SOME PEOPLE HAVE HAD TROUBLE streaming 18 Doughty Street (here’s Jeff Jarvis’s rant) but it’s worked fine for me.

THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT doesn’t support blogs?

ADVICE FOR BOB CORKER in the Tennessee Senate race. Plus, how Harold Ford, Jr. used a hard-line stance on immigration to defang right-wing talk-radio hosts.

PRESS RELEASE OF THE DAY: The publicists for American Mourning have hit on a novel approach, comparing its Amazon ranking with that of Cindy Sheehan’s book, Peace Mom. Excerpt:

Most compellingly, “American Mourning” offers a potrayal of another American family that lost a child in the war on terrorism – Joe & Jan Johnson of Rome, Georgia. Their son, Justin, dies one week after Cindy Sheehan’s son, Casey, died. And to make things more amazing – Justin and Casey were best buddies in the U.S. Army.

But unlike Cindy Sheehan, Joe & Jan Johnson honored their son and his sacrifice for his country. In fact, Justin’s father, Joe, re-enlists in the Army at the age of 43 and goes off to Iraq to fight the Islamic militants who had killed his son.

Is it any wonder then, why Sheehan’s “Peace Mom” is getting clobbered in the sales charts by Morgan & Moy’s inspirational “American Mourning?” Check out the sales ranks for yourself – it’s not even close. And for the past few weeks, even though their book had yet to be released, Morgan & Moy were still outselling Sheehan’s “Peace Mom.”

Cindy Sheehan’s book, Peace “Mom” (ranked # 155,717 as of 7:00 PM Sunday 10/15/2006)

Melanie Morgan’s & Catherine Moy’s “American Mourning” (ranked # 836 as of 7:00 PM Sunday 10/15/2006)

As I post this, the gap’s actually widened a bit. It’s possible to make too much of Amazon rankings, and people often do, but this is a big difference, and it’s a cleverer-than-usual press release. And I get enough of them to judge . . . .

A PILOT’S PERSPECTIVE on the Cory Lidle crash.

HEY, MAYBE THIS IS AN ARGUMENT FOR GAY MARRIAGE: “Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.”

No, I’m actually serious here. The article suggests that as the proportion of married couples declines, support for marriage from employers, etc., may decline as well. More marriages = more support.

UPDATE: Not everyone is persuaded. I’m even charged with “bizarre logic.” It’s not clear what’s bizarre about it, though.

EARTHQUAKE IN HAWAII: Roundup here.

IT’S NOT JUST HERE: The Dutch are having problems with voting machines, too. More on election fraud here.

BRENDAN O’NEILL looks at censorship of scientific speech.

UPDATE: It’s backfiring. But hey, here’s someone standing up for free speech!

DAVE KOPEL, CALL YOUR OFFICE:

More than a dozen teachers and public school employees will spend part of their UEA weekend in a classroom — learning how to use a gun.

Clark Aposhian is offering a free class today to public school employees seeking to get their concealed- weapons permit.

“It is self-defense,” he told the Deseret Morning News on Thursday. “But because teachers and school administrators and custodians are typically surrounded by students all day, any threat to any individual with a firearm would also be a threat to those students.”

The concealed-weapons instructor’s offer was met with opposition from some teachers and union representatives at the Utah Education Association’s conference in Salt Lake City.

“We’ve always resisted the idea of arming school employees,” said Susan Kuziak, executive director of the 18,000-member teachers union.

Indeed they have. But not everyone is listening: “So far, about 2 dozen teachers and public school employees have signed up for his class.”

A PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH JOHAN NORBERG: He’s generally worth listening to.

SOMEHOW I MISSED THIS: Another record high for the Dow on Friday.

MICKEY KAUS notes another missed issue for the Republicans.

KARL ROVE’S SECRET WEAPON: C.J. Burch emails: “This is probably why Karl Rove is up beat. Every time the Republicans are in trouble a Democratic mouth breather steps forward to save them. It’s feaking uncanny. And it’s not helping the Republic, though it is a big favor to the Republicans.”

It was Burch who wrote a while back that: “I grow more and more convinced the Republican majority will end itself by 2006 if the Left will just shut up for five minutes.” That may be what decides the elections.

UPDATE: TigerHawk notes an upside: Murtha is disagreeing with The Lancet: ” I wonder if any reporter will ask Murtha whether he supports the findings of The Lancet studies? I’m not really holding my breath, but the political consequences of his answer would certainly be interesting.”

Plus this: “Murtha is obviously running for Majority Leader when Pelosi moves up to Speaker, but he’s also reinforcing Bush’s points about the Democrats’ being unserious about terrorism.”

MORE: Tom Elia notes that Nancy Pelosi is smart enough to take C.J. Burch’s advice.

OUCH: John McCain’s spokesman: “I never expected the Clintons or their allies to know much about Vietnam.”

UPDATE: Reader John McKay emails:

The interesting thing (to me, a military historian) is that no-one has
stated the obvious about any supposed statement McCain gave in Vietnam, “reciting the names of his crew mates.” It would be a mighty short speech, as McCain was flying an A-4 Skyhawk, a single-seat
fighter-bomber, when he was shot down, and had no other “crew mates”!

Heh. Like the man said, they don’t know much about this stuff . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: A different kind of Vietnam history.

INSTAPUNDIT: SHILL FOR THE DEMOCRATS! Reader Rob Burg emails:

Your GOP Pre-Mortem post differs little in my view from what you’ve otherwise decried as Laphamization. Call it, for the techno-babble enthusiasists or jargon lovers, Insta-Laphamization. For those who are a little more sanguine about Republican prospects, or for those who are jargon-impaired, call it what it likely is: BS.

Hmm. I offered an explanation in light of expected events, not a falsely labelled account of events that hadn’t yet occurred. So I don’t think “Laphamization” fits.

He also challenges me to: “Come out with some tough criticism on your blog of Harold Ford for claiming to be a lawyer when in fact he isn’t–something you’d be singularly placed to do.”

He’s talking about this:

The Corker campaign has acknowledged Ford’s oratorical skills but is hoping to take advantage of what they have alleged as Ford’s embellishment of his resume.

At issue is whether Ford should be allowed to call himself a lawyer. He has referred to himself as a lawyer to several media outlets, but Ford senior adviser Michael Powell has denied that the candidate has represented himself as a practicing attorney.

Ford earned his law degree the University of Michigan in 1996, the same year he was elected to Congress. He failed the bar exam the following year.

This has gotten Ford some flak, but it doesn’t seem that huge to me. I ran it by my wife — who’s a strong Corker supporter — and she didn’t think it was a big deal. It’s true that “lawyer,” strictly speaking, means someone licensed to practice law, but the term is often used to refer to anyone with a law degree. Compared to Tom Harkin’s phony Vietnam-vet status, it doesn’t even register.

More damaging for Ford is the corollary to this, something he’s never made a secret of: that he went straight from law school to his father’s seat in Congress at the age of 26. But the voters know about that, and can make up their own minds.

UPDATE: Reader John Bragg emails:

Given that a large percentage of voting Americans tend to confuse “lawyer” with “dirtbag”, claiming that he’s not a lawyer is supposed to hurt Ford? “Come out with some tough criticism on your blog of Harold Ford for claiming to be a dirtbag when in fact he isn’t….” Somehow that doesn’t strike me as a brilliant strategy for the anti-Ford brigades.

I’m wounded at the notion that some Americans lack the high regard for lawyers that . . . Oh, hell, he’s right. Accusing your opponent of not being a lawyer isn’t exactly cutting to the bone.

Likewise, charging someone with partying with Playboy bunnies seems like pretty weak tea. I was talking about that with a Republican friend the other day, who said it was the best thing he’d heard about Ford so far. He’s not alone: Few people will really be offended by that, and other voters will find partying with bunnies to be amusing and perhaps even appealing, and if nothing else it undercuts potential voter worries that Ford is a goodie-two-shoes or — post-Foleygate, a risk for any unmarried male member of Congress — gay, which would seem to do his campaign more good than harm.

Ford’s somewhat Clintonian answer, though, “I’ve never been to a Playboy Mansion party,” (it was a Playboy party, but not at the Mansion) is an unforced error on his part.

UPDATE: Reader Chris Barr emails:

It’s the silly season. I’m a rock ribbed Republican, but I think it’s crazy not recognize Ford’s considerable skills, and he seems like a decent guy, to boot. Back when I listened to Don Imus, Ford was a fairly frequent guest. He always struck me as fairly reasonable, genial, and very intelligent and articulate. Sure he tended to parrot the talking points of the day, but they almost all do that. I could vote for him—he’s one of the very very few Dems with a national reputation that I can stomach.

His “lawyer” problem is a little troubling, but not much. He was lawyer enough to graduate from the University of Michigan. If the Instawife is cool, then I’m good to go. And I agree with your correspondent about the Playboy party. He like girls! And goes to Church. Where’s the beef?

It’s all part of the game, I know, but it’s easy to see how many highly qualified and talented folks don’t want to play that game. More’s the shame.

I said a long time ago that no sane person would want to be President. As campaigns get uglier (and Ford/Corker isn’t all that ugly, really), that’s working its way down the chain of office.

PORK AS A CAMPAIGN ISSUE: It’s surfacing in the Diana Irey vs. John Murtha campaign, where Irey says: “Perhaps Mr. Murtha is scared to debate me because he knows I will hold him accountable before the voters for his long history of ethically questionable behavior in trading hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked federal appropriations for millions of dollars in campaign contributions — behavior so flagrant that even a liberal congressional watchdog group listed him just a few weeks ago as one of the 25 most corrupt Members of Congress.”

She’s hit this issue before.

THEY EXPECT TO WIN VIA HIGHER TURNOUT: “Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats — shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush’s second term.”

So do they know more than the rest of us, or are they out of touch with reality? We’ll know in a few weeks.

CHEERING MOB VIOLENCE at the Los Angeles Times: Patterico is not amused.

Reap what you sow, etc.

JOHN WIXTED: “The rich were better off under Clinton than Bush.”

This has a man-bites-dog flavor, but when you look at the donor bases of the two parties it shouldn’t really be a surprise.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “The NYT wonders if Hillary Clinton will ever have ‘a profile-in-courage moment.’ The answer is no, isn’t it? Wouldn’t she admit that to a confidante? She will probably some day have something that looks like a ‘a profile-in-courage moment,’ but when she does, it will be because never having one is perceived as more of a political risk than having just the right, precisely calculated one.”

HARRY REID ON THE HOT SEAT: The Las Vegas Review-Journal writes:

Senate ethics rules require members to file annual reports that must include information on all investment property transactions. A former official with the Federal Elections Commission told The AP that Sen. Reid had violated his chamber’s ethics guidelines.

By Thursday, Sen. Reid was a bit more contrite while awaiting a ruling from the Senate ethics committee on his actions. “I don’t want to try to be flippant about this,” he said. “If the ethics committee wants me to file a technical correction, then I will be happy to do it.”

On the scandal scale, Sen. Reid’s handling of the land deal hardly rises to Watergate status. But even several left-leaning newspapers — including The Washington Post — criticized the senator. The Philadelphia Inquirer went so far as to urge Democrats to boot Sen. Reid as their leader barring additional evidence in his favor.

All this raises the question: How does a savvy political operative such as Sen. Reid make a bush-league error and find himself ankle deep in the manure pit? For the past few years, Sen. Reid has been railing about a Republican “culture of corruption” — and has eagerly sought to exploit the Foley mess for his party’s political gain. Oops.

Perhaps after Sen. Reid scrapes the dung off his shoes, he’ll tend to the egg on his face.

Our political system doesn’t attract the best people — who, I guess, go into business or whatever. That’s good: A society where all the best people go into politics and government is a society in trouble. But I can’t help feeling that maybe we’ve gone just a bit too far in the other direction.

OVER AT THE LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION, they’re working on warning signs for tomorrow.

I kind of liked this one.

JULES CRITTENDEN looks at the October Follies. This seems to happen every October in an even-numbered year . . . .

LIBERTARIANS AND POLITICS: Interesting discussion over at Hit and Run, and this comment seems dead-on to me:

The fact is, libertarians aren’t generally joiners. Yet to influence people, you have to go to their meetings, bring a snack, raise funds for them, and listen to their ideas before they’ll listen to yours. Politics is about people, after all, and people don’t often think in policy paper terms. If you want to change minds you have to engage others in a positive way.

The evangelical right captured the Republican Party by joining it and working hard for it, eclipsing the paleocons that had enjoyed elder statesmen status. If libertarians really want influence, they’re going to have to work for it instead of taking for granted that “if the Democrats are pro-government, the other party must be anti-government.”

You know how many libertarians it takes to change a lightbulb? Only one, but you have to get him to show up.

Plus this: “It would be nice to see the Grey Lady and other major papers pay more attention to the incredibly shady dealings that keep third parties out of debates all over the country; hell, it would be nice just see them mention that third parties exist as anything other than comic relief.”

EXTREME MORTMAN says that Keith Olbermann has his facts wrong.

MY EARLIER DISASTER PREPAREDNESS POST drew this email:

Glenn, if you are so inclined, please remind people that one of the best things to do to be prepared for disasters is to be trained in first aid and CPR. Too many people (myself included, but I’m planning to fix that) don’t even know the basics of first aid, and ought to.

Secondly, a plug: If anyone can, please try to volunteer at and be trained by local fire and rescue/emergency medical units, especially in more rural areas. Many men and women volunteer their time to serve their communities in this way, and they are CRITICAL. I am so proud of my husband, because he saw this need in our community, and stepped up to the plate.

Each person who aids their neighbors this way deserves our deep gratitude and recognition!

Absolutely. And reader Tom Jank writes:

Maybe there’s something in the water, regarding interest in Disaster Prep. CBS just renewed “Jerico,” the one hour drama about a small town cut off by a nuclear blast.

Checking my office email, I noted this message from the other day (we’re on Fall Break so I hadn’t noticed it before): “A Homeland Security exercise involving multiple jurisdictions will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, on part of the UT campus. Several parking areas and sections of roads will be closed for the exercise.”

And, pulling together two big themes from today, reader Scott Cosman writes:

Perhaps folks are buying the disaster kits in preparation for the Democratic takeover of Congress.

It all makes sense, now.

UPDATE: Chris Nordby emails:

During a large-scale disaster, one with mass casualties, the priorities of medical care shift to doing the most good for the most people with the available resources. Sustaining CPR until outside helps arrives during such a disaster is not a very realistic proposition. I would suggest that if isolated pockets of people have a member of the group present the signs and symptoms that are taught in CPR classes, then they will lose nothing by attempting to revive the afflicted member. However, stopping after a prudent time will probably be necessary if the casualty doesn’t spontaneously respond.

I suggest advanced first aid training as a better adjunct for disaster preparedness such as that available from the American Red Cross. (Personally, I also keep a copy of my old Boy Scout Handbook in my kit because of the variety of subjects that support disaster preparedness.)

Ah, as a matter of full disclosure, I am a former US Army Special Forces Medical NCO (MOS 18D) and now make a living as a Security Analyst for Lockheed Martin servicing a Homeland Security contract. I routinely act as part of a team assessing Homeland Security installations to determine their level of preparedness in the face of a terrorist attack. My part on that team is to assess their medical preparedness and reaction to WMD events.

Anyway, CPR is great and helpful for a functioning community with ready access to EMS support, but first aid is better for disasters where survivors can expect to be cut off for anywhere from 3-14 days.

Yes, I took an advanced first aid course years ago — it was more like bush medicine, really, with everything from how to do traction and bonesetting to delivering babies, and I hope I never use any of it — but that’s closer. However, many CPR courses are bundled with other basic trauma first-aid training. Good point, though.

STEPHEN SPRUIELL: “Several Israeli journalists quit the IFJ when that organization lobbed similar smears at their country’s military. Will any American journalist have the courage to do the same?”

WE’RE NUMBER ONE — among law professor blogs, anyway.

Pretty much everything I do — from photography, to fitness, to music, to, well, blogging — falls under that category: “Not bad — for a law professor.” Oh, well, that’s good enough for me!

(Via Volokh).

HERE’S THE TEXT of the U.N. resolution on North Korea that passed this afternoon. Sounds like an endorsement of the anti-North Korea measures, already underway, that Chester described last week.

A GOP PRE-MORTEM: So is it over for the GOP majorities in Congress? It’s still too early to say, I guess, but when even John Hinderaker is sounding extremely gloomy that’s certainly the way to bet.

So I want to stress, for the edification of any Republican leaders who might pay attention, that this is the result of a series of unforced errors on their part. Following is a (partial) list:

1. The Terri Schiavo affair: The bitterness it aroused, which was substantial, opened a fracture in the GOP coalition: Social-conservatives against the rest. And as I noted at the time, the social conservatives were pretty nasty to the rest. No, it wasn’t really a case of “theocracy” at work, as people like Ralph Nader agreed with the social conservatives. But the haste to enact federal legislation over a matter of state law, and the mean-spiritedness with which those who disagreed were treated, did the Bush coalition no good. What’s more, as I noted at the time (see first link above), this wasn’t enough to make the social conservatives happy anyway. Politically, I think this marked the beginning of the end.

2. The Harriet Miers debacle: Plenty of warning in the blogs that this was a big mistake, but all ignored by the White House and Congressional leadership. Social conservatives were mad here, and so was anyone who cared about the credentials of nominees. The nomination was withdrawn, but the damage was done.

3. The Dubai Ports disaster: Here I think that the Administration was on defensible ground from a policy perspective, but its ham-handed approach — once again ignoring early warnings from the blogs — turned it into a mess, and cost it major credibility with its national security constituency. The Administraiton was bumbling and inept in addressing this matter, which gained currency because of its flaccid stance on the cartoon Jihad. The consequence: Lost faith from its strongest constituency.

4. Immigration: Another unforced error. The national security constituency once again lost faith in the Administration. You can’t talk about secure borders when the borders are porous. The Administration also failed to make a strong clear argument for immigration, outsourcing that to the Wall Street Journal, which did its best but couldn’t do the President’s job. Again, the White House’s position on immigration was defensible in the abstract, but favoring easy immigration is one thing, favoring easy illegal immigration is another.

5. William Jefferson: A Democratic Congressman is caught in a bribery scandal with a freezer full of cash, and Dennis Hastert backs him up, making clear that protection of insider privilege is more important to the Republican leadership in Congress than either party or principle. The White House, at least, intervened here, eventually. Add to this the GOP leadership’s failure to follow through on promised ethics reforms, and its addiction to pork-barrel spending, and you’ve got lots of reason to think that they don’t stand for anything except stuffing their pockets.

6. Foleygate: Not much of a scandal in itself, but the last straw for a lot of people. As Rich Lowry noted, a long chain of missteps and self-serving actions has exhausted their stock of moral and political capital, leaving them vulnerable to, well, almost anything. This was probably enough.

At the end of this process, the Republicans have managed to leave every segment of the base unhappy, mostly over things that weren’t even all that important. It’s as if they had some sort of bizarre death wish. Looks like the wish will come true . . . .

As I’ve said before, the Republicans deserve to lose, though alas the Democrats don’t really deserve to win, either. I realize that you go to war with the political class you have, but even back in the 1990s it was obvious that we had a lousy political class. It hasn’t improved, but the challenges have gotten greater. Can the country continue to do well, with such bad political leadership? I hope so, because I see no sign of improvement, no matter who wins next month.

As I wrote earlier, in suggesting that the GOP deserved to lose:

The counter-case is that a Democratic House would be a disaster for the country. I gathered from Boortz’s discussion that that’s the case that Hannity and Limbaugh were making yesterday. It’s a strong argument — except that if Republican control of the Congress is so all-fired important to the future of civilization, then why haven’t the Republicans who control Congress been acting as if it is so important? . . .

Were GOP control of the Congress so important to the country, wouldn’t the GOP leadership have exercised a trifle more self-discipline and self-denial? And if it’s not capable of doing so, then what kind of leadership is it?

If, as seems likely, the GOP fares badly in next month, it should ponder this point. If it somehow squeaks through — well, then it should ponder this point just as hard, as it will have squeaked through in spite of its performance, not because of it.

UPDATE: Preston Taylor Holmes adds:

I would add that Bush (and the GOP) not backing up the Bush Doctrine when Israel tried to apply it against Hizbollah should have been included. If you’re not going to back up your own “doctrine” then don’t have a doctrine, you half-assed pansies.

A bit harsh, but it demonstrates the GOP problem with the “war base” that I’ve mentioned here before. So does this email from a reader named Stacy, in Tucson:

One point I have not seen much in the blogs or elsewhere concerns the Republican handling of the War on Terror. As part of the conservative ‘base’ I am dissapointed in the administration for not being MORE agressive in fighting the war…it reminds me of the speech by George C Scott in Patton…”Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser”…I think that the Republicans could remain in power if they showed more outward signs of strength in the matters of North Korea, Iran and Iraq. If we were fighting to ‘win’, I think the average american would back the president and congress.

Yes, Jacksonians want to fight and win, not just fight. (See this, too.) Meanwhile, over at The Corner, I’m savaged by a reader who emails Jonah Goldberg:

And if it doen’t go down, it’s becuse it had it coming ? Insipid.

I give Dick Cheney’s advice to Leahy to all you boneheads who don’t have the courage to stand up for the only political party that responds to Conservatives, as the House did in refusing to support the ridiulous Amnesty bill from the Senate.

Many of you live in the Media and Beltway bubble. You actually shiver when the WaPo attacks relentlessly someone like George Allen. You buy into the smearing of Speaker Hastert. You care what your Liberal friends think of you because of your political beliefs.

What will the Dems do when they lose ? That’s the question.

I think it’s silly to pretend that the GOP isn’t in trouble — just look at the futures markets, as WindyPundit has. And if they do somehow squeak out a victory, it won’t be because they’ve been doing well all along. As WindyPundit says, “Certainly they haven’t delivered much of what they promised.”

Reader Stephen M. sees me as a shill for the Democrats: “Are you stumping, knowing that polls are so often wrong? Or is that a pre-Victory lap?”

Neither. But I’ve seen fumble after fumble and just thought it would be helpful to point them out. Dale Light also thinks I’m wrong:

My reaction — what self-serving bullhockey!

Are we to turn the party, the government, the conduct of the war, and everything else over to a bunch of narcissistic amateur loudmouths with keyboards?

The Democratic Party is going down that path right now, and the results are not pretty, nor do they promise to lead to good government.

Do we really want a government that responds dutifully to direction by the Kossacks and Move Oners? Neither should we want a Republican majority to follow the prescriptions of the conservative bloggers. There are good and rational reasons for every one of the policy decisions that the Instapundit denounces. Certainly the Schaivo stance was controversial. So was the Miers nomination…, and so on. But in each case the decision was eminently defensible, and I usually supported the leadership’s positions.

I applaud the Republican leadership for having the courage to take difficult stances, even if they were unpopular with the ideologues of “the base”.

Remember, “al Qaeda” is Arabic for “the base.”

Blogging is fun…, I certainly enjoy it. But like journalism it is essentially an irresponsible game. Those who actually have to wield power cannot allow the ideological enthusiasms of their respective “bases” to determine their decisions.

These are, as John Keegan recently remarked, mean and dangerous times. The issues at stake are far too important to be turned over to tumescent fringe elements in either party. The center must hold.

Well, I’ve got nothing against tumescence. But I don’t see the GOP here as having been smart about moving to the center, either. The moves I discuss above were politically dumb. They weren’t pragmatic political moves that outraged the fringe — they were ham-handed moves that angered the base without winning anyone else over.

Sam Lambert emails: “I can’t believe you, of all people, forgot the unforced error of pork. This was an issue they could have really pleased their base with.”

Well, I mentioned pork above. But it’s true that they blew it by not taking on the issue in a bigger way. We saw some modest improvements at the end of the session, but they could have ridden this issue hard if they’d wanted to.

Rebecca Harris emails: “Yes, we are all unhappy at the lack of leadership, the staggering around like a drunk outside a whorehouse, but how can we decry GOP leadership if we are not making our wishes known, loudly and often? They behave as if they have a mandate, which is certainly wrong. There has to be a mechanism for making them understand that they DON’T have a mandate, and that we are not to be taken for granted. What is it, short of the risk of voting them out of power?”

I think the dissatisfaction has been obvious for a while. I think they just haven’t cared enough to do anything about it, assuming that people would vote for them regardless rather than let the Dems win. I think the polls and the futures markets indicate that they’ve hit the limit of that principle.

Fred Boness, however, isn’t giving up yet:

As Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.”

I think as bad as people feel about Republicans in general or Democrats in general they will vote for their own Republican or their own Democrat and see the individuals they know in a better light than they will poll on the generic loathed politician.

The GOP certainly hopes so.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ed Morrissey thinks that the GOP’s electoral woes are overstated. We’ll see. But as I say above, even if they win, they need to learn from their mistakes. A last-minute win after four quarters of dropped balls doesn’t mean that the balls weren’t dropped. Me, I think that although a GOP win (meaning retention of both houses) is possible, it’s looking unlikely, and the reason is defection from the base for the reasons I list above.

Interesting discussion going on in Ed’s comments. Just keep scrolling. More thoughts here and here. And Ginny at Chicagoboyz has more thoughts, too.

But Thomas Valletta emails:

Man, I’d hate like hell to have you as a coach. Real motivating half-time chat – you’re going to lose and here’s why you deserve it. I’ll respond by telling you that the people do not deserve to lose and that is what happens if the Dems win in November. We lose our money through taxes, our freedoms through Democrat-appointed judges, and we lose our wars with a “cut and run” leadership. I’m sure glad you can take it so calmly, and with such a snooty and detached posture. Well, I’ll tell you what, Reynolds, I think Bush and Rush are right and you are wrong. I think the Republicans hold both Houses. I think you then come off as a total idiot. Remind me to write you after the elections.

I’m not a coach, or a cheerleader. I call ‘em as I see ‘em. But even if Valletta is right, the GOP has gone to the “Democrats are worse” well about as much as it can. It’s true, the Democrats are worse, but lots of people are starting to feel taken advantage of by that approach, as the GOP shows no signs of trying to get, you know, better.

Likewise, reader Mike H. writes:

All the perfection in the world won’t do any one, any good, if there isn’t a culture to support the perfection. The Democrats want to cut and run from not only Iraq, but the War on Terror. Explain how the resultant chaos will allow us to clean up pork? Explain how the multicultural nightmare that is Europe would be the role model that would be desirable for the US. We should welcome the rapes in Sweden and the riots in France? We should welcome the chance to buddy up to Chavez? We want to go with a party that thinks the military are a bunch of jackbooted nazi’s?

Oh well, so be it. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

I’m not asking for perfection here. Just a little effort.

MORE: Barry Dauphin emails:

I think the reasons you listed possibly represent the dissatisfaction of many core Republicans. I don’t think they are reasons so much as examples of something. Yes, there has been a hamhandedness on the part of Republicans, and I think that spending and immigration are really big base issues (the other ones are fleas by comparison).

However, should the Republicans lose Congress, the elephant in the living room is Iraq. If we are in a war, people have to pick sides even if one’s side has substantial problems. I believe that many supporters of Bush have become demoralized by the pace of progress in Iraq and the drumbeat of media negativity. I think that many people implicitly believed that this would be tough, but that we would prevail in a more demonstrable way and sooner. Instead the picture painted is that of an endless pit of commitment. When the Baker workgroup is making policy recommendations that look an awful lot like “cut and run”, it is easy for loyal supporters to get down. It is difficult to develop metrics for the kind of war we are in, but the public needs metrics of some sort to get a sense of where we are at.

I don’t think the Administration being “tougher” is the issue. I’m not sure what toughness is missing, frankly, and what the Jacksonians wish the US to do that is realistic and that wouldn’t lead to a copious amount of other problems. We need a causus belli for Syria and Iran, and the US population is no where near that yet. We cannot fight that kind of war without the support of the public. At some point we have to remember that the public is us.

However, having said that, those who support the WoT and Iraq should decide if they want to take the risk of having the Dems chair all the committees, distract the efforts of the Administration, further polarize the country, etc. Those who choose to sit home are essentially voting for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid; committees chaired by Conyers, Dingell, Kennedy, Waxman, etc. Those are the choices. Maybe we can try to understand why the Iraqis are having difficulty developing the democratic process when we stop and think about our own choices. We can be demoralized, or we can be grownups and act.

If the Reps lose, it will be because the “base” allowed it to happen not because the Dems command a lot of support. If the “base” chooses to sit and pout, they have no right to complain about the results, but they will. And the op-ed people will continue to make a healthy living “defending” the base.

Well, there’s something to that. But nobody likes feeling taken for granted, and a lot of people feel that way. The sense is that support for the war is being abused, in order to keep Republican leaders from having to deliver on other promises. As I say, I think the GOP leadership has taken that as far is it will go.

This says it all: “Yes, I would prefer (R)’s to win this election, but, if they do they should fall on their knees and thank god because they ‘deserve’ to win like I ‘deserve’ to get freaky with Inara from Firefly. . . . As to tantrums? This argument keeps bobbing to the surface like a dead cadaver, and it stinks just as bad. Tantrum? Is it a tantrum to hold an intervention for a good friend who has become lost to himself through drink or drugs? To confront a good friend who seems to have lost his principles? To have lost his way?”

And C.J. Burch emails: “The folks that are giving you a bad time for pointing out the Republicans’ ineptitude need to read Bill Quick. Come to think of it, the administration needs to read Bill Quick. Those are the folk the Republicans have alienated. They better hope they don’t need them in November. At this point I’m just hoping that after the election is over we will have one party that is responsible and sane. I don’t care which party it is. Recent history seems to indicate I will be disappointed, though.”

One reason that a lot of people see me as cheerful and optimistic is that my expectations are really rather low. I know that a considerable level of ineptitude and shysterism is normal in almost every sphere of human affairs, and that’s tolerable so long as the important stuff gets taken care of. Nonetheless, I’ve been disappointed myself.

FINALLY, FINALLY: Here’s a Bill Quick post on the war that further illustrates what some emailers said above: Bush has indeed lost many of his former supporters on the war, but in many cases it’s because they don’t think he’s fighting the war aggressively enough, not because they’ve somehow become antiwar.

MORE THOUGHTS ON SCHOOL SHOOTINGS and defenses against them, from Rand Simberg, who looks at a larger cultural context.

Meanwhile, here’s a positive example of student response.

GERRY STUDDS HAS DIED, AND IS REMEMBERED:

“Gerry’s leadership changed Massachusetts forever and we’ll never forget him. His work on behalf of our fishing industry and the protection of our waters has guided the fishing industry into the future and ensured that generations to come will have the opportunity to love and learn from the sea. He was a steward of the oceans.”

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

___

“No one fought harder for human rights, particularly in Latin America; for our environment; and for the fishermen of New England and the entire nation. He was a true pioneer.”

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., whose wife, Lisa, once worked as an aide to Studds.

Will they remember Mark Foley the same way? More on Studds’ career and death here.

UPDATE: More on Foley vs. Studds here.

THOUGHTS ON WHAT’S SEXY, from The Anchoress.

SO WHEN I WAS AT THE MALL THE OTHER DAY, I saw that Eddie Bauer had a prominent display featuring this Disaster Emergency Kit for 2. It’s not bad, especially for a car or apartment, though I’d certainly want to supplement it.

But what struck me more than the kit itself was the prominence of the display. Put that together with the fact that Target is marketing survival kits with the American Red Cross, Slate has run a series on disaster survival, and Consumer Reports is pushing disaster preparedness and it looks like we’ve got something of a trend. (Popular Mechanics is on the job, too, but you expect that from them.) And walking through J.C. Penney the same day I saw hand-cranked dynamo lanterns and radios prominently displayed by the entrance.

It’s a trend I approve of, of course, as I think that everyone should be prepared for emergencies. And it’s one that’s being pushed by government — my brother recently got a mailing from the State of Ohio telling him he should have a month’s worth of food set aside in case of avian flu or other disasters — but it seems to be more than that. I think that it’s something that goes to the Zeitgeist. We know that the world isn’t the warm, fuzzy place that it often seemed in the 1990s (it wasn’t then, either, but it was easier to ignore that if you tried, and most of us tried). Modest preparations now, of course, can have a big payoff later, so I’m glad to see people giving the subject some thought. Whether or not Eddie Bauer sells many of those kits, everyone who sees them will at least have disaster preparation cross his/her mind.

More on disaster preparedness here and here. Remember, though, it’s not just about buying things — it’s about learning things, too.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Picking up your disaster kit at Albertson’s is always part of the back to school routine in California.”

And another reader writes:

You know survival kits are mainstream when Costco is selling them. And last weekend at my local Costco, in the food section, there was a front of the aisle display of survival food buckets. They were going for $110 and had about 275 servings of freeze dried vegetarian meals.

10 years ago, this was the stuff of Soldier of Fortune.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’d noticed. No Costco in Knoxville, alas, or I’d go take a picture or something.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Blue Crab Boulevard reports: “Cheaper than Dirt has some survival kits that are, well, cheaper than dirt.”

And Eric Klien of the Lifeboat Foundation sends a link to some really serious disaster preparedness.

Finally, reader Eric McErlain emails:

I just signed up for a Fairfax County Community Emergency Response Team class here in Virginia. The ads for the training were in the local paper only a few weeks ago.

I’m wondering if this is all coming together at the same time.

I doubt there’s a grand plan. But I think it’s a convergence of several cultural forces.

And reader John Richardson recommends Kim du Toit’s posts on “grab and go kits,” found here and here. Excellent advice, and for most people some sort of firearm — perhaps less elaborate than these setups — should be part of anys survival preparations. My point in this post, though, was not so much on the need for preparation, but rather the way in which that need seems to be much more widely appreciated.

POSSIBLE WARNING: I hope that Costco has upgraded those disaster kits since this post. Beware the daily calorie-count!

MORE FOOT-DRAGGING:

Despite winning key concessions, Russia and China raised new objections that could delay a vote Saturday on a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing punishing sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test. . . .

The latest draft demands North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons but expressly rules out military action against the country, a demand by the Russians and Chinese. The Americans also eliminated a complete ban on the sale of conventional weapons; instead, the draft limits the embargo to major hardware such as tanks, warships, combat aircraft and missiles.

The more I follow doings in the Security Council, the less secure I feel.

A FOILED COUP PLOT in Pakistan. That they’re foiling them is good. That they’re having them — in a country with nuclear weapons and terrorists — isn’t. (Via Newsbeat1).

UPDATE: A denial from Pakistan.

HARRY REID UPDATE:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said this week that he is in discussions with the Senate ethics committee to determine whether he should amend his financial disclosure forms to include details of a Nevada real estate transaction that allowed him to collect $1.1 million.

Reid sought the opinion after The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the senator didn’t disclose to Congress that he sold some land to a friend’s company in 2001 and took an ownership stake in the company. He didn’t collect the seven-figure payout until the company sold the land in 2004.

Frank James, meanwhile, thinks that Reid is being treated unfairly. Investor’s Business Daily disagrees.

Some media outlets are getting questions from their readers about why the story hasn’t gotten more attention. Seems to me that the questions here could be settled with a little bit of reporting, if anyone wanted to do that.

MEGAN MCARDLE offers some objections to the Iraqi Oil Trust idea. Hmm. . . Hillary Clinton vs. Megan McArdle? Who to believe?

No contest there, but Ilya Somin offers some responses. In the comments to his post, Megan takes a more positive line.

YES, I’M FAMILIAR WITH THIS PROBLEM: “Man, I could have driven home from St. Louis in the time it took me to fly, and I could have done it without spending any time fretting about whether I’d have to stay overnight in Chicago.”

JOHN HINDERAKER CONTEMPLATES THE POLLS: “It’s a sea of blue, with the Democratic candidate leading in just about every race for every office, nationwide. The polls can’t all be screwy, and if this batch are anywhere near right, they foretell a rout of astonishing proportions.”

The GOP richly deserves to lose its majority in Congress. I just wish the Democrats deserved to win one. Apparently, however, the Dems have a big advantage in physical attractiveness, at least from the perspective of the Washington Post.

ALI BUBBA CONTEMPLATES SUICIDE, but recovers after contemplating Freddy Mercury.

A YOUTUBE JIHAD? At least it keeps them off the streets and plastered to their monitors.

THE AD ON THE RIGHT FOR THE DVD RELEASE OF REDS is kind of unusual. According to the ad guy, Warren Beatty personally picked out all the blogs it would run on. I didn’t realize he read blogs, and I’m kind of surprised.

There’s a preview here. I haven’t seen it since it was in theaters, but I seem to recall thinking that Jack Nicholson (as Eugene O’Neill) stole the show.

DUKE LACROSSE UPDATE:

Three Duke Lacrosse players stand accused of assaulting an exotic dancer earlier this year. Now, however, the other dancer who was there that night says it didn’t happen the way the purported victim said it did.

Just months ago, Kim Roberts, who is the second exotic dancer in the Duke Lacrosse house was considered the backbone of the prosecution’s case against the three young men. . . .

Ed Bradley does the interview. “Did she give you any reason to believe that she had been assaulted?” he asks

Roberts reply: “No.”

Bradley: “Did she at any point that night say anything about being in pain or having been hurt in any way?”

Roberts: “No, she wasn’t. She obviously wasn’t hurt, because, you know, she was fine,” Roberts replied.

Bad news for DA Nifong.

NORTH KOREAN TEST LOOKS LIKE A NUKE:

The U.S. government has determined that one scientific test, among many conducted since North Korea’s announced nuclear test, was consistent with a nuclear explosion, a senior administration official said Friday night. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cautioned that the administration has not made a definitive conclusion about the nature of the explosion.

“The betting is that this was an attempt at a nuclear test that failed,” the official said. “We don’t think they were trying to fake a nuclear test, but it may have been a nuclear fizzle _ an effort that failed.”

For more on how they determine these things, see this article that I linked the other day.

UPDATE: Gerard Baker writes: “It will be the first nuclear power to be headed by a crazed monomaniac who boasts of his commercial interest in shipping nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. . . . Out of a combination of fear, opportunism and cynicism, the world’s so-called powers have ridden a tiger for the past decade. Now the tiger has turned on them.”

MORE TERROR BUSTS AT HOME:

The imam of a Georgia mosque admitted he has provided material support to the Palestinian group Hamas, which is designated a terror organization.

Mohamed Shorbagi pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with government investigators, said David Nahmias, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Georgia. Under his plea agreement, released Friday, he could be sentenced to as much as 15 years in prison, but prosecutors agreed to ask for a much shorter term if he provides useful information.

Shorbagi, of Rome, Ga., said he helped raise money for a Hamas front organization, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. He acknowledged knowing what the foundation was since, as its Georgia representative, he attended meetings where high-level Hamas leaders were present and he also invited them to his mosque in Rome.

Rome, Georgia, that is. Not likely much of a domestic threat here, though.

HOW TO REMOVE a federal judge: “Most everyone assumes that impeachment is the only means of removing federal judges and that the Constitution’s grant of good-behavior tenure is an implicit reference to impeachment. This Article challenges that conventional wisdom. Using evidence from England, the colonies, and the revolutionary state constitutions, the Article demonstrates that at the Founding, good-behavior tenure and impeachment had only the most tenuous of relationships.”

Hmm. Even if that’s true, I think that 200 years of pretty consistent understanding to the contrary should count for something. (Via Tom Smith).

FALLING GAS PRICES — bad for the economy! “The largest decline ever in gas-station receipts pushed overall retail sales down 0.4 percent in September, the Commerce Department said in Washington.” Oh, no!

There’s a small bright spot amid the gloom, though: “Excluding service stations, purchases climbed 0.6 percent, three times the gain in August. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index jumped to 92.3 in October from 85.4 the prior month.”

Hey, just getting into this election-runup media psychology!

IT’S LIKE THE VIEW, only, er, good. Mary Katharine Ham, LaShawn Barber, and Kirsten Powers are guests. At Hot Air.

A NEW STRATEGY FOR COMBATING SCHOOL SHOOTINGS:

Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they got – books, pencils, legs and arms.

“Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success,” said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools.

That kind of fight-back advice is all but unheard of among schools, and some fear it will get children killed.

But school officials in Burleson said they are drawing on the lessons learned from a string of disasters such as Columbine in 1999 and the Amish schoolhouse attack in Pennsylvania last week. . . .Browne recommends students and teachers “react immediately to the sight of a gun by picking up anything and everything and throwing it at the head and body of the attacker and making as much noise as possible. Go toward him as fast as we can and bring them down.”

This seems right to me. Joanne Jacobs has further thoughts on the subject.

UPDATE: Here are some further thoughts, from an expert.

ANOTHER UPDATE: SayUncle weighs in.

MORE: It’s certainly a change from this approach:

At Columbine, the armed “school resource officer” refused to pursue the killers into the building, and kept himself safe outside while the murders were going on inside. Even after SWAT teams arrived, and while, via an open 911 line, the authorities knew that students were being methodically executed in the library, the police stood idle just a few yards outside the library.

Jeez. (Via Mike Rappaport).

MORE STILL: John Weidner is saying I told you so!

THE BOOBIES ARE BACK:

Oh, yes, feminism has gotten rolled up into the conventional left-right of American politics. Ever since feminists chose to subordinate themselves to the interests of the Democratic party to help Bill Clinton with his problems, the feminist discourse in this country has been lame. It’s a means to a political end, and so you always know who your “enemies” are. Fifteen years ago, feminists critiquing each other was an important part of feminism. Now, doggedly serving liberal partisan politics squelches everything that could become vital.

Maybe if feminists had the nerve to engage in real debate about feminism they could get some young people excited about real ideas. But go ahead, tart up your website with boobies for now.

Yes, please do. Not the botched ones, though.

UPDATE: It could be worse. No, really.

“DARFUR IS JUST RWANDA IN SLOW MOTION:” This week’s Blog Week in Review podcast is up, with Gerard van der Leun, Austin Bay, and Michael Totten.

SOMEBODY TELL PRESIDENT BUSH that border security isn’t there yet:

In Brownsville, he witnessed half a dozen men swim under one of the international bridges “with complete immunity” which in turn prompted him to take the immigration issue to the next level.

Bhakta decided to see if he could get an elephant accompanied by a six-piece mariachi band across the river.

According to his Web site, he is in favor of “sensible immigration reform” and supports a border fence, local law enforcement assistance with immigration laws and the use of the National Guard troops to help the U.S. Border Patrol.

“To my surprise, the band played on, the elephants splashed away, and nobody showed up,” Bhakta said of the stunt. “I’m astounded.” . . . “If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country,” Bhakta said.

Well, now that the mariachi secret is out, anyway.

UPDATE: Here’s video.

IT’S ALL OVER for Republican Bob Ney, resigning soon in the face of corruption charges. “Through a combination of arrogance, ambition, and corruption Ney has arrived at the worst of all possible outcomes: he’s going to prison next year as a convicted felon, and by dragging out the process (culminating with a guilty plea 3 weeks before the midterm elections) he’s done about as much damage as he could possibly do to the Republican party under the circumstances.”

THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION has joined the Harry Reid pile-on:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid would be well advised to stop thundering about corruption in the Republican ranks or crying “cover-up” over the GOP’s failure to promptly and appropriately deal with former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and his sexually explicit e-mails to congressional pages. Reid faces too many questions about his own behavior to crusade against the misdeeds of others.

Currently, he’s trying to explain a land deal in Nevada on which he made a pile of money and which may not have been properly disclosed. When the property was sold in 2004, it belonged to a company formed with a long-time friend and included a parcel that once had been owed by Reid. Despite having transferred his parcel to the company, the Nevada Democrat continued to report in Senate documents that he still owned it personally. That’s a breach of Senate disclosure rules, according to the Associated Press, which first reported the transaction details.

Reid is now considering whether he should amend his disclosure statement. . . . Unfortunately, Reid’s ethics meter only seems to work when it’s too late.

I’m not sure how bad the Reid scandal really is, but it’s clearly enough that he’s got no business going on about corruption. The truth, as I’ve said repeatedly, is that both parties are pretty corrupt, and that we need more transparency and accountability.

And I’m beginning to think that term limits might not be a bad idea, either.

Joe Gandelman, meanwhile, has a roundup and also observes: “This is the final stretch in a vital election so what’s unfolding now is what makes many independent voters stay independent voters. Some members of Reid’s party are responding in a way different to how they would respond if he was R-Nev and not D-Nev. And some Republicans and talking heads now suggest that this somehow negates, defuses, or lessens the gravity of the parade of Republican financial (and now flesh) scandals that have taken place since the Republican controlled Congress morphed into the very kind of Congress Republicans (and many voters) thought they had replaced under the politically-late Newt Gingrich. Answer to that: not one iota.”

Meanwhile, Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker says that the AP story doesn’t add up.

UPDATE: Tom Bevan is puzzled by Harry’s hangup:

Let’s assume for the moment that the land deal is exactly what Harry Reid says it is: a simple, straightforward, perfectly legal transaction that is being misreported or blown out of proportion. Why on earth wouldn’t Reid simply state as much for the record? He could have said “we’ve been over all this before,” or he could have said “you are way off base.” Heck, he could have said just about anything. Instead, Reid hung up.

If you believe actions speak louder than words, what are we to make of the fact that the most powerful elected Democratic official in the country feels like he can just hang up in the middle of a tape recorded interview with the largest news syndicate in America?

At the very least, an outraged sense of entitlement?

THE SOUNDS OF SILENCING: Peggy Noonan looks at recent efforts to crush dissent.

AIR AMERICA RADIO FILES CHAPTER 11: Earlier reports were just a bit premature, I guess.

CURSES! DRUDGED AGAIN! A podcast interview with David Zucker about his Madeleine Albright / Kim Jong Il ad.

SANDY BERGER, back in the news: “How he managed to avoid using the word ‘pantload’ even once is beyond me, and a tribute to Andy’s professionalism.”

IN THE MAIL, Max Boot’s new book, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today. It’s quite comprehensive.

THEY PAY BUT DENY ANY GUILT: “But if the primary purpose of class-action suits is to hold companies accountable for their actions — and hopefully to learn from their mistakes — then the system is failing miserably in light of a key aspect of virtually all settlements: No one takes any blame.”

On the other hand, if a primary purpose is to make lawyers rich, they’re succeeding admirably. Woohoo!

THE REFUGEE WEAPON:

While unhappy with North Korea’s recent nuclear weapons test, there is not a lot China can do about it. This is because North Korea threatens to unleash hundreds of thousands of desperate North Korean refugees across the border, into northern China, if China applies too much pressure. Currently, the North Koreans have pretty tight control over this border, but that could be relaxed in an instant, allowing a flood of refugees into China. To counter that threat, over the last month, China has been moving more troops and police into northern China, not just to look for existing North Korean refugees, but to man more border posts, in an effort to keep out North Koreans.

Citizens or hostages? In a regime like Kim Jong Il’s there’s no difference.

JOHN TAMMES ROUNDS UP NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN that you’ve probably missed.

A TRANSCRIPT IS NOW AVAILABLE for our podcast interview with Richard Posner regarding his book, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency.

UPDATE: By the way, lots of people liked the music for this one, by The Nevers, and wanted to know where to get it. It isn’t available on line yet, but in response to my importuning they’ve agreed to make it available soon. I’ll let you know.

DICK ARMEY slams James Dobson.

Meanwhile, Cato says that libertarians are this year’s swing voters.

HARRY REID GETS ATTENTION: The Philadelphia Inquirer editorializes:

After the land was rezoned for a shopping center, the corporation sold it in 2004. Reid received $1.1 million in the sale, turning a neat profit of nearly $700,000 in six years.

While now insisting he did nothing wrong, Reid is also offering to make a “technical change” to his earlier ethics reports if the ethics committee so desires. Simply giving the Democratic leader a mulligan is hardly the way to handle this case. When the Senate debated ethics reforms earlier this year, Reid was out in front to demand the toughest of standards from lawmakers.

“Americans have been shocked and even disgusted by revelations of corruption in our current system by Republican lobbyists, senior Bush Administration officials, members of Congress, and former congressional staff,” Reid said in March. “The scandals have shown that some outsiders and insiders believed they could act with impunity.”

That’s how this case looks, too. Unless Reid comes up with a better explanation for this lack of disclosure, Democrats should not keep him as their leader in the new Congress in 2007.

Ouch. And the Washington Post writes:

THE BEST CASE for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is that he was sloppy about financial disclosure rules in accounting for a real estate deal on which he made a $700,000 profit. The more unattractive case is that the senator’s inaccurate description of the investment was an effort to disguise his partnership with a Las Vegas lawyer who’s never been charged with wrongdoing but whose name has surfaced in federal investigations involving organized crime, casinos and political bribery since the 1980s. As of now, the evidence points toward sloppiness; Mr. Reid’s friendship with Jay Brown isn’t exactly a secret in the state. But either way, an Associated Press report about Mr. Reid’s dealings doesn’t cast the senator in an attractive light. Neither does his response to the AP story, which indicates a casual disregard for the importance of accurate reporting of lawmakers’ financial affairs. . . .

Mr. Reid’s professions of transparency and full disclosure are transparently wrong. His investment was not reported in a manner that made clear his partnership with Mr. Brown. It’s true — under the inadequate financial disclosure rules — that even if Mr. Reid had listed the newly formed corporation, Patrick Lane LLC, that wouldn’t have by itself demonstrated Mr. Brown’s involvement. Nonetheless, that Mr. Reid no longer owned the land, but instead had sold it for an interest in the Patrick Lane corporation, was not some mere “technical change,” as the senator would like to brush it off. It’s an essential element of financial disclosure rules, the purpose of which is to know how and with whom public officials are financially entwined.

We need more transparency. As the Inquirer notes, Reid himself was saying that not long ago.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey has more on this story, here and here.

So does A.J. Strata. More transparency, please.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Oklahoman comments:

Democrats in Congress wasted no time calling for House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal. They regularly rail against profits reported by Big Oil. Now that Reid has been caught with a hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, will they issue similar requests for his resignation and blistering criticism for Reid’s “obscene” profits?

Don’t bet on it.

There are differences, of course. The Foley scandal involves allegations of sexual harassment, not making money the old-fashioned (if unethical) way. And we have no problem with anyone making money on a real estate transaction.

Still, you can bet that if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., violated ethics rules and made a killing on a land deal, his Democratic colleagues would be howling for his ouster.

Yep.

MORE: This is clearly true:

Land deals are the meat-and-potatoes of government corruption, sometimes illegal, sometimes merely smelly. Behind every crooked politician, there’s a crooked land deal. My first big story was the existential essence of the land deal: a couple of the local pols used insider advance knowledge to buy up land around a proposed freeway interchange for resale under the name of a dummy company.

The goverment builds on, buys, sells, or rezones land. Said land increases in value. Pols, friends, relatives invariably exploit the change. Harry’s part of a grand bipartisan tradition. If more reporters were covering this stuff at City Hall, there would be many fewer bad guys of either party in Congress.

Unfortunately, too many reporters think this kind of thing is boring. Maybe local political bloggers will pick up the slack.

STILL MORE: SobekPundit writes:

A very simple search on the Nevada Secretary of State web page shows that Jay Brown is the manager of Patrick Lane, LLC. So anyone who knew that Reid was involved in Patrick Lane, with the click of a few buttons, could have immediately determined that Reid was also involved with Brown — but of course Reid did not disclose his interest.

Seems like there’s a better way than this.

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE HAS BEEN AWARDED — and, in something of a departure, it’s gone to somebody who actually deserves it:

Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank have been awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Yunus, an economist, founded the bank, which is one of the pioneers of micro-credit lending schemes for the poor in Bangladesh.

The bank is renowned for lending money to the least well-off, especially women, so that they can launch their own businesses.

Micro-credit is far more effective at fighting poverty than big government programs. And Grameen’s efforts to empower women have made them very unpopular with Islamists, which is reason enough to applaud. As reader Kjell Hagen emails:

Business owners look to the future, not to “martyrdom”. And making women self-sustained economically helps improve equality between the sexes, which I think is an important lever to weaken the islamo-
fascist stronghold on poor, islamic countries. No wonder this bank was bombed earlier by islamic terrorists.

Indeed.

KAUS ON THE LATEST POLLS: “Grim for the GOPs, but if it were a ballgame you wouldn’t head for your car.”

THE WASHINGTON POST OUTS CHRIS WALLACE: as a registered Democrat.

(Via Bill Quick).

HUGH HEWITT HASN’T GIVEN UP ON HARRY REID: It’s a Reid-o-Rama at his place.

A BUSTED UK-US TERROR PLOT:

Dhiren Barot, of north London, planned to use a radioactive “dirty bomb” in one of a series of attacks in the UK, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

He intended to cause “injury, fear, terror and chaos”, prosecutors said.

Barot, 34, also allegedly plotted to cause explosions at several US financial buildings “designed to kill as many innocent people as possible”. . . .

Seven other men are due to face trial next year.

Glad they’re catching these guys before anything happens. Hope they keep that up.

REASONS TO APPLAUD HILLARY:

No. 1, she avoids the “Bush lied, people died” mantra, which tends to delegitimize our effort in Iraq. Instead, she says, not unreasonably, “We have to deal with the Iraq we have, not the Iraq we wish we had.” That sounds to me like someone who is thinking realistically about a responsibility that might be hers starting Jan. 20, 2009.

No. 2, she endorses the idea, which I championed long ago, of an Iraqi oil fund that would distribute part of the state’s oil profits in payments to every individual. She says that she recommended it in 2003 and that it was shot down by Dick Cheney–something I’ve never seen before in print.

“I thought it was something that could demonstrate clearly that we were not on the side of the oil companies, we were not on the side of the ruling elites–we were on the side of the Iraqi people.” Yes, exactly! She says that over the past month she has asked the president and deputy prime minister of Iraq and the U.S. ambassador there, “When are you going to get the oil deal done?”

Well, that’s two cheers. And I’m certainly on-board with the oil-trust idea. In fact, it may have started here. At least, Michael Barone got the idea here.

UPDATE: Ilya Somin cheers too, and adds: “As to whether Sen. Clinton really did urge the Bush Administration to adopt this approach back in 2003, I have no way of knowing. However, a number of people did try to persuade the Administration to embrace it at the time, including my colleague and Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon Smith. Unfortunately, their advice was not followed.” He has some thoughts on what might be done now, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Larry Stevens emails:

The first I heard about the idea was in April, 2003, when I asked Milton Friedman what to do about it. He suggested selling the oil concession and putting the proceeds in exactly such a fund.

I have also read recently that Ahmed Chalabi proposed modeling a program on the Alaska oil trust in those early days.

Hmm. There are certainly some non-silly arguments against this approach — the likelihood that it would make people act like they’re on the dole being one — but it seems to me that it deserved much more attention than it got from the Administration. Any time Milton Friedman, Vernon Smith, Ahmed Chalabi, and Hillary Clinton agree on something . . . .

YOU GET INTO PAYPAL EARLY and make a pile. You get into YouTube earlier and make a bigger pile. So what do you want to do with your life? “Mostly he just wants to be a professor.”

Proving that he really is smart. (Via Who else?).

CLAYTON CRAMER looks at media innumeracy and the Lancet report. And Stephen St. Onge has further thoughts.

Megan McArdle has also read the study and is unimpressed. “Yes, I’ve read it; it’s not exactly heavy going, since it’s eight pages long and surprisingly fuzzy. They don’t break out the figures by individual province; the only clue is a map, on which Baghdad is in the basket marked “2-10 deaths per thousand per year”. This does not inspire much confidence. And the reason it is not confidence inspiring is that the fuzziness prevents comparison with figures known to be relatively reliable, such as those from Baghdad’s central morgue.” And just keep scrolling, as she has multiple posts on the subject.

FRANK J. INTERVIEWS A 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIST who happens to be running for Congress.

Related item here.

HILLARY CLINTON believes that torture should be safe, legal, and rare, according to this report. “Torture is OK as long as the president approves it, as long as it’s an exception, and as long as it’s secretly reported to Congress. That doesn’t sound like a bright moral line to me.”

I guess she’s been reading the polls. (Via Alarming News).

ROBERT COX writes in The Examiner that the Left is on the way to owning the Internet the way the Right owns talk radio.

Except that the Right doesn’t own the infrastructure for talk radio.

UPDATE: Hmm. I feel sorry for Google shareholders — no sooner do they buy YouTube than they seem to be flushing its value away.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stuart Gittelman has a different take:

YouTube definitely has problems with sending conservative videos to the cornfield, but in this case, I think the real concept at plays is a tangent to the Army of Davids paradigm.

It appears from the notice that the Associate Press got YouTube to pull the video over copyright issues. Fair enough, that’s their right. But it reflects the AP’s total “old media” approach: this is our toy and no one plays with our toys in our sandbox unless we say so. But look at FoxNews, for instance. How many little snippets quite like the one the AP is clutching like Linus’ security blanket did they allow Ian Schwartz at The Political Teen to post knowing the free, viral marketing they got out of it burnished their credentials. And that’s just one fr’instance.

The bottom line is that one embraced the technology and the Davids. They’re doing pretty well. The other is still trying to play Goliath. I suppose that’s good work if you can get it…but only while it lasts.

Very interesting.

THE MANOLO ON CONGRESS: “The Pageboy is to be the hairstyle, not the pen-pal.”

THOUGHTS ON NORTH KOREA from Victor Davis Hanson.

PRESIDENT BUSH WILL SLEEP BETTER TONIGHT: Mickey Kaus pronounces himself satisfied regarding the White House’s intentions on the fence bill.

IT’S LIEBERMAN 53, LAMONT 40, according to SurveyUSA.

TREASONOUS SPEECH IN SUPPORT OF ENEMY POWERS: Tom Bell has thoughts on the Gadahn indictment:

A treason charge in the War on Terror? Who would have thought of that? Well, um, I would have. Indeed, I wrote a law review article on the topic: Treason, Technology, and Freedom of Expression, 37 Ariz. St. L. J. 999 (2005) [PDF] (that link offers a late draft of the paper, which I plan to soon replace with the published version). As I said there, “Courts have already held that an American employed as an enemy propagandist may justly suffer prosecution for treason. Any American employed as a propagandist by the al-Qaeda terrorist network would doubtless risk the same fate.” Id. at 1004.

I must admit, though, that I did not expect U.S. officials to finger an actual agent of al-Quaeda.

As usual, Bell is farther ahead of the curve than even he knows. Some further thoughts on the subject from Eugene Volokh.

A SUMMARY OF THE HARRY REID LAND DEAL, over at The New Editor.

Sounds like pretty standard semi-sleazy local politics, except for his failure to report the deal to Congress. But it’s probably true that if a Republican were involved it would be getting a lot more attention.

UPDATE: Who am I kidding? It’s undoubtedly true that if a Republican were involved it would be getting a lot more attention. At least between now and election day.

MAKING MARCONI PROUD, one taxpayers’ grant at a time.

HERE’S ANOTHER REPORT that Mark Warner won’t be running in 2008. We were supposed to do a podcast interview with him and the date kept slipping — I don’t know if that means that he’s been uncertain about running for a while or not. When I talked to him on the phone in June he said he wasn’t sure if he was running, but I took that with a grain of salt — they all say that — but I guess he really wasn’t sure. A politician who tells the truth? No wonder he’s bowing out . . . .

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER SNARK about intelligence agencies, reader Paul Stinchfield suggests replacing the CIA with one of these.

Well, it would be cheaper. It “has all the answers you need.” And it wouldn’t meddle in domestic politics.

Seriously, I know that gathering intelligence about closed, totalitarian countries is hard. But the CIA has a lousy track record, and there’s no clear sign that anything’s being done to make it better.

ROBERT NOVAK looks at pork for defense — and the defense of pork:

In a caucus of Republican senators, 82-year-old, six-term Sen. Ted Stevens charged that freshman Sen. Tom Coburn’s anti-pork crusade hurts the party. Stevens then removed from the final version of the Defense Department appropriations bill Coburn’s “report card” requiring the Pentagon to grade earmarks. The House passed, 394 to 22, the bill, stripped of this reform and containing some 2,800 earmarks worth $11 billion. That made a mockery of a “transparency” rule passed by the House earlier this year, supposedly intended to discourage earmarks.

“You would think that with a war and all the controversy surrounding earmarks that the appropriators would hold back a little,” said Steve Ellis of the non-partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense. “But with an election just weeks away, they dug into the trough to find pearls to send home to their districts.” Ellis located unauthorized spending embedded in the bill that was harder to find than ever. Republicans in Congress seem unaffected by their conservative base’s anger over pork.

Stevens, the Senate’s president pro tempore and its senior Republican, reflects a majority in both parties defending pork.

That last bit is the most depressing point. It’s insiders vs. outsiders, not Democrats vs. Republicans, and however the elections go things aren’t likely to change much because of party shifts. We need outside pressure, something that’s just beginning. We need to ratchet things up next session, whoever’s in charge.

MICHAEL TOTTEN’S The Hezbollah War is now available through Amazon. This would be good for a class assignment.

MARK WARNER is expected to announce that he won’t run in 2008, according to the Hotline blog. That’s too bad. I was actually hoping for a Warner/Giuliani race, as something that might defuse the polarization a bit.

CONTINUING A TRACK RECORD OF DECADES, the intelligence community appears to have gotten its North Korea predictions all wrong.

Can’t say I’m surprised. Maybe I’ll send ‘em one of these — they seem to be the target market . . . .

JOURNALISM PROFESSOR BOB STEPNO wonders if Editor and Publisher is stealing stories. Even if they’ve got a content-sharing agreement (which isn’t clear), crediting a story to “E&P Staff” seems a bit dubious if it comes from somewhere else. How about the old standby “compiled from wire reports” instead? (Via Michael Silence).

AUSTIN BAY notes the emergence of revisionist history on missile defense.

Plus, a problem for China: “Kim’s nuke test publicly exposes China’s failure — a major power’s failure on its own border.”

AN INTERESTING LOOK at nuclear detection technology and how it works.

MICKEY KAUS is still worried that Bush won’t sign the fence bill. But this email from Tony Snow would seem to settle the question: “The president hasn’t signed the bill because it hasn’t arrived from Capitol Hill. When it arrives, he’ll sign.”

Seems pretty clear to me.

JOSH MANCHESTER: “Kim Jong Il is not your average individual. Anyone who was raised to think of his father as a god is not going to fit in well at your average high school reunion. But persistent attempts to portray him as ‘crazy’ in popular discourse are both inaccurate and dangerous.”

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Expel North Korea from the U.N.

VOTER FRAUD IN ST. LOUIS: AP reports:

Election officials say hundreds of potentially bogus registration cards, including ones for dead and underage people, were submitted by a branch of a national group that has been criticized in the past for similar offenses.

At least 1,500 potentially fraudulent registration cards were turned in by the St. Louis branch of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, leading up to Wednesday’s registration deadline for the Nov. 7 election, said Kim Mathis, chairwoman of the St. Louis City Board of Election Commissioners.

Invalid registrations solicited by ACORN workers included duplicate or incomplete ones, a 16-year-old voter, dead people registering, and forged signatures, Mathis said.

“Fifteen hundred may not sound like a lot, but it is a big deal and it disenfranchises the election process,” she said. “It’s time someone be prosecuted. There’s a lot of taxpayer dollars being wasted on this.”

St. Louis-based Gateway Pundit has a roundup. This just underscores John Fund’s point.

BLOG-BLOCKING by Uncle Sam?

ANDREW STUTTAFORD WRITES:

I’ve finally got round to my emails on the topic of that Internet gambling/national security bill and there are far, far too many to reply to. No-one who wrote to me was a fan of the move and there were a good few that said this was the ‘last straw’ so far as their November vote was concerned. Most of the opposition to the law was on broadly libertarian grounds, but there was another strain too, which made interesting reading in the light of Congress’ reputation at the moment.

Supposedly, the reason (apart, of course, from national security) that Senator Frist rushed through this legislation was to send a signal to the more moralistic voters out there. Maybe that will work, maybe it will not, but a revealingly large percentage of my correspondents felt that the real reason for passing the law was to protect the interests of Las Vegas, Indian tribes and other entrenched gambling interests. In other words, a piece of law designed to make the GOP look clean has made them look even dirtier than before.

Of all the uses of the Internet, gambling seems to me to be among the stupidest — I mean, the roulette wheel at the casino might be rigged, but the one flickering on your computer screen? How could you ever tell? — but people are allowed to be stupid. It was a bad bill, and whether or not its purpose was corrupt it stunk. If it was also a political misjudgment, well, that’s pretty much par for the course with this Congress, I’m afraid. I’m with Barney Frank on this one.

UPDATE: An email from Radley Balko. Balko writes:

On Internet gambling — the overwhelming majority of web wagers are on poker. And all of the major poker sites are heavily regulated and publicly traded (most on the London Stock Exchange). Watchdog groups routinely test them for fairness with dummy accounts that measure the randomness of the cards dealt. The major sites also all have pretty sturdy child protection measures, and some even allow for built-in limits if you don’t trust yourself with your money.

Of course, as soon as the bill passed, most of the major sites announced they’d cease doing business with U.S. consumers. I’m sure they’re scared to death now that DOJ is plucking overseas gaming execs out of airports and tossing them in prison (one wonders what kind of implications this will have for American travelers overseas). This means that the 95% of players who gamble recreationally and responsibly are now out of luck. But if you’re a curious minor or an addict, there are still plenty of sites that aren’t publicly traded, and aren’t regulated by Canada or the U.K. There’s also no telling who’s operating them, and there’s no recourse if they take your money. Those sites will almost certainly seee an uptick in traffic as a result of this dumb law.

I hope Stuttaford’s email pans out. This was paternalistic, big government moralizing at its worst. It’s sympomatic of what’s wrong with the GOP. That First slapped it onto a port security bill just hours before Congress was set to end the session and go home makes it all the more dubious. And that’s not even touching the carve-outs in the bill exempting state lotteries (which studies show are much more addictive than poker) and politically-powerful interests like horse racing.

The kicker is that the bill’s champion in the house — Bob Goodlatte — sits on the Internet Caucus, a group that’s supposed to keeping government regulation off the web.

I enjoy playing poker with real people, but I’ve never really had the gambling jones. Still, if people want to waste their money on this stuff, it’s nobody’s business but their own.