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Leading Republican differs with Bush on evolution
By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A leading Republican senator allied with the religious right differed on Thursday with President Bush’s support for teaching an alternative to the theory of evolution known as “intelligent design.”

Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a possible 2008 presidential contender who faces a tough re-election fight next year in Pennsylvania, said intelligent design, which is backed by many religious conservatives, lacked scientific credibility and should not be taught in science classes.

Bush told reporters from Texas on Monday that “both sides” in the debate over intelligent design and evolution should be taught in schools “so people can understand what the debate is about.”

“I think I would probably tailor that a little more than what the president has suggested,” Santorum, the third-ranking Republican member of the U.S. Senate, told National Public Radio. “I’m not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom.”

Evangelical Christians have launched campaigns in at least 18 states to make public schools teach intelligent design alongside Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Proponents of intelligent design argue that nature is so complex that it could not have occurred by random natural selection, as held by Darwin’s 1859 theory of evolution, and so must be the work of an unnamed “intelligent cause.”

If Bush is too extreme for Santorum, gawd help us! mjh

Vacationing Bush Poised to Set a Record
With Long Sojourn at Ranch, President on His Way to Surpassing Reagan’s Total
By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; Page A04

WACO, Tex., Aug. 2 — President Bush is getting the kind of break most Americans can only dream of — nearly five weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time.

The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening to clear brush, visit with family and friends, and tend to some outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush’s 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and Tuesday was the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford — roughly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president’s travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents’ compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush’s time away from Washington even further. …

Presidents have often sought refuge from the pressures of Washington and from life in the White House, which Harry S. Truman called the crown jewel of the American prison system. Richard M. Nixon favored Key Biscayne, Fla. Bush’s father preferred Maine. Bill Clinton, lacking a home of his own, borrowed a house on Martha’s Vineyard, except for two years when political adviser Dick Morris nudged him into going to Jackson, Wyo., before his reelection because it polled better.

Until now, probably no modern president was a more famous vacationer than Ronald Reagan, who loved spending time at his ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif. According to an Associated Press count, Reagan spent all or part of 335 days in Santa Barbara over his eight-year presidency — a total that Bush will surpass this month in Crawford with 3 1/2 years left in his second term.

FBI has files on ACLU, Greenpeace, other rights groups

The FBI has thousands of pages of records in its files relating to the monitoring of civil rights, environmental and similar advocacy groups, the Justice Department acknowledges.

The organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, are suing for the release of the documents. The organizations contend that the material will show that they have been subjected to scrutiny by FBI task forces set up to combat terrorism.

The FBI has identified 1,173 pages related to the ACLU and 2,383 pages about Greenpeace, but it needs at least until February to process the ACLU files and until June to review the Greenpeace documents, the government said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington. …

“This administration has a history of using its powers against its peaceful critics. If, in fact, the FBI has been deployed to help in that effort, that would be quite shocking,” John Passacantando, Greenpeace’s U.S. executive director, said. …

A memo from Sept. 4, 2003, about Internet sites that were promoting protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York was addressed to counterterrorism units in Boston, Los Angeles and New York.

“Why is this being labeled as counterterrorism when it’s nothing more protests at a political convention, a lawful First Amendment activity?” ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, asked.

ACLU Says FBI Compiling Dossiers on Non-Violent Activist Groups

The document was released in response to an ACLU lawsuit filed two months ago to expedite its FOIA request for FBI surveillance files on the ACLU, Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

“The UFPJ [United for Peace and Justice, a national peace organization,] report underscores our concern that the FBI is violating Americans’ right to peacefully assemble and oppose government policies without being branded as terrorist threats,” said Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU. “There is no need to open a counterterrorism file when people are simply exercising their First Amendment rights.”

FBI Spy Files
Is the FBI Spying on You?

Spy Agency Targets Bush Critics – Global News on the World Crisis Web by William Fisher

Those who remember recent history will not be surprised to learn that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been amassing files on the American Civil Liberties Union, Greenpeace and other critics of the George W. Bush administration.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defence and other intelligence agencies had all conspired to engage in widespread spying on ordinary U.S. citizens — and illegal covert operations.

The targets back then were left-wing groups and individuals, civil rights and anti-Vietnam activists and, of course, Pres. Richard Nixon’s “enemies list”. …

But it was the FBI’s spying on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. that ended that era of government snooping. The FBI had used wiretaps and a covert operation, personally directed by Hoover, to unearth derogatory information intended to destroy King as a national civil rights leader.

Today, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the FBI is again armed with expanded powers to collect information on ordinary citizens. And it has been doing so.

Classic Rove By Harold Meyerson

Rove did not become George W. Bush’s indispensable op only because of his strategic smarts. He’s also the kind of ethically unconstrained guy Bush has wanted around when the going gets tough — when the case Bush is making is unconvincing on its own merits, when he needs to divert attention from himself with a stunning attack on somebody else.

That’s been the hallmark of Rove’s career — and Bush’s. … Get in Bush’s way and Rove turns you or your loved ones into the scum of the earth.

You can go pretty far with this kind of modus operandi, particularly if the press is complaisant. Sometimes, you can go too far, as Joe McCarthy discovered when he leveled his woozy allegations against the Army. …

Rove was, and has always been, Bush’s one indispensable aide precisely, though not only, because he would do whatever it took to advance his boss’s interests, no matter the consequences to his intended targets or innocent bystanders. Though we can’t be certain it was Rove who disclosed Plame’s identity, we can be damned sure that if he did, it was all in a day’s work on behalf of George W. Bush.
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GOP on Offense in Defense of Rove By Jim VandeHei, Washington Post Staff Writer

Republicans mounted an aggressive and coordinated defense of Karl Rove yesterday ….

“The angry left is trying to smear” Rove, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, a Rove protege, said in an interview. …

The emerging GOP strategy — devised by Mehlman and other Rove loyalists outside of the White House — is to try to undermine those Democrats calling for Rove’s ouster, play down Rove’s role and wait for President Bush’s forthcoming Supreme Court selection to drown out the controversy, according to several high-level Republicans. …

Mehlman, who said he talked with Rove several times in recent days, instructed GOP legislators, lobbyists and state officials to accuse Democrats of dirty politics and argue Rove was guilty of nothing more than discouraging a reporter from writing an inaccurate story, according to RNC talking points circulated yesterday.

“Republicans should stop holding back and go on the offense: fire enough bullets the other way until the Supreme Court overtakes” events, said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). …

Wilson was a chief target of the new GOP offensive designed to take some pressure off Rove. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said the White House did not have to discredit Wilson. “Nobody had to do that,” he said, adding that “he discredited his own report” by including unfounded allegations. The RNC talking point memo included a list of anti-Wilson lines.

“In all honesty, the facts thus far — and the e-mail involved — indicate to me that there is not a problem here,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). “I have always thought this is a tempest in a teapot.”

Bush Adviser Helped Law Firm Land Job Lobbying for CNOOC By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush’s top independent intelligence adviser met last winter with investment bankers in China to help secure his law firm’s role in lobbying for a state-run Chinese energy firm and its bid for the U.S. oil company Unocal Corp., according to his law firm, Akin Gump.

The involvement of James C. Langdon Jr., chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a major Bush fundraiser, underscores the tangled Washington connections beneath CNOOC Ltd.’s bid. Both CNOOC and its rival for Unocal, Chevron Corp., have enlisted lobbyists and public relations professionals with deep ties to the Bush White House and Republican leaders in Congress. Wayne L. Berman, a principal lobbyist for Chevron, is a Bush “Ranger,” having raised at least $200,000 for the president’s campaign. His wife, Lea, is the White House social secretary. [mjh: note that Berman and Langdon are TWO different White House insiders.]

Langdon’s involvement, given his dual role as Bush intelligence adviser and energy lawyer at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, may prove politically problematic, some security experts said. Members of the intelligence board, known as PFIAB, are granted the highest security clearance and develop top-secret advisories and reports for the president, most of which are not even available to members of Congress.

“China is among the biggest intelligence challenges of the coming decades,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “Along with the war on terrorism, it’s not far behind, and one has to wonder whether Mr. Langdon’s involvement in Chinese affairs will be tolerated by intelligence agencies that have different interests than those of Mr. Langdon’s firm.” …

CNOOC has already requested a review of its unsolicited $18.5 billion bid for Unocal by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a secretive 12-member review board that includes Cabinet members and White House officials. The PFIAB chairman does not sit on CFIUS, but a review of national security implications could stray into matters relevant to foreign intelligence, security experts said. …

The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on the national security implications of the CNOOC bid. One of the committee’s senior members and a prominent China hawk, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vowed to raise questions of Langdon’s involvement, saying, “Unfortunately, corporate dollars often transcend national security.” …

The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was established in 1956 to provide the president independent advice on the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence agencies. …

“They have the ear of the president,” said [Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy], who called the board “disproportionately influential.”

Syntax, Disassembled By Eugene Robinson

President Bush’s misadventures with the dictionary are legendary, and they’re the gift that keeps on giving. Perhaps my favorite classic came while Bush was trying to sell his Social Security program in Upstate New York, and he uttered this timeless sentence: “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

The frightening thing is that we all understood what he meant. We even understood him when he made his recent assertion about the imprisoned evildoers at Guantanamo Bay, that they are “people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble.” Before you could wonder where they were getting their hands on the screwdrivers and wrenches, he added, “That means not tell the truth.”

No, it doesn’t, Mr. President. But never mind.

The conservative case against Alberto Gonzales by Ken Herman, Cox News Service

The conservative case against Gonzales is based on his Texas Supreme Court record and comments he has made. The topics include a menu of conservative hot-button issues, including abortion, property rights, judicial activism and affirmative action.

On those topics, Gonzales has cast votes and said things that are cause for concern among some conservatives who have long waited for the day when one of their own could replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the court’s most pivotal swing vote in many cases. …

In addition to Gonzales’ decisions while a Bush appointee on the Texas Supreme Court, Weyrich is troubled by something he heard from Gonzales at a meeting of conservatives.

A questioner asked Gonzales to choose between two legal concepts: “stare decisis” and original intent.

Stare decisis means “to stand by things decided,” and, to some, is a code word for judicial activism. In the legal world, “original intent” means looking to the framers’ original intent as the basis for rulings. It can be a code word similar to “strict constructionist.”

Weyrich said Gonzales came down on the side of stare decisis, fighting words for good conservatives.

“That’s very troubling to somebody who feels as I do that the Supreme Court has bent the Constitution way out of whack,” Weyrich said.

Some conservatives also find cause for concern in Gonzales’ handling of cases while on the Texas Supreme Court and his comment that he benefited from affirmative action.

Conservative concern about Gonzales’ feelings on abortion arise from a February 2000 Texas Supreme Court case in which Gonzales sided with a majority in granting latitude for a teen seeking judicial approval to bypass a state law, signed by then-Gov. Bush, requiring parental notification prior to an abortion. …

Opinions followed in June 2000, evidencing a nasty 6-3 split, with the majority – including Gonzales – ruling that the legislature meant for it to be fairly easy for a teen to get judicial approval for an abortion without parental notification.

Gonzales, in a concurring opinion, said narrow interpretation of the bypass provision “would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism.”

“While the ramifications of such a law and the results of the court’s decision here may be personally troubling to me as a parent, it is my obligation as a judge to impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on the decisions of the legislature,” Gonzales wrote.

Then-Justice Priscilla Owen, now a Bush appointee on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that the majority “manufactured reasons to justify its action.”

In 2001, as Gonzales was floated as a possible Supreme Court justice, Terence P. Jeffrey, editor of the conservative publication Human Events and former presidential campaign manager for Pat Buchanan, blasted Gonzales’ role in the abortion case.

“In the process of approving Baby Doe’s abortion, Gonzales demonstrated that he is a judicial activist of the worst sort,” Jeffrey wrote, adding that putting Gonzales on the Supreme Court “would be an uncharacteristic blunder [mjh: snicker] for Bush, and could permanently mar his presidency.”

Another Texas Supreme Court case has left some conservatives concerned about Gonzales’ loyalty to the concept of private property, a key tenet of modern conservatism in its battle against big government. …

In another 2000 case, Gonzales also was in the majority in siding with a governmental entity in a battle with private citizens. …

Overall, according to a report by Austin-based Texas Watch, a non-profit watchdog group, Gonzales’ votes on the state Supreme Court “positioned himself in the middle of the court and as a swing voter in an overall conservative court.”
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High court politics split right, Latinos By Dan Balz, Washington Post

[A] fierce battle has erupted over Gonzales, the former White House counsel and Texas Supreme Court justice. It pits the ideological priorities of social and religious conservatives, who think Gonzales is insufficiently opposed to abortion, against the aspiration of the Latino community to see the first Hispanic named to the high court.

Bush has skillfully balanced his appeals to both groups throughout his career as an elected official, but he faces the prospect of disappointing one side, with potentially serious repercussions for his party.

Nothing prevents Bush from trying to skirt the conflict by naming another Latino who would be more acceptable to the right than Gonzales, such as Emilio Garza, a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But the uproar over Gonzales, longtime friend and confidant of the president, has heightened the political stakes of Bush’s decision and has alarmed some senior GOP strategists. …

Republicans offered differing views about what Bush’s choice may do to his coalition. Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a group formed to support Bush judicial nominations, questioned whether a conservative nominee would alienate moderates. “That’s nonsense,” he said. “The worst thing the president could do for his party’s 2006 election hopes — and especially for Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania — is to go with a nominee who is seen as less principled by conservatives. That would completely dry up the funding. That would completely dry up the enthusiasm.”
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Texas Hispanics drawing support for court seat
Factions line up for two Texas Hispanics
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

[Federal appeals Judge Emilio] Garza, of San Antonio, tops the list of acceptable Hispanic nominees for right-wing activists in part because of what they view as his like-minded approach to legal issues involving religion and abortion. …

[L]egal experts have already combed through the written opinions and public statements of Gonzales and Garza. The consensus: Garza comes across as a hard-line conservative on issues like abortion and the intersection of government and religion. Gonzales appears more flexible on those issues, though still firmly in the conservative camp.