In the context of human life, it won't matter too much if the levees hold this time around in New Orleans.  2-million people have evacuated the Gulf Coast ahead of Hurricane Gustav, and New Orleans is a virtual ghost-town.  A clear contrast against Hurricane Katrina when the Democrat Governor, what's-her-face Blanco, did nothing but complain in front of cameras; and Ray Nagin hid under a hotel room bed crying like a little girl while hundreds of buses sat parked and flooded instead of being used to evacuate the people he swore to protect.

 

Hurricane Gustav made landfall Monday, slamming the heart of Louisiana's fishing and oil industry and testing New Orleans' levees with 110 mph winds before weakening to a category 1 storm.

Gustav made landfall as a category 2 storm at about 10:30 a.m., but had weakened by 3 p.m. ET to a category 1 storm. At its peak Monday, the storm had a gust of 117 mph just before 5 a.m.

"We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers' hurricane protection office. "We are cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic wall failure."

 

A Dutch AIVD Secret Service ultra-secret operation underway in Iran in recent years has been halted and an agent recalled in view of “impending US plans to attack Iran,” within weeks, writes Joost de Haas, known for his good intelligence contacts, in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

The AIVD operation aimed to infiltrate and sabotage the weapons [and nuclear] industry in the Islamic Republic.

According to intelligence sources in the Netherlands, the US [or Israel] was expected to make a decision within weeks to attack nuclear plants with unmanned aircraft, used to avoid risking the lives of air crews and warplanes.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report this would be the first time drones operated by remote control were used against major strategic targets, necessary in Israel’s case to hold its air fleet and flight crews ready to defend the country against reprisal from Iran’s allies. Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah have stockpiled thousands of rockets for this purpose.

The Iranian targets to be bombed would include also military installations brought to light partly by the Dutch espionage operation, described by De Telegraaf as extremely successful. “One of the agents was able to infiltrate the Iranian industry” and for years shared information with the American CIA. “Various supplies could also be sabotaged and stopped. These were parts for missiles and launching equipment.”

According to DEBKAfile’s sources, the expectation disclosed by the Dutch newspaper would explain the fresh spate of threats from Iran.

Thursday, Aug. 28, Iranian sources told the London-based Arabic al Quds that Tehran had recently transferred to Hizballah new long-range rockets capable of hitting every inch of Israeli soil with great accuracy.

They were to be fired if Israel or the United States attacked Iran.

Dep. Chief of General Staff Masus Jazairi said Saturday, Aug. 30, that any attack on Iran would mean the beginning of a new world war. He said the “greed of the US and Zionists” is gradually leading the world to collapse as demonstrated in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Caucasus.

DEBKAfile’s Iran sources report a shakeup is in progress in the Islamic Republic’s top military command.

Amir (Maj. Gen.) Seyed Abdollrahim Mousavi was named acting chief of staff

of the armed forces – a new post created as backup in case the army chief comes to harm in combat.

Amir Mohamad Hosseyn Dadras becomes deputy chief of staff for coordination.

Amir Reza Pourdastan is the new commander of the army’s ground corps.

Dep. Chief of General Staff Masus Jazairi said Saturday, Aug. 30, that any attack on Iran would mean the beginning of a new world war. He said the “greed of the US and Zionists” is gradually leading the world to collapse as demonstrated in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Caucasus.

DEBKAfile’s Iran sources report that Jazairi’s attack aimed at confirming his credentials in Tehran during a major shakeup of the Iranian high command.

Amir (Maj.-Gen.) Seyed Abdollrahim Mousavi has just been appointed acting chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Amir Mohamad Hosseyn Dadras, Dep. Chief of Staff on Coordination and Amir Ahmad Reza Pourdastan is the new commander of the Armed Forces’ Ground Corps.

We all say things we regret, and many of us speak in public places - like, say, an airplane coming back from the Democratic convention - without thinking how they would look captured on YouTube. Having said that, former DNC Chair Don Fowler would be wise to apologize for his giggling comments suggesting that the timing of Hurricane Gustav making landfall, and the potential it could hit New Orleans, "just demonstrates that God's on our side."

So you see, it's funny. That New Orleans will get a hurricane. That's funny because it is due to hit when President Bush is scheduled to speak. Isn't that cool? Fowler isn't the only one who thinks so, just ask Michael Moore.

We all know Democrats used and use Katrina as a political football as callously as possible. Here's a candid moment showing some can hardly wait for another one.

All Class.

Not the first “progressive” to admit to rooting for a hurricane, but the setting alone makes this special. Rest assured, had a conservative offered something like this about the Democratic convention, it would have earned a 28-minute speshul komment replete with light show and opening act.

 

Moore does say he hopes no one dies; all he’s after is a heap of destruction and demoralization that can be exploited for political advantage. Exit question: Does that sound familiar?

Writing from deep within the pristine jungle wilderness of Manhattan's Upper West Side, James Wolcott urges nature to fight back:

I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong--Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.

By “us”, Wolcott means “people other than myself”. Actually, seeing as he lives in Manhattan, perhaps he’d appreciate a re-write of his post: “I root for Islamic terrorists. When, courtesy of al-Jazeera ...”

A crowd of about 250 showed up on a drizzly Sunday afternoon in Anchorage to hear about Gov. Sarah Palin's proposed new oil tax.

Legislators, administration officials, lobbyists and oil industry representatives were among those who came.

But mostly there were regular Alaskans, curious about how the governor wants to revamp the now-tainted oil profits tax passed in 2006. Two Veco Corp. executives have pleaded guilty to bribing four legislators to get a version of the tax favored by North Slope oil producers through the Legislature. Former state Rep. Pete Kott has been convicted, and former Rep. Vic Kohring goes to trial in a week.

"We own the resource, and we're getting gouged," Javen Ose, a 50-year-Anchorage resident, told the governor.

Ose, now retired, said his Permanent Fund dividend probably pays only for one-third of his electric, heat and gasoline bills. He questions why people in New Jersey pay less at the gas pump than those in Alaska.

"I'm glad more and more Alaskans are recognizing this nonsensical situation," Palin responded. "Look at the people in Fairbanks. They are 400 miles away from the world's richest reserves and look at what they are paying to heat their homes."

 

[...]

 

The public is showing a lot of interest in the oil tax, she said. Contrary to what some legislative leaders are saying, she said, people definitely care that the current tax was passed under a cloud of corruption.

"We need to go back and do it again," she said.

Rep. Mike Doogan, also a Democrat in his first term, said that he needs to learn more too.

"I couldn't pass a test on it," he joked. The way to go may be a two-tier tax with different structures for well-developed legacy fields vs. new, high risk ventures, he said.

Rep. Anna Fairclough, a freshman Republican, said she comes from a pro-business bent. She said the administration tells the story in technical terms but she wants to know the answer to a basic question: How does the tax proposal encourage development?

As to that, the tax proposal includes improved credits for exploration, officials say.

The basic elements of the Palin tax proposal, called Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share, are:

• 25 percent tax on net profits, or the value of the oil minus operating expenses and pipeline and tanker charges. That compares with the 22.5 percent Petroleum Profits Tax passed in 2006. The tax rate rises when oil prices are high.

• Protection when oil prices are low. The big fields of Kuparuk and Prudhoe Bay would pay at least a 10 percent gross tax on the oil's value. This tax on the gross -- before operating expenses are deducted -- would be instead of a tax on net profits, not in addition to it.

• Changes in allowable tax credits and deductions. Producers no longer could write off the cost of replacing deteriorating pipelines.

• Higher salaries for oil tax auditors.

• More information for the state from oil producers and better sharing of information between state agencies.

Palin supports offshore drilling like McCain, but they diverge on drilling in the off-limits Artic Wildlife National Refuge. She’s for it and he’s against it, although he’s said he is willing to re-examine the issue.

They both oppose a national windfall profits tax on oil companies, saying it would hinder domestic production. But she raised taxes on oil companies in Alaska last year, arguing that her predecessor, Frank Murkowski gave them too many breaks.

When asked by FOXNews.com whether McCain’s criticism of Obama’s similar proposal to tax oil companies was a contradiction to Palin’s actions last year, McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds batted the question away.

A Virginia woman will speak to Republicans at their national convention in St. Paul, Minnesota next week. It's unusual because Christy Swanson always considered herself a Democrat.

Swanson's husband, Kip, is an Independent. The New Kent County couple brought a Filafry franchise about two years ago. Both of them are voting for Republican John McCain.

"If you have a deep fat fryer, I can service you," said Kip Swanson.

Kip collects used cooking oil from restaurants and turns it into biofuel. Christy keeps the books and networks. The couple quickly realized the unique challenges of owning a small business.

"There's no sick days, very little vacation. You have to worry about health care costs," said Kip.

Christy was planning to vote for Democrat Barack Obama, until she went to Washington in June for a summit of small business owners. Both Obama and McCain were invited. Only McCain showed up.

Christy liked what she heard.

"I didn't go running up to him like many did. I, you know, stayed back and said, 'okay, let me look at some other candidates here and do some research,'" said Christy.

The reasons to vote for McCain, she says, stacked up.

"The corporate taxes, the portable healthcare is huge," said Christy.

Now she leads "Virginia Citizens for McCain," a coalition of Democrats and Independents.

The McCain camp says there are millions of voters like Christy, which is why the polls are moving in his favor. Democrats say McCain represents the past, that Virginians ready to turn the page should vote for Obama.

The Swanson's encourage voters to do their homework before deciding on a candidate. Christy leaves Tuesday for the Republican National Convention, a Democrat the party faithful are happy to welcome.

If McCain can stun the Middle East as well as he stunned Democrats with his VP choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, get ready to rock the White House. How shocking is the Palin pick? Just ask the liberal bloggers, who seem to have been tased.

The leftist blogs are still scrambling, trying to find the proper dirt – or, uh, reaction – to McCain’s pick. Huffington Post and Daily Kos haven’t come up with anything better than the “experience card” – the very experience Obama poked fun at McCain for having in his acceptance speech Thursday.

This is doubly hard for the Obama camp to react against because – if you look at it objectively – Palin (commander of the Alaska National Guard, the chief executive of the state) is more experienced and qualified than Obama.

 

McCain’s choice of Palin destroys every neat campaign slogan the Democrats worked so hard to indoctrinate America with during Obamafest this past week -- Palin is not “four more years” of the same. In fact, she’s about as far removed from Washington, D.C. as you can get, and definitely farther away than, say, Delaware or Chicago.

The most compelling part of McCain’s masterful triangulation: Palin is really the change Obama pretends to. Not once -- in the Illinois legislature or the US Senate -- has Obama actually produced change to anything.

That cannot be said of Palin. Her record of legislating against corruption and reducing state spending will be parsed out in detail. But she at least has a record to parse.

Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Convention was great. As I write, he hasn't given it yet, but these are my favorite parts:

"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

 

"These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and ... his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since."

Everyone acts as though Biden's outrageous plagiarism of British Labor Leader Neil Kinnock's speech during the 1988 presidential campaign was just a mistake, a slip of the tongue. Biden, his defenders say, had credited Kinnock in other speeches, but simply forgot to add the attribution one time.

First, Biden had failed to mention Kinnock more than once. Second, it was not just a matter of adding an attribution. On the occasions when Biden failed to credit Kinnock, he also had to alter Kinnock's speech to act as if he were describing the Biden family.

The whole point of Kinnock's speech was to denounce the English class structure, where his grandfather couldn't get ahead, despite his talents. Thus, Kinnock concluded by saying his parents and grandparents couldn't advance "because there was no platform upon which they could stand."

That has never been true in this country. We have no class structure. People do get ahead by being smart and working hard.

Team Obama cannot even say, "Congratulations, Governor Palin, we look forward to a spirited race." Nope, first thing they do is attack, attack, attack:

Barack Obama's campaign is blasting John McCain for putting "the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."

The scathing description of Sarah Palin, from Obama spokesman Bill Burton, comes as Democrats scramble to gather a response to a selection that nobody in the political world expected.

"Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies — that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same," added Burton.

Democrats will likely push the inexperience line against Palin as they race to comb oppo files from Wasilla to Juneau.

First, after spending the entire campaign talking about how experience isn't everything, Barack Obama, who's never held a full-time job for four years, cannot start hitting her on inexperience.

Rove just called the response "petty and small," and boy, this is going to just further convince the Pumas that sexism drives the Obama campaign.

UPDATE: The guys on Fox News note that the Obama campaign can't even bring themselves to call her "Governor Palin." That response is going to blow up in their faces.

ANOTHER UPDATE: To clarify, in the release, they call her "governor", but they don't even deal with it, calling her "the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."

By the way, mocking the size of the town — I guess that town is full of bitter clingers, clutching guns, religion, xenophobia, opposition to trade deals...

Critics are already trying to damn Sarah Palin for her perceived lack of foreign-policy experience, but what they are not allowing for is something more important — that she has the right basic attitudes and sense of priorities. She understands that aggression has to be resisted and commitments have to be honored.

Certainly there is every sign that she will be better for at least one of America’s closest friends and allies, Israel, than Joe Biden.

It is true that Biden talks of his support for Israel in principle, but the reality is that he has done his utmost to thwart keeping the possibility of a military option open to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. As a result he was even praised recently on the Iranian regime’s official propaganda arm, Press TV.

It is no accident that Biden was dubbed “Tehran’s favorite senator” in an article in the Washington Post last week.

By contrast, the very first reference to foreign policy that Palin made in her acceptance speech after being chosen as John McCain’s vice-presidential candidate Friday was that Iran must be stopped from getting nuclear weapons. She mentioned this even before she mentioned the issues of Iraq and Russia.

Palin has a record for integrity and for getting the job done matched by very few politicians, as shown by her success in tackling the corrupt Republican-party establishment in Alaska, and her highly effective economic program there.

The U.S. and Israel can have every confidence that, like McCain, she is a doer who means what she says — not someone like Joe Biden who may come out with fine sentiments but seems unwilling to get to grips with fundamental problems posed by Iran and Syria.

Sen. John McCain has gone crazy as a fox in picking Sarah Palin, bold as a lioness, for his vice presidential running mate.

The move was brave and brilliant, and it puts McCain right back in contention just when Barack Obama thought he was poised to open up a wide and perhaps insurmountable lead. Instead he and his team will be reeling from the straight right McCain has just landed on his forehead.

Palin is an even newer figure on the national U.S. political scene than Obama. She was the first female governor of Alaska and the youngest in the state’s history. She will now be only the second woman to run on the national ticket of one of the two main parties in U.S. history, almost a quarter century after Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY) crashed and burned as former Vice President Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984.

Palin is a very strong conservative who is adamantly anti-choice. But she still has the potential to attract a significant number of female voters away from the Democrats and to embarrass Obama. Many of the supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton.(D-NY) remain riled at Obama not just for beating her out for the presidential nomination, but for denying her the vice presidential slot, too. You don’t have to be a conservative to know that. When Maureen Dowd in the New York Times admitted this week that most of the Hillary Dems she met in Denver were still seething with rage, you don’t have to be Ronald Reagan to work out that putting an attractive, young, hard-driving lady with outstanding executive experience on the GOP ticket will pull a lot of their votes away from the Dems.

 

Over the past two years, Palin has been a success story even while she has imposed financial probity and the highest ethical standards on what is no longer Ted Stevens’ Winter Wonderland.

Despite axing pork barrel jokes like Stevens’ legendary Bridge to Nowhere -- or, rather, of course, because of such actions -- Palin's approval ratings still soar in the 80-percentile group.

By contrast, neither of the Democratic duo has ever run even a fast food outlet -- a much more demanding job than anything on either of their resumes -- let alone a State of the Union in their lives. The idea that either of them could actually do so successfully is risible.

Obama doesn’t even dare to pledge to balance the budge while promising ever more social spending out of every orifice of his body. Palin actually has met real budget demands up there in the Far North.

Palin, in fact, gives McCain a potentially crucial boost on a wide range of fronts: She is a devout Christian who took the decision not to have an abortion when she discovered an unborn son would suffer from Down‘s Syndrome. She is a strong fiscal conservative who has not hesitated to make powerful enemies in her home state by shutting down pork barrel projects. And she is fearlessly and passionately honest. She took on the Alaska Republican establishment and threw a bunch of them in jail to be successfully convicted.

With Sarah Palin on the national ticket, McCain's pledge to transform Washington surpasses that of Obama in the credibility department. And it takes on real teeth. Sarah Palin will really matter. Every vice president in the past 32 years with the unfortunate exception of the decent and shamelessly treated Dan Quayle has packed real power. And Palin is likely to prove that in spades.

She hunts, fishes, and eats moose burgers. She is such a keen runner that she named the first of her five children Track. She is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and was runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty contest in 1984.

In short, this self-styled “average hockey mom” is the kind of all-American girl to gladden the heart of the Republican Party — and yesterday Sarah Palin delighted it even more by virtually wiping out coverage of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver on Thursday night.

Mrs Palin may have been Alaska’s Governor for a mere two years, but she is wildly popular, with an approval rating of 80 per cent. She ran in her gubernatorial campaign as a cleangovernment reformer and scourge of wasteful spending, a message that resonated strongly in a state beset by political corruption.

But for all her strengths, both parties know that her nomination is a risk for John McCain. Only two years ago she was the Mayor of the Alaskan town of Wasilla, where the biggest worry is whether there will be enough snow for the annual dog-mushing race. Before her two terms as a councillor in the same town she was a sports reporter for a television station in Anchorage.

Since she took office in 2006 as Alaska’s youngest governor, and the first woman to hold the post, she has delivered on many of her campaign promises. She took a pay cut, dispensed with the gubernatorial jet, and killed the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” project that had become a nationwide symbol of the wasteful spending that Mr McCain has made a cornerstone of his campaign. “As Governor I’ve stood up to politics as usual,” Mrs Palin said. “I’ve stopped wasteful spending, cut taxes, and put the people first.”

A fiscal and social conservative, she is also strongly “pro-life” and belongs to Feminists for Life. She opposes gay marriage, although she says she has gay friends. She has also admitted in the past that she smoked marijuana when it was legal in Alaska — but did not like it. Born in Idaho, Mrs Palin has lived in Alaska since she was three months old.

She once worked as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high-school sweetheart and a native Yupik. It was their 20th wedding anniversary yesterday. Her husband works for BP, is a champion snowmobiler — a passion she shares — who has won the 2,000-mile “Iron Dog” race four times.

They have three daughters, Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7. In April she gave birth to another son, Trig, after refusing to let the results of prenatal testing that showed he had Down’s syndrome affect her decision to have the baby. He was asleep on the shoulder of one of her daughters during her speech.

At the rally in Ohio last night Mrs Palin was given a raucous reception during a poised and forceful speech in which she displayed clear signs of grit, a muscular, family-oriented conservatism, while also reaching out to the disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton.

“I would be honoured to serve next to the next president of the United States,” she declared, with four of her five children behind her. “I know it will demand the best that I have to give, and I promise nothing less.”

Her son Track will be deployed with the US Army to Iraq on September 11, she added. “As a mother of one of those troops, John McCain is the kind of man I want as our commander-in-chief.”

Instead of a safe choice, such as closest runner-up Mitt Romney or genial Everyman Tim Pawlenty, McCain took some risk with a relative newcomer to national politics. Palin will inject risk, excitement, controversy, and an unexpected historic note to the Republican convention.

First, though, let’s assess the risk. Palin has served less than two years as Governor of Alaska, which tends to eat into the experience message on which McCain has relied thus far. At 44, she’s younger than Barack Obama by three years. She has served as a mayor and as the Ethics Commissioner on the state board regulating oil and natural gas, for a total of eight years political experience before her election as governor. That’s also less than Obama has, with seven years in the Illinois legislature and three in the US Senate.

However, the nature of the experience couldn’t be more different. Palin spent her entire political career crusading against the political machine that rules Alaska — which exists in her own Republican party. She blew the whistle on the state GOP chair, who had abused his power on the same commission to conduct party business. Obama, in contrast, talked a great deal about reform in Chicago but never challenged the party machine, preferring to take an easy ride as a protegé of Richard Daley instead.

Palin has no formal foreign-policy experience, which puts her at a disadvantage to Joe Biden. However, in nineteen months as governor, she certainly has had more practical experience in diplomacy than Biden or Obama have ever seen. She runs the only American state bordered only by two foreign countries, one of which has increasingly grown hostile to the US again, Russia.

And let’s face it — Team Obama can hardly attack Palin for a lack of foreign-policy experience. Obama has none at all, and neither Obama or Biden have any executive experience. Palin has almost over seven years of executive experience.

So what does Sarah Palin stand for? Here we take a brief look at her positions - in her own words.

On drilling in ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve): "It will work. Senator McCain's wrong on that issue ... I think he's going to evolve into eventually supporting ANWR opening. Obama is way off base on all that. I think those politicians who don't understand that we need more domestic supplies of energy thrown into our hungry markets are living in La-La land."

On being vice-president: "What is it exactly that the VP does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard and being in administration."

On the Wooten scandal (allegations that she fired a cabinet official over his reluctance to fire her brother-in-law as a state trooper during a custody battle with her sister): "A couple of lawmakers who were unhappy with that decision are looking at me as a target right now and wanting to probe and find out why I replace this cabinet member. And it's cool, I want them to ask me these questions, I don't have anything to hide and didn't do anything wrong there, it is a governor's prerogative. ... I never tried to fire my former brother-in-law."

On capital punishment: "If the (Alaskan state) legislature passed a death penalty law, I would sign it. We have a right to know that someone who rapes and murders a child or kills an innocent person in a drive by shooting will never be able to do that again."

On listing the polar bear as an endangered species: "We are suing the federal government, recognising that the Endangered Species Act is not a place to kind of mess around with listing as threatened a species that right now is very very healthy ... Our fear being that extreme environmentalists will use this tool to eventually curtail or halt North Slope production of very rich resources that America needs."

On smoking marijuana in her youth: "I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled."

On abortion: "(I am as) pro-life as any candidate can be. ... (I have) adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of it."

By picking Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has wowed the public and enthused the Right. He has reinforced some of his winning themes — that he has the mindset of an outsider and a fighter against corruption. He has also reinforced his appeal as the candidate more in touch with traditional values on moral issues.

None of McCain’s possible choices was perfect, and attention is being paid to the way that Palin undercuts other McCain themes, such as the importance of experience in foreign policy. Palin will have to reassure voters of her steadiness when she speaks at the Republican convention and when she debates Joe Biden. McCain, meanwhile, will have to carry most of the foreign-policy load himself and showcase his good health.

We hope that the choice of Palin also signals a decisive turn toward a campaign theme of fighting for the middle class. McCain and Palin can and should say that they will fight to protect Americans from our foreign enemies, to stop liberal excesses, and to reform dysfunctional institutions. They should not accept the portrait of middle-class Americans as hapless victims that so many of the Democratic speakers this week portrayed; but they need to show that they share middle-class frustrations. Strength in foreign policy; reforms of taxes and health care geared to the middle class; and a moderate social conservatism: It’s a potentially winning message, and now Republicans have a ticket that is suited to it.

IRVINE, Calif. — A former Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi detainees was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter Thursday in a first-of-its-kind federal trial.

The jury took six hours to find Jose Luis Nazario Jr. not guilty of charges that he killed or caused others to kill four unarmed detainees on Nov. 9, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, during some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

The verdict left the 28-year-old defendant in tears. He cried so loud that the judge smacked his gavel to call for order. Nazario's family and friends also sobbed in the courtroom.

"It's been a long, hard year for my family," Nazario said outside the courtroom. "I need a moment to catch my breath and try to get my life back together."

Thursday's verdict marks the first time a civilian jury has determined whether the alleged actions of a former military service member in combat violated the law of war.

One of the jurors, Ingrid Wicken, hugged Nazario's sobbing mother, Sandra Montanez, without speaking after the verdict was read. "I watched her all week. She was being tortured every day," Wicken said later.

Wicken said the panel acquitted Nazario because there was not enough evidence against him.

"I think you don't know what goes on in combat until you are in combat," she said.

Nazario's attorney, Kevin McDermott, said he believes the verdict will curb faulty filings.

"I don't think they are going to put on a case in the future with a lack of evidence," McDermott said.

There's a fundamental paradox confronting Barack Obama as he prepares to deliver his acceptance speech to the Democratic Convention before a stadium crowd of up to 80,000 tonight.

Speech-making is what Senator Obama does best. It is arguably the main reason that he finds himself on the threshold of the White House. He is one of the finest exponents of English oratory our American cousins have produced; right up there with Martin Luther King, William Jennings Bryan and Abraham Lincoln.

And so, barring some unimaginable collapse by either his speechwriters or the candidate himself tonight, he will give a barn-burning performance that will send his anxious Democrats away energised and girded for the battle that unfolds in the next two months. But here's the paradox. Senator Obama's biggest challenge from now until election day is to prove that he is more than just a great orator. His very ability to move audiences with words and dramatic set-piece performances is now part of the principal critique of him by his opponents: that he is a profoundly inexperienced young man who has done no more in his short public life than give great speeches. The more he inspires and moves his followers with great speeches the more glaring the gap between his speaking talent and his callowness appears.

There are growing indications, in fact, that it is the now familiar Grand Obama Occasion of the sort we will see tonight that is starting to turn voters off him. It may bring the people in the stadium to tears but its impact on the wider American audience watching on television is much less certain.

Vladimir Putin accused President Bush tonight of orchestrating the war in Georgia in a plot to get John McCain elected to the White House. 

In his most explosive allegation since the South Ossetia crisis erupted, the Russian Prime Minister said that the United States had provoked the conflict to aid the Republican candidate, who is an outspoken critic of the Kremlin.

“It is not just that the American side could not restrain the Georgian leadership from this criminal act. The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army,” Mr Putin said.

“Why spend years holding difficult negotiations and looking for complicated compromises in ethnic conflicts? It’s easier to arm one of the parties and push it to kill the other party, and the job is done. 

“The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US President.”

Mr Putin said that his defence officials had told him that Americans were operating in the conflict zone in Georgia during the fighting.

He added: “It should be admitted that they would do so only following direct orders from their leaders. Therefore, they were acting in implementing those orders, doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader.”

Mr Putin did not name Mr Bush directly but the White House swiftly denounced his allegations, made during an interview with CNN. His comments were also broadcast on Russian television, which had been circulating a similar conspiracy theory last week.

By lending his authority to the claims, Mr Putin has raised tensions with the US to a new level just days before Dick Cheney, the US Vice President, is due to arrive in Georgia to show support for its pro-Western leader Mikheil Saakashvili.

Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said: “To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate – it sounds not rational.

“Those claims first and foremost are patently false, but it also sounds like his defence officials who said they believed this to be true are giving him really bad advice.”

The deputy head of Russia’s general staff told reporters in Moscow that troops had found a US passport in a village near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, where he said Georgian special forces had been operating during the conflict.

“What was that gentleman’s purpose of being among the special forces and what he is doing today, I so far cannot answer,” Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said.

“We have been looking for the holder of the passport but haven’t been able to find him. We know that he is a resident in the state of Texas.”

 

Anyone who has ever gone to a political convention knows that swag definitely isn't in short supply. 

But even Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers was amazed when he came across a unique giveaway just before a delegation breakfast; a can by the pro-choice group NARAL labeled, "Yes We CAN!"

"The terrible pun wasn't lost on me," Rogers said on his blog.

Rob Roger's thoughts about NARAL's swag. (click for original)According to the Pittsburgh cartoonist, "there was a pro-choice game booklet inside, pro-choice buttons and a pro-choice beer bottle opener."

"I am not making this up," he continued. "Inside the "fun games" booklet there were crosswords, jumbles, a connect-the-dot game and a maze where you had to find your way out of John McCain's reproductive policies."

NARAL bragged about their choice in convention giveaways on their blog, where they said they "may be a little nerdy about their swag-love, but they can't help it!"

Also included in the can is a bottle opener, a pro-choice delegate button, and a pro-Obama window decal, all of which rubbed Rogers the wrong way.

"Look, I am totally in favor of a woman's right to choose, but when is anything that has to do with abortion fun? "

"And what were they thinking with that bottle opener," Rogers said. "Do they think a pregnant woman is saying to herself, "Hmmm, this is probably the most personal, serious and emotional decision about my body I will ever have to make ... it's Miller time!"

 

(CNSNews.com) - Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) says that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) should not have complied with decisions by their state supreme courts that ordered legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

In an exclusive video interview with CNSNews.com, Huckabee said that, had he been in Romney’s shoes, he would not have used his executive power as governor to carry out the court’s unilateral declaration that the other branches of state government must certify same-sex marriages.

“You know, it’s interesting, the California decision as well as the Massachusetts decision, I don’t think should ever have been implemented by the governors, Schwarzenegger and Romney,” said Huckabee. “They were both decisions that the governors simply could have said the court has said that we have to do it, but let them enforce it. Because those were administrative decisions that had to put that in place and there was no mandate.”

“I would not have done that,” said Huckabee, who taped an appearance on CNSNews.com’s “Online with Terry Jeffrey” on August 15.

In a 4-3 decision issued on Nov. 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry in Massachusetts. The court gave the state legislature until May 17, 2004 to enact legislation to allow such marriages to take place.

In the intervening time, the Massachusetts legislature did not enact a law codifying same-sex marriages. Before the May 17, 2004 deadline, however, then-Gov. Romney directed that the words “bride” and “groom” on Massachusetts marriage applications be changed to “Party A” and “Party B.”

Romney’s chief legal counsel, Daniel Winslow, told justices of the peace in Massachusetts that they should carry out the decision of the court and perform same-sex marriages or resign.

"My message was: 'You took an oath, and you don't have to agree or disagree with the law, you took an oath to uphold the law. Your only job is to follow the law,’” Winslow told Pete Winn of CNSNews.com in January. “We'll leave it to the courts to litigate what the law is, but once the courts have ruled, if you've taken an oath under the constitution, you have to follow your oath.”

Some justices of the peace did resign rather than use the “Party A” and “Party B” marriage applications to conclude same-sex marriages. One of these was Kathleen Harvey of Bellingham, Mass.

"I chose to resign," Harvey told Pete Winn of CNSNews.com in January. "I personally didn't feel that same-sex marriages were marriages. If they were civil unions, I don't think that would have bothered me, but I personally didn't feel they were marriages. I just didn't want to be officiating at one of those ceremonies."

In fact, after the court-ordered May 17, 2004 deadline, then-Gov. Romney himself—who opposes same-sex marriage--did not allow all same-sex marriages to go forward in Massachusetts. Citing a 1913 Massachusetts law that said the state should not carry out marriages of individuals from other states if those marriages would not be recognized in the individuals’ home states, Romney told clerks in Massachusetts not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples from out of state.

''Massachusetts should not become the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage,'' Romney told the New York Times in April 2004. ''We do not intend to export our marriage confusion to the entire nation.''

In January, when Pete Winn of CNSNews.com made inquiries to Romney’s presidential campaign about his handling of the state supreme court decision on marriage, the campaign responded with a statement from Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute, who the campaign indicated "had worked with the governor" on the same-sex marriage issue.

"Within hours of the November 18, 2003, Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing gay marriage, Governor Romney publicly denounced the court's ruling and affirmed traditional marriage," Mineau said. "And that was just the beginning of his support for preserving traditional marriage.”

"Governor Romney could not have been more public or vocal in his opposition to same-sex marriage during his entire tenure as governor," he said.

"He did not create same-sex marriage; that responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, for which Chief Justice Margaret Marshall has been pleased to accept full credit and responsibility," Mineau said.

"The court's landmark ruling established same-sex marriage by judicially redefining the meaning of the word marriage," he said. "This final judicial order in the form of a declaratory judgment on May 17, 2004, was what created same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

"Any administrative policies and procedures relative to solemnizing same-sex marriages were carried out only as a direct result of the judiciary's final action in Goodridge on May 17, 2004," he said. "Governor Romney is pro-individual and pro-traditional marriage . . . period."

When asked whether Romney’s decision to comply with his state supreme court’s order to allow same-sex marriages should disqualify him as a Republican vice-presidential nominee, Huckabee said: “Well, you know, I’ve not probably been an advocate for him in that position. And, you know, I am going to let him defend himself. And I don’t want to relive the primary. But I think that that was a very unfortunate position that he took in saying that, ‘Well, I can’t do anything about it.’ Oh, yes you can.”

Where’s the line? If the governor gets to pick and choose which rulings to enforce, we’re forever on the brink of a constitutional crisis. In fact, if Eisenhower had followed this advice, schools wouldn’t have been desegregated after Brown. What he’s suggesting, actually, in the name of empowering the people is making the judiciary nothing more than an arm of the executive. If that’s the government you want, okay, but in that case you might as well go the whole nine yards and abolish judicial review by constitutional amendment. Short of that, you’re not without options. The governor can campaign for an amendment to overturn an unpopular decision or, in states where judges are elected, to get them tossed out and replaced with ones who’ll vote the way the majority wants. Exit question: The Huck approach or the Romney approach?

 

[...]

 

If the executive doesn't follow the diktats of a court, the court dashes off writs of mandamus compelling lesser officials (like, justices of the peace, clerks at city halls) to act according to what they claim the law is. I believe these writs are issued upon pain of contempt.

This entire idea -- which I've seen bubbling up a lot, but only with regard to this one issue -- proves too much, as they say. If Romney could have just ignored the SJC's ruling, what stops any executive from doing this when it comes to any disagreement with the court?

There is no difference. Yes, hypothetically, any executive can provoke a constitutional crisis like this, with the courts ordering their bailiffs to arrest officials for contempt for not complying with writs of mandamus, and the executive ordering cops to arrest bailiffs trying to execute these arrests, and etc. Yes, it could be done.

But why the **** have people only thought of this with regard to Romney and this one decision? Why do they insist in this -- and only this -- situation Romney could have, and should have, faced down the (armed) agents of the court with his own armed agents?

Note that Huckabee's excuse for soliciting additional taxes -- any additional tax schemes; they were all "all right by me," as he said -- was that he was compelled by a state court decision to do so. (Actually, he wasn't quite, but let's pretend he was.)

How come you didn't just defy the courts yourself, Huck?

Why is it that Mitt Romney and only Mitt Romney has this special executive power to defy the courts?