The soldier in question is Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo; she works in public affairs for the military as spokesperson to the media. While she's emerged elsewhere in mainstream reports on Iraq, she hasn't always been identified in her role.

A New York Times story from April correctly cited Lombardo as a "military spokesperson." Another report in the Albany Times-Union merely cited her as a "24-year Guard veteran." In his report, Times-Union scribe Tim O'Brien quoted Lombardo extensively as she praised the hard work of her division and drew special attention to their successful cooperation with local forces to "rebuild Iraqi infrastructure."

"I enjoy what I'm doing over there and enjoy getting to know the Iraqi people," Lombardo tells the Times-Union stenographer. "The support of my family has been tremendous."

Bush could have let the American people in on this political theater. He could have pointed out the flak as that person in military garb regurgitating the White House line. Instead, he pretended that Lombardo was a grunt, like the other soldiers seated at her side, engaged in a frank conversation about the state of the war.

When prodded by reporters about the staged nature of Thursday's press event, White House press secretary Scott McClellan took offense: "I'm sorry, are you suggesting that what our troops were saying was not sincere, or what they said was not their own thoughts?"

"But I also asked this morning, were they being told by their commanders what to say or what to do, and you indicated, no," responded a reporter in the White House press gallery. "Was there any prescreening of -- ?"

"I'm not aware of any such -- any such activities that were being undertaken," McClellan interjected. "We coordinated closely with the Department of Defense. You can ask if there was any additional things that they did. But we work very closely with them to coordinate these events, and the troops can ask the President whatever they want. They've always been welcome to do that."

McClellan added that the president wanted to talk with troops on the ground who have first-hand knowledge about the situation.

Lombardo's only fist-hand knowledge is in spreading propaganda. According to David Axe the Village Voice's reporter in Iraq: "Her job when I was with the 42nd Infantry Division included taking reporters to lunch. She lives in a fortified compound in Tikrit and rarely leaves. Many public-affairs types in Iraq never leave their bases, and they're speaking for those who do the fighting and dying."

His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life's possibilities.

The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate -- downgrading it because he was out of the war zone -- or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.

But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing.

"I was shocked," recalled Loria, now 28 and medically retired from the Army. "After everything that went on, they still had the nerve to ask me for money."

For the first time, more people say George W. Bush's presidency will be judged as unsuccessful than say it will be seen as a success, a poll finds.

Forty-one percent of respondents said Bush's presidency will be seen as unsuccessful in the long run, while 26 percent said the opposite. Thirty-five percent said it was too early to tell, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

In January, 36 percent said successful and 27 percent said unsuccessful.

The increasing pessimism about Bush's long-term prospects comes at a time when many polls have found the public increasingly is negative about Bush's performance and the direction of the country.

Seven in 10 said they want the next president to offer policies and programs that are different from the Bush administration's.

Only half said they wanted the next president to offer different policies in 2000, at the end of the Clinton presidency. By a 2-1 margin, people said the Bush administration has had a negative impact on politics and the way government works.

People were inclined to say Bush's policies have made things worse on a wide range of issues such as the federal budget deficit, the gap between rich and poor, health care, the economy, relations with U.S. allies, the tax system and education. By 47 percent to 30 percent, those surveyed said Bush has improved the situation with national security.

Republicans give the president mixed reviews in many of these areas. Almost half of Republicans said Bush's policies have made the deficit worse and just 12 percent say he has improved that situation.

It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution.

"This is an important time," Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, said, coaching the soldiers before Bush arrived. "The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you."

Barber said the president was interested in three topics: the overall security situation in Iraq, security preparations for the weekend vote and efforts to train Iraqi troops.

As she spoke in Washington, a live shot of 10 soldiers from the Army's 42nd Infantry Division and one Iraqi soldier was beamed into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building from Tikrit — the birthplace of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"I'm going to ask somebody to grab those two water bottles against the wall and move them out of the camera shot for me," Barber said.

A brief rehearsal ensued.

"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"

"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.

"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.

"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.

And so it went.

"If the question comes up about partnering — how often do we train with the Iraqi military — who does he go to?" Barber asked.

"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.

"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit — the hometown — and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.

[snip]

Paul Rieckhoff, director of the New York-based Operation Truth, an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, denounced the event as a "carefully scripted publicity stunt." Five of the 10 U.S. troops involved were officers, he said.

"If he wants the real opinions of the troops, he can't do it in a nationally televised teleconference," Rieckhoff said. "He needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that's not a bunch of captains."

A Department of Homeland Security official tasked with helping local businesses get post-Hurricane Katrina contracts resigned in frustration last week because he could not secure catering work for local vendors.

Doug Doan, a business liaison at DHS, lined up a group of Louisiana chefs and restaurants to provide 26,000 meals a day in St. Tammany Parish to people without power and unable to cook for themselves.

Instead of the seafood pasta and beef with a red wine mushroom reduction that Doan arranged, box lunches and military rations known as meals-ready-to-eat, or MREs, from outside Louisiana are being served.

Gulf Coast lawmakers, such as Rep. Bennie Thompson (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., and other critics have complained about the federal government's failure to steer recovery dollars to businesses in the areas affected by the storm. A list of contracts awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency showed that as of Oct. 3, two of 140 agreements had gone to Louisiana prime contractors.

"Louisiana makes the best food in the world," Doan said Tuesday. "To be bringing in beanie weenies from Florida or peanut butter sandwiches from Ohio at a greater cost ... is an outrage."

Doan had worked for the department about two years and arrived in Louisiana Sept. 27. He resigned Oct. 5. Valerie Smith, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, confirmed Doan left for "personal reasons."

Smith said "obtaining food for disaster victims is traditionally a Red Cross issue. It's very unusual for DHS to get involved," adding that "contracting vehicles for non-traditional food through FEMA and Homeland Security do not exist."

Nicol Andrews, a FEMA spokeswoman, said her understanding of Doan's proposal is that it "skirted around the law."

"The federal government can't play favorites to certain businesses one over another," Andrews said. "This was not following the rules." Doan says Andrews is "flat wrong," noting President Bush and Congress have said local firms should be involved in the Gulf Coast's recovery.

The catering for St. Tammany would have helped reinvigorate the economy in a state that lost 30% of its businesses to the hurricane. The federal government has allocated about $17 billion in contracts related to Katrina, but Doan said he couldn't cut through rules and red tape to bring more of those dollars to Louisiana businesses.

Tom Daschle, a former US senator who lost his seat last year, told AFP that he was undecided about whether to run as a candidate in 2008 presidential elections that will decide who will succeed George W. Bush.

"I haven't made any decision about my political future," he said during a visit to Paris when asked specifically about his plans regarding the presidency.

"My hope is to make as much of a contribution for my party over the next couple of years as I can," he said.

Daschle, who used to be the leader of the Democrats in the US senate before being narrowly beaten by a Republican in the November 2004 election in his home state of South Dakota, said he was making a week-long European trip taking in Britain, France and Germany in his capacity as a member of a US law firm trying to drum up business.

But his recent decision to form a new political committee from a fundraising body he used in his senatorial days has sparked speculation in the US media that he plans to run again for public office.

In his interview with AFP, Daschle, 58, ruled out taking a shot at the governorship of South Dakota, saying "I have little interest in state government, I have far greater interest in national government."

Let's review:

The act: President Bush said Wednesday that Harriet Miers' religious beliefs figured into her nomination to the Supreme Court as a top-ranking Democrat warned against any "wink and a nod" campaign for confirmation.

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Misdemeanor No. 1: In using religion as a key basis for offering Miers a job, the president would appear to have violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Title VII of the law "prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."

Misdemeanor No. 2: More specifically, one could make the case that Bush's actions are also in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which specifically covers federal employees. According to the same EEOC primer: "The CSRA prohibits any employee who has authority to take certain personnel actions from discriminating for or against employees or applicants for employment on the bases of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age or disability."

High crime: As you might expect, the "high crime" here is more serious, and is also the area where it's hardest to argue that the president did not cross the line. We are referring to Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Do you honestly believe that Harriet Miers -- with all her other qualifications exactly the same -- would have been nominated to the Supreme Court if she had been Jewish, or an atheist, or Muslim? Of course not, because the president and Karl Rove, or Andy Card, or whoever's really running things these days, knew that such a choice would not pass muster with the radical clerics who sit on "the board of directors" of Bushco.

A mid-level bureaucrat who treated a job vacancy in this manner would surely be fired. Shouldn't we hold the president of the United States to an even higher standard?

Of all the words written about Harriet Miers, none are more disturbing than the ones she wrote herself. In the early 90's, while she was president of the Texas bar association, Miers wrote a column called "President's Opinion" for The Texas Bar Journal. It is the largest body of public writing we have from her, and sad to say, the quality of thought and writing doesn't even rise to the level of pedestrian.

[snip]

I don't know if by mere quotation I can fully convey the relentless march of vapid abstractions that mark Miers's prose. Nearly every idea is vague and depersonalized. Nearly every debatable point is elided.

I don't know if by mere quotation I can fully convey the relentless march of vapid abstractions that mark Miers's prose. Nearly every idea is vague and depersonalized. Nearly every debatable point is elided.

"More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems."

Or this: "We must end collective acceptance of inappropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism."

Or this: "When consensus of diverse leadership can be achieved on issues of importance, the greatest impact can be achieved."

Or passages like this: "An organization must also implement programs to fulfill strategies established through its goals and mission. Methods for evaluation of these strategies are a necessity. With the framework of mission, goals, strategies, programs, and methods for evaluation in place, a meaningful budgeting process can begin."

Or, finally, this: "We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective. Achieving the necessary understanding and appreciation of why the challenge is so important, we can then turn to the task of providing the much needed support."

If a Jewish man in New Mexico has his way, Christian chaplains in the U.S. Air Force could be prohibited from evangelizing among the ranks. And apparently the Air Force is willing to consider the man's suggestion.

According to an Associated Press report, Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque -- a 1977 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and father of two Air Force cadets -- has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that senior officers and cadets at the Academy illegally impose Christianity on others at the elite school. Now comes word that the Air Force has withdrawn from use by its chaplains a code of ethics that endorsed the evangelizing of troops who are unaffiliated with any religion.

The code, which was issued by the Air Force Chaplain Service in January, states: "I will not actively proselytize from other religious bodies. However, I retain the right to instruct and/or evangelize those who are not affiliated." An Air Force spokeswoman says the code of ethics has since been withdrawn "for further review."

Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff is a retired Navy chaplain who is now a special advisor to the secretary of the Air Force. Resnicoff tells The Washington Post that the code of ethics was never an official directive of the Department of Defense, but that the service may have given that impression when it was distributed at the chaplains school in Alabama.

The rabbi adds that the "amazing, positive thing that people are missing" about the code of ethics is that "even the most evangelical chaplains are agreeing not to try to change the religion of a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu -- anyone who has a religious faith."

Weinstein's Argument
Hours after filing his lawsuit, Weinstein told an audience on the campus of the University of New Mexico that his sons, one of whom has already graduated from the Academy, were "constantly accused of being utterly complicit" in Christ's execution and "told that all of their forebears were burning eternally in hell."

According to AP, Weinstein claims to have no specific problem with religions per se -- "even evangelical Christianity" -- but that "whenever a religion -- in this case a group of people -- tries to engage the machinery of the state, it is constitutionally repugnant and violative." Weinstein's lawsuit names the Air Force and acting Air Force Secretary Pete Geren as defendants, and asks the Air Force to prohibit its members, including chaplains, from trying to "involuntarily convert, pressure, exhort, or persuade a fellow member of the USAF to accept their own religious beliefs while on duty."

The New York Times reporter who went to jail to avoid testifying in the CIA leak case was quizzed by the special prosecutor again yesterday and has agreed to return to the grand jury today.

Judith Miller's additional testimony comes as the endgame is intensifying in the legal chess match that threatens to damage the Bush administration.

There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts between administration officials and journalists that took place much earlier than previously thought. Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame.

[snip]

Until now, Mr. Fitzgerald appeared to be focusing on conversations between White House officials such as Mr. Libby and Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser, after Mr. Wilson wrote his op-ed. The defense by Republican operatives has been that White House officials didn't name Ms. Plame, and that any discussion of her was in response to reporters' questions about Mr. Wilson, the kind of casual banter that occurs between sources and reporters.

Mr. Rove, who has already testified three times before the grand jury and was identified by a Time magazine reporter as a source for his story on Mr. Wilson, is expected to go back to the grand jury, potentially as early as today, to clarify earlier answers.

Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson's claims.

But this much could be seen watching the tape of NBC's broadcast during Bush's 14-minute pre-sunrise interview, in which he stood unprotected by the usual lectern. The president was a blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts. Bush has always been an active man, but standing with Lauer and the serene, steady first lady, he had the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere.

The fidgeting clearly corresponded to the questioning. When Lauer asked if Bush, after a slow response to Katrina, was "trying to get a second chance to make a good first impression," Bush blinked 24 times in his answer. When asked why Gulf Coast residents would have to pay back funds but Iraqis would not, Bush blinked 23 times and hitched his trousers up by the belt.

When the questioning turned to Miers, Bush blinked 37 times in a single answer -- along with a lick of the lips, three weight shifts and some serious foot jiggling. Laura Bush, by contrast, delivered only three blinks and stood still through her entire answer about encouraging volunteerism.

Perhaps the set itself made Bush uncomfortable. He and his wife stood in casual attire, wearing tool belts, in front of a wall frame and some Habitat for Humanity volunteers in hard hats. ABC News noted cheekily of its rival network's exclusive: "He did allow himself to be shown hammering purposefully, with a jejune combination of cowboy swagger and yuppie self-consciousness."

[snip]

Certainly, Bush retained many of the gestures that work well for him: the purposeful but restrained hand gestures, the head-tilted smile of amusement and the easy laugh. But he seemed to lose control of the timing. He smiled after observing that Iraqis are "paying a serious price" because of terrorism.

As Lauer went through his introduction, the presidential eyes zoomed left, then right, then left and right again, then center, down and up at the interviewer. The presidential fidgeting spiked when Lauer mentioned the Democratic accusation that Bush was performing a "photo op." Bush pushed out his lower front lip, then licked the right corner of his mouth. Lauer's query about whether conservatives "are feeling let down by you" appeared to provoke furious jiggling of the right leg.

Bush joked about his state of mind when Lauer asked Laura Bush about the strain on her husband. "He can barely stand!" the president said, interrupting. "He's about to drop on the spot." But the first lady had a calming influence on the presidential wiggles. When Laura Bush spoke about her husband's "broad shoulders," the president put his arm around her -- and the swaying and shifting subsided.

The president, now on more comfortable terrain, delivered a brief homily about "the decency of others" and "how blessed we are to be an American." Through the entire passage, he blinked only 12 times.

Most people believe that gaze aversion is a sign of lying. They assume that because liars feel guilty, embarrassed and apprehensive, they find it difficult to look their victim in the eye. This is not what happens. First, patterns of gaze are quite unstable - while some liars avert their eyes, others actually increase the amount of time they spend looking at the other person.

As gaze is fairly easy to control, liars can use their eyes to project an image of honesty. Knowing that other people assume gaze aversion is a sign of lying, many liars do the exact opposite - they deliberately increase their gaze to give the impression that they're telling the truth.

Another supposed sign of lying is rapid blinking. It's true that when we become aroused or our mind is racing, there's a corresponding increase in our blinking rate. Our normal rate is about 20 blinks per minute, but it can increase to four or five times that figure when we feel under pressure. When liars are searching for an answer to an awkward question, their thought processes speed up. In this kind of situation, lying is frequently associated with blinking. But we need to remember that there are times when people have a high blinking rate, not because they're lying, but because they're under pressure. Also, there are times when liars show normal rates.

[snip]

Fidgeting and awkward hand movements are also thought to be signs of deceit - the assumption being that when people are lying they become agitated and this gives rise to nervous movements of the hands. There is a class of gestures called "adaptors" which consists of actions like stroking one's hair, scratching one's head or rubbing the hands together. When people tell lies they sometimes feel guilty or worried about being found out, and these concerns can cause them to produce adaptors. This tends to happen when the stakes are high or when the liar isn't very good at deception.

Mr. Fitzgerald's pursuit now suggests he might be investigating not a narrow case on the leaking of the agent's name, but perhaps a broader conspiracy.

Mr. Wilson's initial complaints were made privately to reporters. He went public in a July 6 op-ed in the New York Times and in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." After that, White House officials, who were attempting to discredit Mr. Wilson's claims, confirmed to some reporters that Mr. Wilson was married to a CIA official. Columnist Robert Novak published Mr. Wilson's wife's name and association with the agency in a column that suggested she had played a role in having him sent on a mission to Niger to investigate the administration's claims.

Until now, Mr. Fitzgerald appeared to be focusing on conversations between White House officials such as Mr. Libby and Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political adviser, after Mr. Wilson wrote his op-ed. The defense by Republican operatives has been that White House officials didn't name Ms. Plame, and that any discussion of her was in response to reporters' questions about Mr. Wilson, the kind of casual banter that occurs between sources and reporters.

Mr. Rove, who has already testified three times before the grand jury and was identified by a Time magazine reporter as a source for his story on Mr. Wilson, is expected to go back to the grand jury, potentially as early as today, to clarify earlier answers.

Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson's claims.

Outside the blind trusts he created to avoid a conflict of interest, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist earned tens of thousands of dollars from stock in a family-founded hospital chain largely controlled by his brother, documents show.

The Tennessee Republican, whose sale this summer of HCA Inc. stock is under federal investigation, has long maintained he could own HCA shares and still vote on health care legislation without a conflict because he had placed the stock in blind trusts approved by the Senate.

However, ethics experts say a partnership arrangement shown in documents obtained by The Associated Press raises serious doubts about whether the senator truly avoided a conflict.

In that case, the HCA stock was accumulated by a family investment partnership started by the senator's late parents and later overseen by his brother, Thomas Frist. The brother served as president of the partnership's management company and as a top officer of HCA. Sen. Frist holds no position with the company.

The senator's share of the partnership was placed in a Tennessee blind trust between 1998 and 2002 that was separate from those governed by Senate ethics rules. Frist reported Bowling Avenue Partners, made up mostly of non-public HCA stock, earned him $265,495 in dividends and other income over the four years.

Edmond M. Ianni, a former Wilmington, Del., bank executive who established blind trusts for corporate executives, questioned why the senator's brother was able to manage assets "when the whole purpose of a blind trust is to ensure lack of not only conflict of interest but appearance of conflict of interest?"

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, said she doesn't believe the Senate trusts or the Tennessee trust insulated Frist from a conflict because the senator or his brother were advised of transactions and could influence decisions.

"What I find most appalling is the Senate calls it a qualified blind trust when it's not blind," Clark said. "Since the Senate says it's OK, the Senate has made it a political question. It's up to the voter. But there's no doubt it's a conflict of interest."

The likelihood of a human flu pandemic is very high, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said as he began a tour of Southeast Asia to coordinate plans to combat bird flu.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in many parts of Asia since 2003 and jumped to humans, killing 60 people, mostly through direct contact with sick fowl.

While there have been no known cases of person-to-person transmission, World Health Organization officials and other experts have been warning that the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people. In a worst-case scenario, they say millions of people could die.

Three influenza pandemics have occurred over the last century and "the likelihood of another is very high, some say even certain," Leavitt said Monday after meeting with Thai health officials to review the country's preparations against the disease.

"Whether or not H5N1 is the virus that will ultimately trigger such a pandemic is unknown to us," he told a news conference.

"The probability is uncertain. But the warning signs are troubling. Hence we are responding in a robust way."

A group of Democratic senators wrote Leavitt on Friday that they believe the U.S. response to the threat of a pandemic has been inadequate. Specifically, they said the government has not stockpiled enough medication to treat viral infections once they occur.

"While other nations have ordered enough antiviral medication to treat between 20 and 40 percent of their populations, the federal government has only ordered enough to treat less than two percent of Americans," the six lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers asked Leavitt to explain why the U.S. preparations are "behind those of other countries" and to "explain your plan to provide sufficient protection for the American people." The letter was signed by Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Barack Obama of Illinois.

David Horowitz, the conservative who is president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, analyzed the political affiliations of the faculty at 18 elite journalism and law schools. By checking all the party registrations he could find, he concluded that Democrats outnumber Republicans by 8 to 1 at the law schools, with the ratio ranging from 3 to 1 at Penn to 28 to 1 at Stanford.

Only one journalism school, the University of Kansas, had a preponderance of Republicans (by 10 to 8). At the rest of the schools, there was a 6-to-1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans. The ratio was 4 to 1 at Northwestern and New York University, 13 to 1 at the University of Southern California, 15 to 1 at Columbia. Horowitz didn't find any Republicans at Berkeley.

Some academics argue that their political ideologies don't affect the way they teach, which to me is proof of how detached they've become from reality in their monocultures. This claim is especially dubious if you're training lawyers and journalists to deal with controversial public policies.

I realize, from experience at six newspapers, that most journalists try not to impose their prejudices on their work. When I did stories whose facts challenged liberal orthodoxies, editors were glad to run them. When liberal reporters wrote stories, they tried to present the conservative perspective.

The problem isn't so much the stories that appear as the ones that no one thinks to do. Journalists naturally tend to pursue questions that interest them. So when you have a press corps that's heavily Democratic - more than 80 percent, according to some surveys of Washington journalists - they tend to do stories that reflect Democrats' interests.

When they see a problem, their instinct is to ask what the government can do to solve it. I once sat in on a newspaper story conference the day after an armored-car company was robbed of millions of dollars bound for banks. The first idea that came up for a follow-up story was: Does this robbery show the need for stricter regulation of armored-car companies?

We kicked this idea around until I suggested that companies in the business of transporting cash already had a fairly strong incentive not to lose it - presumably an even stronger incentive than any government official regulating their security arrangements. That story idea died, but not the mind-set that produced it.

The surest way to impress the judges for a journalism prize is to write a series of articles that spur a legislature to right some evil, particularly if it was committed by a corporation. When journalists do exposés of government malfeasance, they usually focus on the need for more regulations and bigger budgets, not on whether the government should be doing the job in the first place.

In the 11 days since Judith Miller left jail after agreeing to testify before a federal grand jury about her sources, many of the facts in the case have yet to come out. But one thing is clear: Her newspaper, The New York Times, has had very little to say about her role in the Plame/CIA leak case, and has been regularly scooped by other papers on the latest twists in her involvement.

The newspaper promised a full accounting by now, but then put it off after Miller was told she had to chat with the federal prosecutor again, on Tuesday. Executive Editor Bill Keller was quoted in an online Business Week article Monday suggesting that the complexities of the situation put the paper in the "uncomfortable" position of not being able to share important information Miller knows.

The paper had to run a correction today on one bit of information it did confirm (after it was widely published elsewhere): The previosly unknown conversation between Miller and I. Lewis Libby took place on June 23, 2003, not June 25 of that year.

The all-holds-barred reporting by the Times about a national story partly based in its own newsroom has drawn comments from several daily newspaper editors, who tell E&P that the Gray Lady needs to open up more about one of its own. But more than half of the top editors polled by E&P on this subject declined to comment, refusing to leap to the paper's defense, or condemn it.

"What bothers me is that they have been quiet about it since she got out of jail, not sharing with the readers anything," says Doug Clifton, editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. "Once she was out, they owed it to readers to share what she testified. She ought to have shared with readers what she shared with the grand jury."

Clifton also questioned the Times' approach in putting together a story about Miller's jailing if editors who have a long association with her, or have championed her actions, are part of the process.

"Maybe because of the Times' stature, it elevates this whole thing to a national audience," he said. "Perhaps they should get someone more removed to handle it, to direct the reporters who are doing a good reporting job on just what happened," Clifton told E&P, "someone out of the direct chain of command."

Clifton would not go so far as to advocate an outsider coming in to run that reporting project, which is well underway, but he said, "if they want it to be above reproach, get the public editor to do it. The important thing is to give an accounting."

For Dennis Ryerson, editor of The Indianapolis Star and former editor of the Des Moines Register, the minimal Times reporting is unusual. "I've been surprised at their lack of aggressiveness throughout," he told E&P. "They didn't even break the story of her getting out of jail." Ryerson added that "usually they can be counted on to provide the best perspective on things, even when it involves their own. It seems unusual for them that we are not seeing more."

When asked how he would have covered the story, Ryerson would not say. He also pointed out that "there may be things that we do not know that will come out" related to how the Times has taken the approach it has.

Davecat keeps a picture of his girlfriend in his wallet. She's pretty, with long black hair, an alluring mole under her left eye, and glossy red lipstick. Her sheer tank top shows off her full breasts and the hoop through her left nipple.

Ask Davecat about Sidore -- pronounced She-doh-ray -- and he'll tell you she's everything that turns him on: beautiful, loyal, a great listener. Si-chan, as he affectionately calls her, is half British, half Japanese, which is nice because he's always had a thing for both British and Japanese culture. Even their clothing style and taste in music is simpatico -- they're both Goths.

Like many born in the sun sign Cancer, Sidore is a homebody, but then, she couldn't leave the comfort of the bed she shares with Davecat even if she wanted to because Sidore is a 100-pound solid silicone Real Doll.

Go ahead. Flinch at the notion of a man having sex with an imitation woman and classify him: lonely loser. Pathological creep. Misogynist. Potential rapist. Sicko. True enough, some men who have sex with Real Dolls are creepy, the kind of guys you wouldn't want to be alone with. But not all. Many are simply lonely -- some tragically so. Others are disfigured or infirm. Some are oddly sweet, like Davecat, for whom a Real Doll is a "teddy bear with benefits." And others proclaim their normalcy and defend their Real Dolls as no different than a 3-D version of a Playboy centerfold.

Many doll lovers -- or "iDollators," as some of them call themselves -- participate in a confusing online subculture where the lines between art and pornography, the ludicrous and the tender, and fantasy and fetishism blur like watercolors. Spend time talking to Real Doll aficionados as I have over the past year, and you come to understand that behind every Real Doll is a man with a reason.

[snip]

According to Davecat and many other Real Doll owners, sex with a Real Doll is quite good. "For the most part, it's just like sex with an organic woman ... who doesn't say anything and is brimful of Quaaludes," Davecat writes on Sidore's stylish Web site.

[snip]

When referring to their coital habits, Davecat uses terms like "make love" or "have sex" -- and safe sex at that. "I'm one of the rare [doll] users who uses a condom," he confides, adding that while he feels a bit cheated having to use a prophylactic, it would be too much for him to haul Sidore into the shower every time they have sex. Until Davecat can bench-press 200 pounds, he says, Sidore will have to live with sponge baths.

Davecat admits that Si-chan's personality is not without flaws. He thinks she might be manic-depressive because she's "relentlessly perky at times" but also, given the amount of time she spends in bed, prone to narcolepsy and laziness. But generally, she doesn't disappoint. Davecat imagines that she's open-minded, a bit sarcastic, an artistic intellectual who, were she real, would walk around with Sylvia Plath books under her arm and go out drinking and dancing with her girlfriends. In short, Si-chan is a girl who Davecat thinks he could never meet. "If I were to go to a bar and try some pick-up lines, the chances of coming home with someone like her are highly unlikely," he says. "No real woman seems to think I'm good enough for them."

Democratic lawmakers are urging the Bush administration to increase funding for a $2 billion energy program to help the poor pay heating bills expected to increase about 47 percent this winter.

The energy assistance program helps low-income families, primarily the elderly and disabled, pay utility bills - about one-third of the total bill, on average. The money is disbursed through block grants to the states.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said last week that additional money was "not on the agenda."

The Oregonian talked to three of Beres' female relatives, including two who told reporters that he molested them. All three said they have been interviewed for several hours by detectives.

"I was molested," said one of the women, now in her early 50s. "I was victimized, and I've suffered all my life for it. I'm still afraid to be in the same room with (Beres)."

Beres, 70, whose group champions socially conservative candidates and causes, confirmed he is under investigation for alleged molestation. He blamed "personal and political enemies" for the reports and said, "I never molested anybody."

Two of the alleged molestations occurred decades ago and likely would not result in criminal charges because state law limits prosecution of certain crimes. For example, the statute of limitations on sex abuse expires after six years.

One case, however, may fall within statutory timelines, authorities confirmed. That investigation involves a female family member who was allegedly molested by Beres when she was in elementary school, authorities said.

Beres family members told The Oregonian that they called the child abuse hot line last month after several women in the family said they openly discussed for the first time what happened with Beres. The names of the family members have been withheld because The Oregonian generally doesn't identify alleged sex abuse victims.

Another family member said she does not recall being abused by Beres, but said she would often wake at night and see him in bed with another young female family member.

Rich Galat, 41, of Oakland, Calif., is Beres' nephew. He said he told detectives that Beres has molested several female family members over two generations.

"My family has gone through hell," Galat said. "Lives have been ruined. Those of us who have come forward have been ostracized, verbally abused and the victims of character assassination. . . . It must stop."

Beres, of Clackamas County, is state chairman of the Christian Coalition, a political action group that endorses candidates and causes, publishes voter guides, lobbies the Legislature and Congress, and campaigns for and against ballot initiatives.

Its Web site describes the group as "Oregon's leading grassroots organization defending our Godly heritage." The group opposes abortion, gay rights and stem cell research.

[snip]

Beres is also former chairman of the Multnomah County Republican Party.

"There are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it."

With President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers, it turns out that Republicans don't want to buy a pig in a poke any more than Democrats do. They were bluffing when they claimed not to know or care about Roberts's views, beyond a vague commitment to avoid "legislating from the bench." They did care, but they thought they knew. The surprising conservative bitterness about Miers reinforces the suspicion of many liberals that "they must know something we don't" about Roberts. Conservatives have been complaining about the Supreme Court for half a century. After a series of false dawns, this would seem to be their true moment. Would they really let Bush squander this opportunity? Apparently not.

Unless, that is, you buy the even darker conspiracy theory that Republican apparatchiks don't really want a counterrevolution at the Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade has been very good to the Republican Party, keeping social and religious conservatives at a full boil of resentment. The last thing the party needs is to turn these motivated activists into satisfied customers, while stoking a fire under activists on the other side. So there was a game of double bluff going on: The conservatives who bluffed that they didn't care about Roberts's views -- and liberals shouldn't either -- were themselves being bluffed, perhaps, by Bushies who assured them that Roberts was on their side.

It seems harsh to say that bad news for polar bears is good for Pat Broe. Mr. Broe, a Denver entrepreneur, is no more to blame than anyone else for a meltdown at the top of the world that threatens Arctic mammals and ancient traditions and lends credibility to dark visions of global warming.

Still, the newest study of the Arctic ice cap - finding that it faded this summer to its smallest size ever recorded - is beginning to make Mr. Broe look like a visionary for buying this derelict Hudson Bay port from the Canadian government in 1997. Especially at the price he paid: about $7.

By Mr. Broe's calculations, Churchill could bring in as much as $100 million a year as a port on Arctic shipping lanes shorter by thousands of miles than routes to the south, and traffic would only increase as the retreat of ice in the region clears the way for a longer shipping season.

With major companies and nations large and small adopting similar logic, the Arctic is undergoing nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Even before the polar ice began shrinking more each summer, countries were pushing into the frigid Barents Sea, lured by undersea oil and gas fields and emboldened by advances in technology. But now, as thinning ice stands to simplify construction of drilling rigs, exploration is likely to move even farther north.

Last year, scientists found tantalizing hints of oil in seabed samples just 200 miles from the North Pole. All told, one quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas resources lies in the Arctic, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The polar thaw is also starting to unlock other treasures: lucrative shipping routes, perhaps even the storied Northwest Passage; new cruise ship destinations; and important commercial fisheries.

"It's the positive side of global warming, if there is a positive side," said Ron Lemieux, the transportation minister of Manitoba, whose provincial government is investing millions in Churchill.

If the melting continues, as many Arctic experts expect, the mass of floating ice that has crowned the planet for millions of years may largely disappear for entire summers this century. Instead of the white wilderness that killed explorers and defeated navigators for centuries, the world would have a blue pole on top, a seasonally open sea nearly five times the size of the Mediterranean.

The rising temperatures are likely to cause the melting of at least half the Arctic sea ice by the end of the century. A significant portion of the Greenland ice sheet—which contains enough water to raise the worldwide sea level by about 23 feet (about 7 meters)—would also melt.

The consequences of such a massive meltdown of northern ice would be dramatic, according to the study.

• Low-lying coastal areas in Florida and Louisiana could be flooded by the sea. A 1.5 feet (50-centimeter) rise in sea level could cause the coastline to move 150 feet (45 meters) inland, resulting in substantial economic, social, and environmental impact in low-lying areas.

• The health and food security of some indigenous peoples would be threatened, challenging the survival of some cultures.

• Should the Arctic become ice-free in summer, it is likely that polar bears and some seal species would become extinct.

• The melting of so much ice, and the resulting addition of so much fresh water to the ocean, could impact the circulation of currents and affect regional climate.

Delphi Corp. (NYSE:DPH - news), the U.S. auto-parts supplier that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Saturday, plans to shut down or sell off a substantial part of its U.S. operations, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

But Delphi Chief Executive Robert "Steve" Miller told the Journal in an interview he was not sure if the company would ask the U.S. government to take over its pension obligations.

Analysts estimated GM's obligation for retiree benefits at somewhere between $1.6 billion and $6.6 billion. The company's tab for retiree pensions could run another $3 billion to $4.5 billion if Delphi terminates its plan, the Journal said.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger in a statement called the filing a "bitter pill" and criticized Delphi for sweetening the severance packages of 21 top executives the day before seeking bankruptcy protection.

Meanwhile, Delphi seeks relief from the bankruptcy court, including permission to cut hourly wages.

The paper also said Delphi is moving John Sheehan from chief operating officer to chief restructuring officer. Robert Dellinger will become chief financial officer, effective immediately.

"This is a lifetime appointment," Specter said. "If there are backroom assurances and there are backroom deals and if there is something which bears upon a precondition as to how a nominee is going to vote, I think that's a matter that ought to be known by the Judiciary Committee and the American people."

Leahy said he would oppose any nominee who gives assurances about how he or she would vote on particular cases. "I would vote against that person," he said. "I wouldn't care whether they are nominated by a Democrat or a Republican. . . And all 100 senators should vote against them under that basis alone."

Our donations will surely be joined by others. Indeed, the people of northwest Pakistan can expect one man to be exceedingly generous with his financial aid and with the assistance of his numerous organizations. That man is Osama bin Laden. Remember him? He's the guy Bush "truly" isn't that concerned about. Alas, being a New Yorker, with a brand new terrorist threat to deal with, my family does not have that luxury.

Now, bin Laden as we all know is one ruthless, vicious sonofabitch. The stories I've come across of how he compels obedience within al Qaeda and from his hapless neighbors are truly revolting - the New Yorker printed a few back in 2002/03, I believe, and there's no reason to doubt them. But there's another way bin Laden protects his interests. He buys his safety. And he pays top rupee.

The story of how bin Laden built a major highway in Sudan is well known (by the way, the link is a fascinating interview of UBL from 1996 conducted by Robert Fisk). But that only touches the surface of bin Laden's "philanthropy."* Bin Laden and groups he's funded have built Muslim hospitals, schools, and other buildings.

In other words, dear friends, I think it's quite likely that right now one of the larger donors of aid to the sad people of northwest Pakistan is one of our worst enemies, who by "generously helping out" at this time will further cement the loyalty of those protecting him.

And this brings up some rather important issues for we Americans. With a sensible government, the US would, as a matter of course, immediately open up both its heart and its wallet big time to come to the aid of some of the most beleagured people on earth. Sure, it would be to some extent a political calculation, but the offer to help would be also sincere and instinctive. Emergency aid workers, familiar with both the people and the terrain of rural Pakistan, who could speak their language, would be rapidly dispatched whose purpose would be to save lives, rapidly repair infrastructure and just as rapidly, leave. **

Putting aside all the karma calculations that altruism generates and looking at such aid in the cold light of foreign policy strategy, the amount of goodwill America would receive would be absolutely priceless. Surely, America can easily outspend anyone, even a crazy man with Saudi petrodollars behind him.

There's just one problem with this scenario. We don't have a sensible government and therefore, the US simply can't afford to open its heart in the way the situation deserves. And that's because the present administration - unlike, or at the very least, more than most - sorely lacks three things: money, brains, and most importantly, a basic sense of human decency (no matter how often compromised) which enables an American government to think wisely, and spend wisely.

"As I told the president, President Musharraf, I said a lot of Americans here will be asking for the almighty God's blessings on the people of Pakistan,"

There are battles which need to be fought and there are battles which serve no good purpose. Afghanistan and Bin Laden lay forgotten as if they were discarded toys left by a spoiled child.

Iraq is the new frontier of poor foreign policy and poor planning. Even the soldiers can see it. Why do you think nobody is re-enlisting? They don't want to keep leaving their families to go fight a loosing battle and to die for an empty promise. The promise that somehow staying in Iraq makes America safer.

We have created a martyr factory here, and we are beginning to wade through the next Vietnam. How wrong do you want to be before you close down shop and send the troops home? 2,000 dead? Is that wrong enough? How about 10,000?

There is a field back home at Ft. Stewart, Georgia. There a tree has been planted for each soldier who has been killed in Iraq. After we returned in 2003 there were only a few trees, now an entire side of the field is full of them. My sister asked where they would plant more now that the row was complete and sadly I replied, "we still have three more sides to fill." Maybe then when we have enough names for a beautiful war memorial we can leave Iraq.