*BLAME ENVIRONMENTALISTS: Why is California burning? Part of the answer may be that over the past two years environmental groups have delayed two-thirds of the projects designed to clear the undergrowth that fuels California forest fires.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) reported last week that environmentalists obstructed each of these projects by at least 120 days-even though they eventually lost 161 of their 180 challenges. "With nearly one million acres' worth of hazardous-fuels reduction projects tied up in appeals during this two-year period, the GAO analysis crystallizes the fact that administrative appeals constitute a significant impediment to getting a handle on America's forest health and wildfire crisis," said House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo (R.-Calif.).
*ENFORCE WHICH BORDER? The following exchange took place at President Bush's October 28 White House press conference. Reporter: "Mr. President, if there are foreign terrorists involved [in the attacks in Iraq], why aren't Syria and Iran being held accountable?"
President Bush: "Yes. Well, we're working closely with those countries to let them know that we expect them to enforce borders, prevent people from coming across borders, if, in fact, we catch them doing that. The coalition forces have stepped up border patrol efforts. There are now more Iraqis patrolling the border. . . . Gen. Abizaid, in his briefing to me yesterday, talked about the additional troops we have on the borders. And that is why it is important that we step up training for Iraqis, border patrol agents, so they can enforce their own borders."
*SYRIA'S COVER STORY: Two days before Bush's press conference, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara had already shrugged off U.S. demands that Syria seal its border with Iraq.
"We are doing everything we can," al-Shara told the London Sunday Telegram. "We have tightened our checkpoints and are turning people back. But the border is long and we cannot cover it all. If America, a rich superpower, cannot stop Mexicans crossing into the United States, then how can we, a poor country, be expected to stop Palestinians getting into Iraq?"
*DICKERING ON PICKERING: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) tried last week to force an up-or-down vote on the nomination of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering to the New Orleans-based federal appeals court. The move, which required 60 votes, fell six short, 54-43. All 51 Republicans voted to end the Democratic filibuster. Independent Jim Jeffords of Vermont, and Democrats John Breaux of Louisiana and Zell Miller of Georgia joined them.
* 'INSENSITIVITY' OR 'RACE BAITING': In 1967, Judge Pickering had the guts to testify against the Ku Klux Klan in his home state of Mississippi. He has spent a lifetime defending civil rights. But Senate Democrats have tried to falsely convict him of "insensitivity," as Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York puts it. Maverick Democrat Zell Miller puts it better. "Pickering," he said, "has been the victim by inaccurate race-baiting and political trash talk by the news media, members of Congress and Washington's liberal elite. Judge Pickering's critics continue to unfairly label him a racist and segregationist. Nothing could be further from the truth."
*MILLER TIME FOR BUSH: Speaking of Miller, last week the retiring Georgia Democrat announced he would vote to reelect President Bush. Calling Bush "the right man at the right time," Miller said, "The next five years will determine the direction of the world that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live in. I do not want to trust that crucial decision to the current Democratic field. So, I plan to vote for George Bush and will help him any way I can. This does not mean I am going to become a Republican."
*LIEBERMAN GOES POSITIVE: Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman has ducked out of the Iowa caucuses and is now focusing on New Hampshire, where he has made his first television buy. One features Lieberman talking about his vote for President Bush's $87-billion package for U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We had to make a choice," he says in the ad. "I didn't duck it. I didn't play politics. I voted to support our troops and finish the job."
*NOT CLEAR: Lieberman was not so positive about strengthening immigration enforcement. At a National Latino Peace Officers Association conference October 24, he blasted the CLEAR Act, a bill to enable local law enforcement to enforce immigration law. "I don't know whose bright idea this was, but this bulb ought to be turned off," said Lieberman, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia Rep. Charlie Norwood (R.), author of the CLEAR Act, responded with a letter to Lieberman. "I suggest you be more concerned about the 400,000 individuals with final deportation orders that our immigration officers can't find, running loose within our borders, than votes," wrote Norwood. "Of that 400,000, you should be alarmed that 80,000 have criminal convictions and 3,800 are from countries with known ties to al Qaeda."
*CAN'T CONTAIN HIMSELF: We noted last week in "Capital Briefs" that the Los Angeles Times reported that Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois had called California Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown's views on government "despicable." The Times report was mistaken. A transcript of Brown's confirmation hearing for a seat on the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia reveals it was Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Teddy Kennedy who made the absurd charge.
"[Y]ou stated [in a speech]," said Kennedy in Brown's confirmation hearing, "where government . . . advances relentlessly, freedom is imperiled, community impoverished, religion marginalized, civilization itself jeopardized. . . . My question is to you: how in the world can anyone . . . have any confidence with how you'll rule in the district court when you've taken . . . such a despicable attitude towards what government and government institutions can do?" (Kennedy's full diatribe, click here.)
