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November 30, 2007

Undecideds Hold Sway in South Carolina

A few years ago, my brother founded the Undecided Party of Canada. ("When no choice is a good choice.") He created an undecided platform, undecided bumper stickers, window signs, you name it. It was all a joke, of course, but it also made a point about how many people in Canada feel unsettled about their political choices.

After hearing from NPR's Audie Cornish, I'm thinking my brother might want to expand his party to America, specifically South Carolina. Audie e-mailed me about the latest Clemson University Palmetto Poll, which she found remarkable for the large number of undecided voters.

Twenty-eight percent of Republicans and 49 percent of Democrats are undecided. Those totals dwarf the number of people who voiced their support for any individual candidate. (Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson lead the Republican field with 17 percent and 15 percent, respectively. The top Democratic candidates are Hillary Clinton at 19 percent and Barack Obama at 17 percent.)

Even more astonishing figures: 65 percent of the Republicans and 51 percent of the Democrats said they were likely to change their minds before the primaries in January (Republicans on Jan. 19; Democrats on Jan. 26).

"Voters in the state have not started paying really close attention to candidate activity ahead of the primary," said Joseph Stewart, chairman of Clemson's political science department. "South Carolina is up for grabs."

Or maybe those voters were just all Stephen Colbert supporters with nowhere to go.

Man Takes Hostages at Clinton Office in N.H.

A man claiming to have a bomb has taken at least two workers hostage at Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, N.H.

WMUR reports that a witness says a woman rushed with her baby into a neighboring business and told the employees that a man had entered the office and showed what appeared to be a bomb taped to his chest. He then let the woman and her baby leave.

"There are sharp shooters on the roof, and police are negotiating with someone in the building," said another witness. "The police are notifying all the business owners on the street to evacuate. There are fire trucks behind the Hillary Clinton office."

Rochester is about 20 miles north of Portsmouth near the Maine border.

Clinton was scheduled to attend a Democratic National Committee meeting in Virginia today. Boston.com reports that workers for Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards were also evacuated from their offices.

Update: WMUR reports that two hostages have been released from the Clinton campaign office, but it was unclear if there were any more inside. CNN reports that Sen. Clinton has canceled the speech she was to give at the DNC meeting in Virginia because of the situation in Rochester.

2:47 PM ET | 11-30-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Illegal Immigrant from Mexico Helps Crash Survivor

Illegal immigration continues to be a hot topic for politicians, as evidenced by the amount of time spent on it at this week's Republican debate. To some, it seems "illegal-alien bashing has become a national sport," as Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts puts it, and she and others are pointing to the story of illegal immigrant Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes as a counterpoint.

Cordova, a 26-year-old Mexican bricklayer, was "two days into his walk and about 50 miles from Tucson" on Thanksgiving when he came across a boy whose mother had been killed in a van crash, The Associated Press reports.

Cordova gave up his chance to "disappear" into the United States to help 9-year-old Christopher Buztheitner, who had walked away from the crash. Cordova got a fire started, found food in the van for the boy and waited while he slept. Fourteen hours later, a group of hunters found the pair and called for help.

"I am a father of four children. For that, I stayed," Cordova told AP. "I never could have left him. Never."

Cordova was taken into custody and deported. Roberts writes that Cordova is "probably nobody special." And that's the point.

I don't know if anything should be done for Cordova. He did what any human being should do. Maybe what we can do in appreciation is to reclaim the debate that has been taken over by the extremes, those who would have you believe that every person here illegally is out to rob us and cheat us and steal our country.

The Tucson Citizen reports that the response to the story from its online community has been mostly positive. But about a quarter of the readers weren't swayed by Cordova's "act of compassion." One wrote that the media are "heaping praise" on the story to further an immigrant-loving agenda.

November 29, 2007

Huckabee Gets High Marks for Debate Performance

"Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office."

"More people in this country are afraid of an audit than a mugging and there's a reason why."

Those one-liners from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee were part of a performance that has his name on the lips of many asked to pick which candidate stood out at Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate.

"Huckabee is rapidly becoming the hot story in the 2008 presidential campaign. After Wednesday night, he's likely to get a whole lot hotter," writes Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen.

John Weiss, a police officer and Iraq veteran from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., also opines that Huckabee was the standout of the evening at the The New York Times' Caucus blog. He says Huckabee possesses "the ability to get me to believe that he really does mean what he says; sincerity if you will. Not the manufactured type that the Clintons are so adept at generating upon command, but a warmer, more genuine tone."

Even our own political editor, Ken Rudin, told me that he thinks Huckabee gave one of his best debate performances so far.

Perhaps Huckabee was more at ease during the debate after seeing a Rasmussen poll released Wednesday that showed him with a 3 percentage point lead in Iowa over the longtime front-runner in the state, Mitt Romney. (Even though the margin of error really means the race is a dead heat.)

Questions Arise About Giuliani's N.Y. Security Bills

CNN's Anderson Cooper, who had a bit of a rocky evening as moderator of the CNN/YouTube Republican debate, had one brief "stop the presses" moment Wednesday night. It came when he asked former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani about a report Politico published on its Web site shortly before the debate.

Politico reported that previously undisclosed government records showed that Giuliani had billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses while mayor. The expenses for his police security detail were incurred during trips to the Hamptons during the period when he was beginning his extramarital relationship with his current wife, Judith Nathan, who lived there.

Giuliani's office refused to explain the unusual accounting to city auditors at the time, citing "security." But auditors looking at expenses in 1999 and 2000 "were unable to verify that these expenses were for legitimate or necessary purposes," the city's comptroller wrote in a letter Politico obtained.

"First of all, it's not true," Giuliani said during the debate. "I had 24-hour security for the eight years that I was mayor. They followed me everyplace I went. It was because there were, you know, threats, threats that I don't generally talk about. Some have become public recently; most of them haven't. And they took care of me, and they put in their records, and they handled them in the way they handled them."

But Giuliani didn't offer an explanation for why the expenses were billed to agencies like the Office for People with Disabilities.

The Associated Press notes that the "the suggestion, true or not, that he was hiding expenses for liaisons with Nathan in little-known city accounts, could open him up to criticism, remind voters of his three marriages and infidelity and tarnish his good-guy image from the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

10:49 AM ET | 11-29-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Not Your Father's GOP Debate

As someone who grew up watching Republican debates in the '70s when Ronald Reagan debated William F. Buckley on the Panama Canal treaties, and in the '80s when a stageful of Reagan-successor wannabes debated each other, and in the '90s when Republicans competed to displace or succeed Bill Clinton, I can scarcely believe I watched a Republican debate Wednesday night.

I can't imagine an audience at a Republican debate in those days booing some of its candidates so lustily (as Ron Paul and John McCain have been booed). Neither can I imagine a field of Republican candidates having such sharp disagreements over Vietnam, over foreign engagement, over immigration or over abortion.

This is truly a different Republican Party, if indeed last night's audience and questioners are the Republican Party.

- Ron Elving

November 28, 2007

How the GOP Candidates Handled the YouTube Debate

It's really not fair to toss a question such as "Do you believe every word of the Holy Bible?" to a panel of candidates when one of them happens to be an ordained minister.

This is like asking each candidate to face a pitching machine when one just happens to be a professional baseball player. Nonetheless, you could not fail to be impressed with how the Reverend Mike Huckabee played the part of the pro when given a chance to shine. Not only was he instantly connected with those in the audience most devoted to the literal truth of the Bible (by tone of voice if nothing else), but he skillfully avoided giving offense to those in the audience who are not.

Contrasted with the stuttering response of a somewhat annoyed-looking Romney, Huckabee's hit was a line drive out of the park. And compared with the rather candid but uncomfortable response of Rudy Giuliani, who had to talk about "modern context" and had to use the word interpretive, it was a towering home run ...

Meanwhile, there's little reason to wonder why Dennis Kucinich says he could have Ron Paul as his running mate. Paul continues to stand apart from all his rivals on Iraq.

But not just on Iraq. He goes to foreign policy again and again and articulates a totally different view of the world and its many problems than any other major Republican candidate in memory. Even Robert Taft, the Senate Republican leader from Ohio who represented the western conservative wing of the party until his death in 1953, was never so pure in his opposition to American globalism and "big government conservatism."

Paul has little chance of winning the nomination, and one of the YouTube questioners demanded to know whether he would run as an independent or "let America down." Paul's answer was to insist he was in the GOP contest to win and had "no intention" to run outside the party. But then, he used a verb in the present tense ...

- Ron Elving

War of Words Becomes Distasteful in Iowa

As the Iowa caucuses approach, voters are making their views known with buttons, bumper stickers and -- barn writing?

Scrawled in large letters on the side of a barn outside Marshalltown was a simple message: "HILLARY STAY HOME." The barn literature was more than offset by pro-Hillary Clinton lawn signs in the area.

But 40 miles west in the city of Ames, the political war of words became distasteful.

Handwritten notes were discovered at Iowa State University urging people to vote for Democrat John Edwards and -- presumably -- not vote for Democrats Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. The note said to "vote for the White Man!" and not to support two other candidates, whom the writer described using a derogatory word in one case and a racial slur in the other.

News outlets across Iowa have been buzzing about the notes, which were first reported by the Ames Tribune. The paper said the notes — handwritten and photocopied — were found on a campus magazine rack, a bulletin board and in a residence hall. It also reported that the notes were signed by a "local man" but that the paper "has chosen not to reveal alleged author's name."

A spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign told the paper the notes are "deeply offensive and unacceptable."

- David Greene

7:53 PM ET | 11-28-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

GOP Debate Comes as Dynamics of Race Change

The party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan meets the video bloggers of YouTube tonight in Florida. The GOP presidential debate marks the second time CNN and YouTube have cooperated as sponsors. The Democrats had the first go at it in July. This one almost didn't happen; the debate had to be rescheduled after the GOP candidates initially balked.

Reuters predicts fireworks at the debate, particularly between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, who have engaged in some nasty bickering about each other's records during the past few days.

Time says there will be two things worth watching tonight: how the candidates interact with "real" people, and how they stack up "head to head" now that so much about the race for the GOP nomination has changed. In particular, the emergence of Mike Huckabee, who has been surging in the polls.

As David Folkenflik pointed out on Morning Edition, that new level of attention has also meant a lot of scrutiny of Huckabee's record as governor of Arkansas. Watch for some of the other candidates to bring up his problems during that era tonight in an effort to slow down his rapid rise.

Almost 5,000 video questions have been submitted for tonight's debate. (That's about 2,000 more than for the Democrats.) CNN says it hopes to be able to pose about 40 to the candidates.

Some of the video questions submitted tackle difficult issues. One asks what the candidates believe about the use of the Confederate symbol on the state flag of Mississippi. Another asks the candidates just how far they're prepared to go to slow down the national debt's growth.

5:50 PM ET | 11-28-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Giuliani Uses 'Reality' Against Romney

Just hours before the GOP presidential hopefuls appear on the CNN/YouTube debate, the battle between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney has been kicked up a notch. Until today, the two have traded verbal shots. But Giuliani's many press releases have been almost entirely focused on Giuliani himself: his record, his philosophy, his speeches and appearances.

Now comes "The Romney Reality" from Giuliani and his supporters in Massachusetts; 1400 words attacking the former Massachusetts governor's record on taxes and spending. It's studded with 20 hotlinks to websites that will presumably back up Giuliani's arguments. And the release begins with a quote from another former Massachusetts governor, Paul Cellucci. "By any measure," he says, " Mitt Romney was unable to bring about the fiscal discipline in Massachusetts that Mayor Rudy Giuliani brought to New York City." (Meanwhile, Massachusetts just moved its primary up to Feb. 5.)

Romney has been attacking Giuliani lately for being soft on illegal immigration when he was mayor of New York City, for his opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage and for poor judgment in appointing Bernard Kerik as New York police commissioner. Kerik has pleaded guilty to state corruption charges and was recently indicted by the federal government.

While Giuliani leads in most national polls, he trails Romney in most polls in the early-voting states. A recent New Hampshire survey showed Romney leading with 33% of the vote, while Giuliani trailed in third place with 16%.

- Ina Jaffe

4:42 PM ET | 11-28-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

RV Residents Purged from Voter Rolls in Tennessee

It's an American tradition — hitting the open road, seeing the country, no ties to hold you back. I had always imagined doing it in something like a Volkswagen Beetle after college. These days, it's popular for Americans to take off in their RVs after they retire.

But in Tennessee, as Audie Cornish explained on Day to Day, there's a price for wanderlust — you can lose the right to vote. The Tennessee legislature recently passed amendments to state voting laws requiring voters to have a residential address. So officials in Bradley County told 286 people who live in their RVs full-time that they are being removed from the voter rolls. All list their addresses through a mail-forwarding service, Mail Call USA. Tennessee does not allow people to list commercial businesses as their official residences unless they actually live there.

But the RVers are fighting back with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. They're suing the Tennessee government to put them back on the rolls, saying that they shouldn't be penalized for their lifestyle. Tennessee has no official requirement for the amount of time needed to establish residency — if it did, they say they would have complied.

But Tennessee officials aren't impressed with those arguments. "You can't establish residency by wanting to live somewhere ... it means actually physically moving here," said Brook Thompson, the state's coordinator of elections.

Interesting problem, especially as more Americans look at adopting this kind of lifestyle as they get older. What do you think? Should people without residential addresses be allowed to vote, or is there too high a risk of someone manipulating an election by having lots of RVers "move" into their state?

Poll: More Americans Optimistic About Iraq

For the first time in many months, nearly half of Americans now believe that the war in Iraq is going fairly well.

But the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports this new optimism is not translating into support for a long-term U.S. mission there — 54 percent of those surveyed say the troops should be brought home as soon as possible, rather than waiting until the situation has further stabilized. That number has been pretty steady for the past nine months.

Much of the good news for the Bush administration in the poll, which surveyed 1,399 adults across the country, related to security in Iraq.

The number of Americans who say that the United States is making progress in reducing the number of civilian casualties in Iraq has doubled from 21% to 43% since June. The proportion saying that progress has been achieved in preventing terrorists from establishing bases in Iraq is also up substantially, as is the number saying the U.S. is making progress in defeating the insurgents militarily.

In other areas, the news wasn't quite so good for the White House. President Bush's approval rating stayed virtually unchanged since the last survey in September; only 30 percent of Americans approve of the job he's doing. And the country remains almost evenly divided on whether the U.S. effort in Iraq will succeed.

Did Huckabee's Surge Catch His Team By Surprise?

They were putting holiday lights up Tuesday at Mike Huckabee's campaign headquarters in downtown Des Moines. The Republican presidential candidate is hoping to celebrate more than Christmas in the Hawkeye State.

Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has surprised many people by pulling into a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney in polling ahead of the Republican caucuses in Iowa on January 3.

But did Huckabee's surge surprise even his own Iowa campaign manager? Eric Woolson took precious days off last week to go snake hunting with his son in Costa Rica. The Washington Post saw this as evidence Woolson never anticipated Huckabee's success — or else he would have stayed put at the office.

When an NPR reporter visited Tuesday, Woolson was back at work showing off photos of his snake expedition. He explained that he planned the vacation with his son long before the Iowa caucuses were moved up to January 3. He said he always thought his boss would start moving up in the polls — though not by this much so fast. Now, Woolson said, his job is to make sure the campaign organization is strong enough to match the excitement the boss is drawing.

"Mike Huckabee has this extraordinary ability to connect with people on a one-on-one basis. He listens to what people are saying," Woolson said. "When he's been here in the state and he meets with Iowans, they want to support him. He's the best closer that we have."

The "closer" is vowing to all but live in Iowa in December. Huckabee, however, hasn't been in Iowa this week. And in recent days, he's been forced to make stops elsewhere — like in Ohio and Texas — in search of donors. He must find money wherever he can if he's in the race for the long haul. Even if can finish strong in Iowa, he may face trouble in New Hampshire. The candidate plans to spend much of this weekend stumping in the Granite State.

Meanwhile, the former governor was getting some good news out of Florida, where a new Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion poll shows him pulling into second, ahead of every other GOP candidate except for national front-runner Rudy Giuliani.

- David Greene

November 27, 2007

Looking at Just Who Can Vote in Iowa Caucuses

When my dad worked in politics back in Canada, he used to tell me that he had one simple rule when it came to rounding up voters on Election Day: If they can breathe, they can vote.

After reading about the rules governing who can vote in the upcoming Iowa caucuses, I can see that it seems like pretty much the same idea. Oh, you still have to be a U.S. citizen. But you don't have to be registered. You don't have to be affiliated with any particular party. You don't even have to be 18 (you just have to be 18 by the November 2008 election).

You do need to sign a statement that says you're a resident of the precinct you're voting in. And that's about it. My high school's election for valedictorian had more complicated rules.

But as lenient as the rules might sound, don't try to cheat, warns NPR's Evie Stone, who went to a caucus training session. "If you take the risk of pretending to be from Iowa and trying to caucus, then not only will you probably be noticed by all the little old ladies who know EVERYONE in their precinct and can smell an imposter a mile off...but you could also get thrown in the clink," she wrote in an e-mail.

So maybe getting in is a little more complicated than I thought. And from there, it's a whole new ballgame. The rules for the caucuses are confusing even to many Iowans, and the Democrats and Republicans conduct the meetings differently. (The Democrats' method is the more complicated of the two.)

In 2000, the last contested GOP event, about 90,000 Republicans attended caucuses. In 2004, the Democrats attracted 124,000. Both parties expect more than 100,000 this time around.

Group's Offer to Pay for Positive Hillary Posts Retracted

From the Department of Too Much Thinking:

The folks at www.voteforhillaryonline.blogspot.com don't work for the Clinton campaign, but they really want their gal to win. As their homepage says, "God help us all if Hillary isn't elected."

Which may explain this posting from last week: "Get paid to post positive comments about Hillary." The idea: Send their grassroots readers out prowling through blogland for other political sites, where they would add comments like, "Hello, this is a really interesting blog. I'm glad I stumbled upon it. I understand where you're coming from but I really think you should check into Hillary Clinton. She's got some really good ideas."

Do that and the voteforhillary bloggers would pay you a buck.

But wait. There's less.

Their lawyer saw the posting, got the FEC jitters and had them cancel the scheme.

No word from Ron Paul's many online supporters on whether they'll pay you to write nice things about their guy. Would they pay out in Ron Paul Dollars?

- Peter Overby

Officials Downplay Expectations for Mideast Summit

When President Bush opens the Middle East summit in Annapolis, Md., today, he will tell the attendees that the time is right to relaunch peace talks because "a battle is under way for the future" of the troubled region. But he's not expected to detail any of his own ideas on how to achieve the goal.

Meanwhile, the two main participants are having trouble even agreeing on a joint statement about the purpose of the talks, despite heavy pressure from the United States to produce one. Palestinians want the statement to address, "at least in general terms, key issues of Palestinian statehood — final borders, sovereignty over disputed Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees who lost homes in Israel following its 1948 creation. Israel has pressed for a more vague statement of commitment to two states living side by side in peace," The Associated Press reports.

In the Middle East itself, a series of polls found widespread skepticism among Israelis and Palestinians about the summit, McClatchy reports.

Nearly three-quarters of Israelis expect the conference to lead to nothing. A majority of Palestinians expect that a failure at Annapolis will lead to a surge in violence. And while most people on both sides support peace talks, they aren't willing to make the painful sacrifices necessary to end the conflict.

Participants in the summit are publicly expressing optimism about the talks, while at the same time trying to downplay any expectations that they will lead to a settlement quickly. However, both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have said they will try to find a solution before Bush leaves office next year.

November 26, 2007

Mass. GOP Politician Backs Giuliani, Slams Romney

Former Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party Jim Rappaport endorsed Rudy Giuliani today, and took the opportunity to settle an old score with his fellow Massachusetts pol, Mitt Romney.

During a conference call to announce the endorsement, Rappaport was asked about a story making news in the Bay State that's reminiscent of the Willie Horton story from the 1988 presidential campaign. A Massachusetts Supreme Court judge appointed by Romney released a convicted killer back in July, over the objections of prosecutors. Although Daniel Tavares Jr. had finished serving his 16-year sentence for killing his mother, officials wanted to keep him in jail for alleged assaults on two prison guards. Tavares is now accused of killing a young couple in Washington state. And Romney has said the judge should resign.

Instead of criticizing Romney for appointing the judge — a longtime prosecutor with strong law-and-order credentials — Rappaport faulted the former governor for essentially throwing the judge under the bus. "This is very typical of Mitt Romney to jump on this judge as opposed to looking at what might be the systemic problems that resulted here," Rappaport said. "Mitt Romney has a habit of taking the expedient way out. And this is a classic example of that."

Romney's camp called the attack "nothing more than sour grapes," noting that Romney passed over Rappaport as a would-be lieutenant governor in 2002.

- Scott Horsley

7:46 PM ET | 11-26-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Oprah Hits the Campaign Trail

TV's biggest daytime star is going to Iowa to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. His staff says Oprah Winfrey will attend events on Dec. 8 in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. She also will appear in New Hampshire and South Carolina to support the Illinois senator.

In September, Winfrey hosted a fundraising event for Obama that raised about $3 million.

A political science professor tells The Des Moines Register that when a celebrity shows up at events, it means more to a campaign than an endorsement alone, which doesn't often mean much. Live appearances bring in people who wouldn't normally attend but who want to see the famous person.

A Gallup poll in late October showed that 81 percent of those surveyed said Winfrey's endorsement of Obama doesn't move them at all. Eight percent said it makes them more likely to support him, and 10 percent said it makes them less likely.

I bet Oprah could sway a few more people if she gave away free cars at the rallies...

Huckabee Goes After Evangelical Vote in Iowa

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is riding a wave in Iowa. Recent polls show the former Arkansas governor moving within striking distance of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Now Huckabee is going hard after a group of voters that has given Romney a less-than-enthusiastic reception: evangelicals.

Huckabee's new TV ad in Iowa doesn't beat around the bush about his Christian beliefs. "Faith doesn't just influence me, it really defines me," he says at the beginning. He talks about being anti-abortion and says he doesn't have to wake up wondering what his principles should be (a knock at Romney's changing positions) as the words "Christian leader" appear on the screen.

In a close race, the strong support of evangelical voters could give Huckabee an edge. But he seems to be having problems turning his recent surge in the polls into campaign cash, Campaigns and Elections reports. "He continues to be low on funds," said Bruce Ransom, a Clemson University political science professor. "For this reason, his campaign has been slow to gain traction and give him the footing he needs to move up in the polls."

Sen. Trent Lott Decides to Leave Office Early

It's not entirely surprising to hear that Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott has decided to retire by the end of 2007, even though his announcement comes just a year after he was re-elected to the seat he first won in 1988.

NPR's senior Washington editor, Ron Elving, says it appears to be largely about the new lobbying rules that come into play Jan. 1. They extend the length of time a member of Congress must wait before lobbying former colleagues to two years after he or she leaves office. (Lott says the change "didn't have a big role" in his decision.)

Lott's career has never been quite the same since the remarks he made at the late Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, which were interpreted as support for segregation. After those remarks gained attention, thanks in part to the then-relatively new phenomenon of blogging, Lott was forced to step down as majority leader.

In his book, Herding Cats: A Life in Politics, Lott wrote about the lack of support he had received from his fellow Republicans, in particular President Bush. Lott said that the president had hurt his feelings by disavowing the Thurmond comments in a way that was "booming and nasty." Lott was also unhappy with the administration's slow response to Hurricane Katrina. However, he made a political comeback in 2006, when his colleagues elected him minority whip, the No. 2 job behind Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, will appoint a successor to Lott, who becomes the sixth GOP senator to announce his retirement this year. The seat is considered safely Republican, however, and early speculation is focusing on GOP Rep. Chip Pickering as the appointee.

Romney and Giuliani Go After Each Other in N.H.

While most people are looking forward to a bit of cheer and good spirits this holiday season, that doesn't necessarily extend to the presidential candidates trolling for votes as the New Hampshire primary approaches. As Morning Edition reports, two of the top Republican candidates seem more interested in tearing each other down.

Robert Smith reports that Rudy Giuliani was engaging in "retail politics" (kissing babies and shaking hands) in New Hampshire during the weekend, but he also took time out to knock Mitt Romney's performance during his time as governor of Massachusetts.

But after Giuliani criticized Romney for appointing a judge who made a questionable call on an inmate's release, Romney was quick to respond, Brian Naylor reports. Romney said he thought the former New York mayor would be the last person to make an issue of questionable appointments, bringing up Giuliani's backing of Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who has been indicted.

Naylor and Smith gave more details about the mudslinging between the two men Sunday on All Things Considered.

A recent poll showed Romney's support rising to 33 percent from 25 percent in September, compared with Giuliani's slide to 16 percent from 24 percent over the same period. With the New Hampshire primary moved to Jan. 8, we can probably expect a rather bruising Christmas season in New Hampshire as Giuliani tries to close the gap.

11:05 AM ET | 11-26-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

November 21, 2007

Southerners and Football: More Than Just the Game

My wife, who grew up in a little town near Atlanta, hates football. No, "hate" is too weak a word. She despises it. She says "football" the same way a Red Sox fan says "Yankees."

So imagine my surprise when recently, while an ESPN announcer was talking about the Georgia football team, she threw her hands in the air and shouted, "Go Dawgs! Woohoo!" I gave her a look that said, "What have you done with my wife?" She shrugged and said, "I'm from Georgia. What did you expect?"

That's when I first grasped that the attachment Southerners have to college football is not just about the game. It's about the experience of football: hanging out with friends, joshing rivals, having an excuse for a party.

That spirit is captured in NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman's piece about the LSU-Ole Miss football game and the Web diary that sports editor Uri Berliner kept of their trip. They provide lots of vignettes about the fans' traditions.

Take June Guillory of Baton Rouge, La., who looks like your grandmother but wears a button that says "Go to Hell Ole Miss." Then there's the "mic man" who fires up the crowd at Ole Miss: Marcus Guinn, a 6-foot-7 black man who was surprised by his celebrity, especially in an area once known for its racism. And the get-togethers at the Grove in Oxford, Miss. Nine acres of parties: Women in pearls in one canopied area beside Southern rockers who've erected shrines to Elvis in another.

And this is great: The speed limit in the Grove is 18 mph in honor of former Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning, who wore No. 18.

Ex-Press Secretary Says Top Bush Officials Misled Him

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, whose job was to deflect media scrutiny aimed at the White House, is now generating some of his own.

McClellan, who filled the role from July 2003 to April 2006, has a new book coming out, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington. On Tuesday, his publisher, PublicAffairs, put a small excerpt on its Web site. In it, McClellan says some top administration officials were behind the effort to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In a 2003 news conference, McClellan told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were not involved in leaking former CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to conservative columnist Robert Novak. (Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written an op-ed piece in The New York Times critical of the intelligence the Bush administration used to make the case for war in Iraq.)

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes... "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Peter Osnos, founder and editor-in-chief of PublicAffairs, says Bush didn't know he was giving McClellan incorrect information. "The president told him what he thought to be the case," Osnos said. McClellan refused interview requests Tuesday.

But as The Washington Times' Inside Politics blog puts its, "Mr. McClellan's explosive if somewhat vague charge is sure to spark lots of interest and conversation over the coming months." In fact, Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd has called for the Justice Department to investigate the president's role.

Supreme Court Takes Second Amendment Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that will determine whether the District of Columbia's strict gun law violates the Constitution. It's the first time since 1939 that the top court has taken on a case that looks at the meaning of the Second Amendment.

NPR's Nina Totenberg reports that the court will examine if the Second Amendment protects a collective, military-style right to have guns (the "well-regulated militia" portion highlighted by those who support gun control) or an individual right (the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" part zeroed in on by groups like the National Rifle Association.)

Totenberg says this is the test case that gun-rights advocates have long been seeking. If the court rules for the individual right, then it means many more challenges to similar gun laws throughout the nation. If not, it likely will block legal challenges and leave gun regulation largely as it is now — in the hands of elected officials.

But The Washington Post's Marc Fisher says the court's decision won't make a bit of difference. He says the truth is that gun lobbying on both sides has led to a political stalemate, and neither position — we need more guns or we need fewer guns — really makes much of a difference when it comes to stopping crime or protecting people. Ultimately, it will be the American public's feelings on the matter that will be the deciding factor, he says. "Simple regulations, not fancy legal arguments, will determine who gets to own guns, and those regulations will be driven by politicians under pressure from citizens who've had enough," he writes.

November 20, 2007

Neil Diamond Reveals Identity of 'Sweet Caroline'

Neil Diamond performs in 2005.

Scott Gries/Getty Images

As a Boston Red Sox fan, I probably sing the words to Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline a couple hundred times a year. The 1960s tune has become one of the Sox's theme songs.

But it wasn't until today that Diamond publicly revealed "Sweet Caroline's" true identity. He told The Associated Press that the Caroline of his song is none other than Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy.

Diamond says he was a "young, broke songwriter" when a picture of the president's daughter caught his eye. "It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony," Diamond said. "It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there."

Years later, Diamond quickly wrote the song in a Memphis hotel. It went on to become his biggest hit and eventually a Boston baseball staple. Diamond says he's even become a Red Sox fan.

Focus Group Tests Attitude Toward Conflict with Iran

When they need to take the public's pulse, politicians and corporations often turn to focus groups. Advocacy organizations use this strategy as well, and Mother Jones reports that one of them, the Israel Project, even used a focus group to test-market language that could be used to gain support for military action against Iran.

The Israel Project, which "conducts extensive polling on American public attitudes toward Israel and the Middle East," is a nonprofit group with a board of advisers that includes 15 Democratic and Republican members of Congress.

The focus group test, held earlier this month in Alexandria, Va., was "designed" by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm. One of the people chosen to be in the group was Laura Sonnenmark, a Democratic Party volunteer. "The whole basis of the whole thing was, 'we're going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to along with it?'" Sonnenmark says.

After about two hours of talking about the situation in the Middle East, Sonnenmark said the focus group leader asked three questions: "How would you feel if Hillary [Clinton] bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?"

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi of the Israel Project told Mother Jones that the focus group test was intended to help the organization promote "our belief in pushing sanctions."

Your Questions for the Democratic Presidential Candidates

No lights. No cameras. Just our microphones -- and your questions.

On Dec. 4 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET, NPR and Iowa Public Radio will host a Democratic presidential candidates' debate.

We received more than 1,600 questions from the public, and we'll put some of them to the candidates. Browse through the questions below and tune in for answers from Des Moines on Dec. 4!

Note: NPR is working with the leading Republican candidates to schedule a debate for early 2008.

2:42 PM ET | 11-20-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

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Controversial Minnesota U.S. Attorney Steps Down

New Attorney General Michael Mukasey may be making his presence felt already. The Los Angeles Times reports that the resignation of the U.S. attorney for Minnesota on Monday was being seen as "an early illustration of how Mukasey was moving quickly to address some of the lingering problems of the politically charged Gonzales era."

Rachel Paulose, 34, was one of several Bush administration insiders who took over U.S. attorneys' offices around the country during former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' tenure. She was the nation's youngest federal prosecutor and one of the most controversial.

The Washington Post reports that she drew criticism from the lawyers who worked with her and for her "outspoken conservative, Christian beliefs."

The Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel had been investigating allegations that she had mishandled classified material and made a racist remark to a staff member. An internal department audit found that her employees said she treated subordinates harshly and lacked the experience for her job.

Paulose denied making a racist remark in an interview that appeared on National Review Online last week. But that interview has prompted "at least one and as many as three of her current staff managers" to resign or threaten to resign, Thomas Heffelfinger, who Paulose replaced as Minnesota U.S. attorney, told the Post.

Paulose will return to work in the Justice Department in Washington.

November 19, 2007

When Turkeys Attack

Davis, Calif., used to be a nice place. A college town where you could walk around in peace. But that was before ... before the turkeys came.

Day to Day has the story of what happens when a town is terrorized by a pack of turkeys. Not the plump, overfed birds we'll be carving up Thursday, but wild, lean birds, almost three feet tall, with tattoos that say, "Don't call me butterball." OK, maybe no tattoos, but you get my drift.

The turkeys, who hang out in a cemetery, attack passers-by. They also seem to have issues with bicycles — in a town labeled the nation's most bicycle-friendly.

Cemetery managers hired a trapper to get the birds and take them into the wild. But he gave up after he couldn't entice them into the traps. College researchers also have experimented with turkey alarm calls to scare the aggressive birds. Unfortunately, the Davis turkeys didn't even notice.

My suggestion: Call in someone like Rachael Ray or Emeril Lagasse to make an emergency visit and turn this problem into lunch for the whole town.

Obama To Clinton: You're No Financial Whiz Yourself

Democrat Barack Obama may get the award for zinger of the day on the presidential campaign trail. He was beating back criticism from rival Hillary Clinton, who suggested he lacks the experience to deal with economic challenges.

Obama's response: As far as he knew, Clinton wasn't her husband's treasury secretary.

Both candidates were stumping through rural parts of Iowa, where polls show Clinton, Obama and former Sen. John Edwards in a tight three-way race six weeks before the state's all-important caucuses.

Clinton was speaking about the economy in the town of Knoxville. She said "we can't afford on-the-job training for our next president." She didn't name names, but she was clearly suggesting on-the-job-training is something her rivals would need.

"We need a president who understands the magnitude and complexity of the challenges we face, and has the strength and experience to address them from Day One," she said.

Reporters asked Obama about Clinton's speech at an event in Fort Dodge.

"I am happy to compare my experiences to hers when it comes to the economy," Obama said.

"My understanding was that she wasn't treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. I don't know exactly what experiences she's claiming. I think she's a capable person. She's been a senator like I have, but rather than just assert experience, if she has specific differences with me with respect to economic policy, I'm happy to have those debates."

-- David Greene

Tutu Criticizes His Church Over Stance Toward Gays

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu was in London earlier this month to receive an Honorary Fellowship of the Guild of Church Musicians in Westminster Cathedral.

Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

For someone who won the Nobel Prize for peacemaking, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa doesn't seem opposed to stirring up some controversy.

For instance, he's been heavily critical of the Bush administration's foreign policy — a subject he addressed in front of hundreds last week at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

But it was his comments during the weekend about the Anglican Church's position on gays that drew the most notice. In an interview with the BBC, he said the Anglican Church is "almost obsessed" with gay issues and said the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has failed to demonstrate that God is "welcoming."

"God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another," he said in the interview.

He said he felt "saddened" and "ashamed" at the way the church handled the issue of openly gay New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson. "If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God," he said.

Robinson, who was elected bishop in 2003, has become a lightning rod for issues of homosexuality in the Anglican Church (known as the Episcopal Church in the United States). Since Robinson's election, several conservative congregations have separated from the main U.S. church, and others are considering it.

Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph reports that Williams "is preparing to target individual bishops whose pro-gay policies threaten to derail his efforts to avert schism." In what the paper calls a "high-risk" strategy, he might even withdraw the bishops' invitations to attend the Lambeth Conference, a highly influential periodic meeting.

Economists Bring Tale of Fiscal Woe to Your Town

They've been on the road since 2005, traveling to towns across America and talking about ... the nation's financial health?

Policy experts from across the political spectrum are taking part in the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour. As All Things Considered reports, these traveling economists want to make it clear to people — and the politicians running for president — just how dire the situation could become.

Basically, their message is that if the government doesn't stop spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave, the nation's debt — which is already an alarming $50 trillion when you factor in the obligations the federal government has promised to pay out in the future — will become uncontrollable. And that will impact our standard of living — and not in a good way.

As Robert Bixby, executive director of the advocacy group Concord Coalition, told a gathering earlier this year, it's a matter of arithmetic, not ideology. "Whether you are liberal, conservative, middle of the road, Democrat, Republican, Independent, the numbers don't add up," Bixby said.

The biggest problems, the experts say, are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. U.S. Comptroller General David Walker says the government is spending every penny it takes in from Social Security taxes. As a result, nothing is put aside to pay for actual benefits when people need them down the road. And health care costs are rising by more than 6 percent a year, affecting Medicare and Medicaid.

So can a lecture tour featuring policy wonks with PowerPoint presentations about a subject as dry as the national debt have much of an effect? Maybe we should ask former Vice President Al Gore.

Americans Skip a Page When It Comes to Reading

If you'll pardon the pun, read it and weep. A new National Endowment for the Arts report says Americans are reading less. And young people are reading a lot less.

The report, To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence, found that the average person between 15 and 24 spends 2 1/2 hours a day watching TV and seven minutes reading. Between 1992 and 2002, the number of young adults (18-24) who voluntarily read a book each year (we're talking about one book here) dropped from 59 percent to 52 percent.

There's a little good news. The reading comprehension scores of 9-year-olds have soared in the past decade (thank you, J.K. Rowling). But only 30 percent of 13-year-olds read almost daily. And the number of 17-year-olds who "never or hardly ever" read for pleasure has doubled, and their comprehension scores have fallen.

And it's not just young people reading less. Only 38 percent of adults said they spent time reading a book for pleasure the previous day in 2006.

Now, you might say, who cares if people don't read as much as they used to? The NEA report hints at the possible consequences. People who read, The Associated Press writes, "are more likely to exercise, visit art museums, keep up with current events, vote in presidential elections and perform volunteer work."

November 16, 2007

GPS Devices Catch Workers Goofing Off

State and municipal governments, as well as private employers, are finding ways to use global positioning devices to their advantage, relying on them to help save money — and to catch employees goofing off or doing other work on the job.

For instance, The Associated Press reports, Islip, N.Y., saved nearly 14,000 gallons of gas in a three-month period compared to the previous year after GPS devices were installed on its vehicles. (And when you consider the price of gas, that's a lot of tax money being saved.) Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan says gas consumption is down because town employees, who know they are being tracked, are using the vehicles less often for personal business.

GPS units also have cost some workers their jobs. In Fort Wayne, an administrator in the county health department bought three GPS devices out of her own pocket and moved them around between 12 department vehicles. Six employees were fired when they were caught going to stores, gyms, restaurants, churches and their homes. The administrator was later reimbursed for her purchases.

Needless to say, some employees and their unions don't like this use of GPS and complain that Big Brother is spying on them. That's made the use of GPS a bargaining point in contract negotiations. The Teamsters' tentative contract with United Parcel Service, for instance, says that a new employee cannot be fired for a first offense detected by GPS unless there is proof of intent to defraud.

But the devices also are being used in less controversial ways. In my old town of Boston, GPS units are installed on school buses, allowing the district to tell worried parents how far away a late bus is.

Censorship at the Smithsonian?

Some scientists say that officials at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History watered down sections of an exhibit on the Arctic before its launch in 2006 to avoid criticism from global-warming skeptics.

The Washington Post reports that it has obtained documents that show the museum's director, Cristian Samper, ordered changes to the exhibit to include "scientific uncertainty."

Scientists at other agencies collaborating on the project expressed in e-mails their belief that Smithsonian officials acted to avoid criticism from congressional appropriators and global-warming skeptics in the Bush administration. But Samper said in an interview last week that "there was no political pressure -- not from me, not from anyone."

The Post provides some examples of the changes made. Originally the exhibit's introductory panel said, "Over the past 50 years, the average temperatures across the Arctic have risen by nearly twice as much as the global average." After Samper asked for changes, the entrance panel read, "The Earth's climate is changing -- and it always has."

In the interview with the Post, Samper said he felt the exhibit indicated a degree of certainty beyond the contemporary science. He also acknowledged that he took a cautious approach because the exhibit had the words "climate change," which are "politically sensitive."

Religious Scholars to Discuss Flying Spaghetti Monster

This is not a joke. I don't think.

The Associated Press reports that when some of the world's leading religious scholars get together this weekend for the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting, one phenomenon they will discuss is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

As you may know, the monster first appeared in 2005, during the debate about the teaching of intelligent design in public schools in Kansas.

Bobby Henderson, an Oregon State physics graduate, sent a letter to the Kansas School Board, saying he spoke for the 10 million followers of a being called the Flying Spaghetti Monster and demanding equal time for their views. The tongue-in-cheek letter concluded, "I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; one third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

What Henderson was trying to convey was his belief that there is no more scientific basis for intelligent design than there is for a spaghetti monster who flies creating the universe, so the only good solution is to teach nothing in science class but science. But the cult of the monster took off on college campuses, and three graduate students studying religion in popular culture, who were fascinated by the satiric religion, managed to get a panel on FSM-ism at the academy's annual meeting.

Its title: "Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody."

U.S. War Resisters Face Different Legal Outcomes

A U.S. war resister and his supporters won an important legal skirmish in Tacoma, Wash., Thursday, but two Americans who fled to Canada to avoid service in Iraq had their appeals to stay in that country blocked.

A federal judge in Tacoma issued a preliminary injunction that stops the military from going ahead with court-martial proceedings against Ehren Watada, an Army first lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq. The judge says the military court is ignoring Watada's constitutional right not to face double jeopardy after his first court-martial ended in a mistrial.

The injunction means Watada has a better chance of winning his case, but it also means he might not get a chance to test his central argument — that the Iraq war is illegal — in court.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the Canadian Supreme Court declined to hear appeals from two American war resisters, Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, who deserted the Army and fled to Canada in 2004. The men had appealed rulings from immigration authorities and two courts that they are not refugees in need of protection.

Now the Canadian government wants them to leave. "All refugee claimants in Canada have the right to due process and when they have exhausted those legal avenues we expect them to respect our laws and leave the country," said Mike Fraser, spokesman for the citizenship and immigration minister.

But under the Canadian legal system, it could still be a long time before the men have to leave. For instance, they can ask for a pre-removal risk assessment to judge whether they would be at risk of torture, death or cruel and unusual punishment or treatment in the United States. And The Canadian Press reports that the men and their supporters will press the Canadian parliament to create a provision for them to stay.

November 15, 2007

Barry Bonds Indicted on Perjury Charges

Barry Bonds waves to fans during his final home game as a player for the San Francisco Giants in September.

Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

The other shoe just dropped for Barry Bonds.

Bonds, baseball's leading home-run hitter who has been accused of using illegal supplements in his quest for the cherished title, was indicted today in San Francisco on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. He's accused of lying when he told a grand jury investigating steroid use that he did not take performance-enhancing drugs.

"During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances for Bonds and other athletes," the indictment says.

It also says that Bonds lied when he said his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, never injected him with steroids.

"I'm surprised," John Burris, one of Bonds' attorneys, told The Associated Press, "but there's been an effort to get Barry for a long time."

Blame It on Your Name

Every once in awhile, you run across a study that boggles the mind.

Case in point: Psychologists in marketing at Yale and the University of California, San Diego, have found that "a preference for our own names and initials — the 'name-letter effect' — can have some negative consequences," USA Today reports.

The study of the unconscious influence of names and initials, which will be published in the December issue of Psychological Science, finds that students whose names begin with "C" or "D" get lower grades than those whose names start with "A" or "B." (Heaven knows how this affects the Franks and Felicias of the world.)

The researchers' work supports a series of studies published since 2002 that have found the "name-letter effect" causes people to make life choices based on names that resemble their own. Those studies by Brett Pelham, an associate professor of psychology at SUNY University at Buffalo, have found that people are disproportionately likely to live in states or cities resembling their names, have careers that resemble their names and even marry those whose surnames begin with the same letter as their own.

The USA Today story provides a few examples based on the research, including one that caught my eye. Apparently, a guy named Tom is likely to live in Toronto and marry someone named Tonya.

I don't know about all this. Never mind the Carls or Denises we all know who did well in school. I'm a Tom ... who lives in Virginia ... and married a Barbara.

However, the authors of the study do say that while the effect is more than coincidence, it is small.

Maybe very small.

Will Hillary Clinton Fight Back Against 'The Boys'?

NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson sent this note about tonight's Democratic debate in Nevada:

Everybody's wondering if Hillary Clinton will fight back tonight at the debate in Las Vegas ... or does she still feel comfortable enough in her lead to stick to the safe perch of Bush bashing that she's occupied in the previous debates? Her advisers suggest she may be more aggressive toward her Democratic rivals ... even though in previous debates she's said that she's not interested in fighting with them — only the Republicans.
I'm wondering if she will answer some questions with a simple yes or no for comic relief — and to neutralize the story line that's developed recently about her less-than-clear answers on a host of subjects.

Not His Brother's Keeper?

If it had happened in a courtroom, it would have been the Perry Mason moment.

Instead, it was during a congressional hearing that State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard learned, apparently for the first time, that his brother is serving on the advisory board of Blackwater — the U.S. security firm under federal investigation after a Baghdad shooting.

Henry Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, started the session by noting Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard's Blackwater connections, but Howard Krongard strongly denied them. "When these ugly rumors started recently, I specifically asked him. I do not believe it is true that he is a member of the advisory board that you stated. And that's something I think I need to say," he told the committee.

But Democrat Elijah Cummings of Connecticut produced e-mails from Erik Prince, the head of Blackwater, welcoming Buzzy Krongard to the board.

After a break, Howard Krongard said he had spoken with his brother and that Buzzy was connected to Blackwater. He immediately recused himself from all matters concerning the security firm.

Even Howard Krongard's supporters on the committee were upset. "He has done you tremendous damage by that," Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut told Krongard.

The Associated Press reports Krongard also has relinquished his role in an investigation of corruption allegations related to the new U.S. embassy in Iraq and is under heavy pressure to resign.

NPR's Michele Kelemen told me there is no word yet on whether the controversy will affect Howard Krongard's long-term position. But she notes that he didn't appear to have anyone from the State Department with him at Wednesday's hearing. A former staffer who quit in August said he didn't recognize anyone from Krongard's office there.

Bishops: Catholic Teachings Should Guide Voters

Catholic bishops are telling voters of their faith that they have to consider the church's teachings on abortion and other issues when casting ballots for the White House and other offices or they will be judged by God for their actions. The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued instructions Wednesday warning voters that "their eternal salvation could be at stake."

The bishops have drafted similar statements since 1976, but the Tribune writes that this is the first time they have "spelled out possible consequences."

Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston offered a more blunt assessment after the bishops' vote when he told The Boston Globe that support among Catholics for Democrats who favor abortion rights "borders on scandal." He said the Democratic Party has been "extremely insensitive to the church's position, on the gospel of life in particular, and on other moral issues."

O'Malley said he thinks "there's a need for people to very actively dissociate themselves from those unacceptable positions, and I think if they did that, then the party would have to change." Catholics make up about one-fifth of the American electorate.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera defended his party, pointing out that there are 104 Catholic Democrats currently serving in Congress, including two who vocally oppose abortion rights.

November 14, 2007

Marvel Puts Comics Online

Spider-Man is getting a chance to use his skills on a completely different kind of web.

Marvel Comics has put 2,500 of its comics online. For $9.99 a month — or $4.99 a month if you sign up for a year — you'll get access to all of them (including the first 100 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four). The company is also offering 250 comics for free for a limited time.

Twenty new comics will be added each week, but titles will have to be in print for at least six months before they go online.

Marvel is hoping to recapture the attention of the young people it may have "lost" to the Web, but some see pitfalls for online comics. Dennis Webb, owner of the Comics and Cards Collectorama in Alexandria, Va., told me that he thinks real collectors will want the issues in print and the Web offerings won't change their habits. He adds: "No one has mentioned it at all. There hasn't been any buzz."

Bringing Up Baby ... at Work

Ksenia Kozlovskaya/iStockphoto

After my son, Liam, was born, I started taking him to the office with me on Fridays so my wife could get some work done. Liam would spend most of the day sleeping in his carrier, but he would also come with me to meetings and crawl around on the floor in my office playing with toys. His Friday visits lasted about six months, and aside from a few bumps, the system worked pretty well.

Turns out that maybe I was ahead of the curve. A growing number of businesses are experimenting with on-the-job parenting, The Boston Globe reports. Some are allowing parents to regularly bring babies to work. A larger number are allowing employees to bring their children in if the nanny is sick or the school has a snow day. A national survey by the Virginia-based Society for Human Resource Management found that companies with policies for those emergency situations increased from 22 percent to 29 percent over the past year.

However, a baby on the job can raise concerns about distractions for a parent's co-workers. So consultant Carla Moquin recommends companies implement specific policies to handle kids at work, such has having the option to decide a baby is too much of a disruption to be at the office.

When I wanted to do the same Friday routine with my daughter, a fellow worker told me privately that she felt uncomfortable with the idea. So I didn't do it. I felt I needed everyone to be OK with the visits, or they would only cause problems.

Christmas Gift Cards a Bad Deal for Consumers?

Ah, gift cards ... Just thinking of them brings back all the happy Christmas memories I have of being too lazy to think about that really personal gift I could get someone close to me, panicking at the last second and buying a nice, shiny gift card instead. And I know I'm not the only one. The National Retail Federation predicts that there will be a 6 percent increase in gift card sales this holiday season, meaning that shoppers will spend about $26.3 billion on them.

The Chicago Tribune actually describes that as a "sober 6 percent" because gift card sales went up by a whopping 34 percent last year. However, Consumer Reports' executive editor also says more people are complaining to his magazine about the cards, concerned about lost cards and expiration dates.

This week, Consumer Reports launched a public education campaign aimed at warning shoppers about gift card pitfalls. It started with a full-page ad in The New York Times that read: "Dear Shopper, Last year, shoppers like you were out $8 billion because of unused, lost, or expired gift cards. Easy money for retailers. Lost money for you. Yours truly, Consumer Reports."

The consumer advocacy group's research shows 27 percent of people who received gift cards last year haven't used them yet, the Detroit Free Press reports. And all that unspent money can really pile up: After last year's holiday season, Nordstrom recorded $8 million in income from gift cards unused for five years or more.

The rules on how long you have to use a gift card vary from store to store and state to state. (Here's a chart that details the rules in each state.) Consumer Reports advises using gift cards quickly if you get them.

So does knowing that a sizable number of people never actually use their gift cards change your mind about buying them?

November 13, 2007

Films Set in Alaska ... Aren't

The idea of a vampire movie set in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the United States, where darkness sets in for weeks on end each winter, was chilling.

Only 30 Days of Night wasn't really showing Barrow. It was filmed in the land of hobbits and sheep: New Zealand. And you remember that daring rescue in the Kevin Costner film about the Coast Guard, The Guardian, purported to take place 100 miles off the coast of Alaska? Actually, it was off the coast of Shreveport, La. (Which I would have picked as about the last place in the United States that could double for Alaska.) And in the upcoming Sandra Bullock film about Sitka, Alaska, you'll likely be seeing beautiful Massachusetts.

Talk about an identity crisis.

Day to Day reports that last week, a group of politicians, chamber of commerce members and filmmakers got together to talk about why nobody wants to make movies and TV shows set in Alaska in Alaska. A former Hollywood executive told them that it takes more than natural beauty to get filmmakers to show up. Alaska is one of the five states that don't offer filmmakers financial incentives like rebates or loans.

For instance, New Zealand offered the makers of 30 Days a 15 percent rebate. Canada, where the TV show Men in Trees is shot, has been a leader in offering these kinds of incentives.

Alaskans are hoping that the new Sean Penn film Into the Wild, which was shot in the 49th state, will increase people's interest in working there. But some are also looking to introduce incentive legislation, figuring the state is going to have to cough up some cash to prevent filmmakers from having Shreveport stand in.

Research Finds Many Blacks Earn Less than Parents Did

A trio of new reports about the economic mobility of Americans is encouraging in some ways but disquieting in others: Two out of three Americans have higher incomes than their parents, and 50 percent of that group is upwardly mobile, meaning that they have moved up at least one rung on the economic ladder from their parents.

But the studies released today as part of the Economic Mobility Project from the Pew Charitable Trust also found that nearly half of the children born to middle-class black families in the late 1960s fell down the ladder. Forty-five percent of black children whose parents were in an income bracket with median earnings of $55,600, adjusted for inflation, in 1968 are now in the lowest fifth of wage earners.

The reports, written by Julia B. Isaacs, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which followed 2,367 people from across the country, including 730 African-Americans, since 1968.

A summary of key findings for the three reports states, "In every income group, blacks are less likely than whites to surpass their parents' family income and more likely to fall down the economic ladder."

The reports don't offer any reasons for the disparity (that will be looked at more closely in the project's next series of studies), but Isaacs did offer some theories based on other studies to The Wall Street Journal: Black parents have fewer assets, like houses or stocks, to pass on to their children, and marriage rates are lower for blacks than whites, so black children are more likely to grow up to be single parents. A third possibility is that more black women were working 30 years ago than white women, so whites have benefited more economically from women entering the workforce.

Brits Pay Less for Beer than Bottled Water

Now, here's a bit of good news for beer drinkers: In Britain, beer costs less than bottled water and soda in many supermarkets.

After living in Canada and the United States, where every simple pleasure seems to be heavily taxed, I am heartened to see that in England, a bloke can still get a pint for a decent price. (Years ago, when I was a columnist at a newspaper in Canada, one of my senior editors suggested I run a joke campaign for public office on a platform of lowering beer prices, just to see how people would respond. Readers loved the idea, but the publisher didn't — and killed my budding political career.)

Alas, the British beer drinker's good fortune may not last long. Morning Edition reports that anti-alcohol campaigners, aghast at the idea that beer is cheaper than water, want the government to increase taxes. But even without a tax hike, prices for microbrews at least are likely to rise because of a shortage of the hops used to flavor beer.

Employers Cracking Down on Unhealthy Behaviors

Earlier this year, Scotts Miracle-Gro announced that smokers could no longer work for the Ohio-based lawn and garden company and that it would test randomly for nicotine. Starting in January, employees of media giant Tribune Co. will have to pay an additional $100 a month in insurance premiums if they or their covered family members smoke.

Welcome to the new world of "tough love" health care, where some companies are trying to limit rising costs by cracking down on potentially unhealthy behaviors, The Washington Post reports.

A survey of 450 major employers this year found that two-thirds were considering more aggressive health care programs for employees. The costs are a big deal for employers. The nonprofit Partnership for Prevention says employers spend an average of $1,685 per employee on absenteeism, low productivity and other indirect costs of individual and family health problems, for a grand total of $226 billion a year.

However, workers in 30 states are protected from penalties for lawful activities, such as smoking, outside work. Union contracts also offer some protection. For instance, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild has filed a grievance about the smoking penalty at The Baltimore Sun, a Tribune newspaper.

A lawyer representing a former Scotts worker who was fired after testing positive for nicotine argues that if employers can implement these kinds of measures against smokers, it's only a matter of time before they also penalize people "who are overweight or have high cholesterol, or ride motorcycles or sky-dive."

How far should a company be able to go to force employees to adopt healthier lifestyles? What about not hiring people who smoke or who are overweight?

November 12, 2007

Online Trading Firm's Stock Value Drops by Half

E*Trade has had better days. Shares in the online stock-trading firm lost more than half their value today following a warning from a Citigroup analyst about a higher "probability of a run on the bank."

TheStreet.com reports that analyst Prashant Bhatia downgraded the stock to a "sell" rating after E*Trade announced Friday that it expected to take additional hits from the subprime mortgage crisis. The firm also said that the Securities and Exchange Commission had launched an informal inquiry into the firm's loans and securities portfolios.

Now, I know next to nothing about the stock market and securities portfolios, but I do know that everyone pulling their money out of a bank is not a good thing. (Anybody who has ever seen It's a Wonderful Life understands that.) So I wondered what would happen if you did have some money in an E*Trade account, like a margin-selling account that day traders like to use, when the company went kaput. Would you lose it all because the company is online rather than a bricks-and-mortar entity?

Well, the message from Karen Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics in Washington, D.C., is that you can relax. A bit. E*Trade, she told me, is an insured depository, which makes it just like a bank (even if it doesn't have ATMs). That means it's protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to the tune of $100,000 per customer. (The FDIC doesn't protect stocks, mutual funds and money market accounts, but those wouldn't be affected by what happens to E*Trade as a company.)

Then again, TheStreet reports that 50 percent of E*Trade accounts, about $15 billion, are in excess of $100,000. So maybe only half of its customers can relax. And I'm guessing that there might not be any E*Trade commercials during the Super Bowl this year.

6:04 PM ET | 11-12-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Broadway, Hollywood Strikers Share Money Concerns

Members of the Broadway stagehands' union picket during the weekend.

Eric Bechtold/Scoopt/Getty Images

The strikes involving Hollywood writers and Broadway stagehands have more in common than just showbiz. The strikers from the two unions share at least one bargaining concern: They want producers to take revenue from nontraditional sources into account in their contracts.

For TV and film writers, this additional revenue is the main reason for their strike. They are fighting for a share of the money generated from their work through new technologies like the Internet and mobile phones. The creation of revenue from sources other than ticket sales is an issue for the stagehands, particularly in terms of determining a production's profitability.

"When you go into a show like Legally Blonde or Young Frankenstein, you walk past a phalanx of souvenir kiosks," NPR contributor Jeff Lunden told me. And it's these revenue streams that the union says should be considered in a show's bottom line. That will help determine, the union argues, what kind of contract producers can afford.

However, producers argue that old rules force them to pay people who do little or no work and doom many productions to financial failure. Right now, Lunden told me, about one in five Broadway shows is profitable, and it can take around two years to get there.

That leads to another concern the stagehands share with TV and film writers — not everyone works all year long. The stagehands' union argues that the work rules in the contract exist to help protect members who don't work 12 months a year.

Lunden reported for Morning Edition today that no new negotiations have been scheduled in the Broadway strike. But the heat on both sides to reach a settlement might be turned up as tourists cancel trips to New York and economic losses start to hit other businesses, like restaurants and hotels.

The Hunt for the Youth Vote in Iowa

USA Today reports that presidential candidates are working to generate excitement among young people in Iowa as the state's caucuses approach — aided by tools like the social networking site Facebook that have allowed them to organize college students in new ways.

But they also face a new obstacle created by Iowa's desire to remain "first in the nation" during primary season: winter break. Classes will be out of session at almost all the colleges and universities in Iowa on Jan. 3. The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire recently examined how the break could hurt in particular Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, whose poll numbers reflect his support among 18- to 30-year-olds.

The campaigns are hoping that the 60 percent of Iowa's 30,000 college students who live in the state will still caucus in their hometowns. But the trick is making sure they go; if the colleges were still in session, it would be much easier to organize them.

Some colleges do plan to open briefly during the voting to give out-of-state students a place to stay if they want to come help their favorite candidates. (Ken Rudin, NPR's political editor, tells me that he hasn't heard anything from any of the campaigns in Iowa about whether they'll take steps to try to address the scheduling conflict.)

And while we're on the subject of Iowa, NPR will be there to sponsor a Democratic debate on Dec. 4. We'll have more details as we get closer.

1:46 PM ET | 11-12-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Report Calls for Access to Birth Records for Adoptees

When it comes to making adoption policy, the struggle between one person's right to know and another's right to privacy is often central. But The Associated Press says a report being released today by a leading adoption institute comes down solidly for the right to know, calling for adult adoptees to have access to their birth records, which will allow them to learn their birth parents' identities.

"States' experiences in providing this information make clear that there are minimal, if any, negative repercussions," says the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which is based in Boston. "Outcomes appear to have been overwhelmingly positive for adult adopted persons and birthparents alike."

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the institute argues that open records for adoption "do not result in increased abortion rates, decreased adoptions or fractured adoptive families." Currently, eight states allow this kind of access to adults who were adopted.

But opponents of open records, like the National Council for Adoption, say that they violate the birth mother's privacy and point out that sometimes birth parents don't want to develop relationships with the children they gave up for adoption. The president of the council, which favors mutual consent before any contact between an adopted adult and a birth parent, also says that taking away the confidentiality option removes adoption as a choice for some women who feel they would have to have it.

However, some adopted children argue that they need to know their biological background. "There are so many adoptees who want to know who they are," said Paula Benoit, an adoptee and state senator in Maine who lobbied for an open records law. "Can you imagine being denied your identity?"

So what serves the greater good here: the right to know or the right to privacy?

November 9, 2007

Concerns About Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Mount

The United States continues to be concerned about the "state of emergency and curtailment of basic freedoms" in Pakistan, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said today.

Another U.S. concern, NPR national security correspondent Jackie Northam reports, is Pakistan's nuclear weapons. (The country is believed to have 50.) Jackie told me U.S. officials are worried what might happen if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is overthrown or becomes too weak.

But their biggest worry isn't that the weapons will fall into the hands of the Islamic militants the United States has been relying on Musharraf to help fight. It's that insiders in the Pakistani nuclear movement might try to sell materials, Jackie says. Officials point to the case of A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani engineer who bought and sold nuclear knowledge and supplies on the international black market.

The U.S. has worked with Pakistan to safeguard materials, but that has actually sparked some resentment in Pakistan, Jackie says, describing it as a feeling of "the Americans are coming to Pakistan to steal all of our nukes."

While the general in charge of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is pro-Western, and the military is the most stable intuition in the country, Jackie told me one expert compared the situation to money left sitting on a bank counter. Even an honest person might be tempted to pick some up if it's just lying around. And a Pakistani nuclear scientist might be willing to sell some nuclear secrets if safeguards start to appear weak.

Did Russia Play Role in Georgian Turmoil?

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili appeared on national television on Thursday to announce early elections.

AFP/Getty Images

Georgia's opposition leaders called off their demonstrations against President Mikhail Saakashvili today after he announced early elections in the former Soviet republic. Saakashvili's announcement came after many in Georgia and around the world expressed shock at Wednesday's police crackdown on demonstrators in the capital of Tbilisi. They had been protesting in front of Georgia's parliament buildings for several days.

The BBC reports that early elections had been one of the opposition's main demands as it seeks to end what it considers the president's authoritarian grip on power.

One lingering question has been whether Russia played a role in the demonstrations. NPR contributor Lawrence Sheets reported that the Georgian president accused Russia of helping to coordinate them, a charge opposition leaders deny.

But Russia is "livid" with Georgia, in part because of its Western-style reforms, says Gregory Feifer, NPR's correspondent in Moscow. Saakashvili also has been openly critical of the overt political pressure that Russia exerts, unlike the leaders of other former Soviet republics.

Since he came to power in 2003, after what became known as the Rose Revolution, Saakashvili has tried to end the corrupt practices of his predecessors, including replacing the police force with a more mobile, American-style one. He also adopted a pro-Western foreign policy, saying that he wanted Georgia to ultimately join both NATO and the European Union.

But much of the rhetoric about the West in Moscow appears paranoid, Feifer says. Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, are constantly talking about how the West is trying to break up Russia.

Given Saakashvili's charges against Moscow, his decision to call elections early may seem like caving to pressure, but Feifer says it could actually save his job. By announcing elections so quickly, he looks like a leader who is unafraid to face the public and leaves the fragmented opposition little time to find a credible candidate to run against him.

4:39 PM ET | 11- 9-2007 | permalink | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Getting to the Tipping Point

People can sure get worked up over tips, as the great Clinton tipping controversy shows. It began after NPR reporter David Greene interviewed Anita Esterday, a waitress in Toledo, Iowa, who had served Sen. Hillary Clinton and her guests and later ended up in a few of Clinton's speeches. Greene was examining how people felt about their encounters with presidential candidates, but it was one line from Esterday that got all the attention: "I mean, nobody got left a tip that day."

The Clinton campaign countered that it did leave a tip — a $100 tip, in fact, on a bill of $157. Greene says he made a mistake by not contacting the campaign before the story aired. When he spoke with Esterday again Thursday, she stuck by her story. "Why would I lie about not getting a tip?" she said.

But leaving aside the back-and-forth, it was interesting to see just how much attention the idea of someone not leaving a tip generated. Rival candidates and the Republican National Committee e-mailed the NPR story to reporters, and blogs weighed in with lots of comments about why tipping matters.

SnagABlog, the blog at SnagAJob.com, commented that "it shouldn't take a headline-making run-in and mix-up with a famous politician to remind people to tip and respect wait staff — and all of America's hourly workers." And DHinMI at Daily Kos advised all political campaigns to "make sure you've got some people on staff who've struggled a little bit, or at least appreciate how important an extra dollar or two might be for some of the people who make your life a little easier, and how kindness and respect to people 'below your station in life' can go a long way."

These reactions show why the Clinton campaign moved fast to get its side of the story out, afraid of the effect that being seen as "cheap" could have on her support, especially from working-class women.

But regardless of whether Clinton's waitress got a tip, the uproar raises the question of just how much tipping reflects on a person beyond the cash involved. Do you think you would change your mind about supporting a candidate if you found out he or she didn't tip a waiter?

November 8, 2007

How High Are the Levels of Chemicals in Our Bodies?

How's your "body burden"? That's the term being used to describe the levels of sometimes toxic chemicals Americans carry in their bodies.

A new study by a group of nongovernmental organizations measured those levels. The chemicals examined can often be found in personal cosmetics like hand creams, in flame retardants put on furniture or in plastics used in shower curtains, to make water bottles harder or to keep teeth from getting cavities.

Thirty-five people from seven states were tested for the toxins. Sharyle Patton, director of Commonweal's Health and Environment Program, one of the NGOs conducting the study, told Day to Day's Alex Chadwick that the levels found in human bodies were equivalent to levels that have been shown to produce "bodily changes" in animals.

Journalist and author David Ropeik says this study contributes to a growing body of evidence that we all carry chemicals we weren't born with. But he says it's important to remember that when a study comes out — especially one with a small sample — it's just one brick in a wall of evidence, "not the defining answer."

'Botnets': A Cybervillain's Weapon of Choice

As your computer sits at home in your living room, criminals may be using it for their own sinister purposes. It might sound like science fiction, but it actually happens.

In fact, hackers like to create entire networks of computers they've taken over, usually without the owners' knowledge. FBI Director Robert Mueller warned against these networks, known as "botnets," in a speech at Penn State this week, calling them the "Swiss Army knives of cybercrime. You name it, they can do it, from attacking networks, sending spam and collecting data, to infecting computers and injecting spyware."

To create the botnets, hackers use virus and worm attacks to put software on PCs that connect back to a server. The hacker can then use the server to send instructions to the compromised computers, called "zombies."

And there are literally millions of computers in the United States and around the world that have become zombies, says Shawn Henry, deputy assistant director of the FBI Cyber Division. "These things have exponentially increased the ability of criminals and others to do harm," he told me.

The hunt for the people behind these networks is a "cat-and-mouse game," Henry says. Cybercriminals can often switch IP addresses quickly, from zombie machine to zombie machine, making them hard to track. The FBI relies on cooperation from businesses, government officials and universities to track them down, find their main servers and block them. (Henry and his team, working with their partners, have found more than a million infected computers and shut down several bot operations since June.)

Continue reading "'Botnets': A Cybervillain's Weapon of Choice" »

Study: Caffeine May Help Treat Alzheimer's

My mother, who is approaching 80, used to drink 15 to 20 cups of coffee a day. I kid you not. Finally, her doctor told her she just had to cut back. And she did ... to about 10 cups a day.

So I think she'll be glad to hear that a study has found that the caffeine equivalent of drinking five cups of coffee a day may help prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease. ScienceDaily reports that separate studies also show that using certain blood pressure drugs or taking fish oil may help as well.

The blood pressure drugs appear to block the formation of the sticky wads of protein called amyloid plaques that build up in brains of Alzheimer's patients. Tests with caffeine and fish oil showed they were effective in reducing the plaques in animals.

Gary Arendash, a researcher at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute in Tampa, Fla., says giving Alzheimer's mice the human equivalent of five cups of coffee, or 500 milligrams of caffeine, breaks apart the sticky plaque. His institute has begun clinical trials with older people. "Caffeine could be a surprisingly effective treatment against this disease,'' Arendash told Bloomberg. "It's almost too good to be true.''

I used to give my mom a hard time about drinking so much coffee. But maybe it's not so bad.

November 7, 2007

MIT Sues Architect Gehry Over Unusual Building

The Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was designed by Frank Gehry, opened in 2004.

Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

The unique design of the Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology certainly catches your attention. Frank Gehry, the architect who designed it, once said it "looks like a party of drunken robots got together to celebrate."

But MIT, apparently, is no longer celebrating. The university is suing Gehry and the construction company that built the $300 million center, which opened in 2004, alleging that design and construction failures "resulted in pervasive leaks, cracks and drainage problems that have required costly repairs," The New York Times reports.

Gehry, whose firm was paid $15 million for the project, told the Times that issues involved in the lawsuit, which was filed in Boston last week, are "fairly minor. MIT is after our insurance."

Gehry's work has often played a role in debates about form versus function in buildings. For instance, John Silber, former president of Boston University, tells The Boston Globe that Gehry thinks of himself as a sculptor, but that "you don't live in a sculpture."

So should someone who commissions a striking design like this expect to sacrifice some functionality?

Official: Justice Dept. Crisis May Help Next AG

Now that retired Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination has made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it seems a sure thing that he will be confirmed by the full Senate as attorney general. (Then again, his recommendation by the committee seemed like it would be smooth sailing at first — but that got a little complicated.) While Mukasey's opinion on waterboarding remains a hot topic of conversation, if he takes over as attorney general, the biggest challenge he'll face at first will be turning around a Justice Department in crisis.

And that situation may be his ace in the hole when it comes to making a difference quickly, says Philip Heymann, a former assistant attorney general in the Carter administration and deputy attorney general in the Clinton era. Heymann, who teaches at Harvard Law School, told me that top organizational experts now believe that it's easier to turn around an organization quickly when it's in crisis.

"He has an advantage, rather than a disadvantage," Heymann said. "Everyone in the department will want him to succeed, and so they'll work harder to make that happen."

The department has been roiled by allegations that decisions, including the one to fire several U.S. attorneys, were motivated by partisan politics. Heymann recommends that Mukasey move "pretty quickly" to address those issues if confirmed. He suggests that Mukasey announce that White House officials and congressmen will no longer be able to contact Justice Department employees who make decisions about prosecutions and personnel. (Mukasey has already indicated that he plans to authorize only a few top Justice officials to take calls from political figures.)

"If elected or non-elected officials have something they want to convey, they can speak to the attorney general or one of his two assistants. And a record should be made of the conversation, as was the case in some previous administrations. Then Mukasey and his assistants can decide what they want to do with that information," Heymann said.

Channeling politicians' comments through the top ranks reduces the influence on the rest of the staff, and keeping records promotes transparency, Heymann says.

Baseball Managers Vote for Limited Instant Replay

Anyone who watched this year's baseball playoffs will remember Boston Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez's long drive that bounced high on the outfield wall in Cleveland. It was hard to tell if the ball hit above or on the line that marks a home run. The umpires huddled and eventually ruled the ball had stayed in play. But if baseball managers have their way, the umps could go to instant replay to make the call in the future.

Baseball's general managers voted 25-5 Tuesday to add instant replay during games in limited situations. It wouldn't be used for balls and strikes or to determine if a runner was safe at home, but it could help decide if "potential home runs are fair or foul, whether balls go over fences or hit the tops and bounce back, and whether fans interfere with possible homers," The Associated Press reports.

The next step is for the managers to put the proposal before MLB commissioner Bud Selig, who has opposed instant reply. But as the Los Angeles Times reports, he has "softened his opposition" recently, apparently not wanting to appear outdated. If he approves, the managers would vote on a more detailed proposal, which would eventually go the players' and umpires' unions and possibly the owners for approval.

The idea of instant reply is attractive when you consider situations like the Ramirez hit. But games are already pretty long — and many complain that instant replay is likely to drag them out even more. Is the chance that a replay might work out in your team's favor worth the possibility of an even longer game?

November 6, 2007

Media Web Sites Try Selling Words in Stories

Ads seem to be everywhere online: pop-ups, side links, ads that float across your screen, banner ads. Now some online publishers are picking up on yet another idea: selling words in their editorial content and linking them to ads.

It's known as in-text advertising, and it's being used by newspaper sites like AZCentral, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Reno Gazette-Journal and The Indianapolis Star. (For an example, in this AJC story about Georgia football, the words "football" and "sports" have been purchased by a deodorant company. Look for the green text and double underlining.)

Bill Mitchell, editor of Poynter Online, the Web site of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists and journalism teachers, finds the idea intriguing but sees some problems.

"Reader confusion is a big issue here," he told me. "When you see links in the body of editorial content, you believe that it leads to material that is likely to add to your understanding of the content or enables you to go deeper into the story. You don't think that you're going to an ad."

Continue reading "Media Web Sites Try Selling Words in Stories" »

Survey: Fears About Getting Older Differ Around Globe

I confess to having a few worries about growing old since passing the big 5-0, especially when the AARP tried to sign me up. But I was intrigued to see that what people fret about when it comes to aging differs from country to country, according to an international survey.

The survey, conducted by GfK Roper Consulting, a global market-research firm, found that Germans worry most about losing their memories or mental sharpness, The Boston Globe reports. The Dutch worry about gaining weight, while Brazilians fear losing their sex drive and their teeth. Thais are concerned about their eyesight. And Egyptians don't seem to worry about aging much at all.

(My wife, an expert on the Middle East, offered an interesting take on Egyptians' attitudes toward growing old. The trade-off for aging is supposed to be that you become a respected elder in your community, right? Well, that's the case in much of Egyptian society, she says, but perhaps not as true in the West, where so much value is placed on youth.)

And Americans ... well, we worry about a few things: loss of energy, trouble caring for ourselves, memory loss and weight gain.

I fall into the weight-gain concerns camp. Anyone else willing to 'fess up to what worries them about growing old?

Ron Paul, Fundraising Juggernaut?

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas speaks at a GOP debate last month in Dearborn, Mich.

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Observers have often noted that GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul is far more popular online than he is in the polls. But it still caught campaign watchers by surprise to see the Paul camp turn that "virtual" support into $4.2 million. In one day.

The Texas Republican's campaign says the amount given in online donations from 37,000 backers Monday is the most money ever raised on the Web in a 24-hour period during a pre-convention primary campaign. According to USA Today's On Politics blog, the Paul campaign cites the previous best as the $2.7 million raised by John Kerry two days after the Super Tuesday primaries in 2004.

Paul's haul on Monday even topped the $3.1 million that Mitt Romney raised on Jan. 8 to become the highest one-day total overall for Republicans during this election cycle, The Associated Press reports, and it ranks only behind Democrats Hillary Clinton (who raised nearly $6.2 million on June 30) and Barack Obama.

When I saw that Paul was running up some impressive totals Monday night (his campaign charts its fundraising online in real time), I e-mailed Ken Rudin, NPR's political editor, to ask if all this money would do Paul's campaign any good.

"There is no question that what Ron Paul is doing is stunning; last quarter he out-raised John McCain, the once-upon-a-time frontrunner," Ken wrote back. "But then comes that nagging question about whether (or where) he can win. Every time anyone, including me, raises the question about his viability, we get bombarded with e-mails from his supporters. In a sense, that kind of loyalty is very impressive.

"But, and I've said this before, if this support from the blogosphere doesn't translate into strong showings in the primaries and caucuses, I'm not sure I know what the point is. Still, before anyone dare attempt to write him off, let's see what the voters have to say, starting with Iowa on Jan. 3 and New Hampshire on (presumably) Jan. 8."

November 5, 2007

Not Your Average Strike

Now that film and TV writers have left their keyboards to join the picket lines, we could be looking at a lot of reruns. (If you're a fan of Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, etc., those reruns start tonight.) So we know that our viewing habits may be out of whack for a few days, weeks, months ... who can say? A 1988 strike lasted five months.

The television disruption is just one of several factors that set this strike apart (in addition to the lack of hard hats).

The New York Times reports that, unlike most unions, the Writers Guild of America could face a problem because of the differences in income among members. Writers who make $5 million a year have different expectations from those who might make $50,000. It could be a challenge to hold them together if the strike lasts a long time.

The strike could also affect shows made specifically for the Web, writes Scott Collins of the Los Angeles Times. The writers' strike is all about the Web in one way — writers want a piece of the pie when their stuff is used online. But it could also benefit Internet-only shows if people hungry for original content start looking on YouTube and similar sites. However, Collins has his doubts, asking if any of it is actually worth watching.

Of course, there are similarities to a typical strike. Day to Day, which is based in Southern California, asked some of its contributors to talk about what the strike will mean for them. Annabelle Gurwitch said so far it's mostly been a problem for her son, who didn't get his homework done because she and her husband let his tutor go.

In addition to the tutor, the strike is expected cut into the income of people who work as drivers, caterers and, yes, dog groomers.

Musharraf Deals Blow to Bush's Democracy Goals

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's decision during the weekend to suspend the country's constitution and postpone elections has created a new obstacle for President Bush's much-touted "freedom agenda" — his plan to promote democracy in the Middle East as a way to reduce the appeal of extremists and improve stability.

Bush mentioned Pakistan as a country that had taken steps toward a more sustainable democracy in June. But in reality, the democracy initiative has never played much of a role there, says George Perkovich, an expert on Pakistan at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The priority of the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, Perkovich says, has been cooperation in the war on terror, not supporting democracy.

Perkovich says recent coups in Pakistan (and he includes what happened this weekend in that list) always work the same way: The military says that it has to step in and save the country from fundamentalists or terrorists, but the first people detained are lawyers and judges, the educated, human rights advocates and the media. "They never seem to go after the people whose behavior is being cited as the reason for the crackdown," Perkovich says.

Continue reading "Musharraf Deals Blow to Bush's Democracy Goals" »

A Bicycle Built for ... Millions

People rent bicycles in Paris during a transportation strike last month.

Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

It's apparently an idea that's pedaling its way around the globe. A growing number of cities worldwide are starting self-service bike rental operations, many modeled after a system in Paris.

Der Spiegel reports that once people sign up for the Paris service, they can take as many trips as they like. Basic fees run from $1.45 a day to $42 for a year. People can use bikes from any one of the 750 stations in the city (that number is expected to double to more than 1,400 this year) and return it to any station. The first half-hour is free, but after that, the additional fees climb sharply.

JCDecaux, the French advertising firm that came up with the Paris model, offers cities the ability to pay for the service straight-up or work out a deal that gives the company the rights to sell advertising space on the city's billboards. The cities showing interest in the Paris model include Sydney, Moscow, London and even Chicago.

But would it work in the United States' car-dominated culture? If a similar rental system existed in your city, would you bike rather than hail a cab?

November 2, 2007

Super Mouse Can Run For Almost Six Hours

Look, there on the treadmill, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... super mouse!

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University say they have bred a new kind of "mighty mouse." Officially known as PEPCK-Cmus mice, they can run for three miles and for up to six hours before they tire. They also live up to a year longer, eat 60 percent more -- and don't gain any weight -- are very aggressive and are sexually active far longer than regular mice in a control group.

If you want to see just how amazing these creatures are, check out this video of the mice running.

I talked with Prof. Richard Hanson at Case Western, who was the senior author of the article on the mice that appeared in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He told me the discovery was total "serendipity." The original research aimed to look at an enzyme involved in the production of glucose, or sugar, as a source of energy in the liver and kidneys. Dr. Hanson said the researchers "over expressed" (or really souped up) the role of the enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase - or PEPCK-C for short - in muscle tissue to see what would happen to the muscle.

The result was the super mice.

As for the future of the research, Dr. Hanson told me he doesn't see the research being used as a performance-enhancer for humans. 'It's unethical and inappropriate," he said.

Instead, he sees the discovery of the mice's new abilities heading in three directions: 1) looking at the possible link between exercise and cancer, building on previous studies showing exercise may reduce cancer; 2) looking at the role of calorie-reduction because "it may not be the calories you eat as (much as) what you do with them"; 3) looking at the possible link between the muscles and the brain.

'It's unexpected and interesting," he told me.

London Police Guilty of 'Catastophic' Failures

You probably remember the uproar a couple of years ago when British police officers shot and killed a young Brazilian immigrant in the subway after mistaking him for a suicide bomber. Well, on Thursday, a British Criminal Court jury found the London Metropolitan Police guilty of "catastrophic" failings in the series of events that led to Jean Charles de Menezes' death in 2005.

That's right, the whole force was found guilty. Prosecutors had said earlier that no individual officer could be tried for Menezes' death, so the force was tried under health and safety laws for failing to protect the public. Nineteen failures of police procedure were identified in the case. The judge has imposed a $350,000 fine.

Vikram Dodd, crime reporter for the Guardian, told me the verdict had nothing to do with Menezes' actual death. Since they did think he was a bomber, the police were guilty of failing to protect the public by allowing Menezes to move around so easily before the fatal confrontation on a train at the Stockwell underground station in South London. For instance, the jury said the police failed to put officers in postion to stop Menezes from getting on two buses and going into the Stockwell station. During the trial, the police contested all 19 of the accusations.

Vikram says it's hard to say if the verdict will lead to changes in the way the police operate. "Some people say there are lessons to be learned, some people say who knows what we learned."

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said that the shooting was an isolated incident under extraordinary circumstances. The day before Menezes was killed, four British men had tried and failed to blow up suicide bombs on separate trains. That attempt came two weeks after four men had successfully denoted bombs on the London underground and on a bus, killing 52. Police were looking for one of the men suspected in the failed bombings, fearful that he would act again, but the operation went wrong almost from the start.

Vikram says the report that will come from London's Independent Police Complaints Commission next Thursday will deal more with the issue of "Why did you shoot the wrong guy?" It could be far more damaging to the force and to Blair, who is being condemned by both opponents and former supporters.

Is It OK for the Government to Withhold Data?

After a year of refusing, NASA said this week that it will reveal the results of an aviation survey that found near collisions, runway interference and other safety problems happen far more frequently than previously believed. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin apologized to members of Congress for saying earlier that the agency had held back the survey data because it would upset travelers and hurt airline profits.

Griffin, however, called into question his own agency's research, saying that NASA doesn't consider the survey's methodology or data to have been sufficiently verified. But a non-NASA expert who worked on the study disagreed with Griffin.

If Griffin had legitimate concerns about the data, was it OK to withhold it? Or is it not a government agency's place to hold back information that would be of interest to many Americans?

November 1, 2007

Looking at the Ethics of the Lethal Injection Challenge

The Supreme Court decided to halt an execution in Mississippi this week, marking the third stay from the justices since they agreed to hear a challenge to lethal injection. It likely means that states will hold off on all executions until the high court rules on the case, which claims the drug mixture used for the injections can cause severe pain and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The "de facto" moratorium and the case itself raise an interesting ethical question. In the past, other inmates have challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection, have lost their appeals and have been executed. And Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says that the court has declined to take similar appeals in the past. So how is it fair that the justices have just now decided to weigh in, and, in the meantime, executions are likely to stop?

When I posed those questions to Stephen Gillers of New York University, an expert on legal ethics, he said it's not a matter of fairness in the conventional sense. He pointed to a story about late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Continue reading "Looking at the Ethics of the Lethal Injection Challenge" »

Diplomats Protest Move to Force Some to Go to Iraq

Some U.S. diplomats told senior State Department officials during a contentious meeting Wednesday that they aren't happy about a decision that could force some of them to serve in Iraq.

Karen DeYoung, senior diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, talked to Alex Cohen on Day to Day about the diplomats' protests. She said the meeting came after department officials sent e-mails to about 200 diplomats, notifying them that they are prime candidates to fill the remaining 48 of about 250 positions that will become vacant next summer. Some of those vacancies will be at the U.S. embassy and others with the provincial reconstruction teams around Iraq. If enough people don't volunteer by Nov. 12, then the State Department will use "directed assignments" that will force people to go.

DeYoung, who listened to a tape of the meeting, said the head of the diplomats' union said his membership didn't feel like they had the training to do the job. Another diplomat talked about coming back from Iraq and not getting help coping with her readjustment, despite asking for it.

But the diplomats' protests aren't sitting so well with soldiers in Iraq, according to JJ Sutherland, currently working in NPR's Baghdad bureau. One soldier he talked to laughed about their protests. He said lots of guys had been there for 15-month tours in brutal, urban combat conditions, so it was hard to understand the anxiety about working in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

But most importantly, the soldiers say the lack of diplomats impedes their work. The military can only do so much, and to rebuild the government, State Department expertise is required.

DeYoung said that the diplomats don't want to be seen as "wimps," and they point out that hundreds of them have served in Iraq since 2003. But the way the potential forced assignments are being handled has made them angry.

But Is It Art?

I love the doodles and scribbles of my four young children, but I would never venture to call them "art" (except maybe to their grandmother). Can kids even create art?

Elizabeth Blair examined that question and others in her All Things Considered story about Marla Olmstead, who became a media phenomenon at age 4. Her large, abstract paintings have sold for as much as $25,000.

Now she's the subject of a film by Amir Bar-Lev, My Kid Could Paint That. The film asks whether Marla actually painted the canvases herself. But as Bar-Lev told Elizabeth, it also raises larger questions about the essence of art.

"The fact that she was being called a prodigy in abstract expressionism raises a bunch of questions in my mind," Bar-Lev said. "Who decides what's great art, how does art get valued, what is art?"

Now, Mozart was composing music when he was 5, so young genius is not unheard of. And many people have valued Marla's work enough to pay thousands of dollars for it. On the other hand, people in the contemporary art field don't think Marla should get so much attention. So is it possible for a 4-year-old to make art, or is this just a case of media attention and trendy collectors creating a prodigy out of a little girl having fun with paint?

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