Blue Crab Boulevard

The Hill has what has to be one of the most transparent stories of this campaign season. It claims Joe Lieberman has been assured of seiority if he wins in November. But what it is really about is Frank Lautenberg's attempt to gain back his former seniority:

 Sen. Joe Lieberman, the longtime Democratic senator from Connecticut running for re-election as an independent, says the party leadership has assured him he would keep his seniority if he returns to Congress.

Local Democrats are responding with irritation, political opponents voice disbelief, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) denies making a decision. 

But the strongest response is likely to come from Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) who views Lieberman’s independent status as an opportunity to press Democratic leaders to restore seniority he lost four years ago.

If Lautenberg retrieves seniority accrued during 18 years of Senate service before retiring in 2000, he could leapfrog Lieberman to lead the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee or the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Lieberman has served 18 years in the upper chamber. Lautenberg has served a total of 22 years, but he has only four years of recognized seniority because he retired from Congress for two years in 2000.

While even Lautenberg’s allies admit the chances of jumping over as many as five lawmakers on either committee are small, the senator thinks he has a strong case.

Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, does not want to wrestle with these questions in public before the Nov. 7 election.

“The caucus won’t make any decisions until after the elections in November,” said Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley.

It goes on from there, but it really is all about Lautenberg. Lord, what an election.

It goes on from there, but it really is all about Lautenberg. Lord, what an election.

That's the title of George Will's column in the Washington Post. Primarily, it is about the Bob Woodward book that is causing such a political ruckus at the moment. But Will nails something here:

Some will regard "State of Denial" as Katrina between hard covers, a snapshot of dysfunctional government. But it is largely just a glimpse of government , disheartening as that fact may be to those who regard government as a glistening scalpel for administering social transformation.

Once, when President William Howard Taft was listening to an aide talk about "the machinery of government," Taft murmured, "The young man really thinks it's a machine." Actually, government is people, and not a random slice of the population. Those at government's pinnacle generally are strong-willed, ambitious, competitive, opinionated and have agendas about which they care deeply. That is why they are there. And why almost any administration, carefully scrutinized, looks much like a teaspoon of pond water viewed under a microscope — a teeming, disorderly maelstrom of sometimes rival life forms. That is especially true of an administration staffed with such canny Washington survivors as Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell. A government of rookies or shrinking violets would be more harmonious. So, how much of a virtue is harmony?

"State of Denial" will take a toll on government collegiality and the candor of its deliberations. It is based on astonishing indiscretions — current and past officials making private memos and conversations public for motives that cannot be pure.

The book is hardly a revelation about supposed hidden chaos in Washington that produced the obvious chaos in Iraq. It does demonstrate that President Bush and others were shockingly slow to recognize Iraq's complexities and downward spiral. But we already knew that.

The book does not demonstrate that the president is in a state of denial. His almost exclusive and increasingly grating reliance on the rhetoric of unwavering resolve may be mistaken. It certainly has undermined his reputation as a realist. But he believes a president must be "the calcium in the backbone" of the nation, so the resolute face that he thinks he must show the nation does not preclude private anguish.

I mentioned earlier today the commenters who thought that a Democratic victory in November would bring everyone a pony. That is the naive level some operate at in this country when it comes to politics. Even though I thought Clinton should have resigned when it came out that he had flat-out lied about "Ms. Lewinsky" to the people of the US, then later under oath, I thought the Republican controlled House was out of its collective mind to impeach him. Because unlike the pony crowd, I know that "impeach" doesn't mean "remove".

In Will's opinion, Woodward's book is not so much about Bush as it is about - and against - Rumsfeld. I'll never read the book, quite frankly, so I'll take the word of people like Will. But if the book is ultimately really about the way Washington malfunctions, I am not at all surprised.

There won't be any ponies, no matter who wins.

Interesting perspective from EJ Dionne in the Washington Post. While nationally people are seeing a problem with what direction the country is going in, on a local level, people are seeing positives.

Consider the latest WMUR Granite State Poll by the University of New Hampshire's Survey Center. Asked the classic question about whether "things in New Hampshire" were going in "the right direction" or were "seriously off on the wrong track," an astonishing 79 percent saw their state moving the right way; only 14 percent saw it on the wrong track.

But when asked exactly the same question about how their country was doing, according to findings released yesterday, only 34 percent of New Hampshire residents said "the right direction"; 56 percent said "the wrong track."

That is good news for Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat who leads his Republican opponent, Jim Coburn, by a margin of 69 to 14 percent in the latest survey. It is bad news for Bush, whose approval rating in New Hampshire is 36 percent.

Lynch is among a cadre of moderate Democratic governors around the country who find themselves in commanding positions — even outside Democratic-trending New England. Among them: Kathleen Sebelius in Kansas, Dave Freudenthal in Wyoming, Janet Napolitano in Arizona and Brad Henry in Oklahoma.

For his part, Lynch can hardly utter a sentence without including the word "bipartisan." He prides himself on having worked well with a Republican legislature and speaks with amazement at how Washington has become a place of "ongoing partisan bickering."

It may be no accident that Lynch's ratings are high while Bush's are low. Nick Clemons, the executive director of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, sees voters here consciously contrasting the peaceable political kingdom their state has become with what's happening several hundred miles to the south. "Washington," he says, "is the foil for New Hampshire."

This is very interesting in it's implications. Dionne, of course, sees it as bad news for Republicans and couches the whole column in those terms. But it may just illustrate the problem that all incumbents may face this year, no matter what party. That may well mean that the Democrat's strategy to nationalize the elections may come back to haunt them. Some so-called "safe" seats for the Dems may not be. (Ahem, New Jersey Senate). That might just be something to think about.

After a year long project the city of Little Rock, Arkansas has decided on a brand new nickname. Formerly known as the "City of Roses", the mayor of Little Rock proudly announced the new nick they've decided on:

The Rock.

After a yearlong project to replace the city's former moniker, "City of Roses," Arkansas' capital city on Monday unveiled its new nickname: "The Rock."

"The Rock kind of portrays something pretty solid," said Mayor Jim Dailey. "A rock; there is something substantive about it."

Dailey said he wasn't concerned that "The Rock" would be confused with the former Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay or with the professional wrestler-turned-actor.

We have been informed by our usual grade of reliable sources, which come in somewhat better on average than Reuters but a little less creative than the AP, that former president Bill Clinton was overruled on his choice of a nickname: The Hard Place.

Thomas Lifson, writing in The American Thinker, has the comparison of the two narratives that are shaping up in the Foley matter. The first is the one being pushed rather hard by the drive-by media and a lot of the left side of the blogosphere. The other is much more interesting.

The target of this narrative is the House leadership for its “failure” to “protect” the pages from a presumed sexual predator. As Clarice Feldman has explained, this “blame the leadership” narrative rests on the public conflating the early emails, which were merely inappropriate (“overly friendly”) with salacious IM texts, which the leadership only learned of from the press.

Of course, it is risible that a party which harbored Gerry Studds, and still boasts Barney Frank as a senior and respected Member of Congress would point a finger at Republicans, who demanded and got Foley’s resignation from the House as soon as conclusive evidence surfaced of genuine misconduct (albeit misconduct milder than that of Studds, who engaged in sex with a male page who was a minor, or Frank, whose apartment was used as HQ of a male escort service run by his boyfriend).

But the hypocritical posturing of the Democrats could still work for them. The targeted GOP voters don’t care if Democrats have engaged in worse conduct and lived to cast votes in Congress. They expect nothing at all from Democrats, but demand much more from their own leadership. There are few issues as potent as protecting teens from sexual predators, hetero- or homosexual. The issue hits even lower than the gut.

….

How about the interesting question of whether or not a warning was issued to pages in 2001 or 2002, as ABC posted to its website:

Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk’s office.

Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told “don’t get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff.”

Yet this morning’s New York Times carries a different account:

Matthew Loraditch, who worked as a page with Ms. Gallo and Mr. McDonald in 2001 and 2002, said a supervisor had once casually mentioned that Mr. Foley “was odd” and that he later saw sexually explicit text messages that Mr. Foley had sent to two former pages after they left the program.

But Mr. Loraditch said he was never warned by program supervisors to stay away from him. “He was friendly,” said Mr. Loraditch, who maintains a Web site for alumni and attends Towson University in Maryland. “He would talk to us more than some other members would.”

The Times article takes a far softer tone than what was heard elsewhere in the liberal media. The headline reads “Former Pages Describe Foley as Caring Ally” and contains sympathetic information.

Lifson points out that this odd approach by no less than the New York Times may signal that there is some extreme discomfort in the obviously homophobic attacks coming from the left. Many people have pointed out the blatant anti-semitism among many of the far left. The Democrats should be very, very cautious about this kind of attack. With the all out assault from the left on a sitting Democratic Senator in Connecticut who also happens to be a Jew and now this latest assault which appears to have overtly homophobic overtones (completely aside from the obvious heinous behavior of Foley - which everyone can agree on), there is an extreme danger of alienating some crucial core constituencies in the Democratic party.

I mentioned the presidential election in Brazil earlier today where an attempt at a smear backfired very badly on the party that tried it. Almost every, single weapon the Democrats have tried to swing this cycle has ended up being a double edged one that hurt them almost as much as it hurt the Republicans.

It would be a good idea to keep that in mind with this latest scandal.

If it is not, Bill Frist may as well not bother to run for anything except cover. Because there are going to be a lot of rotten tomatoes flying about.

QALAT, Afghanistan U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.

The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means.

"You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished we'll be successful."

Frist says it is.

First of all, let me make something clear: The Taliban is a murderous band of terrorists who’ve oppressed the people of Afghanistan with their hateful ideology long enough. America’s overthrow of the Taliban and support for responsible, democratic governance in Afghanistan is a great accomplishment that should not and will not be reversed.

Having discussed the situation with commanders on the ground, I believe that we cannot stabilize Afghanistan purely through military means. Our counter-insurgency strategy must win hearts and minds and persuade moderate Islamists potentially sympathetic to the Taliban to accept the legitimacy of the Afghan national government and democratic political processes.

National reconciliation is a necessary and an urgent priority … but America will never negotiate with terrorists or support their entry into Afghanistan’s government.

I've covered enough really bad AP reporting this year to not assume they got any of the quotes right at this point. So, I am going to wait before I fly off the handle.  

UPDATE: Sister Toldjah with a bit of common sense for those who are really getting worked up about this:

For anyone still thinking Frist is a defeatist even after his clarification, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1) Frist is out after this year. He’s not running for re-election. Rep. Harold Ford (D) and Bob Corker (R) are vying for his seat. That means, assuming we retain control of the Senate, we’ll have a new Senate Majority Leader next year.

2) How many others in the GOP support Frist’s ‘defeatist’ position? As it stands, I don’t know of any Republicans in Congress who share the pre-clarified position of Frist. But if it were a lot, don’t you think it would make more sense to leave the GOP entirely if it was a party position rather than just the position of the SML who is on his way out the door?

UPDATE: More from Ed Morrisey:

However, it does bring up an important point about the eventual end game in Afghanistan. If we want a representative democracy in Afghanistan, it will probably be heavily influenced by the Pashtuns, who have a strong Islamist bent. They did, after all, push the Taliban into power. At some point, we have to find a way to convince these Islamists to buy into democracy, and we have to be willing to allow that democracy to develop its own laws and customs. Otherwise, we will have to prop up a strongman who can keep the Pashtuns oppressed, which will create an even greater Islamist impulse in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: A lot of people weighing in now: Positive: Dan Riehl, STACLU, The Political Pit Bull, Macsmind,

Negative: Sundries Shack, Moonbattery, Daily Pundit, PoliPundit,

 Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.
(Arlo Guthrie Steve Goodman, City Of New Orleans) (Corrected via commenter).

Here's a fascinating bit of information. I had no idea that private railroad cars were still around and still in service and that many are available to rent for various excursions. They range from sleeper cars that have a number of private rooms to luxury parlor cars.

A relatively small number of train devotees have purchased and refurbished the private rail cars familiar in the first half of the 20th century — the golden age of passenger rail travel.

Passengers can sip cocktails and nibble on hors d'oeuvres while sinking into deep leather sofas in lounges paneled in rich mahogany and be lulled to sleep at night by the rhythm of train wheels rolling down the rails.

"I wasn't a train buff, but I am now," said Donna Cothron, who took a trip with her husband on the Cincinnati-based Oliver Hazard Perry sleeper-lounge. "I could travel like this forever. It's so relaxing."

The Cothrons' car was part of a train that went to Chicago for shopping and sightseeing, then through picturesque Michigan towns such as Petoskey on the banks of Lake Michigan and Boyne Falls, where the train pulled into a Polish Festival.

"Everyone was so excited in all the small cities we stopped in, and some brought their kids to see the train," Cothron added. "You felt like you were riding with the president."

While the Cothrons' car was chartered for their use only, the private-car train also included the Vista Dome sleeper-lounge topped with a glass dome providing a 360-degree view and the Birch Grove sleeper that accommodates 22 people.

The private single cars and multi-car trains normally travel Amtrak routes, hooked onto the back of Amtrak passenger trains as they wind through the Sierra Mountains or the Great Plains or into bustling metropolitan areas such as Chicago, New York and Washington.

Sometimes they go off Amtrak lines, hiring a freight engine to pull the cars along short-line railroads that are less traveled and offer a more leisurely pace and the opportunity to stop in small towns.

The Cothrons leased a car with three bedrooms, two showers, kitchen, dining room and lounge solely for themselves and were served by a chef-concierge.

Some of the companies that do this: The Cincinnati Railroad Company, Rail Journeys West, American Rail Excursions and The American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners, Inc.

Here's some information on the Pullman Palace cars. Wikipedia here.

According to diplomats familiar with the UN process of selecting a new Secretary General, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is so far out in front of any other candidate that there is almost no chance of anyone else getting the necessary votes.

An informal poll among Security Council members later Monday could clear the path for Ban Ki-moon to become the world body's eighth secretary-general, by determining if any of the council's five veto-wielding permanent members opposed him.

Ban got 13 positive votes in an informal "straw poll" last week, far more than anyone else. One nation voted against him and another voted "no opinion," but the secret ballot did not reveal whether either was a veto holder — the United States, Britain, China, France or Russia.

The poll Monday was using ballots with different colors to differentiate the votes of permanent members from those of the 10 rotating nations.

Several council nations have pushed for a decision on Annan's successor this month to give the new U.N. chief time to prepare for assuming office Jan. 1. One candidate — Sri Lanka's Jayantha Dhanapala — pulled out after a poor showing in last week's poll.

The United States, which has led the calls for a speedy resolution of the issue, is believed to back Ban.

"It's been two months since the first straw poll and while some new candidates have come in, we're now at the point where some are beginning to withdraw," said U.S. Ambassador John Bolton. "So, I think we're ready to vote, we the United States, after the straw poll today."

More about Ban here and here. Whoever succeeds Annan simply must do something to clean up the mess that the UN has become on Annan's watch. A pretty tall order. Ban sounds as if he might be up to it.

James Lewis, writing at the American Thinker, has a post up that details the particulars of the unusual event. The BBC actually reporting a warning about Iran wanting to get nuclear weapons.

Now letters from High Pandjandrum Khomeini don’t just “come to light” in Tehran. This is like an email from Allah. They only leak a missive from Khomeini if they have a very specific purpose. And this one isn’t hard to guess.

Rafsanjani is telling the world that madcap President Ahmadinejad believes he has Khomeini’s green light for making and probably using nukes. Why did Rafsanjani leak the letter now? Because he is in a life-and-death struggle with Ahmadinejad and his personal guru Yazdi, who is completely around the bend. If Ahmadinejad and Yazdi win a majority in the December elections for the “Assembly of Experts,” they will have total control over the regime. If they are as dangerous as they seem, that means trouble.

Rafsanjani seems less of a risk-taker than the Ahmadinejad faction, at least marginally. But margins are important in nuclear gamesmanship. It is likely that Rafsanjani has communication channels to the US, Israel and Europe to explain his message. It might be: Don’t attack us before December. It might be: Here is how to weaken Ahmadinejad. It might be disinformation, because that’s a specialty of the Mullahs, one and all. Or it might be real enough.

As Bob Dylan one famously wrote, you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows. Ahmadinejad is obviously sure he has divine guidance. That isn't a good sign when the man has stated a desire to wipe Israel off the map.

H/T Larwyn

A British man who fell head first into a hole in the ground was saved when his boots wedged in the opening.

Pensioner Albert Hughes' prospects looked bleak when he found himself six feet under - but his boots were his sole saviour.

But his premature burial was only temporary, thanks to a sharp-eyed postie.

Mr Hughes was gardening when he was almost buried alive, according to the Daily Mirror.

The 70-year-old was trying to adjust a sprinkler at his home in Spokane, Washington, when he stumbled head first down a narrow shaft housing a water meter.

The fall was broken by his boots, which wedged in the opening, and there he stayed for four hours.

According to the paper, postwoman Janelle Maury saw his boots and heard muffled cries for help.

She said: "His feet were at ground level but that was all I could see.

"I just could not believe he was upside down for that long."

The fire deprtment had to rig a tripod and hoist to extract Mr. Hughes. The tough, if somewhat clumsy, gentleman was checked at the hospital, but was released with no serious injuries.