TOM DELAY DOING THE HURT DANCE: This has not been the best of weeks for the House Majority Leader.

First, Josh Marshall, smelling blood in the water, is all over DeLay's role in locating Texan Democratic state legislators -- click here for some background. Andrew Sullivan keeps it simple: "TOM DELAY IS A MANIAC."

Meanwhile, from today's Chicago Tribune:

Delivering a rare rebuke to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Speaker Dennis Hastert said Thursday that he has not yet decided whether to call for a vote to renew the ban on assault weapons before it expires next year.

DeLay (R-Texas) said Tuesday that the votes do not exist to renew the 10-year ban, scheduled to end in the fall of 2004, and an aide said he would not send the bill to the floor....

Hastert (R-Ill.) said he spoke with DeLay after the majority leader announced that the bill would fail.

"I think he was trying to put his old whip's hat on and try to figure out whether he had the votes or not," said Hastert, who opposed the ban nine years ago.

"That bill hasn't been discussed by the leadership yet," Hastert continued. "I haven't had a discussion with the president yet, so I'm not ready to make that decision."

Developing....

UPDATE: Lloyd Grove reports on another DeLay travail (link via Tapped).

CONFESSION: I FIRST THOUGHT THIS WAS SPANISH: For those readers dying to see a Portuguese translation of my latest New Republic Online essay, click here.

Liberals like Michael Totten, Dr. Joshua Micah Marshall, and Heather Hurlburt have acknowledged that Democrats face a credibility gap on foreign policy issues vis-a-vis the Republicans. Today, Josh Marshall links to Democrats for National Security, organized by one Timothy Bergreen, an ex-State staffer during the Clinton years. Here's a great quote from Bergreen from a Jonathan Rauch story that explains why such an organization is necessary:

"We have reached the point where this has metastasized into a crisis in the party," says Bergreen. "What I would like is to have a Democrat be comfortable reading the words that were in John F. Kennedy's inaugural. Have you read that recently? That's tough stuff. That liberty and freedom are something worth fighting for, worth bearing a burden for. Just because there's no Soviet Union doesn't make these things less relevant."

I wish Bergreen luck. So should all of you. [Ahem, aren't you a Republican?--ed. I'm also a firm believer in the two-party system, and I get really uncomfortable when one party seems incapable of competently discussing matters of grand strategy.]

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: Kieran Healy's post on Krispy Kremes is a must read for anyone who recognizes that doughnuts are the most addictive substance on the planet -- next to chocolate-frosted Pop-Tarts®.

And Bill Amend of Foxtrot comes up with a devastating comeback for geeks everywhere.

RACE AND THE NEW YORK TIMES: Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus are writing and linking like crazy on the role that race played in the Jayson Blair affair. And it now appears that even Howell Raines admits race may have played an unconscious role in Blair's swift ascension through the Times ranks:

"Our paper has a commitment to diversity and by all accounts he appeared to be a promising young minority reporter," Mr. Raines said. "I believe in aggressively providing hiring and career opportunities for minorities."

"Does that mean I personally favored Jayson?" he added, a moment later. "Not consciously. But you have a right to ask if I, as a white man from Alabama, with those convictions, gave him one chance too many by not stopping his appointment to the sniper team. When I look into my heart for the truth of that, the answer is yes."

Two other must-read essays on this topic. The first is Eric Boehlert's discussion in Salon -- it's worth seeing the ads to get to it. The piece does a nice job of pointing out the combustible mix of elements -- Blair's ability to schmooze, Raines' management style, and yes, race -- that led to the scandal. Here's the money quote:

Times metro editor Jonathan Landman, who tried to warn fellow editors at the paper about Blair's increasingly erratic behavior, says the truth lies somewhere in the middle. "There are two conventional wisdoms out there [about the Blair scandal]," he says, but "neither one of them is right. It's not a morality play about race and affirmative action, as some would like to suggest, and it's not a story that has nothing to do with race. Race was one factor among many in a subtle interplay."

Read the whole thing -- and, if you're wondering where Boehlert is coming from, read his previous Raines piece from last December.

The other must-read today is Don Wycliff's Chicago Tribune essay. Wycliff is the Trib's public editor, an ex-Timesman, and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. The key grafs:

Almost as depressing as reading the Times' voluminous account of l'affaire Blair has been reading the e-mail traffic for the last week or so on the National Association of Black Journalists' listserve.

Much of the discussion has been near-apoplectic in character, as members fulminate, agonize and hand-wring over the uses to which they fear the Blair case will be and is being put by opponents of newsroom diversity.

Indeed, the NABJ itself issued a statement Friday that said in part, "While Jayson Blair is black, his race has nothing to do with allegations of misconduct."

Not only is that false; it's foolish. Almost as foolish as the notion that Blair's behavior somehow demonstrates the bankruptcy of the entire effort to diversify the staffs of America's newsrooms.

Gerald Boyd, managing editor of the Times and the first black person ever to ascend to so lofty a position at that newspaper, was quoted in Sunday's story as saying Blair's promotion to the status of full-time reporter was not based on race.

With all due respect--and I have genuine respect and admiration for Gerald Boyd--that does not ring true. On the strength of the Times' own description, Blair's work record to that point was marginal at best. Only something extra--like the hope that he might contribute to publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s noble goal of a more diverse newsroom--could have justified his promotion.

Nothing, I'm afraid, could have justified subsequent decisions to assign Blair to major news stories like the D.C.-area sniper case and the war in Iraq--stories on which he lied, cheated and stole his way to front-page treatment and those "attaboys" from the bosses that every reporter covets.

This is a kid who should have been on the night shift, learning the basics.

A closing note. Those readers suspecting me of schadenfreude are mistaken. Well, OK, I experienced about five minutes of it reading the story on Sunday. And yes, I like to critique the Times coverage of foreign affairs from time to time.

However, I also link to it a fair amount. Compared to any other American paper -- with the partial exception of the Christian Science Monitor -- their international coverage simply covers more ground than anyone else. The Times gets more criticism than any other paper because it's more widely read than any other paper.

CONSPIRACY SECRETS REVEALED!!: The origins of my latest New Republic Online essay can be found in my posts about the Straussian meme here and here.

Click here for an online version of Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in World Politics."

Here's a link to the Washington Post story quoted in the essay.

Propagaters of the "neoconservative cabal" argument include Pat Buchanan and Tam Dalyell. Robert Lieber's essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education does an excellent job of collecting the quotes of others who push this argument, such as William Pfaff.

As for the Straussians, the Boston Globe had a story this past Sunday on Strauss' influence on world politics. Here's Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article -- and here's an interview with Hersh that touches on Strauss as well. Le Monde also ran a piece on the Straussians that pre-dated both the NYT and Hersh -- here's a translated version. Josh Cherniss has a series of excellent posts -- here, here, here, here and here -- that provides considerable background on Straussian thought and its relative incompatibility with neoconservatism.

Finally, for those conspiracy-mongers reading this a looking for some way to dismiss my claims, let me provide some ammunition. I teach in the very same political science department where Leo Strauss taught and Paul Wolfowitz studied forty years ago. In 1994, I briefly worked with Abe Shulsky, one of the Straussians highlighted in the New Yorker article. Last night, I attended a talk that my overlord -- I mean, respected commentator William Kristol -- gave for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.

Oh, and I'm Jewish.

UPDATE: Justin Raimondo provides a traditional conservative rebuttal. Man, that guy can link.

THE LIMITS OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES: My latest TNR Online essay is up. It's on the latest round of foreign policy conspiracy theories. Go check it out.

While the administration scrambles to improve order and security in Baghdad, it's worth noting that post-war reconstruction is progressing in other places -- like Mosul. This Chicago Tribune story does an excellent job of contrasting the situation in Mosul with Baghdad:

As Baghdad pops with daily gunfire and limps along with intermittent electricity and water, Mosul has accomplished near wonders under the active command of an American general: Water flows from taps, road crews pick up trash, and Iraqi police and U.S. troops, working side by side, patrol the streets.....

In this tale of two cities, Mosul is an unlikely success. The sprawling northern hub of 2 million--a combustible mix of Iraqis, Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians that American forces feared would roil with ethnic warfare--became the first place, early this month, to hold local elections for an interim government. And it was one of the swiftest to open its government bank vault to dole out back pay to Iraqi workers.

Read the whole story, and it's clear that a big reason for this is the sage leadership of Major General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. The story notes the following

The commanding general, Petraeus, fresh from battle in the south, said he quickly adapted his force of 17,000 to the needs of Mosul's 2 million people. The infantry walked along the streets to convey a sense of order. The first day in town, Petraeus went on Al Jazeera television to talk about the future of Iraq.

Petraeus soon found that people in Mosul were eager for direction. A manager from the local airport knocked on his door. Could Petraeus give him the authority to call back workers? Yes, the general replied, sending armed soldiers to help.

The head of the central bank phoned. He had money to pay government workers, but no one in Baghdad could give him the authority to open the vaults. Petraeus, writing on 101st Airborne stationery, commanded that the cash flow begin.

And then Petraeus embarked on a political campaign unlike anything Iraqis who were interviewed for this story had ever seen. He and his aides contacted tribal leaders, Kurds, Arabs, former military officials and former police and rounded them up for talks.

Every day, for nine straight days and for three to five hours at a time, Petraeus urged and cajoled the townsmen of Mosul to figure out what they could do for Iraq.

The 50-year-old general, a West Point graduate who has a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University, appealed to the Iraqis' sense of duty, knowing that Mosul had been an important source of generations of military men. (emphasis added)

I don't mean to suggest that training in international relations improves one's ability to engage in post-war reconstruction. [Yeah, right--ed.]

Seriously, it seems pretty clear that Petraeus's actions should be a template for Baghdad and elsewhere.

GOODBYE, STRONG DOLLAR: Looks like the Bush administration has decided on one strategy for jump-starting the economy -- kissing the strong dollar goodbye. From today's Chicago Tribune:

While professing to favor a strong dollar, the administration is sending an unmistakable signal that it would not resist if the dollar continued to weaken in world financial markets.

A less-valuable dollar stimulates the economy through price changes. American exports become cheaper, and foreign imports become more expensive. That should boost sales of U.S.-made products here and abroad, putting more Americans back to work.

This "benign neglect" dollar policy, as many analysts call it, holds some promise. U.S. firms are beginning to see benefits from the greenback's yearlong decline against the European euro and the Japanese yen....

The new dollar policy is being pursued quietly amid the administration's frustration with an economic recovery so anemic that not a single net new job has been created since the 2001 recession ended.

Then there's this from Reuters:

"People are waking up finally to the reality that the game has changed. The slurry of comments from [Treasury Secretary] John Snow today are going to be remembered as the moment when the mythology of strong Bush administration support for the Rubin-era strong dollar policy finally fell away," said Andrew Weiss, a strategist at AIG Trading Group in Greenwich, Conn.

Snow has been in the currency spotlight for a few days now, after he alluded to the benefits a weaker dollar have had on the U.S. export sector.

While highlighting the benefit a weak dollar has on exports, Snow cast doubt on the benefits of currency intervention.

I have decidedly mixed feelings about this strategy. There is some logic to it. Letting the dollar slide simultaneously increases aggregate demand in the economy, as our exports are cheaper and Americans substitute away from more expensive imports). This move simultaneously helps to alleviate the Fed's fears of deflation, as a devaluation raises the price level of imports.

In terms of foreign economic policy, however, this is a dangerous game that's being played. There was nothing in the last G-7 statement to indicate that this slide in the dollar is being coordinated with our major trading partners. Without multilateral coordination, this move smacks of beggar-thy-neighbor -- and our neighbors are Canada, Japan and the European Union, none of which is a real engine for growth right now. Japan does not want the yen to appreciate too much, and let's just say I don't see the EU willing to absorb costs to get the American economy moving again.

It will be very interesting to see how the rest of the G-7 reacts to this.

Developing....

THE WHEEL TURNS BACK A LITTLE: I've been churning out some optimistic posts about the Middle East as of late, so let's get to the bad news.

First, there's the Riyadh bombing. The death toll is now estimated at 20, but it will probably rise.Josh Marshall is all over this story, and the Saudi government's inability to provide reliable information. The parallel here to China's early handling of the SARS virus is telling.

Then there's the "Baghdad in Anarchy" headline. This Washington Post story sums up the problem:

Baghdad residents and U.S. officials said today that U.S. occupation forces are insufficient to maintain order in the Iraqi capital and called for reinforcements to calm a wave of violence that has unfurled over the city, undermining relief and reconstruction efforts and inspiring anxiety about the future.

Reports of carjackings, assaults and forced evictions grew today, adding to an impression that recent improvements in security were evaporating. Fires burned anew in several Iraqi government buildings and looting resumed at one of former president Saddam Hussein's palaces. The sound of gunfire rattled during the night; many residents said they were keeping their children home from school during the day....

[T]he British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, expressed disappointment with efforts so far to bring democracy to Iraq. He told the British Parliament that "results in the early weeks have not been as good as we would have hoped." Straw also said the lack of security in Baghdad has been disappointing.

An office and warehouse belonging to the aid group CARE were attacked Sunday night. In two other weekend incidents, two CARE vehicles were seized by armed men, the organization reported today, asking the U.S. occupation forces to "take immediate steps to restore law and order to Baghdad."

"The violence is escalating," said Anne Morris, a senior CARE staff member. "We have restricted staff movement for their own safety. What does it say about the situation when criminals can move freely about the city and humanitarian aid workers cannot?"

Baghdad residents have been increasingly preoccupied by violence and the uncertainty it has produced, slowing relief and rebuilding efforts. One U.S. reconstruction official said tonight, for example, that as the Americans seek to distribute salaries and pensions, 20 bank branches have been unable to open without U.S. protection in the absence of a credible Iraqi police force.

"Security is the biggest problem we have," the official said. "The banks don't feel comfortable opening, and I agree with that."

This failure of U.S. forces to engage in active peacekeeping goes back to a problem I discussed last month. It's not going to be solved anytime soon.

SOUTH ASIAN TERRORIST WEB SITES: While the media is focused on the Mideast road map for peace -- not that there's anything wrong with that!! -- attention has drifted from other flash points -- like South Asia. Alyssa Ayres writes in the Wall Street Journal that although recent trends are positive, Pakistani support for -- or benign neglect of -- terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba will remain a sticking point:

Theoretically, the Lashkar does not exist: Pakistan's President Musharraf banned it in January last year and jailed its founder for six months. It enjoys the distinction of a place on the U.S. State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organizations roster, which puts it in the company of al Qaeda, the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas. But for a banned militia, one whose assets should have been frozen 16 months ago, their media production continues apace. Two weeks ago they gave their family of Web sites a muscular relaunch, suggesting a new infusion of cash or smarts.....

For a banned militia to be printing up magazines in hard copy and virtual form, material obviously designed to recruit militants for a "final journey" into Kashmir, right under the nose of the Pakistani authorities, can only mean one of two things. Someone either can't, or won't, connect the dots.....

[P]eace will remain a fantasy as long as spoilers like the Lashkar-e-Taiba receive free rein to propagate their vision and recruit new soldiers to the task.

Read the whole thing.

MORE WHEELS TURNING IN THE MIDDLE EAST: The Washington Post suggests that Syria is now discussing serious domestic and foreign policy reforms in the wake of U.S. successes in Iraq:

With tens of thousands of U.S. troops positioned just to the east and U.S. officials warning Syria it could be the next object of American ire, Syrians acknowledge they are feeling vulnerable. These regional developments -- nothing less than an "earthquake," according to Khalaf M. Jarad, editor of the state-run Tishrin newspaper -- have prompted Syria to alter its foreign policy to accommodate U.S. demands, while rethinking its domestic affairs.

"When your neighbor shaves, you start to wet your cheeks," said Nabil Jabi, a political strategist in Damascus, citing an Arabic proverb. "It means you must study the new situation in your neighborhood."....

But the changes in domestic policy may ultimately prove to be of even greater consequence.

During the past two weeks, the Syrian government has licensed its first three private banks, considered an essential step in modernizing the state-dominated economy, while approving two new private universities and four private radio stations. Officials are now reviewing the possibility of removing military training from the curriculum of schools and universities and eliminating a requirement that all students join youth groups affiliated with Syria's ruling Baath Party, according to sources close to the leadership.

While discussions about reforming the Baath Party have been underway for at least three years, they have taken on a much greater urgency since the collapse of Iraq's Baath Party government, said Syrians close to the leadership.

"If now people feel a more pressing need to do that, so much the better," said Buthaina Shaaban, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry. "I think it's normal to be affected by external events and to use it for your own benefit, to reform your reality."

Meanwhile, Juan Cole reports that Egyptian opposition parties are also seizing the moment to push for greater democratic reforms in their country.

Developing....

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S DREAM SUNDAY: The Bushies' two most tenacious foils over the past two years -- France and the New York Times -- are facing a world of hurt this week.

In France, the Elf Aquitaine scandal has metastasizedto the point where it has managed to include Iraqi billionaires and the Irish financial sector (link via InstaPundit).

Meanwhile the New York Times' credibility is hemorrhaging badly, as Jayson Blair's web of deceit is put on full display [Doesn't the Times deserve credit for putting the results of its investigation so prominently on Page 1?--ed. Yes, absolutely -- although one could argue that this was merely a pre-emptive strike that prevented other news outlets from breaking the magnitude of the story behind Blair's dismissal.]

Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus are -- naturally -- all over this story. However, I believe Glenn Reynolds's response is probably the most devastating.

UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias takes this post a bit too seriously:

[Drezner's post] sums up everything that's bad about the Bush administration. A "dream Sunday" consists not in making substantive progress on issues that would improve the lives of Americans -- employment, homeland security, nation-building in Iraq, North Korea, health care, etc. -- rather it consists in the revelation of embarrassing information about its enemies.