Carrying out the administration's policy toward Iraq will require long-term sacrifices by the American people, particularly those who have sons and daughters in the military. Yet the Congress that voted overwhelmingly to allow the use of force in Iraq includes only one member who has a child in the enlisted ranks of the military ? just a few more have children who are officers.

Service in our nation's armed forces is no longer a common experience. A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the military, while the most privileged Americans are underrepresented or absent.

A whistleblower is someone who spots a criminal inside a bank and alerts the police. That's not Sherron Watkins. What she did was write a memo to the bank robber (Mr. Lay) suggesting he was about to be caught and warning him to watch out. In response, he met with her, told her he didn't think he was robbing the bank, but assuring her he'd launch an investigation. Mr. Lay put his law firm, Vinson & Elkins, on the case. The lawyers didn't talk to Mr. Lay or to Jeffrey Skilling, the departed CEO. On Oct. 15, 2001, Vinson & Elkins issued a report concluding that the facts didn't warrant an investigation. A day later, Enron restated its financials, the first step in the chain of events that led to bankruptcy. Through it all, Ms. Watkins said zip. Many others did nothing as well, but none of them are "Person of the Year."

They got the Patriot Act. I voted for it. It's going to lapse in 18 months. And some say: "Have we gotten one sleeper cell? Have we found one reason why it was they were all congregating in New Hampshire? Have we found who did the anthrax attack." Listen, it's very difficult to say that President Bush hasn't gotten the tools he's asked for. We in Congress have given him just about everything he's asked for. Show me the results. I think that what Democrats, and frankly, just about all Americans are saying.

But it has been a jobless, joyless recovery. Payrolls have continued to shrink. The number of people who have been unemployed for more than six months ? an indicator of families facing severe distress ? has risen 55 percent over the past year. And thanks to inaction by Congress and the administration, 800,000 of those long-term unemployed will lose their benefits tomorrow.

Falling stocks have also taken their toll; many older workers whose 401(k)'s have imploded can no longer afford retirement. Even as overall employment has fallen, the number of working Americans over 55 has increased 8 percent.

Are there any possible sources of good news?

Yes, a few. A walkover victory in Iraq could lead to sharply lower oil prices. Technology marches on, so businesses could finally decide that it's time to replace aging equipment, even though they still have plenty of spare capacity. Inventories are low; someday businesses will restock, and in so doing give the economy a boost.

Are you enthused? I'm not. I hope I'm wrong, but this doesn't look like a happy new year.

Then he smiled and said," You might as well enjoy the beautiful view from "Sidney Alley" while you can. You won't be able to do so for long. If I were you, I would pack and leave for safer countries." I gave him a long look.

"Thanks for the advice, but I remember another Arab who gave the same advice to us in 1948, when the British were pulling out. He may have been your grandfather, for all I know. He lived in a village somewhere around here and he was a friend of a Jewish man named Peytan whom I knew as well.

Peytan lived in Kefar Shemaryahu across the road. One day the Arab neighbor came visiting Mr. Peytan and strongly advised him to pack and leave. At the same time, he brought out a measuring tape and began to measure the room they were sitting in.

'What are you doing?" Asked my friend.

"Look, you are going to lose your house anyway. There is no way that six hundred thousand of you can stand up to the combined might of six Arab regular armies, not to mention our Palestinian battalions. We can actually kill you with our hats!" Yes, that is what he actually said: "We can kill you with our hats." We have been good friends for a long time. You might as well give me your house rather than to someone you don't know."

"His advice reminded me of your advice. Yet during the 1948 war, that was forced on us by you, your 'grandfather', not only didn't get the house in Kefar Shemaryahu, but he lost his own house and became a refugee. And now he is blaming it on the Jews. Fifty-five years later he still sits in the camp. His views haven't changed much. He still wants not only his house back, but he wants the house in Kefar Shemaryahu, of his Jewish friend as well. Will he ever get it? I doubt it."

"Yes, he will get it! And you know why? Because in 1948 they were all cowards! Today, our generation is proving that we are not! Eighteen determined men with carton cutters who were not afraid to die, defied the big American might, causing them thousands of dead and trillions of dollars worth of lbosses. We found out that we can bring the Western capitalist system to its knees, and we shall do so! It is a shameless selfish system that causes endless human misery around the world, especially in the third world countries and for Islam. It is time for it to go!" It was obvious from the way he said it that he didn't say it for the first time.

Some Chinese churches push the envelope of Protestant doctrine. Eastern Lightning, for example, is a fast-growing group started several years ago that believes the Bible is passé. In a throwback to a 19th-century Chinese rebellion led by a man who said he was Jesus's younger brother, Eastern Lightning holds that Jesus's sister has come to Earth and is Chinese.

he world is losing the war against malaria. Once considered near eradication, malaria today kills more than a million people a year in Africa alone. One reason is that wealthy nations have limited the use of one of the best weapons, a pesticide that once saved hundreds of millions of lives.

...

Today, malaria control relies mainly on insecticide-treated bed nets and drugs, most of which have lost effectiveness as malaria grows resistant. DDT, which is sprayed on the inside walls of houses twice a year, is used in only about 24 countries. Wealthy nations that banned DDT at home will not pay for its use elsewhere. But the poorest nations depend on such donations. America used DDT to eradicate malaria, as did southern Europe and India.

...

The developed world has been unconscionably stingy in financing the fight against malaria or research into alternatives to DDT. Until one is found, wealthy nations should be helping poor countries with all available means ? including DDT.

[T]he California Supreme Court is considering a proposal that would forbid the 1,600 judges in the state to belong to the Boy Scouts because of its refusal to accept gays.

California judges are prohibited from joining groups that discriminate based on sexual orientation, but nonprofit youth organizations are exempt. The Supreme Court took up the proposal to consider changing the rule at the request of bar associations in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

A spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America reacted with outrage to the proposal, which was announced on Thursday.

"It would be wrong, inappropriate and unconstitutional," the spokesman, Gregg Shields, said. "The proposed policy would be just as inappropriate as a policy forbidding judges from being Roman Catholic or Baptist or Orthodox Jewish or any of numerous faiths which share the Boy Scouts' views."

Last week the New York Times reported that President Bush was considering nominating me (Douglas W. Kmiec) to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. While many friends from my days in the Justice Department, former students now practicing at law firms across the country, and sitting judges wrote or called to encourage this development, a stark, inside-the-Beltway question emerged from the report: Can an avowedly pro-life Catholic actually serve on such court?

The Times noted fairly that over my 25 years teaching law, I have "written about the need for judges to interpret the Constitution with an eye to what . . . scholars call 'natural law.' " Properly, the report traced this conviction not to a particular religious belief but to the country's fundamental incorporation document--the Declaration of Independence.

It was my assumption that the average, well-informed citizen would find all this to be rather more basic than controversial, but this is not the way of activists with fax machines in Washington. By the afternoon, the speculation of my nomination produced an overly heated press release from an organization that styles itself the Alliance for Justice--a group that generally opposes Bush nominees, but apparently has a special dislike for those who are pro-life.

"The enormous success for Orbitz is directly related to these pop-unders," said Mark Rattin, creative director for Chicago-based Otherwise. "There's an enormous segment of the population that are appreciating these ads."

A Venango County elementary school performance was canceled after parents objected to scenes in which third- through fifth-grade students re-enacted human sacrifices in the Aztec civilization.

The performance, titled "Bizarre Bazaar," was supposed to be the culmination of a monthlong social studies program to teach students about world cultures, including the Chinese, ancient Egyptians and Aztec Indians.

Administrators at Pleasantville Elementary School in the Titusville School District canceled the Tuesday night show after some parents who watched a rehearsal felt parts of the program were inappropriate for their young children. "Bizarre Bazaar" was to be acted out before first- through fifth-graders at the school in Venango County north of Pittsburgh.

"I was very disappointed that those in charge . . . didn't see anything wrong with this type of production, especially around Christmas," said Keith Klinger, the father of first- and third-graders at Pleasantville Elementary. "I had no problem with it up until the violent content of the human sacrifices."

It may be that the bad few weeks the administration has just had were the result of random events. But I think the public is finally waking up to the fact that the people in the White House know a lot about gaining power, but not much about what to do with it.

To be sure, it is difficult to imagine that Reagan was oblivious to the historical baggage of the phrase "states' rights" in Mississippi, and it cannot be ruled out that he was conscious of the problematic implication of his choice of words, just as Jimmy Carter was not presumed innocent of his use of "ethnic purity" in 1976. But "states' rights" was a sound principle of federalism that was debased by Democratic party rule in the south, for which it is not Republicans who owe an apology. Reagan had a long and well-known record of criticizing centralized government power, and this is how the media at the time interpreted his statement. "Most of those at the rally," the New York Times reported, "apparently regarded the statement as having been made in that context." And as a westerner Reagan had fully associated himself with the "Sagebrush Rebellion," for whom "states' rights" had no racial content, but rather meant wresting control of land from Washington. This was far from an outlandish or minority view. The same day Reagan made his "states' rights" remark in Mississippi, the National Governors Association issued what the Associated Press described as "a militant call for reduced federal involvement in state and local affairs." Arizona's liberal Democratic Governor Bruce Babbitt wrote in a New York Times op-ed article that "It is time to take hard look at 'states' rights' -- and responsibilities -- and to sort out the respective functions of the federal government and the states." I missed where Jack White added Babbitt to his roster of racists (never mind Carter's calculated appeal to "ethnic purity" in 1976).

To liberals, however, employing the phrase "states' rights" in any context is to waive the bloody shirt of racism and segregation. Little time was wasted in accusing Reagan not simply of pandering to old-fashioned segregationist sentiment in the south, but of actively sympathizing with it. Patricia Harris, Carter's secretary of Health and Human Services, told a steelworkers' union conference in early August: "I will not attempt to explain why the KKK found the Republican candidate and the Republican platform compatible with the philosophy and guiding principles of that notorious organization."

Carville, also a co-host of CNN's "Crossfire," faxed a letter to Lott's office Wednesday, both accepting the senator's apology and pledging not to criticize him further for comments made recently or for comments Lott has made in the past on the issue of race.

"If, as you have claimed, your recent troubles have truly spurred you to seek redemption and find ways to improve race relations in this country, I applaud you," Carville wrote.

"Remember, Senator, we all make errors. Committing errors is not a tragedy, but failing to learn from them is a grave one. You say you've learned. I believe you. That settles it."

Two more Westerners -- one of them a Canadian -- have stepped forward with allegations that they were tortured by Saudi officials who wanted them to confess to bombings in Riyadh.

The allegations will be aired tonight on the CBC program The Fifth Estate.

Ron Jones, a British accountant, was injured in a bomb blast outside a bookstore in Riyadh in March, 2001. He said he suffered scorching along the left side of his body, but was taken from hospital to a jail where he was beaten with a cane on the soles of his feet in an attempt to get him to confess to the bombing that injured him.

"He just swung this cane on to the soles of my feet and then he screamed at me, 'Don't move your feet.' The pain was absolutely excruciating," Mr. Jones said.

"I was screaming 'I haven't done anything, why are you doing this?' and the more I screamed, the more they hit.

"I remember saying to them, 'I'll tell you anything you want, just please don't hit me again.' "

Mr. Jones had been in the company of a Canadian at the time of the bookstore bombing. The Canadian was also detained by Saudi authorities and said he suffered beatings and sleep deprivation during his 60 days in a Saudi jail. He was spirited from the country by Canadian authorities, who told him not to talk to the press. His name has never been released and he has requested anonymity.

"How do they think they got a majority in the South anyway?" Clinton told CNN outside a business luncheon he was attending. "I think what they are really upset about is that he made public their strategy."

He added: "They try to suppress black voting, they ran on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina, and from top to bottom the Republicans supported it."

When they offer to take you to the children's hospital, refuse. They always take you to a children's hospital. There is nothing to learn there, other than that Iraq has children, and they sometimes wind up in the hospital. Your time would be better spent staying home and watching reruns of "ER".


Likewise, ignore the baby food factories, the glorious arts and entertainment facilities, and the city's best eating establishment. If you want to be taken seriously, learn to at least recognize when someone is trying to blow sunshine up your ass. Potemkin villages have fooled nitwits like you for decades. By now, you should know better.

The media were shocked, shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for segregation - something that was obvious long before Mr. Lott inserted his foot in his mouth. One of these years they'll be equally shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for theocracy.

Of course, the administration insists that the new policy isn't intended to allow government-funded proselytizing. And it would surely deny that by explicitly permitting religious discrimination in hiring - organizations that receive federal contracts can "take faith into account in making employment decisions" - it is opening up a new source of patronage for its friends on the Christian right.

Why am I not reassured?

By the way, one piece of that biblical worldview involves scientific education. After the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay suggested that the tragedy had occurred "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud." Guns don't kill people; Charles Darwin kills people.

Mr. DeLay isn't an obscure crank; he's the most powerful man in Congress. Still, is he an outlier? No. Don Nickles, now challenging the wounded Mr. Lott for Senate leadership, is less given to colorful statements, but is as closely aligned with the religious right as Mr. DeLay.

And the influence of the religious right spreads much further. The Internet commentator Atrios, who played a key role in bringing Mr. Lott's past to light, now urges us to look into the secretive Council for National Policy. This blandly named organization was founded by Tim LaHaye, co-author of the apocalyptic "Left Behind" novels, and is in effect a fundamentalist pressure group. As of 1998 the organization's membership contained many leading Congressional figures in the Republican Party, though none of the party's neoconservative intellectuals.

George W. Bush gave a closed-door speech to the council in 1999, after which the religious right in effect endorsed his candidacy. Accounts vary about what he promised, and the organization has refused to release the tape.

But it's notable that he appointed John Ashcroft as attorney general; Mr. Ashcroft gives every appearance of placing his biblical worldview above secular concerns about due process.

I'd like to think that the furor over Trent Lott's nostalgia for Jim Crow, hidden in plain sight for years, would serve as a signal to ask about other uncomfortable truths hidden in plain sight. But I suspect that it won't, that we'll soon go back to worrying about politicians' haircuts.

And then, years from now, when it becomes clear that much public policy has been driven by a hard-line fundamentalist agenda, people will say "But nobody told us."

For months now Prince Bandar has watched American distrust of Saudi Arabia climb even as his kingdom is spending millions to fix its battered image. But the exodus of three founding partners from the Saudi's U.S. public relations firm, Qorvis Communications, suggests that the Saudi ambassador's problem is not limited to the American public. Apparently even the people selling the Saudi line aren't buying it.

How many times during the midterm campaign did Democrats say that a vote for Republicans was a vote to abolish Social Security, ban abortion, gut environmental laws, and put right-wing extremists on the bench? The people voted. Let the fun begin!

But Mr. Lott is not the only culprit here. The Republican Party has become a haven for white racist attitudes and anti-black policies. The party of Lincoln is now a safe house for bigotry. It's the party of the Southern strategies and the Willie Horton campaigns and Bob Jones University and the relentless and unconscionable efforts to disenfranchise black voters. For those who now think the Democratic Party is not racist enough, the answer is the G.O.P. And there are precious few voices anywhere in the G.O.P. willing to step up and say that this is wrong.

Much of the current success of the Republican Party was built on the deliberate exploitation of very similar sentiments. One of the things I remember about Mr. Reagan's 1980 presidential run was that his first major appearance in the general election campaign was in Philadelphia, Miss., which just happened to be the place where three civil rights workers ? Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney ? were murdered in 1964.

During that appearance, Mr. Reagan told his audience, "I believe in states' rights."

Enough said.

But criticism of Mr. Lott has also come from the right. The four Republican appointees to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, who include civil-rights scholar Abigail Thernstrom, issued a joint statement in which they said his comments "were particularly shameful coming from a leader of the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, and the party that supported all of these essential steps forward far more vigorously than the Democratic Party, which at the time was the home of Congressional southerners committed to white supremacy." The landmark 1964 Civil Rights legislation, as historians have noted, could not have passed without lopsided support by Republicans. Twenty-one Senate Democrats voted against the bill, but only six Republicans voted nay--although one of them was Barry Goldwater, the party's presidential standard-bearer that year, who opposed it on libertarian rather than racial grounds.

The crescendo of criticism now coming in comes from all the usual suspects, including liberals who gave a complete pass last year to Sen. Robert Byrd, then the Appropriations Committee chairman, when the West Virginia Democrat and former Ku Klux Klan member referred to "white niggers" in an interview with Fox News Channel's Tony Snow.

Last week, a German investigator testified that the business card of a diplomat from the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Berlin was found in (Mounir) el Motassadeq's apartment. On Tuesday, the embassy said the diplomat did not know the suspect and the embassy did not know how el Motassedeq got the card, Schulz said.

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil. Never good.

[A] man from Mars ? or from Europe ? might expect Mississippi voters to favor progressive taxation and generous social programs. After all, the state benefits immensely from the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson: it doesn't pay a lot of federal taxes because it has the lowest per-capita income in the nation, and it does receive a lot of aid. Unlike, say, New Jersey, which pays far more into the U.S. Treasury than it gets in return, Mississippi is a major net recipient of federal funds.

But Mississippi is, in fact, the home of Trent Lott ? a leader of a party determined to roll back as much as it can of the Great Society, perhaps even the New Deal. Why do Mississippi and its neighbors support politicians whose economic policies seemingly run counter to their interests?

Fifty years ago the politics of race in America weren't at all disguised. Jim Crow laws both impoverished and disenfranchised Southern blacks; Southern whites voted for politicians who promised to keep things that way. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act ended overt discrimination. Yet race remains a major factor in our politics.

Indeed, this year efforts to suppress nonwhite votes were remarkably blatant. There were those leaflets distributed in black areas of Maryland, telling people they couldn't vote unless they paid back rent; there was the fuss over alleged ballot fraud in South Dakota, clearly aimed at suppressing Native American votes. Topping it off was last Saturday's election in Louisiana, in which the Republican Party hired black youths to hold signs urging their neighbors not to vote for Mary Landrieu.

According to officials, the FBI has uncovered the registration of minors, dead people, and people who do not exist. Many of the registrations have included bogus names and invalid addresses.

Investigators said in one case a woman was registered to vote a week after her death.

They have also found multiple absentee ballots distributed to the same registered voter but returned with different signatures, the officials said.

The case was brought to the attention of the South Dakota attorney general's office when county auditors began discovering problems with absentee ballot requests and votes. State Attorney General Mark Barnett said the investigation has been ongoing for two weeks.

Barnett said that he hoped invalid absentee ballots haven't been filed. Absentee voting began Sept. 24 and the registration deadline is Oct. 21.

"I don't even want to think about it," Barnett said. "A lot of absentee ballots are going to get looked at."

The Middle East Media Research Institute translates a Web article by Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-Arifi, imam of the mosque at Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Defense Academy:

We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it. Yes, the Christians, who carve crosses on the breasts of the Muslims in Kosovo--and before then in Bosnia, and before then in many places in the world--will yet pay us the Jiziya [poll tax paid by non-Muslims under Muslim rule], in humiliation, or they will convert to Islam.

OK, this is silly. Rome is not about to fall to the Wahhabis. But how come when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson say foolish things about Islam, Third World Muslims go on murder sprees and all right-thinking Westerners condemn them, while Muslim clerics are able to say stuff like this without anyone batting an eye?

(Amnesty International's) secretary general, Irene Khan, wrote recently that "this selective attention to human rights is nothing but a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists. Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to Amnesty International's reports of widespread human rights violations in Iraq before the Gulf War."

Opposition to a war on Iraq has a long way to go before it rivals the draft-card burnings and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, but a new anti-war movement is growing muscle. Some Canadians already have left for Iraq to serve as human shields against bomb attacks on Baghdad. More will follow before Christmas.

Irene Vandas and Jennifer Ziemann of Vancouver are heading to Iraq on Friday. Vandas, a 32-year-old registered nurse, and Ziemann, a 30-year-old home-care worker, will fly to Amsterdam, board a plane to Amman, Jordan, then drive into Iraq all the way to Baghdad where they will live with Iraqi civilians. There, they will join friends Linda Morgan and Irene MacInnes, two Canadians who travelled to Iraq in mid-November.

The four Canadians, sponsored by an anti-war organization called Voices in the Wilderness, have volunteered to be human shields in an effort to dissuade American-led forces from attacking Iraq. "I'm not too scared," Vandas told CBC News Online the day before she left. "I think it will be a powerful experience."

The question we need to ask, then, is why schools must lower standards to have a decent number of middle-class black students on campus. Over the past few years, a study by the Minority Student Achievement Network of 15 middle-class school districts has shown that black students tend to lag severely even in well-heeled suburbs, despite mentoring programs and well-sensitized teachers.

And one of the main reasons for this is cultural. In the late '60s, partly in response to the racism so much more prevalent then, black teens began teasing peers who strove to do well in school as "acting white." Several academics have examined this sad phenomenon, which is so entrenched in young black culture that one could barely grow up African American and miss it.

"Nerd," a word familiar to children of all races, is one thing. But to accuse a child of "acting white" is to accuse him or her of racial self-hatred. Given a choice between scholarly success and peer acceptance, the typical sixth-grader will choose the latter.

While one may condemn the way Xu (Ming Li) was treated as inconsistent with human rights, we cannot say that the record compels us to conclude that her treatment was an 'extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment,' or that she would likely face such treatment on her return.

At the exam, she was held down while a doctor examined her "private parts,'' Xu, then 19, said according to court records.

Xu said she was told she would receive similar tests in the future, and if found pregnant, would be subject to an abortion. She said officials told her her boyfriend, Xin, then 21, could also be sterilized.

"I was so scared. I was yelling. I was making noises,'' Xu said, according to court documents, adding that officials threatened her, "For the rest of your life you cannot have child.''

Li told him to stop interfering, and that she planned to have many babies with her boyfriend.

Saudi Arabia is working to form an Arab coalition to oppose any U.S. drive to impose democracy on the Middle East.

Arab diplomatic sources said the kingdom has been consulting with Egypt, Syria and the Gulf states regarding the ramifications of post-Saddam reforms in Iraq. The sources said Saudi Arabia is concerned that it will be the next target of the Bush administration.

"The Saudi efforts want to ensure that no major Arab country will plot against Riyad or any other regime targeted by the United States," a diplomatic source said. "While Washington opposed Iraq on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, the Saudis are worried that Washington will use the banner of democracy."

"The largest cost of the Bush tax giveaway will not be borne by any of us here today -- it will be paid for by our children. We're borrowing from Social Security and Medicare to put money in our pockets today -- and sticking our children with the bill."

...

To focus tax relief on lower and middle income workers, Kerry proposed "a payroll tax holiday" on the first $10,000 of income, meaning no Social Security tax could be collected on that amount.

[C]arping critics of the conservative movement have been known to say that its economic program consists of little more than tax cuts, tax cuts and more tax cuts. I may even have said that myself. If so, I apologize. Emboldened by the midterm election, key conservative ideologues have now declared their support for tax increases - but only for people with low incomes.

This complicated system of progressivity and targeted rewards is creating a nation of two different tax-paying classes: those who pay a lot and those who pay very little. And as fewer and fewer people are responsible for paying more and more of all taxes, the constituency for tax cutting, much less for tax reform, is eroding. Workers who pay little or no taxes can hardly be expected to care about tax relief for everybody else. They are also that much more detached from recognizing the costs of government.

All of which suggests that the last thing the White House should do now is come up with more exemptions, deductions and credits that will shrink the tax-paying population even further.

Most Canadians and most Europeans are kind, gentle people but, Bush-wise, they're the ones who are mentally challenged. The "moron" line is simply inadequate: no rational person can believe a twice-elected Texas Governor, successful US President and overthrower of the Taliban is a moron unless a majority of Americans are morons, too. And in that case how come the morons have a global dominance unparalleled in history? As with those wacky Arabs and their Zionist conspiracies, Euro-Canadian anti-Americanism is a psychosis.

In fairness to the late Ayatollah Khomeini, when he dubbed the US the Great Satan he at least understood that America is a tempter, a seducer: his slur attempts to explain its appeal. Calling America the Great Moron, by contrast, is just feeble. I happen to like moral clarity myself, but I can appreciate that for some tastes Bush's habit of dividing the world into "good" and "evil" and using these terms non-ironically might seem a little simplistic. But it's nowhere near as simplistic as dividing the world into "I'm right" and "you're stupid".

Before any Democrat -- or moderate Republican -- makes the political calculation to just go along with making every element of the Bush tax cut permanent, he or she should understand how even the most modest tweaking of the tax cut for high earners could make a crucial difference for national savings, homeland security, Social Security and our ability to address the country's most compelling challenges in education, health and poverty. [emphasis added]

People for whom religion is the source of wisdom and truth, whose religious and civic lives are seamlessly connected, and who hold governmental authority must be greatly tempted to do what they can to place truth on the throne. Maybe they have to make the effort.

But isn't that just the effort that was made by the Taliban? Doesn't that urge, or something like it, drive the religious zealotry that, ultimately, justifies much international terrorism? Aren't those right-thinking clerics in Nigeria who want to stone that allegedly adulterous woman to death (but who seem willing to look the other way with regard to her sexual partner) acting out of their sense of truth?

We are a long way from establishing anything like the Taliban in America -- but not far at all from having imposed on us a version of truth that would justify the suspension of our civil liberties and other constitutional inconveniences. We won't stone anybody to death for objecting to having their computers downloaded, or for declining to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or for skipping the "under God" addendum. But there are those who would extract a price for these breaches -- and evidence that the rest of us might let them -- if only for the duration of the "crisis."

The NRA's lead attorney, Charles Cooper, argues:

The Supreme Court has held that the only permissible reason for restricting campaign expenditures is to prevent corruption of public officials or the appearance of it. But how can corruption or its appearance arise from political communications by a voluntary membership organization whose communications are paid for by 4.3 million members who make themselves heard by pooling dues and contributions that average $30?

Cooper, using language from the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, writes that the NRA's voice reverberates in Congress because the organization is "millions of Americans speaking in unison. That 'is not a corruption of the democratic political process; it is the democratic political process.' "

One example cited in the legal filings concerned Citizens for Reform, a murky nonprofit corporation. In 1996, the group paid for television commercials in several congressional districts, including Montana's lone House district, where Democrat Bill Yellowtail was running against Republican Rick Hill.

"Who is Bill Yellowtail?" the commercial asked. "He preaches family values, but took a swing at his wife. And Yellowtail's response? He only slapped her, but 'her nose was not broken.' . . . Call Bill Yellowtail. Tell him to support family values."

Yellowtail lost to Hill in the election.