This week's editorial is about the fantastic notion that spending more money to subsidize health insurance for millions of Americans will somehow save the government money in the long run. We neglected to mention this fascinating analysis of the House health bill by Richard Foster, the chief actuary of HHS's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Among Foster's many interesting conclusions:

(a) "Total national health expenditures in the U.S. during the 2010-2019 would increase by about 0.8 percent. The additional demand for health services could be difficut to meet initially with existing health provider resources and could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, and/or changes in providers' willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage."

(b) "With the exception of the proposed reductions in Medicare payment updates for institutional providers, the provisions of HR 3962 would not have a significant impact on future health care cost growth rates. In addition, the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful."

Of course, as the recent "Doc Fix" episode illustrates, the short-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is pretty doubtful, too.

Milton Friedman famously said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no such thing as free health care, either.

The White House Chanukah Party will be lower on cheer this year. The Obama administration has decided to cut the guest list in half for the annual soiree, setting up a political minefield for staffers faced with a deep roster of Jewish staffers and donors, which must be winnowed:

During the Bush years, Jewish staffers were inundated by people who wanted to be invited to Bush's Chanukah soirees. Karl Rove once proclaimed at a West Wing meeting about the upcoming holiday parties that invites to the White House Chanukah party were officially the toughest ticket in town.

Bush's first Chanukah party, in 2001, gained national attention as the first one ever thrown in the White House residence. Each year, Bush continued the tradition, adding various refinements along the way...

Another refinement was the introduction of kosher food. The party was not kosher at first, as kosher food is significantly more expensive than non-kosher food -- 33 percent more, according to an estimate in The Jerusalem Post. Initially the White House did have a table with kosher food for guests who kept the dietary laws, but this led to confusion over which offerings were kosher and which were not. One year, due to a labeling mishap, some observant Jews accidentally ate from the non-kosher tables, leading to high-decibel complaints directed at the prim and proper White House ushers. From then on, Mrs. Bush decreed that the parties would be completely kosher, regardless of the expense.

The scrutiny given to a White House Chanukah party, and particularly the guest list, will certainly be more intense in a Democratic administration than in the Bush years. One reason is the long-standing attachment of Jews to the Democratic Party, as voters and especially as donors. Fully 78 percent of Jewish voters supported the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008, and Jewish fund-raisers figured prominently in the campaign. Reducing the size of the guest list, as Obama officials want to do, will therefore be an extremely difficult task. Just inviting the more than 40 Democratic members of Congress and their spouses will take a significant portion of the allotted spots, let alone the expected invites to Jewish senior staffers and large-dollar donors.

In a self-sacrificing act of solidarity, my colleague Michael Goldfarb has graciously offered to give up his invite. That's one down.

As the rest of us finish the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, the Senate begins its health care debate this week. The AP sets the table with a surprisingly pessimistic take on the coming weeks:

While majority Democrats will need 60 votes again to finish, some in the party say they'll jump ship from the bill without tighter restrictions on abortion coverage. Others say they'll go unless a government plan to compete with private insurance companies gets tossed. Such concessions would enrage liberals, the party's heart and soul.
There's no clear course for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to steer legislation through Congress to the president's desk. You can't make history unless you reach 60 votes, and don't count on Republicans helping him.

The major problem facing the legislation is public disapproval. Jeffrey Anderson goes through the numbers in this post over at NRO:

In the last two weeks, eight national polls have been released showing what the American people think of Obamacare. The results of those eight polls — Pew, ABC/WaPo, PPP, CNN, CBS, Quinnipiac, Fox, and Rasmussen — show that by an average margin of 8.5 percent (49.0 percent to 40.5 percent), more people oppose Obamacare than support it. That's greater than the margin by which John McCain lost last November. If you drop the high and low polls, the margin is greater still, as half of the eight polls show Obamacare facing a double-digit deficit.

Back in June, four national polls — Rasmussen, NBC/WSJ, Democracy Corps, and CNN — showed what Americans thought of Obamacare then. By a margin of 4.3 percent (44.3 percent to 40 percent), they supported it. So the drop in support for Obamacare has been 12.8 percent in five months.

And that's not even the full extent of the bad news for Obamacare supporters. Even in June, the intensity of opposition was clearly greater than the intensity of support, but now the ratio of those strongly opposed to strongly supportive has grown even larger. In June, when the Rasmussen poll showed 5 percent more people in support of Obamacare than opposed to it, those who felt "strongly" swung the other way — with 34 percent opposing it strongly and only 24 percent supporting it strongly. Today, the same poll shows that people who feel strongly (one way or the other) oppose Obamacare by better than 2-to-1: 43 percent to 21 percent. A 10-point gap among the vehement has become a 22-point gap.

Does Harry Reid have the skills to convince 60 senators to vote against public opinion? Good question! If he does, it will be a first for the Senate majority leader -- one that might cost him his job.

The Washington Post reports:

Reid's bill would shave less than 2 percent from deficits projected to top $9 trillion over the next decade. And it would make only "small reductions" after that, the CBO said -- about 0.25 percent of GDP -- to deficits projected to balloon to roughly 14 percent of the economy by 2035.

"The hope that health-care reform would take care of our budget problem has evaporated," said Isabel Sawhill, a fiscal expert at the Brookings Institution.

Of course, it won't fix the deficit. In all likelihood it will explode the deficit because the Democrats won't follow through on all of the Medicare cuts they've promised (though, with any luck, the Democrats will cut just enough to make Medicare worse). Obama has already endorsed the "doc fix" bill to keep doctors' Medicare payment rates from being slashed by more than 20 percent--a measure that would add 2.47 trillion dimes to the deficit, as the Washington Post editorialized in October.

So why do the Washington Post's news pages indulge the Democrats' budget gimmicks? In the same article, the Post calls Obamacare an "$848 billion package" and a "$200 billion-a-year health program." Math whizzes might notice that a $200 billion-a-year program would yield a $2 trillion health care package over 10 years. Two trillion dollars is much closer the CBO's projection of the real 10-year cost of the bill. The Post doesn't explain you get the $848 billion figure by counting the costs from 2010 to 2019 even though only 1 percent of Obamacare's costs are incurred in the first four years. If you count from 2014 to 2023, when the program's actually in effect, the cost would be $2.5 trillion. And the cost curve bends upward from there.

It gets worse. CATO's Michael Cannon writes:

Another gimmick pushes much of the legislation’s costs off the federal budget and onto the private sector by requiring individuals and employers to purchase health insurance. When the bills force somebody to pay $10,000 to the government, the Congressional Budget Office treats that as a tax. When the government then hands that $10,000 to private insurers, the CBO counts that as government spending. But when the bills achieve the exact same outcome by forcing somebody to pay $10,000 directly to a private insurance company, it appears nowhere in the official CBO cost estimates — neither as federal revenues nor federal spending. That’s a sharp departure from how the CBO treated similar mandates in the Clinton health plan. And it hides maybe 60 percent of the legislation’s total costs. When I correct for that gimmick, it brings total costs to roughly $2.5 trillion (i.e., $1 trillion/0.4). …

When we correct for both gimmicks, counting both on- and off-budget costs over the first 10 years of implementation, the total cost of ObamaCare reaches — I’m so sorry about this — $6.25 trillion. That’s not a precise estimate. It’s just far closer to the truth than President Obama and congressional Democrats want the debate to be.

"Opaqueness and secrecy are the enemies of science," wrote George Monbriot, a leading British environmentalist. "There is a word for the apparent repeated attempts to prevent disclosure revealed in these emails: unscientific."

Who doesn't love a new Marine?

Tuesday: Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan to Envision Exit

Huckabee commuted sentence of Washington cop-killer.

Newsweek joins the call: Cheney 2012.

"But on a more serious note, who rates bigger reality TV points: White House crashers, Balloon Family, or the Obama admin?"

Charles Krauthammer's concert series brings to light to Jewish musical tradition, some of which was buried until fall of USSR: "Pro Musica Hebraica is an attempt to recover a tradition, Mr. Krauthammer says, and to encourage audiences to judge whether it might be worthy of 'a place in the Western canon.'"

With word that the Swiss had unexpectedly voted to ban the construction of new minarets the predictable outcry against such “racism” has begun.

The Wall Street Journal, however, editorialized that the real problem is that the ban, which does not ban the building of new mosques, has no substantive effect on how Muslims are integrated into Swiss society.

The larger question, though, is whether a nation is any more than a geographic entity. If some Parisian Rip Van Winkle wakes up one distant morning and finds himself in a nation that speaks Arabic, where the people are Muslim, food is by law halal and the government follows Sharia law. Is that fellow still, in any meaningful sense, in France?

Is it simple racism for, say, the Dutch to want their nation to stay Dutch -- not just in terms of geography -- in terms of language, food, religion, government, architecture and all the things that make up a culture?

Switzerland is small and whether minarets are built there is of little importance. The issue, though, is whether it is a legitimate aspiration of a people to want to maintain a nation as a home for a certain people.

In a couple of editorials, "A Loyal Opposition" and "No Substitute for Victory," this magazine has urged conservatives and Republicans to support President Obama if he does the right thing in Afghanistan--and, where it's appropriate to be critical, to offer constructive criticism. In case you missed them, here are the boss's comments this morning on Fox News Sunday:

OBAMA: After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job. (END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Well, after three months of deliberations, President Obama is finally ready to announce his new strategy for Afghanistan.

So, Bill, let's start with a question that I asked the senators at the top of the program. What are you going to be listening for Tuesday night? What do you need to hear from the president?

KRISTOL: Well, I hope he comes as close to General McChrystal's recommendation in terms of troops, resources. As the president said, let's have the right resources and the right strategy. It's a winnable war. The delay makes it a little harder, but it still remains winnable.

2010 will be a tough year, I think, because the surge won't really have its effect until late in 2010, and the president needs to prepare the American public. There are no instant results. We can't be looking for the off-ramps when we're just beginning to build up.

2011 I think could be a year of decisive progress. The president's got to commit to this, therefore, for the rest of his first term, I think. He can win this war. We could win this war in 2012 and achieve a huge amount of good.

I think the other thing I would like him to do is not simply say, "This is tough. This is difficult. There will be casualties," all of which is true. This is an opportunity. Pakistan is improving. If Afghanistan can be stabilized and can improve there, you could really stabilize Southeast Asia, which would be a huge victory in the global effort to set back Islamic jihadism....

WALLACE: Bill, in the end, I think we all agree the only thing that matters isn't the process, isn't -- it's whether or not this policy works or not. Given -- and you were pretty optimistic, but given the war weariness in this country, and given all the problems with the Karzai government, you really do think there's a chance for success?

KRISTOL: Sure. The surge in Iraq worked under much more difficult circumstances, much more hostility in the U.S., the Democratic Party in Congress trying to sabotage it at every stage.

The Republican Party will not do this over the next year or two. I really do believe that a lot of us watched what happened in 2007 and 2008 and thought the Democratic Party's behavior, frankly, was disgraceful.

It's unfortunate that even now, with a Democratic president, the Democrats apparently in Congress can't bring themselves to try to win a war, as opposed to get out of a war when the going gets tough.

But the Republicans, I think, will be a loyal opposition. They will support the president. The president simply needs to be patient, give the -- General Petraeus and General McChrystal know what they're doing.

And believe me, no one wants less to send American soldiers into harm's way for a war that can't be won than Dave Petraeus or Stan McChrystal, so trust them. They think it's winnable. Give them the resources they need.

Tell the American public to be patient. Tell his own party to be patient. Tell some of his own party to go jump in the lake. And President Obama will be in a happy position, in my view, in 2012, of having had considerable success in Afghanistan.

While Swiss and U.S. authorities are still working out the extradition of Roman Polanski, the director and convicted rapist is being placed under house arrest. His "house," however, is actually a chalet worth $1.6 million according to the Associated Press, which also provides a photo supposedly of Polanski's lavish confines in Gstaad, called the Milky Way.

This reminds me of an exchange I once had with a Jesuit who told me that he and his fellow priests spend part of their summers in a villa in Florence. I asked, "what about that vow of poverty?" To which he replied, "If this is poverty, bring on chastity!"

It occurs to me that WEEKLY STANDARD readers, sitting at home and avoiding the malls this weekend, may be wondering: What presents should I be giving to my discerning friends, discriminating acquaintances, and benighted relatives for the holidays?

Answer: Gift subscriptions to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, of course--available with just a few mouse-clicks at this website. Give one, give many! Don't leave your friends, acquaintances--and especially relatives--in the dark!

But then what? WEEKLY STANDARD readers are generous folks. A few magazine subscriptions may not be enough. Answer: Books from THE WEEKLY STANDARD family.

Hot off the presses, there's Matthew Continetti's The Persecution of Sarah Palin--fun reading for Palin fans, important for anyone interested in media elites, conservative populism, and the state of American politics.

Earlier this year, Christopher Caldwell offered us his Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. An instant classic--must reading if you want to think seriously about Europe, Islam, and the 21st century.

This week, contributing editor David Gelernter's spectacular Judaism: A Way of Being, appeared from Yale University Press. Here's what we had to say about it in THE SCRAPBOOK:

"David has written a spectacular book. It's at once short and deep; it's a fun and easy read with many stop-let-me-think-about-that moments; it's both scholarly and inspiring. David's exploration of the role of images, or what he calls 'image-themes,' in Judaism is fascinating, and his explanation of how Judaism's 'multi-layered images' reveal and explain 'the unique beauty and truth of the Jewish worldview' is extraordinary.

"Gelernter writes that his is a book primarily for Jews, and I'd think that will prove to be the case. But his account of 'Judaism at full strength, straight up; no water, no soda, aged in oak for three thousand years' will I suspect prove fascinating to many serious people of other faiths, especially Judaism's little brother or cousin, Christianity. For David has written a book that, in its exploration of Judaism, tells us something-tells us a lot-about the human condition."

And a little while ago, P.J. O'Rourke brought forth Driving Like Crazy--another P.J. boffo performance.

This is to say nothing of books from the last couple of years by Andrew Ferguson, Stephen Hayes, Joseph Epstein, Robert Kagan, Frederick Kagan, and others. They're also in print--and, needless to say, well worth reading!

And don't worry that you'll have nothing left to buy and give in 2010--new books are coming next year from Philip Terzian, Matt Labash, and Andrew Ferguson, among others.

Consider this THE WEEKLY STANDARD's very own private-sector stimulus package. Unlike President Obama's, it's worth it.

Jay Cost: Let's give thanks for the Union.

Michael Barone: Damn the deficit, full speed ahead on health care.

Chris Matthews yells at a Catholic bishop over abortion.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.): Americans who don't want KSM tried in civilian court should "go somewhere else."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets hero's welcome in Venezuela.

Polanski gets bail.

The Onion: Biden pardons yam.

Nancy Pelosi insists: "We have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on." She is talking about the war in Afghanistan--with anticipation that President Obama will increase resources for the war effort. Increased troops to fight our enemies in Afghanistan will require more money for this effort, of course. And Pelosi and her comrades (especially, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey) want to raise taxes to pay for this. Look who all of a sudden has become a fiscal hawk!

Here are preliminary details:

Obey and several other senior Democrats have proposed a graduated surtax, beginning in 2011, to pay for the war. Their bill would impose a 1% surtax on people earning less than $150,000. The tax hike would be higher for people earning between $150,000 and $250,000 a year, and double that for people with higher incomes. The bill does not give exact figures for what upper surtax rates would be, but says that they would be high enough to cover the previous year's war costs.

On a certain level, this makes perfect sense, right? This Democratic led congress and administration are spending money like drunken sailors. And, at a certain point, funds need to be raised from somewhere.

But let me go ahead and call this nonsense. The Democrats are playing politics.

First, they aim to politicize the entire war effort. The threat to raise taxes to pay for the war serves to weaken support for the troops. When people have to pay directly for something, it increases the likelihood that they will say no. That's why the Democrats are trying to levy direct taxes on the small percentage of Americans who make more than $100,000 to pay for health care (which they support), but are proposing to make a much larger percentage of Americans pay for the war (which they oppose).

And, second, have Democrats lost sight of priorities? They throw away money for a phony stimulus plan at a cost of $787 billion; they insist on a health care plan conservatively estimated to cost more than $2 trillion over 10 years; they have grown the deficit to $1.4 trillion -- during October 2009 alone we fell another $176.4 billion in the hole . But no--money can’t be found to support this “war of necessity” without increasing taxes. (By the way, Time estimates the increased cost to be “$30 billion annually for 30,000 more troops. Not chump change, to be sure, but pennies by comparison to the rest of the federal budget.)

Pelosi, and the rest of the House Democrats, need to take off the shades and see reality. America, foremost, faces a national security threat. We must defeat the enemy--no matter the cost.

Senate Republicans have just released an outstanding chart highlighting the accounting games that Democrats are playing with the costs of their proposed health-care overhaul. The Democrats assert that their Senate bill would cost $848 billion over ten years. But Congressional Budget Office projections show that only 1 percent of those costs would kick in prior to the fifth year of what the Democrats are calling the "first 10 years." In the bill's true first 10 years (2014 to 2023) -- that is, in the first 10 years in which it would be operational to any meaningful extent -- the CBO projects that the bill would cost $1.8 trillion.

But it gets even worse. The CBO doesn't say that the bill's total costs from 2010 to 2019 (99 percent of which would come from 2014-onward) would be $848 billion -- or that its total costs in its real first 10 years (2014 to 2023) would be $1.8 trillion. Rather, it says that these would be the gross costs of the bill's "expansions in insurance coverage." The CBO shows that there are many other costs in the bill as well, including spending related to the CLASS Act, risk-adjustment payments, funding for the government-run "public option" (not a cent of which is included in the figure for "expansions in insurance coverage"), and other new federal spending.

The Senate Republicans' chart demonstrates that the total for all of these costs -- based on CBO projections for the bill's true first 10 years -- is $2.5 trillion. And costs would only skyrocket from there, as the chart's trajectory suggests. In the 5 years to follow (2024-28), spending on "expansions in insurance coverage" alone would be $1.7 trillion, making the bill's total costs in its real first 15 years well over $4 trillion -- based on CBO projections.

The key in all of this, of course, is that the Democrats want everyone to use a "10 year" tally that doesn't remotely represent what Americans would be on the hook for in terms of real 10-year costs. As the Senate GOP chart demonstrates, the bill's true costs in its first 10 years would be about three times what President Obama, Senator Reid, and their allies are disingenuously claiming.

No wonder Robert Samuelson wrote last week in the Washington Post: "The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both."

The Senate Republicans' chart depicts the degree of this deception.

So, what's the verdict? A long-awaited moment of uncharacteristic self-deprecation? Or, politically tin-eared joke about fake jobs numbers in a time of high unemployment?

Either way, it's an admission that everyone knows the numbers are, indeed, nonsense:

"All told, I believe it's fair to say that we have saved or created four turkeys."

Non-partisan point alert: Look for a cute Daddy-daughter moment at around 6:15.

Announced by ABC:

The network has announced "Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special," which includes an interview with the president, a conversation with the First Couple and tour of the White House.

The special marks the first time Winfrey has interviewed Obama since he took office. "Christmas at the White House" will air Sunday, Dec. 13, at 10 p.m.

Frankly, I think it's insensitive to call it a Christmas special.

AP:

A rare Siberian tiger fitted by Vladimir Putin with a radio-tracking collar has vanished, a Russian environmentalist said Wednesday, dramatizing the plight of a species some conservationists fear may be approaching extinction.

Russia's prime minister drew worldwide publicity in 2008 when he shot the five-year-old female tiger with a tranquilizer gun and helped place a transmitter around her neck. That allowed visitors to his Web site to follow the animal's prowlings through Russia's wild Far East. A video of the episode is on YouTube.

But the satellite tracking device has been silent since mid-September, which could be due to battery failure, a broken collar or poachers, Vladimir Krever of the World Wildlife Fund said Wednesday.

Note to Russian dissidents: Beware of tiger.

The Politico reports on the first administration in history:

The Obama White House is addicted to the “unprecedented.”

Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action."

What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May....

“It says how very unique he feels he is,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in the Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Hess described Obama as “a man who sees himself as unprecedented in every way … given his background — his mother, his father, where he grew up, how he became president of the United States.”

“Of course, biblically, there’s nothing new under the sun, and for most everything he’s done as president there is some precedent for somewhere,” he added. “What he does is variations on a theme.”

You can understand how a veteran of the Carter administration would be able to find a precedent for almost everything the Obama administration has done -- of course, Carter had to wait 25 years for his Nobel Peace Prize. Obama's Peace Prize, well, that really was unprecedented.

If Ed Begley's peers -- Hollywood liberals -- were to review his performance on Fox, they would probably give it a thumbs-up. I see a zealot who is having his faith tested and unable to keep his composure in the process.

The emails in question contain evidence that the climate scientists at East Anglia's Climate Research Unit have cooked the books on "peer review" literature. They have deliberately made it harder for skeptics to challenge them in peer review publications because they don't want the challenge. They have also refused, over and over again, to release the data and programming code that drive their models -- this is the information that is needed to do a proper "peer review" study of their analyses.

So, when Begley is yelling about relying on "peer review" studies by PhD's he is demonstrating his own ignorance of the email scandal. Consider this excerpt from an email by a global warming alarmist, who also happens to be the head of Britain's Climate Research Unit, to a climate scientist at Penn State, Michael Mann:

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

This is one of the most damning aspects of all this. The very scientists who have been saying the debate is over are the same ones who have made sure that the opposition cannot have its say in peer review journals. They then turn around and say that because there are no credible criticisms published in peer reviewed journals the debate is over. Talk about circular, and tortuous, logic.

Begley's insistence that only climate scientists, and not meteorologists or physicists or geologists or any other kind of scientists, be allowed to speak to the issue of global warming is another way to maintain the illusion of scientific consensus. Without political support for global warming, climate scientists would see massive cuts to their funding -- and salaries. They have an enormous stake in maintaining political support for action on climate change, just as the much, much smaller group of scientists funded by oil companies have a stake in seeing the consensus overturned. Geologists and meteorologists and physicists have much less to lose from the issue being decided one way or the other -- they are the closest we can get to independent, objective arbiters.

And the people with the most to lose if it turns out that global warming is based on bogus science are lunatics like Ed Begley Jr. who have turned their lives upside down to try and lead the coal-fired masses by their fanatical, compost-powered example. Surface temperatures and ocean temperatures are falling, but Chicago would have to be under a mile of ice before this guy conceded that, yes, he's wasted years of his life worshiping the false prophets of Britain's Climate Research Unit.

As a Rasmussen poll shows Republicans opening up a 7-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, a new Gallup poll shows some very bad numbers for the Obama agenda:

• By more than 2-1, Americans say the United States shouldn't close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, as Obama has promised.

• By 49%-44%, they oppose passing a health care bill in Congress this year, which he calls critical.

• A majority are against holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York, and nearly six in 10 say the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind should be tried in a military rather than a civilian court. That's at odds with the decision announced this month by Attorney General Eric Holder.

When it comes to seven specific areas, Obama no longer commands majority support on any. On only two — energy policy and global warming — does he have a net positive rating. On the economy, health care, jobs and Afghanistan, a majority disapprove of how he's doing. There's an almost even divide on his handling of terrorism: 45% approve, 47% disapprove.

One possible bright spot: Only 39 percent favor withdrawing from Afghanistan, while 47 percent favor increasing the number of troops, a policy Obama will likely announce next week. (Nine percent of voters favor keeping the number of troops at the current level.)

It's a day for comeback rumors in the political news world.

The Washington Post reports that Terry McAuliffe is not letting go of his quest to terrorize serve the good people of Virginia.

Terry McAuliffe, the millionaire businessman who ran unsuccessfully for Virginia governor this year, is negotiating with investors and a U.S. automaker to lure a factory to southern Virginia -- raising speculation that the ambitious Democrat is not done with state politics.

McAuliffe has talked with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to brief him about his plans, which are focused on luring thousands of jobs to a part of Virginia where unemployment is high. McAuliffe declined through a spokeswoman to comment on his efforts, but Kaine confirmed the meeting and said McAuliffe is in the "very preliminary" stages of trying to put together a deal involving a "green" automotive manufacturing plant.

In New York, two big blasts from the political past are pondering throwing their hats into the ring. Harold Ford, a promising young Democrat who lost a senate race in Tennessee to Bob Corker in 2006 and went on to run the DLC, may be polling a primary match-up with vulnerable Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Democratic sources say that former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr. -- who relocated to New York City after his unsuccessful Senate bid in 2006 -- has been talking about the possibility of running against vulnerable rookie New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Ford, who was mentioned as a possible appointee to replace Hillary Clinton in late 2007, has reportedly told associates that he's skeptical about the idea. But he may have commissioned a poll to test his popularity, according to a Tuesday night post on DemocraticUnderground.com.

"I live in NY and was just polled about a possible primary between Kirsten Gillibrand and Harold Ford Jr. for the Senate seat. I was wondering if anyone had heard if he was considering to run," wrote the poster, who identified himself as "JamesA1102."

The poll wasn't conducted by Gillibrand's campaign, according to people familiar with the situation. It might have been part of a public survey but Ford's hasn't been in the mix lately -- and hasn't been included in any recent public surveys.

Once that's decided, rumor has it Rudy Giuliani might have his eye on the Republican nomination. On Thursday, a Rudy source told the N.Y. Daily News he'd decided not to run for governor, but would announce a run for senate within 48 hours. That deadline has come and gone and been retracted, prompting some to wonder if Giuliani is just flirting.

The most recent Rasmussen poll results may encourage him:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state finds Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City, leading Gillibrand by 13 points – 53% to 40%. Four percent (4%) like some other candidate, and just two percent (2%) are undecided.

A new survey by Frank N. Magid Associates reports a stunning and terrible problem with many Americans' understanding of hi-definition television. The Magid group claims that 43 percent of HDTV owners don't subscribe for hi-def service -- in many cases, the study suggests, because they don't know that they own a hi-definition set.

Wait -- it gets worse. Thirteen percent of respondents say that they've never even heard of high definition. If true, that would mean 39 million Americans are completely oblivious to the glories of HD programming. Is this a tragedy? A cataclysm? I don't know. I'm not a poet or a paleoclimatologist. But it does put life into perspective.

After the initial round of poor reviews for President Obama's recent trip to Asia -- particularly but not exclusively the China portion -- the Empire has been striking back.  Obama administration officials, echoed by a number of "China-hands" in academia, think tanks and the media, have been vigorously pushing back on the failed trip narrative being flogged by well-known Obama-haters like the New York Times editorial page and Chris Matthews.  

Among the most interesting efforts has been a remarkable series of blog posts by James Fallows, the former China correspondent for the Atlantic who has recently returned stateside. His six -- count 'em, six -- long posts in the past week on the topic of how the media got Obama's trip to Asia wrong have been fascinating reading.  Entitled "Manufactured Failure," the series of posts explain how the media were led astray by their (take your pick) unrealistic expectations, ignorance, biases, excessive attention to score-keeping, and various other defects in their coverage.  For example, Fallows and company chastise the press for covering Obama's Asian trip as if it were a campaign swing, and declaring it a failure because everything in Asia was not magically transformed just because Obama showed up.  (Now where would they have gotten that from?  Maybe from the White House, which remains in permanent campaign mode and waxes endlessly about the transformational "Obama showing up" effect on US foreign policy?  Just a guess.)  

The most curious part of Fallows' multi-part cri de coeur was his lengthy sort-of interview with an anonymous Obama administration official who was on the trip (serialized over several posts here, here, and here). Setting aside the wisdom of providing such a forum to a public official who lacks sufficient confidence in his opinions to be publicly identified with them, this is certainly an interesting choice of venue for trying to re-shape the dominant narrative as defined by most of the mainstream media.  To paraphrase Adam Minter, a Shanghai-based writer who took issue with the White House spin, if all this great stuff really happened, why didn't the White House say so early and publicly?  Why have it come out a week later in a defensive anonymous interview?  An odd White House media strategy at a minimum.

In the overall effort to counter the negative assessment of the trip, there have been untold specious arguments in the various commentaries defending the president's weak performance in China.  One could spend an eternity writing to address them all, but I'll try and limit myself to just a few of the themes that drive me bat guano crazy.  First up, the "manufactured outrage" over the wild-eyed demands of the human rights "crazies" and their cousins in the horse-race obsessed media.

The defenders of the "softly softly" approach on human rights in China -- including administration officials on and off the record -- moan about how the president's critics apparently wouldn't be happy with the trip unless Obama had gone to Beijing and pitched a temper tantrum, "punch[ed] Hu Jintao in the nose" or "pulled a Khrushchev and banged his shoe on the table."  From Fallows' anonymous administration source, we have this gem: 

I think some of them wanted us to be rude to the Chinese leadership. That seems to be the standard for effectiveness. Not only is it bad form in general to be rude, and ineffective in Asia, but the last person on the planet who would be rude is Barack Obama. That is part of the reason he got elected.

As entertaining as it undoubtedly would be to see a Barack Obama-Hu Jintao cage-fight (loser has to spend a week in a meditation cave with the Dalai Lama!), in nearly two decades working on these issues, I have never heard anyone in the human rights community or media actually propose ranting as a strategy for addressing China's serious human rights problems.  Instead, human rights activists were looking for President Obama to do some rather modest but symbolically important* things like meet with a few dissidents or human rights lawyers who risk their lives and personal freedom every day in China.  And maybe, just maybe, these human rights nuts were thinking it would be nice if occasionally the president had said "no", and meant it, when China was pushing him around on this trip.  Maybe even just once.  As for the media, Obama had most of them at "hello."  I think they would have been happy to put out a positive story, if he had actually given them one.

By painting their critics as unreasonable for believing the American president should stand up for American values and national security interests at least as vigorously as he stands up for the interests of American tire manufacturers, they actually think can win this argument. These straw man claims get hauled out every time an occupant of the White House of either party gets criticized for failing to raise Chinese human rights issues in a serious way and nobody ever seems to question their underlying veracity. But the truth is that no credible human rights organization or journalist actually proposed that the president act like a raving lunatic to promote human rights or other US interests in China, and the White House knows it.
 
*And to those who denigrate the importance of such symbolic support of human rights, I give you this rebuttal from the unimpeachable moral authority of Czech dissident Vaclav Havel, speaking to the European Parliament on November 11, 2009:

Our support can help open-minded people or outspoken witnesses to the situation in North Korea, Burma, Iran, Tibet, Belarus, Cuba or anywhere else, much more than we think. But it will help us too. It will help us build a better world and also to be more true to ourselves; in other words, to put into practice the values that we proclaim in general terms.

Recently the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize to Memorial, the Russian association that monitors how human rights are respected in Russia. I think that was an important act. I recall how important it once was in my country when the French President invited us-the opposition-to a working breakfast during his state visit-against the wishes of the state leadership. These are only seemingly superficial matters. That is how things operate in totalitarian regimes: a single breakfast or a single suppressed student demonstration can-in certain circumstances-set history moving.

"We need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions," said...Lou Dobbs?

A tax on plastic surgery isn't a tax on the rich.

13 smart links on the global-warming uproar, all in one post.

A Black Friday gadget-sale list, for your shopping pleasure. The economy needs you to buy that Android.

Fictional spike in hate crimes to result in real fund raising for grievance-mongers.

Jonah Goldberg: "And just to make it more interesting, Republicans should promise to repeal “Obamacare” if they get a congressional majority in 2010. As National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru argues, that way moderate Democrats won’t be able to run away from their votes come 2010. They’ll be on notice that this will be the campaign issue of the election. And moderate Republicans will be on notice to resist the temptation to tinker with Obamacare rather than defenestrate it once it’s passed."

Slideshow: State Dinner fashion.

British Defense Sec: A “period of hiatus” in Washington - and a lack of clear direction - had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said.

Reid vs. Broder: It. Is. On.

The gathering Geithner storm.

The Iraqi government is now on YouTube.

Video: Climategate, the song:

Two contradictory narratives explaining Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s money transfers to Pakistan have emerged in the press. At this point, we know that in the months leading up to the Fort Hood shooting, Major Hasan wired a significant amount of money to Pakistan (it is not clear precisely how much). But anonymous sources differ on the meaning of the transfers.

It is worth reproducing lengthy excerpts from two press accounts in order to demonstrate the problem.

On Saturday, the Washington Post reported:

In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan intensified his communications with a radical Yemeni American cleric and began to discuss surreptitious financial transfers and other steps that could translate his thoughts into action, according to two sources briefed on a collection of secret e-mails between the two.

…

Hasan's contacts with extremist imam Anwar al-Aulaqi began as religious queries but took on a more specific and concrete tone before he moved to Texas, where he allegedly unleashed the Nov. 5 attack that killed 13 people and wounded nearly three dozen, said the sources who were briefed on the e-mails, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the case is sensitive and unfolding. One of those sources said the two discussed in "cryptic and coded exchanges" the transfer of money overseas in ways that would not attract law enforcement attention.

"He [Hasan] clearly became more radicalized toward the end, and was having discussions related to the transfer of money and finances . . .," said the source, who spoke at length in part because he was concerned the public accounting of the events has been incomplete. "It became very clear toward the end of those e-mails he was interested in taking action."

…

In the months before the shootings, the two [Aulaqi and Hasan] discussed how Hasan could make several transactions of less than $10,000, a threshold for reporting to U.S. authorities, according to the source who spoke extensively. Hasan did not explicitly vow to fund terrorist activities or evade tax and reporting laws for contributions, the source said.

"I believe they were interested in the money for operational-type aspects, and knowing that he had funds and wouldn't be around to use them, they were very eager to get those funds," he said.

Yesterday, the Dallas Morning News reported:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's wire transfers to Pakistan occurred in the months leading up to the Fort Hood massacre but were unrelated to it, a federal law enforcement official said Monday.

The money "went to people not related to terrorism," he said, declining to elaborate.

FBI officials investigating the accused Army psychiatrist's motives and connections have closed this line of inquiry but may still be examining other possible foreign financial ties, the official said. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

…

The law enforcement official told The News he didn't know how much money Hasan sent to Pakistan. He would not name the recipients or describe them in general terms.

He did say that Hasan's transfers seemed unrelated to his e-mail correspondence with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was born in the U.S. but has lived for years in his parents' native Yemen.

Let’s compare and contrast the two accounts. In the Post’s account, Hasan had discussed his wire transfers with Anwar al Awlaki, who is a known al Qaeda recruiter and prominent jihadist ideologue. Awlaki is not interested in directing money to legitimate charitable causes; he is devoted to waging violent jihad. The Post also quoted an anonymous official as saying that Awlaki and Hasan were interested in making his funds accessible for “operational-type aspects”--that is, terrorism.

The Post’s account goes on to say that “investigators have not unearthed evidence that Hasan sent money to charities with strong or suspected ties to Islamist militant groups, but they are continuing to probe his financial dealings.” So, in the Post’s account they haven’t turned up conclusive results yet, but there is plenty of smoke surrounding Hasan’s money transfers. Namely, the mere fact that Awlaki and Hasan were discussing ways for Hasan to transfer money without drawing suspicion from U.S. authorities is highly troubling. It also should require a substantial investigation. (Also, note that the Post's sources say that Hasan did not "explicitly" say he wanted the money to fund terrorism. But Awlaki's business is terrorism, and if they wanted it for "operational" uses, then they clearly wanted it for terror-related purposes.)

In the Dallas Morning News account, another anonymous official has come forward to say that there is nothing to any of this, and the FBI has already “closed this line of inquiry.”

If the Post’s account is right, how can that be? At a minimum, shouldn’t it take more time to fully investigate Hasan’s suspicious wire transfers? How can the FBI possibly be sure that Hasan’s “transfers seemed unrelated to his e-mail correspondence with” Awlaki when, according to the Post, the two discussed ways for Hasan to transfer money?

Moreover, note that the official cited by the Dallas Morning News didn't know how much money Hasan had transferred to Pakistan. How, then, could he or she say definitively what came of those wire transfers if it is not even clear to this source how much the Fort Hood Shooter transferred?

It is possible, I suppose, that the FBI has already done its due diligence and reached a solid conclusion on this matter. But there are at least two reasons to be suspicious:

(1) Prior to the Fort Hood shooting, the FBI has bungled its investigation into Awlaki’s dealings at least twice--once prior to 9/11 and once after 9/11. The Fort Hood shooting is likely the culmination of the FBI’s third failed attempt to properly investigate Awlaki’s ties to terrorists as the Bureau dismissed Maj. Hasan’s repeated email communications with Awlaki (a known al Qaeda cleric) as innocuous. In reality, the emails were a substantial red flag indicating Hasan was a jihadist.

(2) Pakistan hosts a web of Islamic charities that act as fronts for al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other jihadist groups. It is often difficult to discern, at first, what these charities are really up to. Just ask the U.S. Treasury Department. It has taken the U.S. government years to map out these various charities and their ties to the jihadist hydra. How did the FBI conclude that the charities Hasan was dealing with were benign so quickly?

Lawmakers should continue to press for additional details concerning Hasan’s suspicious wire transfers. We don’t know enough at this point to say precisely what came of the Major’s loot, but we do know it is a matter that warrants careful scrutiny.

Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post thinks Mark Halperin's "Something About Mary"-style Photoshop of Mary Landrieu is inappropriate. I agree. I'm a sucker for pop-culture references, but there's a sexual connotation (even if it is more juvenile than degrading), and it shouldn't be used to diminish a United States senator at Time Magazine. (So nobody gets caught up in calling me out for not calling out right-wingers, Beck and Limbaugh were inappropriate on Landrieu, too.)

I'm not here to quarrel with the substance of Linkins' criticism, however, but with its origin. The Huffington Post's methods for getting traffic of late put it at a distinct disadvantage when trying to argue credibly about respectful treatment of women.

Why, you might ask? After all, The Huffington Post is run by a stand-up, professional, liberal, feminist woman—Arianna Huffington. Surely, her site would be irreproachable on such matters. Judge for yourself.

Below is the illustration Huffington Post writer Howie Klein used to illustrate a story about liberal folk hero Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) calling a female Fed official a "whore" on the radio. His story was headlined, "Alan Grayson calls a whore a whore-- Beltway whores freak out & defend Enron lobbyist working at the Fed." The photo is a composite of Fed official Linda Robertson and Ashlee Dupre, the well-known prostitute whose services were retained frequently by the former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York. The caption under the photo read, "Very different types of political whores."

Feel the empowerment.

Below is the most popular item at Huffington Post today, which leads one to a slideshow that I cannot link:

Or, there's this subtle sell of a Megan Fox photoshoot, which I also cannot link:

Now, I confess that I read gossip blogs where such things are generally posted, on a regular basis. In doing so, I run across a fair amount of nastiness and misogyny, but I have to say this is one of the skeeziest headlines I saw for this Megan Fox photo, which was featured prominently at every unruly gossip enclave on the Internet.

But all right, you might say. Those calendar pictures and photoshoots are tastefully done, professionally photographed female nudity. There's nothing anti-women about posting photos those women posed for, is there?

Well, one of the other "most popular" news items on Huffpo today is, "Kate Hudson's Near NSFW Slip At AMAs (PHOTOS)." Yes, the nip slip— a usually inadvertent exposure of an actress or singer, and staple of left-of-center journalism it would seem, judging by the Huffington Post.

Next up, Vanessa Hudgens, a young Disney actress whose private, nude photos have been leaked on the Internet twice, now, promptly bringing traffic to Huffington Post. (There is an argument to be made that such tapes and photos are leaked strategically by stars, but then HuffPo still has to contend with the argument about whether they belong on a political site.)

Another HuffPo writer, Anastasia Goodstein, lifts the site to the pinnacle of cynicism with her piece, "Vannessa Hudgens Photos: A Teachable Moment." Message: Don't get naked for your boyfriends, gals, because those photos could turn up in a different context, and give the Huffington Post its best stats of the month!

Finally, I enjoyed this titillating illustration of a prostitution ring. If the story doesn't bring you in, this faceless woman in a hot dress with her feet in the air will:

Now, the Huffington Post has to make a buck, like any other business, and this is how it's going about doing it. Any headline with "NSFW" or "slip" or "upskirt" in it will bring you Internet traffic, but at what cost? (Update: I meant to add here that we obviously see the same tricks used by cable news for audience, though not to quite the extent the Internet allows.)

I'd argue that the kind of Internet traffic HuffPo trafficks in is below a political site of the caliber it purports to be, period. But the Huffington Post is also a left-of-center reporting outlet with a keen interest in harping on what it calls the "anti-woman" views and policies of the Republican Party, conservative leaders, and even conservative Democrats. Somehow it's hard to take HuffPo's rant about Neanderthal Stupak-amendment supporters seriously when it's right next to Rihanna's exposed nipple and some D-lister's leaked sex tape.

It won't be long before people start to claim, defensively, at D.C. dinner parties that they just read HuffPo "for the articles."

Jeffrey H. Anderson on what the health care debate is really all about.

Bill McGurn on Joe Lieberman: The other Senate maverick.

White House source says Obama's likely to announce surge of 34,000 troops to Afghanistan next week.

Obama says today he'll "finish the job" in Afghanistan.

Angelina Jolie reportedly "thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise."

Ramesh Ponnuru: Does Palin want to be president?

Jay Cost's memo to RNC honchos: "The requirements for the RNC chairman are pretty straightforward: raise the cash, spout the party line on cue, don't cause trouble. Can Steele do this? If he can't, what are you going to do about it?"

Crist suspends major donor and accused Ponzi schemer from judicial commission.

Sam Stein: Reconciliation poses problems for Reid.

Those pictures didn't make Katie Couric a joke. This makes Katie Couric a joke:

A Gallup/USA Today poll shows that 69 percent of women disagree with a death panel U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation to delay mammograms until the age of 50.

Democrats have been trying their best to do damage control, but as The Washington Independent reported:

The Democrats downplaying the gravity of new recommendations for breast cancer screening have left out an inconvenient fact: their health care bills would automatically adopt them.

Both the House and Senate health reform proposals would force insurance plans to follow the new mammogram guidelines for women ages 50 to 74 as part of a minimum swath of services deemed by the legislation to be medically essential. The recommendations were an unexpected wildcard in the middle of an already contentious health reform debate, and they’ve caused Democrats to de-emphasize their significance at the same time that some in the party are calling for a legislative fix to nullify them.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page sounded off on the controversy today.

Iain Murray offers a useful primer on e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK (mentioned by Goldfarb, here), hacked and publicized, which revealed systematic, less-than-scientific treatment of data in order to bolster global-warming claims.

Read the whole thing, but the bottom line:

So what does this all mean? It does not mean that there is no warming trend or that mankind has not been responsible for at least some of the warming. To claim that as result of these documents is clearly a step too far. However, it is clear that at least one branch of climate science — paleoclimatology — has become hopelessly politicized to the point of engaging in unethical and possibly illegal behavior.

To the extent that paleoclimatology is an important part of the scientific case for action regarding global warming, urgent reassessments need to be made. In the meantime, all those responsible for political action on global warming should stop the process pending the results of inquiries, investigations, and any criminal proceedings. What cannot happen is the process carrying on as if nothing has happened.

They could've executed him in the desert and left him in a shallow grave for all I care, but the SEALs are professionals, and so they brought the man behind the 2004 murder of four American contractors in Fallujah to the Green Zone, where one SEAL told investigators that he "had showered after the mission, gone to the kitchen and then decided to look in on the detainee."

"I gave the detainee a glance over and then left," the SEAL wrote. "I did not notice anything wrong with the detainee and he appeared in good health."

Maybe there's a whole lot more to this story than is currently being reported, but it'd have to be pretty terrible stuff to convince me that three Navy SEALs who successfully captured a high-value target now deserve to be court martialed for their service. A fat lip? That's enough to get you rough military justice from the Obama administration, but blow up the World Trade Center and you get all the due process rights of the civilian criminal justice system. Sounds fair, right?

Another episode of right-wing violence that wasn't, kind of like the entire month of August's town halls:

A U.S. Census worker found dead in a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a homicide, authorities have concluded.

Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, might have tried to cover the manner of his death to preserve payments under life-insurance polices that he had taken out. The policies wouldn’t pay off if Sparkman committed suicide, state police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said.

“We believe it was an intentional act on his part to take his own life,” said Rudzinski, who helped lead the investigation.

At the time of the census worker's death, liberal commentators and bloggers scrambled all over themselves to blame Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck and other right-leaning figures for inciting violence with their "anti-government" sentiment.

Sparkman’s nude body was found Sept. 12 by people visiting the cemetery. There was a rope around his neck tied to a tree, and he had what appeared to be the word “fed” written on his chest in black marker.

His census identification card was taped to his head.

The bizarre details of the death caused a firestorm of media coverage and widespread speculation on the Internet, including that someone angry at the federal government attacked Sparkman as he went door to door, gathering census information.

Michelle Malkin highlights the subtle smear art that made the rounds on the left.

Clarence Page on NPR's "Talk of the Nation", Nov. 5, 2009: "You know, maybe perhaps the research that I do - I worry about the Bill Sparkmans, the census worker that was hanged and - found hanged in Kentucky with the word fed on his body. Or, you know - or Stephen Johns, the guy that was killed at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. a few months ago that - I hope those type of incidents, not only interracial marriages increase, but I hope those type of violence, violent incidents decrease."

Andrew Sullivan, Sept. 26, 2009: "No Suicide: That's the one thing we know for certain now in the case of the Kentucky lynching...But the most worrying possibility - that this is Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts - remains real."

NPR's Neal Conan of "Talk of the Nation"used the Sparkman story as a jumping-off point for a segment entitled "A History of Mistrust" about the census on Sept. 29.

The opening to MSNBC's Ed Schultz show Sept. 28, 2009:

It didn't sound real good. My wife and I were traveling on the East Coast this weekend, in the car for three hours. We haven`t done that for a while.

Let me tell you, right-wing rhetoric in this country has reached a boiling point. Oh, the government`s the enemy. Every kind of government, local, regional, state...

Republicans have always tried to make the government the bogeyman. No matter what the subject, it`s the government's fault. But this is out of control. The fever pitch we`re experiencing in this country right now, I think has got a lot of people nervous.

A census worker, somebody doing a part-time job for the government, for America -- we`ve had the census in this country for 210 years. This man`s name was Bill Sparkman. He was found dead in Kentucky.

Most of his clothes had been stripped off and his census identification tag, it was Duct Taped to his body, and the word "Fed` had been written across his chest. Investigators don`t know who killed Mr. Sparkman and what the motive was. They still aren`t certain it was a homicide.

A lot of things playing into this right now. But we do know that census workers are afraid to go to work right now.

Brian Levin, on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Sept. 25, 2009:

"But, at this point, this was such a symbolic and personal anger, that I'm -- I'm led to lean towards someone who has severe anti-government feelings, perhaps someone who is seeking revenge. Maybe they were audited or had some problem with some kind of government official.

COOPER: OK. To display the victim in this way seems, I mean, telling, one way or another. I mean, there's clearly something to that."

Rachel Maddow, Sept. 25, 2009:

"Now, on the record, law enforcement authorities remain cryptic. This reporting however paints a most troubling picture. None of the details of Bill Sparkman`s death that we have learned since we first found out about this point away from the possibility that he was killed for his affiliation with the United States government...All of these new details do create the expectation, I think, that we will hear something more specific from law enforcement. As you know, Ron, we`ve been hearing recently that they haven`t even determined whether this is homicide, suicide, or an accident. To found a body that was bound hand and foot, gagged and with a federal employee identification tag taped to the body and then it defaced with the word "Fed," we`re starting to get to a point where it`s hard to imagine that this could be anything other than a homicide.

That said, we're still waiting for law enforcement conformation on that, aren't we?"

"Good Morning America" with Diane Sawyer, Sept. 24, 2009, did a segment entitled, "GOVERNMENT HATE CRIME? CENSUS WORKER KILLED ON ROUTE?"

Mark Potok, Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center on MSNBC's "The Ed Show, Sept. 24, 2009: "I think the bottom line is it's a very rural area, and these are the kinds of areas where sometimes, you know, real white hot anti-government sentiment thrives. I think it's probably worth saying that I know that back in `95, immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing, I remember "USA Today" did a poll and found that 39 percent of Americans at that time felt that the federal government was an imminent threat to their liberties as Americans. Quite incredible.

I think that we are at a similar point in history right now, you know, where we've seen this anti-government sentiment very much whipped up by militia certainly but also the whole scene that we've seen develop around town halls and so forth."

On Sept. 23, 2009, Rachel Maddow just about begged an AP reporter to confirm her suspicions: "We`re all wondering if is -- should be taken as some indication that this was a crime related to anti-government sentiment.

Are you able to report anything? Are you hearing anything about even circumstantial evidence in that regard? Is there any way to know even whether federal and law enforcement getting involved is an indication that they think that might be true?"

Allison Kilkenny, Huffpo: "This is the kind of violent event that emerges from a culture of paranoia and unsubstantiated attacks. Personalities like Glenn Beck have irresponsibly accused the government of running FEMA concentration camps, and constantly stoke the fear of 'the Feds' taking over."

Brad Friedman littered his post with caveats before ultimately going to same route (and using that lovely piece of art): "With all of that in mind, however, it's admittedly damned difficult not to look back at the kind of wildly-irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric being slung casually across the airwaves to millions of viewers and listeners every day by folks like Bachmann, Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, and all the rest, without pondering questions such as: 'What the hell are these people thinking?' and 'Do they not realize that people are actually out there paying attention to what they have to say?'"

Village Voice: "Village Voice Media's True Crime Report blog cited the recent 'rage against Washington . . . especially in the rural South,' and said the death had ;all the makings of some anti-government goober taking his half-wit beliefs way too far.'

People for the American Way put this video together of right commentators talking about the census, while drawing this connection in the about box:

There are many unanswered questions about the tragic hanging death of Bill Sparkman, a US Census Bureau employee, in rural Kentucky. But one thing is clear. Right-Wing leaders like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and media outlets like Fox News have whipped up hysteria and paranoia over the 2010 Census.

Speculation is often a part of the news cycle, and the circumstances surrounding Sparkman's death were strange indeed. But if I weren't far too fair to jump to conclusions, here, I'd say a lot of commentators acted stupidly in reaching for the storyline that fit their preferred violent, redneck right-winger narrative.

In the end, police determined Sparkman wrote the word "Fed" on his own chest, his hands and feet were bound loosely enough for him to have maneuvered himself, and they found no defensive wounds or anyone else's DNA on him.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends who will now be able to mourn his death without the glare of the national media. (All transcript results pulled from brief perusal of Lexis-Nexis search.)

There'll be joyous dancing in the streets of Israel when—if—Gilad Shalit is freed by his Hamas kidnappers in the coming weeks, most especially in the vicinity of the tent set up in March across from the prime minister’s official Jerusalem residence and occupied since then by Noam and Aviva Shalit as a fixed rebuke to the government for failing for three long years to secure their son’s release. But the price of his freedom will be terrible. Among the hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinians slated to be exchanged for this one son of Israel will be those sentenced to life in prison for slaughtering innocent Israeli men, women, and children as they ordered pizza or rode on buses or drank coffee or enjoyed the sea-side or celebrated Passover. We’ll see no celebrating by those victims’ families, men and women whose own life sentences of rage and mourning were mitigated somewhat by seeing the killers of their loved ones punished. What will they do now? Where’s the justice for them? And what about the cost to the security of the Jewish State? There’s now a Hamas bounty of $1.4 million for every Israeli soldier kidnapped. Will the IDF not be hamstrung? Will Israeli generals not be forced to weigh every decision, every move, with that fact in mind?

When the Israelis' inimical interlocutor cares more for the life of one Israeli than for the lives of a thousand of his own blood-spattered brethren, there’s really no such thing as justice, and there’s really no such thing as safety from terror.