like PresidentVladimir V. Putin of Russia, who several weeks ago said there was "noevidence" that Iran was building a nuclear weapon, dismissing the Americanclaims as exaggerated.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04tue1.html?ref=opinion

A Tale of Two Strongmen

Editorial
December 4, 2007

Voters on Sunday gave a split decision to two of the world's most prominentand problematic authoritarian leaders. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin,turned a parliamentary election into a referendum on himself and cynicallymanipulated a huge victory, undermining what was left of the independence ofthe Duma and Russian politics. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez's latestand most outrageous power grab was rejected at the ballot box, offering hopethat political competition there will now flourish.

Mr. Putin's sales pitch in his phony parliamentary election was that he hadbrought Russia stability and global respect. A huge number of voters -grateful for the bounty of Russia's oil wealth - bought it and looked theother way when Mr. Putin jailed his opponents and crushed their access tothe media.

Nobody knows what Mr. Putin, whose second four-year term ends in March, nowhas in mind. One possibility is that he will use the same dirty tricks toensure the election of a weak president and then come back as primeminister. But as Mr. Putin well knows, power corrupts and even a handpickedsuccessor may not be that compliant. So he may now try to rewrite theConstitution so that he can run for a third term. Either ploy would do evenmore damage to Russia's battered democracy.

Since taking office eight years ago, President Chávez has grabbed ever morepower, using his nation's oil wealth to buy up popular support. But he wenttoo far pushing for constitutional reforms that would have given him controlover nearly every major political institution, as well as the option tostand for re-election as often as he wanted. Mr. Chávez is still verypowerful, and he has made clear that he considers the setback onlytemporary. To his credit, he quickly accepted the results.

Who would have ever thought that Mr. Chávez could seem more palatable thanMr. Putin, who has the stamp of international respectability as a member ofthe group of leading industrialized nations? The United States and Europemust let Mr. Putin know that his days of respectability are fast runningout.

The international community will also have to keep up the pressure on Mr.Chávez, who clearly hasn't suddenly become a democrat. The defeat of hisreform package does show what can happen when a divided opposition unitesand voters choose the rule of law over the whims of a strongman. Russia'svoters should take a good look at what went right in Venezuela and what'sgoing so badly wrong in their own country.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04herbert.html?ref=opinion

Now and Forever

By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Contributor
December 4, 2007

Most of the time we pretend it's not there: The staggering financial cost ofthe war in Iraq, which continues to soar, unchecked, like a rocket headedtoward the moon and beyond.

Early last year, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimatedthat the "true" cost of the war would ultimately exceed $1 trillion, andmaybe even $2 trillion.

Incredibly, that estimate may have been low.

A report prepared for the Democratic majority on the Joint EconomicCommittee of the House and Senate warns that without a significant change ofcourse in Iraq, the long-term cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan couldhead into the vicinity of $3.5 trillion. The vast majority of those expenseswould be for Iraq.

Priorities don't get much more twisted. A country that can't find the moneyto provide health coverage for its children, or to rebuild the city of NewOrleans, or to create a first-class public school system, is flushing wholegenerations worth of cash into the bottomless pit of a failed and endlesswar.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?ref=opinion

The Dictatorship of Talent

By DAVID BROOKS
Op-Ed Columnist
December 4, 2007

Shanghai

Let's say you were born in China. You're an only child. You have two parentsand four grandparents doting on you. Sometimes they even call you a spoiledlittle emperor.

They instill in you the legacy of Confucianism, especially the values ofhierarchy and hard work. They send you off to school. You learn that ittakes phenomenal feats of memorization to learn the Chinese characters. Youbecome shaped by China's intense human capital policies.

You quickly understand what a visitor understands after dozens ofconversations: that today's China is a society obsessed with talent, andthat the Chinese ruling elite recruits talent the way the N.B.A. does -rigorously, ruthless, in a completely elitist manner.

As you rise in school, you see that to get into an elite university, youneed to ace the exams given at the end of your senior year. Chinese studentshave been taking exams like this for more than 1,000 years.

The exams don't reward all mental skills. They reward the ability to workhard and memorize things. Your adolescence is oriented around those exams -the cram seminars, the hours of preparation.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04tue2.html?ref=opinion

Bringing an Energy Bill Home

Editorial
December 4, 2007

Congress is now within reach of a breakthrough energy bill that would reduceboth America's dependence on foreign oil and its emissions of the greenhousegases that cause climate change. House passage later this week is virtuallycertain. Senate approval depends on whether the majority leader, Harry Reid,and the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, can corral a half-dozen votesamong moderate Republicans to resist a threatened filibuster.

Success would earn them the gratitude of a country that badly needs arational energy strategy.

The bill's centerpiece, negotiated over the weekend by House leaders, is thefirst meaningful increase in fuel efficiency standards for cars and lighttrucks, including S.U.V.'s, in more than 30 years. The provision would raiseaverage fuel economy standards from 25 miles per gallon today to 35 milesper gallon in 2020. It would eventually save about 1.1 million barrels ofoil per day, one-half of current imports from the Persian Gulf.

A similar provision was approved by the Senate last summer. That the Househas now accepted it is a tribute to the persistence of Ed Markey ofMassachusetts, an unrelenting champion of fuel efficiency; the negotiatingskills of Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker; and a statesmanlike willingnessto compromise on the part of John Dingell, the powerful Michigan Democratwho realized that it was no longer plausible to defend all of Detroit'sdemands in the face of $90 a barrel oil.

The bill includes several other important provisions. One calls for a bigincrease in the production and distribution of advanced forms of ethanolfrom sources other than corn. With strong environmental safeguards, thisprovision could reduce both oil consumption and greenhouse gases.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04tue3.html?ref=opinion

Evolution and Texas

Editorial
December 4, 2007

Is Texas about to become the next state to undermine the teaching ofevolution? That is the scary implication of the abrupt ousting of ChristineComer, the state's top expert on science education. Her transgression:forwarding an e-mail message about a talk by a distinguished professor whodebunks "intelligent design" and creationism as legitimate alternatives toevolution in the science curriculum.

In most states, we hope, the state department of education would take thelead in ensuring that students receive a sound scientific education. But itwas the Texas Education Agency that pushed out Ms. Comer after 27 years as ascience teacher and 9 years as the agency's director of science.

As Ralph Blumenthal reported in The Times yesterday, Ms. Comer forwarded toa local online community an e-mail message from a pro-evolution groupannouncing a talk by Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy atSoutheastern Louisiana University. Professor Forrest testified as an expertwitness in a 2005 Dover, Pa., case that found intelligent designsupernatural and theological and definitely not part of a scientificeducation.

An hour later, Ms. Comer was called in by superiors, pressured to send out aretraction and ultimately forced to resign. Her departure was instigated bya new deputy commissioner who had served as an adviser to George Bush whenhe was governor of Texas and more recently worked in the federal Departmentof Education.

It was especially disturbing that the agency accused Ms. Comer - byforwarding the e-mail message - of taking a position on "a subject on whichthe agency must remain neutral." Surely the agency should not remain neutralon the central struggle between science and religion in the public schools.It should take a stand in favor of evolution as a central theory in modernbiology. Texas's own education standards require the teaching of evolution.

Those standards are scheduled to be reviewed next year. Ms. Comer'sdismissal and comments in favor of intelligent design by the chairman of thestate board of education do not augur well for that review. We can only hopethat adherents of a sound science education can save Texas from a retreatinto the darker ages.



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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04tue4.html?ref=opinion

Congress Has a Way of Making Witnesses Speak: Its Own Jail

By ADAM COHEN
Editorial Observer
December 4, 2007

Congress and the White House appear to be headed for a constitutionalshowdown. The House of Representatives is poised to hold Joshua Bolten, theWhite House chief of staff, and Harriet Miers, a former White House counsel,in contempt for failing to comply with subpoenas in the United Statesattorneys scandal. If the Justice Department refuses to enforce thesubpoenas, as seems likely, Congress will have to decide whether to do so.Washington lawyers are dusting off an old but apparently sturdy doctrinecalled "inherent contempt" that gives Congress the power to bring therecalcitrant witnesses in - by force, if necessary.

What we know that Congress has learned in its investigation of the purge ofnine top federal prosecutors is disturbing. Cases appear to have beenbrought against Democrats and blocked against Republicans to helpRepublicans win elections. The stakes have grown steadily: it now seems thatinnocent people, like Georgia Thompson, a Wisconsin civil servant, may havebeen jailed for political reasons. Congress has a duty to find out whathappened.

Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers may have important evidence. When Congresssubpoenaed them, however, both claimed executive privilege in ways that gofar beyond what the law allows. Ms. Miers should, at the very least, haveappeared and invoked the privilege in response to specific questions.Instead, she refused to appear at all. Mr. Bolten, who was asked to producedocuments, should have said specifically which ones he believed to beprivileged. Instead, he rejected Congress's right to ask for the documents.

As a result, the House Judiciary Committee voted in the summer to hold Mr.Bolten and Ms. Miers in contempt. If the full House does, too - or if theSenate, which is also considering contempt, does so - then the United Statesattorney in Washington, D.C., will be responsible for taking Mr. Bolten'sand Ms. Miers's cases to a grand jury. The problem is that the White Houseargues that the contempt of Congress law does not apply to presidentialsubordinates who claim executive privilege. At his confirmation hearings,Attorney General Michael Mukasey sounded as if he might agree with thisintransigent position.

This is where inherent contempt comes in. From the Republic's earliest days,Congress has had the right to hold recalcitrant witnesses in contempt - andeven imprison them - all by itself. In 1795, shortly after the Constitutionwas ratified, the House ordered its sergeant at arms to arrest and detaintwo men accused of trying to bribe members of Congress. The House held atrial and convicted one of them.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/politics/04ballot.html?hp

Vulnerable Democrats See Fates Tied to Clinton

By CARL HULSE
December 4, 2007

MANHATTAN, Kan. - Nancy Boyda, a Democrat who ran for Congress in thisdistrict last year, owed her upset victory partly to the popularity of theDemocratic woman at the top of the ticket: Kathleen Sebelius, who won thegovernor's seat. Now, with a tough re-election race at hand in 2008, Ms.Boyda faces the prospect that her electoral fate could be tied to anotherwoman: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton is a long way from winning the Democratic presidentialnomination, and over the last few weeks has struggled to hang on to the airof inevitability that she has been cultivating all year. But the possibilitythat she will be the nominee is already generating concern among someDemocrats in Republican-leaning states and Congressional districts, who fearthat sharing the ticket with her could subject them to attack as too liberaland out of step with the values of their constituents.

And few incumbent Democrats face a greater challenge next year than Ms.Boyda, whose district delivered almost 60 percent of its votes to PresidentBush in 2004.

Ms. Boyda, 52, is a former Republican who represents the state capital,Topeka, and a surrounding expanse of prairie and pasture interspersed withconservative small towns, military posts and this college community, home toKansas State University. It was by appealing to conservative Democrats andmoderate Republicans that she was able to defeat Jim Ryun, a five-termcongressman, by 51 percent to 47 percent last year.

This time both Mr. Ryun and another Republican, Lynn Jenkins, the statetreasurer, are lined up to run against her. And while vulnerable Democratslike her are not likely to have an easy time even if Senator Barack Obama,John Edwards or any of the other Democratic presidential candidates wins thenomination, Republicans in Kansas say Mrs. Clinton's presence on the ticketwould unite their party in opposition to her and give dispiritedconservatives a reason to get excited about the race.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/world/asia/04pakistan.html?hp

Pakistani Rivals Threaten Boycott of Elections

By CARLOTTA GALL
December 4, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 3 - Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the twoformer prime ministers who have long bitterly opposed each other, joinedwith an opposition alliance on Monday to denounce what they see as an unfairenvironment leading up to parliamentary elections planned for January.

They threatened a mass boycott if President Pervez Musharraf does notimprove conditions for an open election campaign and fair voting procedures.

"Free and fair elections do not seem possible," said Mr. Sharif, just hoursafter the election commission barred him from running in the elections. Thecommission said his nomination papers were rejected because of a convictionfor hijacking as he tried to prevent Mr. Musharraf's plane from landing inPakistan in 1999, shortly before Mr. Sharif's government was overthrown byMr. Musharraf, who was then the country's military leader.

The fact that the diverse opposition parties were able to unite to opposeMr. Musharraf is unlikely to be enough to derail the election process. Butit may help the opposition to do well enough in the elections to cause Mr.Musharraf difficulties afterward if their cooperation continues.

Mr. Sharif - who has been Mr. Musharraf's strongest and most vocal critic -said his removal from the parliamentary race did not matter and would notaffect the determination of the opposition to press its demands.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/04evangelical.html

Court Bars State Effort Using Faith in Prisons

By NEELA BANERJEE
December 4, 2007

A federal appeals panel ruled yesterday that a state-financed evangelicalChristian program to help prisoners re-enter civilian life fosteredreligious indoctrination and violated the constitutional separation ofchurch and state.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appealsfor the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, was the latest in a series of rulingsover the last year to reinforce laws that bar government money frompromoting religion, said Robert Tuttle, a law professor at George WashingtonUniversity who is an expert on religion-based initiatives.

"The main thing it does is reaffirm the obligation of government not to fundprograms that intermingle secular and religious content," Professor Tuttlesaid of the new ruling. "The federal government has come to terms with thatover the last year. Even when it has won cases, there hasn't been a singledecision that would allow the government to intertwine secular and religiouscontent."

The current case was filed more than four years ago by Americans United forSeparation of Church and State against the InnerChange Freedom Initiative,an organization affiliated with the Prison Fellowship Ministries and theIowa Corrections Department. Prison Fellowship Ministries was founded byCharles W. Colson, an ally of President Bush and an influential evangelicalwho went to prison for his role in the Watergate cover-up in the Nixonadministration.

"The decision casts a long, deep shadow over faith-based programs in states,and even at the federal level," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director ofthe church-state organization.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/health/04mind.html

Mind: Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You're Just a Perfectionist

By BENEDICT CAREY
December 4, 2007

Just about any sports movie, airport paperback or motivational tape deliversa few boilerplate rules for success. Believe in yourself. Don't take no foran answer. Never quit. Don't accept second best.

Above all, be true to yourself.

It's hard to argue with those maxims. They seem self-evident - if notwritten into the Constitution, then at least part of the cultural watersupply that irrigates everything from halftime speeches to corporatelectures to SAT coaching classes.

Yet several recent studies stand as a warning against taking the platitudesof achievement too seriously. The new research focuses on a familiar type,perfectionists, who panic or blow a fuse when things don't turn out just so.The findings not only confirm that such purists are often at risk for mentaldistress - as Freud, Alfred Adler and countless exasperated parents havelong predicted - but also suggest that perfectionism is a valuable lensthrough which to understand a variety of seemingly unrelated mentaldifficulties, from depression to compulsive behavior to addiction.

Some researchers divide perfectionists into three types, based on answers to standardized questionnaires: Self-oriented strivers who struggle to live upto their high standards and appear to be at risk of self-criticaldepression; outwardly focused zealots who expect perfection from others,often ruining relationships; and those desperate to live up to an ideal they're convinced others expect of them, a risk factor for suicidal thinking andeating disorders.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120301621.html

Teddy Bear Tyranny

By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; A21

What do a British novel, a papal speech, some Danish cartoons and a Dutchmovie have in common with . . . a teddy bear? If that sounds like thebeginning of an elaborate after-dinner-speech joke, it isn't. All of theabove have at one time or another sparked serious confrontations between theIslamic world and the West, causing major riots (Salman Rushdie's "SatanicVerses"); attacks on churches ( Pope Benedict's foray into Byzantinehistory); mass boycotts (Danish cartoon depictions of Mohammed); even murder(the death of Theo Van Gogh, director of "Submission," a film about Muslimwomen).

The most recent, still ongoing saga fits neatly into that pattern. It beganwhen a British teacher, Gillian Gibbons, asked her 7-year-old pupils to voteon a name for the class teddy bear. Gibbons was teaching at a school inSudan, and most of her pupils were Muslim, so they chose, not surprisingly,one of the most common of Muslim names: Mohammed. As a result, Gibbons wasdenounced by the school secretary, arrested for blaspheming the prophet,tried, threatened with 40 lashes and sentenced to 15 days in prison beforebeing pardoned yesterday for her "crime" by the Sudanese president. Whileall this was going on, organized mobs, allegedly "outraged" by her lenientsentence, stormed through Khartoum, chanting for her execution.

In a pattern that has also now become familiar, Western reaction to theseevents divided neatly along political and institutional lines. The Britishgovernment, faced with a controversy involving a teddy bear, put on astraight face and began negotiations with Khartoum, gingerly using twoMuslim members of Parliament as emissaries. The archbishop of Canterbury andBritish Muslim student groups regretted the "disproportionate" punishment,thus implying that a somewhat gentler one might have been more acceptable.Asked for its opinion on the matter by Fox News, the National Organizationfor Women said it was not taking a position at this time. Elsewhere, somecriticized Gibbons as insensitive to Sudanese religion and culture.

Others, from the British tabloids to the London Times, rushed to point outthe absurdity of these positions. ("The punishment wasn't out ofproportion," wrote one London Times columnist. "It was unwarranted,outrageous, insupportable.") But not nearly enough people said so. On thecontrary, the West still finds it difficult to produce anything resembling acommon, united, reasonable reaction to these periodic spasms of fanaticaloutrage, no matter what truly absurd forms they take.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120301619.html

We the Paranoid

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; A21

We Americans like to think of ourselves as strong, rugged and supremelyconfident -- a nation of Marlboro Men and Marlboro Women, minus thecigarettes and the lung cancer. So why do we increasingly find ourselveshunkered behind walls, popping pills by the handful to stave off diseases wemight never contract and eyeing the rest of the world with an us-or-themsuspicion that borders on the pathological?

Last week, I heard some of the nation's leading cultural anthropologists tryto explain these and other phenomena. I came away convinced that we, as anation, definitely should seek professional help.

The American Anthropological Association held its annual meeting here inWashington, and I was invited to an afternoon-long panel discussion titled"The Insecure American." I decided to overlook the fact that my hosts, HughGusterson of George Mason University and Catherine Besteman of ColbyCollege, had recently co-edited a book called "Why America's Top Pundits AreWrong."

"The Insecure American" turned out to be a revelation -- by turns alarming,depressing and laugh-out-loud amusing -- as scholar after scholar presentedresearch showing just how unnerved this society is.

Setha Low, who teaches at the City University of New York, has spent yearsstudying the advent and increase of gated communities. People decide tosequester their families behind walls because they are afraid of crime, theyfeel isolated from their neighbors, and they're nostalgic for a kind ofidealized Norman Rockwell past, Low reported. Nothing terribly irrationalabout that.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120301620.html

Un-Mormon and Unchristian

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; A21

What could be called "The Huckabee Moment" occurred Sunday morning whenABC's George Stephanopoulos asked the former Arkansas governor, suddenly andominously the front-runner in Iowa's GOP contest, whether Mitt Romney is aChristian. Mike Huckabee knew precisely what was being asked of him, and healso knew, because he is a preacher, what the right -- not the clever, mindyou -- answer should be. But Huckabee merely smiled that wonderful smile ofhis and punted. This, with apologies to George W. Bush, is the softdemagoguery of low expectations.

Until just recently, the expectations have indeed been low for Huckabee. Heis more famous for losing more than 100 pounds than for any toweringpolitical accomplishment. But he is an ordained Baptist minister, and Romneyis a Mormon -- a member of a church that some conservative Christiansconsider heretical. Huckabee has presented himself as the un-Mormon.

Pardon me for saying so, but that is the chief difference between the two.On about all the social issues you can name -- abortion, stem cells, guncontrol -- Huckabee and Romney are in sync. So their religious differencesare not about morality. They are about belief -- religious belief, preciselythe issue that is not supposed to matter in this country. Huckabee, though,clearly thinks it ought to.

The reason I started with Stephanopoulos is that he provided the perfectopportunity for Huckabee to make some ringing statement in support ofreligious tolerance. He might have made some reference to the uglyanti-Catholic campaigns run against Al Smith (1928) and John F. Kennedy(1960) and how they had both been spearheaded by prominent members of theProtestant clergy, Methodist Bishop Adna Leonard in the former's case, therenowned Norman Vincent Peale in the latter's. (Peale later went on toreceive a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan.) In other words,Huckabee might have preached. Instead, he said Romney had to answer forhimself the question of whether he's a Christian. As for the TV commercialHuckabee is running in Iowa that opens by proclaiming him a "Christianleader," he said this is just because that's what he is -- not, mind, you,the former governor of a nearby state or even a weight-loss guru. But as hewell knew, it is not his surprisingly moderate record as governor ofArkansas that so attracts Iowa's conservative Christian voters, it's hisobdurate and narrow-minded religious beliefs.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120301622.html

Living With HIV, Dying Of Cancer

By Mark Wainberg
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; A21

As we saw in the run-up to this past weekend, World AIDS Day provides aspike in media coverage on an issue whose everyday impact on middle-classNorth Americans, thanks to medical advances, is virtually nil. But some ofthose medical advances may have created another threat to those infectedwith HIV.

In the 25 years or so since the term "acquired immune deficiency syndrome"was coined, HIV-AIDS clinicians and scientists have witnessed a virtuallyunprecedented transformation in disease management. Most notable is thatantiretroviral drugs now enable many individuals who have HIV to surviveindefinitely with good quality of life, instead of suffering a rapid diseaseprogression and certain early death. As many have noted, this progress hasmostly been achieved in relatively rich Western countries in which access tothese lifesaving drugs is assured.

But that new longevity in the Western version of the disease has broughtother problems. Clinicians and researchers are seeing, as a result of theprogress in life expectancy accomplished through the development ofantiretroviral drugs, an underreported and unforeseen consequence of HIVinfection: As the New England Journal of Medicine and other publicationshave reported, people who have been HIV-positive over long periods arepresenting in high numbers with a variety of cancers that are bothlife-threatening and that defy the traditional therapies used to treatcancer in those who do not have HIV. These cancers include lymphomas,carcinomas and lung cancers (in smokers and non-smokers). Although thenumbers are still relatively small overall, these cancers are occurring withfar higher frequency among HIV-infected people than among members of thegeneral population.

One likely reason is that, above all, HIV infection causes a loss ofimmunological function that cannot be completely repaired by antiretroviraldrugs (ARVs). ARVs combat replication of HIV, which prevents the rapiddeterioration of the immune system and helps ensure that HIV patients willnot fall prey to pneumonias and other infections that occur most commonly inpeople with weakened immune systems. However, the HIV patient's immunesystem may still have been compromised in its ability to defend againstcancer.

These observations in cancer incidence raise a number of important concerns.One is whether rates of cancer in HIV-infected populations will continue torise and whether the cancers will be restricted to certain types or willdiversify. Another has to do with treatment: For HIV-infected people,chemotherapy may temporarily preclude the use of ARVs to prevent againstdrug toxicity or adverse interactions. Interruptions in HIV therapy may leadto renewed replication of the virus and exacerbation of full-blown disease.

more . . . . .



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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120301768.html

In Russia, the backward march to czarism continues.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007; A20

SUNDAY'S parliamentary elections yielded the predictable result -- an easyvictory for the Kremlin-backed party United Russia. They also made a mockeryof President Vladimir Putin's insistence that Russia belongs in the club ofWestern democratic nations.

Even after years of increasingly centralized authority, the vote Sunday wasa throwback. Backed by the administrative apparatus of the state, UnitedRussia, Mr. Putin's personal political vehicle, rode roughshod over itsdivided and disorganized rivals. In true Soviet style, opposition partieswere demonized as the lackeys of Western "enemies." The campaign, conductedwith brass-knuckled disregard for any who would stand in Mr. Putin's way,was followed by election day reports of fraud, abuse, multiple ballots andother irregularities. In the Russian region of Chechnya, the president'sparty collected 99.36 percent of the vote with turnout of 99.5 percent, anoutcome that Ramzan Kadyrov, the feared local strongman who does Mr. Putin'sbidding, characterized as "a normal result." If there was any surprise, itis that United Russia managed only 64.1 percent of the national vote.

Mr. Putin's allies and apologists have often conceded flaws in Russianpolitics, excusing them as byproducts of a "managed democracy" supposedly intransition to some more mature system. In fact, as Sunday's vote made clear,the Kremlin's machinations serve only as a smokescreen for its retreat fromdemocratic norms and toward a neo-Soviet autocracy tightly controlled by Mr.Putin. By most accounts, the Russian president enjoys broad support, largelyfor having overseen an oil-fueled economic boom that has raised livingstandards and reinforced the country's sense of revival. But hisunwillingness to permit a campaign unfiltered and undistorted by the Kremlinrevealed disdain for real democracy -- and insecurity about his ownpopularity.

The election raises two pressing questions. One is the future political roleto be played by Mr. Putin, who has asserted that his party's victory wouldprovide the "moral" basis for him to retain power in some guise after hissecond -- and, under the constitution, final -- term as president expiresnext year. With the Kremlin in control of two-thirds of the seats in theDuma, the lower house of parliament, it will be able to amend theconstitution to conform to Mr. Putin's ambitions -- a state of affairs thatdeepens concerns about Moscow's drift from democracy and pluralism.

The other question is about Russia's continued role in Western institutions.Having systematically attacked the West, Mr. Putin for the first timeblocked Europe from observing a Russian vote and then capped off hiscampaign by formalizing Moscow's withdrawal from the Treaty on ConventionalArmed Forces in Europe, which limits Russian and NATO deployments on thecontinent. Now, on the heels of a tainted election, Western leaders mustreassess Russia's role in the G-8 and other democratic clubs whose idealsand principles Moscow holds in such evident contempt.


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