Love thy planet

By Ellen Ratner
Recently Rev. Joel Hunter, the elected president of the famed Christian Coalition, founded by Pat Robertson, stepped down due to what appears to be irreconcilable differences over how to use the organization's political and real capital. Does the organization, as it has in the past, continues to focus on pet personal piety issues such as same-sex marriage, or does it take a completely new tack and resurrect the social justice roots of Christianity? Rev. Hunter wanted to fix the Christian Coalition's massive energy beam on the environment — which is proving to be an emerging social-justice issue. The organization's board said no.



While there is no commandment per se to ''love thy planet,'' people who believe that the Earth was created by a higher being, also believe that ''man'' has dominion over creation. And with dominion comes responsibility, or as believers like to say, ''stewardship.'' Rev. Hunter was trying to push his organization toward ''stewardship,'' and away from consumership. Of course there is a difference between a glib, generalized platitude about ''stewardship of creation'' and taking measurable steps in our homes and communities to stop the tide of ruin.

The board members of the Christian Coalition are not the only ones of their faith who are uncomfortable with the so-called environmental agenda. I recently had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Matthew Sleeth, M.D., an evangelical Christian and author of ''Serve God, Save the Planet.'' The three things that struck me most about Dr. Sleeth were his commitment to his faith, his commitment to his belief that at our current rate we are going to ruin creation and finally his sense of humor. He was not a stereotypical whack bird right-winger and he wasn't a dour tree hugger either. He's a doctor and a father who believes that each one of us has a responsibility to our planet. So what's the problem? Christian booksellers are, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about ''Serve God, Save the Planet'' and that's why Christians are unlikely to see it at the stores where they buy books.

I'm not sure how Christians became adverse to preserving what they believe God created. I suppose, however, if you believe God created the universe in six days, then you might also believe God could fix it in at least half the time. Or maybe scorching the Earth is all part of the master plan and the destruction of mother Earth will usher in Christ for his second trip to Earth. Al Gore might even be the anti-Christ . . . no, as I recall, these folks are saving that title for Bill Clinton.

All joking aside, this church split seems more like a political move than a spiritual one. They tend to go with whatever direction their ''Christian in Chief'' gives them. The Bush administration has no interest in environmental issues. Bush's ''Clear Skies'' initiative should be renamed, the ''Gray Lung Initiative,'' because it doesn't even take into account Carbon Dioxide emissions. Sci Fi Team Bush rejects the overwhelming evidence that says we are cooking ourselves on low heat and marinating in poison. Never mind the science Mr. President, just open your eyes. Tripling cancer rates, spiraling mercury levels, melting polar ice caps, and Katrina are clues that even Inspector Clouseau could have acted on, but not our president and not his faithful.

That's OK because it is this liberal Democrat's opinion that Campaign '08 is going to turn for the Democrats on the issue of the environment. Those soccer moms and dads are getting wise to the ADHD and Autism epidemics that plague their offspring. The Christian Coalition's board of directors should have listened to the man they elected. And America should be listening to anyone, of faith or no faith, who gives us tools to save our planet.

Ellen Ratner is the White House correspondent and bureau chief for the Talk Radio News service. She is also Washington bureau chief and political editor for Talkers Magazine. In addition, Ratner is a news analyst at the Fox News Channel.

From Russia with Polonium 210?

By Ellen Ratner
Can Russia be trusted is the question of the day following the murder of former Russian KGB spy Alexander V. Litvinenko. Litvinenko was poisoned in London with Polonium 210. Only professionals use Polonium 210. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes or Hans Blix to conclude this plan was hatched by the Kremlin and President Putin's fingerprints seem to be all over the evidence. The Kremlin is issuing a plausible denial with loud protests about how the Russians are being framed. Framed? Eliminating one's enemies is century-old business as usual for the Russians.



The first time I was in Russia was Thanksgiving of 1978. I went to Russia to visit an American friend writing her doctoral dissertation. It was an unforgettable trip. No matter where I went, or who I made contact with, our ''tour guide'' always knew what I was up to. I quickly learned why most of my friend's communication with the other American students was via a child's ''magic slate.'' It was quickly erasable and left no conversations to be recorded.

I heard many Russian jokes during that trip but one that stayed with me dealt with the ''progress'' of the then Soviet Union. The joke runs something like this: the last czar dies and goes directly to hell. He is joined several years later by Lenin. He welcomes Lenin and asks how things are in Russia. ''How is the secret police? Are you controlling the peasants? Are you running things from the top and making sure to curb any democracy? Are you sure you have control of the press?'' Lenin answers yes to all the questions.''Good, good'' says the czar. ''Russia is running the same as I left it.'' Stalin dies, goes to hell and the czar asks the same questions and gets the same answers. ''Good, good'' says the czar. ''Russia is the same as I left it.'' Finally, Khrushchev dies and meets the rest of his predecessors in hell. The czar asks the same questions and gets the same answers and with the czar nodding with approval, Khrushchev then brags proudly, ''We also upped the alcohol content in Vodka by 1 percent!'' The czar pauses thoughtfully and says, ''For 1 percent you had a Revolution?''

Ironically, change in Russia under the Communists was thought to be for about 1 percent of the general Russian population. The majority had the same lack of freedom and secret police just with slogans and different actors. With Putin and elections, many thought it was going to be different this time. A real democracy was to have taken hold. The trouble is, the leadership in real democracies don't kill members of the press on the doorsteps of their apartment buildings (Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya), and they don't poison people with Dioxin, (like the Russians most likely poisoned Ukrainian president, Viktor A. Yushchenko). Yushchenko wanted Ukraine to move politically and economically toward Europe and Mr. Putin was very unhappy about his plans.

So, what do we do now? President Bush has been sucking up to Putin since their first meeting in 2001. Remember that famous first meeting Bush described, ''I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul. He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship.''

My Fox News Channel sparring partner Jim Pinkerton says this latest assassination will mean a return to the Cold War. Cold War? We are in such a hot embrace with Russia that it is impossible to make it cold. We need and want their oil and gas. We have developed business relationships as well as joint ''Partnership for Peace'' military exercises (aka NATO). We have engaged Russia in our quest to control North Korea's nuclear ambitions. There is no turning back. We are business partners with the Russians. Our multi-national corporations would never stand for it. The one area we could influence the Russians in is in the court of world opinion. Unfortunately, due to Guantanamo and our handling of Iraq we are not on the moral high ground. Last summer President Putin got a lot of laughs in a joint press conference with President Bush when he responded to Bush's recap of their private meeting.

Bush: I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq, where there's a free press and free religion. And I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia will do the same thing. I fully understand, however, that there will be a Russian-style democracy.

Putin: We certainly would not want to have same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, quite honestly.

The United States is very short of options when it comes to ''diplomacy'' with the Russians. This may be the time for Secretary of State Rice to use her Russian expertise. She was the Russian expert under President George H.W. Bush but has put Russia on the back burner while she focused on Iraq. The problem is that Iraq had no ''weapons of mass destruction,'' but Russia does. Not only does it have an estimated 5,830 nuclear weapons, but it reportedly has labs to make poisons, (as we saw this week), and germ warfare. It may be, however, that the secretary of state just has a big soft spot in her heart for the Russians. As she was quoted to have said in a meeting on Iraq in June of 2003, when discussing what to do with the coalition of the ''unwilling,'' she said, ''Punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia.''

President Bush may have gotten a sense of Putin's soul but he missed the nukes, the germs and the poisons. The canary died in the mine and it is time to pay attention to what just happened. Should we be putting our energy fighting a rag tag insurgency in Iraq or should we be focusing on the guys who really have the capacity to end our life as we know it?

Gonzales taps into the Air Force

By Ellen Ratner
This weekend several hundred cadets at the United States Air Force Academy heard a defense of wire tapping from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Air Force Academy has been training cadets for over five decades to become generals, astronauts, pilots and leaders of the Air Force. It has a proud record. Cadets have very little freedom during their four-year sentence, as some call it. Several cadets and alumni I know feel that losing those freedoms for four years gives them a reason to fight for and maintain the freedoms that we have in America. They understand on an experiential and gut level what it is like to live without freedom.



Attorney General Gonzales explained the Bush Administration's views on a case that was decided against the administration by a federal court judge in Detroit. The case brought by the ACLU before Judge Anna Diggs Taylor was in reference to a secret order signed by President Bush that gave the National Security Agency the ability to listen to conversations within the United States without obtaining a warrant either before or after the wiretap. The National Security Agency has been listening in on foreign conversations for years. Yet this order pertained to conversations in the United States. President Bush signed the order and the wire tapping commenced. Most legal scholars considered it unconstitutional and the court agreed. In mid-August of this year, Judge Taylor said that, ''there are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution.''

We have been down this road before when the Executive Branch in the 50s, 60s and 70s decided they had to ''protect'' Americans from the questionable citizens of the United States, including civil rights leaders, community organizers and even a few members of Congress. As a result, Congress wrote specific guidelines into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in order to protect our rights under the First and Fourth Amendments.

Currently, the appellate court issued a stay and the government is trying to get the case dismissed. It is clear that the Bush Administration is data mining and listening to journalists, lawyers and others all in the so-called ''interest'' of national security. Fine, but what about a warrant? The FISA court is set up to issue warrants for wiretapping. One of the 11 judges on the FISA court resigned a year ago. U.S. District Judge James Robertson had doubts about the warrentless wiretaps and felt that it put the court's work in jeopardy.

Both Gonzales and Vice President Cheney have attacked the judge's ruling. Cheney said on Friday that the ruling was, ''an indefensible act of judicial overreaching.'' On Saturday the attorney general referred to the initial authority to use force in Iraq as the basis for the warrantless wiretaps. ''We believe the president has the authority under the authorization of military force and inherent authority of the Constitution to engage in this sort of program, but we want to supplement that authority.''

That is a stretch by anyone's legal reasoning. But this isn't the first time the Bush Administration has stretched. They felt they could keep enemy combatants in Guantanamo forever and the Supreme Court did not agree. Even enemy combatants are entitled to a trial.

Ironically, Gonzales, like many administration officials, tries to put a constitutional face on the unconstitutional. According to Associated Press reporter Chase Squires who was at the Air Force academy for the speech, Gonzales defended the Patriot Act and the handling of detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ''To achieve victory at the cost of eroding civil liberties would not really be a victory. We cannot change the core identity of our nation and claim success,'' he said.

Even if you are 100 percent behind the Patriot Act you would have to admit that it erodes civil liberties. The idea of being able to wiretap Americans without a warrant is not just an ''erosion,'' it is the end of privacy as we know it. One blogger called it ''administration double speak,'' another, ''one nation under wiretaps.'' What ever you call it, my guess is that the courts will eventually call it illegal and the new Congress will as well.

The Air Force Academy is composed of some of the best and the brightest of our young men and women. The first year at the academy they take an oath of honor, ''We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.'' The attorney general attended the Air Force Academy but never graduated according his biography. Had Attorney General Gonzales graduated from the academy he might not have been so blithe in his defense of Bush Administration policy.

A 2nd chance for Bush

By Ellen Ratner
The elections are over with most races clearly decided. The Senate and House are now controlled by the Democrats. Lots of pundits are spending their time discussing how the new leadership is going to lead. Are they going to appease the liberal base or govern from the middle? Are they going to punish the Republicans or they going to be more collegial? The question we should be asking is, how is President George W. Bush going to lead? He calls himself ''The Decider,'' but he was reminded that we live in a democracy and actually, Mr. President, the American people are the deciders.



Bush tossed aside his campaign promises of being a ''uniter not a divider,'' dumped his post 9/11 bipartisan White House meetings with congressional leadership, and worshiped at the altar of the biggest dividers of the last quarter of a century, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney and Tom DeLay. As the head of the Republican Party, the president allowed the most sexually explicit nasty ads to be placed on television and radio by the Republican National Committee and its respective Senate and House campaign committees. Most of those ads backfired. The ads depicting scenes from now Sen.-elect James Webb's novels backfired, the ads in N.Y. Congressional District 24 against Rep.-elect Michael Arcuri were inaccurate and about as low as you could go. The one in Tennessee depicting Harold Ford Jr. with a Playboy bunny worked. But, the Bush Administration's ''architect'' Karl Rove allowed these ads to air without a peep from the ''Decider in Chief.''

Nasty campaigning aside, if recent history is any example, President Bush is going to look over his shoulder, see the sun setting on his final opportunity to create a positive legacy and do what President Bill Clinton did so magnificently. He will take the rallying cry of the newly elected and make it his own agenda. The Gingrich revolution of 1994 and the ''Contract with America'' forced welfare reform and fiscal reform on President Clinton. Clinton embraced it, balanced the budget and had huge White House ceremonies at the time complete with balanced budget buttons handed out to supporters and press alike. He still touts ''his'' advances in welfare reform. It was as if he thought of the whole agenda and sold it to the Congress and American people.

President Bush is dumb like a fox. This week he presented to the American people a new possibility for a secretary of defense. He said he did not want to influence the election by announcing the retirement of Secretary Rumsfeld. It seems as though, however, the secretary's departure was always Bush's Plan B. Plan A was to keep Rumsfeld if the Republicans won the election. Plan B was to dump him if they lost. Rove will most likely suffer the same fate and he will be gone within months. The architect's roof couldn't withstand the stiff winds of war.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) wanted Rumsfeld gone before the election and believes his staying there cost him his chairmanship. No matter how many political carcasses lie in waste around him, George W. Bush is defiantly a survivor. I predict he is going to reclaim the uniter mantel and govern from the almighty middle, taking a page from his predecessor William Jefferson Clinton.

The same president who just a few days before the election would not commit to working with Sen. Harry Reid and leader Nancy Pelosi is now inviting them to lunch, all with big smiles sitting in the Oval Office together and pledging to work for the good of the American people. I wouldn't be surprised if a bi-partisan caucus didn't end up having a few eggnogs together in Crawford at some point during the holidays. Those of us who watch trends, as we do at Talkers Magazine, could have given President Bush and Mr. Rove some advice: Go for the middle. Stop with the rancor. The American people are tired of it.

Now it looks as if the president has the message. It's too late for the election, but it's not too late for the American people. He now has the ability to save himself and most importantly, the nation from a legacy of divisiveness.

Hardly a November surprise

By Ellen Ratner
They have convicted Saddam Hussein one week before the election – color me surprised. Historians may argue for the next one hundred years about the possibility that the verdict date was manipulated by the Iraqi government as a favor to the Americans. It may help motivate the Republican base to get out and vote but most Americans who constitute the swing vote are not fooled. No weapons of mass destruction, no stability in Iraq and by almost anyone's standard – a full civil war.



It has cost tens of millions of dollars to try Saddam. The trial has been costly and the evidence gathering by United States forensic teams has also cost tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the specially constructed court house by U.S. contractors. In fact, the United States has spent more money for the conviction of Saddam Hussein than it has in rebuilding Iraqi schools. Americans are not fools and I am banking on the fact that their votes Tuesday will show the Bush administration that their talk is just that, talk. Americans want action and they want the Republican leadership to listen to the voice of the American people.

The Republican leadership has decided to put any controversy and misdeeds under cover – at least until after the election. No Iraq Survey Group report (the Baker-Hamilton Commission) and no hearings on the waste and fraud that has been uncovered. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) has been tireless in uncovering abuses by American companies. He points out that there have been no hearings on the legacy of the Coalition Provisional Authority, no hearings on abuses of Halliburton's contract to support the troops and no hearings on the no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.

Dorgan has held his own hearings without the benefit of subpoena power. What he has uncovered is nothing short of amazing, and all of this without the real investigative powers of Congress. Here are a few gems from his hearings:

Halliburton employees dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they ordered the wrong size at taxpayer expense. Another company, Custer Battles stole forklifts from Iraq's national airline, repainted them and then leased the forklifts back to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). U.S. contractor Parsons billed taxpayers over $200 million for 142 health clinics, yet completed less than 20. The Iraqi officials called the other clinics ''imaginary.'' Assuming an average American pays around $5,000 per year in income taxes to the federal government, then 40,000 Americans worked an entire year to help Iraqi's get medical help and they didn't even get the help promised. I can't help but wonder how many of those Americans don't have their own access to health care.

Food and water for our troops has at times been another disaster courtesy of Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) or as I like to call them Kellogg, Brown and Loot. According to testimony from Dorgan's committee, troops were given water to brush their teeth and bathe in water that tested positive for e. coli and other bacteria. Dr. Jeffery Griffiths, from Tufts University Medical School said that the troops would have been better off being provided with water straight from the Euphrates River. The list seems endless but it includes removing bullets from food in trucks that had come under attack and then serving the food to soldiers and Marines. The Bush administration would say to the troops, let them eat lead.

These reports are not just some unhappy former employees, the Defense Contract Management Agency confirmed that Halliburton failed to follow proper water handling procedures. Halliburton even admitted they did not have enough safeguards to ensure water quality. The bullet story was confirmed by a former KBR manager and there is a long list of whistle-blowers who have come forward based on their concern about the troops and the waste of American taxpayers' dollars.

Conservative-leaning reporter (and my cousin) Richard Miller was in Iraq in March, and reported that he considered this a ''contractor's war.'' In previous wars, most of this was handled by the military, but now for reasons ranging from ''cost reduction'' to reducing the need for troops, much of the provisioning of the troops is done by contractors, or as they are called in Washington ''beltway bandits.''

The Republican leadership in Congress and the administration have fought hearings on this malfeasance tooth and nail. There can be legitimate debate about the Iraq war and our reasons for staying there or leaving. But to not investigate the waste and fraud is to simply sweep reality under the rug and to abandon constitutional responsibility for oversight.

From millions spent on the Saddam trial to get a verdict which happened to be handed down the Sunday before the election, to 50,000 nails being thrown in the desert sand, it is time to give the Democrats another chance at power. The Republicans have failed to nail it for the American people. Instead they have lined their own pockets and those of their friends. The American Conservative Magazine has an editorial ''GOP Must Go.'' I couldn't have said it better.