WBZ TONIGHT

I will be filling in for Steve Leveille on WBZ-Boston tonight from Midnight to 5 AM (5/31). WBZ can be found at 1030 on the AM dial. Here are some of the topics I am considering for discussion...

Paul Krugman thinks the Bush Administration is destroying the Army. While I hardly ever agree with him on anything, I think he has a point.

France rejects the EU constitution. Is this really a rejection of globalization?

Amnesty International releases a report that compares the alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay with the Soviet Gulags. People from General Richard Meyers to Natan Sharansky are rejecting the comparison.

The President vows to veto a bill that would allow the use of embryos from fertility clinics to be used for stem cell research. Mona Charen defends the President's moral reasoning.

Stephen Moore continues to advocate for a flat income tax for the U.S.

Here is another article on women in combat.

Plus, the ongoing controversy over judges and other nominations.

WHAT IF THEY HAD A WAR, AND NOBODY CAME

I remember that phrase, dimly, from the Vietnam War era. It expressed the false intellectual depth of much of the anti-war movement at the time. When it comes to war, someone always shows up. If one side shows up in bigger numbers and with more resolve than the other, that side usually prevails and dictates it's will to the folks who, by not showing up, lost.

In recent days much has been made of the recruiting shortfall now impacting the Army. Just today, there are articles by Bob Novak, in Newsday, and elsewhere. Good points are made in all these articles. The central question, though, remains the same. If not enough young people are willing to defend the Republic, is the Republic worth defending? The recent recruiting shortfall could be interpreted, using that question as the framework for discussion, as a dire warning about the health of our Republic in the early years of the 21st Century. Yet, that would be a mistaken interpretation.

The fact of the matter is that the young people of this country have not been asked, nor is it obvious to them that they need to step forward without being asked, to defend the Republic. This is entirely the fault of one man...George W. Bush.

In the days after 9/11, President Bush and his people made the point repeatedly that we were at war. They also made the point repeatedly that this would be a different kind of war than those of the past, like Vietnam, Korea, World War II, or even the Gulf War. This, they said, would be a war fought by using intelligence gathering capabilities, law enforcement assets, international diplomacy and economic measures, as well as carefully targeted applications of specialized military force. As a consequence, in the days after 9/11 applications for positions in the FBI and CIA jumped dramatically, but military recruiting did not.

As it turns out, this was perhaps the most grievous mistake of the many made in those early days of the conflict. When patriotic fever was at its highest pitch, with smoke still pouring out of the rubble at Ground Zero and the Pentagon, President Bush did not anticipate the necessity for a larger military force to aggressively intervene in the Middle East, which is, of course, the homeland of our enemies and their ideology (even if they are surrounded by millions of innocent people who do not share their views). Therefore, he did not call for Congress to expand the size of the Army, or call on the young people of America to enlist in that expanded Army to defend the Republic. He and his advisors, and I specifically single out Donald Rumsfeld as the key person in all of this, did not believe that expansion was necessary. In fact, Secretary Rumsfeld was still determined to aggressively pursue his vision of a smaller, leaner more high-tech military.

We cannot know this for a fact, but I believe if the President had called on Congress to expand the Army they would have voted overwhelmingly to do so, and if the President has asked the young people of America to join that Army many would have heeded his call. As it stands today, he didn't do those things, so now we are faced with a growing crisis in the ranks.

So, how should that crisis be dealt with? Unfortunately, the current situation may be irretrievable barring a large-scale Al Qaeda attack against us here at home. Without the impetus provided by proof of a real, close-to-home threat, most young Americans are going to do the prudent thing. They are going to ask themselves if fighting insurgents in Iraq is necessary to defend their homes and their futures, and the answer for most will be a resounding "No". That will leave the Army with only a very small pool of potential recruits, those who either answer "yes" to the previous question or want to test themselves in combat (yes, there still can be found young men who think that way, even in modern America), or are being left out of the country's economic recovery and see the military as the only way to learn job skills. As we have seen, that last group is gravitating to the Air Force and Navy, where their chances of going into combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are much lower (although not zero, as any perusal of the casualty lists will confirm).

In the Newsday article, Iraq War opponent Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, who is a combat veteran of Korea, and who has sponsored legislation to restore the draft, says he wants the President to ask young Americans to serve in the Army. He is doing this, just as with his draft proposal, to put political pressure on the President to withdraw from Iraq (and to politically damage him and the GOP). It may not be a bad idea, though. If the President were to address the nation and lay out (again) why we must win in Iraq, and if he were to honestly take the blame for not putting enough troops in to do the job, and call on Congress to expand the Army and call on young people to join, that might provide enough of a surge to ameliorate the current situation.

Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen. If not, then expect the recruitment numbers to continue to sag. And expect a political backlash in 2006.

GANG OF FOURTEEN

So now it has come to pass that a gang of fourteen has taken control of the Senate. With this deal, the seven Republicans and seven Democrats have wrested control away from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and even Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Frist will get votes on three judges he wants to approve, but no two others, while Reid will have to accept the fact that three will get their vote (and, I believe, approval) while being content with blocking the other two.

It is a classic compromise that does nothing but kick the can down the road. For, in the end, this is not about the judges in question. This is about the Big Kahuna, the U.S. Supreme Court. The point was made even more clearly this morning with the widely circulated picture of Chief Justice Rehnquist being wheeled about as he suffers from the debilitating effects of cancer and the treatments for same. Soon, George W. Bush will have to make some Supreme Court nominations. Soon, the Senate will be faced with a Supreme Court nominee. I would be absolutely shocked, stunned and amazed if the President's nominee did not fit into the Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia mold. Clearly, the "extraordinary circumstances" described in yesterday's deal would be cited by most, if not all, of the seven Democrats whose signatures can be found on that deal under such a scenario. Then we would find ourselves right back in the fix we were in before the deal.

When the new Scalia makes his way to the Senate there will be no way the Democrats can allow him to pass. For them it will be the political equivalent of the Battle of Verdun, 1916. Every effort will be made to turn a Republican against him (or her) in committee. Failing that, the filibuster will be employed. At that point, the Constitutional Option (as the rules change is called by it's proponents) will be on the table again. Can Lindsey Graham and Mike DeWine stand against it at that time? Doesn't that make 50, with Vice-President Cheney casting tie-breaking vote number 51?

If the Democrats mean to stop this Administration from altering the balance of power in the Federal Judiciary, and they do, then this deal should be seen simply as a temporary armistice. Hostilities to resume at some future date, when one Justice or another succumbs to the inevitably of a finite lifespan.

THE UNPREDICTABLE NATURE OF WAR

I have recently been re-reading some of my books on World War I, or The Great War as it was known prior to the Second World War. Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, Martin Gilbert's The First World War, Robert K. Massie's Castles of Steel (about the naval history of that war) and so on. I find that the history of that war is somehow neglected in the popular culture, overshadowed by World War II and it's immense personalities and global march of armies, navies and air forces. When the average person thinks of World War I, they think of stagnant, trench warfare involving mass infantry attacks and, ultimately, the futile loss of millions to no apparent purpose.

Yet, World War I changed the political, social and economic structure of the planet more than any other war since the Reformation. In June of 1914, when a young Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, and just before the guns of August began blazing as a result of that atrocity, the world was dominated by Europe and it's empires. Kings, Kaisers, Sultans and Tsars dominated the politics, and social gossip, of that continent and, by extension, the world. The sun, indeed, never set on the British Empire, with the Union Jack flying over colonies in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. The French Republic had made a remarkable recovery from the defeat and humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Her economy was advancing and her flag flew over much of Africa and parts of South America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The German Empire dominated Central Europe and, while she had come late to the colonial game, the Imperial Eagle flew over parts of Africa, the Pacific and China. The Austro-Hungarian Empire stretched from the Swiss Border on one end to the Romanian and Russian borders on the other, encompassing dozens of peoples and languages. The Russian Empire stretched from the German border in the West to the Pacific Ocean in the East. The "sick man of Europe", the Ottoman Empire, stretched from Asia Minor down through the Arabian Peninsula. With the exception of France, all of these nations had monarchical forms of government ranging from the almost powerless King George V of Great Britain to the absolute ruler Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

In July of 1919, just five years later, the Russian, German, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were all gone. Tsar Nicholas and his family were dead, executed by the Bolsheviks a year earlier, Kaiser Wilhelm II was living in exile in Holland, the Sultan had fled Constantinople and the Hapsburg monarchs of Austria had been deposed. Austria was now a small nation sandwiched between Germany and Italy, Hungary was independent, and the new nations of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia had been created in the Balkans. A newly independent Poland had re-emerged from Germany and Russia, along with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia on the Baltic. The Ottoman Empire had been replaced by a Turkish Republic, and the French and British were busy dividing up what would later become Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait. Persia became Iran. The Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Kurds all lost out in their bids to form nations of their own, with serious consequences later. In the Pacific, Japan became the new power, taking over former German-held islands, the names of which would become famous in the next war (Kwajalein, Saipan, Tarawa, etc.). The United States, which in July of 1914 had been a third-rate military power, while it came to the war late, had by it's conclusion built an army of nearly three million men and made a decisive difference in stemming the last gasp of Imperial Germany on the Western Front. While in many ways the refusal to ratify the Versailles treaty brought America back to it's pre-1917 isolationism, the war had made unalterable the fact that the U.S. was an incipient superpower, waiting for the right moment to emerge, which turned out to be a beautiful Sunday morning in the paradise of the island of Oahu in December, 1941.

In July of 1914 women were excluded from political life the world over, including the West. While there was a long-running movement to get women the right to vote in the Western Democracies, it had yet to gain steam. After the debacle of the Great War, where the role of women had, by necessity, expanded onto the factory floor and into the hospital ship and behind-the-lines aid stations, opposition to women's suffrage collapsed in Western Europe and the United States.

In July of 1914 Lenin was an exiled radical. By July of 1919 he was in Moscow, soon to be the new capitol of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the ideological heart of a Communist movement that would dominate much of the 20th Century. In July of 1914 the words Fascist and Nazi did not exist. Benito Mussolini was not yet the front-line soldier and pro-war newspaper editor (supported by British Intelligence) that he would become during the Great War. Adolf Hitler was a struggling Austrian artist living in a hostel for down-and-outers in Munich, soon to petition the King of Bavaria to join a local regiment and go to fight in France. Their subsequent life stories are well known.

In July of 1914 the submarine and airplane were considered little more than toys by the top military brass of all the major powers. Both weapons were seen by some as potentially decisive by war's end. The tank, the flamethrower and chemical weapons would all be introduced during the war.

In July of 1914 the people of France, Britain, Germany, Austria and Russia were chomping at the bit for the opportunity to fight. When war declarations began flying the first week in August, enormous crowds gathered to cheer in London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg and Vienna. By July of 1919 if enormous crowds gathered in any of those cities it was to cheer revolution and damn the governing classes. France's population particularly went from among the most martial and aggressive on Earth to the most pacifistic (losing 1,384,000 men, third in losses behind the more populous nations of Germany and Russia, is more than sufficient explanation).
All of these things and many more were as a result of the decisions made in the Summer of 1914. Almost all of these things were completely unforeseen by the participants who made those decisions.

What are the lessons to be learned? While there are many, from lessons about diplomatic bumbling caused by poor communications and mis-perceptions to the failure of military leaders to alter their tactics when faced with battlefield-altering weapons, the one lesson that is paramount in my estimation is this - When going to war one can never predict, to any reasonable degree, the parameters of the outcome or the unintended consequences that result.

This brings me to the so-called "War on Terrorism" and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. When Osama Bin Laden and his people planned the 9/11 attacks, they had a vision, as all military planners do, of how the attack would unfold and what they would accomplish if they achieved their goals. Clearly, they hoped that the attack teams would be able to seize control of four commercial jet aircraft, fly those planes to New York City and Washington, D.C. and destroy the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol Building. By any objective military measure, their attack was a success. They lost only one aircraft which failed to reach it's target (crashing in Pennsylvania after a counter-attack by the passengers and crew). The others succeeded in destroying the World Trade Center and heavily damaging the Pentagon.
What were they hoping to accomplish by achieving military success? Like all military planners, they were hoping to achieve some political goal, either in the short-term or the long run.

For example, the Germans hoped to force France to surrender after their victorious right-wing sweep through Belgium and into Paris in August 1914, at which time they could then turn and defeat Russia, leaving Great Britain to make an accommodation with the new superpower of Europe. Likewise, the Japanese hoped to cripple the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, leaving America powerless to stop their advance in the Pacific and, shrinking from a long, bloody war, to make an accommodation with the new superpower of the Pacific. Each of these instances can be compared to Bin Laden's decision to attack on 9/11. The German sweep in France failed at the Marne, leading to a long, destructive stalemate on the Western Front, with the Germans finally succumbing in 1918. The Japanese attack succeeded, but it still led to a long, destructive war with the Japanese finally surrendering in 1945. One might reasonably expect, from a military planning perspective, that if one's plans fail, one will lose the battle or even the war. But, and this is reflected again and again throughout human history, one would reasonably expect that military success should lead to the achievement of one's political goals. So often, however, that is not the case. War is like the Djinni let out of his bottle. His actions are as unpredictable as his power is immense.

So, Bin Laden's attack succeeded, but his victims did not react as he had expected. Instead, he found himself driven from his sanctuary in Afghanistan, with many of his comrades killed and captured and his protectors, the Taliban government, driven from power. Clearly, the world has changed for Bin Laden in ways he could never have predicted when he set the 9/11 operation in motion.

Which leads me to the invasion of Iraq. In March, 2003, the U.S. military had a plan for the invasion, which they executed brilliantly. In three weeks time a combined Army-Marine Corps force, with considerable assistance from the British Army, and covered by an unchallenged air armada, conquered Iraq, taking down Saddam Hussein's military forces and chasing him into hiding, to eventually be captured like most other members of his government. From that point on, however, almost nothing seemed to go according to plan. Almost all the pre-war assumptions about Iraq were shown to be false, except those that predicted a swift conventional military victory. Even many anti-war assumptions, like those that predicted a conventional quagmire, or the direct military involvement of neighboring nations like Israel, turned out to be untrue. While some people correctly predicted one or another small slice of the truth as it exists today, no one, to my knowledge, correctly predicted the total picture, especially no one in the decision-making loop in Washington.

The Djinni, released by Bin Laden on 9/11 (much the way Princip released it in June of 1914 in Sarajevo) is now behaving in completely unpredictable ways. Bin Laden has not achieved any of his goals (neither did Princip, who did not live to see his vision of Greater Serbia dashed, first by Austrian conquest, then by immersion in the country of Yugoslavia in 1919). Instead, there is a pro-American government in Kabul and Bin Laden is still in hiding. Meanwhile, the U.S. is fighting back with an aggressive policy that has caused it to move into Iraq with more than 100,000 men, causing still more unforeseen consequences.

The only prediction that I would dare make about how this scenario will play out is that no prediction will come true, even generally speaking. Bin Laden's vision of a U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East, the destruction of Israel, the restoration of the Caliphate in Baghdad, will not happen. President Bush's vision of a swath of democracies throughout the Islamic world, will not happen. Instead, expect something entirely different. A nuclear weapon may detonate in mid-town Manhattan, planted by former Iraqi intelligence officers, now made into Sunni radicals, with the weapon provided by North Korea. A radicalized America might then give itself over to a nearly fascistic central government that would reinstate the draft and send it's armies to crush the Islamic world, or order it's submarine captains to launch their nuclear-tipped missiles against Tehran, or Pyongyang, or Mecca, leading to even more unpredictable actions.

Preposterous? If you had told anyone in Europe in June of 1914 that five years later the Hohenzollern, Hapsburg and Romanov dynasties would all be on the ash-heap of history, most if not all would have called that a preposterous prediction. Like the saying goes, the truth is stranger than fiction. Osama bin Laden unleashed a global war on September 11, 2001. It's a war unlike any previous war (as World War I was unlike the wars of the 19th Century, and World War II was unlike World War I). It could escalate into a nightmarish conflagration (along the lines of my scenario in the above paragraph) or it could simmer for years with flashes of action, or slowly peter out. Iraq could develop into a real democracy, but Saudi Arabia might descend into civil war or be taken over by Islamic radicals. Or the reverse could happen.

Once the Djinni of war is free the power of men to control the consequences of their decisions becomes weaker and weaker. Neither the best intentions nor well-considered plan, to paraphrase Clausewitz, ever survives contact with the enemy. The battle is joined. The structure of global affairs hangs in the balance. How the lines that connect our human relations will be redrawn by the conflict, we cannot know. This is the lesson men should learn, but never seem to, about the consequences of using war as a redress for their grievances.

TONIGHT ON WBZ

These are some of the topics I am looking at for possible discussion tonight on WBZ-Boston between Midnight and 5 AM:

Should women be prohibited from serving in combat? Some members of Congress, according to this article in the Boston Globe, are trying to pass a bill that would strengthen an already existing prohibition. The Army brass is protesting, because they know that they cannot accomplish their missions in places like Iraq and Afghanistan without their female soldiers. I agree with them. Even though women are still not allowed in combat arms specialties (like infantryman - 11 Bravo) they are serving in units that are in combat zones and there have already been a number of instances of women engaged in combat and doing there jobs honorably and well. I say keep the physical standards high, but if a woman can meet those standards, give 'em hell.

The showdown over judicial nominees is beginning in the U.S. Senate.

Health care is back in the news. Should hospitals be more aggressive in collecting their unpaid bills? Some in the Romney Administration in Massachusetts think so. Is there a chance we might see real health care reform in the near future? This writer urges American CEOs to get involved, as health care costs are impacting their bottom lines.

What should be done with abandoned frozen human embryos?

Should the military be allowed to pursue space-based weapons?

Finally, we will hear from a true-blue Star Wars fan right after he sees the Midnight premiere of the new Star Wars flick.

WBZ TONIGHT

Here are some of the items I am considering for discussion tonight on WBZ-Boston between Midnight and 5 AM:

Gay marriage is in the news on several fronts. In Massachusetts there is discussion about a constitutional amendment banning it in the Bay State. Pro-gay marriage folks are concerned that they don't have the votes to block it in the state legislature. A Federal judge recently struck down the efforts of voters in Nebraska to ban gay marriage. That story, according to Bruce Fein in the Washington Times, is why the judicial filibustering of congressional Democrats should be put to an end.

The Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor has made a proposal that would institute drug testing of public school students with the permission of their parents. The ACLU is already howling.

Speaking of the ACLU, they are suing the Federal Government for providing taxpayer monies for an abstinence-encouraging group that they say is more about preaching the Gospel than keeping teens from having sex.

Finally a Democrat has come forward with an alternative plan to save Social Security. Congressman Wexler should be congratulated for participating in the debate with his plan to raise taxes to cover the future shortfalls in the program.

Other issues I am considering are women in combat, whether the NCAA should ban Indian nicknames for member sports teams, a proposal to ban dog racing in Massachusetts and the Star Wars phenomenon.

THE ARMY IN DECLINE?

The relentlessly anti-American British press continues their jihad against our military with this article in the Independent about the recruiting difficulties encountered in recent months by the U.S. Army. While the numbers appear to be accurate, and the problem is real, the way in which this newspaper goes about reporting the story (the people they interview, the quotes they use) gives the impression our military is on the verge of collapse. Take this part, for example...

...recruits such as Jeremiah Adler, an idealistic 18-year-old from Portland, Oregon, who joined the Army believing he could help change its culture. Within days of arriving for his basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he realised he had made a mistake and said the Army simply wanted to turn him into a "ruthless, cold-blooded killer".

Mr Adler begged to be sent home and even pretended to be gay to be discharged. Eventually, he and another recruit fled in the night and rang the hotline, which advised him to turn himself in to avoid court-martial. He will now be given an "other than honourable discharge".

From southern Germany where he is on holiday before starting college in the autumn, Mr Adler told The Independent: "It was obviously a horrible experience but now I'm glad I went through it. I was expecting to meet a whole lot of different types of people; some had noble reasons. I also met a lot of people who [wanted] to kill Arabs." In one letter home to his family, Mr Adler wrote that when he arrived he was horrified by the things he heard other recruits talking about, things that in civilian life would result in someone being treated as an outcast. In another letter he said he could hear other recruits crying at night. "You can hear people trying to make sure no one hears them cry under their covers," he wrote.

As a U.S. Army veteran of peacetime service in the late 1980s, I do not doubt Mr. Adler's honesty when he describes his aborted participation in the Army. Anyone who has been in Army Basic Training can tell similar stories about trainees crying in the barracks at night, or coming unglued prior to some aspect of the course (I vividly recall a trainee standing in line in front of me as we prepared to receive our M-16A1 rifles who was shaking uncontrollably. He refused to take his weapon, the entire platoon was treated to grass drills while he stood on the reviewing stand and, eventually, after several more such instances, he was discharged). One also encounters young men who say stupid things, even barbaric things. As a young, college-educated man of 24, I learned all sorts of words and phrases I had never heard before, much of it describing sexual practices (real or imagined).

The bottom line is that Mr. Adler's experience of culture-shock upon entering Army Basic Training is no different than when I entered the course in 1986, and the fact that there is a war on is irrelevant. The evidence of recruits crying under their covers is not indicative of an Army on the verge of breakdown. When we start seeing riots on Army posts, massive use of illegal drugs by soldiers, officers being gunned down in broad daylight by soldiers robbing the payroll (all stories described to me by veteran officers at my unit, the HQ of the 59th Ordnance Brigade, as having happened in the 1970s), then I will begin to believe that the Army is deteriorating. So far, that is not the case.

THE PEOPLE AND THE PRESS

Editor and Publisher has an article about a new survey that shows a wide disparity between the views of the people and that of journalists.

Asked who they voted for in the past election, the journalists reported picking Kerry over Bush by 68% to 25%. In this sample of 300 journalists, from both newspapers and TV, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 3 to 1--but about half claim to be Independent. As in previous polls, a majority (53%) called their political orientation “moderate,” versus 28% liberal and 10% conservative.

Add that little nugget to the controversy over Newsweek's possibly erroneous report of Koran desecration by U.S. personnel at Gitmo, which has sparked riots in the Muslim world, and the decline in credibility of the MSM continues.

WBZ THIS WEEK

I will be on WBZ-Boston again this week. I will fill-in for Steve Leveille on Wednesday 5/18 and Thursday 5/19 from Midnight to 5 AM. WBZ can be found at 1030 on the AM dial.

WBZ TONIGHT

Here are the stories I am looking at as possibilities for discussion tonight on WBZ-Boston from Midnight to 5 AM:

Are the Red Sox responsible for the behavior of drunken fans? Should the city of Boston limit their ability to sell alcohol at Fenway Park? The story can be found here, in the Boston Globe.

Why are so many people such fanatics about the Star Wars movies?

Should taxpayers bail out the airline industry? What's wrong with that industry?

Should Congress set high, mandatory minimum sentences for drug and gang-related crimes? Or should judges have discretion when setting these sentences?

Should Congress kill the Inheritance Tax?

WBZ can be heard at 1030 on the AM dial.

TONIGHT ON WBZ

Here are the stories I am looking at as possible topics for discussion tonight between Midnight and 5 AM on WBZ-Boston:

Are you going to the movies less often than you used to? Some in Hollywood are concerned there may be a trend of declining attendance developing, according to this story. I think people will go back to the movies if only they would start making more good ones. One of the most anticipated movies due to come out soon, the new Star Wars film, is being panned by John Podhoretz on NRO.

Is it my imagination, or is traffic getting worse? It is getting worse, according to this story in the Boston Globe.

The President is prodding Senate Republicans to move forward on up-or-down votes for his judicial nominees, according to this story in the Globe. Meanwhile, the Washington Times is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Frist already has a plan to "go nuclear" on the Dems. Bill Kristol and Rush Limbaugh are urging them forward, as well. I think that if the Republicans in the Senate don't pull the trigger on this, there will be a significant backlash from the base in the next election.

I might also talk about whether illegal immigrants should be legalized (Senators Kennedy and McCain have a bill that would give some illegals a three-year renewable visa).

The show can be heard from Midnight to 5 AM on WBZ, which can be found at 1030 on the AM dial.

NEWS AND VIEWS

The NASA shuttle chief is pressing for the early retirement of the Space Shuttle. It should have been retired ten years ago. The space truck had some utility for doing rudimentary weightlessness experiments and bringing stuff back and forth from the International Space Station. But, in my view, it is not what we need to advance the exploration of space. Unfortunately, there is not enough political power behind a more aggressive space exploration effort to get additional funding. Perhaps that will change when we lose another shuttle.

Here is an editorial with some analysis of the only Democrat plan (so far) for saving Social Security...rolling back the "tax cuts for the wealthy". I would like to see an analysis of raising or eliminating the FICA tax cap, currently set at $90,000.

Joe Klein says Hillary shouldn't run for President. I hope she does. It will be much more fun to watch than if she doesn't.

Mark Steyn says Russia is in decline, and China could be in trouble, too.

Don Feder has it right about China.

Here is an argument against rendition, which is the policy of taking Al Qaeda suspects and turning them over to foreign governments we suspect use torture against prisoners.

WBZ IN BOSTON THIS WEEK

I will be on WBZ-Boston again this week. I can be heard filling in for Steve Leveille on Wednesday 5/11 and Thursday 5/12 from Midnight to 5 AM. WBZ can be found at 1030 on the AM dial. I will post a list of possible topics each evening before I go in to the station.

NH INSIDER

I am now participating as a blogger for the website called NH Insider. I will be regularly posting my thoughts in that site, as well as this one. I'll stick to New Hampshire stuff on their site, though. Despite the name of my blog, regular readers know I've been posting mostly national stuff here (it's my blog so I can do what I want, don't you know).

WBZ TONIGHT

Here is the list of topics I am considering for tonight's show on WBZ-Boston:

Is the Fox hit show "American Idol" suspect? ABC News is scheduled to air an interview tonight of a disgruntled former contestant who alleges, among other things, that he had an affair with Paula Abdul, who serves as a judge on the program. While I don't watch the show, my wife and daughter never miss it, and it is extremely popular around the country. Could it be that the contest itself is rigged (like the old 50s quiz shows), or is this just an isolated incident involving either a lying former contestant or a lying current judge?

Massachusetts Democrats are poised to add an explicit support of gay marriage to their party platform. Is this a wise political move?

Were the necons right about Iraq after all? Are the American people losing their resolve to stay the course in Iraq? Is the insurgency lashing out because they are losing? Thomas Friedman believes that might be the case. Here is another concurring opinion. Are journalists helping the terrorists with their coverage? Are their lessons from U.S. history to guide us in Iraq?

Are we dropping the ball on Iran? Michael Ledeen thinks so.

Why are we going after marijuana use more robustly in the war on drugs?

I may concentrate on one of these issues, or bring them all up during the show. You can catch the program from Midnight to 5 AM on WBZ, which can be found at 1030 on the AM dial.

TONIGHT'S SHOW ON WBZ

Here is my list for tonight on WBZ-Boston from Midnight to 5 AM, so far:

A couple of local stories have caught my interest. A local man has been arrested because he disciplined his son with a belt. It is my understanding that it is illegal in Massachusetts to use corporal punishment if it leaves welts or bruises, but not otherwise. The boy in question apparently does not have any bruises or welts (the dad says he hit him only three times with the belt on his rear end, covered by his jeans). So why was this guy arrested?

The Boston Police Department will pay a settlement to the family of the young woman killed when one of their officers fired a so-called non-lethal weapon in her direction, which caused her mortal injuries. Should heads roll? No one has been fired. One supervisor has decided to retire. Were the cops to blame? What about the manufacturer of the weapon? (The Globe story, predictably, is headlined by the fact that the family will consider a lawsuit against the manufacturer).

Gay marriage is being challenged in the Bay State. Should voters or judges decide?

Should 2nd Graders be educated about AIDS? A family in Saugus, Mass. is upset about the contents of a book brought home by their child on the subject.

If your bride-to-be skipped out on you, sparking a nation-wide search, then re-appeared at first claiming that she had been kidnapped, only to admit soon thereafter that she had run away on her own, would you take her back? If you said you would, then you decided you wouldn't, what would you do?

Should Congress stiffen drivers license requirements? Should drivers licenses be, essentially, national ID cards?

Should Congress raise the tax cap on Social Security taxable earnings?

When is someone going to start going after the "unnamed officials" who leak documents, like the one that was written about in this morning's New York Times?

Iran says it will pursue Uranium enrichment.

NEWS AND VIEWS

More articles are appearing about the disintegration of Christianity in Europe. Here is one from the Boston Globe.

Another example of how the American university campus is no longer (if it ever was) a sanctuary for people seeking the free exchange of ideas.

Nukes in the news...

Iran moves forward with it's nuclear program.

Here is a call for a new nuclear strategy for the U.S., as we are still, apparently, in Cold War mode. It is definitely something worth thinking about.

North Korea test-fires a short-range missile. When will the Japanese and South Koreans be forced to start their own nuclear and missile programs?

Finally, what do American soldiers do when they return from a war-zone? The answer is here.

WBZ RADIO THIS WEEK

I will be doing two overnight shows on WBZ-Boston this week. I will be on-the-air from Midnight to 5 AM on Wednesday (5/4) and Thursday (5/5). WBZ can be found at 1030 on the AM dial. I will post links to articles I am considering for the show each night before I go in to the station.