Bizarre times we live in, no doubt about it. While the left obsesses over the bathroom antics of a relatively obscure Idaho senator and the social right gets their opportunity to wag a finger in disapproval at the hapless hypocritical closet case, a genuine scandal involving a Democratic fundraiser who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money and raised hundreds of thousands more all for Democratic candidates perks along growing stranger by the hour.

Norman Hsu is a man with apparently no known source of income who also may have knowingly tried to skirt campaign finance laws. At the very least, questions should be asked by the FEC about various business addresses given by Mr. Hsu on his disclosure forms, all of which lead to dead ends. Various companies Mr. Hsu claimed to be operating do not exist now nor is it clear that they ever existed at all.

Investigators believe that after Mr. Hsu skipped his court appearance in 1992, he went to his native Hong Kong and then continued working in the garment trade. At some point, Mr. Hsu, a naturalized American citizen, returned to New York and in 2003 made the first of what became hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic campaigns around the nation.

People who met him said they knew only that he ran an apparel business. Efforts to learn more about his trade hit dead-ends yesterday. Visits to companies at addresses listed by Mr. Hsu on campaign finance records provided little information. There were no offices in buildings in New York’s garment district whose addresses were given for businesses with names like Components Ltd., Cool Planets, Next Components, Coopgors Ltd., NBT and Because Men’s clothing — all listed by Mr. Hsu in federal filings at different times.

At a new loft-style residential condominium in SoHo that was also listed as an address for one of his companies, an employee there said that he had never seen or heard of Mr. Hsu. Another company was listed at a condo that Mr. Hsu had sublet in an elegant residential tower in Midtown Manhattan just off Fifth Avenue, but an employee there said Mr. Hsu moved out two years ago, after having lived there for five years. The employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about residents, said he recalled that Mr. Hsu had received a lot of mail from the Democratic Party.

Could the People’s Liberation Army in China be up to their old tricks of trying to buy influence in the Democratic party?

Here’s a fellow who never gave a dime to a political campaign before returning from Hong Kong 4 years ago. With no known source of income and some demonstrably confusing – perhaps even shady – FEC disclosure practices, the entire matter is beginning to stink of some kind of slush fund. Hsu could be a front man for some other fundraiser. Or he could be a foreign agent. But at this point, it is fair to say he is not who he claims to be.

You might recall the 22 individuals – many of them prominent Clinton-Gore intimates and supporters – who were convicted of fraud or funnelling Asian money into the 1996 campaign. It was a massive effort by the PLA to influence the Clinton Administration and steer hardware and technology – some of it on a restricted list from the Department of Commerce – to the PLA. Corporate fundraisers like the Loral Corporation were allowed to transfer restricted satellite and missile technology to the PLA while other security controls on trade with China were either enforced in a lax manner or thrown out the window altogether.

Of course, it was impossible to prove that the Clinton Administration had been bribed by the PLA but the inference was plain as day. In exchange for contributions to the Clinton campaign, his presidential library, and his personal legal defense fund, the Chinese got access to restricted technology and hardware. It was one of the the biggest (and most underreported) campaign financing scandals in American history.

The Chinese denied everything – and then quietly went about the business of reforming the PLA by divorcing the army from any commercial enterprises. Apparently, the profit motive was at work in the scandal as much as the desire to steal technology. By 2000, the PLA was completely free of any commercial taint.

Enter our friend Mr. Hsu who apparently fled the United States to avoid jail time in his swindling case in 1991. He arrived in Hong Kong where investigators believe he went into the garment industry. Could he have made a fortune in the cutthroat Far East garment industry? As a naturalized American citizen, he almost certainly would have been at a disadvantage in the tightly knit, familial Chinese society – unless he was able to acquire valuable contacts to help him in that hyper competitive market.

It might be interesting to find out who those contacts might be. I am also curious to discover if prosecutors seized any of Mr. Hsu’s assets following his no contest plea in the 1991 swindling case. If he hid any money as a result of any judgments against him, that too, would be a crime. Otherwise, one might question where he acquired the capital to go into business in Hong Kong.

And then there is the matter of the Paw family and questions about how this middle class family has been able to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 3 year period to the Democratic party. The fact that the amount of many of those donations closely track the amounts given by Mr. Hsu would seem to indicate that Hsu may have reimbursed the Paw family for their contributions.

Just recently, Hsu hired William Paw’s 35-year-old son, Winkle Paw to work for “several of his apparel businesses” according to the Wall Street Journal yesterday. As the New York Times reports today, those “apparel businesses” are fictitious. It would be a legitimate inquiry to try and determine if the “salary” being paid to Winkle Paw isn’t part of a deal to repay the Paws for their contributions.

Mr. Hsu is a cipher. With Democratic politicians scrambling to return his direct donations to their campaigns, one wonders how long it will be before they are forced to return monies that he “bundled” for these same candidates thanks to his attempts to skirt FEC regulations.

The last question would have to be when is the media going to get serious about this story? The laughable notion that Senator Craig’s stupidities should take precedence over this developing scandal is ridiculous. And yet, the Washington Post has no stories listed on its website involving Mr. Hsu. They do, however, have two stories and a couple of columns on Larry Craig.

The New York Times, to their credit, is apparently looking into the story as is the Wall Street Journal. The San Francisco Chronicle has the local angle detailing Hsu’s contributions to races involving assemblymen and the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Washington Times carried a story culled mostly from wire service reports.

Perhaps when the press is done flogging Mr. Craig and his errant toe tapping, they will concentrate on something a little more important:

Just who is Mr. Hsu?

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey asks the same questions about the source of Hsu’s largesse while detailing the comical explanations of Democratic politicians about why they took money from a convicted con man:

Bob Kerrey has the most laughable explanation, however. The former Senator runs the liberal New School, which made him a trustee after Hsu started showering Democrats with cash. Kerrey explained that he added Hsu to the trustee roster because “I liked his personal story, coming from China, and he had an interest in fashion as well.” All it takes to become a trustee at the New School is to be an immigrant who has an eye for the runway. That says much more about the New School than Kerrey intends.

All of this begs the question: where does Hsu get the money? All of his supposed resources are frauds. Hsu himself is a convicted con man, but the money he threw around was very real. Where did it come from, and what was its purpose?

UPDATE II

Allah is also asking where Hsu is getting his money while linking to this LA Times piece I missed that has some additional information about Hsu’s phantom businesses:

Hsu was affiliated with two businesses — Components Ltd. and Coopgors Ltd. — that have listed addresses on Fifth Avenue. But the building actually houses luxury apartments, not commercial offices, according to a doorman, who has worked there for the last 15 years. The doorman said Hsu lived in the building for a few years but moved out about four years ago.

He moved into the office about two years ago but never unpacked his boxes, said Ken Mulligan, 31, a sales executive for J.P. Doumak, a fabric supplier. He said Hsu would not visit the office space for months, then would show up for a few hours, say “hello,” check his mail, make a few phone calls and leave.

My newest column at PJ Media is up and in it, I use my harrowing experience with last week’s flood as a parable to highlight the need for disaster preparedness for you and your family.

A sample:

Crystal Creek, a normally quiet little burn that meanders through our property just before emptying into the Fox River less than a hundred yards from our front door, was looking more like the Colorado River rapids than the lazy stream Sue and I would fish on during relaxed summer weekends. And as the river downstream from our creek rose, the water began to back up. First, it flooded the brand new Cornish Park across the street from our little house. And then slowly, ominously, the brown torrent began to slide over the brand new retaining wall put in by the Army Corps of Engineers just last fall and inch its way up our newly sculpted back yard. The Corps had landscaped the yard so that there was a much more pronounced hill in front of the house which was supposed to protect us from all but the worst case flooding scenarios.

Sure enough, at 5:45, a knock at the door. It was the police telling us it was time to go. We had until 2:00 AM to pack up whatever we could and leave.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is yours truly for my post “Is the United States an Imperialist Power and Does It Matter?” Finishing second was “St. Nietzsche” by Done With Mirrors.

Finishing first in the Non Council category was my PJ Media colleague Richard Miniter for “How The New Republic Got Suckered.”

If you’d like to participate in the weekly Watchers vote go here and follow instructions.

After all the sound and fury, the bombastic rhetoric thrown around by Democrats over the supposed partisanship of Fox News, comes this stunner of a study done by the conservative Media Research Center about coverage of the presidential campaigns on the three biggest morning shows on television.

In a word; mindboggling:

The study found that 55 percent of campaign stories on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” CBS’s “The Early Show” and NBC’s “Today” focused on Democratic candidates while only 29 percent focused on Republicans. The remaining 16 percent were classified as “mixed/independent.”

The morning shows aired 61 stories focused exclusively on Sen. Hillary Clinton, 44 stories on former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, and 41 stories on Sen. Barack Obama, all of whom are seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Former Vice President Al Gore, who is not officially running, was the subject of 29 stories.

Republican candidates received less attention, according to the study. Sen. John McCain was the focus of 31 stories. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the focus of 26 stories and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney was the focus of 19 stories.

Bring back the Fairness Doctrine!

And it isn’t just the number of stories being aired about Democrats that demonstrates an inherent bias bordering on cheerleading by the Big Three networks. Interviews with Democratic candidates or their representatives took up more than twice as much time on the air as those done with Republicans. What’s more, the tone and tenor of that coverage was almost worshipful; Hillary being referred to as “unbeatable” or Obama being called a “rock star” by grown up journalists would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

The effect of all this coverage is to make the Democratic candidates into celebrities, creating an aura of invincibility around their campaigns. By contrast, most of the stories on John McCain’s candidacy revolved around the sinking nature of the campaign – because of his support of the mission in Iraq according to the networks.

I guess his authorship of the immigration bill, his stubborn defense of McCain Feingold, and his tepid support for conservative judges had nothing at all to do with the collapse of his campaign.

No doubt McCain’s imploding campaign is newsworthy. But contrast the death watch nature of McCain’s coverage with the worshipful devotion to Silky Pony’s equally hopeless effort. Edwards got his very own Town Hall meeting broadcast live on ABC.

Gee. No favoritism there.

More subjectively, MRC tried to measure the way questions were framed to candidates or their representatives and came away with the conclusion that they were “friendly” to Democrats and “actively promoting the liberal agenda.” I’m not really concerned about that kind of criticism. Politicians go on those morning programs because they are generally treated in a more “friendly” fashion in the first place. And as far as questions “promoting” a liberal agenda, that very well may be in the eye of the beholder.

But that kind of partisan critique pales next to the very real discrepancy – huge discrepancy – in time devoted to coverage of Democrats versus that given Republicans. It appears to me that the morning shows on the network haven’t even made an effort to be fair and balanced. The thought never entered their heads.

A case can be made for slightly unbalanced coverage in favor of Democrats due to the historic nature of the Clinton and Obama candidacies. But clearly not on the scale uncovered by the MRC study. In fact, a good case can be made the the Giuliani candidacy has as many newsworthy/gossipy elements to report on as any Democrat in the race. And the Romney campaign has many compelling storylines to it as well.

Nearly 12 million Americans still tune in to the morning news shows to tell them what is happening in the world, dwarfing the audience on cable shows for the same time slot. One would think that the Big Three news shows might take their responsibilities as journalists a little more seriously and cover the campaigns in order to inform the American people of the choices they will have to make on election day. Instead, the perception that the network news departments have become an extension of the Democratic National Committee and mouthpieces for liberal candidates is fostered by the doting coverage they give presidential candidates belonging to only one of the two parties.

Somehow, I don’t think we’ll hear yelps of fake outrage from the netnuts and their minions about this kind of bias. After all, the Democratic party brand of favoritism has been the hallmark of network television since at least the 1960’s. To them, it must seem as if all is right in the world. God is in the universe, the sun is rising in the east, setting in the west, and network news is showing a ridiculously biased face to the American people.

Incredible as it may seem, my spam catcher Askimet has prevented more than one million spam trackbacks and comments from appearing on this site. The time period was 16 months.

Caught Spam
Akismet has caught 1,001,123 spam for you since you installed it.

You have no spam currently in the queue. Must be your lucky day.

There are times when the spam is coming in so quickly – 60 to 80 a minute – that site loading slows to a crawl.

When I move to my new hosting company, I hope the spam situation will get better. But I’m not crossing my fingers.

My latest sports column is up at Pajamas Media. In it, I lay into Michael Vick and tell the story of how the prosecutors were able to pressure him into pleading guilty.

A sample:

Michael Vick will be out of football this season and almost certainly next season as well. And if it comes out that his Bad Newz Kennels was involved with even shadier characters and practices, that suspension could become permanent. But whatever punishment meted out to the young man, it pales in comparison to what he put those helpless animals through during their short, brutal lives.

For that, there is nothing in the United States Code that covers the cruelty and depraved indifference shown by Vick toward those animals nor the manner in which he sought to deceive everyone about his nefarious and heartless enterprises.

I have made no secret on this blog of my distaste for the Republican strategy of pushing opposition to abortion and gay marriage as litmus tests for GOP candidates and as “wedge” issues to use in campaigns.

While I acknowledge there are many millions of sincere, devout Christians (and other social conservatives) who see these issues as vital to the moral fiber of the nation and thus worthy of standing them up front and center as the party’s main identity, from a personal standpoint, I strenuously disagree.

Abortion, I can understand. The religious underpinnings that can rationalize life at conception are well known to me, having grown up Catholic. But the Republic or the “sanctity of marriage” being in danger because two people in love want to get married? That’s a stretch. There may be other reasons to keep gay people from marrying but the more I think about it, the more I believe that it’s really no body’s business who loves who and what sex they are. There may be sticky legal issues involved but I’m no lawyer and can’t speak to them. All I can look to is common sense. And common sense tells me that gay people should be able to do anything in this free country that anyone else can do.

Beyond common sense, there is politics. And while I am not calling for dropping these planks from any GOP platform, these issues are no longer “wedge” issues. They are “loser” issues. They are “recipe for electoral disaster” issues. They are driving people away from the Republican party.

Another time I might make the argument that they are not even conservative issues but such a post is not in my pen tonight. Instead, I want to talk about the regularity with which conservative Republicans seem to get themselves into trouble over sex. The latest is Idaho Senator Larry Craig who was arrested in a Minneapolis restroom for “lewd conduct.”

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could … see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. ... Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.”

The conduct doesn’t seem lewd to me and the whole story reeks of something very fishy. But the fact is, the Senator pled guilty and probably thought that it would stay out of the papers if he didn’t make a fuss.

The point really isn’t whether he’s guilty or innocent. The point is that this sort of thing becomes a huge issue because of the way the party talks about gays and the way many GOP stalwarts like Reverend Robertson and James Dobson talk about sex. The perception that Republicans are a bunch of bigoted blue noses stuck in the 19th century with Victorian sensibilities about the bedroom turns off a lot of voters – especially the young.

A brief look at this eye popping poll that shows the vital 18-29 year old group turning up their noses at Republicans is very significant. I was in that age group when I became a Republican and many of my fellow Reaganites were also young, eager conservatives who drank in the enormous intellectual ferment that bubbled up from dozens of places in Reagan’s Washington. We were on the cutting edge and we knew it.

Nowadays, I don’t blame young people for turning off the GOP. The corruption, the hypocrisy, the sanctimony, and the tired old men pushing tired old ideas to an ever shrinking number of wealthier, whiter, men has the GOP in deep, deep, trouble. If I were that age again, I probably wouldn’t support Republicans either.

Perhaps the predicted disaster in 2008 will wake a few people up. Not likely based on what happened in 2006. As the left did for 30 years, the push will be for more ideological “purity,” more fealty to what passes for conservative issues today.

Just at the moment that our country needs the right’s commitment to fight a war against an implacable, unyielding foe, our own stupidity is going to allow the milquetoast left to ascend to power. For that, our children and grand children may curse us for our folly.

/off

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey also sees disaster for the GOP in 2008 – at least in the Senate.

The Republicans already have a 21-12 disadvantage in next year’s Senate contests. His was one of the seats the GOP hoped to hold, and his party had been pushing to keep him from retiring. I suspect they’re looking for Plan B at the moment.

And Allah gets off the line of the day.

(Allah): I think he can probably start throwing away those cards now.

I would love to say that the agreement reached yesterday by the Iraqi leadership is a huge step on the road to peace and reconciliation. But I don’t see how anyone who has watched this crew in action over the last year can honestly say what was agreed to yesterday by the major sectarian factions is anything except Washington-inspired window dressing:

Iraq’s top Shi’ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders announced on Sunday they had reached consensus on some key measures seen as vital to fostering national reconciliation.

The agreement by the five leaders was one of the most significant political developments in Iraq for months and was quickly welcomed by the United States, which hopes such moves will ease sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands.

But skeptics will be watching for action amid growing frustration in Washington over the political paralysis that has gripped the government of Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

While certainly significant in the sense that they were all able to sit down in the same room and basically agree that there are things that must be done to start Iraq down the road to peace, the devil, as always, is in the details:

Iraqi officials said the five leaders had agreed on draft legislation that would ease curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party joining the civil service and military.

Consensus was also reached on a law governing provincial powers as well as setting up a mechanism to release some detainees held without charge, a key demand of Sunni Arabs since the majority being held are Sunnis.

The laws need to be passed by Iraq’s fractious parliament, which has yet to receive any of the drafts.

Again, I hate to be a party pooper, but these laws have been in “draft” form for months – some of them for more than a year. The oil revenue sharing law was passed in the spring and has yet to be taken up by Iraq’s parliament. In fact, precious little has been taken up by Parliament which usually has trouble finding a quorum of members to conduct business.

And frankly, it remains to be seen how much sway these gentlemen have with their various factions. Maliki has only nominal control over the Shia coalition that runs the Parliament. Vice President al-Hashemi has problems with his own party, the Iraqi Accordance Front, who walked out of the government last month over Maliki’s rank sectarianism.

As for the Kurds, as always, they have their own fish to fry. Since their long term goal is an independent Kurdish state, they can afford to be generous to the Sunnis while cooperating with the Shias when it suits them. They will support any deal that maintains their virtual independence from Baghdad.

In short, the senior Iraqi leadership has given General Petreaus one more arrow in his quiver when he gives his report to Congress in about two weeks. In addition to some progress in the security situation about which Petreaus will be able to boast, he can now claim that his deals with many of the Sunni tribes and this latest accord in Baghdad proves that his counterinsurgency strategy is working.

Unfortunately, Petreaus and the military cannot address the huge political and security problem brewing in the south as the British continue their withdrawal:

Shiite militiamen from the Mahdi Army took over the police joint command center in Basra on Sunday after British soldiers withdrew from the facility and handed control to the Iraqi police, witnesses said.

Police left the building when the militiamen, loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, arrived, the witnesses said.

The British military disputed the reports, saying they had been in contact with the Iraqi general in charge of security in Basra, who has said the Mahdi Army was not there.

But the witnesses said the Mahdi Army emptied the building — taking generators, computers, furniture and even cars, saying it was war booty — and remained there in the early evening.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Until Maliki can enforce the will of the central government in the south, all the reforms and agreements between the factions wil largely be moot. The writ of Baghdad law does not run in Basra and other towns and villages where the Mahdi and other militias are fighting for control – an intolerable situation that has gotten worse since the British have pulled back their forces and allowed the militias to move in.

This means a final and direct confrontation with Maliki’s friend and supporter, Moqtada al-Sadr is in the offing. Will the Mahdi be the next target for Petreaus if Congress gives him the go-ahead to continue the surge? One would think that the General would be forced to deal with the Mahdi if for no other reason than to plug the holes that will be left by the British drawdown of troops. That would mean some very hard fighting for our boys.

Cynics will question the timing of these accords as well as their utility. Coming two weeks before Petreaus’s report to Congress, the agreement smacks of gamesmanship by both the Iraqi and American governments. The parties all know that the Iraqi parliament will be months, perhaps even years, examining, debating, and amending these laws. For that reason alone, Congress should give little weight to this agreement when the debate over funding the surge picks up next month.

Dear Constituent,

As your Congressman, it is sometimes my duty to travel to far off, exotic places in order to inform myself on the issues of the day.

As you may know, these trips usually involve strenuous and exhausting activities. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten sunburned from brutal rounds of golf played in Caribbean sun or pruned hands from spending too much time in the resort swimming pool. But as your Representative, I feel it necessary to bear any burden and pay any price in order to familiarize myself with issues on which I will have to vote in your name.

Just recently, I returned from a very different kind of fact finding mission. I would like to report on my visit to Iraq and what I think is going on there was well as inform you of how I am likely to vote next month on whether to continue funding the war.

First of all, as fact finding missions go, I found out a lot of interesting facts. Did you know that it gets very, very hot in Iraq? So hot it “feels like a hair dryer on the back of your neck.” And I found out that wearing a flak jacket and Kevlar helmet when going outside the green zone is not very flattering from an aesthetic standpoint but looks terrific on television and in the newspaper photos. Oughta be worth 10,000 votes next election.

Of course, the highlight of the trip was the very pleasant “nice napkin lunch” with General Petreaus. He certainly sets a fine table and I particularly approved of his wine selection. Then the General showed us all sorts of charts and graphs with incomprehensible acronyms and even more puzzling numbers that he said pointed to the surge giving our troops “tactical momentum.”

What kind of momentum can be considered tactical? I wish I had thought to ask him at that point but I was on my third glass of Pinot Blanc and really wasn’t in any shape to ask that kind of probing question. I guess it has to do with a drop in violence in some areas of Iraq as well as some interesting political developments in Anbar Province and other parts of the Sunni Triangle. It seems a lot of the Sunnis in those areas are switching sides and joining us in our fight against the terrorist from al-Qaeda in return for arms and help in reconstructing their infrastructure.

Now I hate to be a worry wart about these things but considering the fact that until recently, many of these same Sheiks that we’re now embracing were trying to kill us, giving them arms might seem to be something of a risk. After all, just because they’re buddy buddy with us doesn’t mean they’ve gained any great love for their Shia masters in Baghdad. And if we’re seen as allied too closely with Prime Minister Maliki and his sectarian mob, they just might have another change of heart and start using those guns on us again. Especially after we start drawing down our forces, which we are going to be forced into doing in March when many of the units face the end of their deployments. If the Shias take advantage of that by upping the pressure on the Sunnis by escalating sectarian warfare, anything is possible.

All of this is fine as far as the surge goes. It is doing what the President said it would; improve the security situation in order to give the government of Prime Minister Maliki the time to try and effect a reconciliation with the Sunnis. But then I talked to Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Shia, who told me “There’s not going to be political reconciliation by this September; there’s not going to be political reconciliation by next September,” and I thought if this is true, why bother? If the Shias aren’t interested in living in a free, united Iraq with their Sunni countrymen, what possible reason is there to continue to prop up such a government?

But then, there is the “bottom up” reconciliation being carried out in many areas and you have to say to yourself “Here are a people worth helping.” For all their faults, their petty jealousies and hatreds, there may be just enough Iraqis – both Shia and Sunni – dedicated to trying to heal their country and bring it together that it makes sense to continue with the surge as long as we are able to maintain it.

What happens when we’re forced to draw down our forces? Given the change in many places in Iraq over the last few months that the surge has been fully operational, anything is possible – anything except movement toward peace by the Maliki government. There’s only so much our soldiers are able to do. But what is possible (and beyond), they are doing.

General Petreaus and the troops have earned the opportunity to carry on with their mission – at least until we start bringing the boys home in March. And that’s why I will vote to continue funding the mission as it currently stands.

Iraq will be a wretchedly violent place for many years to come. But if by our actions we can start them firmly on the path to peace and reconciliation, we should try. It may take a change at the top of the Iraqi government to begin the process in earnest. It may not. But whatever happens, much of the history that will be written in Iraq in the future will be penned by Iraqis and not Americans. Of this there is no doubt.

No doubt this issue will be revisited again. And circumstances might very well change – circumstances that would cause me to reverse my vote that I will be making in September. But as long as we are making progress, however small or even ephemeral, we should continue.

In First Grade catechism, when learning about Noah’s ark, we were taught that after Noah made land and gave thanks, God created the rainbow as a sign; a promise that he would never destroy the world again with a flood.

Not to be overly dramatic about it, but it seems that the Lord, unlike most politicians, is someone you can count on to keep his word. In a very personal sense, Yahweh saw fit to spare my home the ravages of the worst flooding in these parts in 50 years.

It began Friday night when the police showed up at our door along with a member of Algonquin’s Fire Department. They patiently explained that in a matter of hours our house would have 4 feet of water in the living room and it would be best if we packed up and left.

After a few hours of panicked packing and a frantic call to Sue’s son in Ohio asking him to bring his truck, we were fully prepared to leave Illinois behind us and move out to Ohio – secure in the knowledge that our house was toast and that our lives were about to be turned upside down.

But something funny happened on the way to Armageddon. The unbroken line of thunderstorms stretching back hundreds of miles into Iowa suddenly and inexplicably began to miss us. Then, the drenching rains predicted on the heels of those storms – rains that had caused flooding to the west – dissipated in dawn’s early light. Instead of the predicted three inches of rainfall over a matter of hours, all we got was a desultory drizzle.

Saturday morning, the clouds broke. The sun came out. My world was still intact although there was danger as the river kept rising. All day long we were on tenterhooks as the water in our backyard inched toward the house.

To shorten the story, suffice it to say that while taking water in the crawl space underneath the house, the rest of our home was spared. We still have a flooded backyard, but the river has stopped rising – far below its predicted crest – and it appears that barring unforeseen circumstances, we are safe for the time being. More storms are expected Wednesday so it appears that once again we will be on the knife’s edge of disaster. But the river will be down a few inches by that time and as long as we don’t get a real drenching, we should be alright.

Any life lessons to be drawn from the ordeal? If you haven’t learned by the time you’re 50 years old that life can be cruel, capricious, randomly sadistic, and grossly unfair as well as being a joyous celebration of the ability of the human animal to adapt and endure, then there is little hope you will ever begin to understand yourself. As far as being tested, this incident hardly even rates as a pop quiz. But that doesn’t lessen the feeling I get of being a poster boy for that Chinese proverb:

“May you live in interesting times.”