Major apologies for not being around to blog in a week. Life has just gotten so busy lately - spring is here, and along with that comes the urge to spend a lot of time outdoors!

I have purchased a Dell laptop this week for the purposes of writing more so I should be back to blogging soon - sitting behind this desktop, though, doesn’t always inspire one to write much! Hopefully the mobility of the laptop will remedy that Hope everyone has been doing well.

From the federal investigation into the admin’s hiring of conservative pundit Armstrong Williams to promote their education agenda:

The Bush administration’s hiring of a pundit to tout its education agenda was not illegal or unethical, but it was a poor decision and continued even after concerns were raised to the White House, an internal investigation found.

The report by the Education Department’s inspector general cited a pattern of blunders that led to the $240,000 contract with conservative commentator Armstrong Williams.

Senior officials showed poor management, information didn’t get to the right people and the agency paid for work that was poorly produced, Inspector General Jack Higgins said.

The department approved $240,000 for Williams, a commentator with newspaper, television and radio audiences, to promote President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. The deal was part of a $1.3 million contract the department had with Ketchum, a public relations firm.

Williams, who is black, was hired to inform minorities about Bush’s law by producing ads with then-Education Secretary Rod Paige. Yet, records show Williams also was hired to provide media time to Paige and to persuade other blacks in the media to talk about the law.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings acknowledged “serious lapses in judgment by senior department officials” but said those directly responsible are no longer at the agency. She pledged to adopt the report’s recommendations and restore credibility to the department.

Bravo.

That quote was from Howard Dean, DNC Chair. Here’s more:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday that his party would wield the Terri Schiavo case against Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but for now needed to stay focused battling President Bush on Social Security.

“We’re going to use Terri Schiavo later on,” Dean said of the brain-damaged Floridian who died last month after her feeding tube was removed amid a swarm of political controversy.

Dean, who has called congressional intervention in the Schiavo case “political grandstanding,” singled out House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) for his leading role in the matter.

“This is going to be an issue in 2006, and it’s going to be an issue in 2008,” Dean told about 200 people at a gay rights group’s breakfast in West Hollywood, “because we’re going to have an ad with a picture of Tom DeLay saying, ‘Do you want this guy to decide whether you die or not? Or is that going to be up to your loved ones?’ ”

Dean, a practicing physician until he became governor of Vermont in 1991, added: “The issue is: Are we going to live in a theocracy where the highest powers tell us what to do? Or are we going to be allowed to consult our own high powers when we make very difficult decisions?”

In other words, what he’s going to do is politicize an issue his own party criticized Republicans for allegedly politicizing.

Bring it on, Howie. Bring it on.

Just don’t know what news organizations to trust anymore:

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media.

The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seasonal hunt for baby seals off Newfoundland — a hunt, it turns out, had not taken place.

The story datelined Halifax, Nova Scotia described in graphic detail how the seal hunt began on Tuesday, with water turning red as hunters on some 300 boats shot harp seal cubs “by the hundreds.”

The problem, however, was that the hunt did not begin on Tuesday; it was delayed by bad weather and was scheduled to start on Friday, weather permitting, the Globe said in an editor’s note.

The article also reminds us:

U.S. media organizations have been hit with a series of high-profile cases involving plagiarism or fabrication.

In 2003, The New York Times’ top two editors, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, left the paper after it was disclosed that reporter Jayson Blair had fabricated and plagiarized material.

CBS News, The Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, the New Republic magazine and USA Today are among the other media icons caught up in celebrated flaps over inaccurate reporting.

Now, while I’m glad these instances of fabricated stories are making major headlines, I still think to myself: “Just where the heck do we go for news anymore?” I mean, think about it. Just about every major news organization out there has been hit with some type of scandal like this. Haven’t they learned by now that they HAVE to check their facts and verify their sources??

I’m no big fan of Tom Delay, but some of these ‘accusations’ against him are groundless and downright hypocritical. Take, for example, the roundhouse criticizing in Democratic circles (and the media, of course) regarding Delay paying his wife and daughter for political work:

The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by DeLay’s political action and campaign committees, according to The New York Times’ review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in DeLay’s home state of Texas.

Most of the payments to his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as “fund-raising fees,” “campaign management” or “payroll,” with no additional details.

The payments appear to reflect what DeLay’s aides say is the central role played by the majority leader’s wife and daughter in his political career.

DeLay’s national political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, said in a statement that the women had provided valuable services to the committee in exchange for the payments:

“Mrs. DeLay provides big-picture, long-term strategic guidance and helps with personnel decisions. Ms. Ferro is a skilled and experienced professional event planner who assists … in arranging and organizing individual events.”

Scandalous, right? Wrong:

If paying families for campaign work is illegal, than prominent Democrats including Howard Dean, Barbara Boxer, Joe Lieberman, Jon Corzine, and Jesse Jackson Jr. should all be doing a Joe Wilson inspired “frog-march” from the halls of Congress.

DNC Chair Howard Dean’s younger brother runs the website Democracy for America (DFA), which was created by Dean last year to help manage his presidential campaign. Dean’s younger brother Jim also worked for DFA in its earlier incarnation, Dean for America, during the 2004 presidential primaries. However, in a letter to supporters this week, DFA attacked Tom DeLay for having family members on his payroll.

In 2003, Barbara Boxer directed $15,000 from her political-action committee, “PAC For a Change,” to a consulting firm run by her son. The year before, she funneled $115,000 to the same firm.

Last year, Joe Lieberman paid his son Matthew $34,000 and daughter Rebecca $36,000 to work on his presidential campaign.

Also last year, Jon Corzine paid his daughter about $15,000 to work on his upcoming 2006 reelection campaign.

In fact, in 2001 it was Jesse Jackson Jr. who sought clarification from the Federal Election Commission to ensure Jackson was in good legal graces before hiring his wife to provide fundraising and organizational support to his campaign.

Other Democrats with family members on the payroll include Pete Stark, Bart Stupak, Jim Costa, Lincoln Davis, and Tim Bishop, amongst others.

Vermont congressman Bernie Sanders has paid his wife and daughter more than $150,000 in campaign consulting fees in the past several years.

Democrat Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is well known for supporting his family with high-paid congressional pork projects. Firms associated with Reid’s son have taken in millions from bills authored and sponsored by Reid.

Why did the media make such a big deal about this? His ethics charges are a seperate issue and should be dealt with. But the criticism about his family being paid money for political work they did for him is much ado about nothng, same ol’ business as usual for Washington - and manufactured issue in terms of what we should be outraged about regarding Delay, thanks - in part - to the Democrat’s willing accomplices in the mainstream media.

(To commemorate the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad - sorry, I’m a little late). Thanks to our fighting forces, the coalition, and the Iraqis who’ve fought along side them.

THEN:

Wednesday, 17 July, 2002, 11:40 GMT 12:40 UK:

Saddam scorns threats to Iraq

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has said that “evil tyrants and oppressors” will not be able to unseat him and his government.

“You will never defeat me this time. Never!” said Saddam Hussein, speaking in a televised address.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 16, 2002:

Saddam Hussein Wins One-Man Race

Iraq declared Saddam Hussein the winner Wednesday - by an 11 million-to-0 margin - in a war-shadowed referendum on his two-decade military rule, sending celebratory gunfire crackling from the streets and rooftops of Baghdad.

The 100 percent turnout, 100 percent ‘yes’ vote shows all Iraqis are poised to defend Saddam against American forces, the country’s No. 2 man said.

“If they come, we will fight them in every village, and every house,” said Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council, announcing results on what Iraq billed as a people’s referendum on keeping Saddam in power another seven years.

FAST FORWARD:

Last Updated: Wednesday, 9 April, 2003, 14:57 GMT 15:57 UK:

Baghdad falls to US forces
The government of Saddam Hussein has lost control over Baghdad, with the advance of US forces into the centre of the capital.

US tanks drove unhindered into public squares on the eastern bank of the Tigris for the first time, including the area surrounding the Palestine hotel, where the international media are based.

In a symbolic moment, an American armoured vehicle helped a crowd of cheering Iraqis to pull down a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in the al-Fardus square in front of the hotel.

Dozens of exultant people leapt on the deposed figure and stamped on it, shouting “Death to Saddam!”.

Sunday, December 14, 2003:

Saddam Captured ‘Like a Rat’ in Raid
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Without firing a single shot, U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein as he hid in the bottom of a hole at a farmhouse near Tikrit on Saturday.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,” L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, announced.

“The tyrant is a prisoner,” Bremer said.

The former Iraqi dictator was captured Saturday at 8:30 p.m. in the cellar of a farmhouse in the town of Adwar, 10 miles from Tikrit, ending one of the most intense manhunts in history. Saddam has been on the run since the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces on April 9.

“He was caught like a rat,” said Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno of the 4th Infantry Division at a separate press conference in Tikrit. “It was ironic that he was in a hole in the ground across the river from the great palaces her built using all the money he robbed from the Iraqi people.”

Thursday, April 7, 2005 Posted: 7:16 AM EDT (1116 GMT):

Saddam sees new president’s election
Iraqi transitional assembly elects Kurdish leader
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Iraq’s new transitional assembly took an expected but historic step Wednesday, electing Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as the nation’s president — a symbol of the new Kurdish clout in the largely Arab nation.

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein watched from his jail cell as the longtime leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan assumed the title Saddam held before he was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The vote was largely a formality and the role largely ceremonial, but the selection of a Kurdish president was a poignant, symbolic moment for a country where Kurds were persecuted under Saddam’s Sunni Arab regime.

The headlines everywhere seem to be about him this evening. Not much of a chance to read them in detail, but I’ll check them out in the a.m. to see what’s what. I’ve never been much of a Delay fan, but I’ll try to look at the articles as objectively as possible (while considering the source).

You were a great man - with the heart of a giant. You will be missed, but will never be forgotten.

Here’s wishing him well - hopefully his treatments will help him.

This is very disturbing. The person Wesley Smith is talking to and about in this article is bioethicist Bill Allen, who shares similar views on PVS and personhood as Dr. Ronald Cranford, one of the five doctors who examined Terri Schiavo. I’m bringing this up to discuss the repurcussions of what could happen should persons in a PVS state stop being considered human beings:

My debate about Terri Schiavo’s case with Florida bioethicist Bill Allen on Court TV Online eventually got down to the nitty-gritty:

Wesley Smith: Bill, do you think Terri is a person?

Bill Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood. Even minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood, but I don’t think complete absence of awareness does.

If you want to know how it became acceptable to remove tube-supplied food and water from people with profound cognitive disabilities, this exchange brings you to the nub of the Schiavo case — the “first principle,” if you will. Bluntly stated, most bioethicists do not believe that membership in the human species accords any of us intrinsic moral worth. Rather, what matters is whether “a being” or “an organism,” or even a machine, is a “person,” a status achieved by having sufficient cognitive capacities. Those who don’t measure up are denigrated as “non-persons.”

Allen’s perspective is in fact relatively conservative within the mainstream bioethics movement. He is apparently willing to accept that “minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood” — although he doesn’t say that awareness is determinative. Most of his colleagues are not so reticent. To them, it isn’t sentience per se that matters but rather demonstrable rationality. Thus Peter Singer of Princeton argues that unless an organism is self-aware over time, the entity in question is a non-person. The British academic John Harris, the Sir David Alliance professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester, England, has defined a person as “a creature capable of valuing its own existence.” Other bioethicists argue that the basic threshold of personhood should include the capacity to experience desire. James Hughes, who is more explicitly radical than many bioethicists (or perhaps, just more candid), has gone so far as to assert that people like Terri are “sentient property.”

So who are the so-called human non-persons? All embryos and fetuses, to be sure. But many bioethicists also categorize newborn infants as human non-persons (although some bioethicists refer to healthy newborns as “potential persons”). So too are those with profound cognitive impairments such as Terri Schiavo and President Ronald Reagan during the latter stages of his Alzheimer’s disease.

Personhood theory would reduce some of us into killable and harvestable people. Harris wrote explicitly that killing human non-persons would be fine because “Non-persons or potential persons cannot be wronged” by being killed “because death does not deprive them of something they can value. If they cannot wish to live, they cannot have that wish frustrated by being killed.”

Allen isn’t the only one who believes this. Dr. Ronald Cranford, one of the three doctors who diagnosed Terri Shiavo with PVS, doesn’t believe that some patients who are in a PVS should have Constitutional rights:

HANNITY: Did you once say that people in vegetative states should have no constitutional rights? Did you once, sir, say that patients with advanced Alzheimer’s Disease, it makes no sense at all to put a feeding tube in them? Did you say those things?

CRANFORD: I think I did write an article on constitutional rights many years ago with another constitutional scholar about the constitutional rights in a vegetative state…

HANNITY: So you said it?

CRANFORD: Yes. Yes, I did.

HANNITY: So people with Alzheimer’s Disease, sir, it makes to sense at all to put a feeding tube in them and that people in a vegetative state have no constitutional rights? You said those things?

CRANFORD: Those are two things. With the second thing, with the advanced Alzheimer’s, if it’s advanced Alzheimer’s it doesn’t make sense to put a feeding tube in them because if they can’t — they’re at a point where they need a feeding tube, they’re so severely demented…

I don’t need to tell you that this is scary stuff. I think we’re a long way down the road from the kind of thing that Cranford and Allen suggest, but we need to remain ever vigilant against these types. After all, taking someone’s personhood status away from them as well as their Constitutional rights means that person or group’s life will have to be devalued and dehumanized in some way. That’s an extremely slippery slope that we need to be watchful against.