Michelle Malkin on the Death of the Immigration Bill

She's declaring victory.

Russia Shuts Down Internews on Smuggling Charges

Today's Washington Post reports that the Russian Government has shut down Internews--recently re-branded the Educated Media Foundation--after arresting an executive carrying some $12,000 in cash at a Moscow airport on smuggling charges:

Authorities targeted the Educated Media Foundation after its head was found with slightly more than $12,500 in undeclared currency at a Moscow airport, an offense that routinely would be settled with a fine, lawyers said.

Instead, Manana Aslamazyan, 55, is facing up to five years in prison on smuggling charges. Her organization, previously called Internews Russia, is accused of money laundering -- an allegation that Russian journalists and civic activists, as well as Western diplomats, dismissed as absurd.

But to me, the reported protests by Western diplomats appear as feeble as Vice President Cheney's claims that his office is not part of the Executive Branch. The Post admits, later in the same story, that there was indeed a great deal of funny-money, provided by US taxpayers, flowing through Internews:

According to Interior Ministry documents provided to The Washington Post, the investigation expanded to include suspected money laundering by the foundation.

"In order to reveal facts of legalizing (laundering) of money or other property obtained in a criminal way, financial and other accounting documents were taken from the offices," stated one report. "During the investigation it was revealed that the following money transfers by foreign organizations were made to the bank account of 'Educated Media' during the period of December 2006 to March 2007: 70,000 euros from Internews Europe Association (France) and $300,000 from Financial Service Center (USA). However, there is no data on spending those amounts."

Internews Europe is an organization affiliated with the Educated Media Foundation. The Financial Services Center is the U.S. State Department disbursing office that makes overseas payments for U.S. agencies with foreign operations, according to a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman.

The $300,000 was a scheduled disbursement from the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to U.S. officials and Aslamazyan.

Since 2004, USAID has given approximately $8 million to the Educated Media Foundation and its predecessor organization, Internews Russia. From 1998 to 2004, the United States provided almost $30 million to Internews U.S., some of which was sent to the organization's Russian arm.

I visited the Internews office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan while a Fulbright scholar in 2002-2003. That same year, there was a scandal when the new director of the office published her online diary--and insulted the Uzbek employees of her own organization, while airing dirty linen about sexual hijinks among American expatriates. Her website was eventually shut down and she left the country, but the snapshot of Internews lifestyles was not flattering to say the least. I was particularly struck by an anti-American tone among some of the Internews employees. One Internews executive later told me at a Harvard University conference that he did not consider Internews to be an American NGO--or required to promote American interests--because its office in Paris was funded by European and some non-govenmental sources. I asked him, then why should the US government pay for Internews at all? Eventually the debate became moot--after the Uzbek government shut down Internews.

Considering how Americans would react if an international journalism program paying cash to American reporters were discovered to employ staffers smuggling cash into the country, funded by the Russian government, one cannot be surprised at the hostility this Internews scandal has provoked from the Russians. Here's an interesting excerpt from a profile of Internews founder David Hoffman in the Johns Hopkins alumni magazine:

As he contemplates Internews' future, Hoffman confronts paradox. He believes that media need to be independent of government control. Yet 80 percent of his organization's money comes from the U.S. government. Hoffman insists that Internews turns down money from any source if it carries a requirement to promote an American geo-political agenda, but he knows perception can hurt Internews. "In the Middle East," he says, "training sessions often begin with discussion of whether Internews is really U.S. propaganda, or the CIA." As he looks at the increasing consolidation of media ownership in the U.S., and the Bush administration's efforts to influence and even package the news reported to the American public, he calls Internews' support for independent media in this country "the great undone." Yet while support for Internews has been bipartisan, Hoffman believes political conservatives have been stronger supporters than liberals. "Free media tends to be a libertarian concept," he says. "Liberals are more accommodating to state-run media and state institutions generally."

So, according to Hoffman's own testimony, the US taxpayer is getting the worst deal imaginable from Internews, the worst of both worlds--money spent without any support for the American geo-political agenda, yet generating a public perception of a CIA operation. Which is the situation I saw in Uzbekistan, and matches what the Central Asia executive for Internews told me at Harvard. In other words, it is the official party line at Internews.

In the end, Vladimir Putin may have done a big favor to the Bush administration by shutting down Internews in Russia.

Instead of wasting money on NGOs like Internews, that have harmed America's interests and contributed to the loss of Russia and the post-Soviet space, the US government will be forced to return to more traditional forms of government-to-government public diplomacy that have a better chance of genuinely improving America's standing among today's Russian general public and opinion leaders.

In fact, President Bush might consider using this scandal as a reason for closing down Internews entirely, including the lavish Paris headquarters...as a gift to the American taxpayer.

Melanie Phillips is Worried...

...About David Miliband as UK Foreign Secretary. But not about Gordon Brown's new chief foreign policy advisor, Simon McDonald:

So is Britain’s new Prime Minister Gordon Brown going to defend the free world or surrender it to its enemies? Will he cut through all the dissimulation and manipulation by jihadis and their western useful idiots and instead call the threat to the free world by its proper name? Will he ignore the ever-increasing defeatism and pressure for appeasement, or will he genuflect to the prevalent anti-Americanism and go along with the moral and intellectual inversion that supports genocidal aggressors and blames their victims? As the dust still settles today over the shape of his government, the signs are mixed and not a little alarming.

Simon McDonald, the UK’s former Ambassador to Israel, is a stalwart defender of Israel and is free of the Arabism that is the stock in trade of the Foreign Office. It is therefore a very positive sign that he is now Brown’s chief foreign policy adviser. However, the other signals are not so good. The new Foreign Secretary is David Miliband, who was reportedly opposed to war in Iraq and who attacked Israel’s action in Lebanon last year. He was reported to have joined other Cabinet colleagues in criticising Tony Blair for not breaking with President Bush by calling for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon — ie, Israel’s surrender to Iran. His appointment is thus a clear signal that Britain is now distancing itself from America. At such a terrifying time for the free world with Iran racing towards the bomb, to give such a signal that the western alliance is weakening amounts to a treasonable boost to the enemy.

Here's a link to an online chat with then-Ambassador McDonald, hosted by Ha'aretz. A sample:

How can Israeli-British relations be improved? What does Israel need to do in order to have more sound relations with Europe?
Khaim Kalontarov
New York, U.S.A.

Simon McDonald: Well, I think that Israel and Britain already have close ties in a whole variety of areas - from diplomatic, to defense to business to science and technology. Our prime ministers have a good working relationship. I think the same can also be said about Israel and Europe.

European leaders admire Prime Minister Sharon for his bold decision to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, but are also very aware of what a difficult period it was for Israelis. I believe that the relationship between Israel and Britain and Israel and Europe will continue to grow and be strengthened in coming years.

Spokane Paper Drops Unethical NY Times "Ethicist" Columnist

The Spokane Spokesman-Review has dropped Randy Cohen's "Ethicist" column after the New York Times and NPR contributor admitting violating ethics rules in an MSNBC report detailing political contributions by journalists.

Here's the account from Stephen A. Smith's Spokesman-Review blog:

Bill Dedman, investigative reporter for MSNBC, is making big waves in the news industry today with an online report that more than 140 journalists – at the least – have contributed to political campaigns or organizations in recent years, often in violation of their news organization’s ethics policies and certainly in violation of commonly accepted journalistic standards.

His story includes some pretty big names.

Fortunately, no one from The Spokesman-Review is on the list. This newspaper long ago adopted very strict rules against any political involvement on the part of any news staffer, including such actions as signing petitions, displaying campaign signs or bumper stickers and contributing to political causes. There wasn’t much debate. Journalists here understand why such a ban is important.

Dedman’s report is having an impact on this paper, however.

After months of discussion, we were prepared to start this Saturday publishing Randy Cohen’s “The Ethicist” column from The New York Times. But, jeepers, turns out Cohen gave money to MoveOn.org in 2004.

In Dedman’s story, this is how Cohen explains his actions: “…The former comedy writer gave $585 to MoveOn.org in 2004 when it was organizing get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat Bush. Cohen said he understands the (New York) Times policy (against such donations) and won't make donations again, but he had thought of MoveOn.org as no more out of bounds than the Boy Scouts. "We admire those colleagues who participate in their communities — help out at the local school, work with Little League, donate to charity," Cohen said in an e-mail. "But no such activity is or can be non-ideological. Few papers would object to a journalist donating to the Boy Scouts or joining the Catholic Church. But the former has an official policy of discriminating against gay children; the latter has views on reproductive rights far more restrictive than those of most Americans. Should reporters be forbidden to support those groups? I’d say not."

Features Editor Ken Paulman, who moved our popular Wheel Life column to the Sunday Travel section in part to make room for Cohen, spoke for the newsroom this morning when he said it would by hypocritical of us to run an ethics column by a journalist who is in violation of our own ethics policy. Had he been a Spokesman-Review staff member, he would have faced suspension, at least, for his misstep.

So, we’re dropping the column. We’ll look elsewhere for a publishable ethicist.

Still no word on this matter from the New York Times or NPR....

Ann Althouse on Paris Hilton & Larry King

From Althouse's blog:

It was mostly bland as hell, but there was one point in his interview with Paris Hilton where Larry King punctured her glossy veneer. She was all about how jail had transformed her and how she's going to devote herself to good causes -- children, homeless women, breast cancer, multiple sclerosis -- and she said she read a lot of books in jail. Really improving herself, you know. But then it seemed like the only thing she was reading was all the fan mail. Eventually, we hear about one book: the Bible. Did she read it every day? Yes! What's your favorite Bible passage? Uh, I don't really have a favorite....

You can read a transcript of Larry King's interview with Paris Hilton by clicking this link to the CNN website. An excerpt:

KING: Let's hear some of the things you -- what did you write in prison, in jail?

HILTON: Well, I had a lot of time alone, so I would write a lot. I actually have a journal with all the -- I left it at home...

KING: You kept a daily journal?

HILTON: Yes, I did.

OK.

This is one of the notes that I wrote: "They say when you reach a crossroad or a turning point in life, it really doesn't matter how we got there, but what we do next after we got there. Usually we arrive there by adversity, and then it is then, and only then, that we find out who we truly are and what we're truly made of. It's a process, a gift and a journey. And if we can travel it alone, although the road may be rough at the beginning, you find an ability to walk it, a way to start fresh again. It's neither a downfall nor a failure, but a new beginning."

And I also felt like this was a new beginning for me, just being in jail -- and I just used it as a journey to figure out myself and who I am and what I want to do. And there's -- there's just so much more to me than what people think.

KING: The writing helped?

HILTON: Yes. I have always loved to write. In school, I loved being in creative writing classes. I write scripts. I love to read.

KING: If you had to do it all over, you'd change a lot, wouldn't you?

HILTON: Yes. I definitely, you know, wish I knew now what, you know, back then. And so I definitely, when I have a daughter, I have a lot of good advice for her.

KING: You want a family?

HILTON: Definitely. Yes.

KING: You want to get married?

HILTON: Not right now. But within the next couple of years, I definitely -- I love kids and I can't wait, you know, to find someone and fall in love and have a big family.

KING: Do you think you'd be a load for someone now?

HILTON: It's hard -- I think someone just...

KING: I mean the guy is going to have to -- to come on...

HILTON: It's -- it's -- it's hard, you know, the media. Every time you're in a relationship, they all make up stories. And I think it just takes someone who doesn't care about that and someone who is just going to love me for me and not pay attention to all the other gossip.

KING: It would have to be a pretty strong guy.

HILTON: He's out there somewhere.

KING: Do you think you've found yourself?

HILTON: I -- I feel like I've started my journey and I'm going to continue every day to find out more and more about myself.

KING: What don't you like about Paris Hilton? What's a personality trait Paris Hilton would change?

HILTON: Something I, you know, when I get nervous or shy, my voice gets really high. I've been doing that ever since I was a little girl. And that's something that I don't like that I do. I like when I talk in my normal voice. But sometimes I go down and that's something I'm trying to change about myself.

Another British Mandate for Palestine?

ABC News reports Tony Blair will be special representative of the "Quartet" (USA, Russia, EU, & UN) to the Middle East. Hope Tony Blair can do a better job with this British Mandate than his Imperial predecessors did with theirs (if Britain had not restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine in the 1930s & 1940s, Hitler could not have managed to exterminate European Jewry during WWII).

NY Post: Don't Buy An iPhone Yet

Here's the first iPhone review I've seen, from Glenn Flesichmann in the New York Post.(ht Drudge) It's not too good:

It's the best iPod the company has ever made. The screen quality is fantastic, and the movies pivot automatically as you rotate the phone.

But it's not an iPod. It's a $500 or $600 communicator that requires a two-year calling commitment. Monthly charges haven't been announced, but judging by comparable offerings from AT&T and other carriers, it should run you at least $50 per month in voice service and $40 per month in data service. That adds more than $2,000 to the iPhone's price tag over two years even before buying music or movies!

Consider also that Apple engineers already are hard at work on iPhone 2.0.

Modern cell networks use third-generation (3G) standards that are five to 20 times faster than that in the iPhone. Jobs said the chips to make a 3G iPhone weren't available when they designed the iPhone; but they are now, and are in some competitors' less-featured but faster phones.

It also skimps on storage. The $600 iPhone comes with 8 gigabytes of storage, enough for 2,000 songs or 16 episodes of "Heroes." A $250 video iPod can handle 7,500 songs or about 25 hours of movies.

You can bet that iPhone 2.0, probably available within the next year, will be faster and have more storage - probably for the same price.

Tech geeks and some business travelers will wait in line Friday (or pay someone else). You should wait for the next version.

Camelia Entekhabifard

Speaking of Iran...I caught Camelia Entekhabifard on WYPR's Marc Steiner show, talking about her book Camelia: Save Yourself By Telling The Truth-A Memoir of Iran on Baltimore's 88.1 FM yesterday. Her story was extremely interesting and moving--basically how she survived prison and torture by seducing her interrogator, was accused of being a whore--and then served as a "maid" to an Iranian soccer player, finally escaping to the West after agreeing to spy for the Iranian mullahs on the son of the Shah. When she told him that she was a spy, he didn't believe her! It would make a great movie. Congratulations to Marc Steiner for having her on the air...for some reason, haven't heard Camelia Entekhabifard on any of the DC-based NPR shows. Makes me glad that I work in Baltimore--I can hear things that you don't get inside the Beltway...

You can buy the book from Amazon.com, here:

Nick Cohen on Sir Salman Rushdie's Knighthood

From The Guardian (UK) (ht Daniel Pipes):

What was Britain hoping to achieve? How did a country under a left-of-centre government expect to influence religious rightists? Did it hope that a conversation with Foreign Office ministers would persuade them to repent and become converts to the noble cause of the emancipation of women? Would an invitation to tea with a high commissioner be enough to shake them out of their hatred of homosexuals, Jews, free thinkers, liberals and secularists?

Get real, said Sir Derek: 'I suspect that there will be relatively few contexts in which we are able significantly to influence the Islamists' agenda.' Plumbly lost the power struggle against the pro-brotherhood faction in the Foreign Office, but the questions he raised then remain pertinent now, as the disgraceful reaction to Salman Rushdie's knighthood shows. Across the political spectrum, the ignorant and the terrified are arguing that if only Britain didn't provoke the zealots in Pakistan and Iran - and, indeed, in Sparkbrook and Tower Hamlets - by defending liberal values and honouring a great writer, their fury would pass and we would be safe.

In theory, they may have a case. We all appease in our daily lives and make concessions in order to get concessions in return. In practice, the Labour government has tested appeasement to destruction and, thankfully, turned back to principled politics

If you haven't read The Islamist, Ed Husain's memoir of his life on the religious right, it is worth doing so because he uses his inside knowledge to describe how Labour placated reactionaries who hated every progressive principle the centre-left holds. To take one of many examples, Husain tells how his journey into the wilds began when he joined the east London mosque, which was controlled by Jamat-e-Islami, the Muslim Brotherhood's south Asian sister organisation. After his disillusionment with far-right politics, he returned to the mosque bookshop and found Qutb's work on sale: '... with chapter headings such as "The virtues of killing a non-believer" and ideas such as "attacking the non-believers in their territories is a collective and individual duty". Just as I had done as a 16-year-old, hundreds of young Muslims are buying these books from Islamist mosques in Britain and imbibing the idea that killing non-believers is not only acceptable but the duty of a good Muslim.'

For all that, the mosque had received public subsidies and an apparent endorsement from Prince Charles. Labour ministers had flattered Jamat and Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), invited them into Downing Street and put them on policy commissions, even though in Bangladesh, Jamat thugs terrorise Bengali leftists who have every right to expect the support of their European comrades.

Labour's indulging of Jamat and the Muslim Brotherhood is over. Engagement for engagement's sake led nowhere and ministers got nothing in return for going along with the Islamists. The MCB was too willing to blame the 7/7 attacks on Iraq, while its refusal to participate in Holocaust Memorial Day showed that it had no commitment to either multiculturalism or anti-fascism. In the end, Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly and Tony McNulty at the Home Office shrugged their shoulders and walked away. Government policy is now to support British Muslims who uphold liberal values and oppose those who do not. Rushdie's knighthood was a sign of the changing mood. Labour politicians might have tried to impose a veto a few years ago; instead, they said: 'Are we going to allow British policy to be decided by dictatorial bigots, who want to inflame religious passion to divert attention from their own corruption?'

There is only one possible answer to that question and it remains astonishing how many people who profess liberal sympathies refuse to grasp it. Watch the discussion about Rushdie on last week's Question Time on the BBC website. You will see Shirley Williams, the representative of the Lib Dems and member of the great and the good, fail to offer a word of protest against men who would murder authors. All she does is condemn the government for honouring a novelist, until Peter Hitchens, a Mail on Sunday columnist who is usually dismissed as a spittle-flecked loon, reminds her that she needs to clear her throat with a few words of criticism for his would-be assassins, if only for form's sake.

Labour should stop worrying about the baroness and her kind and relax. If a liberal intelligentsia that is neither liberal nor noticeably intelligent and a Liberal Democrat party that can't stand up for liberalism and democracy want to attack the government, let them. They will pay a price for their moral cowardice one day.

Daniel Pipes on Sir Salman Rushdie's Knighthood

From DanielPipes.org:

These Islamist threats extend a drama begun on Valentine's Day, 1989 when Ayatollah Khomeini issued his death edict against Rushdie, stating that "the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses – which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly."

That very day, I went on television and predicted that the novelist would never escape the edict. He, however, experimented with appeasement in 1990 and with self-delusion since 1998, when the Iranian foreign minister declared his government no longer intent on murdering him. Rushdie wishfully deemed this "a breakthrough," concluding that the Khomeini edict "will be left to wither on the vine."

I warned Rushdie in 1998 against his giddy insistence on being in the clear. For one, the edict remained in place; Iranian leaders do not believe themselves competent to undo it (a point reiterated by an ayatollah, Ahmad Khatami, just the other day). For another, freelancers around the globe could still nominate themselves to fulfill Khomeini's call to action.

But Rushdie and his friends ignored these apprehensions. Christopher Hitchens, for example, thought Rushdie had returned to normal life. That became conventional wisdom; such insouciance and naïveté – rather than "backbone" – best explains awarding the knighthood.

I welcome the knighting because, for all his political mistakes, Rushdie is indeed a fine novelist. I wish I could agree with Dhume that this recognition of him suggests "the pendulum has begun to swing" in Britain against appeasing radical Islam.

But I cannot. Instead, I draw two conclusions: First, Rushdie should plan around the fact of Khomeini's edict being permanent, to expire only when he does. Second, the British government should take seriously the official Pakistani threat of suicide terrorism, which amounts to a declaration of war and an operational endorsement. So far, it has not done that.

Other than an ambassadorial statement of "deep concern," Whitehall insists that the minister's threat will not harm a "very good relationship" with Pakistan. It has even indicated that Ijaz ul-Haq is welcome in Britain if on a private visit. (Are suicide bombers also welcome, so long as they are not guests of the government?) Until the Pakistani authorities retract and apologize for Ijaz ul-Haq's outrageous statement, London must not conduct business-as-usual with Islamabad.

Now that would constitute "British backbone."

Christopher Hitchens on Sir Salman Rushdie's Knighthood

From Slate (ht lgf):

Of course, this is not to say that there isn't a lot of generalized self-pity and self-righteousness (as well as a lot of self-hatred) in the Muslim world. A minister in Pakistan's government—the son of revolting late dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, as it happens—appeared to say that Rushdie's knighthood would justify suicide bombing. But our media regularly make the assumption that the book burners and fanatics really do represent the majority, and that assumption has by no means been tested. (If it is ever tested, and it turns out to be true, then can we hear a bit less about how one of the world's largest religions mustn't be confused with its lunatic fringe?)

The acceptance of an honor by a distinguished ex-Muslim writer, who exercised his freedom to abandon his faith and thus courts a death sentence for apostasy in any case, came shortly after the remaining minarets of the Askariya shrine in Samarra were brought down in shards. You will recall that the dome itself was devastated by an explosion more than a year ago—an outrage described in one leading newspaper as the work of "Sunni insurgents," the soft name for al-Qaida. But what does "Rage Boy" have to say about this appalling desecration of a Muslim holy place? What resolutions were introduced into the "parliament" of Pakistan, denouncing such shameful profanity? You already know the answer to those questions. The lives of Shiite Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Christians—to say nothing of atheists or secularists—are considered by Sunni militants to be of little or no account. And yet they accuse those who criticize them of bigotry! And many people are so anxious to pre-empt this accusation that they ventriloquize the reactions of Sunni mobs as if they were the vox populi, all the while muttering that we must take care not to offend such supersensitive people.

This mental and moral capitulation has a bearing on the argument about Iraq, as well. We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world's Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government—along with the Israelis, of course—paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?

We may have to put up with the Rage Boys of the world, but we ought not to do their work for them, and we must not cry before we have been hurt. In front of me is a copy of this week's Economist, which states that Rushdie's 1989 death warrant was "punishment for the book's unflattering depiction of the Prophet Muhammad." There is no direct depiction of the prophet in this work of fiction, and the reverie about his many wives occurs in the dream of a madman. Nobody in Ayatollah Khomeini's circle could possibly have read the book for him before he issued a fatwah, which made it dangerous to possess. Yet on that occasion, the bookstore chains of America pulled The Satanic Verses from their shelves, just as Borders shamefully pulled Free Inquiry (a magazine for which I write) after it reproduced the Danish cartoons. Rage Boy keenly looks forward to anger, while we worriedly anticipate trouble, and fret about etiquette, and prepare the next retreat. If taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean living at the pleasure of Rage Boy, and that I am not prepared to do.

Will Tony Blair Convert to Roman Catholicism?

Speculation was published on page one of yesterday's Washington Times, after Blair met with Pope Benedict in Rome. And there's more today on the possibility of Blair's "pope-ing" to "RC" in the Irish Independent:

Faith has always been part of Cherie's life, and when she and Tony met in 1976, she seems to have influenced him in the same direction. Although she is, of course, far from being that stereotype, the "right-wing Catholic".

She is, rather, a Left-wing Catholic, much concerned with prisoners' rights and with other social-justice issues. On sexual morality, Cherie is progressive on gay civil rights - she has acted, as a lawyer, for lesbian fiscal equality: but on issues touching abortion, she is quietly supportive of pro-life causes.

Tony's own mother, Hazel, had actually been an Irish Protestant from the Donegal region. In fact, the family left Ireland soon after Partition. This may have influenced Blair in his commitment to a settlement in Northern Ireland. In any case, Hazel Blair died when Tony was a young man, and after that, Cherie became his guiding light in matters spiritual.

They married in an Anglican church, but later, Tony took to accompanying his wife and growing family to Mass.

All four children have been baptised and all have been raised as Catholics.

Indeed, he was so enthusiastic about Mass-going that Cardinal Basil Hume had to ask him to refrain from publicly taking Catholic Communion: there was, and is, as yet no agreed arrangement on inter-communion between Catholics and Anglicans. (Wars, after all, have been fought over "transubstantiation" versus "consubstantiation".)

For at least the last five years, it is said, Blair has been a Roman Catholic in all but name. His final conversion experience is dated to the birth of his fourth child, Leo.

And yet, his religious convictions have remained a mystery to a broad swathe of British Catholics, who feel that Blair's value-system shows scant evidence of Catholic values. There are already jokes going around imagining Tony Blair's "First Confession" as a full member of the Catholic church.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Father, I killed 600,000 people in Iraq .."

Three Hail Marys and a firm purpose of amendment, for many British Catholics - who are in the majority anti-war, as is the Pope - is not a sufficient tariff of repentence.

Tony's voting record on specifically Catholic issues, such as abortion, embryo stem cell research, and adoption rights for gay couples have also been at odds with official Catholic doctrine.

Yet this perhaps explains why he has not felt free to "pope" until after he leaves office. Perhaps he felt it would be not politically wise for a British Prime Minister to vote the Catholic ticket when in office. And it mightn't run well in Belfast, either.

For all the airy talk of multi-culturalism, Britain is still a Protestant country. No Roman Catholic has ever held the highest political office in the UK: no Sovereign, nor member of the Sovereign's family, can marry an "RC" without forfeiting all privileges.

The Duchess of Cornwall's biographer, Christopher Wilson, now claims that Princess Anne would have married Camilla's husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles, in 1973 - that he was the love of Anne's life - but for the fact that Parker-Bowles was a Roman Catholic, and that put him beyond the Pale.

Commentators sometimes state that Ireland is a "theocracy", as it still retains such folklorique customs as the Angelus bell: but the Irish State has never practiced official and codified religious discrimination to the same degree as Britain has.

THERE is no office of state in the Republic, nor in the previous Irish Free state, closed to anyone on grounds of religion: and indeed, the first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde, was a Protestant.

Tony Blair's decision to "pope" is, from now on, a personal one.

But the more significant political and constitutional question is - when will it be acceptable for a political personage in the UK to be a Roman Catholic while still inside 10, Downing Street? Still an untested question.

BBC Appeasement Yields More Terrorist Humiliation for Alan Johnston

(ht lgf) Running pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel propaganda 24/7 since Alan Johnston's kidnapping hasn't seemed to help the BBC correspondent's situation, according to this BBC report. A new video has been released by his Gaza kidnappers of the BBC reporter dressed in an explosive vest, warning against rescue attempts:

"The situation now is very serious. As you can see I have been dressed in what is an explosive belt, which the kidnappers say will be detonated if there was any attempt to storm this area," he says.

Mr Johnston appeals for a peaceful resolution to his situation, saying talks had reached an advanced stage.

"Captors tell me that very promising negotiations were ruined when the Hamas movement and the British government decided to press for a military solution to this kidnapping."

Earlier, the Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said Mr Johnston's captivity could not carry on.

"We will not allow the continuation of the abduction of the British journalist. The issue of Alan Johnston must end," he said in a speech to his supporters.

I watched the video and it is interesting that Johnston talks in a BBC-newscast style. My guess from his plea is that the BBC is involved in ransom negotiations with his captors. I wonder if they'll release the London bombing terrorists in exchange? How's that for appeasement? Does anyone think such a result will reduce incentives for further terrorist outrages? Hardly. Sends a strong message, all right: Kidnap an Englishman, get what you want.

What about trying another strategy? Perhaps blacking out all BBC news from Gaza and the West Bank until Johnston is released? If he's killed--never broadcast another word again from the Palestinians... Too much to expect gunboat diplomacy from the UK--a declaration of war, followed by the reduction of Gaza City to rubble. That's how protecting British subjects used to be done, I believe.

Putin Establishes Russian Cultural Foundation

Speaking to a conference of schoolteachers, the Russian president announced something that sounds like a Russian version of the British Council, Goethe Haus, Casa Italiana, the Alliance Francaise or our own Fulbright program:

Dear colleagues! Your conference is not an ordinary event. It is hard to act as if this meeting refers only to a given sector. The topics you raise really do affect Russian society as a whole. The education and upbringing of our children, and passing on the best traditions and values of Russian culture cannot leave anyone indifferent.

In connection with this I would like to tell you that today I signed a decree on creating a Russian World foundation designed to promote the study and popularity of Russian language in Russia and in the world, as well as disseminate and develop Russia’s cultural heritage, a field in which the humanities plays an important role.

I will repeat that this basis forms personalities and helps master other knowledge. It helps build effective public life and a democratic civil society. And I repeat that such education is crucial for our young people who are presently studying in secondary schools and universities.

David Miliband Next UK Foreign Secretary?

According to an article in the Sunday Express, Gordon Brown is on the verge of naming Environment Minister David Miliband, 41, as UK Foreign Secretary. This might be as big a step as Bernard Kouchner's appointment in France. First, because Miliband's father was Marxist theoretician Ralph Miliband, a disciple of Harold Laski at the London School of Economics, who came to Britain as a refugee from Belgium in 1940, and represents the success of immigration. Second, because David Miliband himself was the major theoretician of Blairism, as a Third Way between Thatcherite capitalism and Marxist socialism. He was an author of Blair's Manifesto, head of his policy unit, and author of Reinventing the Left(1994). Miliband is clearly a thinker (I have heard him interviewed on BBC Radio Four podcasts, and he is thoughtful and articulate). Finally, it would not go un-remarked upon in capitals around the world that Miliband is Jewish (like Kouchner)--a signal to Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, and others that EU nations will not be bullied into anti-semitism out of fear of Islamist extremist terrorism. So I hope Brown names Miliband...

Of course, Brown might pick someone else and name Miliband to the Home Office, as the article discusses. In which case, the above analysis will have proven moot, at least for the time being. Still, David Miliband is someone to watch. So, here's a link to his blog.

Sir Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Our late Chicago friend Bob Tashman edited Sir Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, not as well known as The Satanic Verses. It captues the dilemmas faced by an author under the Ayatolla's fatwa. Bob used to tell us about his job opening packages addressed to Rushdie, hoping that he wouldn't be blown up or lose any fingers. While Rushdie enjoyed police protection--thanks to Margaret Thatcher--our friend did not. Luckily, Bob and Rushdie survived, and the book stands as a memorial both to Rushdie's courage and a legacy from our dear departed friend Bob.

In the words of the Amazon.com description, it is an allegory: "a delightful tale about a storyteller who loses his skill and a struggle against mysterious forces attempting to block the seas of inspiration from which all stories are derived." You can buy a copy here:

Rafael Medoff: Time to Honor Peter Bergson

From the New York Jewish Press, this article published in connection with a meeting of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in New York argues that it is time to recognize Peter Bergson's work to save European Jewry from Hitler during World War II:

In 1985, Wyman’s The Abandonment of the Jews reached the New York Times best-seller list. Abandonment was the first book to tell the Bergson story in depth, and to document the Bergson Group’s key role in the creation of the U.S. government’s War Refugee Board. It was also the first book about America and the Holocaust to reach a large segment of the public rather than just academic circles.

As a Christian, Wyman could not be accused of having a vested interest in one version of Jewish history over another. As a scholar, his research was impeccable and the book was soon hailed as the definitive account of the American – and American-Jewish – response to the Nazi genocide.

Other factors also contributed to changing attitudes in the Jewish community. The creation, in 1981, of a short-lived American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust, chaired by former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and charged with studying American Jewry’s response to the Shoah, stirred widespread discussion of these issues.

Films such as Laurence Jarvik’s "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die" (1982) and Martin Ostrow’s award-winning PBS documentary "America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference" (1994) made a powerful impact. Just this spring, Bernard Weinraub’s off-Broadway play about the Bergson Group, FDR, and the Holocaust, "The Accomplices," set off a whole new round of public discussion of the subject.

Some surprising new research findings have further roused the public’s interest in the Bergson Group. Some of the research has revealed the previously unknown support given to the Bergson activists by such celebrities as Walt Disney, Bob Hope, boxing champion Barney Ross, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s father, Congressman Thomas D’Alesandro.

The Silence of the Librarians...

Protesters at the American Library Association convention here in Washington, DC today question the commitment of the organization's leadership to the principle of the freedom to read when it comes to Cuba, asking: "Why does the ALA refuse to join every major human rights group in the call for the release of jailed librarians in Cuba? Why is the ALA silent about book burning in Cuba?"

It has taken 18 months for the Intellectual Freedom officials at ALA to respond to questions about book burning in Cuba? How long to they need to discuss before they acknowledge the court-ordered torching of thousands of books and the destruction of library collections?

More here.

The Unethical "Ethicist" of The New York Times and NPR

According to MSNBC post listing political contributions by journalists (ht lgf), NY Times ethics columnist and NPR contributor Randy Cohen broke the newspaper's rules--and got away with it...

(D) The New York Times, Randy Cohen, ethics columnist, $585 in three donations in August 2004 to MoveOn.org, which conducted get-out-the-vote drives to defeat President Bush. In addition to the syndicated column "The Ethicist" for the Times Magazine, Cohen answers ethics questions for listeners of NPR.

Freelancers like Cohen are covered by the Times policy, which says, "Times readers apply exacting standards to the entire paper. They do not distinguish between staff-written articles and those written by outsiders. Thus as far as possible, freelance contributors to The Times, while not its employees, will be held to the same standards as staff members when they are on Times assignments, including those for the Times Magazine. If they violate these guidelines, they will be denied further assignments."

Cohen said he thought of MoveOn.org as nonpartisan and thought the donation would be allowed even under the strict rule at the Times.

"We admire those colleagues who participate in their communities — help out at the local school, work with Little League, donate to charity," Cohen said in an e-mail. "But no such activity is or can be non-ideological. Few papers would object to a journalist donating to the Boy Scouts or joining the Catholic Church. But the former has an official policy of discriminating against gay children; the latter has views on reproductive rights far more restrictive than those of most Americans. Should reporters be forbidden to support those groups? I’d say not. Unless a group’s activities impinge on a reporter’s beat, the reporter should be free to donate to a wide range of nonprofits. Make a journalist’s charitable giving transparent, and let the readers weigh it as they will.

"Those who do not cover anything, but write a column of opinion should have even more latitude. It is such a writer’s job to make his views explicit. Those donations to nonprofits will no doubt reflect the views he or she is hired to express. In evaluating such civic engagement, it is well to remember that to have an opinion is not to have a bias. To conceal one’s political opinions is not to be without them."

After MSNBC.com checked the names of Times staff and contributors on this list with a spokesperson for the Times, Cohen sent this addendum:

"That said, Times policy does forbid my making such donations, and I will not do so in the future.""

BTW, in December, 1999 Reason Magazine published a critique of Cohen's "Ethicist" column by Jacob Levy titled The Ethicist Who Isn't. Apparently, he still isn't.

Richard Weitz: Make a Deal With Putin on Azeri Radar

From the Washington Post Think-Tank website, some advice for President Bush at the Kennebunkport summit:

Despite its concerns, the Bush administration should continue to engage the Russians on a possible joint use of the Gabala radar while keeping open the possibility of deploying BMD systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. The fact that the radar is technically inadequate is less important than the potential for Russian-American dialogue over the base to limit the negative spill-over from the BMD dispute and, ideally, expand to address other important security issues.

For example, the dialogue could generate creative thinking about how to address missile defense issues in the strategic arms accord that Russia and the United States have begun negotiating to replace the START and SORT agreements when they expire in a few years. It could also accelerate the two countries' interlocking efforts to develop more secure international civilian nuclear fuel arrangements. Moscow and Washington could thereby move from what has become a zero-sum dialogue over missile defenses to a beneficial engagement over limiting third-party nuclear proliferation threats.

In return, U.S. officials should underscore to the Russians that one way to avert the deployment of BMD systems in East Central Europe would be for Moscow to pressure Tehran more strongly to curb its nuclear and missile programs. If these and other efforts fail to change Iran's behavior, if U.S. ballistic missile technology makes much greater progress, and if the proposed host countries still want the systems, then the next U.S. administration can decide whether to deploy BMD systems in East Central Europe even at the cost of antagonizing whomever succeeds Putin as Russia's president in 2009.