Timothy Sandefur is embarrassed:

So I was watching this insane video of Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie discussing the War on Terrorism with Mos Def. And it’s amusing to laugh at the utterly hapless ignorance of “Mr. Def,” as he is repeatedly called—until you stop and wonder. Why is the black community not outraged by this? Bill Maher hosts a talk show to discuss the threat of Islamic terrorism and the Middle East, and he invites two world-renowned white male intellectuals and Mos Def? If this show had been choreographed by the Ku Klux Klan it could not have been more infuriating. Did Maher not have the phone number of a black intellectual? Were Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Orlando Patterson, Julian Bond, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, John McWhorter all busy?

Here’s the video:

While I agree entirely that this is an absurd pairing, it’s most definitely not a racist one.  Sandefur has apparently never seen “Real Time with Bill Maher.”  The premise of the show, from its inception more than six years ago, has been to pair politicos and pop culture figures in discussion.  (Whether the point of the exercise was to demonstrate that the latter are morons or that their opinions are equally valid, I could never determine.)

Here are the seven season openers.

February 21, 2003. Guests: Author Ann Coulter, actor Larry Miller, writer, radio host and professor Michael Eric Dyson, comedian Sarah Silverman, comedian Chris Rock.  Topics: The UN, Affirmative Action.

January 16, 2004. Guests: Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark, artist Moby, Rev. Al Sharpton, actor Ron Silver, Rep. Darrell Issa. Topics: American values, Iraq, MoveOn.org, environment.

February 18, 2005. Guests: Correspondent Lesley Stahl, actor Robin Williams, former H&HS Sec. Tommy Thompson, Sen. Joe Biden, and actor Don Cheadle. Topics: On protecting sources, Jeff Gannon, on Interrogating prisoners, Iraq elections, Darfur.

February 17, 2006. Guests: Sen. Russ Feingold, commentator Fred Barnes, actor Eddie Griffin, reporter Helen Thomas, Iraq advisor Dan Senor. Topics: Cheney shooting, on the Patriot Act, Bush, Mohammad cartoons.

February 16, 2007. Guests: Fmr Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, fmr Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, TV host Craig Ferguson; via satellite, fmr Sen. John Edwards and basketball player John Amaechi. Topics: Developments in North Korea, Iran, and Iraq; global warming; Mitt Romney and Mormonism; Al Franken Senate campaign.

January 11, 2008. Guests: Entrepreneur Mark Cuban, fmr Court TV anchor Catherine Crier, fmr Bush Press Secy Tony Snow, Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi (election correspondent); via satellite, humorist P.J. O’Rourke. Topics: New Hampshire primary, electronic voting machines, Iraq troop surge, subprime lending and prospects for economic recession.

February 20, 2009. Guests: Financial Times editor Chrystia Freeland, journalist Tina Brown, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA); via satellite, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), journalist Brigitte Gabriel The economy, President Obama’s first month in office.

See the Wikipedia episode guide if you fear the season openers are not representative.

The pairings are, in most if not all cases, patently absurd. They include plenty of famous white guys who would, on the face of things, seem to be woefully out of their elements and plenty of black guys who would seemingly mop of the floor with the competition.

For what it’s worth, Mr. Def was really good in this week’s “House.”

Tony Snow has died. He was only 53. CNN Breaking:

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow has died at the age of 53 after a second battle with cancer. Snow, who had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a recurrence of the disease, left his White House job September. 14, 2007, and joined CNN as a conservative commentator.

More from AP:

Tony Snow, a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush’s press secretary, has died of colon cancer, Fox News reported Saturday. Snow was 53 years old.

Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program “Fox News Sunday” from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying “the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I’m ever going to have.”

Snow was working for Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio when he replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary in May 2006 during a White House shake-up. Unlike McClellan, who came to define caution and bland delivery from the White House podium, Snow was never shy about playing to the cameras. With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster’s good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.

He served just 17 months as press secretary, a tenure interrupted by his second bout with cancer. In 2005 doctors had removed his colon and he began six months of chemotherapy. In March 2007 a cancerous growth was removed from his abdominal area and he spent five weeks recuperating before returning to the White House.

He resigned as Bush’s chief spokesman six months later, in September 2007, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. In April, he joined CNN as a commentator.

In that year and a half at the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president’s policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.

Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.

Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president’s side. He once called Bush “something of an embarrassment” in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush’s “lackluster” domestic policy.

His death, while hardly shocking given his health problems, is sad. Like so many media personalities, I had the sense that I “knew” Tony Snow after spending so many hours with him in my living room. He seemed like a decent guy and, certainly, 53 is far to young to die.

Tony Snow Tributes:

• Scott Johnson, Power Line: “Tony was one of the smartest, wittiest, and most humane men in our public life.”

• John Cole, Balloon Juice: “Fifty-three is just way too damned young, especially for a man with a family. Terrible. And, I should note, despite what you thought of Snow, he was the only competent Press Secretary of this administration.”

• Kim Priestap, Wizbang: “Why does it seem like only the good guys die young and not the evil ones like Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jung Il?”

• Bruce McQuain, Q and O: “Tony was a gentleman who fielded every question and answered it without all the usual sidestepping spokesman do.“

• Matt Burden, Black Five: “A class act with sharp wit, keen intellect, and a huge heart – we’ll miss him greatly.”

• Joe Gandelman, Moderate Voice: “Snow was a public figure who truly seemed to have fun at his job and did it well. He was the quintessential broadcasting pro who put a professional TV face on the White House point of view.”

• Shannen Coffin, The Corner: “To call him a ‘rock star’ was an understatement. He brought substance to every meeting he was in and every subject he covered. . . . But what struck me most about him was his ceaseless optimism. Even when he was leaving his post, when his prognosis could not have been good, he was always in good cheer with his colleagues.”

• Michelle Malkin: “He was a true mensch, multi-talented–and one of the kindest people I had the honor to meet in the news business.”

• Ed Morrissey, Hot Air: “We lost a good man and a class act.”

• Warner Todd Huston, Stop the ACLU: “[I]t will be a tad colder and less friendly as well as a bit less optimistic now that this wonderful fellow has passed on to his just rewards.”

• Sister Toldja: “He was the best.”

• Faiz Shakir, Think Progress, links this Fox News tribute to their former colleague:

Jeff Commorato reacts to feedback on his post charging that Official Bloggers hired by presidential campaigns are boring and uninspired.

Bloggers working for a campaign are digital press secretaries. The current White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was a conservative radio host and FOX News contributor. In those roles he could and sometimes did challenge the administration and their positions even though he encouraged people to support them. His role has now changed; he must tow the administration line even if he personally has questions about their message. This limitation is part of the job, it is the straightjacket of employment and most of us who work for someone else have similar constraints in our nine to five.

[...]

On an official blog we should expect to see nothing but campaign-speak. That these bloggers will almost always tow the campaign line and speak the campaign rhetoric. It is a necessary function of their job and would be a distraction otherwise.

Does that mean they must be boring, redundant and scream PR? No! Campaign bloggers have to find ways of making their blogs an extension of the message and the candidate but still useful and unique to a reader. Something needs to change because we don’t have the best this medium has to offer yet. As I have argued, I think the end product will look slightly different than the unfiltered and independent political blogging we are often used to. So what can and should this experience look like?

The essence of blogging is freedom. A blog can either be interesting or it can be written with a goal of not offending anyone but it can not be both.

The irony, of course, is that even plain vanilla blog posts that have been staffed to death will nonetheless draw fire from opposing camps and parties. Why not, then, hire people whose judgment and temperament you trust and give them the latitude to write passionately for the cause?

The span of I-35 bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis last night was rated structurally deficient two years ago, Dan Browning reports in the Star Tribune.

The highway bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River on Wednesday was rated as “structurally deficient” two years ago and possibly in need of replacement. That rating was contained in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Bridge Inventory database.

Jeanne Aamodt, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, said the department was aware of the 2005 assessment of the bridge. “We’ve seen it, and we are very familiar with it,” she said. Aamodt said the department plans its bridge repairs using information from the Bridge Inventory database. Many other bridges nationwide carry the same designation that the I-35W bridge received, Aamodt said.

Tony Snow confirmed this report in his press conference this morning.

The White House said Thursday that an inspection two years ago found structural deficiencies in the highway bridge that buckled during evening rush hour in Minneapolis. White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Interstate 35W span rated 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability. “This doesn’t mean there was a risk of failure, but if an inspection report identifies deficiencies, the state is responsible for taking corrective actions,” he said.

Stephen Flynn — who flogs this issue for a living, I should note — says this failure is part of a general collapse in the American infrastructure.

According to a report card released in 2005 by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 160,570 bridges, or just over one-quarter of the nation’s 590,750-bridge inventory, were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The nation’s bridges are being called upon to serve a population that has grown from 200 million to over 300 million since the time the first vehicles rolled across the I-35W bridge. Predictably that has translated into lots more cars. American commuters now spend 3.5 billion hours a year stuck in traffic, at a cost to the economy of $63.2 billion a year.

It is not just roads and bridges that are being stressed to the breaking point. Two weeks ago New Yorkers were scrambling for cover after a giant plume of 200-plus-degree steam and debris shot out of the street and into the air. The mayhem was caused by the explosion of a steam pipe, installed underground in 1924 to heat office buildings near Grand Central station. In January 2007, Kentuckians and Tennesseans woke up to the news that the water level of the largest man-made reservoir east of the Mississippi would have to be dropped by 10 ft. as an emergency measure. The Army Corps of Engineers feared that if it didn’t immediately reduce the pressure on the 57-year-old Wolf Creek Dam, it might fail, sending a wall of water downstream that would inundate communities all along the Cumberland River, including downtown Nashville.

The fact is that Americans have been squandering the infrastructure legacy bequeathed to us by earlier generations. Like the spoiled offspring of well-off parents, we behave as though we have no idea what is required to sustain the quality of our daily lives. Our electricity comes to us via a decades-old system of power generators, transformers and transmission lines—a system that has utility executives holding their collective breath on every hot day in July and August. We once had a transportation system that was the envy of the world. Now we are better known for our congested highways, second-rate ports, third-rate passenger trains and a primitive air traffic control system. Many of the great public works projects of the 20th century—dams and canal locks, bridges and tunnels, aquifers and aqueducts, and even the Eisenhower interstate highway system—are at or beyond their designed life span.

In the end, investigators may find that there are unique and extraordinary reasons why the I-35W bridge failed. But the graphic images of buckled pavement, stranded vehicles, twisted girders and heroic rescuers are a reminder that infrastructure cannot be taken for granted. The blind eye that taxpayers and our elected officials have been turning to the imperative of maintaining and upgrading the critical foundations that underpin our lives is irrational and reckless.

If it’s true that “many other bridges nationwide” are so poorly rated, my guess is that this will become a priority in a big hurry.

UPDATE: A new report says the warnings go back 17 years.

Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge that plummeted into the Mississippi River was “structurally deficient,” yet they relied on a strategy of patchwork fixes and stepped-up inspections.

“We thought we had done all we could,” state bridge engineer Dan Dorgan told reporters not far from the mangled remains of the span. “Obviously something went terribly wrong.”

Questions about the cause of the collapse and whether it could have been prevented arose Thursday as authorities shifted from rescue efforts to a grim recovery operation, searching for bodies that may be hidden beneath the river’s swirling currents.

Steve Benen notes that LTG Douglas Lute was officially confirmed as our “war czar” a month ago and has all but disappeared from sight.

On July 8, Lute was mentioned in passing in a Bob Novak column. Two days later, a report in Congressional Quarterly noted that Lute called some senators about Bush’s policy during the recent debate, but we don’t know what he said or whom he spoke with.

And that’s it. Since taking over NSA Stephen Hadley’s responsibilities for Iraq and Afghanistan, Lute has not been interviewed on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS. He has not appeared on any national radio show. He has not been quoted in any newspapers.

Perhaps most importantly of all — maybe he’s media shy? — Lute has not been mentioned by Bush, Cheney, or Tony Snow, in any capacity, since he was confirmed by the Senate.

I must admit, it’s rather odd.

President Bush, in a “slip of the tongue,” termed the controversial immigration bill up before the Senate today an “amnesty” bill. ABC’s Rick Klein reports:

President Bush has spent a whole lot of time in recent months claiming that the immigration bill isn’t “amnesty.” But in describing the measure Tuesday morning, an apparent slip of the tongue suggested otherwise — providing fodder for the talk-radio crowd that loathes the bill and wants it defeated in the Senate.

“You know, I’ve heard all the rhetoric — you’ve heard it, too — about how this is amnesty. Amnesty means that you’ve got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that,” Bush said, according to the official White House transcript.

[...]

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow released a statement saying the president “misspoke.”

The statement reads: “This has been construed as an assertion that comprehensive immigration reform legislation before the Senate offers amnesty to immigrants who came here illegally. That is the exact opposite of the president’s long-held and often-stated position. President Bush has noted repeatedly that the comprehensive reform he supports is not an amnesty bill. Amnesty means forgiving wrongdoing without imposing punishment. The immigration reforms passed in 1986 granted amnesty. The legislation under consideration this year does not. This measure imposes significant punishments on those who came to this country illegally between 1986 and the beginning of this year.

The timing was certainly unfortunate. Whether the bill constitutes “amnesty” is largely a semantic issue, as the facts are not in dispute, but that label has been used as a rallying cry by the president’s opponents.

The ability to remain in the country legally after having skipped to the head of the line illegally is an undeniable boon. The proposed fine is less than the price many have paid to the “coyotes” to be smuggled across, so it’s not exactly a “significant punishment.” Still, it’s not a blanket amnesty in the way Simpson-Mazzoli was.

Taegan Goddard

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is bringing ABC News White House correspondent Geoff Morrell on board as the new Pentagon press secretary, responsible for on-air briefings, Mike Allen reports, “in an effort to improve press relations at a time when the administration is under pressure to show progress in Iraq.”

Frankly, I’m not sure hiring Walter Cronkite could accomplish that at this point. Certainly, bringing on Tony Snow as White House spokesman didn’t result in a sudden spike in the president’s poll numbers.

The administration has generally done a good job of press relations, anyway. The problem has been the policies, not the spokesmen. And, to the extent communications has been a problem, it’s at the top of the chain of command, not the press secretaries.

A terrorist plot on Fort Dix has been thwarted, AP reports.

Six men were planning to attack the Fort Dix Army base and “kill as many soldiers as possible,” federal authorities said Tuesday.

The men, Yugoslav nationals, were arrested early Tuesday, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the United States Attorney’s Office in New Jersey.

Like Steven Taylor, my initial take is that these are just some yahoos rather than part of something truly dangerous.

Indeed, Fort Dix strikes me as a strange target, given that it’s not exactly the nerve center of the American defense grid. According to their Web site, here’s what they have:

• 1079th Garrison Support Unit
• Fort Dix NCO Academy
• Air Mobility Warfare Center
• American Red Cross
• Kelley Reserve Center
• Liberty Brigade ROTC
• Federal Bureau of Prisons
• Headquarters New Jersey Army & Air National Guard
• U.S. Coast Guard, Atlantic Strike Team
• New Jersey Youth Challenge Program
• U.S. MEPCOM Fort Dix
• Navy Expeditionary Combat Command
• Joint Personal Property Shipping Office

We’ll learn more soon, I imagine, as to who these men are, what their motivations were, and how serious the threat was. One thing we know for sure, though: This proves conclusively that we need to keep Eastern European immigrants out of the country.

UPDATE: The plot thickens. An updated version of the AP story at YahooNews reports that, “four of the men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey. Five of them lived in Cherry Hill, 10 miles east of Philadelphia and 20 miles southwest of Fort Dix.” Given that Muslim Bosnia was part of “the former Yugoslavia,” — and that it would seem unlikely that four Slovenians or Orthodox Serbs would join up with two Muslims — we’re likely dealing with Islamists. That does not, of course, preclude their simply being nuts.

Commenter legion points to a CNN story saying these men were “either U.S. citizens or living illegally in the United States.” Via Mexico, no doubt.

Tony Snow tells the press: “They are not charged with being members of an international terrorism organization. At least at this point, there is no evidence that they received direction from international terror organizations. However, their involvement in weapons training, operational surveillance and discussions about killing American military personnel warranted a strong law enforcement response.”

Yeah, I’d say so.

Also, here’s a clue as to “why Ft. Dix?”

Fort Dix is used to train soldiers, particularly reservists. In 1999, it sheltered more than 4,000 ethnic Albanian refugees during the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

After that war, refugees were allowed to return to the U.N.-run province of Kosovo in Serbia or to seek permanent residency in the United States. The U.N. Security Council is considering whether to approve a plan to grant Kosovo independence from Serbia under the supervision of the European Union and the United States.

UPDATE: Rusty Shackleford believes discussions of whether these men are part of a formal network “misses the point of al Qaeda 3.0. Anyone can be ‘al Qaeda’ now just by claiming to be, that’s the nature of a non-hierarchical network.”

There’s something to that, to be sure. Still, for a concept to have any use as a heuristic, it needs to have a meaningful parameters. It remains to be seen whether these guys turn out to be serious terrorists in any significant sense.

UPDATE: The federal prosecutors seem to think they are.

Officials said the group had a collection of jihadist videos, including video of the last will and testament of two of the 19 hijackers from the September 11, 2001, attacks and video of Osama bin Laden calling Muslims to jihad. The men also showed videos to each other of killings of U.S. military personnel around the world, officials said. “They watched the blowing off of the arm of a United States Marine, and the room burst out into laughter,” Christie said.

The men are believed to have been “inspired” by international terrorist groups, but not directly linked to a specific organization, he said.

He said defendant Shain Duka was heard on tape saying, “We can do a lot of damage with seven people. We can do big things.”

A law enforcement source told CNN the group played paintball and test fired weapons as part of their training. “These guys were clearly committed to the task they had set before them,” Fran Townsend, the White House’s homeland security adviser, told CNN.

Their goal was to figure out how to kill as many American soldiers as possible, [New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher J.] Christie said. The men had surveyed a number of bases but settled on Fort Dix because one of the defendants said he knew the base “like the back of his hand” because he had delivered pizza there, Christie said. “They were at the point where they wanted to obtain the automatic weapons that would be the final piece in their plan… to create carnage at Fort Dix,” Christie said. “I think it could have been a disaster,” he said. “These people were ready for martyrdom.”

Given that they were attacking an Army base, they’d have gotten that for sure.

Tony Snow has been diagnosed with liver cancer.

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow’s surgery to remove a small growth showed that his cancer has returned, the White House said Tuesday.

Snow, 51, had his colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer. A small growth was discovered last year in his lower right pelvic area, and it was removed on Monday. Doctors determined that it was cancerous, and that his cancer had metastized, or spread, to his liver, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

She said Snow is resting comfortably after his surgery and has pledged to aggressively fight the disease with an as-yet-to-be-determined treatment course. “He said he’s going to beat it again,” Perino said in an emotional morning briefing with White House reporters. “When I talked to him, he was in very good spirits.”

Michelle Malkin has a lengthy roundup of well wishes, tributes and recollections. He’s always seemed a likable fellow to me and a second bout with cancer at age 51 is cruel, indeed.

The American Cancer Society does not offer great hope for liver cancer sufferers:

At this time surgery, either to remove the tumor or to do a liver transplant, offers the only chance to cure liver cancer. If all of the cancer that the surgeon can see at the time of the operation can be removed, you have the best outlook for survival. Complete removal of most liver cancers is not possible. Often the cancer is large, is found in many different parts of the liver, or has spread beyond the liver. Also, many people with cirrhosis do not have enough healthy liver left to make surgery an option.

A liver transplant has become an option for people with small liver cancers. For now, this method is reserved for those with a few small tumors but whose cancer cannot be totally removed, either because of the location of the tumors or because not enough normal liver remains. Over 2500 transplants were performed in people with liver cancer in the last 2 years. The 5-year survival for these patients is around 70%. Not only is the risk of a second new liver cancer eliminated, but the new liver will function normally.

Not many livers are available for patients with cancer because they are most often used for more curable diseases. Patients often must wait a long time, often too long, for a liver to be found. For that reason, some doctors suggest a limited resection first and then a transplant if the cancer comes back.

Thankfully, secondary liver cancer–that which spreads to the liver from other parts of the body–has a much better prognosis than primary liver cancer, which begins in the liver.

Sasha Abramsky sees the eminent demise of journalism as we know it, as major papers eliminate their foreign news bureaus and online delivery makes news content “just another commodity.”

Too many people are now ditching their newspaper subscriptions, relying more heavily on internet publications and online clipping services. If these organisations were recreating their own news-gathering infrastructures, that wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. The flaw in the model, however, is that businesses like Yahoo rely on news bureaus run by newspapers and other traditional news organisations, in order to reap their own headlines. They then cull these stories for audiences to whom they distribute the information free of charge.

The model works well if people use Yahoo as a secondary source – to, say, get a quick glimpse at the latest news as a supplement to their morning paper – or if only a select few use it as a primary source for news. It works terribly if a critical mass of readers cancels their newspaper subscriptions and relies exclusively on the freebies available via the web. For at that point, the financial viability of the news organisations comes into question – as it has at the LA Times – and the possibility grows of a news-gathering infrastructure breakdown. If the LA Times doesn’t generate news from places like Iraq, how will Yahoo, which doesn’t operate its own bureaus, maintain a reliable stream of professional quality reporting? In a very real way, the internet risks killing off the goose that keeps laying its golden eggs.

Why must the centuries-old model of printing news on paper, distributed by a cadre of delivery people, and tossing it on people’s lawns continue forevermore? Surely, the NYT, LAT and others are charging YahooNews a fee for using their content? Not to mention making significant advertising revenues off their sites?

Further, isn’t news reporting to a certain extent a commodity? Do we really need dozens of reporters sitting around transcribing Tony Snow’s press conferences? Does the Washington correspondent from Paduka really add any value? And how many of those foreign bureau reporters are doing essentially the same thing, sitting around CENTCOM headquarters waiting for the next presser?

The very best national journalists and foreign correspondents will continue to ply their trade. If the LAT closes their overseas bureaus, their best and brightest will be snapped up by the NYT and others who have the resources to invest in outstanding foreign coverage. That’ll add to their prestige and increase their quality.

Further, while the online world is changing the world of journalism, it’s not destructive without also being creative. The New Media is making it clear that there are tons of experts out there who actually understand the issues they’re writing about much better than journalists with B.A.’s in English Literature who parachute in to cover a story. Indeed, the publisher of the Atlantic Monthly is looking to hire 300 experts, many of them bloggers, for his empire. If this catches on, we may well come out ahead.

via Romenesko

Much is being made in some quarters about the apparent contradiction between the statements of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and various administration officials on the Iranian-made weapons flowing into Iraq.

This MSNBC report is an excellent example: U.S. general: No evidence Iran is arming Iraqis

A top U.S. general said Tuesday there was no evidence the Iranian government was supplying Iraqi insurgents with highly lethal roadside bombs, apparently contradicting claims by other U.S. military and administration officials. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces hunting down militant networks that produced roadside bombs had arrested Iranians and that some of the material used in the devices were made in Iran. “That does not translate that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this,” Pace told reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. “What it does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.”

His remarks might raise questions on the credibility of the claims of high-level Iranian involvement, especially following the faulty U.S. intelligence that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Three senior military officials in Baghdad said Sunday that the highest levels of Iranian government were responsible for arming Shiite militants in Iraq with the bombs, blamed for the deaths of more than 170 U.S. troops. Asked Monday directly if the White House was confident that the weaponry is coming on the approval of the Iranian government, spokesman Tony Snow said, “Yes.”

To recap, these facts are on the table:

• Iranian made weapons are being used to kill American soldiers.
• Iran is an authoritarian state that discourages individual initiative.
• Chaos in Iraq is likely in the interest of the Iranian regime.
• American soldiers getting killed Having the United States fail in Iraq is decidedly in the interest of the Iranian regime.

Pace thinks they do “not translate that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved.” Snow is “confident” that it is being done “on the approval of the Iranian government.”

There’s not much light between those positions.

The Defense Department has denied Speaker Pelosi’s request to have a C-32 at her disposal and laid down some stringent guidelines for the use of a smaller plane, ABC’s Jake Tapper reports.

The source said that Pentagon officials and the Bush administration have instead offered Pelosi use of the same plane made available to former Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.: a C-20, which seats about 12 passengers and five crew members. A C-20 can make the 700-mile flight to Hastert’s Aurora, Ill., district easily but would generally have to stop to refuel to complete the 2,800-mile trip from Washington, D.C. to the San Francisco Bay Area, depending on the headwinds.

[...]

Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. J.D. Gordon outlined the rules and restrictions governing Speaker Pelosi’s use of the C-20:

• No more than 10 passengers (C-20’s seat only 12 passengers, not including up to 5 crew members);
• No travel to political events;
• Members of the speaker’s family cannot fly unless the speaker makes a request in writing. The Pelosi family has to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for the cost of a coach ticket per person for the travel, as well as for any food;
• Members of Congress cannot fly on the plane unless their travel has been cleared with the House Committee on Standards (the Ethics Committee);
• Pelosi’s husband can travel for free, but only for official protocol purposes.

While I’m a bit dubious of the taxpayer flying Nancy Pelosi around on an expensive military jet, the restrictions here seem silly. If the determination has been made that the Speaker’s security depends on this accommodation–which strikes me as absurd–then it would appear reasonable to both provide a plane that goes where she needs it to without refueling and to let her bring whomever she desires aboard.

If the C-32 is too lavish and expensive, a plane comparable to the C-20 but with more fuel capacity must surely be available. I’m no expert in aviation, but planes fly from DC to California all the time.

If Pelosi wanted the plane to be put at the disposal of her staff and supporters, as earlier reports suggested, that would be outrageous. But if she’s flying anyway, she should certainly be entitled to bring aboard anyone she wants up to the seating capacity of the plane. Having them reimburse the taxpayers for the cost of coach travel seems silly, too, unless their added weight is actually making that much difference in fuel economy. Paying some sort of fee for food and service, though, is reasonable enough.

Further, from a civil-military relations standpoint, I’m uneasy about Pentagon bureaucrats issuing such dictates to the Speaker of the House. The military is, after all, subordinate to Congress.* And, from a practical standpoint, alienating the Speaker might not be the wisest course. This could come back to haunt them the next time they make an appropriations request.

UPDATE: The fallout has begun:

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the Pelosi ally who chairs the House military appropriations subcommittee, said he has spoken to Pentagon officials about the need to provide Pelosi with a bigger plane that can fly passengers coast to coast in comfort. But he denied pressuring the Pentagon. “I don’t need to pressure them. I just tell them what they need to do,” Murtha said.

Hat tip on quote to Brad Dayspring, Communications Director, Republican Study Committee. I’d previously glanced at the Chronicle piece but didn’t get down that far.

UPDATE: Pelosi is getting some support from an unlikely source:

The White House on Thursday defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi against Republican criticism that her desire to fly in an Air Force transport plane is an extravagance. “This is a silly story and I think it’s been unfair to the speaker,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Pelosi isn’t helping herself, though, by attacking the military:

In an interview with Fox News Thursday morning, Pelosi speculated that Department of Defense officials were distorting the story as retribution for her stance against the war and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. “There are probably those in the Department of Defense who are not happy with my criticism of Secretary Rumsfeld, the war in Iraq, other waste, fraud and abuse in the Defense Department, and I guess this is their way of making their voices heard,” she said.

_________

*Granted, Pelosi is not in the chain of command. Congress is, however, charged with oversight responsibility, confirms officer appointments, appropriates military funds, authorizes wars, and so forth.

After spending more than a year arguing that it had the legal authority to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to authorize NSA surveillance of suspected terrorists–and that doing so was crucial to our national security–the Bush administration announced yesterday that it has reversed course.

AP’s Lara Jakes Jordan:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told senators in a letter Wednesday that “any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

Gonzales announced the change on the eve of his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his first since the committee came under control of Democrats after the November elections. Congressional intelligence committees had already been briefed on the shift. Gonzales said Bush would not reauthorize the program once it expires. The court already has approved at least one warrant to conduct surveillance involving a person suspected of having ties to al-Qaida or an associated terror group, Justice officials said.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the administration is satisfied with new rules adopted by the FISA court to address administration officials’ concerns about national security. Snow could not explain why those concerns were not addressed before the program began.

[...]

Last August, a federal judge in Detroit declared the spying program unconstitutional, saying it violated the rights to free speech and privacy and the separation of powers. In October, a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based appeals court ruled that the administration could keep the program in place while it appeals the Detroit decision. That appeal, which was scheduled to be heard on Jan. 31, will now likely be rendered moot, said one Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the government has not yet officially decided whether to drop its ca

Eric Lichtblau and David Johnston of NYT add,

The Justice Department said it had worked out an “innovative” arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the “necessary speed and agility” to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security.

[...]

Democrats praised the administration’s decision, but said it should have come much sooner. “The announcement today is welcome news,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who leads the Intelligence Committee. “But it is also confirmation that the administration’s go-it-alone approach, effectively excluding Congress and the courts and operating outside the law, was unnecessary.”

[...]

Since the surveillance program was publicly disclosed in December 2005 by The New York Times, the White House has maintained, in scores of court filings, policy papers and press statements, that the president has the inherent power to conduct wiretaps without a court warrant even though a 1978 law put intelligence surveillance under judicial review. The administration failed to win Congressional approval for the program last year after months of lobbying, and some Democrats are still trying to ban it outright.

The administration continued to assert on Wednesday that the N.S.A. program had operated legally, but it also said the time had come to allow the intelligence surveillance court, known as the FISA court, to review all warrants on all wiretaps in terrorism investigations. “There’s obviously an advantage to having all three branches involved,” said a senior Justice Department official, who briefed reporters on the decision on condition of anonymity. “This issue of the terrorist surveillance program is one that has been under intense public debate and scrutiny on the Hill, and just considering all these circumstances, the president determined that this is the appropriate course.”

[...]

Justice Department officials said that the FISA court orders, which were not made public, were not a broad approval of the surveillance program as a whole, an idea that was proposed last year in Congressional debate over the program. They strongly suggested that the orders secured from the court were for individual targets, but they refused to provide details of the process used to identify targets — or how court approval had been expedited — because they said it remained classified. The senior Justice Department official said that discussing “the mechanics of the orders” could compromise intelligence activities.

Justice Department officials would not describe whether the court had agreed to new procedures to streamline the process of issuing orders or accepted new standards to make it easier for the government to get approval to monitor suspect e-mail and phone communications.

But the officials suggested that the effort to obtain the court’s approval for orders on Jan. 10 was not easy. “These aren’t some sort of advisory rulings,” one official said. “These are orders issued by the FISA court, not some cookie-cutter order. These orders are complex. It took a long time to work on this.”

The officials said the new approach was based on evolving legal interpretations of the foreign surveillance law by the Justice Department, changes in the foreign surveillance statute in recent years and precedents set by the FISA court in approving specific requests to conduct electronic monitoring.

WaPo’s Dan Eggen apparently has more trouble getting DoJ officials to talk:

Officials would not say, for example, whether the administration will be required to seek a warrant for each person it wants to monitor or whether the FISA court has issued a broader set of orders to cover multiple cases. Authorities also would not say how many court orders are involved or which judge on the surveillance court had issued them.

If the NYT report is correct, it is the former.

TPM has scans of the Gonzalez letter which, not surprisingly, does not provide a lot of detail.

Glenn Greenwald is not quite sure what to make of things but believes this reversal by the administration is “Nothing to celebrate.”

[U]ltimately, there are only two options — (1) the administration is now complying fully and exclusively with FISA when eavesdropping, in which case all of its prior claims that it could not do so and still fight against The Terrorists are false, or (2) the administration has changed its eavesdropping program some, but it is still not fully complying with FISA, in which case nothing of significance has changed (at least on the lawbreaking issues) because the administration is still violating the law.

Regardless, Mark Levin is hopping mad:

Is there no principle subject to negotiation? Is there no course subject to reversal? For the Bush administration to argue for years that this program, as operated, was critical to our national security and fell within the president’s Constitutional authority, to then turnaround and surrender presidential authority this way is disgraceful. The administration is repudiating all the arguments it has made in testimony, legal briefs, and public statements. This goes to the heart of the White House’s credibility. How can it cast away such a fundamental position of principle and law like this?

(Editor’s note: Shouldn’t there be a “NOT” in both of the first two sentences?) Perhaps his people have actually found an “innovative” way to simultaneously comply with the letter of FISA and yet accomplish the program’s objectives?

Orin Kerr speculates about one possibility:

But it sounds to me like the FISA Court judges have agreed to issue anticipatory warrants. The traditional warrant process requires the government to write up the facts in an application and let the judge decide whether those facts amount to probable cause. If you were looking for a way to speed up that process — and both sides were in a mood to be “innovative” — one fairly straightfoward alternative would be to use anticipatory warrants.

An anticipatory warrant lets the government conduct surveillance when a specific set of triggering facts occurs. The judge agrees ahead of time that if those facts occur, probable cause will exist and the monitoring can occur under the warrant. The idea is that there isn’t enough time to get a warrant right at that second, so the warrant can be “pre-approved” by the Judge and used by the government when the triggering event happens.

It strikes me that an “anticipatory” warrant pretty much vitiates the 4th Amendment requirement that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Of course, the problem with such speculation is that we (or at least, *I*) don’t fully understand what the NSA program entails, making it difficult to figure out how it fits into FISA, let alone what loopholes there might be. My initial understanding was that it was a data mining program rather than “eavesdropping” in a specific, personal sense. That was later denied in congressional testimony but without much information about how the program operate(s/d).

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and Brett McGurk, Director for Iraq, National Security Council held a teleconference with invited bloggers this afternoon on the topic President Bush’s speech tonight on the way forward in Iraq. Following is a summary, not a transcription, of major points unless indicated by use of quotation marks.

Snow provided a “cook’s tour” of the plan:

Premises:

1. Essential to succeed in Iraq.
2. What we’ve done so far hasn’t worked.

Principles:

1. Security – especially Baghdad and Anbar– topic concerns.
2. Iraqis in lead in security, economics, and politics.
3. Iraqis don’t currently have capacity to do themselves.
4. Isolate extremists and enable those on sidelines to choose government.

Other points:

• Debaathifation reform. Allow teachers and others who were mere card-holders in Baath party to go back to work.
• Diversity efforts to provincial level beyond Baghdad and Anbar to help build up court system and other institutions and infrastructure.

The Q&A:

NZ Bear, Truth Laid Bear: To what degree can Congress stop?

Snow: Legal question beyond expertise. Also presumes Congress would attempt, which we hope they won’t. It’s just part of a supplemental spending package.

Eric Errickson, RedState: Falling back on defensive posture vice offense?

Snow: ROE’s are being changed to prevent politicians from foiling missions. No restrictions (?!). No safe haven for any militias operating outside the law. Do more to ensure Iraqi forces have necessary equipment.

McGurk: More Marines into Anbar to consolidate recent gains.

Lorie Byrd: Will President spend any time setting record straight on perception mission a total disaster?

Snow: President shares your frustration. Only 3 of 18 provinces substantially violent. Still, the public perception is what it is. Hopefully, outlining clear steps to victory will help regain public confidence.

John Hawkins, Right Wing News: CNN reporting that total security responsibility will be shifted to Iraqis by November?

Snow: Yes. This is Maliki’s benchmark and his plan. We’re working with them to build better professionalism, discipline, and experience in their forces.

Rob Bluey, Human Events: How to deal with Congressional Democrats?

Snow: We want full and healthy debate.

Austin Bay: How much are we getting non-DoD agencies on board to do their part in helping win neighborhoods.

Snow: I don’t have that level of detail but we’re working to do just that.

McGurk: Provision Reconstruction Teams embedded with military. 400 more federal civilians outside Green Zone, replicating success in Mosul.

Steve Shippard(?): Are we doing anything to shore up Iranian and Syrian border security?

Snow: We’re “being deliberately vague” on this. The President is not going to talk tonight in detail about border security but he’ll mention the issue. Iran is a longer term threat.

Mark Danziger, Winds of Change: European press talking about Iraqi oil law.

Snow: “I’m not even going to fake it. Brent?”

McGurk: Central ownership of revenues with distribution as per constitution the key. It’s come a long way. “Iraqis are going to have to close the deal.”

Rosemary Esmay, Dean’s World: Why letting the press downplay our successes?

Snow: “Trust me, it’s not a matter of ‘letting.’” “It’s the unusual and the gory that attracts the most attention,” not just among journalists but readers.

I wasn’t able to get through to ask a question but sent a couple of follow-up questions in by email:

• Tony said ROE’s are being changed to prevent politicians from foiling missions and that there would be “no restrictions.” What does that mean, exactly? Surely, there will still be civilian control of the military?
• Are we seriously preventing teachers from working four years into this? Anyone who has read a book about post-WWII occupation–or, hell, seen the Patton movie sequel–would have known that lower level bureaucrats with party affiliations are simply essential to the success of the government.

More if I get a response.

UPDATE: None has been forthcoming and it’s been 18 hours.

The White House’s decision not to disclose until now that First Lady Laura Bush had skin cancer removed from her leg last month is causing a mini controversy among the press corps.

The White House on Tuesday defended Laura Bush’s decision not to disclose she had a skin cancer tumor removed from her right shin in early November. Unlike her husband, the first lady is not an elected official, presidential spokesman Tony Snow said. “Perhaps if there’s something more major, this would be discussed,” he said.

The cancer was a squamous cell carcinoma, the second most common form of skin cancer, said Susan Whitson, her press secretary. She said the troublesome patch was about the size of a nickel.

Mrs. Bush decided the cancer was a private matter and did not reveal it publicly. On Monday night, the White House acknowledged the first lady had the tumor removed after Mrs. Bush was noticed with a bandage below her right knee.

[...]

“I think you guys are trying to whip this up into something much larger than it is,” Snow told reporters who questioned why the procedure had not been revealed earlier. He said that while President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney make medical disclosures, “Other members of the family, not being elected, do not do so, and have not done so in prior administrations, and are not likely to do so.”

Monday’s revelation was the second case this year of a belated White House announcement. In February, the White House waited almost a day before disclosing that Vice President Dick Cheney had shot a fellow hunter during a quail-hunting trip.

I agree wholeheartedly that Mrs. Bush has the right to try keep such things private if she wishes. Yes, she’s a public figure but she has no policy role. Nor is this something that has any bearing on the commonweal.

The Cheney matter was a harder call, since it gave rise to questions about a cover-up. Still, the disclosure was reasonably prompt and it made sense to wait until information about his friend’s prognosis was known before thrusting him and his family into a firestorm at a time when they least needed it.

Bill Jempty, a 13-year skin cancer survivor, has substantial background on the condition.