Hewitt Blog

A new panel formed by Congress will second-guess Iraq War strategy and reconstruction. It will be chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton, and will include former CIA Director Robert Gates; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican; former Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan; former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta; former Clinton administration Defense Secretary William Perry; former Democratic Sen. Chuck Robb; and Alan Simpson, a Republican former senator from Wyoming.

This is a terrible move, this establishment of a body that will by its very nature be second guessing an army in the field and under fire during a time of intense partisan debate. Voters rendered a verdict on Iraq in 2004 elections. They can modify that verdict in 2006 if they choose. The idea of civilians gathering to second guess the military and its strategy and the president and his leadership reminds of the country's experience with the Commmittee on Reconstruction's adventures from the post-Civil War era, the Church Committee's wonderful effects on intelligence gathering, and most recently the antics of Bob Kerrey and Richard ben Veniste on the 9/11 Commission.

These proceedings inevitably become show trials, and the new concentration of media will guarantee such a debacle unfolding quickly, with Bush's enemies in the MSM using every opportunity to bend every witness and every report into a political weapon.

I don't care who the staff is --and the staff hasn't been named, which is a very bad sign-- this is a disaster for those who are serious about the war. It is a boon for the Feingolds and KosKids and every other member of the retreat and defeat caucus.

How did this come to pass? Which Republican Committee agreed to this? Where was the leadership?

Mark this day. This Commission will be a circus, and Rudy won't be able to stop it from happening, or any of the other Republicans.

Here's the Institute for Peace web page on the new group, and here is the background on the "participating organizations."

Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf, a very good man who has been indispensible on bringing attention and some comfort to the victims in Sudan, is nevertheless incredibly wrong to have endorsed this project. The experience with such bodies, especially the 9/11 Commission, warns us that all that lies ahead is Bush bashing and demands for retreat in a war from which no retreat is possible that does not end in disaster for the U.S.

If the "Study Group" is not going to be a tool of partisan politics, it needs to announce --on day one-- that it will hold no public hearings and release no interim reports nor any reports at all that do not obtain unanimous or at least supermajority support.

But the presence of some hard core Democratic partisans guarantees such assurances will not be forthcoming.

Three women judges on judging. Quin Hillyer reports.

The charges made by Russ Feingold against the president --that President Bush committed criminal acts and violated the constitutional rights of Americans by ordering the NSA to conduct warrantless surveillance of Al Qaeda abroad contacing itts operatives in the U.S.-- are as serious as any that can be laid against any president. Even though Feingold's slander is absurd, it is still so serious as to require a public repudiation by Feingold's colleagues. Feingold is embracing the Wisconsin tradition of baseless charges and smears, but his Senate colleagues should not acquiesce in his neoMcCarthyism.

Such charges should not to be left dangling in the air, as the fever swamp recycles such garbage endlessly. Instead, as Majority Leader Frist has indicated will occur, the resolution in which those charges are contained should immediately be brought to the floor for a debate and vote.

Democrats want no part of having to either defend or deny Feingold's folly, or to even comment on it as the Washington Post's Dana Milbank's morning piece makes clear:

So nonplused were Democrats that even Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), known for his near-daily news conferences, made history by declaring, "I'm not going to comment." Would he have a comment later? "I dunno," the suddenly shy senator said.

Yesterday Arizona's Jon Kyl told my audience that while the Feingold smear ought to have been voted down immediately, that Democratic obstructionism might make the delay to get to such a vote too long to put up with given the press of business.

I hope he and the GOP leadership reconsider. Part of the job of a party is not just to debate and legislate, it is also to conduct the politics of the United States so that elections are fought over important issues, and the increasing lurch of the Democrats to the hard left far reaches of American politics needs to be understood by the public, far more than a vote on asbestos litigation reform needs to be held.

Ed Morrissey has more on the background of the Feingold stunt.

And the Wall Street Journal has an editorial on the subject that underscores the stakes involved in Feingold's Folly:

Mr. Feingold is hardly some Internet crank. He's a third-term Senator from a swing state who has all but announced his intention to run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008. He was the first major Democrat to call for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq, and half his party was soon demanding the same....

The editorial spells out the political implications of the moment:

[T]he Wisconsin Senator knows exactly what he's doing. He knows that anti-Bush pathology runs so deep among many Democrats that they really do think they're living in some new dictatorship. Liberal journals solemnly debate impeachment, and political-action groups have formed to promote it. One of our leading left-wing newspapers recently compared Mr. Bush to J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, as if there were even a speck of evidence that this White House is wiretapping its political enemies....

[Feingold's] doing voters a favor by telling them before November's election just how Democrats intend to treat a wartime President if they take power.

Not only do they want to block his policies, they also plan to rebuke and embarrass him in front of the world and America's enemies. And they want to do so not because there is a smidgen of evidence that he's abused his office or lied under oath, but because they think he's been too energetic in using his powers to defend America. By all means, let's have this impeachment debate before the election, so voters can know what's really at stake.

The Senate GOP cannot shrink from this debate.

From the Los Angeles Times:

All 14 Republican state senators have called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace Hollywood producer Rob Reiner on a commission the filmmaker helped found — and Reiner flatly rejected the suggestion Tuesday.

A letter to Schwarzenegger signed by the Republicans accused Reiner, a Democrat, of using his position as chairman of the First 5 California Children and Families Commission to further a political goal: winning passage of Proposition 82, an initiative on the June ballot that would create universal preschool.

Bill Bradley has an extensive write up of the Reiner press conference yesterday.

The question for New Jersey voters is are they finally sick enough of the parade of compromised pols to act to begin to clean the stables in November? If so, they will send New Jersey State Senator Tom Kean to the United States Senate. If not, Morton's steakhouse in Washington D.C. will continue to do a great business:

In addition to the $80,285 Menendez spent at Morton's in Washington since 2001, he spent $3,700 at Morton's in Hackensack, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and San Juan.

Powerline's Scott Johnson spotted a two part series on new New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez's love of the good life, by Herb Jackson of the New Jersey Herald News. Part One and Part Two are not to be missed.

When you finish reading them, drop by Tom Keane's website and make a contribution towards cleaning up the Senate.

Reporters made hamburger out of "Meathead" today, as he publicly answered questions for the first time about the possible misuse of taxpayer money.

That's from one report among dozens of Reiner's disastrous press conference today. As The Sacramento Bee's Dan Weintraub said on my program today, Reiner just doesn't get it. And few people expect him to ever get it, as the very successful Hollywood ego that never admits a mistake runs into the very real problem of spending public funds on a political campaign.

Reiner would be netter advised to admit error, resign from the Commission, and fight on for his beloved Prop 82.

But he won't.

Reiner wants to define the debate as one over preschool. It isn't about preschool at all. It is about using tax dollars to support a ballot initiative. Public funds simply cannot be used to influence a vote. Period.

Arnold needs to appoint a new chair of the First Five Commission asap. Reiner's big attempt to stop the bleeding failed. Now it is up to Arnold.

Follow the details at Bill Bradley's and Dan Weintraub's blogs.

I have edited Nexus, a publication of Chapman University Law School, for more than a decade. My favorite piece from all those years is Joseph Epstein's "Why I Am Not a Lawyer." One of many great segments from this piece:

How did lawyers go from Americans
natural aristocrats, from an almost
priestly cast, to figures an increasingly
large share of the population look upon
as, chiefly, disastrously expensive to do
business with, hopelessly pugnacious,
and people for whom life is much better
when they play no part in it. Something
has happened to the practice of law over
the past fifty or so years to cause it to
lose its grandeur, and, in many quarters,
even its dignity.

I think the reason lawyers have flocked to blogging is because of the very decline Epstein pointed to, and that among the country's hundreds of thousands of lawyers --approximately 600,000 all told-- are those who are attempting to redeem their careers via the public engagement that blogging allows while fulfilling the deep desire to write in the manner that briefs and law review articles will not permit because of their rules.

This and other aspects of blogging's impact on the law, lawyering, and legal scholarship will be the subject of an evening panel next week at Chapman Law School which I will moderate, and which will feature great experts on these topics and others, including my radio pal Professor Bainbridge.

Details of the panel, which gets underway at 7 PM on Thursday, March 23rd, in Room 237 at Chapman University Law School in Orange, California. Other panelists: Tim Sandefur, Frank Snyder, Denise Howell, Vince Chiappetta, Paul Horwitz and my Chapman Law colleague Donald Kochan.

Both lawyer and non-lawyer bloggers are encouraged to attend and live blog the event.

I mentioned T.F. Boggs' interview with the RealUglyAmerican in an earlier post. Be sure to visit his site to read his assessment of Iraq's future. Excerpt:

I place my hope in the younger generation of Iraqis for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that they most likely do not remember the hard times under Saddam. Of course they will hear the stories and feel some of the after effects of his evil regime but more likely then not they were too young to know why life under his rule was rough. Thus said I believe that since they are growing up in a “free” country they will become accustomed to freedom and resist any type of dictatorship or religious Taliban-like type rule. Unlike their parents who grew up under Saddam’s rule, or at least were alive for all of it, the younger generation will not be as likely to put up with not being a completely free people.

Secondly I believe that the kids in Iraq have been the recipients of the greatest kindness shown by soldiers. I don’t know a soldier here who doesn’t have a heart for suffering children. The amount of work that has gone into helping the children here has been amazing. Schools have been rebuilt and stocked full of supplies by soldiers and their families back home, toys have been sent by the tons for soldiers to hand out to the kids, soldiers give kids food and water everyday, and soldiers just generally show kindness and gentleness towards children. All of these things help Iraqi children see the softer side of the soldiers whereas some of the older generation deems the soldiers to be a necessary nuisance for the time being. I could go on and on about the good deeds of soldiers towards children but you guys get the point, right?

When will billboards go up around Michigan with this picture?

From ABC News:

Robert G. Webster is one of the few bird flu experts confident enough to answer the key question: Will the avian flu switch from posing a terrible hazard to birds to becoming a real threat to humans?

There are "about even odds at this time for the virus to learn how to transmit human to human," he told ABC's "World News Tonight." Webster, the Rosemary Thomas Chair at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is credited with being the first scientist to find the link between human flu and bird flu.