The limits of the Bush Doctrine seem more and more evident when one actually pays attention to the paucity of the adminstration's international economic policies.  Last week it was " he of the perpetual 'deer in the headlights' expression" Treasury Secretary John Snow begging the Chinese to revalue the renminbi and today it is the President begging Bush family friend Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to pump a little more oil before the summer!  Although the Bush administration has gotten a lot of mileage out of wishful think and redefining the terms of engagement, begging others to fall in line behind our fiscal trainwreck is ultimately not a viable international economic policy nor should we fool ourselves into believing that because we are the world's largest economy that everyone else is eventually going to come around and bail us out. 

Who knew that being the world's only remaining Super Power meant not only not having to say you're sorry all the time but that you'd also be reduced to seeking hand-outs like a bum!

Its called fighting for what we believe--and it is worth it.  What is the Democratic Party if it doesn't fight for what it believes in?  And the results?  Excellent.

The country's leading business lobbying associations, close GOP allies in recent legislative efforts and political campaigns, have told senior Republicans that they would not back the Frist initiative to force votes on President Bush's judicial nominees.

Fundamentalists think that the fact that they voted for a man who won only 51% of the vote is enough to give them near-total control of every branch of government.  Democrats have to show them that we will continue to fight for the values of tolerance and personal freedom we believe this country should stand for.  We have nothing to lose but our chains.

For years, critics on the right have decried the "culture of victimhood" in this country.  However, as the views of social conservatives have been marginalized by the liberalizing trends of the last sixty years, the political right has now recognized victimhood as a very potent form of energizing the base.  Even Tom DeLay, usually the predator, not the prey, has now begun to rely on the shroud of martyrdom as a method of defense.

Of late, one of the most egregious examples of this trend has been the expansion of the term anti-semitic to refer to any person questioning the policies of the current Likud government of Israel.  Daniel Okrent, the New York Times Public Editor has provided the most eloquent skewering of this trend in his latest column on the Times' covearage of the Middle East.

the charge that The Times is anti-Semitic. Even if you stipulate that The Times's reporters and editors favor the Palestinian cause (something I am not remotely prepared to do), this is an astonishing debasement. If reporting that is sympathetic to Palestinians, or antipathetic to Israelis, is anti-Semitism, what is real anti-Semitism? What word do you have left for conscious discrimination, or open hatred, or acts of intentional, ethnically motivated violence?

The Times may be - is - imperfect. It is not anti-Semitic. Calling it that defames the accuser far more than it does the accused. (Note:  Registration is required to access this content).

Accusations of this sort are designed to do one thing: limit the discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.  They represent the worst of the worst, exploitation of the memories of actual anti-semitism for entirely different reasons.  They debase the suffering of millions in the past and water down the public's tolerance for actual anti-semitism.  There is only one thing to be done--calls like this should stop.

Tyler Cowen thinks Shaq is the greatest NBA player of all-time.  According to him some of the reasons Shaq is better is that Coach Jackson played a role in Michael Jordan's sucess:

4. The first time MJ left Chicago, the remaining Bulls still made the Eastern Finals and were one referee call away from winning them.

5. Phil Jackson should get the credit for much of MJ's supposed locker room presence in motivating players.  It didn't do the Washington Wizards any good.

See any logical flaws in that argument?

Schwarzenegger Sorry for Border Comment.

I bet he is. 

There has been much back and forth in the comments about the separation of church and state in American life.  Some of those in favor of more church interference in schools focus on the fact that local school districts should be able to impose religious elements in the curriculum where one religion is in the majority in the local area.  This formula guarantees Christian imposition throughout the U.S.  However, I wonder what some of our commenters feel about the problems at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where evangelical Christians at the top are apparently at the root of a series of disturbing incidents involving religious discrimination at the school.

Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.

There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

The 4,300-student school recently started requiring staff members and cadets to take a 50-minute religious-tolerance class. . . .

 ''They are deliberately trivializing the problem so that we don't have another situation the magnitude of the sex assault scandal. It is inextricably intertwined in every aspect of the academy,'' said Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, N.M., a 1977 graduate who has sent two sons to the school. He said the younger, Curtis, has been called a ''filthy Jew'' many times.  .

--The official academy newspaper runs a Christmas ad every year praising Jesus and declaring him the only savior. Some 200 academy staff members, including some department heads, signed it. Whittington noted the ad was not published last December. . .

--The academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, said in a statement to cadets in June 2003 that their first responsibility is to their God. He also strongly endorsed National Prayer Day that year. School spokesman Johnny Whitaker said Weida now runs his messages by several other commanders.

Those who follow the Iron Mouth know that many of our editors believe that church and state should be separated by a wide gulf, and that the Churches are doing just fine by themselves, thank you, and do not need a boost from taxpayer dollars or the government's bully pulpit.  This is a national school, run on national dollars, and designed to provide the country with its pilots.  There is no place there for the religion of some citizens to be imposed on others, or preferences to be handed out to only those of a certain religion.  If ever there was a case for separation of church and state in a school setting, this is it.

From the state that brought us "Ruff's Liquor and Guns," an establishment that sells booze, guns, tobacco, and porn:

The Arizona Legislature has approved a bill that permits patrons to take guns into bars and restaurants that do not conspicuously post notices prohibiting firearms.  The bill (SB1363) provides that the rootin' tootin' gun-totin' customers can't drink alcohol - a compromise the State Senate reached.  So now bartenders across Arizona will have to ask their patrons, "What'll be, and are you packing heat?" 

Arizona law already permits its citizens to carry concealed firearms.

Earlier this month Loren Wade, a talented but troubled running back for the Arizona State University football team, was indicted for first degree murder for shooting to death a former teammate outside a nightclub.  The Legislature's response, of course, is to encourage more drunks to carry guns.  Lawmakers are concerned that gun owners heretofore have been forced to leave their weapons inside their cars.

As the self-proclaimed pro-gun member of the Iron Mouth editorial board, I have to applaud the Arizona Legislature for its wisdom.  At last I can sit down at a classy restaurant knowing that if they screw up my order, I can do more than leave a lousy tip.  There's nothing like a loaded Glock to cure a soggy chimichanga.

Update, 4/26/05 (RW): Governor Janet Napolitano vetoes the bill.

The Iron Mouth seeks to be original--only rarely do we link directly and quote whole the writings of another.  Tonight is one of those nights.  I quote below from Chris Nelson, author of the Nelson Report, as printed on Steve Clemons' the Washington Note.  Its a must read.

BOLTON BATTLE...the real fight

If the fight over John Bolton's UN nomination were just about John Bolton, he'd be history already. But this isn't about Bolton, it's about the exercise of power. Same thing with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

If this was even 5 years ago, hed be toast.

We are at the point now where the Republican Leadership refuses to allow the possibility of a loss on anything, regardless of the merits. This renders "debate" meaningless, since nothing said actually matters, so truth is irrelevant.

"Science" depends on faith; everything is a test of power. Oppose something the President wants, and you aren't just wrong, you are betraying the Party. The underlying message is that you are also offending a very particular definition of God.

The sad, sorry Bolton/DeLay spectacles are about total war, the kill-the-prisoners exercise of power that national US politics has become since the 2000 election. If it were merely about power, it wouldn't be so terrifying. Washington is used to that. . .it's what we exist for. But the fear, the self-loathing, the pathetic, cowardly, sniveling, excuse-making drivel from such "leaders" as Lugar, Hagel, Chafee, the entire House Republican Leadership under DeLay. . .and the ever-so-very carefully expressed angst of the Democrats. . .is about something far more dangerous to the Republic than mere political power.

What we are seeing is a fight for the political soul of the nation. We've had these before, in the existential sense. . .in my political lifetime, the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s rights versus, to a certain extent, the right to life movement. But this time it's totally and completely a fight about God. . .specifically, whether God is going to rule in the United States.

The Constitution says that would be illegal, and any serious expert can tell you that not only were the Founders liberal in their interpretation of the Deity, but they intentionally enshrined a purely secular civic government, including the courts. They didn't think that Jesus had an official plan for us, much less did they think that politicians who defined their duties in secular terms were defying the word of God.

Tom Delay manifestly believes this, and it sounds like any number of Senate Republicans either agree, or lack the imagination or moral courage to disagree. . .why else would some endorse threats against Republican-appointed judges who dare to interpret the law in secular terms? This is what the Bolton fight is really about: you can't dump him, because that lets the Democrats win on both the facts and principle. . .fatal notions to a desire to pack the courts with religious and secular policy extremists.

Why else would there be the constant drumbeat of attacks on the "liberal media", except to undermine public trust in the Constitutionally provided mediator between the politicians and the people?

The Founders knew how to protect what they intended; this crowd has figured out how to undermine the very rule of law in the United States. Listen to what DeLay is arguing...that his excesses have nothing to do with his "persecution", interesting choice of word, by the Democrats and their "liberal press allies". If a majority of Congressional Republicans don't, in their hearts, see the hypocrisy of all this, the Republic is doomed.

The real story behind Bolton and DeLay is obvious, to anyone not already seduced by the dark side.

I can't emphasize the importance of this.

Connect the dots. There's still time

Ted Nugent--the Motor City Madman--He's got a new brand of justice he wants to unload on America.  Thing is--I'm not sure he wouldn't be a subject of that justice.  In a meeting of NRA supporters, the washed-up rocker went on a rant of his own:

With an assault weapon in each hand, rocker and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent urged National Rifle Association members to be "hardcore, radical extremists demanding the right to self defense."

"Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em!" he screamed to applause. "To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em."

But its unclear whether or not the Motor City Madman would survive his own brand of justice.  Take, for example, the lyrics to his 1975 hit Stranglehold:

Like a dog in heat
Tell it's me by the clamor now baby
I like to tear up the street,
And I been smokin for so long,
Ya know im here to stay
Got you in a stranglehold baby
You best get outta the way

Road I cruise is a bitch now baby
But no you cant turn me round
And if a house gets in my way baby
Ya know I'm tearing it down
You ran the night that you left me
You put me in my place
I got you in a stranglehold baby
You gonna cross your face

Apparently Mr. Nugent believes its OK to put a women in a stranglehold and scare them enough to cause them to make the Sign of the Cross.  Sounds like he's one of the "bad guys" he wants dead.

Speculation on which Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee centered on Lincon Chafee of New Hampshire, one of the most liberal GOP senators.  However, it appears that GOP Senate powerhouse Chuck Hagel may deliver the final blow:

"At this point, I will ... but I have been troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation," said Hagel, the committee's No. 2 Republican.

"We need a uniter," he told CNN's "Late Edition." "We need a builder. We need someone who will reach out to our friends and our allies at the United Nations."

Don't count out Chafee yet, either.

abortion: Competing with new-comer "Persistent Vegetative State" in the hearts of single-issue voters.

bankruptcy reform:  What happens when "usury" loses all negative connotations.  Credit Card Company Protection Act of 2005.

Christians:  Far more diverse a group than seen on TV.

culture of life:  Not taken seriously after birth.  Still open to interpretation, especially among its adherents.

death penalty:  Better to err on the side of vengence.  (See culture of life)

Democrats:  Far too legalistic for "a nation of laws, not men."

ethics committee:  Almost as irrelevant as the House Un-American Committee in the early 70's.

federal judiciary:  Out of step.  Clearly the cause of everything wrong with America today. 

.50 caliber sniper rifle:  Designed for the battlefield but there to give you that little extra punch when engaging a deer at more than two miles.

I-Pods:  Hallmark of the everyman.... after all the President has one!

John Bolton:  Not to be approached if encountered in a dark alley or any public space.  Has spent much of his career redefining the word "diplomatic."

nuclear option:  Death of conservatism, writ large.

pandering:  Propelled to new heights in the current political environment.  Question: Has the death of the Pope always coincided with lowering "Old Glory" to half-staff?

Pope John Paul II:  Still deceased.  Evidently the prime mover behind all major international changes over the last twenty-five years.

separation of powers:  Should never get in the way of the will of the majority.

Tom Delay:  Martyr.  At least Boss Tweed was aware of his own fallibility.

Well, they have a special kind of logic down there in Texas, don't they?  Read the story of Merry Stephens, Basketball Coach--Lesbian. 

I had nothing against her as a person," Hale said, but if he stood up for "one lesbian" that would mean he was "for them adopting kids, and my morals and the Bible doesn't allow that.

Stephens said that she was blamed when one of her former players, now in college, revealed she was a lesbian. That player's parents insisted that the superintendent, Jerry Hendrick, fire Stephens because she had "converted their daughter,"  

This is exactly why anti-discrimination laws need to apply to gays and lesbians. 

"What companies that you know of would be interested in tort reform in Texas with asbestos problems that might support TRMPAC?"  

How about this company?

Brings $1 billion. Polls 83 percent in favor.

Oh Tommy, we hardly knew ye.