Special for Huffington Post
Eric S. Margolis
January 8, 2009

As of this writing, US-supplied F-16I fighters and helicopter gunships continue to pound Gaza with bombs and missiles. Israeli ground forces appear poised to invade Gaza, unless Israel heeds world calls for a truce.

In the North American press version of events, we are told evil Hamas Islamic terrorists backed by Iran are raining deadly rockets on Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state. Israel, goes the mantra heard from our politicians and the media, 'has the right to defend herself.'

True enough. No Israeli government can tolerate rockets hitting its towns. Twenty four Israelis have died from these rockets over the past decade. The firing of these mostly feeble, home-made rockets by Palestinians is both useless and counter-productive: it damages their image as an oppressed people, enrages the Israelis, and gives their right wing extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse to discuss peace.

Israel has the absolute right to drop hundreds of tons of bombs on `Hamas targets' inside the 216 sq mile Gaza Strip to 'take out the terrorists,' its supporters insist - which is like shooting fish in a barrel. Civilians must suffer, says Israel, because the cowardly Hamas hide among them.

But, as usual, this cartoon-like version of events omits a great deal of detail and background.

The reformist Islamic movement Hamas, let us recall, won the Arab world's first real democratic elections there in 2006. Horrified that its stooges in the corrupt, US and Israeli-backed PLO/Fatah led by Mahmoud Abbas were routed, Israel and the US imposed a punishing blockade on Gaza aimed at starving its people into rejecting Hamas and accepting the puppet Fatah.

According to the UN, most of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian refugees subsist near the edge of hunger. Seventy percent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition. Medical facilities are critically short of personnel and drugs. Gaza has quite literally become a human garbage dump for all the Arabs Israel did not want.

Gaza is one of the world's most densely populated places, a vast outdoor prison camp filled with desperate people. In the past, they threw stones at their Israeli occupiers; now they launch home-made rockets. Call it a prison riot, writ large.

In January, 2006, Israel began 'anti-terrorist' attacks and raids on Gaza in an effort to overthrow Hamas. Palestinians retaliated by rocket fire. In June, 2008, a cease-fire was brokered. But the skirmishing continued as Hamas fired rockets to protest Israel's failure to lift the punishing blockage. Firing rockets at civilians is a crime. But so, too, is the blockade, which was an egregious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. The western powers backed the blockade to bring Palestinians to their knees.

From 2006 to December of 2008, over 1,000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombing, attack helicopters, tank fire and ground attacks. That was before the current crisis in which well over 2,000 more have so far been killed and wounded. Israel, as of this writing, claims four dead from rocket fire. Whatever happened to the Old Testament's `an eye for an eye?' Israel's new ration appears to be 500 to one.

The so-called truce expired just as Israel headed into an early election. Israeli politics are playing a key role in this crisis. Labor Party leader, Ehud Barak, and Kadima leader, Tzipi Livini, are trying to prove themselves tougher than Bibi Netanyahu's hard-line Likud Party. Israel's elections are only six weeks away, and Likud was leading until the air assault on Gaza. Kadima and Labor are now up in the polls.

The heavy attacks on Gaza are also designed to intimidate Israel's Arab neighbors, and make up for Israel's humiliating 2006 defeat in Lebanon, which still hangs over the Israel's politicians and generals.
As the current attacks began, Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, asserted, `We have totally changed the rules of the game.'

He was right. By blitzing Hamas-run Gaza, Barak presented the incoming US administration with a fait accompli, and neatly checkmated the newest player in the Mideast Great Game - that other `Barack,' Barack Obama - before he could even take a seat at the table.

Israel's siege of Gaza looks likely to short-circuit any plans Barack Obama might have had to press Israel into withdrawing to its pre-1967 War borders and sharing Jerusalem. It also puts paid to the current Saudi peace plan, backed by all members of the Arab League, that called for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders and share Jerusalem in exchange for full recognition from the Muslim world and normalized relations.

Israel's security establishment remains dead set against allowing a viable Palestinian state, and refuses to negotiate with hated Hamas. Unable to kill all of Hamas' men, Israel is slowly destroying Gaza's infrastructure around them, as it did to Yasser Arafat's PLO.

Israel is confident its mighty information machine will allow it to weather the storm of worldwide outrage over its Biblical punishment of Gaza. Who remembers Israel's flattening of parts of the Palestinian city of Jenin, or the US destruction in Fallujah, Iraq, or the Shatilla and Sabra massacres?

Though the torment of Gaza was seen across the horrified Muslim world as a modern version of the WWII Warsaw Ghetto uprising, western governments took no action. In his last act of criminal folly, America's outgoing president, George W. Bush, cheered Israel's attack on Gaza.

Though Israel's use of American weapons against Gaza violates the US Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts, the docile US Congress will remain mute. Israel's assault on Gaza was clearly timed for America's interregnum and the year-end holidays, a well-used Israeli tactic.

Hamas, the militant but still democratically elected government of Gaza, is even less likely to compromise.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel as long as Israel refuses to recognize Hamas and the rights of millions of homeless Palestinian refugees. It calls for a non-religious state to be created in Palestine, meaning an end to Zionism. Ironically, the founder and late leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, had spoken of a compromise with Israel shortly before he was assassinated by Israel in 2004.

Israel's hopes that it can bomb Gazans into rejecting Hamas are as ill-conceived as its attempt in 2006 to blast Lebanon into rejecting Hezbullah, which backfired badly.

The lapdog Fatah regime on the West Bank installed by the US and Israel after Yasser Arafat was likely murdered, will be further discredited, leaving the militants of Hamas as the sole authentic voice of Palestinian nationalism.

The Muslim world is in a rage. But so what? As Stalin liked to say, `the dogs bark, and the caravan moves on.' As long as the US gives Israel carte blanche, it can do just about anything it wants. Let the dogs bark.

Obama inherits this mess in a few weeks. During the elections, Obama bowed low to the Israel lobby, offering a new US carte blanche to Israel and even accepting Israel's permanent monopoly on all of Jerusalem. His Mideast team looks like it may be top heavy with friends of Israel's Labor Party. Chances Obama will make any progress towards a real Mideast peace seem dim at this point.

The tragedy of Palestine will thus continue to poison America's relations with the Muslim world. Those Americans who still do not understand why their nation was attacked on 9/11 need only look to Gaza, for which America is now being blamed as much as Israel.

Unless Israel can make five to seven million Palestinians disappear, it must find some way to co-exist with them. Israeli leaders on the center and right continue to avoid facing this fact. The brutal collective punishment inflicted on Gaza will likely strengthen Hamas and set back hopes of any Mideast peace by years.

The new Alan Colmes-less Hannity premieres Monday with frequent Fox News guest Al Sharpton filling the liberal seat on Sean Hannity's newly christened "Great American Panel."

Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn.) will fill the seat on the right. (And she should have plenty to talk about given the Senate dispute in her state between Al Franken and Norm Coleman.)

Mayor Daley said today he tried to salvage $153 million in federal funding awarded to Chicago to create 10.2 miles of "bus rapid transit" service, but "inflexible" federal bureaucrats would not allow it.

"They were flexible for the banks. They were flexible for bailing everyone out. But, when it comes to us ... they said, 'No. The next administration will handle it -- Obama's administration.' So, that was it," Daley said.

Riders on the Chicago Transit Authority might have a better idea of when trains are going to arrive. That's because of new digital displays the agency began testing Thursday at its 47th Street Red Line station. The screens show estimated arrival times for trains based on their speed.

Roland Burris is paying the price for an appointment that is tarnished and tainted by the cloud of corruption and scandal that hovers menacingly over the head of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to a new poll by the Glengariff Group. The poll indicates that 52 percent of Illinois voters oppose the appointment. Only 32 percent support it and only 21 percent approve of the governor's decision to exercise his appointment power, while 72 per cent want a special election or an appointment by Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn to fill the Senate seat.

Roland Burris praised his performance in front of the House panel studying impeachment for Gov. Rod Blagojevich Thursday, saying he "passed the test with flying colors":

"I have nothing to hide," Burris said at a State Capitol news conference immediately after he finished answering questions from committee members. "I am a hard-working public servant."

Burris categorically denied that he made any deal with Blagojevich in exchange for the seat, saying, "I can before this committee state that there was nothing ... legal, personal, or political exchanged for my appointment to this seat."

However, Burris did disclose a conversation with a Blagojevich confidante about the seat that could hamper his Senate seating.

Burris admitted to the panel that he had expressed his interest in the seat to Lon Monk, Blagojevich's close friend and former chief of staff who has been identified as "Lobbyist 1" in the criminal complaint against the governor. The disclosure of the conversation, which occurred while Burris was meeting with Monk about business contracts, contradicts Burris's January 5 affidavit:

[I]n a sworn affidavit filed January 5, Burris swore that, before he was asked by Blagojevich staff if he was interested in the position, "there was not any contact between myself or any of my representatives with Governor Blagojevich or any of his representatives regarding my appointment to the United States Senate."

Watch Burris's testimony:

A planned special election to fill the congressional seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has hit a snag.

Cook County Clerk David Orr plans to go before a federal judge in Chicago Friday after filing papers this week asking whether he can hold the special election primary for Emanuel's 5th congressional post March 3 and an April 7 special primary.

An article on the Heritage Foundation's blog today shows just how little it takes for some people to put their head back in the sand when it comes to dealing with global warming.

Heritage staffer Conn Carroll declares Study Shows Global Warming Will Not Hurt U.S. Economy.

Carroll pretty much leaves it at that. Other than including a single self-fulfilling quote cherry-picked from the study and another from US News correspondent James Pethokoukis who comes to this strange conclusion:

"So if you do buy into the theory of man-made climate change, the next logical move would surely be to do nothing that would slow growth and technologcal [sic] advancement in rich countries -- such as a cap-and-trade regulatory system or onerous carbon taxes -- and do more to accelerate growth in poor ones through free trade and the exporting of democratic capitalism."

The paper titled "Climate Shocks and Economic Growth" (pdf) by Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken is actually very good. It certainly doesn't draw any ridiculous conclusions like the one by Pethokoukis, nor does it present the evidence to make the claims that Heritage Foundation wants to make.

Dell et al. do find that the impacts of global warming on developing nations could be potentially devastating. They conclude that:

"... our contribution in this paper is to reject views that climate does not matter, show that climate's effects are substantial, and identify a group of countries where climate appears to have large effects."

And that,

"... Extrapolated over 100 years, this implies that the median poor country's income will be about 50% lower than it would be had there been no climate change. Moreover, because the effects are large for poor countries - and we estimate no impact on rich countries - the estimates in Table 9 suggest that climate change could substantially widen world income inequality." [my emphasis]

It's mind boggling how little evidence it takes for a free market think tank like the Heritage Foundation to be convinced that we should do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With one paper issued at an annual general meeting and Heritage concludes unequivocally that "Global Warming Will Not Hurt U.S. Economy." At the same time Heritage continues to ignore the massive amounts of evidence complied over decades by top scientists of the major negative impacts climate change will have on our way of life and the very nature of our planet.

Of course, it's easy to take such a blind leap of faith for Heritage considering they've been attacking and spreading misinformation about the realities of climate science for years and have reaped the rewards from financially motivated fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil.

In President-elect Barack Obama's major economic address today, he laid out one dozen key planks of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, including initiatives to:

1. "double the production of alternative energy in the next three years"

2. "modernize more than 75 percent of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of 2 million American homes"

3. "[create] jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings, and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs"

4. "make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years all of America's medical records are computerized [to] save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs"

5. "equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges and public universities with 21st-century classrooms, labs and libraries"

6. "put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools"

7. "starting to build a new smart grid that will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation."

8. "expand[] broadband lines across America so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world"

9. "invest[] in the science, research and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries, and entire new industries."

10. "[give] 95 percent of working families will receive a thousand-dollar tax cut"

11. "continue the bipartisan extension of unemployment insurance and health-care coverage"

12. "help struggling states avoid harmful budget cuts"

All the chatter this week has been about the suggestion that Obama would add several business tax breaks to the package, but there was no mention of that today.

Meanwhile, the widespread criticism that such tax breaks would be ineffective at healing the economy appears to have taken root among key congresspeople, raising the likelihood that business tax cuts won't be part of the final bill.

I can't fully predict that business tax cuts will get stiff-armed by Congress. But it is clear from today's speech that business tax cuts are not the centerpiece of Obama's plan. The centerpieces are major public investment in America's foundation, tax cuts for working families and aid for squeezed state governments.

Even if business tax cuts end up in the final package, they will not negate all of those positive components, so crucial to mitigate the pain of recession in the short-term and to put America on a sustainable path in the long-run.

So keep pushing against ineffective business tax breaks, but also push for swift passage of the overall American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. (Campaign for America's Future has set up a page to easily contact your congresspeople and voice your support.)

Because every day of delay limits our ability to blunt the impact of the already 13-month long recession. And we need jobs now.

Originally posted at OurFuture.org

Yesterday, when I got the news that Samuel J. "Joe the 'Plumber'" Wurzelbacher was going to troop off to Israel to be a war correspondent for Pajamas Media, to let "average Joe's tell their story" and, I guess, warn them that the election of Barack Obama signals their imminent destruction, I reacted like anyone else would, wondering if this news might make a lick of sense to me if I received several sharp blows to the back of my head.

As it turns out, this did no good at all, leaving me, like you, wondering what one is supposed to do in a world where Joe The Plumber is to be the new, right-wing version of Michael Ware. And so, I embarked on my most dangerous, high-wire pursuit yet: an attempt to take all of this seriously. Results were mixed!

Look, I think that one can and should muster a baseline amount of respect for anyone who agrees to leave the comforts of home behind to head to a war-torn land in order to bring back stories to people Stateside. For the Joe The Plumber, it's actually a pretty significant move outside of his comfort zone. Whatever you think about the exploit, or how you prejudge the work he's likely to bring back to Pajamas Media, traveling abroad and experiencing the daily lives of average people in the Middle East is a far more admirable profession than say, writing a blog that charges a membership fee in order to gain access to it.

If I have an extant concern for this career move, it's couched mainly in the fact that one can easily see this war correspendent job as just another in a long line of pursuits that Joe The Plumber has taken up only to later abandon, like being a country singer, running for office, flacking for John McCain, publishing books, complying with various tax laws, being named "Samuel," serving as an authority on digital teevee conversions, and - oh yes! - PLUMBING. Never forget: plumbing. So, in an effort to provide Joe The Plumber with the sort of knowledge he'll need to enable a certain amount of "stick-to-itiveness," and to disabuse him of the idea that life with the IDF is in any way akin to this unfortunately placed advertisement found by Alex Balk on the Haaretz website, I reached out to the Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman, who's had experience being in war zones, being embedded with actual soldiers, and bringing the hopeful message of The Gaslight Anthem's new CD The '59 Sound to our troops (Joe, you should TOTALLY buy that record).

Spencer was happy to respond:

OK, here are a few tips:

1. Pack baby wipes and toilet paper. You are going to shower much less than you think you will, and so much less than you want to. If you want to be a fancy-boy, pack some Febreze. Otherwise, refreshen yourself the way infants do. Take the minimum of outerwear -- like one pair of multipocketed, comfortable pants -- and the maximum of underwear and socks that is practical.

2. No electronic equipment that isn't absolutely necessary. Everything that can break will. However, you'll be in Israel, which is a first world country, so you won't really need to.

3. In Israel tell everyone you meet that you're an American. They love you. In Gaza tell no one you're an American. If you manage to get into Gaza -- good luck with that, by the way -- two words to know are 'Sohofe Canadi.' That's pidgin Arabic for 'Canadian Journalist.' Come to think of it, ask someone who knows Arabic better than I do how to say that properly, since an ignorance of Arabic is probably a dead giveaway that you're American.

4. Jews love to be told about Jesus. Don't be fooled by people pretending to be offended. You know how 'ethnic' Jews can be. Jesus is like oral sex -- a total icebreaker. Don't miss an opportunity.

I think that most of that is pretty solid advice! And I'm sure that Spencer would also want you to know about this news story he pulled yesterday that indicates that someone with the plumber skill set is desperately needed in the region:

Human rights groups and Palestinian officials are reporting a sewage crisis, with human waste bursting from antiquated pipes as the Israeli blockade of Gaza doesn't allow for sufficient diesel to power the pump-station generators. This, of course, has significant health implications for one of the most population-dense places on earth:

Sadi Ali, project manager for the Palestinian Water Authority, said the health risk from sewage on the streets was clear.

"There is a risk of the spread of all sorts of water borne diseases such as dysentery and cholera," he said.

Chances are Pajamas Media won't look to kindly on Joe schlepping off to Gaza for some public works project, but in places like Sderot, which has been shelled by Hamas' Qassam rockets, there's likely to be similar needs, so no matter how the whole "war correspondent" thing goes, Joe The Plumber will have his chance to test his mettle in the shtetl.

It's all well and good that President-Elect Obama wants high-speed Internet connectivity to be part of the economic stimulus package. The goal, he said in a speech today (Jan. 8), is, "expanding broadband lines across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world."

This isn't an abstract notion, or one to be simply glossed over by numbers. Here's Will Gilmer, a farmer in Lamar County, Alabama, speaking at a news conference with Gov. Bob Riley: "When farmers need up-to-the-minute weather and commodity information, that usually involves going to a Web site, going to make a cup of coffee, drinking the coffee and then coming back to see the page only half loaded."

Noting that DSL lines end less than a mile from his house, Gilmer said broadband can also help farmers tell their story: "Many people these days simply don't understand where their food comes from. As farmers, many of us want to educate the public about how production and environmental stewardship go hand in hand and how we care for our animals." Gilmer said, adding he his Internet connection is too slow to post the videos he would like to post.

In Bar Harbor, Maine, residents said they need higher speed access, either because they have home-based businesses or, as in the case of some city department heads, work from home. Dana Reed, the Bar Harbor town manager, said Time Warner wouldn't extend its broadband service more than 293 feet from its existing cable line.

What's to be done with these telephone and cable companies who refuse to bring their customers into the digital age and contribute to the local economies? Why, what else? Shower them with millions of tax dollars in grants, or tax credits, government bond-funded support or even loan guarantees so that they extend higher speed services to areas in which they haven't seen fit to expand it before, despite the demand. Those are the kinds of suggestions on the table for a stimulus package.

What else have they done to justify such public largesse? In Bar Harbor, Time Warner is protesting state grants to companies that want to fill in service areas where the cable giant has declined to go. In North Carolina, AT&T is leading the state carriers in a bid to undermine E-NC, the fine, homegrown agency that supports broadband expansion and mapping. Their tool of choice, of course, is the "Connected" franchise, which telephone companies control, and which reports only the deployment data the carriers want reported and under what conditions. (And shame on the Gates Foundation for further legitimizing these guys by including them in a plan to bring service to libraries.)

It's pretty clear that if new areas are to be served, and if underserved areas are to be upgraded, then either the incumbent telecom companies have to clean up their acts, or they have to make way for others. It's also clear that consumers should get some benefits out of the deal. As of now, consumers could be stuck on one hand with paying the telecom provider high monthly fees for the new service while at the same time having their tax dollars go to pay these big companies that won't upgrade their service (but have sufficient coin to spend millions of dollars to buy back their stock).

The good news is that there is a relatively cheap way to stimulate the telecommunications sector. The bad news is that the Federal Communications Commission or Congress have to do it. One or the other have to create new competition by allowing for other companies to have access to the lines of telecom and cable companies through wholesale or line sharing. This policy worked wonders back when there was simple old copper in the ground with much less capacity than today's advanced networks, and works wonders in other parts of the world. We should bring it back here. Second, support for consumers and companies should be reconfigured to encourage broadband. Low-income consumers benefit from programs to help them get regular telephone service; high-speed Internet (but not TV service) should also be included. Telephone companies get support for serving rural areas with regular telephone service. That money could be redirected to providing advanced Internet services as well.

If Congress and the new Administration are looking for more traditional stimuli, by all means bring on the grants and tax credits - with a twist. First, allow any company to apply for a grant to provide broadband service in an unserved or underserved area - regardless whether it's the local telephone company or local cable company. Service territories and franchise areas shouldn't count for much here. If a small, entrepreneurial company, or consortium of companies, or even another telephone company, wants to try it out, by all means let them try to build a small network that will connect to the phone or cable network. The whole network doesn't have to be duplicated.

Cities and towns should also be encouraged through grants and subsidies to remedy market failures through construction of their own networks, or partial networks to make up for the lack of services their residents are getting from the existing companies. Even though the telecom companies have fought around the country to prohibit "competition" from municipal governments, they had better not take on that fight here.

If there are no other takers, than let the (generally anti-government) phone and cable companies step up to the trough for the money, albeit with conditions that could range from line sharing and wholesaling to build-out and data speed requirements with obligations to report publicly on deployment progress and location. The companies might complain but, heck, it's free money to pay for the network while they still buy back their stock.

Finally, let consumers - individuals, businesses and government - get some of the tax credits for upgrading to faster service or starting to take a broadband service. Maybe the vision of that much increased demand, even if fueled by a subsidy, might be enough to make the companies get going. Will all that cost money?

The goal of the stimulus package is to have not only an immediate effect on the economy, but also to provide a platform for long-term growth. Perhaps these are some elements that could do that.

When former Chicago television broadcaster Bob Arya joined Gov. Blagojevich's staff as a senior advisor in November 2006, the governor described him as "a real asset to my administration."

But when Arya's run with Blagojevich came to an end, he had a story to tell -- one of intense jealousies by the governor toward President-elect Barack Obama, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and others, a terrorized staff, and emotional instabilities that Arya said demonstrate the need for a psychological evaluation by the legislative panel weighing the governor's impeachment.

Progressives, outraged by the Bush administration's conduct of the "war on terror," have come to hate the idea that the President is a "unitary executive," and for good reason: this idea was abused by the Reagan Administration to attack the very idea of "independent" government agencies then abused again by the Bush administration in support of the use of "enhanced" interrogation and surveillance techniques. But I'm guessing this letter by a number of prominent conservative lawyers in favor of the confirmation of Attorney General nominee Eric Holder will be just the first of many developments over the next 4 years that make progressives rethink their unbending opposition to the idea of a strong, even dare I say, unitary, President Obama.

The letter, signed by 10 conservatives including former Bush I Attorney General William Barr, is devoted mainly to a glowing account of Holder's stellar credentials for the position. But the letter also defends Holder on the issue that forms the heart of the case Republican Senators such as Arlen Specter are trying to make against Holder: President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich. Here's what the letter says: "The short answer to any and all of these questions is that the power to issue a Presidential Pardon is a clear plenary power of any President. It is his or hers alone to execute and justify. A Presidential pardon is then unreviewable. Virtually no one disputes that Eric was an outstanding Deputy Attorney General in every respect, President Clinton's pardons notwithstanding."

This defense of Holder is a classic articulation of the idea that the President is a unitary executive. It also happens to be essentially right. It is a historical fact that our Constitution establishes a "unitary" executive: the executive power is vested in the President, not, for example, a cabinet or a privy council. The abuse of this basic principle has come where conservatives such as Dick Cheney and John Yoo have made unsupportable arguments about how the President's "unitary" authority over the executive branch somehow trumps explicit grants of congressional power. The President is not a King - he is subject to the Rule of Law - but the Constitution does give the President broad authority to run the executive branch. And the pardon is one of the President's most unfettered powers. One can fairly criticize Eric Holder for not doing more to stop President Clinton from pardoning Marc Rich -- Holder has chastised himself -- but it's difficult (and more than a little hypocritical) for conservatives, who have spent decades arguing about the unique powers of the President, to place the blame for the Rich pardon at Holder's feet.

Progressives need not restrain their critique of the Bush administration's abuse of power in order to recognize the basic fact of the President's broad control over the executive branch. And progressives who like Obama's policy leanings, but may not trust all the members of the "team of rivals" he is assembling around him, may come to like this more than they realize today.

Once the master of revolutionary war, Israel cannot seem to grasp the essential nature of asymmetrical warfare.

In the eyes of so many, the detestable Hamas militants firing the rockets are the brave Davids struggling to protect their families and villages from the overwhelming force of the American-backed Israeli Goliaths. Yesterday's attack by Israel on a UN school, which killed at least 40 civilians -- many of them children -- has shocked even this Middle Eastern democracy's most ardent supporters.

In asymmetrical warfare, the fanatacism of the weaker attacking force, invariably triggers the kind of massive retaliation that makes the contemptuous mighty responders appear much more fanatical then their antagonists. During World War II, Japan's frenzied embrace of suicide tactics, especially the use of suicide bombers, led directly to the intentional targeting of innocent civilians by the U.S., hundreds of thousands of whom were burned alive by our attacks.

Israel has misinterpreted its enemy and its national interest. The rocket-launching militants will never overthrow Israel. But the killing of so many women and children, by tanks and aircraft paid in part by America -- and built in part by American corporations -- threatens to derail Israel's international support. And should American support fade, Israel's destruction becomes a real possibility.

Asymmetrical warfare is unlike all other types of fighting. In the current conflict, the militants are not trying to kill Israelis. Hamas, knowing Israel cannot be beaten on the battlefield, has opted instead to goad Israel into a disproportionate, fanatical response. If the Israelis continue to kill women and children, foreign support will surely fade. Israel will be left isolated, and the Hamas terrorists will have won.

The selection of Leon Panetta to serve as President-Elect Barack Obama's Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is a remarkably good choice. In December 1976, Panetta and I attended our first orientation session for newly elected members of the freshman class of the 95th Congress. While we did not know each other at the time, over the years we became close colleagues and friends. We worked together on the House Agriculture Committee on agriculture and nutrition issues, and we tackled tough budget matters together. Ironically, Leon and I shared a background in education -- he at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now HHS) working on a major school desegregation case involving my home town of Wichita, Kansas. Later I became a member of Wichita's School Board.

Leon and I also served together in the Clinton Administration. In my role as Secretary of Agriculture I worked with Leon almost every day when he was Chief of Staff to the President. I am personally well aware of his role in managing the chaotic atmosphere of the executive office of the President, which often required his steady hand and warm sense of humor in getting everyone -- from the President on down -- to work collaboratively and according to principles of good management. I know from personal experience that it was not always an easy chore. He accomplished it by being firm and forceful, but always respectful. There is no doubt that Leon was always a natural leader, consensus builder, budget hawk, and all around exceptional public servant with a moderate political perspective. He earned well-deserved respect from both sides of the aisle.

During a portion of my time in Congress I served as a member of the House Intelligence Committee and as its chairman from 1993 to 1995. Over the course of those years I came to respect the highly qualified folks who served worldwide in our intelligence agencies. Their work, which protects American lives on a daily basis, often goes totally unrecognized despite the fact that their duties often involve great personal risk to their safety. In the current environment where fears of terrorism are felt worldwide, those risks have grown.

Having such a close view of the intelligence community convinced me that it could not operate in a vacuum unrestrained from congressional and executive branch oversight. Certainly, the events of recent years have proven this to be true. Leon Panetta is a patriot, a veteran, and a consensus builder. Those qualities alone make him well-equipped to lead the CIA. But, he is also a man with strong views and convictions as to what is right and wrong. In my judgment, Leon Panetta will be one of the most dedicated Central Intelligence Agency directors in its history. He will bring a fresh outside perspective to the job, and he will couple it with respect for the professionals in the intelligence community, particularly the dedicated men and women who risk their lives every day in an unpublicized way for their country. And, he will do it forthrightly and in full respect for the law and the Constitution. I frankly cannot think of a better choice.