Shots In The Dark

A couple days ago, I wrote that I hoped to see more headlines like the one from an Australian website, "'Intelligent Design' Scorned." I even liked that they put "intelligent design" in quotation marks.

Sometimes, you really do get what you ask for...

Cornell President Condemns Teaching Intelligent Design as Science

Perhaps other Ivy League presidents should follow in the lead of Cornell president Hunter R. Rawlings IIIrd....

According to the Crimson, when one female student asked Larry Summers about the possibility of a women's center at Harvard, Summers responded, “A women’s center is one of the last things I want to see on campus.”

As the Crimson puts it, "a spokesman for Summers declined to comment on the anecdote." (Is that you, John Longbrake? Are we back to the Lucie McNeil days, when the president's only spokesperson refused to allow herself to be identified?)

I'm inclined to believe this anecdote. The language sounds like Summers, and so does the opinion.

I'm equally sure that Summers could make compelling arguments to back up his conclusion.

But so much of leadership is about voice, about telling people things they don't want to hear in a way that minimizes tension, rather than exacerbating it. (And here I disagree with conservatives who seem to think that great leadership in a college president means sticking it to women, minorities, liberals, etc., by giving them a rhetorical middle-finger and then feigning shock at their outrage.)

When Summers was in Washington, he learned that he couldn't get away with this kind of remark because there were people more powerful than he who would make his life a living hell for it.

Now, he clearly doesn't feel that way; no individual is powerful enough at Harvard to challenge him, particularly not a student.

The result: a gratuitously rough remark to a student who is, after all, probably 20 years old or so.....

Congress has passed a law shielding the gun industry from lawsuits arising from crimes committed by people using their products.

"It's a historic piece of legislation," Wayne LaPierre, the association's chief executive, told the New York Times. LaPierre added that the bill was the most significant victory for the gun lobby since Congress rewrote the federal gun control law in 1986. "As of Oct. 20, the Second Amendment is probably in the best shape in this country that it's been in decades."

Without addressing the merits of this law, let me just point out that it runs contrary to the most fundamental tenet of the Republican Party: federalism. Congress has passed a law overriding the laws of every state in the entire country on a subject about which there is widespread disagreement and no clear moral impetus (as with, say, civil rights law).

And, though Republicans have long decried the power of the Supreme Court to decide the law of the land, they are now trying to stack the court with judges who will support the constitutionality of the big-government laws they are passing.

Emerson said that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. (Emerson was more full of shit, in my opinion, than a port-a-potty at Woodstock, particularly in this blatantly self-rationalizing quote, but there you are.)

If so, then Tom DeLay is a great man. But I like to think that a little ideological consistency is actually a good thing in the long run, and that serious conservatives ought to be worried about such heavy-handed measures. If they really believe that the smaller the government the better, how do they justify such measures, other than with an "ends justifies the means" argument?

Advertising exec Neil French has resigned after telling an industry audience that women in advertising don't rise to the top because "they don't deserve to," thanks to the demands on them as mothers.

Defending his remarks, Mr. French told the New York Times, "A belligerent question deserves a belligerent answer. The answer is, They don't work hard enough. It's not a joke job. The future of the entire agency is in your hands as creative director."

After an outraged response from some of those present, French, 61, resigned his position as creative director of the advertising conglomerate, WPP Group.

Interestingly, French's remarks mirrored those of Larry Summers last winter, when he said that women didn't rise to the top levels of math and science primarily because their domestic responsibilities kept them from working the necessary hours.

But that argument was overshadowed when Summers' second argument, that women are genetically less capable at math and science than men are, caused a storm of controversy.

What's ironic about the sensitivity to this issue is that it's something lots of women would agree with—they do more at home than men do, and they pay a professional price for doing so.

The answer would seem to be getting men to accept at least an equal domestic burden.

But many women genuinely don't seem to want that; many women (along with most men) genuinely seem to believe that they are—dare I say it?—genetically more inclined to bond with their kids than men are. I've spoken to lots of moms who say that it's not a question of culture; their young children just have a stronger connection to them than they do with their fathers. And if you suggest that that bond is a social construct, these women can get very offended, and expound upon the connection between a child and the person who carried it for nine months inside her—an argument that makes some sense to me. How could a baby not have a stronger connection with that person than with a guy who just shows up in the delivery room?

Moreover, I've found that many women don't really want a man who isn't at least their professional equal. I know a couple of house husbands, and they all say that they sense a subtle disrespect from women they know, and they're not particularly welcomed among, say, groups of mothers at the playground.

So, back to Summers and French. Both men are clearly on to something; they're taking stabs at explaining an issue that affects most everyone in our society. It's just particularly sensitive for women. Why? Because, I think, the ultimate truth of this debate is that many women want it all—quantity kid time and professional succcess—but can't have it all, because, well, no one can really do that. There aren't enough hours in the day.

Whereas men don't want it all; we want to spend more time at work.

Who knows? I'm hardly an expert on this stuff. But in any case, I would propose two things: That when men try to discuss this issue, we try to do so with sensitivity, recognizing that this is, at least now, a more cutting and troublesome issue for women than it is for us.

And second, that women who believe in changing roles for their own sex are consistent and support men who try to change gender roles for themselves.....

Sports Illustrated runs this Q & A with its own reporter, Michael Bamberger, after Bamberger complained to a WPGA official about a suspected rule violation by first-time pro Michelle Wie. Things must really be hot for Bamberger, who caused Wie to be disqualified from the tournament.

I earlier argued that Bamberger was wrong to interject himself into the conduct of a golf tournament, and this interview does nothing to convince me that I'm wrong.

Here's Bamberger's rationale for his action, which took place on Sunday, the tournament's last day:

Saturday night literally was sleepless for me. I didn't want to insert myself into the story. On the other hand, as someone who loves golf and thinks playing by the rules is a critical element to making tournament golf work, I was worried about how I would feel if I said nothing. I had this scenario in my head: How would I feel on Monday when I looked at the newspaper and saw where she had finished, knowing that, in my mind, her position was not legitimate.

Let me admit that I'm skeptical of anyone, particularly any writer, who says "Saturday night literally was sleepless for me." I'm trying to imagine a figuratively sleepness night. Is that even possible?

More important, Bamberger says he broke journalism's rules of being a reporter, not a participant because he was worried about how he would feel.

Imagine if reporters in other sports used this rationale every time they saw a bad call. The phones of sports officials would be ringing off the hook. You know, I just had to call up about Robinson Cano being called out at first—I feel really bad about that.....

Asked his reaction when he heard that Wie was disqualified, Bamberger responds, "I felt emotionally dead. I like being in the background -- that's one reason why I'm a reporter. I knew I had influenced the outcome. But I also knew I would've been sick to my stomach if I had not said anything."

Emotionally dead? Sick to his stomach? This kind of reaction might be understandable in Anderson Cooper reporting from New Orleans, but Michael, it's just a golf tournament.

Sports Illustrated has a reporter who's clearly too close to his material, and Michelle Wie has paid an unfair price for that. The magazine should remove Bamberger from the golf beat.

'Intelligent Design' scorned

That's from an Australian website.

And we wonder why Australian universities have become more popular than American ones....maybe it's because they don't have to teach nonsense?

Those are the words used by Arlen Specter to describe Harriet Miers' responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire, as both GOP and Democratic leaders asked her to rewrite some of her answers.

Aren't they also words that could be used to describe the entirety of this Supreme Court nomination?

If Miers really goes through with these confirmation hearings, scheduled to start November 7th, I will be Tivo-ing them religiously. It'll be like watching a car crash in which the only person who gets hurt is an empty-headed, ill-equipped and unprepared judicial nominee.

Oh, right, and the president. And, in some way, probably the country.

Please, President Bush...do us all a favor. Put Harriet Miers out of her (and our) misery. Withdraw this nomination.

Now we know why Harvard FAS dean Bill Kirby recently announced a slowdown of faculty hiring: he's projecting deficits in the tens of millions of dollars, starting next year.

Higher-than-expected construction costs are to blame, Kirby says, even as he argues that FAS has been planning for these deficits.

Huh.

For construction overruns to run into, say, $50 million a year—higher and lower figures were guesstimated—someone really has to have been asleep at the wheel. Granted, Harvard's got a lot going on, but this isn't the Big Dig here.

Whatever the case, the idea of FAS running a deficit isn't going to make anyone feel comfortable. Harvard has made so much money, and with such apparent ease, in the last fifteen years or so, the experience of losing money is going to feel very foreign. I would be surprised if there are no administrative consequences as a result.

Especially when combined with this other headline from today's Crimson: Stalled [Curricular] Review Inches Ahead.

Tina Brown coins a new term for the age in her Washington Post column today: "fake transparency."

She's talking, of course, about the Times' long Judith Miller story, and the fact that that story seemed to raise more questions than it answers. That's a cliche, but in this case, it's really true. You can't trust the accounts of any of the players in the piece; everyone comes across as dodgy and not trustworthy. And as Brown points out: How exactly did Miller keep "kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm"? Why was Miller apparently driving the Times' legal conduct of the episode?

"'Transparency,'" Brown writes, "turns into a combination of partial truths and morose institutional venting that makes everyone, including the readers, feel worse about themselves and the newspaper than they did before."

I agree with the first half of that sentence and part of the second. I do feel worse about the Times than I did before. Its half-assed reportage (no fault of the reporters, in this case) of its own half-assed mistakes lays bare the emperor's lack of clothing.

But I feel pretty good about myself and all the other bloggers and journalism-watchers out there; we've all held the Times' feet to the fire on this one. I can't wait to see its subsequent articles clarifying this first one. It's a grand mystery, and watching it unfold is a combination of good fun and high stakes.

I have only one caveat: We do need to remember who the ultimate bad guys are, the people who conducted a smear campaign against a CIA operative and her husband in order to spook the country into war....

Two Miami men have captured a ten-foot-long Burmese python that they suspect was scarfing exotic fish from an outdoor pool.

(Let us pause here and reflect upon the wackiness of the world.)

It's a helluva story. As the Miami Herald puts it, "The suspect resisted arrest."

The snake was discovered by one Tommy Compton near the man's fish pond. It evaded capture and slipped into the water. Then, showing either unparalleled courage or a craven desire to show off for the TV camera crew that he had called, Compton and a friend jumped into the pool and wrestled the beast into submission. They sustained several bites in the process, but apparently—and contrary to the thoughts of at least one poster on this blog—the python bite is not venomous. Still, the experience is probably less pleasurable than, say, a love bite from Carmen Elektra.

According to one snake expert, ''Typically pythons aren't fish eaters. But you never doubt a hungry snake. They are very resourceful.''

I believe I'm going to adopt that slogan, especially when dealing with gossip columnists: Never doubt a hungry snake.

Don't you just love nature as metaphor?

Reaganite Republican Bruce Bartlett has been ousted from his position at the conservative National Center for Economic Analysis after writing a book critical of the Bush administration.

The book, called ""The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," is self-explanatory. It is also, of course, evidence of the deep split within American conservatives over the Bush presidency.

I must say, I love rubbernecking at this conservative civil war. For years, the conservatives have had it both ways, campaigning on ideals of small government and reduced federal spending even as they turn to the federal government to impose their ideological mandates on the country and the world. This implosion is long overdue. I can't even say that I give conservatives like Bartlett credit for engaging in the debate...for years, they turned a blind eye to the party's internal contradictions so as not to interrupt the party's march to power. Now that legacy of willful denial is coming home to roost.

Ryan Lizza of The New Republic points out that earlier this year, Harriet Miers, the White House counsel, was not even licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia...and now she's a nominee to the Supreme Court.

Here's his excerpt from Miers' responses to Senate Judiciary Committee questions:

"Earlier this year, I received notice that my dues for the District of Columbia Bar were delinquent and as a result my ability to practice law in D.C. had been suspended. I immediately sent the dues in to remedy the delinquency. The nonpayment was not intentioned, and I corrected the situation upon receiving the letter."

Let's forget the obvious and pathetic embarrassment that this SCOTUS nominee had her law license suspended. Okay, sure, it happens, whatever. I'm more struck by her language: "the nonpayment was not intentioned."

Argh.

Let's see how one could phrase this clause. "I was busy, and forgot to mail the check...." Or: "I meant to pay, but I was busy approving torture in Iraq...." Or, simply: "My bad."

Instead, Miers uses that awful phrase: "The nonpayment was not intentioned."

Intentioned?

It's the same kind of passive language that she used in her letters to the Texas Bar, as pointed out by David Brooks, which, as you now know, I can not link to because of TimesSelect (speaking of awful language).

Not only is this excruciatingly bad writing—though we shouldn't downplay that in a potential Supreme Court justice—but I would argue that it's a metaphor for Miers' relationship with President Bush, and perhaps her approach to life. She's attached herself like a remora to a more powerful person. What happens next is unexpected and, well, dare I say it? Not intentioned. Maybe that's why she apparently turned down an earlier offer to be nominated to replace Sandra Day O'Connor...she never realized how far passivity could take her. But now that she's gotten used to the idea, she's willing to ride the president all the way to the Supreme Court. It is, I guess, one model for getting ahead in life....

Joe Scarborough talks with a snake expert about the vicious warring between pythons and alligators in the Everglades.

It's kind of like the movie Underworld, which posited a long-running blood feud, heh-heh, between vampires and werewolves. (Expect Underworld II sometime next year.)

My favorite quote: "When the snake is bigger and can overpower the alligator, then the snake will win. But alligators have been known to win. And there have been ties."

Ties? Does that mean there are rematches?

And my favorite fun fact: Python-alligator fights have reportedly lasted as long as 24 hours.

I have no idea how anyone could possibly know this, given that no one seems to have actually witnessed one of these marathon duels, but since I like the fact, I choose to accept it.

I've been meaning to write a post asking whether Lawrence Summers was going to start a Harvard matching fund for contributions to the earthquake victims in Pakistan. He's done the same with victims of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, and while one can't argue with the humanitarian impulse, I've wondered in the past whether that's an appropriate use of Harvard's money. (And it's not a small amount; Harvard matched about $250,000 worth of gifts to Hurricane Katrina related charities.)

I've questioned this giving for a few reasons. First, when donors give to Harvard, they're making a specific choice, and the recipient of that choice ought to respect their wishes, rather than redirecting their money to another charitable cause. Second, such giving changes the nature of the university from a place of education to a world geopolitical actor. Third, if you give for tsunamis and hurricanes, where do you draw the line? Surely the Pakistani earthquake has cost more lives and caused more devastation than Hurricane Katrina did. Fourth, such charitable gifts could be a way of influence-buying and reputation-repairing for the president of the university—any president of the university. Problem is, it's really not his money to give.

Now the Crimson has weighed in on just this question...and comes down on both sides.

This editorial argues the following:

Offering a donation matching program after these two catastrophes was the right thing for the University to do. Although Harvard’s primary mission is educational and academic, Harvard is also a community of nearly 35,000 and an employer of over 15,000, making it the fifth largest employer in all of Massachusetts, according to the Boston Business Journal. Beyond the philanthropic and noble ends of raising funds, matching donations when there is a community outcry helps build morale, which is why many businesses across the country had a similar matching program for their employees.

A dissenting column disputes that, saying: ....Matching donations for the tsunami and for Katrina have set a dangerous precedent—recently broken by Harvard’s choice not to match donations for the earthquake in Kashmir—that encourages our community to judge Harvard’s responses solely on a monetary basis. It is a slippery slope that the University must not traverse. For future disasters, Harvard should cease impersonating a charitable organization and instead focus on the unique and valuable ways it can help as an institution of higher learning.

I do not find the first argument suasive; boosting "morale" is insufficient justification for transforming the mission of the university.

But, as with the debate over the Solomon Amendment, this is another situation where President Summers should rise to explain himself. What principles underlie his thinking? Why give to tsunami and hurricane victims, but not earthquake victims? When is it appropriate to give and when not? How does this fit into his vision of Harvard in the world?

These are important questions in a debate that the president himself has ignited. He should explain himself now. After all, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has visited Harvard and met with Summers. What would Summers say to him now?

Or just ironic.

Because if it's sincere...I shudder to think about the fate of our young people.

Harvard students had their most successful party of the fall last night to celebrate the fact that Lamont Library is now open 24 hours a day....

I think Harvard students are great, but guys, come on—get a life.

Michelle Wie has been disqualified from her first professional tournament after a reporter for Sports Illustrated told tournament officials that he thought she had violated tour rules when she dropped a ball about 12" too close to a hole.

No one has suggested that Wie intentionally did anything improper—which means that the real story here is whether the reporter's actions were appropriate. Is it within the bounds of a reporter's job to point out a suspected rule violation? The answer is no.

According to the AP story linked to above, "Michael Bamberger, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, told tour officials Sunday afternoon that he was concerned about the drop."

"Asked why he didn't bring it up before the third round ended,"—when Wie could have avoided disqualification— Bamberger said [italics added], "That didn't occur to me. I was still in my reporter's mode. I wanted to talk to her first."

As time passed, Bamberger added, "I thought about it more and was just uncomfortable that I knew something. Integrity is at the heart of the game. I don't think she cheated. I think she was just hasty."

Let's review. Bamberger stepped out of reporter mode when raising the issue with tour officials. He thinks integrity is at the heart of golf, but he doesn't think Wie cheated—so what integrity is at stake? Then, when it's too late to rectify the error, Bamberger causes Wie to be disqualified from her first pro tournament. He doesn't do it because he's reporting a story, but because he's "uncomfortable that [he] knew something."

What an unfortunate incident; Bamberger shouldn't sleep well about this one. He should publicly apologize to Wie, and Sports Illustrated should pay her the $50,000 that she lost because of Bamberger, who—not Wie—is really the one who crossed the line.

David Brooks wrote yesterday on the fact that women seem to be doing better than men at all levels of education, which I will link to if TimesSelect allows me to. More women than men are graduating from college; fewer women are diagnosed with learning disorders, etc.

Along the way, he throws this bone to Larry Summers: " For 30 years, attention has focused on feminine equality. During that time honest discussion of innate differences has been stifled (ask Larry Summers). It's time to look at the other half."

Huh.

I'm fascinated by how conservatives have turned Summers into a free-speech martyr; they're certainly not aware of Summers' own attempts to discourage free speech at Harvard. (Zayed Yasin, anyone?)

I think Brooks fundamentally misreads what happened with Summers. No one was saying that the president of Harvard doesn't have the right to speak on any subject he wants to talk about. The frustration over Summers' remarks on women in the sciences came from the fact that, many experts in the field believed, he was speaking out of ignorance, and his opinion reflected a personal bias more than an informed opinion. Coming from the man in the highest position in the world of higher education, these things matter; the words of the president of Harvard have consequences.

The right to free speech does not deprive listeners of the ability to react with outrage...and nothing in the Summers' matter suggests that there was no "honest discussion" of the status of women in the sciences. There was a great deal of it—millions of words—and virtually all of them, except, perhaps, from Steve Pinker and the political right, felt that Summers' opinion was wrong.

So by all means, let us have open and honest discussion of all the factors that might contribute to educational differences between boys and girls. But when we start talking about innate differences—i.e., genetics—we are on volatile ground, and we need to remember that, and conduct our discussions with the nuance and sensitivity for which David Brooks is known and Larry Summers is not.

The long-awaited Times piece on the Judith Miller fiasco comes nowhere near explaining this bizarre journalistic puzzle, and instead it serves only to make almost everyone involved look foolish, sleazy, stupid or all of the above. Judith Miller and Bill Keller insist they have fought a battle for journalistic principle and won a victory for the profession. Instead, they are dragging it down into the muck.

Some thoughts on the winners and losers:

Let's start with the losers, because there are more of them.

1) Bill Keller. Is there any aspect of this case that Keller did not mishandle? He didn't ask to see Miller's notes, he restrained his other reporters from investigating her case, he allowed his newspaper to be scooped by other papers...all to defend a reporter whose actions appear indefensible. After all, Miller lied to her own editors about whether she had been a recipient of the Valerie Plame leak. And, as the article makes clear, even now Miller refuses to cooperate with her own newspaper beyond the bare minimum.

This is the second instance recently in which Bill Keller went to bat for a reporter when conceding mistakes seemed the more honest course. Recently, he defended Allesandra Stanley's wacky claim that Geraldo Rivera had pushed an aid worker out of a camera shot to aid a hurricane victim—even though the video showed no such thing. Keller's response: Rivera was a "four-letter word" and the word "nudge" was meant to be figurative. Lame.

Since this type of thing does not seem to happen with male reporters and Bill Keller, one has to wonder if the gender of the reporters is not a factor in Mr. Keller's judgment....

2) Judith Miller. She claims she went to jail to protect a source...but now she can't even remember who the source is. Was it Scooter Libby who provided her with the identity whose leak was a potential violation of the law? Or did tell someone else give her the name "Valerie Flame"? She has multiple variations on Valerie Plame's name written in her notes, but she has no idea where they came from. As Mickey Kaus smartly points out, Miller claims she's won a victory for journalistic principle, but all she's done is establish that if you send a reporter to jail for a couple months, she's bound to spill the beans.

3) Floyd Abrams. I've written before regarding my low opinion of Floyd Abrams: As a First Amendment lawyer, he makes a great media whore. Nothing in this account changes that opinion. Quite the contrary. First, he appears to have badly botched negotiations with Scooter Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate. (To be fair, this comes from Judith Miller's representation of what Abrams told her, and she's not the most reliable teller.) Miller writes in her account, "Mr. Libby had singed a blanket form waiver, which hsi lawyer signaled to my counsel was not really voluntary." Tate adamantly denies this, and it's unclear what signal made Abrams so sure: a special, double-secret handshake?

There is no question that once D.C. lawyer Bob Bennett got involved with the case, and Abrams was backburnered—the Times is unclear about how his status changed after Bennett got involved—things started moving, talks with Tate were reopened (after a year of silence, which appears to have astounded Tate), and Miller was soon on her way to receiving a get out of jail free card.

Abrams' own quote to the Times is highly curious. He said of his negotiations with Mr. Tate: "On more than one occasion, Mr. Tate asked me for a recitation of what Ms. Miller would say [in her potential testimony to the grand jury]. I did not provide one."

Why not? There are only two options. Miller would either testify that Libby was her source, or she wouldn't. Wouldn't that be pertinent information for Tate as he advised Libby on whether to proffer Miller a waiver of his source confidentiality? Why not tell Tate what Miller would testify to?

Consider the scenarios: If Abrams says Miller will testify that it wasn't Libby, then Tate can reaffirm the waiver with no qualms.

If Abrams says that Miller will testify that it was Libby, then Tate can be much clearer about whether Libby's waiver was really voluntary, and Miller can go to jail under much less ambiguous circumstances.

So why wouldn't Abrams spell it out?

Unless, of course, Abrams is simply lying now—that he detailed exactly what Miller would say, and he is now misleading the Times' reporters because if he were now to disclose what Miller would testify to, then he would be, in effect, outing her source.

Either way, his decision not to contact Tate for a year is bizarre. As the Times piece notes, "Mr. Bennett called Mr. Tate on Aug. 31 [2005]. Mr. Tate told Mr. Bennett that Mr. Libby had given permission to Ms. Miller to testify a year earlier. 'I called Tate and this guy could not have been clearer—"Bob, my client has given a waiver,"' Mr. Bennett said."

4) Other Times reporters. Throughout the article, other Times reporters are chafing to explore this story aggressively...and at every turn, they are thwarted, so that Bill Keller and Arthur Sulzberger (also a loser in this affair) can protect Judy Miller. Funny how, in trying to defend their paper, they wound up debasing it.

5) Scooter Libby. Miller says she can't remember if he gave her the exact name, but it's clear that he enjoyed a cozy relationship with Miller, and was willing to use that relationship to smear an administration critic. A two-hour breakfast at the St. Regis? My lord, what was going on there exactly? At the very least, the length of that breakfast shows how important trashing Joe Wilson was to the White House. Most times, the only reporter who gets two hours of a White House staffer's time is Bob Woodward.

Winners:

1) Bob Bennett. Granted, Bennett has long known how to make himself look good in the press. But there's no question he seems to have proved far more adept in this Washington maze than was Abrams. Moreover, he got special prosecutor Joseph Fitzgerald to agree to question Miller only on Scooter Libby and the Plame matter, which, now that Miller says that Plame's name may have come from someone else, looks like a significant victory.

2) Bloggers. Arianna Huffington has been particularly good on this matter...but lots of blogs have kept the heat on.

Um...that's about it for winners.

All right, we'll throw in Joe Wilson, who has long maintained that there was an orchestrated White House plan to smear his wife, and long suggested that Scooter Libby was involved, and now appears to be exactly right.

I once defended Judy Miller for what, at the time, struck me as a principled defense of journalistic privilege. It's clear to me now that that was a mistake. Judith Miller strikes me now as a propagandist more than a journalist, and the Times, which has only suffered from its association with her, should fire her.

Florida state wildlife officials have recruited a new weapon in the fight against the dreaded Burmese python: a snake-sniffing beagle named Python Pete.

Let us hope that the little fellow will not get too, um, consumed by his work....