Impossible Scissors

The nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate is an exciting development in the world of American politics. While she represents a big unknown (and a gamble) for the McCain team, she's a perfect fit for the campaign he's running.

At first glance, Sarah Palin's candidacy could easily be dismissed as a cynical ploy by the McCain camp to win over Hillary's supporters from the primaries. It may work for feminist Hillary supporters who were motivated by identity politics, but Sarah Palin is as conservative as Hillary is liberal.

While the Obama camp will paint her as inexperienced, Sarah Palin brings more executive experience to the table than Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John McCain combined. Serving as mayor of a small town and governor of Alaska for less than two years may not sound like much, but it's greater than zero. Candidates for the White House should be ready to sit in the hot seat, make the tough calls, and carry out enforcement of the law. Sarah Palin is the only candidate who's done this before, albeit for a short span of time.

With energy as an important issue in this campaign, it's important to bring Sarah Palin aboard as a proponent of responsible drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. She may change McCain's opposition to the issue, or argue for it on her own. With Barack Obama's conflicted position on the popular issue of domestic drilling, the McCain ticket should be able to score major points.

My biggest reservation about Sarah Palin is that she doesn't enhance John McCain's economic credentials. But the McCain campaign is shifting the tone of the election from the economy to leadership, painting his ticket as the one that's ready to lead from day one. There are also polls to suggest that McCain is closing the gap on the question of who is better suited to handle the economy. There's much to be said about holding the line on taxes during a recession, and holding the line on spending when the nation is deeply in debt.

Most importantly, Sarah Palin is the perfect maverick to run alongside John McCain. The charges by Obama and company that John McCain is "George Bush's third term" are so dishonest that they make me vomit. John McCain has an established track record of independence, and has sparred with the president repeatedly, particularly on spending issues and the fiscal irresponsibility of the current administration. Likewise, Sarah Palin has sparred with the pork-happy, big-government Republican establishment in Alaska. The McCain-Palin team's record of fighting for fiscal responsibility should speak for itself.

In an election defined by the cliches of "hope" and "change," I have to say that I'm filled with both. I have hope that we can change to a government that stops growing and stops wasting money. But we need a pair of mavericks like John McCain and Sarah Palin to make it happen.

When Barack Obama selected Joe Biden to be his running-mate, the talking heads pointed out that this will help the Illinois Senator to win over Catholic voters in swing states like Pennsylvania which broke for Hillary Clinton during the primaries. For the benefit of these pundits, I wanted to make one thing clear: there is no monolithic "Catholic voting bloc," and Catholicism has not been an issue in any presidential campaign since 1960.

The so-called "Catholic voting bloc" cuts across a wide swath of ethnic and class divisions. One-third of American Catholics are Hispanic; of the remaining two-thirds, most trace their lineage back to countries like Ireland, Italy and Poland. Catholics inhabit all social strata from the very wealthy to the very poor. In recent history, Catholics have not been bound by identity politics. After all, a nominal Catholic like John Kerry couldn't even win a majority of Catholic voters in 2004.

The positions of the Catholic church are very difficult to categorize within the American political spectrum. The church often advocates positions that are anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-death-penalty, and pro-welfare. If those were the only factors in play, you'd think that the church was in the pocket of the Democratic National Committee. But the church also takes a hard line against abortion rights and same-sex marriage, which play into the hands of social conservaitves. The church's permissive attitude towards immigration is hard to categorize because both parties lack a coherent stand on the issue.

Further complicating the issue is that large numbers of self-described Catholics really don't give a damn for the positions that the church takes. Self-described Catholics who attend services infrequently or not at all greatly outnumber those who are in the pews every Sunday. Even among those who are active in the church, nobody is going to uncritically sign up to everything espoused by the Vatican. I mean, how many American Catholics are really saving themselves for marriage?

My friendly advice to Barack is to abandon any "magic bullet" strategy towards winning over Catholic voters. Any associations with Michael Pfleger won't be helpful, as he makes Jeremiah Wright look rational by comparison. Condescending towards voters who are "bitter" and "cling to guns and religion" probably won't be constructive, either.

The news networks have been playing up two monster stories over the past few weeks: the "Montauk Monster" and a claim by two men to have recovered the remains of a "Bigfoot." While I'm open to the idea of undiscovered animals among us, I'm skeptical of both claims.

When individuals come forward with extraordinary claims in the field of crytozoology, it must immediately be asked how willing they are to release their evidence for scientific study and confirmation. In the case of last year's "Chupacabra" claim, partial remains of the dead animal were preserved and released to the scientific community. The concensus was that the alleged chupacabra was really a coyote with the mange.

In the case of the Montauk Monster, the only evidence released thus far is a series of convincing-looking photographs. But no remains have been released to the scientific community, and none may have even been preserved. Without physical evidence, there's no way to determine if the monster is a hoax, a decomposed animal of some sort, or a new species altogether.

The Bigfoot photos don't look anywhere near as convincing as those of the Montauk Monster, but the two men who made the claim also say they will be releasing DNA evidence. The claim is unclear, and there's no indication why the the men have been stalling in releasing their evidence thus far. Without the original remains, there's no way that scientists can determine whether the DNA is authentic and belonging to the alleged "Bigfoot."

In the absence of more evidence, I'm inclined to think that the new Bigfoot claim is a half-baked hoax. I'm still conflicted as to whether the Montauk Monster is a more elaborate hoax, or if it's a genuine animal, albeit a known species that has decayed into some unrecognizable form.

Author Ron Suskind is making media waves with more unverifiable claims of malfeasance against the Bush administration. While "red meat" for Bush-haters in the middle of an intense presidential election will sell well, there's really nothing new in Suskind's book The Way of the World. He's just repackaging the same old rumors that have been around for several years.

The most explosive claim is that the White House ordered the CIA to write a fake memo linking Iraq's Intelligence Service to the 9/11 attacks. The memo in question was revealed by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress on the same day that Saddam Hussein was pulled from his spider hole in December 2003. Not only was the potentially-shocking nature of the memo obscured by the day's developments, but the memo itself had been discredited within about a month of its announcement. It's impossible to verify if the memo was forged on the orders of the president, but it appears to be an amateurish ploy whose possible propaganda value was lost. Most likely, it was another fabrication of Ahmed Chalabi and his icnreasingly-desperate attempts to convince America that he should be the "George Washington of Iraq."

Iraq's Intelligence Service also plays a prominent role in Suskind's other "earth shattering revelation." He claims that the head of Iraqi Intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, told the US and UK that Iraq was free of Weapons of Mass Destruction. In response, the western powers helped him defect to Jordan... and then ignored him, going to war anyways.

There is some verifiable fact to Suskind's revelation about Habbush. The head of Iraqi Intelligence met with both a Lebanese-American businessman and the CIA's Vince Cannastraro with peace offers that included "proof" that Iraq was clean of WMD. The problem the peace initiative was not that George Bush was a bloodthirsty warmonger (although he would probably find any arrangement leaving Saddam in power as unacceptable.) The problem with Habbush's WMD allegations is that they conflicted with the statements of other regime officials, including Naji Sabri, who claimed that Iraq still had chemical weapons. Habbush's story squares with the earlier claims of Hussein Kamel, but western intel agencies had plenty of reasons to doubt their truthfulness at the time.

The added story about Habbush being re-settled in Jordan appears to be a bit of unoriginal fiction on Ron Suskind's part. During Summer 2003, the internet was awash with the rumor that Habbush was secretly on the take from the United States. According to the story, he sold out Saddam Hussein's location in Baghdad's Mansour District on April 7, 2003, and was rewarded with a free trip to Jordan. The restaurant where Saddam was allegedly hiding was demolished by a B-1 bomber, and American officials initially felt that they'd finally pulled off the "decapitation strike" they'd been waiting for. Except that Saddam wasn't there. And there's no evidence that Habbush ever aided the Americans, entered American custody, or settled in Jordan. In fact, several sources (here and here) believe that Habbush has been directing and financing insurgent attacks from safety in Syria.

It's frustrating to see a journalist like Ron Suskind drop all pretense of journalistic ethics in order to reprint tired rumors and sell anti-bush screeds. People like Ron Suskind are making a killing off selling innuendo to a public that's too willing to accept without question. And doesn't that make reporters like Suskind into everything they've accused the Bush administration of during the run-up to invading Iraq?

After nearly seven years of speculation and fear, the FBI believes that the Anthrax killer from Fall 2001 was Dr. Bruce Ivins, a researcher at the US Army Infectious Diseases Institute. Three days ago, as charges were imminent, Dr. Ivins overdosed on Tylenol and Codeine in an apparent suicide. With his death, the truth behind the anthrax attacks goes to the grave with him.

It's comforting to think that justice has finally been done, and the anthrax killer will never be heard from again. But in the back of my mind are a slew of unresolved questions about how and why the attacks were carried out. If Ivins was the killer, what was his motivation? Supposedly he was seeking to spread the infection to motivate authorities to test his multi-strain Anthrax vaccine, but that makes no sense. Did he really think that his anthrax attacks against a small number of individuals could motivate the use of his experimental vaccine? For that matter, was he really leading investigators off his trail during the time he was performing his commended investigation into the strain used in the attacks? Was there any rationale, political or otherwise, behind the way he chose the targets of his attack? Lastly, did Ivins kill himself, or did he accidentally overdose as he turned to drugs as a reaction to the depression and violent tendencies that he expressed as a result of the FBI investigation?

The anthrax attacks of Fall 2001 have remained a mystery since day one. The families of the five victims will probably never have the closure they deserve. The only solace is that the killer hasn't struck again, and probably won't.