E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post, October 5, 2007 WASHINGTON - Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it? This is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush's request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq. The proposal is a magnificent way to test the seriousness of those who claim that the Iraq war is an essential part of the global war on terror. If the war's backers believe in it so much, it should be easy for them to ask taxpayers to put up the money for such an important endeavor. Obey makes the case pointedly. "Some people are being asked to pay with their lives or their faces or their hands or their arms or their legs," he said in an interview this week. "If you're going to ask for that, it doesn't seem too much to ask an average taxpayer to pay thirty bucks for the cost of the war so we don't have to shove it off on our kids." Or as Obey said in a statement, "I'm tired of seeing that only military families are asked to sacrifice in this war." Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership ran away from this idea as fast as you could say the words "Republican majority." That, of course, is what Democrats are afraid of. "Just as I have opposed the war from the outset," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "I am opposed to a war surtax." Read More Here

  Milton Viorst, October 4, 2007 About 30 or so years ago, when I first began to write of my concern that Israel was embarked on a course that would lead only to recurring wars, or perhaps worse, I received a letter from Abraham H. Foxman, then as now the voice of the Anti-Defamation League, admonishing me as a Jew not to wash our people"s dirty linen in public. I still have it in my files. His point, of course, was not whether the washing should be public or private; he did not offer an alternative laundry. His objective was - and remains - to squelch anyone who is critical of Israel"s policies. In the ensuing years, Foxman and a legion of like-minded leaders, most but not all of them Jewish, have been remarkably successful in suppressing an open and frank debate on Israel"s course. In view of Israel"s impact on America"s place in the world, it is astonishing how little discussion its role has generated. As a practical matter, the subject has been taboo. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, professors of political science at the University of Chicago and Harvard"s John F. Kennedy School of Government, respectively, have challenged this taboo in their new book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." Foxman, in an effort to discredit them, has written a rejoinder in his book "The Deadliest Lies: The Jewish Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control." The controversy over Mearsheimer and Walt"s views has been going on since March of last year, when they first presented their argument in the London Review of Books. In their essay, they contended that support of the magnitude that the United States gives Israel might have been justified during the Cold War but is not defensible, "on either strategic or moral grounds," under the conditions that currently prevail in the Middle East. America"s unconditional backing, they argued, is harmful to its own interests and possibly even to Israel"s, and it is made possible only by the influence of the Israel lobby over U.S. foreign policy. The article touched a sensitive chord among many of Israel"s defenders, generating a furor. Now Mearsheimer and Walt have written a book which, while more comprehensive at nearly 500 pages, recapitulates the original themes. Foxman acknowledges basing his book-length reply on the article, so impatient was he to proclaim its authors guilty of "distortions, omissions and errors." The late social critic Irving Howe, deeply committed to Israel himself, used to argue that Jewish leaders like Foxman depend for their status on ceaselessly trumpeting the dangers faced by the Jewish people, and particularly by Israel, from a hostile world. These leaders, Howe insisted, exploit the scars which inquisitions, pogroms and the Holocaust have left on the collective Jewish psyche, scars which distort Jewish political judgment. Foxman is no doubt sincere in agonizing over the dangers that Jews have historically faced. But Howe argued that these dangers had become a vested interest for the leaders of Jewish organizations, making an open and honest debate all but impossible in American Jewish circles and in America"s political culture generally. Read More Here

Should Senator Hillary Clinton be the Democratic nominee for President? That is a question that is being discussed all over the country as Clinton continues to lead by large margins in national polls. Most of us that follow the campaign know that polls now can be deceiving but one thing is clear, the Clinton campaign surely feels a certain sense of being invulnerable leading into the first series of contests after the first of the year. There is a problem with all this talk of Clinton as front runner and being a shoo in for the nomination. Polls taken where things really count, in the actual states that have the first primaries and caucuses show a different scenario than the national polls. The new Des Moines Iowa polls shows just six points separating Clinton, Obama and Edwards with Clinton in the lead, and the new Newsweek poll shows a similar spread with Obama in the lead. What do these Iowa polls mean? Probably nothing right now. They are however, dramatically different than the national polls and that should be unsettling for the Clinton campaign in particular because there are similar numbers coming out of New Hampshire. Here lies the danger of anointing a front runner so early. With a loss in either Iowa or New Hampshire the Clinton juggernaut would be severely wounded. A loss, no matter what national polls and her handlers say, would create a huge uphill battle similar to what happened to Howard Dean in 2004. Compounding these new polls are the sense that many people also believe that Clinton would be a lightening rod for conservatives. It has been said that many conservatives would over look Rudi Guiliani's liberal social agenda just to keep Clinton out. Edwards has the most to gain by this scenario. Edwards unlike Obama has the national campaign experience, solid name recognition and more often better programs and agendas. Edwards is also a favorite of Democratic politicians struggling to hold onto seats in contentious districts and those hoping to knock off an incumbent GOP candidate. Many fear that Clinton has too many negatives and would be a detriment to their congressional campaigns. Pollsters will continue to release their national polls but what counts in the end will be those that sit in Iowa living rooms and those casting ballots in New Hampshire polling stations. One loss for Clinton and all bets are off.

The Associated Press, October 6, 2007 JENA, La. (AP) -- A video in which rapper-actor Mos Def asked students around the country to walk out Oct. 1 to support the "Jena Six" escaped comment by this town's mayor. But when John Mellencamp sang, "Jena, take your nooses down," he took issue. "The town of Jena has for months been mischaracterized in the media and portrayed as the epicenter of hatred, racism and a place where justice is denied," Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin wrote in a statement on town letterhead faxed on Friday to The Associated Press. He said he had previously stayed quiet, hoping that the town's courtesy to people who have visited over the past year would speak for itself. "However, the Mellencamp video is so inflammatory, so defamatory, that a line has been crossed and enough is enough." Mellencamp could not comment immediately because he was on a plane from California to Indiana and had not heard about McMillin's comments, publicist Bob Merlis said late Friday. A brief note from Mellencamp posted Thursday on his Web site says he is telling a story, not reporting. "The song is not written as an indictment of the people of Jena but, rather, as a condemnation of racism," it says. Read More Here

The Associated Press, October 7, 2007 BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Sen. Larry Craig has been chosen for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame, despite his well-publicized arrest and guilty plea in an airport sex sting, officials said. Sen. Larry Craig was selected for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame in March. The nonprofit Idaho Hall of Fame Association picked Craig in March, months before he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after a Minneapolis airport police officer accused him of soliciting sex in the men's restroom, the organization's board chairman said. "Larry Craig has made a great contribution to Idaho over the period of 20-some years. At the time it was considered, this other matter had not come up," Harry Magnuson told The Spokesman-Review newspaper Saturday. But some Republicans said the honor is inappropriate now. Kootenai County Republican precinct committeeman Phil Thompson said Idaho Hall of Fame officials should consider at least postponing the induction. Read More Here

David Broder, The Washington Post, October 7, 2007 The day had been full of ominous warnings. Polls showed the Republicans on the losing side of almost every issue and the 2008 presidential race -- and now they're forced to defend a controversial veto of a popular children's health bill. But Tom Cole, the 58-year-old Oklahoma representative who this year took on the responsibility for running the GOP's congressional campaign, was remarkably sanguine -- considering. He had been reading about the Post-ABC News poll showing that Hillary Rodham Clinton had established a commanding lead for the Democratic presidential nomination and was beating Rudy Giuliani, the current Republican front-runner, 51 percent to 43 percent in a hypothetical matchup. The same poll showed President Bush's approval rating at 33 percent, equaling his historic low, and congressional Republicans' even lower, at 29 percent, the lowest ever recorded for them. Democrats are trusted more than Republicans when it comes to handling Iraq, health care, the economy and the federal budget, the poll said, and the two parties are tied on terrorism -- supposedly the Republicans' strong suit. So how could he be reasonably satisfied with his party's prospects? The answer: The Democrats are also looking like dogs. Read More Here