Just POlitics

Mapes story

Mary Mapes producer of the Bush Guard forged document scandal on CBS’s 60-Minutes Wednesday is shopping a book that would prove she is right, according to James Taranto’s Best of the Web:

Meanwhile, Mary Mapes, the segment producer, "is preparing to shop a book proposal offering an inside account of what happened at CBS News during the memo scandal":

The book will constitute Ms. Mapes’ defense against charges of journalistic misconduct. According to Wesley Neff, president of the literary and lecture agency that is representing Ms. Mapes, the producer plans to argue for the veracity of the four memos supposedly typed by President Bush’s former National Guard squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, in the early 1970’s. . . .

Ms. Mapes’ book proposal will include 40 pages of analysis and documentation that she offered to the panel to back up the documents’ authenticity. In an addendum to that material—supplied on the condition it not be directly quoted—Ms. Mapes avoids direct discussion of fonts and character spacing.

Instead, she argues that the substance of the memos meshes with Mr. Bush’s known records (the panel had claimed the documents clashed) and that inconsistencies in their format could have reflected the work of different typists—as found, she argues, in some of the official records.

Moreover, Ms. Mapes adds, given that two of Mr. Killian’s contemporaries said the documents fit his thoughts and actions, a forger would have had to correctly guess the mental state of a dead man.

Well, which is harder—guessing the mental state of a dead man, or generating a Microsoft Word document in 1973? In any case, it appears that the four journalists CBS decided to "hold accountable" for the National Guard fiasco, one will get a nice book advance and the other three will get paid by CBS to go away. Maybe the reason the network didn’t dismiss Dan Rather is he didn’t need the money.

Frist/Grassley: take backs

Winston Churchill, who was well known for extreme statements, once said that over the course of time that he had often had to eat his words and that by and large that he found it to be the most wholesome of diets. Senators Bill Frist and Charles Grassley found that to be true yesterday.

Sen. Frist went to the floor yesterday to announce that his statement being widely quoted that Social Security reform would not be taken up this year was untrue.

Sen. Grassley said that "Personal accounts are still on the table along with all the other ideas to strengthen Social Security."

To see what is being said in Grassley’s home state visit the Des Moines Register.

Spots dogging the President

Democrats are running radio spots in New Jersey and Indiana on the heels of President Bush’s visits to those states to promote the fact there is trouble in Social Security world. Here is copy of the cut done by local politicians:

This week President Bush brought his risky plan for Social Security to South Bend — a plan that would end Social Security's guaranteed benefits and tie our retirement savings to the ups and downs of the stock market.

How does President Bush plan to pay for this risky scheme you ask.

First, he'll borrow $4.5 trillion from foreign countries. Then he'll cut benefits by up to 40%.

Cutting benefits and borrowing trillions from foreign nations won't solve Social Security problems — it WILL make them worse.

Call Congressman X at X and tell him tell him you do not want your benefits cut.

Call Congressman X and tell him to oppose President Bush's risky scheme that would put in jeopardy our social security benefits here in X.

We cannot afford to be silent.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is putting out a statement that says that the President's plan of privatization will cut benefits, add to the debt, and not help the program — an approach that the American people are rejecting. According to Reid the Democratic approach is to: first do no harm to the current system; pay back the trust fund; and give Americans more ways to save. He also accuses Republicans of wanting to cut benefits to seniors by pegging benefits to inflation rather than wages, taxing benefits, and borrowing for the plan and driving it further into debt.

Bush’s success: Democrats’ dilemma

E. J. Dionne writes about how Democrats don’t know what to do about President Bush’s success in foreign policy:

When the news from abroad is good, what is the political opposition to do? Should Democrats let President Bush crow about favorable developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon and Iraq? Should they crow with him? And how should Democrats deal with Bush's appropriation of what Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) calls "Wilsonian" and "Kennedyesque" rhetoric promoting the spread of democracy? If Bush pushes policies that are both "Democratic with a large D and a small d," Lieberman asks, shouldn't Democrats encourage him?

Byrd chirps minority rights

Sen. Robert Byrd -- after putting his foot in his mouth with his Hitler analysis -- has offered up a cogent defense of his position, which is that if we let them have a little everything will be taken in a Washington Post editorial:

Yes, Americans believe in majority rule, but we also believe in minority rights. Our liberties can be truly secure only in a forum of open debate where minority views can be freely discussed. Leave it to the House to be the majoritarian body. Let the Senate continue to be the one in which a minority can have the freedom to protect a majority from its own folly.

Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist has stated that he has the votes to rule that a filibuster of judicial nominees is unconstitutional because it prevents advice and consent of the Senate.

Labor’s rift

Democrats are divided and more importantly labor is divided as the AFL-CIO meeting just confirmed as reported on by the Washington Post:

The executive council meeting of the AFL-CIO that concluded here yesterday leaves the union movement divided into two angry camps, with three major unions considering leaving the federation. A coalition of unions led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Teamsters -- the federation's biggest and third-largest unions -- failed to persuade their colleagues to back a Teamster proposal to rebate a sizable chunk of the AFL-CIO's budget to member unions with serious organizing programs. The coalition won the support of unions representing roughly 40 percent of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members, but AFL-CIO President John Sweeney got majority backing for a program that directed more resources to the federation's political program than to organizing.

Media got it wrong

GOP USA is reporting that major news sources are incorrectly reporting that the U.S. has backed down on its push for anti-abortion language at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women:

At a briefing Thursday, the U.S. delegation head, Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey, was asked whether the U.S. was indeed dropping its proposal for the anti-abortion wording to be included in the statement.

"She was specifically asked, and she responded: 'We are waiting for instructions from Washington, but at the moment, no,' " Grenell said.

A lobbying battle is underway Thursday, with pro-life groups from around the world sending in messages of support for the U.S. stance, while NGOs opposed to the pro-life language are also making their views known through petitions.

Iran building hardened bunkers

The International Herald Tribune reports on ILEA meeting where Iran revealed some of the details of its construction of underground hardened bunkers to store nuclear materials:

Asked for details on the tunnel, a diplomat familiar with Iran’s dossier said parts of it would run as deep as nearly one kilometer, or about half a mile, below ground and would be constructed of hardened concrete and other special materials meant to withstand severe air attacks.