From Dhimmi Watch

June 9, 2007

Fitzgerald: No public funds for Islamic footbaths

DEARBORN -- The University of Michigan-Dearborn plans to spend $25,000 for foot-washing stations, making it easier for Muslim students to practice their religion but sparking questions about the separation of church and state.

The university claims the stations are needed to accommodate Muslim students, who must ritually wash their bodies -- including the feet -- up to five times each day before prayers. But critics hit conservative blogs and radio airwaves Monday to argue public money shouldn't cover the cost. -- from this article

I have been in airport bathrooms when someone will come up, paying no attention to right or left, and start performing his wudu, while water flies all over the place as that person places his feet, one after the other, in the sink and washes them. While these -- to many -- nauseating public ablutions take place, most people hasten away without going near even the empty sinks.

There is no god-given right to come to other countries and inflict one's behavior, in fulfilling some kind of faith-based mandate, in public places. The nurses who were arrested for singing Christmas carols behind closed doors, in their own apartments in Western apartment complexes, in Saudi Arabia, were not inflicting this on anyone: it was the religious police checking up, as they do everywhere they can. But, for example, the slitting of a sheep's throat, and letting it bleed to death on the street, can and should be banned -- whether or not this is considered "part of Islam."

If Muslim students wish to have foot-washing sinks available, then they can certainly pay for them. After all, there is hardly a mosque or a madrasa in this country that does not receive, when it needs it, all kinds of financial support from those who, across the seas, batten on the unmerited oil trillions, and by this point have used, collectively, more than one hundred billion of it (the estimate for Saudi Arabia alone) to pay for mosques, madrasas, armies of Western hirelings, and propaganda of every sort.

A mere $25,000 shouldn't faze the Saudis. And you might argue that $25,000 is so little -- why not spend it ourselves? But it is a symbolic act, an act that will be, and is, taken by Muslims not as a kind act, an act of accommodation (as those behind it might naturally think, for they think in terms of sweet reason, and compromise, and all that), but instead is taken in quite a different spirit, as one more indication (see the postings at Jihad Watch of the commenter who calls herself “Naseem,” passim) that Islam Is On the March, that here and there, little by little, the Infidels are yielding. It is of great symbolic value to Muslims. And it will not result in gratitude, but merely in a swelling of the sense that obstacles, one by one, to the spread of Islam are being removed. And that, after all, is what Jihad is partly about: the removing of those obstacles, and of obstacles of all kinds wherever they are, so that Islam may spread and dominate, and eventually Muslims come to rule. The dismissal of this as merely an alarmist fantasy shows that the dismisser has not been paying attention -- not to the tenets of Islam, not to 1350 years of Islamic history and the subjugation of non-Muslims, and certainly not to what has happened, over just the last 2-3 decades, in the lands of Western Europe.

Every concession, every misuse of public funds, every Muslim employee of city or state government who has been permitted undiscovered or unpunished to be relentlessly pushing for special deals in order to promote Islam or to make sure that fellow Muslims are hired here, and here, and here -- all of this, every single act, needs to be noisily (and also quietly) opposed. (See that Boston Redevelopment Authority employee, working to get city-owned land sold in a sweetheart deal for a mosque, and see what else that employee did on his still-unexplained trip or trips to Saudi Arabia.) "We must fight them over here so we don't have to fight them over there" would be an apter description of what needs to be done, although in truth there is no place where such "fighting" (not necessarily of the conventional, military variety) will not have to take place.

UM Grad and Law Student on Civil Rights: "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen."

Remember when emblems of American racism were black sharecroppers denied equal chances at education, employment, and political power, or maybe seamstresses who had to ride the bus to work because they couldn’t afford a car?

Apparently things have gotten so much better on the race front, (and yet somehow worse than ever, according to the New York Times and NPR), that one can still be a victim of severe racism and manage to do quite well.

Today’s Detroit News reports this weekend’s 24th annual convention of Arab-Americans leaders in Washington, D.C., including locals Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News, and Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (“Convention to tackle Arab-American rights”).

(Today’s article is under Deb Price’s byline, although she usually writes as the News’s lesbian-affairs columnist. Gregg Krupa is their regular reporter on Arab-Americans, but he's been strangely AWOL all week, all the stranger since the controversy over the UM-Dearborn foot baths should have been his beat. That story was covered instead by Karen Bouffard. But then lo and behold this morning I find Gregg has re-appeared in a nice piece about an Arab American handholding demonstration. “(People of Arabic descent give unity a hand in Dearborn”).)

In any event, this weekend’s convention is meant to brainstorm “solutions to threats to civil liberties at home as well as to the ongoing turmoil in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.”

On the civil liberties front, one panelist, Salah Husseini, 25, plans to

“talk about his experiences growing up in Grosse Pointe, attending University of Michigan and now going to law school at American University. ‘There is a huge problem with racism, and now it is being directed at Muslims and Arabs,’ he said.”

Just in case that went by too fast, I will repeat.

Mr. Husseini grew up in Grosse Pointe, attended the University of Michigan, and is now a law student at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country. His area of subject matter on the panel will be the “huge problem with racism, directed at Muslims and Arabs," including, presumably, himself.

Talk about a brother being behind the 8-Ball.

Obviously, being the victim of prejudice hasn't kept him down. But just imagine where'd he be now if it weren't for this country's huge problem with racism?

Dawud Walid Explains It's All About Hygiene, Not Religion

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of CAIR, posted the following comment on his personal blog ("U-M 'foot bath' station is about hygiene") in response to Karen Bouffard's article in the Detroit News on Tuesday:

"What escaped being printed in this story is that Muslims make ritual ablutions before prayers and that Muslims have been putting their feet in face bowls because washing feet is a portion of the ritual ablution. The University of Michigan-Dearborn is simply making provisions based upon hygiene concerns. The school cannot restrict the practice of Muslims washing themselves for prayer. "

Mr. Walid's comment illustrates the inconsistency in this whole controversy. On the one hand he cites the University’s “hygiene concerns,” and then on the other protests that UM can’t restrict Muslims from washing themselves for prayer. The truth is, no one has ever accused UM of attempting to restrict Muslims from washing themselves for prayer. Nor has UM up till now claimed that it is installing the foot baths in response to a hygiene issue.

Mr. Walid can’t have it both ways. This is either a hygiene issue, or it’s a prayer issue.

Since public colleges and schools throughout the civilized world for a century or more (with the possible exception of France) have been meeting the hygienic needs of students by means of rest rooms equipped with the standard flush toilets, water taps and wash bowls, I don’t know what Mr. Walid has in mind when he says this is a hygiene issue. I don’t really think he means to imply that the Muslim minority in the UM student body have any more need than anyone else to wash their feet, at least not for any reasons of good hygiene.

Mr. Walid admits as much when he tells us that Muslim students have been putting their feet in face bowls not to achieve better hygiene, but as “ritual ablutions before prayer.” (Perhaps Mr. Walid has in mind that it isn’t good hygiene for nonMuslim students to wash their face in bowls also being used to wash feet, and I would agree).

In any event, when people wash their feet in face bowls in these circumstances, the bowls are being put strictly to a religious purpose.

In fact, as reported in WorldNet Daily, ("Airport adds foot basins for Muslim cabbies"), the purification ritual is quite involved, and isn’t just made in preparation for prayer, but also incorporates prayers and praise to Allah:

"The Islamic purification ritual, known in Arabic as 'wudu,' involves a 10-step process, which includes:

1. Praising Allah while washing both hands up to the wrist three times, making sure that the water reaches between fingers and under rings.

2. Rinsing out the mouth thoroughly three times, using the right hand (the one not used for cleaning private parts) to bring the water to the mouth.

3. Snorting water into the nostrils from the right hand, three times, to cleanse them of demons that Muslims believe reside there, clearing the passages of any mucous using the left hand.

4. Washing off the tip of the nose with the left hand.

5. Washing the entire face three times from right ear to left ear.

6. Continuing to wash from forehead to throat.

7. Washing the right arm and then the left arm, three times, from the wrist up to the elbow, removing watches.

8. Moving wetted palms over the head from the top of the forehead to the back of the head.

9. Passing the wetted tips of the fingers into the grooves and holes of both ears, and also passing the wetted thumbs behind the ears and ear lobes.

10. Finally, washing both feet to the ankles starting with the right foot, including between the toes, then reciting: 'Ash-hadu an la ilaha illal lahu wa ashhadu anna Muammadan 'abduhu wa rasuluh' – meaning there is no god but Allah and he has no partners, and Muhammad is his servant and messenger. "

I want to say right off I'm not quoting this intending to mock anyone's religion. All religions have rituals and practices that seem strange to outsiders, including my religion. My point is that wudu entails not merely physical washing, but itself is an act of prayer and worship. It is no more intended for hygiene than baptizing a baby is.

And as described, wudu must be a tricky operation to have to attempt at a rest room sink, I’ll admit. But nowhere that the foot washing stations have been installed has anyone alleged that school authorities, (or employers such as at the Minneapolis airport), ever told Muslim students or employees they weren’t allowed to use the sinks for this purpose. The closest to this came when the administration at Minneapolis Community and Technical College rationalized the sinks as a “safety” issue after a single incident in which a student fell down trying to wash her foot in a standard sink.

From the Muslim student’s point of view, accomplishing his ritual is a religious problem to be solved: how to perform wudu within the confines of a western college lacking foot baths one would find in thoroughly Islamized countries? But this is his religious problem, not one the University needs to solve.

And that's how the trouble began here, when UM-Dearborn accepted the students’ religious problem as its own problem. The University undertook to resolve the issue of, “How can we make sure our Muslim students can perform wudu?”

We all know that no modern public college or school would ever undertake to ask, and commit its limited resources to answer, “How can we guarantee that our Baptist students can evangelize, our Catholic students can attend daily Mass, our Pentecostal students can conduct campus healing services, and our conservative Jewish students can avoid contact with Gentiles?” No public college would ever do so, because such active support and endorsement would clearly violate decades of Establishment Clause jurisprudence.

Moreover, the most indirect religious symbols of the majority faith have been banished from public spaces, lest the very sight of them cause fragile unbelievers to be offended or made to feel outsiders from the larger community.

I think a great deal of our courts’ “wall-of-separation” rulings are overreaching and wrong. Nonetheless, in our system, all citizens have to bear equally the weight of the law’s precedent. The legal standards may not be fair, but if they are applied at all, they should be applied equally.

We have been asked to accept that a Christmas crèche on school grounds or a rendering of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse are unlawful forcings of Christianity on any person unfortunate enough to even catch sight of them. At the same time, we are now being asked to accept that an elaborate foot washing station--not only symbolizing Islam, but an appurtenance of its most essential daily practice, just as patently religious as a baptismal font or a tabernacle--is somehow only a reasonable accommodation all but secular in its purpose.

Like too many of these kinds of things lately, the defenders of this don't believe a word of it, and have trouble keeping a straight face when they pretend they do. Decisions are being made to treat Islam as a special case, and that is why these things are getting by without a fight.

Double Standards: A Case Study

Examples of double standards don't get any better than this.

On the very day the Detroit News finally ran a story, on page 1B, about the UM-Dearborn’s plans to install “foot washing stations” costing as much as $100,000 to facilitate its Muslim students’ ritual prayers, (“College's foot bath plans spark backlash”), on page 3B was reported how a few miles away a high school Bible club has been denied the request to be treated even like other clubs in the school district. (“Student group sues district for right to start Bible club”). The one article literally lay atop the other.

Here’s what’s been reported about the high-schoolers:

Student group sues district for right to start Bible club

High-schoolers want same privileges as other clubs; officials say they must keep church and state separate.

Shawn D. Lewis / The Detroit News

FARMINGTON -- A student group that wants to establish a Bible club is suing the Farmington Public School District, claiming the district is denying students their rights.
Aaron Grider, a sophomore at Farmington High School, and the student group ALIVE have filed a lawsuit against the school district in U.S. District Court, seeking the same privileges other clubs are afforded, including meeting during school hours, meetings announced over the public address system, and inclusion, with the other clubs, in the yearbook.

There are no religious clubs in the district, which says a Bible club would violate the district's policy to keep church and state separate. The lawsuit said the denial is based on the group's religious purpose, viewpoint and content of its speech and meetings. Edward White, a lawyer with the Thomas More Law Center, a national Christian advocacy group, said the school is violating the federal Equal Access Act.

"You don't need any other religious clubs on the campus for this club to exist," White said. "According to the federal Equal Access Act, if the district allows any noncurriculum clubs, like the chess club or Students Against Drunk Driving, then it must allow other clubs the same rights."

David Ruhland, assistant superintendent of human resources and legal services, said that the district has been trying to work with the group.

"The district regrets that the students of ALIVE, through their legal counsel the Thomas More Law Center, have chosen to file a lawsuit rather than to resolve the issues within the district process afforded to them," Ruhland said.

So are we all clear on this, now? If you’re a Bible club asking nothing more than to meet on school grounds, and otherwise be treated like the chess club or the French club, and you don't demand either money spent on you or to have school facilities redesigned to ease your religious mission, the answer is n-o spells No! The Farmington School District says that’s way too close to endorsing religion. What do you think this is, a theocracy?

But if you’re a Muslim student who feels he must follow a religious prayer ritual five times a day that includes washing his feet, then it’s only reasonable for a public college administration to shell out $100,000 to renovate rest rooms and install purpose-built baths to solve that problem for you. That's no endorsement, just “a lovely touch of appreciation for a prayer ritual that's just a little different than what most of us are used to.”

Local ACLU spokeswoman Rana Elmir, almost certainly filing her nails as she spoke, defended the foot baths as serving a “secular purpose” because nonMuslims can use them. This statement not only makes no sense at all, but has nothing to do with the actual legal standards that need to be applied to these things. Back in pre-Madelyn Murray O'Hair America, any nonChristian pupil at P.S. 32 could join in reciting the Lord’s Prayer. But that didn’t mean school prayer was a secular activity, nor did equal participation protect school prayer from winding up banned as a violation of the Establishment Clause.

And while the Muslim students at UM-Dearborn had their “lovely touch of appreciation for a prayer ritual” handed to them without a struggle by an administration bending over backwards, (and otherwards), to assist a minority of students on their personal jihad, the poor Farmington high-schoolers had to get lawyers and file suit in order to force their school district to even listen.

Fortunately, the Thomas More Law Center is handling the Farmington suit, so we can hope the kids probably won’t have to ante up their own college educations to pay the legal costs.

We don’t know yet if anyone plans to take on UM-Dearborn by means of a similar lawsuit. I’m really hoping someone would. The sandaled march across country of the wudu baths has gone unchecked too long, in spite of substantial legal rulings that have found less egregious endorsements of a single religion unconstitutional. So far the foot bath champions likethe Muslim Student Association pushing them all over the country have not faced the challenge of a test case: a test they are not well placed to win.

By no means did the foot baths that are even now gurgling away in Minneapolis, Chicago, and other American colleges get there because they first passed anything like the strict Constitutional muster that the Baby Jesus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer have been flunking for years.

No, the baths are there because weak-kneed college administrators, too slow to escape out the window when Muslim activists were approaching, did the next best thing by just agreeing to whatever they thought would make them go away again.

The Muslim Student Association and these colleges have counted on an absence of any legal challenge that would force them to actually explain how spending public money to sponsor a single religion's distinctive ritual is not an unlawful endorsement. The goofy comments we've heard lately from the spokesmen, the clerical staff, and the gal at the ACLU who happened to pick up the phone are the kinds of lazy blather you get when no one is really worried enough to make an effort.

That kind of stuff usually stops when a judge with a gavel, and a lawyer at the other table with some grit in his eye, start insisting on being part of the fun.

Let's hope something like that finally happens here.

(Photo: BBC).

Muslim Foot Baths Finally Getting Noticed

As of 1:30 today the online poll at the Detroit News Online was running 92.56% to 2.84% against Michigan universities providing foot baths to encourage Muslim prayer rituals.

And to think Detroit’s newspapers had been ignoring this (until today) because it wasn’t controversial--or even news. I’d say comments running 93 to 3 against qualify as controversial. (“College's foot bath plans spark backlash").

DU has been talking about this for weeks. ("UM-Dearborn Teaches How One Foot Washes the Other"; Oh, That Wudu That You Do").

According to the Detroit News, over at Eastern Michigan University they’ve already built foot baths in the student union. EMU student union director Glenna Frank Miller said no one there raised any objections.

Ms. Frank Miller’s remarks are instructive:

"This concept of the foot-wash was coming up fairly regularly for student groups who might want to do a meeting or prayer group in the student center," she said. "It's been a lovely touch of appreciation for a prayer ritual that's just a little different than what most of us are used to."

A lovely touch of appreciation for a prayer ritual?

I have to assume Ms. Frank Miller is not a student of the history of "prayer rituals" in public schools, and their progressive legal banishment from classrooms and campuses since 1960 or so.

And the local ACLU thinks it's prefectly all right, too, "'arguing the foot baths are secular since non-Muslims could use them', said spokeswoman Rana Elmir."

When was the last time your local public school or college shelled out dough to show "a lovely touch of appreciation," let alone toleration, for the prayer rituals of Christians, Jews, or any other religious practitioners? Or even toleration for their religious symbols being displayed on campus?

Never, you say?

Then c'mon to Dearborn. We've got our own way of doing things here.

CAIR Has No Comment on Conspiracy to Support Hamas

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, has been named by federal prosecutors, along with two other Islamic organizations, as an unindicted co-conspirator in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support Hamas.

As reported by Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun, (“Islamic Groups Named in Hamas Funding Case”):

“Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.


“While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.”


Gerstein reports that “[s]pokesmen for CAIR did not respond to messages seeking comment yesterday.”

Read the rest of the article, here.

Al Gore Was Born to Give Us Fever, Be It Fahrenheit or Centigrade

"The planet has a fever," Gore said. "If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science-fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem.'"

Okay.

Or, here's another hypothetical.

You think the planet has a fever. You go to the doctor, and the doctor takes the planet’s temperature. ...

“Well?” says, Vice President Gore. “Pretty bad, huh? Hadn’t we better begin emergency treatment right away reckless of consequences?”

“The thing is,” says the doctor, studying the thermometer, “I’m not sure this planet even has a fever.”

“What!? Oh, he’s got a fever, all right! Why his temperature’s shot up 1°F in the past 100 years! At this rate, it’s going to increase almost 1°F by the year 2030!” (“Global Warming: How Hot? How Soon?”).

“That’s as may be,” said the doctor, already losing interest, “but the fact is, we don’t even know what this planet’s normal temperature is, so I’m in no position to say if this temperature even is a fever. For all any of us can say, we may as well raise his temperature as lower it. Besides, he’s seems sturdy enough, just looking at him.”

“But--.”

The doctor was already moving towards the door.

“You’re getting all worked up for nothing. My advice is to take little Planet Earth here home, give him a couple aspirin, and call me—you know what? Don’t call me. You’d better call my girl about an appointment some time maybe next—year.”

“But Doctor,” cried the Vice President, “The arctic ice could be gone in just 34 years! This is not a partisan issue, this is a moral issue! We need to count every vote! He played on our fears!”

But the doctor had a tee-time, and was replaced in the doorway by a hippy nurse flatly telling the Vice President that the room needed to be prepared for the next patient. “For real patients,” her unkind voice almost seemed to imply.

“C’mon little Planet Earth,” said the President Elect 2000, “this is clearly an assault on reason. May as well go get sumthin to eat. (SIGH).”

“Tacos! Tacos!” piped Planet Earth.

“Ho, ho, ho! Now, now, l’il planet, y’know what Mexican food does to our carbon footprint.”

“Tacos!” repeated Planet Earth, surprisingly uneffected by what the VP did or said.

“Well, all right then. I guess we can spare a few carbon credits. Then after that I think they’ll have to listen to us over at NASA.”

NASA Head Shocks World by Stating Obvious

NASA administrator Michael Griffin was recently quoted in an interview on NPR, questioning the urgency of global warming.

Griffin said that NASA's mission authorization did not include taking "actions to affect climate change in either one way or another. We study global climate change, that is in our authorization, we think we do it rather well. I'm proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change."

Griffin went on to say that he accepted as true that the Earth's temperature had risen about 1 degree centigrade "within an accuracy of 20 per cent" in the past century, and that he accepts the conclusion as "pretty well nailed down...that much of that is manmade."

But then he had to explain his lack of urgency to have NASA "wrestle with" this problem as follows:

"I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

Now isn't that refreshing? Of course, there is no shortage of persons perfectly willing to not only be accorded the privilege, but to claim the privilege of deciding what is the best climate "for all other human beings."

Al Gore, of course. But then didn't German Chancellor Angela Merkel say last week that limiting the planet's temperature rise to "two degrees Celsius" sounds about right?

Anyway, Griffin's remarks drew the expected swift reaction. ABC News immediately ran to James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, for a much-needed rebuttal. (The climate clock is ticking, after all).

"'It's an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement," Hansen told ABC News. "It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.'"

"Hansen believes Griffin's comments fly in the face of well-established scientific knowledge that hundreds of NASA scientists have contributed to.

"'It's unbelievable,'" said Hansen. "'I thought he had been misquoted. It's so unbelievable.'"

Now we aren't all scientists, so I took the time break down Hansen’s withering scientific rebuttal in an easy to follow form. Contra Griffin's remarks that human beings can't really effect climate change that much, and that we don't know what the best temperature is, anyway, Hansen argues thusly:

1. It's an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement.
2. It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.
3. It's unbelievable.
4. I thought he had been misquoted.
Ergo:
5. It's so unbelievable.

If any of you can find anything in this blither that actually qualifies as a substantive factual statement about climate change, or anything else, I’d love to see it highlighted.

Hansen’s remarks give every indication that, regardless of what he may actually think the climate evidence indicates, he is also a frightened toady damned sure that if he ever crosses the PC line someone, somewhere, is going to put him out of NASA.

Translated back into its original toad-speak, NASA's top climate guy's comments on the grave and urgent debate about climate change goes like this: “Ribbit, rabbit, rabbit.”

Am I too hard on Hansen? Let's see what else ABC News reported:

"Several other NASA climate scientists contacted by ABC News echoed Hansen's comments, saying an overwhelming majority of their colleagues believe global warming is an urgent issue that society should be addressing. The scientists asked that their names not be used because they did not want to jeopardize their careers."

Jeopardize their careers! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that only one side in this argument is hysterical enough, and politically ruthless enough, to punish those who depart from the defined dogma about global warming. Better to rely on the conclusions of an "overhwelming majority of scientists" to establish physical facts. (Oh, by the way. We all need new oral thermometers. Scientists took a vote and agreed that the new normal is 94.3.)

The thing is, Griffin didn't deny either global warming (1 degree per century), nor that it may even be man-made. He merely doesn't buy into any requirement to move from that fact to the emotional conclusion that unless the trend is reversed, the Planet and all of humanity are doomed. He will be maligned, and perhaps have his career destroyed, (we'll see), just because he was insufficiently hysterical.

Put another way, Griffin is the only one in this story with the analytical capability to explain what exactly the empirical evidence does--and doesn't--say, and then have the guts to say it. Hansen and the rest of these white-coated government employees quoted haven't contributed a thing to the discussion.

So whom are we better off believing here?

Muslim Foothold At Public College Is Firm -- So Far

Debbie Schlussel has done some reporting on the situation of the Muslim foot baths at UM Dearborn (“So Long Church/State Separation: University of Michigan to Fund Muslim Footbaths”).

Dearborn Underground also took a look at this earlier in the week (“UM-Dearborn Teaches How One Foot Washes the Other”).

I was amazed to learn in Debbie's post that the University Vice Chancellor, Robert G. Behrens, was the only individual responsible for funding the Muslim foot baths. According to Debbie, UM–Dearborn spokesman Terry Gallagher “confirmed that…Behrens made the decision to install the footbaths. Behrens was the sole decisionmaker. He did not have to go before a committee of University Regents to get the approval or consult with anyone else.”

This sounds awfully strange to me. I don't get how a Vice Chancellor can make a decision to spend money from the University’s general fund for any building project, especially one requiring retaining an outside architect’s services, without first having to obtain approval of the University Regents. (Not to mention one also involving compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act: Behrens must have consulted with the University's legal counsel). Or does the Vice Chancellor have his own discretionary budget, upon which he can draw if need be to facilitate, say, a religious accommodation? Even one that violates both State and Federal Constitutions?

On a more practical plane, I can understand why the Vice Chancellor did not go to the Regents, knowing as he must have that his decision would be objectionable to lots of people if it became known beforehand. If he went to the Board, there'd have to be discussion in a public meeting, where he would have to face questions about the legality of the decision and the necessity of installing Muslim foot baths, and these discussions would have been preserved in the minutes and available now for folks like us to review. This way, it was all but a fait accompli before we knew what hit us. I say "all but" because the baths haven't been installed yet.

UM's decision goes way past the “reasonable accommodation” standard required under our laws. This is not accommodating a religion, but facilitating one. This is not permitting a religious practice, but affirmatively assisting one. Past religious-accomodation disputes that were a lot less cut-and-dried than this one have made huge headlines, entailing epic battles, and were fought all the way to the Supreme Court. And to think that now we no longer have Justice O'Connor shuttling her way back and forth from one legal church-state standard to the other.

But this whole story is being vastly ignored by the local press. I think that's because the press likes to report conflict and drama, and it's hard to get conflict when one side is getting all its own way without opposition. If a man punches his wife it just isn't news. It's only news when she hits him back. So far, UM and the Muslim students haven't encountered any conflict.

The best way to change that and get the University’s attention is by filing a lawsuit. But that's a fairly forbidding prospect for isolated citizens without lots of resources. And we all know the ACLU isn’t going to stand up for the right side on this one. That’s what UM was counting on when they tried this.

According to Debbie Schlussel, the University says it's prepared to defend against a lawsuit if one is filed. Personally, I would love to see them try. And if a lawsuit ever were filed, the press would have to pay attention (if not necessarily full and fair attention).

In spite of UM's claim to being ready to defend this nonsense if a lawsuit is filed, I actually believe that a lawsuit would make them drop their whole project as indefensible. If that's so, all that's needed to get UM in that defensive posture where they belong is: a Michigan plaintiff, a local lawyer who understands civil rights laws, (or better yet, a national advocacy group), and a few thousand bucks to get things started.

Let’s hope someone finds all that before construction begins.

Being American Means Always Having to Say Your'e Sorry

Tennessee’s Rep. Steve Cohen, who last week successfully exposed how Monica Goodling was only the tip of the iceberg in a Justice Department literally stinking with confessing Christians ("Anti-Religious Bias in the House") ,this week is getting noticed for his plan to have the US House of Representatives formally apologize for slavery. (“House push grows for slavery apology”).

I couldn’t find a copy of the resolution on Cohen's website, so it’s unclear to me whether his proposed apology to slaves also includes a clause expressing the House's profound sorrow for allowing blacks in America to be evangelized into Christianity. One can only hope so.

Cohen earlier in the year thought he could achieve honorary black status by becoming the first white member of the Congressional Black Caucus. But the CBC refused on the basis that its historical mission to combat the evils of discrimination and segregation demanded that the Caucus remain “exclusively African-American.” ("Congressional Black Caucus vows to remain racially segregated").

In a letter sent out to obtain support for the apology, Cohen writes, "Slavery and Jim Crow laws were able to survive in our country because they were protected by the actions and acquiescence of the United States government, including Congress; we are still fighting their enduring legacies to this day."

Cohen has a point that slavery and Jim Crow were protected by government acquiescence, including in the Congress, but he may have wanted to mention the key and leading role played in both those institutions just by his own Democratic Party (“The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow”).

At least one proponent of the reparations movement out there gets this. (“Inner City Minister Sues Democratic Party for Reparations”). In 2004 the plaintiff in that suit, the Rev. Wayne Perryman, argued how

“in an effort to impede and or deny African Americans the same constitutional rights afforded to all American citizens, the Democratic Party established a pattern of (sic) practice by promoting, supporting, sponsoring and financing racially bias (sic) entertainment, education, legislation, litigations, and terrorist organizations from 1792 to 1962 and continued certain practices up to 2002.”

Perhaps if Cohen is unable to win an apology from the entire House, he can get an apology from just the Democratic Caucus, which would at least make some historical sense.

In any event, I think the logic of Cohen’s apology plan is pretty well contradicted by the truism, current among all grief counselors, that once someone has passed on it is too late to apologize.

In this vein, the News article does report that not all of Cohen’s constituents think the apology plan is such a great idea, either: “Fred Lincoln, a retiree outside Memphis, Tenn., said that it doesn't even make sense.

"’There are no slaves left and there are no slaveholders, so this is silly,’ he said.”

The aptly named Mr. Lincoln shows a lot more sense than Cohen, especially in his shrewd observation that neither party to the wrong are still around. But Lincoln clearly lacks appreciation for the Democratic Party’s ability to apportion blame without regard to rigid conventions about the actual relationships between parties, let along quaint notions of personal guilt—in other words, he has no idea that Democrats have never hesitated to adopt ideas merely because they’re silly.

Why Buy the Cow When You Can Milk It for Free?

I've thought a lot lately that The Detroit News has a strange way of prioritizing its news coverage.

In Wednesday’s print edition, for instance, (which hardly had any must-read news on the front page), there was a one-inch news brief reporting that Democratic presidential candidates Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson were dropping out of September’s Democratic candidate debate in Detroit, organized by the Congressional Black Caucus, but being broadcast by Fox News. (“Two more Dems shun Detroit debate”). A longer version runs in the online edition. “Dodd, Richardson make it 5 Democrats shunning Detroit debate").

Dodd and Richardson now join the rest of the courageous band: John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, in refusing to answer questions anywhere in shouting distance of either Brit Hume or Chris Wallace.

The rationale of these would-be leaders of the free world is: “Fox News is biased against Democrats, so we know their questions would be unfair and—and, just too hard!”

(John Edwards was the first one to cry “Never!” to the debate on the basis of anti-Democrat bias. He later added that Detroit also lacks a single decent hairdresser.)

This story should be a lot bigger in Detroit. The refusal of these candidates to participate in this debate insults Detroit, insults the Congressional Black Caucus, and especially insults Detroit's voters.

Is there any doubt that if this were a Republican debate, and any Republican candidate ever dared to bypass (or “shun”) it, for any reason whatever, that it wouldn't be a front page story for days? In articles quoting civil rights leaders condemning those racist Republicans for not caring about Detroit's African-American community? Or for intentionally intending to disrespect Detroit's majority black voters?

Sadly, this story shows up a lot more than just the cowardice of the leading Democratic candidates to face critical questioners on Fox. The real revelation is how cocksure all five candidates must be of Detroit's votes if they can scorn an opportunity to honor the city's primarily black voters in a debate featuring their city.

You can count on it that not one of these dropouts thinks he or she is risking any but the tiniest of political costs by staying away.

And that's because not one of these 5 candidates seriously doubts that, if nominated, he or she will carry Detroit in November 2008: no matter what he does, or fails to do, to either earn those votes--or earn that respect--from Detroit's voters.

Isn't it just common sense that Democratic candidates aren't going to break a sweat to earn what's always been given away for free?

Alas, and isn't this just the treatment Detroit’s black voters have earned from the party to whom they've always been so faithful--so faithful in spite of everything?

This is the real story, not some silly faux protest about the bias at Fox News started by that fake, John Edwards.

And that real story ought to be a lot bigger to Detroiters than a one-inch news brief on the fourth page.

UM Dearborn Teaches How One Foot Washes the Other

The University of Michigan-Dearborn has contracted with a firm of architects to install foot baths for the use of Muslim students wanting to engage in ritual foot-washing. We mentioned this briefly a few weeks ago. But the University's plan seems to be drawing absolutely no public discussion.

Since then Dearborn Underground has obtained a letter sent out by UM Vice President Jerry May in reply to citizens concerned about the use of public money for an indulgence of a particular religious practice, an endorsement that would never be tolerated for any other religion.

U-M Vice President Jerry May wrote as follows:

I want to thank you for taking the time to share with me your concerns regarding the University. We will, of course, honor your request that we remove you from our distribution lists. I would, however, like to address some of the issues you raised in your email, if I may. The tradition of setting aside space for meditation or quiet reflection by University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff stretches back more than 150 years. In 1841, the UM student's day began with a required visit to chapel; and in 1872, Henry S. Frieze, then serving as Acting President of the University, presided over development of University Hall, which included a new auditorium and chapel. In 1897, the U-M Alumni Association convened its founding meeting in that same space.

The tradition continues. As our nation has become more pluralistic and diverse, chapels have been replaced by non-religious, non-denominational reflection rooms in public and private universities across the country. The University of Michigan believes that reflection is an important factor in a person's life, and we have worked to create opportunities to address this need by providing spaces for quiet reflection on all three of our campuses. These spaces are heavily used by students, faculty, and staff of all faiths.

On the UM-Dearborn campus, we have contracted with the Birmingham, Michigan, firm Niagara Murano, LLC, for design services on a couple of different projects, including foot-washing stations to provide appropriate and safe accommodations for a practice customary among a significant proportion of the campus community. Like the reflection rooms, the foot-washing stations will be open to all members of the UM-Dearborn community who wish to use them.

I assure you that the University of Michigan is, and always intends to, fully observe the law, which is our duty as shepherds of the trust of the citizens of this good State. Please let me know if there is anything more I may do for you.

Again, thank you for your comments.

Vice President May’s rationalization of the “tradition” of “setting aside space for meditation or quiet reflection” rings pretty hollow. As he himself explains, the practice of the University from its earliest policy of mandatory (Christian) chapel for all students, has tracked consistently in the opposite direction from preferential religious practices, and towards a more and more generalized view of religion in its most amorphous sense.

May explains this himself: “As our nation has become more pluralistic and diverse, chapels have been replaced by non-religious, non-denominational reflection rooms in public and private universities across the country.”

Exactly. You may like this trend or hate it, depending on your views of church-state separation, but clearly the legal trend (which the rest of us have to make do with) has been consistently away from requiring or even encouraging specific religious practices, all the way to merely allowing only “non-religious, non-denominational” spaces that are completely voluntary, and so bland and non-committal, that they neither inspire, nor offend, any religion, or lack thereof.

The punishment that Christian expression has undergone in the enforcement of this regime in public facilities is too well known for me to repeat here, except that even in its most indirect form (not just Santa has been deemed off-limits, but even Frosty the Snowman), Christianity in particular has effectively been driven off public campuses.

But after explaining how the UM tradition became embodied in the “non-religious, non-denominational” space provided to all, May unreasonably suggests that, given the historical progress from mandatory chapel down to religiously anonymous reflection rooms, the next logical step would be the construction of ritual foot baths to encourage a religious practice engaged in only by one religious group.

It is irrelevant that non-Muslims, theoretically, will be allowed to use the foot baths. The likelihood that any non-Muslim will use the foot baths at all is extremely small. (I admit that, since it is still a college campus, there's going to be the odd New Ager trying it out just to impress her Rasta boyfriend with how kicky and open she is).

Nor is it even conceivable that nonMuslim students or University personnel attempting to use the foot baths for a non-ritualistic purpose are going to be well tolerated by Muslim students. (For example, track team members washing their sweaty feet before rushing to class; janitors dumping their mop buckets). I can easily picture how complaints by offended Muslims witnessing any such irreverent uses would force the University to yet further clarify that--out of respect for the "significant proportion of the [Muslim] campus community," use of the foot baths is limited TO RITUAL WASHING FOOT WASHING ONLY.

Is there really any doubt the exclusive benefit of the foot baths is going to go towards facilitating the practice of a Muslim ritual by Muslim students?

The comparison with Bible study groups permitted to use empty classrooms only serves to show how different the foot baths will be.

University facilities such as classrooms already exist for a secular purpose (class instruction), and special interest student groups are allowed to use those existing facilities when they aren’t otherwise in use. It doesn't cost the public anything, because the rooms have to be heated and air conditioned anyway, and the nominal cost to turn the lights on for an hour are easily paid for by use fees all students have to pay, anyway. If the public are still offended that students are studying the Bible in unused college classrooms, (as many still are), they can at least console themselves that the classrooms weren't specially constructed for that purpose.

The point being that it's UM's facilitation of the foot-washing that runs afoul of the strictly religiously-neutral scheme all the rest of us have had to go along with. For UM to allow use of existing, unused classroom space to a Bible study group, a chess club, or any other group of students with a lawful purpose is nothing more than a passive accommodation, which in this context is just another term for “tolerating.” Beyond the nominal use of lights, classroom furniture, and air conditioning, no Bible study group would expect their Bibles and songbooks to be provided by the University, nor does the chess group expect to play with boards and pieces provided by the administration. In one sense, all the University is contributing these different groups is the barest permission to use empty space off hours.

By the same token, I doubt any one would object to Muslim students using existing restroom facilities if they need to engage in ritual washing, provided it did not interfere with the ordinary use of facilities by other students.

But in stark contrast to the granting of permission to use classroom space, the Muslim foot baths are not existing University facilities purpose-built for a secular educational function, and thereafter lent to Muslim students from time to time by way of accommodation. The foot baths don't compare because they have to be purpose-built facilities, and will need to be designed, constructed, and maintained, at public expense, for no other reason than facilitating the practice of a ritual distinctively practiced by Muslims. No one pretends they will be of use for any other purpose, educational or otherwise.

As the verb “facilitate” suggests, the baths are being provided to make it easier, to smooth the way for, and in effect, to encourage a ritual practice of the Muslim religion.

And that is why it is an unlawful endorsement of religion.

Anti-Religious Bias In the House

During the House Judiciary Committee's questioning of former Department of Justice employee Monica Goodling on Wednesday, one Democratic member, clearly intending to use his five minutes to get straight to the bottom of the "scandal" at the Justice Department once and for all, cut through all the extraneous matters and got right to the heart of the matter:

REP. STEPHEN I. COHEN, D-TENN.:Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Goodling, I've read your vitae and it says that you grew up and you mostly went -- you went to public schools.Is that K through 12?

GOODLING:Yes.

COHEN:And it says you went to Christian universities in part because of the value they placed on service.

What was the other part, that you chose Christian universities?

GOODLING:I chose them because I had a faith system, and in some cases -- I went to American University for my first year of law school.And then I transferred.

GOODLING:And I enjoyed studying with people that shares a similar belief system that I did.It didn't mean that there wasn't a lot of diversity of discussion, because in some cases I actually found the debate at Regent was much more vigorous than it was at American University my first year of law school.But I enjoyed being surrounded by people that had the same belief system.

COHEN:The mission of the law school you attended, Regent, is to bring to bear upon legal education and the legal profession the will of almighty God, our creator.What is the will of almighty God, our creator, on the legal profession?

GOODLING:I'm not sure that I could define that question for you.

COHEN:Did you ask people who applied for jobs as AUSAs anything about their religion?

GOODLING:No, I certainly did not.

COHEN:Ever had religion discussions come up?

GOODLING:Not to the best of my recollection.

COHEN:Is there a type of student, a type of person that you thought embodied that philosophy of Regent University that you sought out as AUSAs?

GOODLING:In most cases the people at Regent are good people trying to do the right thing who wanted to make a difference in the world.If the question is if I was looking for people like that, the answer is yes.I wasn't necessarily looking for people who shared a particular faith system.I don't have any recollection that that entered into my mind at any point.But certainly there are a lot of people who applied to work for this president because they share his same faith system and they did apply for jobs.

COHEN:Are there a lot of -- an inordinate number of people from Regent University Law School that were hired by the Department of Justice while you were there?

GOODLING:I think we have a lot more people from Harvard and Yale.

COHEN:That's refreshing.

(Cohen's crack in favor of a Harvard-Yale majority at Justice over Christian-educated lawyers drew a vocal response from the Republican side, including mention of the word, "bigot." Cohen continued unphased).

COHEN: Is it a fact -- are you aware of the fact that in your graduating class 50 to 60 percent of the students failed the bar the first time?

GOODLING:I'm not -- I don't remember the statistics, but I know it wasn't good. I was happy I passed the first time.

COHEN:Thank you. That was good.

The last bit, “that was good,” was muttered to himself, meant to show that her well-played reply about passing the bar on her first try was oh-so-clever, but wasn't going to fool this Congressman, who knew exactly what she was and what she was guilty of.

Immediately after Cohen's examination a lunch recess was called. First questioning after the committee re-convened went to Representative Randy Forbes, who immediately took the opportunity to place into perspective Cohen's disgraceful display.

REP. J. RANDY FORBES, R-VA.:Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Goodling, many of us feared this day would come, but we did not realize it would arrive so soon, when the fact that someone was a Christian would be the subject of a line of questioning as to how someone performed their job at the Department of Justice or any other agency in the United States government.

It's not a good day, nor a good sign of things to come, and I just hope those individuals watching this across the country realize the sea change that's taken place.

In addition, since my district is contiguous to Regent University, I'd like to point out that not only is the attorney general of Virginia a graduate of Regent University, but this year, Regent University students won the American Bar Association's Negotiation Competition February 11, not only beating out 220 teams, but also beating the former winner, Harvard University.
And the American Bar Association, not exactly a bastion of conservatism, has chosen Regent University to compete internationally in their competition.And that Regent has won the ABA's National Appellate Advocacy Competition 11 out of the last 14 years, including placing first for the best brief.

Cohen managed to establish two facts about himself, even if he produced nothing incriminating about Ms. Goodling: One, that he considered Ms. Goodling's committed Christian faith and background a self-evident character flaw that he finds personally repulsive, and, Two, that in his eyes her Christian faith disaqualifies her, and those similarly devout, from ever entering public service in the first place--disqualified for lacking both morals and intelligence. (We've always have Harvard grads and Yalies for that, thank God, or whatever deity Cohen may actually respect).

Cohen never had any context for these questions about Ms. Goodling's faith. Even his own examination made clear that it had never been a work-related issue. No one involved in this infernal investigation before or after Wednesday ever breathed this ever breathed the least suggestion that Ms. Goodling lacked either outstanding morals or brains in the performance of her job. Cohen simply regards Christians as ipso facto stupid.

Not least among the many, many ways this exchange signals something grievously wrong in the majority party is that so far not even the wildest slanderous of the Democratic withhunters on the Congressional committees conducting this witchhunt have suggested that anyone in the DOJ, even including Ms. Goodling, ever engaged in any religious-based discrimination against DOJ officials or employees. Cohen simply believed he could impeach Ms. Goodling's character by holding up to the shame and disapprobation of a sympathetic public as--ugh--a Christian.

As Rep. Forbes warned, the course signaled by this brazen display made Wednesday "not a good day, nor a good sign of things to come." Along with him, I also hope people watching across the country and following all this realize "the sea change that's taken place" in the first year of the new Congress of 2007.

Al Sadr on Board with Congress

Iraqi cleric Moktada al-Sadr unexpectedly poked his head from a gopher hole in southern Iraq yesterday to deliver a sermon in a local mosque.

According to the New York Times, ("Shiite Cleric Appears in Iraq After Stay in Iran), "The cleric, addressing a large crowd amid heavy security, called for American forces to leave Iraq, but pointedly did not say how quickly those troops should leave, as he has in the past."

Ever watchful for significant connections to the bigger picture, the Times reporters went on to say,

“Mr. Sadr’s appearance came as the American military announced today that six more soldiers had died in Iraq, five on Thursday and one on Tuesday, according to Reuters. April was the worst month this year for the American military since the invasion, with 104 soldiers killed. About 90 have been killed in May so far.”

It is unclear why the Times reporters associate Sadr's sermon with American deaths on the same day, since none of the deaths appeared to have anything to do with Sadr.

Anyway, I thought I saw another significant connection—one strangely not picked up by the Times reporters--in that Sadr’s conspicuous failure to call for timelines on American troop withdrawals also came on the very day the US Congress finally passed an Iraq war funding bill after removing demands for withdrawal timelines.

This more than coincidence might lead one to think Sadr had been, for some odd reason, monitoring the whole American timeline debate from his hidey-hole in Iran.

The Times article continues:

“The prevailing view among American officials familiar with intelligence reports about Mr. Sadr’s return is that the cleric’s aim at a minimum is to raise his political profile in Iraq and possibly strengthen his position in anticipation that provincial elections may be held next year.”

His political profile?? Isn't Sadr most famous for being a jihadist firebrand and anti-American militia leader? Isn't he a fugitive from the Iraqi government crackdown on he and his Mahdi army? And suddenly he's testing the waters to strengthen his position in provincial elections next year?

How is it that Sadr could be so unaware that Iraq is “a broken state,” (so we're told), one in the throes of an endless and irresolvable civil war, where by next year things will be even worse than, (according to the American left), things already are now, that is, at the point where things can’t possibly get any worse?

I’m almost inclined to suspect that Sadr thinks President Bush’s hopeless, failed policy in Iraq is going to work out after all.

The New York Times continues,

“There have also been reports that his militia has been splintering during his absence, and he may also be trying to reinforce his influence over his supporters….

“The broader question is whether Mr. Sadr plans to step up his oratory against the American-led coalition and try to mobilize pressure for an American withdrawal or seek a new political accommodation.”

Am I the only one who thinks Sadr is re-enacting the cogitations of the Democratic Congressional caucus in miniature?

Compare them. Since the November election Reid, Pelosi, et al, have been steadily increasing their “oratory against the American-led coalition” to “try to mobilize pressure for an American withdrawal.” Then finally, in the face of Bush’s principled refusal to let them force surrender and throw away four years of coalition progress, Democrats now suddenly broke ranks and sought “a new political accommodation”—namely, dropping their demands for a scheduled surrender.

Sadr is a horrible murderer and a dangerous demagogue, and I wished he'd been arrested or killed by the coalition years ago. Now I suppose Shia politics in Iraq makes that impossible. If things go the way it looks like they're going, he may hang up his guns and transform into some smaller-scale Arafat-like local potentate. He wouldn’t be the world's first terrorist to end up as a municipal kleptocrat handing out political patronage to his fellow jihadists.

But the bigger point is that Sadr--triggered by Bush's triumphant turning back of the Congressional surrender policy--has drawn closer to accepting the inevitability of democracy's triumph in Iraq, a future in which he’d be better off trying to wield power through popular political means instead of by terrorism. In other words, what happens in Washington doesn't stay in Washington--it even reaches the fevered eyes of militia-leading maniacs in their hidey-holes.

It is not unimaginable that Sadr’s thinking right now is that Bush and the Americans are going to win in Iraq after all. Sadr is canny enough to realize that if the anti-war Congress can't condemn Iraq to a real civil war and collapse--the kind of chaos that would lend itself to a reconstituted Mahdi army led by himself--then he may as well hang it up and just go into politics. Couldn't this also explain why he's suddenly dropped his calls for American withdrawal, and is now seeking "a political accommodation"? (That, and that if he doesn't straighten up the Americans or Mailiki may just kill him this time).

I hope if Sadr does run next year he loses. But whether he wins or loses it will be a mark of victory for Iraq. In fact, it would be a vindication of Bush’s entire war aim in Iraq as well.

I wonder how many of the anti-war Democrats in Congress think the exact same thing?

Congress Blinks, Media Winks

If you have an interest in the how-to’s of journalistic advocacy posing as news writing, there's a good example in today’s Detroit News about the Congress’s passage of the Iraq spending bill with the withdrawal timelines completely removed.

As an irreducible political fact, Congress and the President squared off on this issue, and the President got what he wanted. In other words, he clearly won.

(Or, as Jimmy Carter might phrase it, the worst President in history once again bests outfoxed the smarter and morally superior Congress.)

(Or, as the elitist press would phrase it, the stupidest moron to ever occupy the Oval Office once again gets the majority smarter party to go along with what he wants.)

Clearly the President's victory, even if you don't agree with it, is the real newsworthy nugget. And had a liberal President prevailed over a stubborn Republican majority in a similar standoff, is there any doubt the headlines would all have been some variation of “Congress Blinks”?

Instead, the media is presenting Bush’s victory, and the defeat of the Pelosi and Reid “new direction” on Iraq, as a neutral event:

“Congress voted Thursday to meet President Bush's demand for about $95 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, providing a momentary truce in a bitter struggle over war policy.”

A momentary truce? Does that mean that the two sides are going to go back to fighting about this bill after the President has signed it?

And according to the headlines in the Detroit News, the Democrats did not lose: “Congress approves $95B for Iraq war: Dems back off, take out troop pullout timetable after earlier Bush veto."

So the Dems didn’t lose, they just “backed off.” There are no losers here, especially the Democrats; nor is there a winner, especially the illiterate Moron in Chief.

And the New York Times, from which the identical Detroit News report was taken, has this interesting headline: “Congress Passes War Funds Bill, Ending Impasse.”

So you see, it isn’t that Bush stuck to his guns, or did exactly what he said he would do, and wrested a proper bill from Congress, and handed the Democratic caucus a major loss in return. Nor did the Democratic majority back down after one of the most overheated rhetorical grandstanding ever. Rather, Congress ended an “impasse,” not only avoiding being the loser, but getting credit for initiative and doing something actually rather positive.

A similar headline may have been written in April 1865, "Army of Norther Virginia Surrenders to Federal Troops at Appamatox Courthouse, Ending Impasse."

Never mind that if Congress had passed the same goddamned bill in January when the President first asked for it, and before creating the impasse that the Times is now crediting them with ending, the troops would have had the money by now.

As if we didn’t know the difference.

By way of reminder of just how much Pelosi and Reid anted up in their losing hand against the President, here is a brief remider, from her own website, of how Pelosi’s fans were raving her up in March for her brave position on imeidate withdrawals,

Pelosi war-bill gamble pays off; The House speaker's triumph was anything but assured when she announced the measure -- without votes

03/24/2007
By Noam Levey

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced an angry group of liberal lawmakers when she stepped into her red-walled Capitol office on the afternoon of March 8.

That morning, the San Francisco Democrat had announced plans to push legislation requiring President Bush to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of August 2008 -- at the latest.
But the antiwar members of her party who gathered in the large conference room overlooking the National Mall wanted the war over sooner. Many were threatening to defy their leader and vote against the bill.

For 2 1/2 hours Pelosi listened, parrying each complaint with an argument she would make hundreds of times over the next two weeks: Democrats had to unite behind a bill that challenged Bush's management of the war.

Friday, Pelosi carried the day.

In the most difficult trial of her speakership, Pelosi pushed through the first legislation mandating an end to U.S. involvement in the Iraq war.

The 218-212 vote vindicated the risk she took in championing the controversial withdrawal plan before she had the votes.

And it rewarded the round-the-clock cajoling, lobbying and pleading by Pelosi and her top lieutenants, who worked until just before the vote to keep Democrats united behind the bill. In the end, only 14 Democrats voted against it.

"She was the general here, and there wasn't a stone left unturned, a person left uncontacted or a member whose position was left unknown," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), one of the chamber's staunchest war opponents, whose decision to back the bill helped put it over the edge. "It was a brilliant campaign."

Pelosi, who closed the debate for the Democrats on Friday, afterward called the vote the beginning of a "new direction."

"This new Congress voted to bring an end to the war in Iraq," she said.

Less than a month ago, it was far from clear that the new speaker could get her party there. Democrats united behind a nonbinding resolution criticizing Bush's plan to deploy additional troops to Iraq, but they appeared to be splintering over what to do next when they took up an emergency spending bill to pay for the war.

Moderates, worried about meddling in military affairs, rebelled over a plan to require troops to meet a set of readiness standards before they could be sent to Iraq.

And lawmakers in the Out of Iraq Caucus, which has more than 80 members, demanded that the spending bill include a timeline for withdrawing U.S. forces -- an idea that party leaders had largely dismissed when they took power.

But after days of huddling with party leaders, Pelosi decided to embrace a timeline. On the morning of March 8, she strode into the ceremonial speaker's office to announce that Democrats would force the president to begin withdrawing U.S. troops no later than next year.

Pelosi acknowledged she didn't have votes to pass the measure. In fact, the bill was still in the drafting stage. But the speaker left no doubt about the stakes. "We have to pass it," she told dozens of journalists packed into the office….

Later, Pelosi’s website quoted these editorials with approval in response to Bush’s veto of the withdrawal bill:

Rocky Mountain News: Bush’s Farwell (sic) Tantrum
By Paul Campos
May 1, 2007

“Whatever one thought of the original decision to invade Iraq, the political question the nation now faces could not be clearer: Should we ask our troops to continue to fight this war, and our children to pay for it through future tax increases…

“The American people have already answered that question, and their answer is ‘No.’… Every opinion poll shows that, by large majorities, Americans support the efforts of Democrats to force President Bush to begin withdrawing our troops…

“In the end, President Bush's failure to heed the will of the people isn't so much an act of principle, but rather an outburst of sheer peevishness. With Democrats in control of Congress, he's no longer getting a blank check to fund his military adventures.”

The Miami Herald: Congress Declares Vote of No Confidence
May 1, 2007

“By sending President Bush an Iraq spending bill with a timetable for withdrawal, Congress has declared itself unequivocally against the war even though the nation's troops are still on the battlefield. This is an unmistakable, and we believe deserved, vote of no confidence in the way the administration has managed the war…

“Congress is responding to the popular will and, more important, fulfilling a constitutional duty.”

And there was there was Harry Reid’s speech on April 23rd, in which he said,

“Now in the fifth year of President Bush's mismanagement and mistakes, there is no magic formula. But, there is a way forward that gives us our best chance for a responsible end to the war - that protects our strategic interests, strengthens our security, and brings our troops home.

“That way forward is being forged today in Congress, with the help and advice of Democrats and Republicans, civilian experts and retired generals, as well as the good judgment of the American people, who have made their voices heard loud and clear.

“Today, I speak of where things stand on the ground in Iraq and in the public discourse at home. I also speak of why an Iraq strategy that a bipartisan majority in Congress supports is our best way forward.”

If the Miami Herald is correct that the original bill requiring withdrawal timelines was Congress's way of “Responding to the popular will and, more important, fulfilling a constitutional duty.” then yesterday Congress either ignored the popular will, failed in their Constitutional duty, or just revealed itself as the posturing, political windbags that they are.

Still More Conyers

Michigan’s Rep. John Conyers, possibly wary of spending too much time away from the Capitol with his influential wife, Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers, discussing her theories on presidential impeachment, (“Councilwoman Conyers Skips Vote on Her Own Impeachment Resolution”), has been busy introducing a bill in the House to sue the OPEC countries, forcing them to lower their prices on crude oil. (“House approves anti-OPEC bill” ).

The Democratic House, continuing its impressive record of passing meaningless symbolic legislation, approved the bill 354-72.

From the AP:

"We don't have to stand by and watch OPEC dictate the price of gas," Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers D-Mich., the bill's chief sponsor, declared, reflecting the frustration lawmakers have felt over their inability to address people's worries about high summer fuel costs…. Conyers accused the OPEC engaging in a "price fixing conspiracy" that has "unfairly driven up the price" of crude oil and, in turn gasoline.

His measure would change antitrust laws so that the Justice Department can sue OPEC member countries for price-fixing, and would remove the immunity given a sovereign state against such lawsuits.

Experts testifying at House hearings explained to congressmen that “that crude oil prices have played a relatively minor role in the sharp increase in gasoline costs over the last three months, putting the blame on lower gasoline imports, refinery outages and continuing growth in demand from motorists.”

In addition, there is also the issue of the respect for the sovereignty of foreign oil-producing states, and the possibility that the bill could lead to retaliatory measures and further market disruptions.

“Nevertheless, the House felt it was important to take on OPEC, the major player in oil production.”

The House has a real thing for symbolism these days.

Maybe it isn’t exactly blood for oil. But isn’t war really just legislative diplomacy by other means?

John Conyers Gall Update

Today was the Monica Goodling installment of the Democratic witchhunt over the firings of the 8 US Attorneys. The New York Times report on her testimony quotes House Judiciary Committee chairman Representative John D. Conyers saying he “hoped other witnesses would come forward to help lawmakers determine whether Justice Department prosecutors had been ‘pawns in the game of politics.’” (“Ex-Gonzales Aide Testifies, ‘I Crossed the Line’” ).

Speaking of pawns in the game of politics, Rep. Conyers, and his wife, Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, have been themselves either pawns, or doing some political pawning themselves, regarding the left’s hobby-horse of impeaching the President.

As we noted here Saturday, (“Councilwoman Conyers Skips Vote on Her Own Impeachment Resolution”), the Detroit City Council’s ridiculous and utterly pointless resolution to impeach the President and Vice President, co-sponsored by Monica Conyers, was candidly explained by its lefty originators as a means to pressure John Conyers into getting back onto the impeachment track Nancy Pelosi derailed him from.

Democrats don’t seem as put off by inserting politics into, well, politics, when they are the ones doing the inserting. In this case, we are to accept as a legitimate political activity the co-opting of mechanisms of Detroit city government for the naked political object of pressuring a councilwoman’s powerful husband in Congress to work to impeach a Republican President and Vice President.

If there were anything even close to this sort of political incest in the US Attorney case, impeachment articles would already have been passed.

Why are Democrats immune?

30% of American Muslims Willing to Touch Al Qaeda With a Ten-Foot Poll

As most of our well-informed readers are already well aware, according to a Pew Research Center poll of American Muslims just published, 26% of young American Muslims polled say suicide bombings in defense of Islam can be justified, and only “40% of all Muslims say they believe Arabs were behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”

The Pew report has in only one day devolved into two stories: the story of the results themselves, and the story of the media spin. For instance, the headline of the online version of Niraj Warikoo's Detroit Free Press’s article reporting the poll, (“Younger U.S. Muslims more likely to support suicide bombings, poll shows” ) changed from yesterday to today so as now to read “Nearly 80% of U.S. Muslims call suicide bombings unjustifiable,” a clearly more chipper heading. Maybe the change is explained by the optimist copy editor coming in overnight to relieve the pessimist copy editor.

Meanwhile, over at the Detroit News, today's edition of Gregg Krupa’s story had the interesting half-headline “Most Muslims are moderate, but.”

That isn't a typo: it really ends with the word, "but." This headline was also a re-do of the previous day’s, which read, “Survey: Muslims largely assimilated in U.S.”

Perhaps at the News the pessimist editor relieved the optimist editor. Or maybe the News headline writer simply recognized that it was ludicrous to report that 26% of young American Muslims endorse suicide bombing under a headline suggesting that this state of affairs qualifies American Muslims as “largely assimilated.”

Krupa’s story, which was better written, included this reaction from one local Muslim leader:

“'Our tradition leaves no place and no justification for suicide bombings,' said Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi, the leader of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights. 'I think that if other Americans read this stuff they'll say, "Wow, and they are right next door."'Elahi said. 'But I am 17 years in this country and I haven't faced any young individuals who say it is OK in Islam to have a suicide bomb and to support suicide bombings.'"

Clearly, Imam Elahi was not part of the Pew survey team, or he would have faced about 273 members of the sample population telling him exactly that.

The 26% number is going to be well worked over by the time I post this, and I have nothing of interest to add. What is more shocking to me anyway is the percentage of all Muslims (as downplayed by the Free Press’s Niraj Warikoo), that, of all Muslims polled, “only 40% said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” Stated another, and more logical way, the same result ought to be stated 60% of Muslims polled do not believe Arab men carried out the attacks.

60%. That represents a significant majority of American Arabs. Which raises a few questions for me.

Number one, If Arab men did not carry out the attacks, what kind of men did? Or do they simply not believe that the attacks ever took place? (The poll results do not indicate how many American Muslims get their information from Rosie O’Donnell.)

Number two, If 60% of all American Muslims do not believe that Arab men carried out the 9/11 attacks, then how does that translate into their support, or lack of support, for America’s war on Al Qaeda, which is directly linked to the terrorist group’s 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

In partial answer, there is this interesting finding: according to the poll, “Only 5% of U.S. Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group al Qaeda, though about a fourth did not express an opinion.”

No opinion on Al Qaeda?

Really now, since I’m not obliged to follow any rules of statistics nor any other social science, I’ll just take the liberty of adding the coy 25% who have never given AQ any thought to the 5% admitted AQ admirers, which rounds up to a neat 30%. I don’t think this is so unfair, especially considering that 60% of Muslims polled do not believe Arab men carried out the attacks, which pretty much means Al Qaeda did not do it.

And, of course, if Al Qaeda didn’t do it, then UBL and the Taliban were innocent, at least of 9/11, and did not deserve to be chased out of Afghanistan by the USA. It turns out that this conclusion actually does track nicely with the Pew result that “a third” of respondents thought the US was “wrong” to invade Afghanistan.

Which raises one more question, namely, why doesn't this sizeable minority translate into more than 5% AQ admirers? For forty years we have been given to understand that the victim status of Palestinians at the hands of Israel so stirred the chords of sympathy of all the world’s Muslims, that the Palestinian cause has been a bottomless well of justification fueling wave after wave of terrorist armies and terrorist atrocities around the world.

So why isn’t AQ also viewed with sympathy and admiration as a victim group, similarly mistreated by the world on the false charge that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks?

Polls are designed to tell us about what Americans think, but I can’t help becoming alarmed about what they tell us about what Americans know, think they know, or don’t know, about fundamental historical facts. And I use the term “historical” in its broadest sense, to describe not only prominent events that happened long ago, like Pearl Harbor or Ghettysburg, but also to include things that happened practically yesterday, (on an historical scale), like the Congressional authorization to go to war in Iraq, or the overwhelming consensus on the evidence of Al Qaeda’s guilt for the attacks on 9/11—things that most of us concerned actually lived through--and about which millions of Americans, and not only Muslim Americans, suddenly are displaying the most shocking ignorance now.

In other words, much more troubling to me than the opinions revealed in these polls is the predicate credulity, ignorance, and disinformation that can only explain such opinions.

Self-Defense Shooting By Victim a Real Man-Bites-Dog Story

In the good news department, an armed robber terrorizing a Detroit neighborhood with a .22-caliber handgun, (unloaded), was shot dead by what turned out to be his last victim—whose 9mm was not unloaded. ("Man with unloaded gun killed by victim”).

Not only did the Detroit Police Department call the shooting self-defense, they even had to give the potential victim his gun back. They didn’t have much choice, thanks to Michigan’s “shall-issue” concealed weapons permit law.

For those of you who remember the bad old days before the Michigan Legislature reclaimed the Second Amendment by adopting a “shall-issue” concealed weapons permit law, this situation may have ended with the potential victim facing possible homicide charges, concealed weapons charges, and at the very least having his handgun confiscated by police.

Under the old regime, when unelected gun boards made up of law enforcement officials had complete discretion when and to whom to issue CCWs, they were rarely issued, and the decisions were almost certainly driven by favoritism and local politics.

But the worst of it was that the government got to decide, arbitrarily, which citizens were or were not allowed to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms. The Bill of Rights was drafted specifically to get government out of these kinds of decisions, yet this situation was tolerated in Michigan until 2000. Of course, the whole idea behind the Bill of Rights was to reserve rights to the People and keep the Government out of it.

As its name suggest, a “shall-issue” law requires government officials to issue CCWs to qualified citizens without recourse to arbitrary, capricious, political, or ideological obstructions they may want to impose. If the issuing authority has objections, the burden of proof is on the government to disauqlaify the applicant, rather than on the citizen to prove he is entitled to exercise his Constitutional right.

Senator Carl Levin hated this bill, and called for its defeat in 2000. Levin cited this from the Michigan Law Enforcement Coalition: "The Michigan Law Enforcement Coalition opposes any legislation which strips local gun boards of their discretion and shifts the burden of proof from the applicant to the gun board." He objected also that the “'shall issue' legislation would make us less safe according to those best in a position to know,” i.e., law enforcement officials and law enforcement political action groups.

Though some of these groups may serve commendable functions, they are still the arm of the government. Put another way, Levin was comfortable with the government’s law-enforcement arm acting as gatekeeper for the Second Amendment right to carry a weapon. If you think this makes constitutional sense, ask yourself if you think decisions about where and how you can worship or what speech you can engage in are decisions best left to government agents “best in a position to know.”

When Levin complained that “shall-issue” legislation “would take discretion away from local law enforcement and allow virtually any applicant to carry a concealed handgun,” he was absolutely right: it would, and it did.

As it happened, on May 17 the 18-year-old Detroit, Charles Parker, Jr., and a bunch of his pals set out on a string of robberies in northwest Detroit. Parker had an unloaded .22. First they robbed a teenager of his cellphone, chains, and wallet. Then they tried to carjack a couple in their driveway. One of the suspects pointed the .22 at the couple and pulled the trigger. (Apparently, this is when the carjacking went wrong, as the “teens fled without the car.”) Personally, I think there is a lesson here for the Democratic Congress about the effect that clicking an empty weapon has on one’s negotiating position, but I don’t have time to work it out.

Anyway, these guys then tried to rob a man at a self-serve car wash, two suspects approaching him, one with the .22 and one with a ball bat. That’s when the victim shot Parker, the one brandishing his weapon. The poor kid was DOA.

According to the Detroit Free Press,

“After the shooting, police questioned the 53-year-old man and released him, noting that he had a valid concealed weapons permit.

“Then they gave him back his gun.”

This is exactly what Carl Levin was afraid of.

The Priorities of Monica Conyers

Detroit city bus drivers staged a walkout today to protest City Council’s refusal to put Wayne County Deputies on board for security in spite of federal money already in place to cover all the expense. ("Detroit bus drivers stage walkout over security concerns"). The Sheriff says he can detail his deputies immediately, no problem, if he just gets the word. As for the Detroit cops, they stopped riding the buses in 2005 due to a manpower shortage. It also happens that in 2005 Mayor Kilpatrick was still getting lightly ribbed for rolling with a 21-person Detroit police security detail. But, hey, the bigger the man, the bigger the target, right?

Joining the 5-4 majority to deny the protection for buses were Detroit City Councilwomen Monica Conyers and JoAnn Watson. The Council has been twiddling their thumbs over this for more than a year. The alleged sticking points are questions over liability if a passenger is injured by a deputy, (as opposed to say, being shot, robbed, or sexually assaulted by a fellow passenger), and the Council’s fear that allowing deputies to ride would somehow lead to "privatizing" the bus system. Since the City has its very own law department chockful of lawyers sending checks to successful plaintiffs suing the Detroit Police Department for abuse, it shouldn't take more than a year to get a legal opinion on the liability question. As for the "privatization"concern, that's just local code meaning Detroit’s elected officials fear loss of control over the D-DOT’s budget. They'd vote to let the City-County Building burn down before they'd allow a private contractor to stamp out a trash fire in a public rest room.

But the kicky thing is that Councilwomen Monica Conyers and JoAnn Watson are the same city leaders who co-sponsored last week’s Council resolution to impeach the President and Vice President of the United States, an historic and significant national statement Conyers was prevented from voting on herself due to an urgent Hawaiian trip she was duty-bound to take. "Councilwoman Conyers Skips Vote on Her Own Impeachment Resolution").

In spite of the absence of Councilwoman Conyers, the impeachment resolution was widely reported to have passed unanimously. Yet only four of nine Council members voted in favor of providing security on city buses.

Yet I'm confident that from Councilwoman Conyers's point of view her priorities are just about right in terms of the big picture. In the big picture, Councilwoman Conyers knows that once Bush and Cheney have been impeached and President Pelosi and Vice President Murtha have finally ended the war on terror and redeemed America’s fair-haired status in the community of nations, all those frightened bus passengers will realize (parochial worries about muggings and shootings aside) that the Council has always had nothing but Detroiters'--and the world's--best interests in mind.