David Hardy and Jason Clarke's Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man has skyrocketed to number three on Amazon's best seller list. Is there any chance that it could dislodge Bill Clinton's My Life at number one? Hard to imagine, but let's all buy a copy. Given the amount of free publicity that Moore's movie has received for its opening weekend performance--besting White Chicks and Dodgeball--it would seem that some countervailing publicity for Big Fat Stupid would be in order.

NRO has posted Andrew McCarthy's excellent column on the Insane Clown Posse's three detention decisions: "A mixed bag." Here's McCarthy on Rasul:

On September 11, 2001, the most atrocious foreign invasion in our history took place, killing 3000 of us. Far from the first attack, it was the copestone of eight years marked, roughly annually, by attempted or successful terrorist operations. Even after 9/11, the enemy has continued demonstrate stealth and prowess — although it has not succeeded in hitting the homeland, it has been responsible for spates of civilian slaughter throughout the world and killed a sizable number of our troops on the battlefield.

That describes the mortal peril United States was up against when the United States courts were presented with an extraordinary claim: viz., that when our military fighting overseas, at the height of active hostilities, grants quarter by apprehending rather than destroying the forces arrayed against it, those forces, those alien enemies trying to kill Americans — alien enemies who secrete themselves among civilians; who use humanitarian infrastructure like ambulances, hospitals and schools to carry out their grisly business; who make a mockery of the laws and conventions of civilized warfare; who torture and kill their captives with a bestiality that defies description; whose only contact with America is to regard her with this savagery — have resort to the courts of the United States to protest their detention and to compel the executive branch, while it is conducting battle, to explain itself. Just to describe this breathtaking claim of entitlement should be to refute it. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the enemy...

McCarthy's column is a useful guide to the decisions in each of the three cases.

StrategyPage says that "the Arab-American marine held by Iraqi terrorists, and threatened with death, had apparently deserted and was attempting to return to family members still living in Lebanon." He sought assistance from Iraqis working on the base, but they betrayed (or sold) him to the terrorists. If true, it's kind of unnerving to think that Iraqis working on our base are collaborating with terrorists.

StrategyPage also claims that the Iraqi terrorists are learning that their beheading routine is counterproductive because it turns local Muslim populations against them. I agree that it is counterproductive -- minimum carnage, maximum repulsion. Whether the terrorists view it this way remains to be seen.

StrategyPage then argues that, in fact, "al Qaeda, and their predecessor, the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt, have turned Arab populations against them whenever they practiced their terror tactics 'at home.'" It finds that the war against terrorrism has succeeded in "forc[ing] al Qaeda back to its homelands, and concentrated them in Iraq. There, al Qaeda is becoming as hated as it already is in the West. This hatred led to the Moslem Brotherhood's defeat, and expulsion from Egypt over a decade ago. The same thing is happening again in Saudi Arabia and Iraq." All of this seems plausible, even if StrategyPage's conclusion -- that "Iraq is rapidly becoming al Qaeda's graveyard" -- sounds overly optimistic.

Professor Jon Lauck has a finely calibrated evaluation of "Daschle's Michael Moore problem" on his Dasche v. Thune site.

Reader Dafydd ab Hugh writes to note that the link to Professor Yoo's Wall Street Journal column on the Insane Clown Posse's detention decisions including Rasul is inaccessible to non-subscribers, and to argue that my excerpts of the column were misleading, in the post "Professor Yoo's dissent."

I think Rasul is the most important of the three detention decisions; I may be wrong, and Professor Yoo suggests otherwise. I think Rasul is wrong and harmful; Professor Yoo suggests the same, but adds that the harm can be ameliorated by the executive and legislative branches.

In excerpting the quotes in the post I had counted on readers having access to the column in its entirety in order to evaluate it for themselves. The following is a link that should be accessible to readers interested in doing so: "The Supreme Court goes to war."

In the event that the link doesn't work, I'm pasting in the column in its entirety below:

From the initial returns, one might believe that the Bush administration suffered a legal defeat this week in the war against terrorism. In Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts -- for the first time -- will review the grounds for detaining alien enemy combatants held outside the U.S. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the justices required that American citizens detained in the war have access to a lawyer and a fair hearing before a neutral judge.

But despite the pleas of legal and media elites, the justices did not turn the clock back to Sept. 10, 2001. While the Court has unwisely injected itself into military matters, closer examination reveals that it has affirmed the administration's fundamental legal approach to the war on terrorism, and left it with sufficient flexibility to effectively prevail in the future.

To wit, the Court agreed that the U.S. is at war against the al Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban militia that supports them. It agreed that Congress has authorized that war. Moreover, the justices implicitly recognized that the U.S. may use all of the tools of war to fight a new kind of enemy that has no territory, no population and no desire to spare innocent civilian life.

Taken as a whole, the Court's message is unmistakable: The days when terrorism was merely considered a law enforcement problem and our only forces were limited to the FBI, federal prosecutors and the criminal justice system will not be returning.

Following judicial precedent and common sense, a plurality of four justices in Hamdi agreed that waging war must include the power to detain enemy combatants. Justice O'Connor's opinion made clear that detention in wartime is not a punishment, and so does not deserve the trappings and procedures of the domestic criminal-justice system. As she observed, "the purpose of detention is to prevent captured individuals from returning to the field of battle and taking up arms once again." Enemy combatants can even include American citizens who join al Qaeda or the Taliban. Brushing aside the argument that Yaser Hamdi's detention was illegal because it was indefinite, the Court affirmed that an enemy combatant may be detained for as long as active hostilities continue, as they do in Afghanistan.

Upholding the detention of citizens who join the enemy is perhaps the most significant aspect of this week's opinions. As the José Padilla example shows, al Qaeda has been recruiting American citizens who can better escape detection. While fighting there continues, Afghanistan will not be the frontline of the future; O'Hare airport, New York Harbor and the Mexican and Canadian borders will be. Preventing the government from detaining citizens who have decided to become terrorists would have seriously handicapped the nation's ability to stop attacks and to gain better intelligence on our enemy's plans.

Although Justice O'Connor's opinion was joined only by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Kennedy and Breyer, her conclusions on these points were shared by Justice Thomas. They parted ways, however, in deciding what happens once the enemy combatant challenges his detention. All agree (including the government) that the federal courts should review detentions through habeas corpus; the disagreements occurred over how much proof the government has to show, whether and when the detainee would receive a lawyer, and the type of hearing required. Justice Thomas, who properly found that courts "lack the expertise and capacity to second-guess" the battlefield decisions made by the military and ultimately the president, would have asked the government to show some evidence why a detainee qualifies as an enemy combatant.

In what can be seen as naiveté, or as "constitutional improvisation" designed "to increase the power of the Court," (Justice Scalia's words), the plurality went further and imposed vague guidelines for reviewing detentions. Rejecting the positions of both Hamdi and the government, it struck the compromise that an enemy combatant must receive a lawyer and "a fair opportunity to rebut the Government's factual assertions before a neutral decisionmaker." Even then, it found that the government should receive a presumption in favor of its evidence, one that put the burden of proof on the detainee to disprove.

Nevertheless, the Justices left the hard questions up to the lower courts and the administration, or even Congress, to resolve. This is especially important in light of the decision in Rasul, a clear defeat for the government, in which the Court found that Guantanamo Bay (and perhaps military operations world-wide) lay within the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Rasul essentially overruled the 1950 Supreme Court case upon which the government had relied in locating its detention facility there, and it threatens to inject the federal courts into the micromanagement of the military.

While we can expect the 600 detainees to each file a habeas petition, possibly in each of the 94 district courts, Rasul gives no guidance on how soon those hearings must be held, where they will be held, who can participate and how classified intelligence will remain protected. Despite an extended discussion of the peculiarities of the Guantanamo lease, Rasul leaves unclear whether judicial review would apply beyond Guantanamo to Iraq (and Saddam Hussein) or Afghanistan (and Osama bin Laden, should he be captured).

Nonetheless, rather than view these cases as a defeat, the administration should see them as an opportunity. While it has unwisely extended its reach to wartime detentions outside the U.S., the Court has left the executive branch with substantial room to maneuver on the nature and scope of review: Hamdi approves of a detainee's access to counsel, but does not explain when they can meet, whether their communications can be monitored for clandestine messages, or whether the lawyers can be military officers; Rasul studiously avoided any discussion of the substantive rights, if any, that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees have; and neither overturned the administration's policy that the Geneva Conventions do not apply. (And yesterday, in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, the Court expressed great skepticism about the ability of federal courts to enforce international law norms without the permission of Congress.)

The Pentagon could easily adapt its existing review process for Guantanamo prisoners to meet the Hamdi standards (as Justice O'Connor seemed to invite), which surely must equal if not exceed those required for alien enemy combatants. Military commissions already established to try alien terrorists would almost certainly meet the procedural requirements set out by the Court.

* * *
Because of the judiciary's unprecedented expansion into what had always been considered the ultimate preserve of the political branches, the executive will have to do a better job of reviewing its detention cases and explaining its reasons. Now is the time for Congress and the president, vested by the Constitution with all of the war power and directly elected by the American people, to establish these procedures with a broader view of the costs and benefits for the war on terrorism. They should not wait for district judges to make these choices ad hoc simply because they happen to hear the early cases.

So far, the president and Congress still have the opportunity to make these fundamentally military choices in a way that may not interfere with important battlefield decisions. Whatever the policies chosen, however, they will require the devotion of more resources toward lawyers and judges and less to direct military operations or intelligence-gathering. That, alas, is the price of satisfying an imperial judiciary.

Yesterday Jacques Chirac vetoed a U.S. plan to send NATO troops to help maintain security during Afghanistan's upcoming election. Chirac ignored a direct plea from Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, who traveled to Istanbul to ask NATO to help:

I would like you to please hurry, as NATO, to Afghanistan. Come sooner than September

Which tells us something about France and its position in the war on terror. France's position has nothing to do with Iraq; nothing to do with the U.N. and international law; nothing to do with U.S. invasions; and makes no distinction between controversial American policies (Iraq) and non-controversial American policies (Afghanistan). France's hostility isn't even driven, necessarily, by its commercial interests, since France has no economic interest in Afghanistan one way or the other. I don't pretend to know what calculation drives Chirac's pro-Arab and anti-American policies. But it's hard to see how John Kerry or anyone else can fault President Bush for being unable to secure Chirac's cooperation on Iraq, when France not only won't help out in Afghanistan, but won't let NATO help, either.

Last weekend we posted Saturday's Minneapolis Star Tribune story on al Qaeda's man in Minneapolis. On Sunday we also noted the Boston Globe's related story on al Qaeda's man in Boston.

Today the Star Tribune follows up with "Minneapolis terror suspect licensed to haul hazardous freight." The information reported by the Star Tribune appears to be derived primarily from a government affidavit filed in connection with Elzahabi's indictment. Greg Gordon and David Chanen report:

The FBI identified Mohamad Elzahabi as a suspected terrorist well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and more than 2½ years before his arrest last week, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Yet officials of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said they had no clue that Elzahabi was suspected of having Al-Qaida connections when he applied for, and in early 2002 received, a commercial driver's license to drive a school bus and to haul hazardous materials.

Before the Minneapolis man got final approval for the commercial license, the FBI ran Elzahabi's name through a database and cleared him on Jan. 18, 2002, said Pat McCormack, interim director of the department's Division of Driver and Vehicle Licensing.

Since Sept. 11, the FBI and U.S. Transportation Department have focused on tightening restrictions and procedures to prevent terrorism suspects from gaining licenses to haul hazardous materials.

But, McCormack said, Elzahabi's driver's license was still valid for toxic materials Tuesday. Elzahabi applied for a federal operating license for his business, but not to carry hazardous materials. McCormack said Elzahabi's school bus driver's license was cancelled in February but did not say why...

The FBI identified Mohamad Elzahabi as a suspected terrorist well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and more than 2½ years before his arrest last week, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Yet officials of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said they had no clue that Elzahabi was suspected of having Al-Qaida connections when he applied for, and in early 2002 received, a commercial driver's license to drive a school bus and to haul hazardous materials.

Before the Minneapolis man got final approval for the commercial license, the FBI ran Elzahabi's name through a database and cleared him on Jan. 18, 2002, said Pat McCormack, interim director of the department's Division of Driver and Vehicle Licensing.

Since Sept. 11, the FBI and U.S. Transportation Department have focused on tightening restrictions and procedures to prevent terrorism suspects from gaining licenses to haul hazardous materials.

But, McCormack said, Elzahabi's driver's license was still valid for toxic materials Tuesday. Elzahabi applied for a federal operating license for his business, but not to carry hazardous materials. McCormack said Elzahabi's school bus driver's license was cancelled in February but did not say why.

The Star Tribune adds a mordant bit of understatement:

Elzahabi's pursuit of a commercial driver's license that could be used for hazardous materials is one of a number of curiosities about the case, the latest in a stunning string of terrorism arrests in Minnesota.

An additional curiosity about the case, from my perspective, is the lack of national attention to this important story.

HINDROCKET adds: Is there any connection between a hazardous materials license and a school bus driver's license? I don't know why there would be, so I assume he did whatever was necessary to obtain both. Which is scarier, a terrorist driving a load of chemicals or a busload of school children? I'd say the latter.

Also, I don't understand the claim that the FBI identified Elzahabi as a potential terrorist "well before the Sept. 11 attacks." Earlier published reports say that he re-entered the United States (after trying to overthrow the government of Lebanon and fighting in Chechnya) in August 2001. If both reports are correct, Elzahabi was allowed into the country even though 1) he was supposed to have been deported in 1988, 2) any account of his whereabouts since he had last been in the U.S. (when he was treated for a gunshot wound he received in Afghanistan) would have been colorful, to say the least, and 3) he was a suspected terrorist.

In connection with William Buckley's historic divestiture of the ownership of National Review yesterday, NRO has posted the rousing Publisher's Statement that Buckley contributed to the magazine's debut issue in 1955. It's the conservative version of the shot heard 'round the world -- what a brilliant and audacious statement of purpose:

We have nothing to offer but the best that is in us. That, a thousand Liberals who read this sentiment will say with relief, is clearly not enough! It isn't enough. But it is at this point that we steal the march. For we offer, besides ourselves, a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of Ph.D's in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town.

Bravo!

In the Wall Street Journal Professor John Yoo concisely gets to the heart of the harm wrought by the Insane Clown Posse in the most important of the three detention cases (Rasul) decided earlier this week: "The Supeme Court goes to war." Below are the paragraphs of most interest to me, but the whole column is must reading. Professor Yoo writes:

[T]he Justices left the hard questions up to the lower courts and the administration, or even Congress, to resolve. This is especially important in light of the decision in Rasul, a clear defeat for the government, in which the Court found that Guantanamo Bay (and perhaps military operations world-wide) lay within the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Rasul essentially overruled the 1950 Supreme Court case upon which the government had relied in locating its detention facility there, and it threatens to inject the federal courts into the micromanagement of the military.

While we can expect the 600 detainees to each file a habeas petition, possibly in each of the 94 district courts, Rasul gives no guidance on how soon those hearings must be held, where they will be held, who can participate and how classified intelligence will remain protected. Despite an extended discussion of the peculiarities of the Guantanamo lease, Rasul leaves unclear whether judicial review would apply beyond Guantanamo to Iraq (and Saddam Hussein) or Afghanistan (and Osama bin Laden, should he be captured).

Because of the judiciary's unprecedented expansion into what had always been considered the ultimate preserve of the political branches, the executive will have to do a better job of reviewing its detention cases and explaining its reasons. Now is the time for Congress and the president, vested by the Constitution with all of the war power and directly elected by the American people, to establish these procedures with a broader view of the costs and benefits for the war on terrorism. They should not wait for district judges to make these choices ad hoc simply because they happen to hear the early cases.

So far, the president and Congress still have the opportunity to make these fundamentally military choices in a way that may not interfere with important battlefield decisions. Whatever the policies chosen, however, they will require the devotion of more resources toward lawyers and judges and less to direct military operations or intelligence-gathering. That, alas, is the price of satisfying an imperial judiciary.

(Courtesy of Michelle Malkin.)

The Washington Times has a fascinating article on the detective work performed in Iraq by the Army's Alpha Company, 91st Engineer Battalion: "Soldiers 'get the bad boys' in raids." Columbo himself couldn't have done it better:

Sgt. Jimmy Robles, 25, swabs the hands and faces of the men [being investigated] with paper from an Expray kit, which detects explosive chemicals.

"Next," he calls as he motions that he is ready to test another man. "What's up, man? How are you doing? Nervous?"

As he sprays reactive chemicals on the test strips, a pink blush spreads across the paper. The man has tested positive for TNT.

"Alright, buddy, it's not looking so good for you. Welcome aboard."

The ketchup lady came to the heartland yesterday, stumping in Des Moines on behalf of John Kerry. Based on the AP report, she seems to have sought out tales of woe and offered her own innovative proposal that the government "provide incentives to companies that offer health insurance to employees." Why didn't we think of that?

Addressing the suggestion that her billion dollar fortune might render her somewhat out of touch with the voters, she said: ''It's so ludicrous that it makes you laugh." The AP story reporting her Iowa visit is "Heinz Kerry says she became wealthy on 'a very sad day.'"

In the tradition of his "Good news from Iraq" series, Arthur Chrenkoff has added "Good news from Afghanistan." The bad news from Afghanistan comes courtesy of Jacques Chirac: "France vetoes Afghan mission." Claudia Rosett conducts a Cook's tour of the world's hellholes and refers in passing to how "Frere Jacques" (and brother Kofi) contribute to the bad news in her weekly OpinionJournal column: "All in the family."

Pejman Yousefzadeh summarizes and comments on yesterday's Supreme Court detainee decisions on Pejmanesque in "Illegal combatant cases" and "Rasul and its aftermath."

Last week Evan Coyne Maloney showed up with his video camera and microphone to record interviews with our fellow citizens standing in the line of autograph-seekers snaking around the corner of Broadway and Wall Street in lower Manhattan. He asked the Clintophiles for their thoughts on Bill, his book, and his legacy. You can view the results on Evan's Brain Terminal site under the heading "The Clinton legacy." Highly recommended.

Rantingprofs has a good piece on how the editorial pages of the New York Times and Washington Post have reacted to the Supreme Court decisions in the detainee cases. The Post is happy to see limits placed on the administration, but nervous about the implications of the decision granting Guantanamo detainees access to U.S. courts. By contrast, the Times follows its "war, what war?" approach.

Rantingprofs also offers this sensible observation:

"These detentions, I understood, just drove some people around the deep end, and I understood why. What I didn't understand was people who went one step further and argued that the detentions in and of themselves proved we'd lost our liberties. To me the legal cases in and of themselves proved that wasn't, couldn't be the case, since the process remained in play. And, indeed, the Court has severely limited the government's ability to take and hold detainees. So, the government was holding detainees. Their right to do was challenged in the courts. The administration made legal arguments in response to those challenges. Kind of the way the system is supposed to play out."

Not that the system is without its weaknesses. The issue in the "due process" cases decided yesterday was how much process is "due" terrorist suspects, taking into account our national security interests. In our system that decision rests with the judicial branch which, for some time now, has been in the process providing business. Naturally, it tends to err (as I believe it did yesterday with respect to Rasul, the Guantanamo detainee) on the side of granting too much process, just as the executive branch tends to err (as I believe it did in its position with respect to Hamdi, the U.S. citizen) on the side of granting too little. In time of peace I prefer the former error; in time of war, I prefer the latter one.

UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge makes a similar point about the Supreme Court's institutional bias in these cases: "Many will claim that the court is defending the rule of law. Crap. In my view, the court was protecting the rule of judges."

The results of the Canadian election are in. As Fox News reports, "voters stripped the long-dominant Liberal Party of its outright control of Parliament, but left it enough seats to take charge of Canada's first minority government in 25 years." According to Fox, the Liberals will likely form "an informal governing coalition" with the left-wing New Democratic Party. However, the Toronto Star suggests that what is really in store for Canadians is "government by uncertainty."

Although the Conservatives did much better than in the recent past, the results must be disappointing to them, since polls showed them neck-in-neck with the Liberals. Fox surmises that voters were reluctant to turn over power to the Conservatives' relatively untested leader, 45-year-old Stephen Harper.

Meanwhile, reader Bruce Korol adds these notes on the Canadian political landscape:

"The main reason for the Conservative comeback is probably the fact that the right is united for the first time since the Reform party split from the Conservatives after Mulroney's tenure. Furthermore, the Conservatives were almost blanked in the last election because the true conservatives were voting for the Alliance party not the mushy-middle Progressive Conservatives.

"[Economic issues are] obviously a key component [of the comeback] but the latest 'Adscam' scandal where the Liberal party lined the pockets of friends and friendly ad companies surely contributed to Canadians being disgusted (finally, considering the long line of scandals and boondoggles we have had to endure for the last decade under the Liberals) enough to vote Conservative. Speaking as an Albertan, we may be sweeping this province and the west Conservative but the problem in Canada lies in Eastern Canada where they love their nanny state and fully endorse this culture of collectivism that has defined Canada."

UPDATE: PoliPundit has a good analysis of the Canadian results.

William F. Buckley, Jr. is the founder of the modern conservative movement that gained its political expression first in Barry Goldwater and then Ronald Reagan. At age 29 in 1955 when Buckley founded National Review as the voice of the movement, he performed two acts of statesmanship that were vital to the movement's ultimate, if unlikely, success: he reserved exclusive ownership of the magazine to himself so as to prevent the kind of sectarian brawls that had killed other such magazines, and he prohibited John Birchers and other kooky anti-Semitic organizations from the magazine's precincts.

Recall, as John Judis does in his biography of Buckley, that in 1954 the fortunes of the American Right had never appeared dimmer; the principal right-wing organizations were anti-Semitic and neo-isolationist throwbacks to the thirties and forties. Recall also that in the Publisher's Statement of National Review's first issue, Buckley defined conservatism as the willingness to "stand athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who do."

Buckley conceived of the magazine's mission as presenting "a responsible dissent from Liberal orthodoxy," adding that the magazine's editors had "a considerable stock of experience with the irresponsible Right." Perhaps equally notably, the "responsibility" on which Buckley staked the magazine's mission was never to be confused with dullness. Both he and the magazine took on the best that the liberals could furnish and bested them with a smile on their face and a glint in their eye.

Today's New York Times reports that at a private dinner this evening Buckley will divest himself of the ownership of National Review and transfer control to a board of five trustees: "National Review founder says it's time to leave stage." It is a pivotal moment in the history of the conservative moment. Congratulations are in order, and attention must be paid.

UPDATE: Power Line reader and science fiction writer Dafydd ab Hugh adds:

Bill Buckley happens to be good friends with my pal and occasional collaborator, Brad Linaweaver... and there are some interesting things about Buckley and National Review that are rarely mentioned.

First of all, nearly half the charter members of the magazine's staff were ex-Communists. When this was pointed out to Buckley one day by some puckish interviewer, Buckley flashed his trademarked grin and responded, "yes... EX-Communists!"

His blowup with Gore Vidal during one-the-air "blogging" of the 1968 Democratic National Convention occurred when Vidal, in a fit of girly-man pique, referred to Buckley as a "crypto-Nazi." Buckley retaliated by calling Vidal a "faggot." (Buckley was wrong, for once; Vidal was not a homosexual; he was an omnisexual, being equally happy sleeping with men, women, or likely anything else not swift enough or lucky enough to escape his embraces.) Years later, Vidal confessed that he hadn't meant to say crypto-Nazi... he intended to call Buckley a crypto-Fascist, but the other just slipped out. Buckley says he would never have reacted so violently to being called a crypto-Fascist, but crypto-Nazi was "beyond the pale."

Until he entered the mental twilight of his last years, Ronald Reagan always insisted that what he really was, politically, was "a National-Review conservative." Those who try to paint Reagan as some sort of proto-neocon might do well to bear this in mind.

Bill's series about CIA spy Blackford Oakes was deliberately intended to be the most realistic -- read morally ambiguous -- spy series ever written. Buckley says he was trying to show that he could be just as morally equivalent as the next fellow, hence just as literary. Because (I'm convinced) of the moral ambiguity, the Blackford Oakes novels were taken much more seriously by the New York literary Mafia than anything else Buckley ever wrote.

The best of them is undoubtedly Stained Glass, about an assignment for Oakes to assassinate a young, rising, charismatic, neo-Nazi politician in West Germany. If you read no other Blackford Oakes novels, you should read this one.

Buckley, who spent an unknown period of time in some unknown relationship with the CIA doing undiscussed favors for them, is also a sailor with his own yacht; he has written several books of travelogue about his sailing adventures, sometimes all alone on the boat for weeks.

Buckley actually spoke Spanish before he spoke English, due to time spent in Mexico (where his family has oil interests) and being raised in New York by Mexican nannies. I don't believe National Review has ever had a profitable year... but like Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, Buckley decided that he could lose a lot of money each year and still be able to run the magazine for decades.

Brad got Bill Buckley to write a science-fiction story (short short) to open Brad's anthology Free Space, the first libertarian SF anthology. The second and best story in the book, "Nerfworld," was written by your faithful correspondent. So I reckon I can truly say that William F. Buckley, Jr. has introduced me!

Jacques Chirac has reacted badly to President Bush's statement that the EU should admit Turkey. For Chirac it is always about "turf." Thus, he frets that, by opining on the subject, Bush "went into territory that isn't his." But Chirac's a fretful guy. He once fretted that Tony Blair was "very rude." Later, he fretted that certain Eastern European countries had missed a good opportunity to shut up, after they supported U.S. policy in Iraq.

The future of Turkey is obviously of vital importance to U.S. Thus, Bush was well-advised to miss his opportunity to shut up about whether that future should be European. Chirac's pitiful reaction is an added bonus.

The old Latin adage holds that "vox populorum est vox dei" -- the voice of the people is the voice of God (or the god). Vox Popoli, however, is the voice of Vox Day, the WorldNetDaily and Universal Press Syndicate commentator, apparently intended to be confused with "vox dei." Vox bills himself as a novelist and Christian libertarian, advertising Glenn Reynolds' speculation that he is "the love child of William F. Buckley and Ayn Rand."

I believe that Vox is originally from Minnesota and I know that he is a frequent guest on our Northern Alliance Radio Network show, where he is a favorite of the guys at Fraters Libertas, who hold the whip hand during the show's third hour.

The Supreme Court has issued rulings in three cases dealing with the rights of detained terror suspects and combatants. The Court rejected several of the Bush administration's key positions. Here is the report from Fox News ("Mixed Rulings on Terror Detention Policies"). Here's the Washington Post's take ("Supreme Court Backs Civil Liberties in Terror Cases").

In the Hamdi case, involving a U.S. citizen, a four judge plurality concluded that the president had the right to detain Hamdi. However, by a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court also ruled that Hamdi has a right to his day in court, and only Justice Thomas actually supported the administration's position. For what it's worth, I agree with the Court on this one.

In the Rasul case, which involved prisoners held at Guantanamo, a 5-4 majority held that foreigners arrested overseas also have access to the U.S. courts. This ruling strikes me as daft. As Justice Scalia said in his dissent, the "consequence of this holding, as applied to aliens outside the country, is breathtaking. It permits an alien captured in a foreign theater of active combat to bring [suit against the Secretary of Defense]. The Commander in Chief and his subordinates had every reason to expect that the internment of combatants at Guantanamo Bay would not have the consequence of bringing the cumbersome machinery of our domestic courts into military affairs." Come to think of it, though, the Commander in Chief should probably have realized that this Court would unleash that machinery.

In the Padilla case, the Court ruled that a lawsuit filed on behalf of detainee Jose Padilla improperly named Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld instead of the much lower-level military officer in charge of the Navy brig in South Carolina where Padilla has been held for more than two years. Padilla must refile a lawsuit challenging his detention in a lower court. But for this technicality, Padilla almost surely would have prevailed in his position that, as a U.S. citizen, he cannot be held without being charged. And he should prevail on this question, in my view.

As one would expect, the Volokh Conspiracy has fine commentary on these rulings. For example, Eugene Volokh picks up on Justice Scalia's theme to explain how, under the Rasul decision, litigation could easily become a tactic of warfare. It was widely reported that the American legal system was something of a joke among terrorists prior to 9/11. The joke was that America retaliated against terrorists by filing lawsuits. Since 9/11, the joke has been on the terrorists. But now, thanks to the Supreme Court, it may be the terrorists who retaliate by filing lawsuits.

I have printed out the three lengthy opinions issued by the Supreme Court in the detention cases today and will be studying them over the next few days to prepare for an appearance as guest host on the Minnesota public television program Face to Face this coming Sunday with University of Minnesota Law School Professors Jim Chen and Guy Charles.

I hesitate to say anything about the opinions until I have studied them, although I expressed my trepidations about what the Court would do in a post ("The sixth sense," also published on FrontPage as "Rights for detainees?") that appears prescient in retrospect. For readers who want to sort things out for themselves with some educated guidance, I recommend Larry Solum's excellent round-up on Solum's Legal Theory Blog. (Courtesy of Instapundit.)

is the title of the forthcoming film by Twin Cities filmmaker Michael Wilson. Michael Moore Hates America.com is Wilson's site. Reader Matthew Salzwedel writes:

With the debut of Farenheit Lies and Half-truths this weekend, I thought that you and your readers might be interested in a young filmmaker directing a documentary exposing Moore for who he is: a left-wing, America- hating propagandist.

There are two trailers on the website that provide a quick peek at the movie. It should be our duty to see this movie this summer.

Earlier this month the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a good story on Wilson's project: "Moore gets a dose of his own." According to the story, Wilson's film is scheduled for an August release.

Today is election day in Canada. David Frum says that the polls show a dead heat between the ruling Liberal party and the Conseratives, who not that long ago lost nearly all of their seats in parliament. Frum thinks the reason for the Conservative's comeback is that, although "Canada prospered in the 1990s, individual Canadians did not." And, in part, that was because "the lion’s share of Canadian economic growth in the 1990s was pocketed by government, especially the federal government."

Now that the Iraqis are in charge, they intend to lose no time in bringing Saddam Hussein to trial. An Iraqi spokesman announced today that Saddam will be charged before an Iraqi judge within the next few days.

Meanwhile, Saddam's defense team has been busy, making various appeals for his release. Here is what astounded me: Saddam's team now consists of no fewer than 1,500 lawyers! Many are from Arab countries, but others are Americans and Europeans. Presumably Saddam no longer has access to the money he stole during the long years he ruled Iraq, so can we assume that 1,500 lawyers believe that representing Saddam Hussein constitutes "pro bono" work? Disgusting. It shows, too, the folly of treating someone like Saddam as a criminal defendant. There were, I think, two good options for dealing with him: 1) shoot him on sight, or immediately upon completion of interrogation, or 2) establish a committee of inquiry to take testimony from, and on behalf of, Saddam's victims. The committee would not hear from Saddam, but would issue a report itemizing his misdeeds for the historical record. Then he would be shot.

Unfortunately, the criminal prosecution model now seems to be established as the "proper" way to deal with a deposed tyrant. I hope they've got a big courtroom in Baghdad.

This past Saturday morning Rocket Man and I were interviewed by Chuck Olsen and his lovely assistant Lori Erickson. By day Chuck is the Web master for the local Twin Cities public television station; by night he is a filmmaker whose present project is a documentary on the development and growth of the blogosphere.

Rocket Man noted the invitation from Chuck to be interviewed for the film in "Coming soon to theaters near you." Rocket Man observed that we were to be the first conservative bloggers interviewed by Chuck, but I believe that Rocket Man has by himself now redressed the balance.

Chuck has already posted excerpts of the interview that he and Lori filmed with us Saturday morning on his Blogumentary site. Chuck has posted Rocket Man's impassioned disquisition on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

Attentive viewers may deduce the basis of the long and fruitful collaboration that Rocket Man and I have enjoyed over the past 20 or so years; I enjoy listening to him.

The U.S. jumped the gun and transferred sovereignty to Iraqis two days ahead of schedule. The speeded-up transfer was apparently prompted by security concerns. The ceremony was attended by only a handful of people. I don't suppose it makes any difference, but the hurried-up transfer certainly doesn't inspire much confidence.

Meanwhile, Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun has apparently been abducted and is now threatened with murder. The story of Hassoun's abduction sounds odd; the terrorists say that they sneaked onto a Marine base and lured the Marine off it. Hassoun is a Muslim from Utah, which is being treated as a coincidence. Or maybe the terrorists deliberately singled out a soldier they could see was of Arab descent. The whole scenario seems strange, but maybe it will make more sense when and if more facts become available.

In the meantime, the hostage-taking strategy has succeeded, as it usually does, in creating hysteria in the western media. The terrorists won't win in Iraq, but they may very well win here.

In Maryland, food stamp recipients don't actually get "stamps" anymore. They get a card, similar to a bank debit card, for use at grocery stores, etc. The name of this card? The "Independence Card."

As my friend Craig Harrision says, this is beyond euphemism. In Maryland, dependence now means independence.

Mark Steyn on how the 9/11 commission "blew it." As Steyn observes, "they were appointed to take a cool, dispassionate look at the government's response to an act of war, but they were unable to rise above the most pointless partisan point-scoring."

But Steyn makes a more fundamental and less obvious second point: "The underlying assumption behind all the whiny point-scoring is false, and deeply dangerous." Why? Because "most of what went wrong on Sept. 11 we knew about in the first days after. Generally, it falls into two categories: a) Government agencies didn't enforce their own rules (as in the terrorists' laughably inadequate visa applications); or b) The agencies' rules were out of date --three out of those four planes reached their targets because their crews, passengers and ground staff all blindly followed the FAA's 1970s hijack procedures until it was too late, as the terrorists knew they would. The next time a terrorist gets through and pulls off an attack, it will be for the same reasons: There'll be a bunch of new post-9/11 regulations, and some bureaucrat somewhere will have neglected to follow them, or some wily Islamist will have rendered them as obsolete as his predecessors made all those 30-year old hijack rules. That's the nature of government: 90 percent of its agencies just aren't very good and, if you put your life in their hands, more fool you."

We have long believed that it is almost certainly true that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. We explained why here. Briefly, Iraq sent one of its biggest advocates of nuclear weaponry on a trade mission to Niger. Niger exports virtually nothing except uranium; its second biggest export is animal hides. But the ridiculous Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame have obscured what seems to be a rather obvious inference, and the Bush administration, beating a retreat as usual, has apologized for referring to the African connection in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech.

Now the Financial Times is resurrecting the story, pointing out that that the famous forged documents are more or less irrelevant, and there has been solid intellligence, for several years, supporting the theory that Niger conspired to export uranium to Iraq and other rogue states:

The FT has now learnt that three European intelligence services were aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001. Human intelligence gathered in Italy and Africa more than three years before the Iraq war had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq.

This intelligence provided clues about plans by Libya and Iran to develop their undeclared nuclear programmes. Niger officials were also discussing sales to North Korea and China of uranium ore or the "yellow cake" refined from it: the raw materials that can be progressively enriched to make nuclear bombs.

The raw intelligence on the negotiations included indications that Libya was investing in Niger's uranium industry to prop it up at a time when demand had fallen, and that sales to Iraq were just a part of the clandestine export plan. These secret exports would allow countries with undeclared nuclear programmes to build up uranium stockpiles.

The Bush administration has known this all along. So why did it withdraw the Niger claim, rather than defending it? Who knows. It's too late now, in any event. If the administration thinks it can pull this chestnut out of the fire at this late date, it is mistaken. What Bush said was true, but the facts ceased being important long ago.

Like Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, Merle Haggard is a singer in whose voice one can hear all the strands of American popular music. Last Sunday's Los Angeles Times published a terrific profile of Haggard by Times music critic Robert Hilburn. Hilburn's profile focuses on Haggard's songwriting.

The profile is not accessible on the Times site, but it appears in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press and is available on the Pioneer Press site as "'Mama tried,' and Merle has done her proud." Hilburn opens the profile with a visit to Haggard from the tax man:

Merle Haggard, the country music star who really did turn 21 in prison, just like it says in one of his songs, figures it cost the IRS nearly $100,000 the day an agent came to his ranch near here to try to figure out what goes into writing a hit.

Haggard's tax return was apparently kicked out by the computer for too many business deductions, and the agent wanted the songwriter to show him how the 200-acre spread in the mountains helped him do his work.

During a walk around the grounds, Haggard explained how a creek inspired one song, a flowerbed led to another, and a bulldog jump-started a third.

"Finally, this fellow looks at me and says, 'Why, Mr. Haggard, everything you do is a write-off,' and he started pointing out other things I should have declared," the songwriter says, laughing so hard his whole body shakes.

I know Rocket Man is a fan of the Hag's tongue-in-cheek "My Own Kind of Hat." I wonder if the Hag might have pointed out any mothers, babies, fairies or cherries on the walk around the grounds.

The profile also explores Haggard's early days in prison. As governor of California Ronald Reagan granted Haggard a full pardon in 1972, and Haggard hasn't forgotten.

HINDROCKET adds: The Trunk gave me the four-CD version of Haggard's collected works a couple of years ago. I've been listening to it a lot, especially now that I've got pretty much my whole music collection on my iPod (more about that another time). Just a few minutes ago I was driving my oldest daughter home from the barn (horse barn, that is) and I played her some Merle along the way. She's a country music fan, but Merle is pretty authentic for today's teenagers, and it helped that she was a captive audience. If you haven't listened to Merle, I highly recommend the experience.

Alan Jackson recently recorded "My Own Kind of Hat," by the way, which shows that political correctness hasn't yet come to country music.

Michael Rubin argues, convincingly I think, that the "Fallujah experiment" has failed and should be put to an end. As Rubin explains: "Former Iraqi army officers have failed in their promise to apprehend those guilty of the mutilation of four American civilian contractors on March 31. Rather than expel foreign fighters, the Fallujah Brigade protects them. The Brigade has also not affected the surrender of heavy weapons. Meanwhile, free from the pressure of the siege, insurgents in Fallujah have regrouped, reequipped, and reorganized in the run-up to the June 30 transfer of sovereignty."

Rubin also argues that failure of the Baathist generals to promote our goals in Fallujah undercuts the conventional wisdom that it was a mistake to dissolve the Iraqi military. It seems to me that our success in the Shiite south may also undercut that "wisdom." For I question whether the Shiite uprising would have petered out as it has if Sunni Baathists were in charge of an Iraqi army.

Press coverage of President Bush's visit to Turkey has focused on the thousands of demonstrators who have turned out to protest. They are generally described as "anti-Bush" protesters; occasionally as anti-NATO. The press coverage universally suggests that President Bush is somehow blameworthy for incurring the ire of these demonstrators.

As the photo below shows, however, the Turkish demonstrators, like others around the world, have a broader agenda than the Iraq war or the current American President.

Press coverage--at least the coverage I've seen--also omits to mention that many Turks oppose our Iraq policy because they want to continue oppressing the Kurds in the southern part of Turkey, and fear that the democracy we are establishing in Iraq, in which Kurds will play a prominent role, may encourage the Kurds in Turkey to rebel.

But any suggestion that President Bush may have nobler motives than those who oppose and protest against him doesn't fit the media's story line, so coverage and analysis of protests in Turkey and elsewhere are nearly always sanitized.

I can't find a follow-up story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on the indictment of Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi in Minneapolis on Friday. For the follow-up we go to this morning's Boston Globe: "FBI probes sleeper cell possibility." The Globe reports:

The Boston office of the FBI is investigating whether a former local cabdriver indicted Friday on charges of lying about ties to a suspected terrorist may have been part of a "sleeper cell" in the Boston area supporting Al Qaeda terrorist activities and whether he may have connections to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in Washington and New York.

Lacking in yesterday's Star Tribune story was the obligatory testimony to the character of the accused, but the Globe has supplied it today:

Elzahabi, Masoud recalled, was quiet and hard-working, and when he left Boston Cab Co. in 1998, Elzahabi asked Masoud if he could lease Masoud's cab when he wasn't driving it. Masoud, who drove nights, agreed, and for six months Elzahabi drove Masoud's cab during the day, handing it back to him at night. They also lived together for five or six months, sharing an apartment above Angelina's Submarine Sandwich shop in Everett until Elzahabi left the area.

Masoud said he has not seen or heard from Elzahabi since Elzahabi moved out and did not know he had been arrested by the FBI. "I'm surprised. I don't understand," he said. "Why would he lie to the FBI?" Asked whether he thought Elzahabi could be involved in terrorist activities, Masoud said: "Not really. No."

Amazingly enough, both the Star Tribune and the Globe have reported the stories on possible local ties to al Qaeda without a single allusion to the threat to liberty posed by John Ashcroft.

On Friday the Wall Street Journal ran Mark Steyn's review of Bill Clinton's memoirs and the Journal has made it available online this morning: "The wrong way to Mount Rushmore."

Steyn points out a fact I have seen observed nowhere else; perhaps other reviewers such as Larry McMurtry didn't get quite as far in the book as Steyn did:

Is there anything interesting in "My Life" by Bill Clinton? Oh, yes. Page 870.

The Clintons are in New Zealand and finally get to meet "Sir Edmund Hillary, who had explored the South Pole in the 1950s, was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest and, most important, was the man Chelsea's mother had been named for."

Hmm. Edmund Hillary reached the top of Everest in 1953. Hillary Rodham was born in 1947, when Sir Edmund was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper and an unlikely inspiration for two young parents in the Chicago suburbs. I mentioned this in Britain's Sunday Telegraph eight years ago this very week, after this little story was trotted out the first time, but like so many curious anomalies in the Clinton record, it somehow cruises on indestructibly. By the time Sir Edmund shuffles off this mortal coil, the New York Times headline will read: "Man for Whom President Rodham Named Dies; Climbed Everest in 1947."

Throughout the rest of the review Steyn uses the mountain-climbing metaphor suggested by Clinton's reference to Sir Edmund to describe the experience of reading the book. (Courtesy of Malcolm Smordin.)

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is being hailed as a box office sensation after it grossed a little over $8 million on its opening night. By documentary standards, of course, that would be very good; but Moore's film is no more a documentary than, say, The Passion.

Fahrenheit 9/11 did manage to out-gross White Chicks, its main new-release competition. On the other hand, its opening weekend doesn't shape up as well as Garfield's, and it won't attract as many opening-weekend viewers as Beavis and Butthead Do America. We Were Soldiers, perhaps a more relevant comparison, also had a stronger opening weekend (assuming Fahrenheit's gross doesn't increase greatly tonight).

My guess is that the audience for Moore's hateful propaganda is limited, and the gate will fall off sharply after the first week or two. Like Air America, the value of Fahrenheit 9/11 to the Left lies not so much in people actually seeing it, as in the endless newspaper articles it will spawn.

We mentioned yesterday that the Bush campaign has produced a video on John Kerry's "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed." It shows clips of Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Al Gore and Kerry, along with clips from two anti-Bush ads that appeared on MoveOn.org, both of which showed images of Adolf Hitler and equated him to George Bush. The ad is pretty effective; it's the Bush campaign's first effort, as far as I know, to point out the madness that has afflicted the contemporary Democratic Party.

The ad obviously hit a nerve, and the Democratic National Committee has sent out an email to its mailing list of the faithful--I'm on it--denouncing the Bush video. The Democrats' email says:

It isn't often that we'd ask you to go to George W. Bush's campaign website. But every single American should go to georgewbush.com immediately and watch the disgusting ad the Bush/Cheney campaign has featured on the front page.

Titled "The Faces of John Kerry's Democratic Party," the ad features Adolf Hitler alongside Democrats, including John Kerry. President Bush's campaign has relied on negative attacks against Kerry, but this is a new low.

We've always said the Bush campaign would do anything to win, but even we are shocked that they've sunk this low. It's bizarre. It's outrageous. And we're not going to stand for it.

If President Bush has any decency at all, he'll remove this hateful ad from his website immediately.

The DNC then pleads for signatures on its petition demanding that President Bush "repudiate this disgusting ad putting Hitler alongside Democrats."

Is this bizarre, or what? Is there anyone in the world dumb enough to fall for the Democrats' spin? I doubt it. The Bush campaign has already retaliated; the video, which you can view here, now begins with these words:

The following video contains remarks made by and images from ads sponsored by Kerry Supporters. John Kerry has denounced our use of these ads attacking the President. He has not denounced liberal supporters like Al Gore, George Soros, and many others who have made speeches comparing the President to Adolf Hitler.

The Democrats' position is that it is OK for Democrats to produce that show images of Adolf Hitler morphing into George Bush; but it is terrible for Republicans to reproduce those images to point out how nuts the Democrats are. Not all Democrats are crazy. But the Democratic Party has gone insane.

The U.S. pounded another Zarqawi hideout in Fallujah yesterday. The Associated Press reports that Iraqi clerics have begun speaking out against Zarqawi's terrorist band.

"What sort of religion condones the killing of a Muslim by another Muslim?" asked Sheik Abdul-Ghafour al-Samarai, a member of the influential Sunni group the Association of Muslim Scholars, during a sermon in Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque.

Sheik Ahmed Hassan al-Taha said at Baghdad's al-Azimiya mosque, Iraq's foremost Sunni place of worship, that "it makes me sad to see that all the victims yesterday were Iraqis."

Muslim "religious" leaders don't seem to care much when infidels get beheaded, but draw the line when fellow Muslims start getting killed. My sympathy for these guys is limited.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has an in-depth analysis of Dick Cheney's swearing at the despicable Pat Leahy. Maybe he should have chopped Leahy's head off; then, based on recent experience, the Times would have buried the story.

This morning's Star Tribune reports that "Area man charged in terror case." Because the Star Tribune makes the story inaccessbile after 14 days, I'm pasting in the story by Star Tribune reporters David Chanen and Greg Gordon below:

A Lebanese national who allegedly told Minneapolis FBI agents he trained with Al-Qaida and knew three of its leaders, including one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq, has been charged in connection with an international terrorism inquiry.

On Friday, a federal judge in New York ordered the suspect, Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, who has lived in Minneapolis, transported to Minnesota without bail on charges of lying to federal agents.

During a series of voluntary interviews in April, Elzahabi told Minneapolis FBI agents that while in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and 1990s, he knew Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the Al-Qaida figure now suspected of engineering several deadly kidnappings in Iraq; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Abu Zubaida, a top Al-Qaida leader.

Elzahabi is charged with lying in denying that he sent walkie-talkies to Pakistan and that he helped get a Massachusetts driver's license for a man later convicted of plotting to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan.

Minnesota U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger wouldn't say if Elzahabi's actions are alleged to have contributed to any terrorist activities, but said the 10-page complaint "speaks for itself."

Attorney Paul Engh, who is representing Elzahabi, said he will be "vigorously defended."

Elzahabi came to Minneapolis in August 2001 after fighting in the war in Chechnya.

He is the latest of at least six men with ties to Minnesota who have been arrested or charged in Al-Qaida cases since the Sept. 11 attacks.

According to court documents, Elzahabi told agents that he associated with Al-Zarqawi, who U.S. officials said has masterminded the beheadings of Nicholas Berg and Kim Sun-il, a South Korean hostage.

Elzahabi, who appears to be in his early 40s, was living in Minneapolis at the time of the FBI interviews, but it isn't clear if he had lived in the city the whole time since he arrived in 2001. Heffelfinger said Elzahabi was arrested in New York and will appear in a Minnesota court within two weeks.

He moved to Minneapolis in the same month that federal agents arrested suspected Al-Qaida operative Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested while taking lessons at an Eagan flight school.

Moussaoui now faces capital conspiracy charges in connection with Al-Qaida's suicide hijacking plot. Heffelfinger wouldn't comment on whether Elzahabi's case had any connection to Moussaoui.

Buying a marriage

During the interviews with FBI agents, Elzahabi described himself as a Lebanese national who entered the United States in 1984 on a student visa and paid a Houston woman to marry him so he could be a permanent resident alien; they divorced in 1988 after he got his green card. The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him and began deportation proceedings, the affidavit said.

On June 9, Elzahabi was transferred to New York, where the FBI's counter-terrorism prosecution and interrogation operations have been centered, said Eric Sears, a New York attorney appointed Thursday to represent him there.

According to the affidavit, Elzahabi told authorities:

He first decided to travel to Afghanistan in 1988 after attending a religious conference in the Midwest, entering the country through Pakistan. He attended a jihad military training camp and fought in Afghanistan in 1988 and 1989, a period during which he knew Al-Zarqawi; Raed Hijazi, who later was convicted in Jordan for his part in a millennium bombing plot targeting American and Israeli tourists, and Bassam Kanj, who was killed by Lebanese troops in 2000 while leading a coup attempt aimed at installing a fundamentalist Islamic government.

In 1991, as Osama bin Laden was organizing Al-Qaida, Elzahabi returned to Afghanistan and stayed for about four years, training at the Khalden camp. He admitted that he "acted as a sniper in combat during this time" and that he served as a small arms and sniper instructor for other jihadists.

In 1995, he returned to the United States for medical care after he was shot in the abdomen during combat. He set up an axle repair business with a relative in New York City. In 1997, he moved to Boston where he stayed for two years, working as a cabdriver and again associating with Hijazi and Kanj.

In 1998, after leaving the United States, he got a call from Zubaida at the Khalden camp, seeking his help. Elzahabi said he declined to help.

He went home to Lebanon, where he helped provide small arms training to the group of fighters that Kanj formed to overthrow the Lebanese government.

He said he then decided to travel to Chechnya to join jihadists fighting the Russians.

Elzahabi said he reentered the United States in mid-August 2001 and came to Minneapolis. He had been living in a house near the University of Minnesota that is also home to a mosque.

Kathy Buckheit, Elzahabi's ex-wife, said Friday evening that the FBI had contacted her about him about two months ago. She said she asked if the questions were related to terrorism, but the agents wouldn't say.

Charged with lying

The two counts of making false statements to federal agents revolve around Elzahabi's activities in the United States.

He is alleged to have lied in stating that he allowed a man from Afghanistan to use his New York business address to receive shipments, but never knew what the shipments contained. The FBI said it turned up evidence showing that Elzahabi knew the shipments contained walkie-talkies and other electronics worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. "Field radios of the same make and model ... have been recovered in Afghanistan by U.S. military forces during military actions following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001," the affidavit said.

The second count charges that he denied helping Hijazi obtain a driver's license, although the FBI said it learned that Elzahabi drove him to the examination and that the license was mailed to Elzahabi's address.

Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland School of Law, said he wasn't familiar with Elzahabi's case but said he suspects the government is going after the easiest charge to prove.

"They may feel they want to put this guy away as fast as they possibly can and this is a surefire way of doing it," Greenberger said.

Prosecutors might then ask for his cooperation in other cases or take their time to build more of a case against him, Greenberger said.

By comparison, terrorism suspect Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, also detained in Minnesota, is accused of training at two Al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan and then wiring money to a bank account in Pakistan for Al-Qaida associates. He was charged in January with conspiracy to provide material support to Al-Qaida.

HINDROCKET adds: As abbreviated as it is, this account raises some obvious questions. The Strib reports that "The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained [Elzahabi] and began deportation proceedings," apparently in 1988. Elzahabi then left the country, engaged in various terrorist activities for seven years, and "returned to the United States for medical care" after getting shot in 1995, apparently without anyone noticing that he was supposed to have been deported. He then left the country again, and "reentered the United States in mid-August 2001" after participating in terrorist activities in Lebanon and Chechnya, again, apparently, without encountering any immigration problems.

Great border control.

ONE MORE THING: Who do you suppose paid for his medical care when he returned to the US after getting shot in Afghanistan?

The new issue of the Weekly Standard has the theme of "summer reading." The only book that it singles out for its unqualified recommendation is Steve Hayward's The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators, and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry. Noemie Emery's long review faithfully restates the book's argument.

Emery notes Hayward's iconoclastic evaluation of the ostensible good works to which Carter's post-presidential career has been devoted:

This is the conceit ripped into shreds by...The Real Jimmy Carter, which maintains that in his current incarnation Carter is as wrongheaded and hapless as ever, that he has learned nothing at all from history, and, in his new guise as a globe-trotting statesman, is reprising his role as a bringer of chaos, this time on the stage of the world.

Emery's excellent review is "The Muse of malaise."

That's what the L.A. Times says, anyway. Last night's event in Los Angeles was a financial success, netting $5 million for Kerry's campaign. Still, it didn't do much for the Democrats' reputation as hipsters. Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond performed a duet, singing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" for the Dems' heavy hitters:

Wow, that's a pretty hard act to top. Maybe the Republicans could get Frankie Valli and Petula Clark to sing "Feelings" at their next event.

Streisand soloed, too, singing "People"--for our younger readers, that's a song she recorded about forty years ago--but with new, really clever lyrics:

Rumsfeld, we must get rid of Rumsfeld/He's the spookiest person in the world…. This war we're lost in/Don't ask what it's costing/What's a trillion or two to rule the world?

That'll sway some votes for sure. Only someone better tell Bush to cancel that sovereignty handover.

The night consisted of the usual Bush-bashing, to an extent that apparently embarrassed Kerry. The Times reports:

At the end of the concert, Kerry sought to end the evening on a more positive note. While agreeing there is much frustration with the Bush administration, he added: "We're not just motivated by the things we don't like. We're motivated by the things we love."

Yes, like power.

Reuters reports that the Bush camp has responded to the latest madness by putting out a new video that attacks Kerry's "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed." Reuters seemed somewhat mystified:

The implication the Bush campaign appeared to be trying to leave was that some of the main boosters of Kerry's presidential campaign are filled with rage and perhaps a bit kooky.

The Bush ad