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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060900680.html

https://web.archive.org/web/2005061219id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060900680.html

Cabanas, Still Getting Its Feet Wet

2005061219

THERE IS nothing more baffling than a good chef who seems to have lost his focus, or a good location that can't seem to find its audience. In its first year, Cabanas, down on the Georgetown waterfront, has tried out two experienced and seemingly dependable chefs -- first, former Tahoga chef and Colvin Run sous-chef Brian Wolken, who left Cabanas for Butterfield 9 and has since left there as well; and now Hector Guerra, whose long résumé is famously studded with stints at various French, Italian and Salvadoran establishments owned by Yannick Cam or Roberto Donna. Wolken's tenure followed a crash course in "authentic" Mexican cuisine that apparently stoked a cocksure bravado but didn't keep his cooking (nor, apparently, his temper) from heading south. In the Guerra regime, the cuisine is described as Nuevo Latino, but much of the menu is the same. More strangely, while the cooking has improved, the result is still oddly uneven. Which is a shame, because Cabanas, corporate sibling to Washington Harbour bookends Tony & Joe's and Nick's Riverside Grille, which it adjoins, is a good-looking spot, a place you'd like to like. It feels more expansive than it is -- it's one of the long, curvilinear spaces on the Harbour's lower level -- and the fountain patio offers sidewalk dining without the traffic (although the boats tying up along the river do add a whiff of diesel every once in a while). The interior decor, a mix of warm wood and cool metal, including a fireplace that anchors the conversation pit, is sparse but striking. (Frida Kahlo seems to be the patron saint, gazing down from various reproduction portraits.) Although there are no true cabanas outside, there are gauze-draped booths lining the back wall that suggest changing rooms and "Great Race" romantic encounters. The far more tech-sleek lounge area seems like the latest in the neighborhood's attempt, a la the short-lived Harbour Club, to attract a techier, nu-U or Dupont Circle South-type crowd in addition to the waterfront's polo-shirt regulars, but it's not unattractive, and the martinis are thoroughly proficient. The kitchen staff does understand that chilies as ingredients are as much about flavor as heat. (The menu's original headline was a quotation from one of the first European priests to explore the New World, who wrote in 1622 that "Without chiles, Mexicans don't believe they're eating," which sounded far more of a threat than was necessary.) Strange, then, that the kitchen seems determined to keep both tightly in check. Orders for both the thin-pounded pork sabana , which has a chile-based adobo sauce, and the orange- and chipotle-rubbed mahi-mahi specified extra spice, as was recommended, but without success. The fish was virtually naked, in fact; not only that, but the request for "grilled less done than most people" brought it out barely whitened and raw, which doesn't suit that fish, and which seemed like a burst of petulance on the kitchen's part. (The dish is no longer on the menu.) The ceviches -- there are several choices -- are generally good, but not consistently; the mixed shrimp and scallops ceviche in particular has seemed a little dispirited, probably because of the too-timid dash of jalapeños, and at least once the dominant flavor was salt. In fact, one wonders how closely Guerra is monitoring his line, since so many of the errors seem to be not in the concept but in the prep work. Cod bacalao is served with a nice stew of chorizo, tomatoes, roasted peppers and roast potatoes, but the fish hadn't been soaked long enough, and was oversalty and tough. (And the promised tomato-rosé wine broth had either been forgotten or its elemental makeup evaporated by the salt.) Coconut-fried shrimp was nearly a best bet -- the coconut-ginger rice was delicate, the tomatilla salsa refreshing and the fried sweet plantains really good -- but was sabotaged by the shrimp themselves, which were no more intriguing than any pub version, and worse, had a faint whiff of iodine. The chicken breast pieces for the mole had been pounded thin, as if for swift cooking, but then overdone to the dry stage. What is even more baffling is -- after an entire year -- still to be reading the menu's description of the mole as the "fusion original [that] combines chilies and chicken from the old world with chocolate and spices from the new world." Not only are the chilies stuck in the wrong hemisphere, particularly bizarre on an ethnic American menu, but indigenous Americans were using moles -- sauces of ground nuts, spices and sometimes chocolate -- on turkeys and other birds long before the chickens arrived. (Actually, adobo, which combined chilies and the Europeans' vinegar, might be a better first-fusion candidate.) There are certainly good dishes at Cabanas. The chili-dusted calamari is one of the best things on the menu, dry and crisp. The shrimp quesadilla, though somewhat restrained with the seafood (and at $6, reasonably so), is surprisingly satisfying; a chorizo version was okay and would have been fine if the sausage had been patted dry of some of its grease. The corn and crab fritters are good, and the jicama-radish salad that accompanies it is even better. Gazpacho with a scattering of croutons, avocado dice and a little crabmeat, is a good if not great version. A whole grilled red snapper veracruzano with polenta was quite good, but a plate for the bones would be useful. The guacamole is temperamental. Some days it's great, almost pure avocado meat, ripe and chunky and buttery (though that welcome weightiness means that the delicate, and in their own right fine, yucca chips can't even make a dent in the dip). Other times, it might have been taken off the grocery shelf. And one night, the guacamole was so oversalted as to be inedible, but the waitress, informed of the slip, merely said "Okay," without offering to replace it or take it off the check. The salsa is clean-flavored and fresh, but just slightly sharp, some days only barely. (The red corn tortilla chips are rather better than most, served hot and crisp.) Maybe one should take Cabanas' name as a hint, and stick to the lounging thing. Good drinks, pretty good nibbles, nice space; even live music on Sundays. It's by no means bad. It just ought to be better.

THERE IS nothing more baffling than a good chef who seems to have lost his focus, or a good location that can't seem to find its audience. In its first year, Cabanas, down on the Georgetown waterfront, has tried out two experienced and seemingly dependable chefs -- first, former Tahoga chef and...

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060901818.html

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A Dollar in Any Language

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NEW YORK, June 9 -- A workshop to help ethnic media secure more national advertising was titled "Pitching Advertisers: How to Get Through the Narrow Door." As it turned out, many gathered here Thursday couldn't even get through the workshop door, spilling into the hallway and straining to catch a few tips. The program's popularity underscored why more than 1,400 editors, marketers, sales representatives and others turned out for a national expo of ethnic media, which organizers hail as the first of its kind. Whether they work for organizations that have become staples in their communities or for struggling start-ups, officials from ethnic media outlets said that gaining advertising from major corporations often feels like an uphill, if not impossible, climb. The landscape of ethnic media has grown more crowded in recent years, reinforced by the same immigration patterns that are driving the nation's population growth. It has been particularly dynamic in the Washington area, with small outlets -- a newspaper that covers the Ghanaian community, for example, and a polyglot mix of local cable shows -- and major operators. The Washington Post Co. now owns the Spanish-language daily El Tiempo Latino; local companies like Black Entertainment Television parent BET Holdings Inc. and Radio One Inc. have grown into major corporations. The dozens of companies showcased here offered evidence of several trends. More outlets are targeting the children of immigrants, for example. Niche publications are further narrowing their target markets, with specialty magazines for Muslim women, Indians in Silicon Valley and Arab American business leaders. Ethnic media's surge comes as mainstream newspapers struggle with declining readership and network news with fewer viewers. In that context, conference organizers celebrated a recent poll showing that ethnic media reaches 51 million adults in the United States. Conducted by New California Media, which represents ethnic media nationwide and helped sponsor yesterday's conference, the poll surveyed 1,895 people and concluded that consumption of media varies by ethnicity. For example, while blacks prefer ethnic radio, the study found, South American immigrants prefer Spanish-language newspapers. About 80 percent of Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese respondents read an ethnic newspaper on a regular basis. Internet access for Arab Americans is higher than for other ethnic groups studied. "These media are only going to get more important," said Sandy Close, executive director of New California Media. She said that while most media tend to view issues through two sides, black or white, Republican or Democrat, "these media have tremendous capacity to open things up." "You're not just talking about red or blue. You're talking about a new sensibility in a globalized world. This is the new America." She, like others at the conference, lamented an estimate that less than 4 percent of all advertising dollars are invested in ethnic media. "It should be 24 percent since one out of every four adults are reached by ethnic media," Close said. The dollars, though, can be hard to lure when Nielsen ratings don't broadly sample niche markets and census data count some communities as a mere fraction of the overall population.

Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland business news headlines with stock portfolio and market news, economy, government/tech policy, mutual funds, personal finance. Dow Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ quotes. Features top DC, VA, MD businesses, company research tools

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060900661.html

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Greenspan Wary of Risky Mortgages

2005061219

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan yesterday expressed concern that the growing use of riskier new mortgages is helping push up home prices to "unsustainable levels" in some local markets. Home prices in some areas of the country may fall when the market cools, but that probably would not cause serious harm to the overall U.S. economy, he told Congress's Joint Economic Committee. The economy continues to expand at a decent if uneven pace, Greenspan said, indicating that the Fed probably will continue to raise short-term interest rates gradually to keep inflation under control "The U.S. economy seems to be on a reasonably firm footing, and underlying inflation remains contained," he said, adding that the Fed can therefore raise rates "at a pace that is likely to be measured." Stock prices were little changed, as Greenspan did not signal heightened worries about rising prices or slowing economic growth. But Greenspan did note some troubling aspects of the booming housing market. He highlighted the recent surge in interest-only loans, which allow borrowers to lower their monthly bills by paying only interest for the first years, and other forms of adjustable-rate mortgages. "The dramatic increase in the prevalence of interest-only loans, as well as the introduction of other relatively exotic forms of adjustable-rate mortgages, are developments of particular concern," he said. Nearly a fourth of the mortgage loans made this year nationally have been interest-only, according to LoanPerformance, which tracks loan originations. In the Washington area, more than a third of home buyers are using interest-only mortgages, up from about 2 percent just five years ago. Other varieties of adjustable-rate mortgages have proliferated. There are up to 200 kinds of mortgage products on the market, all with different interest rate schedules, down payment requirements, payback terms, fees and potential penalties, said Douglas G. Duncan, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association. The "exotic" loans Greenspan mentioned probably were a reference to the "option ARM," which permits borrowers to decide themselves how much to pay, how long the loan term should be and when they can convert from a fixed rate to a variable rate, or back to a fixed rate, Duncan said. Greenspan's comments will signal to lenders that they should examine the potential risks of foreclosure if these new kinds of loans turn sour, Duncan said. "It's an alert to the leadership of lenders to pay attention to this, and they will." Greenspan's remarks also are a warning to consumers to be wary of buying homes in high-priced markets if the only way they can do so is with a low down payment and an interest-only loan, said Anirban Basu, chief executive of Sage Policy Group, an economics consulting firm in Baltimore. Basu predicted that in 5 to 10 years, there will be a "huge surge of foreclosures" when interest rates rise, home values level off and homeowners become unable to pay their bills. "What the chairman is saying to people is 'be careful,' " Basu said. "This warning should be heard louder in some markets than in others."

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan yesterday expressed concern that the growing use of riskier new mortgages is helping push up home prices to "unsustainable levels" in some local markets.

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Cultural Tie Gets in the Way Of Graduation

2005061219

Thomas Benya wore a braided bolo tie under his purple graduation gown this week as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage. Administrators at his Charles County school decided the string tie was too skinny. They denied him his diploma, at least temporarily, as punishment. The bolo, common in contemporary American Indian culture, is not considered a tie by his public school in Pomfret. If Benya wants the diploma, he will have to schedule a conference with the administrators. What his parents say they want is an apology from Maurice J. McDonough High School for embarrassing their son and failing to respect the Cherokee background of his father's ancestors. "The schools in Charles County are asking him to ignore his heritage," Marsha Benya said as she turned to face her 17-year-old son. "I want you to be proud of it." "I am proud of it," he said, sitting in her real estate office in Waldorf, where he plans to work this summer before enrolling at the College of Southern Maryland. The high school is sticking to its policy. The dress code is mandatory for seniors who choose to participate in the graduation ceremony. And Benya was told during a dress rehearsal Tuesday that his black bolo with a silver and onyx clasp the size of a silver dollar was "not acceptable." "We have many students with many different cultural heritages, and there are many times to display that," said school district spokeswoman Katie O'Malley-Simpson. "But graduation is a time when we have a formal, uniform celebration. If kids are going to participate, they need to respect the rules." Controversies over student attire at graduation are perennial, and school districts try to avoid confusion by sending letters to parents and seniors months in advance. In Prince George's County, for example, graduating seniors are told "they are not to wear any kind of additional accents," said schools spokesman John White. "We set the standard to make sure all our ceremonies are formal and respectful," he said. In March, Benya's high school sent a letter to parents and seniors explaining that "adherence to the dress code is mandatory," with the word mandatory in bold and underlined. For girls: white dresses or skirts with white blouses. For boys: dark dress pants with white dress shirts and ties.

Charles County student is denied his diploma after wearing a braided bolo tie under his graduation gown as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060901774.html

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Lawnmower Smog Rule Delayed

2005061219

A Senate spending panel approved language yesterday delaying a long-awaited federal rule aimed at curbing air pollution from lawnmowers and other small-engine machines. The amendment to the Interior Department appropriations bill, a compromise between Democrats who favor the rule and Republicans who want to block it, instructs the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a six-month study into whether installing catalytic converters to reduce air pollutants from outdoor equipment would pose a safety threat. The voice vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee marked the latest skirmish in a two-year battle over how to regulate pollutants from lawnmowers and other low-horsepower machines. Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), a powerful advocate for engine manufacturer Briggs & Stratton Corp., a major employer in Missouri, has worked doggedly to block state and federal officials from requiring less polluting outdoor power equipment. Bond said in an interview that he is worried the catalytic converters required by the pending rule would pose a potential fire threat. "EPA has a responsibility to determine if this is a safe means, a practical means of achieving emissions reductions, and that has not been done," he said, adding that EPA Administrator Steve Johnson agreed in a phone conversation yesterday to conduct the peer-reviewed study. Environmental advocates said the amendment undermines efforts to curb smog-causing pollutants from engines of 50 horsepower or less. Catalytic converters reduce harmful emissions by as much as 75 percent, they noted, and an EPA report concluded that machines with catalytic converters are no hotter than those without the devices. Low-horsepower machines account for at least 10 percent of the nation's smog-forming pollution, which has been linked to respiratory and heart disease, according to the EPA. A single lawnmower emits as much pollution in an hour as 50 cars driving 20 miles. "Once again, a special-interest lobby has had the effect of undercutting an EPA rule that has the potential to protect public health," said Frank O'Donnell, director of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch. The congressional fight over curbing small-engine pollution began in the fall of 2003 when Bond, whose state is home to two Briggs & Stratton plants with at least 1,500 employees, wrote language in that year's Interior spending bill that would have barred California from setting its own standards for small gasoline-powered engines. After both Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) objected, Bond agreed to revise it so California could push ahead with its own rule while the rest of the nation waited for new federal guidelines. The EPA was supposed to publish its small-engine rule by Dec. 1, 2004, but it missed the deadline and told lawmakers it would have a final regulation in place by May 2006. Now that deadline is likely to be pushed back, because the agency will not be able to complete its fire-threat study until the end of the year at the earliest. Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman said yesterday's compromise was not ideal, but it means California will still be able to finalize its standards by 2007. The California Air Resources Board has estimated that by 2020 the tighter requirements would cut as much pollution as taking 1.8 million cars off the road. "It's an important victory in keeping this whole effort alive, which is curbing pollution from small engines," Gantman said. Bond had earlier attached language to the Interior bill that would have delayed the federal rule even longer by requiring the government to pay the Swedish-based International Consortium for Fire Safety about $650,000 to conduct an open-ended study of the issue. The consortium's Washington representative, Karen Suhr, is also the chief D.C. lobbyist for the National Association of State Fire Marshals, one of the leading groups opposed to the stricter pollution standards. Suhr did not return calls seeking comment yesterday. Bond said the fire marshals association told him to hire the consortium to examine the potential fire threat, though his spokesman said Suhr did not contact the senator's staff on the issue. William Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators, said the amendment would bar other states from adopting standards similar to California's. "They're held hostage to the delay imposed by Senator Bond," Becker said, adding that at least a dozen states want to adopt the standards. "They have no place to turn."

A Senate spending panel approved language yesterday delaying a long-awaited federal rule aimed at curbing air pollution from lawnmowers and other small-engine machines.

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Horseshoe Crabs' Decline Further Imperils Shorebirds

2005061219

SLAUGHTER BEACH, Del. -- As recently as five years ago, this stretch of sand was covered with chirping shorebirds, which depended on Delaware Bay as a critical stopover in their arduous spring migration from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic. But these days, the beach is almost bare, with just a couple of dozen sanderlings and dunlins digging for the horseshoe crab eggs they need to fuel the trip. Hundreds of thousands of birds used to stop on Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey beaches for a feast they could not find at other stopovers. Consuming as many as 18,000 pearly blue-green eggs a day, birds such as the tiny, rust-colored red knot doubled in size, from 3.5 ounces to 7 ounces, within two weeks. Over the past two decades, however, the number of crabs has dwindled as they became attractive to commercial trawlers, who sell the prehistoric creatures as conch and eel bait and for their unique blue blood, which is used medically to detect pathogens. The decrease in spawning crabs, in turn, has contributed to the collapse of bird populations such as that of the tiny rust-colored red knot, which has declined from 100,000 two decades ago to 13,315 last year. The intertwined fate of Delaware Bay's ancient horseshoe crabs and the red knots is a story of sex, gluttony and death that -- for now -- appears headed for a grim ending. It is also a tale of how quickly an ecosystem can unravel, and how difficult it can be to restore it. The battle to reverse the trend began in 1998 and will intensify in the coming months as birders seek to place the red knot on the federal endangered species list. Giving it protected status -- the red knot is already considered threatened by New Jersey authorities, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still reviewing the case -- could trigger limits on beach access, shoreline development and fishing that could infuriate local commercial interests. Just yesterday, New Jersey officials suspended hand-harvesting of the crabs for two weeks as an emergency measure to try to bolster the birds' food supply. In an interview, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said her deputies are examining whether to take quick action on the red knot, bypassing the department's usual procedures for listing threatened species. It can take 20 years or longer to get a species listed; in this instance federal officials estimate they could make a decision within 18 months. "We have, on occasion when a species is in a very serious situation, taken some emergency action," Norton said. New Jersey's and Delaware's top environmental officials said two weeks ago that they plan to ask the administration to list the red knot as an endangered species. John Hughes, who heads Delaware's Department of Environmental Protection, said recent population counts showed "all the evidence of a death spiral" and added: "Without a question, this is a role for the federal government to play, and the sooner the better." This spring, bird experts from around the globe converged on the bay to try to help save the shorebirds from extinction. "You don't have international ornithologists coming here because it's the Riviera," said Eric Stiles, vice president for conservation and stewardship at New Jersey Audubon Society. "It's the Riviera of shorebirds -- there's an ecological implosion on this stopover in the Delaware Bay." Larry Niles, chief biologist for the New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection's Fish, Game and Wildlife Division, predicts the Western Hemisphere's red knots may go extinct by 2010 if current population trends continue. And other vulnerable species, such as the threatened Atlantic loggerhead turtles that feed on horseshoe crabs during the summer, may also suffer. All the Delaware Bay shorebird populations are declining, including sanderlings and dunlins, but the red knots are most vulnerable. Unlike other birds, they cannot dig for horseshoe crab eggs, so they need a superabundance to get enough. They also have the longest journey to make each year.

SLAUGHTER BEACH, Del. -- As recently as five years ago, this stretch of sand was covered with chirping shorebirds, which depended on Delaware Bay as a critical stopover in their arduous spring migration from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic. But these days, the beach is almost bare, with just a...

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Lawmakers Struggle to See Beneath the 'Froth' in Greenspan's Testimony

2005061219

The chairman of the Federal Reserve wanted to make one thing perfectly clear: There is no housing bubble. No sirree. What's going on in the overheating housing market right now is properly described as "froth." "There do appear to be, at a minimum, signs of froth in some local markets," Alan Greenspan said. What's more, the maestro added, "the apparent froth in housing markets may have spilled over into the mortgage markets." Greenspan had already tried this froth line on a New York audience a few weeks ago, but he liked it so much he used it three times yesterday before the Joint Economic Committee. For those who missed the first two references, Greenspan again reminded them that "certain elements of froth are clearly developing in local markets." It sounded as if the Fed chairman had been moonlighting as a Starbucks barista. "I have this image of thousands of PhD students in economics running to a thesis adviser and changing the topic from 'irrational exuberance' to 'housing froth,' " mused Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.). Greenspan obliged him with a polite smile. The semantic distinction -- what is froth but a foam of tiny bubbles? -- was vintage Greenspan. For 18 years, he has kept markets and policymakers guessing with his elliptical phrases and Delphic utterances -- for the most part, with good economic result. But now that same caution is obscuring a rather alarming point buried in his testimony: "We have to recognize that something very unusual is about to happen to this country." Greenspan's is perhaps the only voice in the nation who could force Democrats and Republicans to do something about an out-of-control federal budget, entitlement programs and trade deficits before the retiring baby boomers crush the American economy. As the Fed chairman put it, in typical Greenspanese, "there is a not-insignificant probability that we have already committed under existing law and presumed demographics far more in real resources than we can actually deliver without significantly undermining the very base of the economic system." That's the Greenspan equivalent of a primal scream. But instead of a real scream, Greenspan's hedging and dodging, delivered in avuncular and academic tones, left his listeners to take what they wanted from his testimony, much as they did in 2001 when they embraced his endorsement of tax cuts but ignored his suggestion that the cuts be rescinded if deficits develop. At yesterday's hearing in the Rayburn Building, it was the best of times and the worst of times. The committee chairman, Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) declared the economy "on solid footing," and found homeownership "at record highs" and low inflation. The ranking Democrat, Reed, up next, described "a disappointing economic recovery," widespread "economic insecurity" and growing inequality. It took Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), a freshman Republican, to comb through Greenspan's riddles. "Today, you have described our short-term economic situation as steady, as sound," DeMint told Greenspan. "But reading between the lines, I think what you have said about a long-term scenario, I think if we contemplate that for a few moments, it seems very alarming." Indeed, woven through Greenspan's fuzz were ominous threads. He said the growing wage inequality "is not the type of thing which a capitalist democratic society can really accept." He observed that "a significant amount of domestic production is essentially owned by foreigners." He said the education of American students is "well below the median in the world." And he found "modest if any progress" preparing for the baby boom retirement. Trying to put all that together, DeMint wondered, "is it fair to say that there should be a greater sense of urgency on this panel and in Congress in dealing with our education situation, our entitlements?" But Greenspan, hunched in his chair, his chin 10 inches above the witness table, went into something about "implicit real resources." Later, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) asked if Greenspan was being a bit too sanguine. "I just wonder if we might not be fooling ourselves about our prosperity" because of heavy borrowing, he said. Greenspan, elbows on the witness table, demurred. Debt, he said, "in modest quantities does enhance the rate of growth of the economy and does create higher standards of living, but in excess, creates very serious problems." Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) pleaded with the chairman to elaborate on his concerns. Given the problems with the schools and the problems with an aging population, "what do you see for our future?" Greenspan chose this moment to forget his worries and cares. "Every decade or so, we look forward and it looks awful," he said, but "we somehow, by some means, seem to re-create ourselves." The chairman, acting as if he were a mere spectator in economic policy, said he had "trust" that the country would deal with the problems this time, too. "My inclination is just to say, 'I don't know how it's going to happen, but we'll do it.' "

The chairman of the Federal Reserve wanted to make one thing perfectly clear: There is no housing bubble. No sirree. What's going on in the overheating housing market right now is properly described as "froth."

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State Dept. Urges Caution in Romania Oil Probe

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The State Department cautioned Romania yesterday to carefully handle a criminal investigation involving Rompetrol Group NV, a major oil refining and marketing company that includes a U.S. citizen among its top executives. "We urge the Romanian government to observe due process, to be open and objective in handling the case and to ensure that the judicial process is fully transparent," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. Romania is actively seeking membership in the European Union by 2007, but the high-profile case threatens to raise questions about Romania's transition to a fully functioning judicial system. The State Department, in its most recent human rights report, cited continuing political influence over Romania's judicial system, while the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania has denounced the recent detention of the company's chief executive, Dinu Patriciu, for 16 hours on an array of charges, including money laundering and tax evasion. Romanian courts have twice rejected requests by prosecutors to authorize Patriciu's arrest. Rompetrol Deputy Chief Executive Phil Stephenson, who served in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, is also under investigation, as is another U.S. citizen, former chief executive John Works, according to media reports in Romania. Rompetrol officials have denied wrongdoing and said the investigation was politically motivated. President Traian Basescu ran for election on an anti-corruption platform, and he has lashed out against criticism of prosecutorial tactics, suggesting that a failure to pursue such investigations will set back Romania's bid for membership in the European Union. "If political parties, business lobby groups and the media rise against state institutions trying to deal with major corruption, thus hindering lawful actions of these institutions, then EU integration will certainly remain just a dream, not a reality," he said last week. The Romanian Embassy in Washington declined to comment yesterday. U.S. officials noted that the investigation appears to have started before Basescu was elected, suggesting not all of the allegations are politically inspired. Prosecutors have alleged the tax evasion cost Romania more than $10 million. But political influence over the judicial process remains a concern among U.S. officials. "The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary; however, in practice, the judiciary remained subject to political influence," the State Department human rights report said. "Widespread corruption remained a problem, although the Government took initial, but only partial, steps to address the problem."

World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.

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Small-Plane Rules Called Too Harsh

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U.S. senators yesterday criticized proposed Transportation Security Administration rules allowing corporate jets and small charter aircraft to return to Reagan National Airport, saying the guidelines were so onerous that few private fliers would meet them. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said safeguards being finalized by the TSA, including requiring an armed law enforcement officer aboard all small planes, are "just going to kill general aviation as far as private aircraft" because of added costs. National was closed to such aircraft after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The TSA developed the new security plans after insistence by Congress. Stevens's panel and the House Administration Committee held separate hearings yesterday into the aviation proposal and federal officials' response to the May 11 incursion of restricted airspace by a Cessna 150 that triggered evacuations of the White House, Capitol and Supreme Court. Department of Homeland Security and Capitol authorities defended the handling of the incident. "The defense system worked as intended. Communications resulted in prompt decision-making," TSA Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Fleming told the Senate committee. "All agencies received and acted on the same information." Congressional security officials are studying the impact of an aircraft strike on the Capitol or nearby office buildings and whether occupants should evacuate or stay in place should there be another incursion. But U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrence W. Gainer told the House panel, "Based on the information we had, our reaction if it happened five minutes from now would be to evacuate the majority of the buildings." Lawmakers yesterday wrestled with the competing demands for greater security for official Washington and greater access for business and political VIPs, who have lobbied to relax the ban on small private aircraft within a 16-mile radius of the capital. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) called it "ironic" and "stunning" that officials focused on restoring convenient flying to Washington for lobbyists and members of Congress, while the Homeland Security Department has budgeted only $1.5 million and 12 staff members to secure 200,000 daily U.S. flights by small private aircraft. "This is another glaring example of the administration shortchanging our aviation security needs because of irresponsible budget policy," he said. Since January 2003, Fleming said, a multi-agency air defense system has recorded 3,369 incursions of restricted Washington airspace, a zone that extends for 2,000 square miles around the region's major airports. In that space, pilots must submit flight plans, identify their aircraft with beacons and stay in contact with ground controllers. Interceptor aircraft were deployed 627 times, Fleming said. Nevertheless, 147 flights violated the 16-mile no-fly zone, and 27 of those flights penetrated airspace over the Capitol, White House and Mall. Stevens said that in last month's slow-flying Cessna incident, "for the most part, the system worked." But he asked, "Would it have worked if it had been a high-speed jet?" Fleming said a high-speed aircraft "would have been highly unusual . . . and would have raised suspicions," warranting far stricter treatment. Defense Department, customs and Federal Aviation Administration officials, he said, "are watching that aircraft within a 100-mile, 150-mile radius." He said emergency text- and voice-messaging systems are being improved to coordinate with the District government and Congress, where officials complained, respectively, that they failed to receive timely word of the initial alert and an all-clear signal. Gainer said D.C. police are detailing a command staff member to his agency's operations center and an emergency telephone has been installed. In response to criticism from Stevens and Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) of the rules for the return of private aircraft to National Airport, Fleming said the proposal represented a "basic starting point." "We'll continue to monitor it and make adjustments as necessary" in response to industry concerns, he said. Fleming said the TSA is developing standards and training programs for security personnel for general aviation flights near 12 designated feeder airports to National. Up to 24 inbound and 24 outbound flights a day would be permitted to National if pilots, passengers and baggage were to undergo special security screening. James K. Coyne, president of the National Air Transportation Association, estimated that private fliers would need to pay a security processing fee of $150 per flight and an additional $700 on average for a security officer, including the cost of the officer's return flight.

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Nats' Three Homers Lighten Loaiza's Load

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At one point, from his vantage point in left field, Ryan Church looked at the scoreboard, saw his Washington Nationals leading by four runs, then looked to the mound, and saw Esteban Loaiza hurling against the Oakland Athletics. How could this be? "It felt awkward," Church said. To the vastly under-supported Loaiza, it finally felt just fine. The Nationals, the masters of those one-run thrillers that keep the fans at RFK murmuring and Manager Frank Robinson reaching for the Rolaids, came up with a laugher last night, getting seven solid innings from Loaiza and finally supporting him with 12 hits -- including four by Church -- in a 7-2 victory over the A's in front of 28,749. The logical progression, then, would be to discuss how Loaiza overcame a two-run homer in the first to allow just four hits and two runs in his seven innings, picking up his first victory since May 2. But now, no water-cooler talk about the Nationals can progress too far without speaking about their position in the standings, what with their winning streak at a season-high six, with nine wins in their last 10 games. Washington leads its division by 1 1/2 games over Philadelphia and two over both Atlanta and the New York Mets -- a paper-thin margin in most divisions, a vast expanse in the NL East. "I've never been a part of a club at the major league level that's had as much confidence as this team," center fielder Brad Wilkerson said. "It seems like nothing fazes us. We're very confident." If they're not confident now, they never will be. The offensive outburst was marked by three home runs -- the first time the Nationals had accomplished such a feat at spacious RFK. Church, who went 4 for 5 with three RBI and fell a double short of the cycle, hit a solo shot, his fifth, in the third. Catcher Brian Schneider, who hadn't homered since April 29, followed with a two-run blast that gave Loaiza a 4-2 lead in the fourth. And third baseman Vinny Castilla, who had hit one homer since April 16, followed with his fifth, a solo shot in the seventh. Prior to last night, no starting pitcher in the National League received fewer runs on average than the 2.07 the Nationals gave Loaiza when he was in games. That's how a pitcher can have a 3.48 ERA, as Loaiza does, and be 2-4. When Loaiza took the mound for his seventh and final inning, in which he struck out the first two men, he was staked to a 6-2 advantage. "It was like, 'Here you go, big boy,' " Church said. "You got it -- finally." But part of the discussion after the game was about how the Nationals built the lead, and primarily such mundane topics as -- the weather. RFK has allowed fewer homers than any other major league park, and the players have discussed everything, from wind patterns to the distances to the wall, which some suspect might be mislabeled. Robinson and hitting coach Tom McCraw -- who both played at RFK when the home team wore jerseys bearing the name "Senators" -- preached patience. When it warms up, they said, the ball will start jumping. "The ball just travels better," Robinson said. When Loaiza threw his first pitch last night, the temperature was 89. It was more than a tad humid. The first man up, Jason Kendall, singled to center. The second man, Bobby Crosby, homered over the center field wall, a spot where few balls have traveled this season. "It was hot," Loaiza explained, and maybe there's something to that theory.

In what is becoming a familiar scene this season, the Nationals once again fall behind early only to rally for the win, this time beating Oakland, 7-2, for their sixth straight victory.

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United Will Get A New Owner

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A local group that includes D.C. United President Kevin Payne is close to a deal to purchase the Major League Soccer team's operating rights from Colorado billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, soccer officials said yesterday. Details of the negotiations have been kept quiet as talks intensified in recent weeks. But those close to the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said plans are in place to announce the sale within the month. Payne was traveling yesterday after attending the MLS board of governors meetings at the Anschutz ranch outside Denver and wasn't available to comment. Doug Hicks, United's vice president for communications, had no comment. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said the league is not prepared to make any announcements at this time and declined to discuss United's status. The Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) runs five of MLS's 12 clubs, including United since early 2001, but company officials have expressed interest in concentrating their efforts on fewer teams. Under MLS's business structure, investors finance the league and are given the operating rights to specific teams. AEG agreed to take over United's operations from MLS -- which served as caretaker following the collapse of Washington Soccer L.P. in the fall of 2000 -- until an outside group could be found. At the time, Garber said, "We certainly would have preferred a [new] investor assume the role that AEG has assumed." Michael Roth, spokesman for AEG in Los Angeles, said yesterday that his company doesn't comment on speculation. However, according to representatives from other Anschutz-run teams, AEG officials have told them that the United deal is all but done and would be announced shortly. The price is estimated at around $20 million. Investors who operate MLS's expansion teams, Dave Checketts of Real Salt Lake and Jorge Vergara of Los Angeles-based Chivas USA, paid a $10 million fee last year. Payne was United's president when MLS was formed in 1996, but was hired to oversee AEG's soccer interests when the company took over the team four years ago. He returned to United's front office as president and chief executive officer in early 2004. Under the new operating team, Payne would remain in charge of United's front office. United is MLS's most successful team, having won four league championships in nine years (1996-97, 1999 and 2004) and often representing MLS in international competitions. It's unclear how the sale would impact AEG's and United's ongoing efforts to build a medium-sized stadium at Poplar Point in Southeast Washington, but those close to the situation said they believe Anschutz would remain involved with the proposed mixed-use complex near the Anacostia Metro station. Stephen M. Green, the District's development director, said plans for a possible soccer-only stadium at Poplar Point are still moving forward. "[AEG] made us aware they were likely to sell the team, but that doesn't diminish their interest in the complex." He said United's "prospective owner has expressed interest" in the complex, too. AEG operates several sports and entertainment venues, including Home Depot Center (where Anschutz's Los Angeles Galaxy plays) and Staples Center in the Los Angeles area; and the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Another AEG team in MLS, the Chicago Fire, will move into its own stadium next summer. AEG also operates the New York/New Jersey MetroStars and San Jose Earthquakes, although the company and MLS have been aggressively seeking a new investor to run the Earthquakes, who might end up moving to another city. Anschutz, whose wealth is estimated by Forbes magazine at $5.8 billion, also owns the Examiner, a free Washington daily, and has trademarked the name in other cities. Staff writer Annys Shin contributed to this report.

A local group that includes Kevin Payne is close to a deal to purchase D.C. United's operating rights from Colorado billionaire Philip F. Anschutz.

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Mike Tyson vs. Kevin McBride

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Washington Post staff writer Mark Schlabach was online Friday, June 10, at 11 a.m. ET to take your predictions, questions and comments the day before the fight between former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and journeyman Kevin McBride at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: What time is the Tyson fight most likely to start? Mark Schlabach: My past experience says the fight probably won't start until around 11 p.m., making deadlines hellacious. They've got 10 or 11 fights on the undercard, so it's going to be a pretty long night. Do you see any parallels between this fight and the matchup between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Clemson Tigers on Labor Day night in 1982? I mean they were the last two defending national champions and there was such a hype surrounding that game -- much like the hype surrounding this fight? Mark Schlabach: Well, much like most Georgia teams in the past 23 years, McBride is a pretender and not a contender, like he said yesterday. Washington, D.C.: Boxing is such a scam, it is so corrupted, almost comical!! No one can even name who the current Heavyweight Champion is, I have asked a few folks and they said "I think it's Mike Tyson." Washed-up Tyson is a complete farce and obviously still fighting for all the wrong reasons, no more for the love of the sport but only for the $$$$ that the money he earns is not even his. He should just disappear into the night ... Mark Schlabach: A lot of people would probably agree with you. However, because the heavyweight division is so watered down right now, with a couple of sensational early knockouts, he could get a title shot pretty quickly and become heavyweight champion of the world again. By the way, John Ruiz is WBA champ; Chris Byrd is IBF champ; and Vitali Klitschko is WBC champ. San Diego, Calif.: This may not be a boxing question, but am curious nonetheless. Mike Tyson was a cradle Catholic, I think, but converted to being Muslim. Does he still practice the latter? Mark Schlabach: Says he still believes in Jesus Christ but doesn't want to be an overzealous Baptist. Has talked about being a missionary a lot during the last couple of months, possibly in Rwanda, Bosnia or Indonesia. Bowie, Md.: Tyson fights are kind of like accidents on 495 -- some people can't help but look. Tyson has the ability (for whatever reason) to maintain an audience. I hope the publicity gets McBride a good fan base and doesn't make him look like a fool or that the fight was fixed. Best of luck to you Kevin. Mark Schlabach: Some are suggesting that a knockout of Tyson would earn McBride million-dollar paydays and a chance to become the "next great white hope." I'm predicting 90-second knockout, however. By the way, nothing worse than an accident on I-66 and everybody looks, thus, my six-hour commute to and from work. Arlington, Va.: Any predictions? Who do you think will win? Mark Schlabach: I think Tyson knocks him out in the first or second round. You never get what you fully want from a Tyson fight and this one won't last long. Arlington, Va.: Is there an undercard for the event, or are the Tyson and Laila Ali fights the only two matches? I've tried to find this basic info, but in vain. The MCI Arena sight doesn't even have a schedule. Just who is promoting this? Mark Schlabach: Marty Wynn of Raging Promotions is promoting the fight, although Rock Newman seems to be the spokesman and is intimately involved. I'll get the Post to publish the undercard, which consists of about 10 or 11 fights. There are a couple of really good up and coming fighters from the D.C. area who will be fighting. Women's Super Middleweight Laila Ali v Erin Toughill Welterweight Sharmba Mitchell v Christopher Smith 10 Flyweight Hussein Hussein v Evaristo Primero 10 Heavyweight Tony Thompson v Willie Perryman 8 Light Welterweight Nick Casal v ? 6 Light Welterweight Anthony Peterson v Wayne Fletcher 6 Light Welterweight Lamont Peterson v Jaime Javier Barahona 6 Light Welterweight Joey Van Daniker v Ron Boyd Millbrae, Calif.: What about the women fighting in the undercard -- Toughill versus Ali? Will that be a good fight or is Toughill going to be outclassed by a better boxer? Mark Schlabach: Toughill thinks she can beat her. She hasn't lost since her debut, but I'm not sure she can brawl with Ali. They say they don't like each other so it should be a decent fight if you like women's boxing. Wheaton, Md.: Do you think Tyson is scared? McBride is one biiiiiiiiiiiiiig dude!!! Mark Schlabach: A big and slow dude, from what I've seen and been told. I think Kevin is trying to convince himself he can fight with Tyson, which must explain why he's going to be hynotized before the fight. It will probably go something like this: Hypnotist: "Kevin, think of a happy place." McBride: "I see the green hills of Ireland and the soft, white froth of a cold, dark Guiness. When I hit him, he's going to feel like the entire isle of Ireland has hit him." Fairfax, Va.: Is the fight at MCI Center sold out? I saw the ticket prices ranging from $700 to $50. Who in their right mind would pay that kind of money? I would rather see Leila Ali fight. Mark Schlabach: Promoters are telling me they've sold about 11,000-12,500 tickets for the fight. MCI Center holds between 16,000-17,000 for a fight, so there are quite a few tickets left. The promoters are hoping for a big walk-up crowd. As far as the ringside seats, most of them are comps for the fighters and their camps, although I'm being told a lot of the Washington Redskins will be ringside. Washington, D.C.: Do you think that with all the hype that Tyson will be a disappointment? Mark Schlabach: Don't see how he can disappoint against McBride. The Irishman was hand-picked by Tyson's advisers to revive Tyson's career. The kid won't make it past two rounds. Matt Rennie could put up a better fight. Louisville, Ky.: Heavyweight boxing isn't what it used to be, but I'm always attracted to the division, especially when people like Lennox Lewis, Tyson, or Klitchko are involved. That said, what will it take to unify the belts? It seems to me that for real significance, the heavyweight champ should BE the heavyweight champ. Mark Schlabach: It will take someone like Tyson, with a big name, to win one of the three belts and then get a shot at Klitschko or Chris Byrd. But that's not going to happen for at least another year or so. Washington, D.C.: Who do you think will win the fight and why? Mark Schlabach: Tyson will win with a knockout in the first couple of rounds. McBride is too heavy at 271 pounds and can't keep up with Tyson's speed and footwork. McBride hasn't faced a fighter as menacing as McBride and if he needs hypnosis, he isn't ready. Bethany Beach, Del.: If Mike T loses this fight should he retire? Mark Schlabach: He'll be forced to retire because he'll never be paid enough to fight again. Sterling, Va.: I could not believe the picture in The Post yesterday of the man with Mike Tyson's image and autograph on his back. Why would anyone admire an animal like Mike Tyson? If Cinderilla Man represents the culture of it's time -- the story of a man overcoming being beaten down by the Depression -- what does the cult following of Mike Tyson tell us about today's culture? Mark Schlabach: A large portion of the population is enamored with the weird and unusual? In Tyson's defense, he was a big, big international star before the out-of-the-ring problems. He still has a huge following in Scandanavian countries such as Denmark and Sweden, which have journalists here. Then again, the morals and values of some of those countries have been questioned, right? Arlington, Va.: From the shots of the weigh-in it looks like McBride has a beer gut and no musculature on his arms to speak of. If this bout turns out to be as big a farce as I expect, is there any chance anyone will be willing to give Mike Tyson another 7-figure payday? Mark Schlabach: If he knocks him out fast, he'll get a nice payday in his next fight, probably against another no-name. I've heard speculation that he would like to fight Evander Holyfield again and Holyfield wants a rematch. But with Holyfield's current state, and Tyson's camp wanting to get away from Tyson's image of a thug who bites people's ears and legs, it probably won't happen. If Mike wins tomorrow night, he probably fights again this year, like in September or October, and then tries to get a title shot sometime late next year. Arlington, Va.: Why do people care about Mike's fights? Mark Schlabach: Would you rather watch John Ruiz or Chris Byrd? There's a better fight in New York on Saturday night, but how many people have heard of Miguel Cotto? Who's heard of Winky Wright? With Holyfield and Lennox Lewis and Oscar De La Hoya in retirement, there's not another truly big name left out there. Arlington, Va.: Are you excited about the fight? Tell us a story about covering fights ... thanks!; Mark Schlabach: Actually haven't done many of them, but the pre-fight atmosphere is truly electric. At the De La Hoya-Bernard Hopkins fight in Las Vegas last fall, it was neat to see Nicole Kidman, Billy Crystal, Chris Rock and Eric Prisbell sitting ringside. The boxing is fast and sometimes slow, and usually starts very late, which makes my job difficult. Fairfax, Va.: Any idea what bars are showing the fight? Mark Schlabach: Call Mitch Rubin, our boxing editor, he probably has a list of bars showing the fight. It's on pay-per-view so I'm not sure what bars will actually have it. Alexandria, Va.: I think Mike Tyson is one of the most charismatic athletes I've ever seen. Sure, I wouldn't want to get the guy angry, and nothing excuses his behavior when he was convicted of rape, but the guy is so much a creature of the media, that I can't help feeling sorry for him. Mark, do you feel the same way? Mark Schlabach: I don't blame the media for any of Mike's mistakes. He made his own bed. However, I'm sure it was difficult for a young man with a lot of money to grow up in the public eye. He was probably rushed to the ring too soon. And I'm sure some "advisers" fleeced most of his money. But that still doesn't excuse rape, biting ears, etc. I will say he seems to be more mature nowadays. Mt. Rainier, Md.: I heard the fight will not be available on TV in the immediate D.C. area (50 miles). Is this true? Mark Schlabach: We heard that earlier in the week, but Comcast Cable spokespeople told me that the fight is available in the District and they've had no problems with clients being unable to order the fight. If that's not true, be sure to let us know and we'll get to the bottom of it. Falls Church, Va.: I see you have little faith in McBride. How was your faith in hand picked tomato can Danny Williams? He seemed to give 'ol Rusty Iron Mike some trouble. Mark Schlabach: Williams pounded Tyson early. I think Tyson wins the fight if he doesn't tear knee ligaments, however. Mike's fighting for his career and life now. If he loses to another "Tomato Can" this time, he's done forever. Washington, D.C. : So how packed will the MCI Center get? What can we expect the scene to be like there? Mark Schlabach: I don't think it will be as electric as say a fight in Las Vegas, Atlantic City or Madison Square Garden. I think you'll see some celebrities and lots of Redskins sitting close to the ring. I'm sure it will be close a full house by the time Tyson fights. Have you quoted anyone from Loco's surrounding the hype about this fight? Mark Schlabach: No but I could really use a Looney Bird about right now. Washington, D.C.: I'm not the type to get excited about meeting famous people, but I once had the opportunity to meet two of the great all-time heavyweights, Ken Norton and Joe Fraizer. I was very humbled by the experience. It impressed upon me what "boxing fans" always seem to forget - boxers are people. The superlatives that get thrown around - they're champs or bums, washed up or the greatest ever. Anyone who gets in the ring with a professional boxer has my respect, and if they don't have yours, you're a moron and a poser. Go watch an Adam Sandler movie and fatasize about your fury carrying you to athletic glory. What professional fighters do takes phenomenal skill and courage. Mike Tyson is earning his money tomorrow night and McBride his too. Mark Schlabach: Don't get me wrong. Tyson was and is one of the greatest athletes of our generation. I can remember being in high school when he was knocking out opponents in 19 seconds. The guys was one of the best heavyweights of all time. But like a lot of fighters, he has stuck around too long, at least that's my opinion. I give McBride a lot of credit for stepping in the ring with him, I wouldn't, but I still don't think he has much of a chance. Washington D.C.: Besides Tyson and Ali, who else is on the ticket for tomorrow night at MCI Center? and when do you think the Ali and Tyson fights will actually begin? Mark Schlabach: The undercard was published higher up. Ali 10 or so, Tyson 11 or 11:30? Just a guess. Washington, D.C.: When Tyson said in his press conference, "Get ready D.C., it's gonna be a train wreck" do you think there will be violence in the arena amongst fans?? The element that draws to Mike Tyson fights is a bit frightening, even downright scary, (I was at the Tyson/Holyfield fight during the infamous ear bite, and there were gunshots fired in the casino by outraged fans). Mark Schlabach: Boxing seems to draw some of that element. Hopefully, security will do a good job of keeping things in order. With Tyson, fight fans never seem to get what they want. The fight is either over in 30 seconds or ends in controversy. Hopefully, it's a decent fight for a few rounds before he knocks him out. Laurel, Md.: This is why I can't stand boxing -- it's all about how many fans the promoters can interest in a particular bout, even if the fighters are more popular than good. Is anyone trying to re-organize boxing as if it's a real sports league -- whoever wins in the playoffs goes to the Super Bowl. It doesn't matter how many people WANT to see Dallas in it. Mark Schlabach: No, if that were the case, Notre Dame would be playing in the BCS Championship Game every year and that's not happening anytime soon. The promoters and managers run boxing, and the commissions are powerless. It's all about Ben Franklins. Dublin, Eire: Hmm, we're sitting in the office here looking at pictures of McBride the 'pretender'. To us he looks more like a 'paddyender', a real guiness gut! Briefly, what's McBride's background, where's he from and how'd he end up here? Mark Schlabach: Kevin "The Clones Colossus" McBride has a record of 32 Wins, 4 Losses, 1 Draw, 27 Knockouts. He was born and raised in Clones, Ireland and now trains in Brockton, Mass., home of former champ "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler. He used to spar with Peter McNeeley and has made his living by beating lesser heavyweights. Lost to a guy who went on to lose his next 18 fights. But all joking aside, he really is a nice kid who has the guts to step in the ring with Tyson. Beautiful Silver Spring, Md.: "At the De La Hoya-Bernard Hopkins fight in Las Vegas last fall, it was neat to see Nicole Kidman, Billy Crystal, Chris Rock and Eric Prisbell sitting ringside." Was Kidman trying to get Prisbell's number? Come on, you can tell us. Mark Schlabach: Prisbell's happily engaged these days, from what I understand. Rockville, Md.: I read somewhere in the paper that, as part of his bankruptcy bail-out plan, Mike Tyson needs to fight at least six times the next few years. Do you think he'll be able to do that? Mark Schlabach: He'd have to win at least his next four. The bankruptcy lawyers are banking on $73 million in purses through seven fights. That seems pretty unrealistic. Fairfax, Va.: Any chance you could get The Post to place Mitch Rubin's list of bars showing the fight online? I'm guessing he mightn't be appreciative of the entirety of the metro region's fan base calling him incessantly for the info (although it might be a good practical joke). Mark Schlabach: I'll see what I can do. I'm sure there are a couple of other editors down there who could help him out. At least I didn't publish his direct office line, which I still could do, I guess. San Diego, Calif.: Any site where this can be viewed in streaming video? CS Mark Schlabach: The fight or this chat? I haven't washed my hair yet today. Still wearing a dirty Masters cap. (no streaming video of the fight, as far as I know). Arlington, Va.: Is it true that D.C. Metro Police will have its SWAT Team on hand in case of any trouble before, during, or after the fight?? I heard from a friend in the Department that SWAT would be in the tunnel at MCI in case of trouble. Mark Schlabach: nice tip. we'll check on it. i'm sure there will be ample security on hand. Washington, D.C.: My boyfriend got tickets -- what should I wear? Mark Schlabach: more than the ring card girls, from what I've been told. heard they won't be wearing much at all. Succasunna, N.J.: Will we see a Pacquiao-Morales rematch this year? Mark Schlabach: Pacquiao is set to square off with Australian Robbie "Bomber" Peden in September, so I don't if we'll see a rematch with Morales this year. Anonymous: So if McBride wins ... will people go crazy? Mark Schlabach: they'll be in shock, i would expect. Mark Schlabach: Thanks everybody. Enjoyed it. Have a great night at the fights if you're going. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Washington Post staff writer Mark Schlabach took your predictions, questions and comments the day before the fight between Mike Tyson and Kevin McBride at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C.

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North Korea and the United States

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Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, just returned from North Korea, where he saw a factionalism in the nation's nuclear outlook. He was online Friday, June 10, at Noon ET to discuss a nuclear North Korea. Pasadena, Calif.: Do you think that even in private Kim Jong Il's advisers every disagree with him? Do you think any of them ever say to him, "I disagree" or "We have to look at this differently?" Everything I read about North Korea suggests that there isn't much diversity of expression, even at the highest reaches of its leadership. Selig Harrison: I don't know the answer to this question but my impression is that Kim Il Sung did engage in give and take with his advisors. This was stated to me by one of these advisors, Hwang Chang Yop, who defected in 1997 and depicts Kim Jong Il as much less willing to entertain criticism and discussion than his father. Boston, Mass.: How receptive is the administration to the idea of a new freeze agreement like what Kang Sok Ju spoke about with you? Selig Harrison: The administration is unwilling to consider a freeze and continues to insist on the complete North Korean dismantlement of all of its nuclear weapons capabilities as the first step in a denuclearization process. Washington, D.C.: Why does there seem to be so little concern about North Korean nuclear proliferation in other countries? I can understand why South Korea is worried about pressing things too far, but what is in it for the European countries to stick to buying off North Korea when everyone knows that the regime there will never adhere to such an agreement? Relatedly, is there any discussion in other countries regarding North Korean human rights abuses? Selig Harrison: Both the countries of Northeast Asia and most members of the E.U. view the North Korean nuclear weapons program as a response to the Bush Administration's September 2002 National Security Doctrine affirming the U.S. right to pre-emptive military action where countries are perceived to pose a potential threat. North Korea wants nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the U.S., in this view, and both N. Korea's northeast Asian neighbors, with the exception of Japan, and the countries of the E.U. do not regard the potential acquisition of a nuclear capability by North Korea as a threat to them. Regarding human rights, yes, there is considerable discussion in Europe, especially France, concerning N. Korea human rights abuses and this has slowed down the E.U. engagement approach to North Korea. Vancouver, Wash..: We know that any potential deal struck with North Korea through the six-party talks must be one which is absolutely and 100% verifiable from the viewpoint of the Bush administration, which means extensive, broad and intrusive inspections. The level of verification of the '94 Framework amounted to a few cameras and even fewer inspectors who were allowed access to a very limited area in one processing plant. The intrusive inspections required by the Bush administration would be both a massive loss of face and absolutely out of the question for a North Korean regime which relies on secrecy, underground tunnels, and complete isolation in order to keep its grip on power. Isn't it true that the 6-party talks do not in realistic terms have a single solitary chance of reaching a compromise which could satisfy both parties? And does that not mean that they are only a delaying tactic designed to give North Korea added time to develop more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles with more range? In essence, why is the United States participating in talks which they surely know cannot succeed and which only serve the purpose of the North Koreans? Is it all a dog-and-pony show to give their South Korean allies the impression of effort so that they can claim to have exhausted the diplomatic route before insisting on further economic sanctions or a blockade? Selig Harrison: In my Washington Post Op-ed article published today, I presented my finding from my recent trip that North Korea is no longer willing to discuss a dismantlement of its nuclear capabilities until North Korea and the US normalize economic and political relations. The issue of verification will not arise until a denuclearization process is negotiated and at this stage the two sides are so distrustful that this is very unlikely in the foreseeable future. It is certainly true that the longer the U.S. delays the normalization of relations with N. Korea, the more distant a nuclear settlement will be. I believe that N. Korea would be prepared to phase out its nuclear weapons program under adequate inspection if -- if - the U.S. moves toward complete normalization of economic and political relations comparable to those established with other communist states for many years despite differences in systems between the U.S. and these countries. Wheaton, Md.: What is the point of these talks? North Korea has already proven they will not honor any agreement and proceed with their nuclear program. Selig Harrison: This question is based on inaccurate information. North Korea faithfully observed the inspection provisions of the 1994 nuclear freeze agreement and gave the full access stipulated in this agreement to both US arms control inspectors and IAEA inspectors. The Bush Administration alleges that North Korea has conducted a secret weapons-grade uranium enrichment program but this is yet to be proved and the administration's credibility has been greatly undermined by the distortion of intelligence relating to WMD in Iraq. Lyme, Conn.: There seems to be a campaign to portray the North Korean government as irrational. Do you perceive the North Korean government as acting rationally? If so, are the North Koreans officials aware of their image within our country, and, if so, do they care? Selig Harrison: I believe that North Korea's perceptions of a security threat by the U.S. are rational based on the fact that the U.S. has staged a pre-emptive war in Iraq in order to achieve regime change. Regarding North Korea's perception of its image in other countries, the regime is very insular, with only a handful of officials who have had overseas exposure in-depth. However, the regime is beginning to understand the importance of public opinion in the west as evidenced by its decision to admit an ABC news team this week. Washington, D.C.: How secure can we be that North Korea isn't selling nuclear weapons to terrorists? It seems to me that's the biggest threat Kim Jong Il poses, as opposed to the possibility of him firing nukes at neighboring countries. Selig Harrison: You are quite correct that North Korea's possession of reprocessed plutonium as a result of the abrogation of the 1994 nuclear freeze agreement has created the potential danger of the transfer of fissile material to third parties. North Korea has offered to negotiate a formal agreement barring such transfers but whether it would be possible to get a verifiable agreement with adequate inspections is questionable and yet to be tested by the Bush administration, which refuses to negotiate directly with North Korea. Annandale, Va.: How much control does China have over North Korea? Are they actually playing a more forceful role than they appear to be? Selig Harrison: As explained in my Washington Post Op-Ed article published today, Koreans have historically resisted Chinese domination. China understands the sensitivity of its relationship with North Korea and the strength of Korean nationalism even if the U.S. does not. Moreover, China disagrees with the U.S. approach to a settlement with North Korea and would like to see the U.S. move toward the normalization of relations with North Korea and negotiate a freeze of the plutonium program at this stage, with more comprehensive denuclearization pursued in tandem with the movement to normalization. Monterey, Ca.: Time and again, the Bush administration has displayed an amazing inability to negotiate with anyone who disagrees with them -- let alone an outright adversary like North Korea. "My way or the highway" is pretty much their motto. So it was no surprise -- though it was still a shock -- when the Bush administration's first response to North Korea's request for direct talks was "there's no way were going to give them that...that's just what they want!" This, along with provocative "Axis of Evil" name calling and unilateral abrogation of Arms Control treaties have, it seems to me, provided full justification for North Korea's heretofore paranoid response and only increased the tensions and likelihood for some kind of overreaction. Do you agree? What are the reasonable intentions and legitimate demands of North Korea that are all but nullified by the black and white thinking of the current US "leadership?" Selig Harrison: The provocations of the Bush Administration with respect to North Korea, especially the advocacy of regime change by the president himself in Bob Woodward's "Bush at War" have produced provocative responses by North Korea that have aggravated the atmosphere of distrust between the two countries. As pointed out in my Washington Post Op-ed article today, North Korea is divided between hardliners and pragmatists. The pragmatists have been seeking since 1991 to promote a nuclear deal with the US in return for the full normalization of economic and political relations. This goal is certainly a legitimate and understandable goal for North Korea and the failure of the US to move toward normalization despite the extraordinary gesture of N. Korea in 1994 in freezing its nuclear program has strengthened the hardliners in North Korea and undermined the pragmatists. I don't think it's legitimate for North Korea to have violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to which it had been committed, but North Korea, like many other countries believes that the US has not fulfilled its part of the NPT bargain in Article 6 by joining with other nuclear powers in moving toward nuclear arms reductions. It is certainly legitimate and understandable for North Korea to press for a peace treaty to replace the 1953 armistice agreement that ended the Korean War and to seek an end to the U.S. economic sanctions that still remain in place 50 years after the end of the Korean War. The U.S. resists a peace treaty because it fears that this would accelerate pressures in South Korea for U.S. force withdrawals. It is a legitimate demand of nationalist forces both in North Korea and in the South to seek the end of the U.S. military presence in Korea. But I have advocated that the U.S. should link its withdrawal with North Korean arms control concessions that would remove its forward deployments that now pose a hypothetical threat to South Korea. Washington, D.C.: What is the current status of the Sunshine Policy? And how is that affecting the U.S. strategy towards South Korea and towards North Korea? Selig Harrison: The Sunshine Policy is being actively pursued by the current South Korean president, Roh Moo Hyun, much to the displeasure of the Bush Administration which is seeking to restrain South Korean economic aid to North Korea. The most unfortunate example of the U.S. attitude is the effort to limit the movement of South Korean companies into the new Kaesong industrial zone in North Korea by pressing for the enforcement of export control restrictions that would prevent South Korean textile companies from using the most advanced computer technology. Winthrop, Ma.: Given Iraq and the long standing conflict with the USA, isn't in the best interests of Iran, N.K. and maybe Syria to develop Nukes if they believe they can get away with it? They all believe(at least the governments) that there systems of government are right and proper, and the U.S. is clearly the major potential threat to their existence by any rational judgment. So in context, developing nukes is the only rational and moral choice the leaders of these countries could make, baring a really high dollar offer by the West? Selig Harrison: I do not believe that the development of nuclear weapons is in the best long-term interest of North Korea but as you say, it is understandable for North Korea to perceive a nuclear deterrent as necessary in the context of the present U.S. pre-emptive war policy. I do not believe that North Korea would be irrevocably committed to a nuclear weapons capability if the U.S. reversed course and moved toward the normalization of relations that Bill Clinton had envisaged. The development of militarily operational nuclear weapons by North Korea would stimulate nuclear weapons development in Japan and South Korea and is thus, highly undesirable for the U.S. and the countries of the region. Los Angeles, Ca.: What are your thoughts on economic strangulation? Why wouldn't that create a regime collapse? Selig Harrison: The history of North Korea has conditioned the populace to accept great privation and I don't think a policy of "economic strangulation" would bring about a collapse. It would merely aggravate the human suffering that already exists in North Korea, partly as a result of the continuance of U.S. economic sanctions 50 years after the Korean War, and in part by the over-centralized and autarkic economic policies that the regime has only recently begun to modify. In addition, the North Korean leadership was revered under the late Kim Il Sung and his mystique continues to give the regime of his son widespread acceptance among the population. Comparisons with eastern Europe are invalid as a result of historical factors, powerful nationalistic feeling, accentuated by the perception of the U.S. threat, and by Confucian traditions that facilitate the acceptance of the regime's controls. Washington, D.C. How is it that you are able to travel to North Korea? Selig Harrison: The late Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times and I became the first Americans to visit North Korea and to interview the late Kim Il Sung following the end of the Korean War in May, 1972. As a result of my interview with Kim Il Sung then and a subsequent interview with him in 1994, I am better known to the North Korean leadership than most other Americans and therefore receive more favorable consideration when I request a visit than others whom they do not know. Washington, D.C.: Has North Korea tested a nuclear device? If not, isn't it possible that they do not have the capability at this point to construct such a weapon? Is North Korean government is simply trying to extort aid? Selig Harrison: No, North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test. On my April visit there, General Ri Chan Bok, the North Korean representative at Pan Mun Jom, told me that "we do not need to conduct one because our nuclear deterrent is already functional and we do not want to conduct one because of the fallout in neighboring countries." I would be surprised if they do conduct a test because it would aggravate an already difficult relationship with China. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Tell Me About It

2005061219

Appearing every Wednesday and Friday in The Washington Post Style section and in Sunday Source, Tell Me About It Bæfers readers advice based on the experiences of someone who's been there -- really recently. Carolyn Hax is a 30-something repatriated New Englander with a liberal arts degree and a lot of opinions and that's about it, really, when you get right down to it. Oh, and the shoes. A lot of shoes. Mail can be directed to Carolyn at [email protected] . Carolyn Hax: Hi. I'm here, I just changed my mind on the question I was answering. Hum your favorite on-hold music. Alexandria, Va.: Carolyn, I'm 30 years old and find myself still basing my life decisions on what my mother would approve of. Problem is, she approves of very little, so I'm constantly burning from her lack of support and guilt from apparantly not doing things correctly and also anger that I can't just let it go and follow my own path. I don't understand why I still need her approval and why her disappointment hurts so much. How do I break this cycle? Do I need therapy to get over my mother? Carolyn Hax: The question isn't whether you "need" it, it's why you wouldn't try it. You have something gnawing at you that you haven't been able to put to rest on your own. That's a one-sentence description of the best time to try therapy. Uncomfortable Situation-ville: Hi Carolyn... I am the maid of honor for one of my very best friends. My fiance and I have a lot of activities with my friend, her fiance and her family in the coming months. The problem? When my friend was a kid her father sexually molested her. It happened once, she told her mom, her parents took the whole family to counseling where it was discover that her dad had repressed memories of his own sexual abuse as a young child. He has since gotten more counseling and ever since has been doing his best to be a good dad. It was terrible, terrible thing that happened, but they worked through it as a family. I made the mistake of telling MY fiance about this whole thing and he totally freaked out and has refused to spend any time with "the child molester". I realize that the major lesson to be learned by this is to keep my big, fat mouth shut... but since I didn't, am I wrong to expect my fiance to get over it and attend these functions with me? I mean it's not like he is going to have to hang out with her dad all by himself... I don't really understand why this is an issue for him, when it's something that has nothing to do with him. Any thoughts on this? Carolyn Hax: A lot of thoughts, many of the kind I don't like to throw out on the fly, but I do feel strongly that the big-fat-mouth lesson is only one of two major lessons to be learned from this--and it's the lesser of the two. Your fiance is telling you a whole lot about himself right now, and how he's going to act in a difficult situation, and if you don't pay close attention to it BEFORE you marry him you're going to regret it, hard. Carolyn Hax: And as for the immediate concern, what to do about your fiance and your friend's wedding, explain to him that if he can't understand why you're asking him to follow your lead and behave civilly, at least out of deference to you, then the only thing that makes sense is for you to go alone. Would you mind outlining why being "friends with benefits" is a bad idea (if it is, but I get the impression that's the case)? I'm in a frienship that could turn into that, and I seem to be missing why it could be a bad thing. Carolyn Hax: I don't like the "bad" or "good" labels. What I come across most is that FWB arrangements usually involve people who say they can't see why there'd be a problem with it, when the opportunities for (at the two extremes) exploitation and denial (of unrequited love) are staring them right in the face. As long as people are honest with themselves that they're attempting to reduce a potent emotional situation to almost a business arrangement, and that it's highly unlikely to stay within whatever neat boundaries they try to draw for it, and that people are likely to get hurt when it doesn't, then it becomes a matter for adults to decide for themselves. Wilmington, Del.: Is it a mistake to continue to do nice things for an ex after a fairly amicable breakup (thoughtful gifts or giving them a hand with something when they need it)? Am I just making it harder for myself to move on? (They are already in a new relationship). Carolyn Hax: I don't know. What are you looking to get out of doing these nice things? Any advice on what to do when you have a different sex drive than your partner? I want sex more often than he does. I obviously don't want him if he's not that into it (we've tried, bad idea) but I'm tired of going to bed frustrated... Carolyn Hax: How tired of it are you? The what-to-do when you have any unfixable problem is always the same. Is it bad enough for you to want to leave, or can you find a way to live with it? Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C.: How can I learn to set boundries with friends? I just had two friends visiting from out of state who stayed with me a week. The prob? They didn't ask, they told me that they were coming after buying the plane tickets. They came home late, didn't let us know what their plans were, didn't go to sleep until way after my husband and I did (one bedroom condo, living room light shines into our bedroom), etc. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, I broke up with my best friend from college after even worse guest violations. Living in the big city I enjoy having guests, but am really starting to not like them for more than a long weekend. How can I tell people this and stand my ground? Carolyn Hax: You just tell them and stand your ground. The reason you don't is you're afraid you'll alienate them or they'll give you a hard time, but the alternatives have already happened to you--you lost one friend completely, as bad or worse than alienation, and you had two others drive you nuts, as bad or worse than being given a hard time. So remind yourself how much worse it feels to say nothing, and start saying something. They call after buying their tickets: "I wish you'd called before you bought your tickets, we can put you up only for the weekend." Or, "Great, I can't wait to see you, but I can't put you up the whole week any more--our apartment's just too small." I'm giving you phrasing, but the words themselves are beside the point. YOu need to get used to the idea that you're not a monster if you say no. Child molester: She might also want to acknowledge his feelings. It's not like it's a big surprise to learn that someone may have a hard time adjusting to the fact that "that guy" over there molested a child. Dismissing his reactions is just as telling. I know I would prefer the outrage to the apathy. Carolyn Hax: Who said anything about apathy? It's a hortrible thing. But it's not his family, it's not his battle to fight, and as entitled as he is to his outrage, his handling of it is poor. for Uncomfortable Situation-ville: One of my friends parents are divorced and when he was much younger his father physically abused his mom. My friend has rebuilt the relationship with his dad, and although it makes me feel uncomfortable to go to any event where his dad might be, I try to ignor it out of respect for my friend and the relationship he is trying to have with his dad. Carolyn Hax: Thank you for the great example of handling the outrage well. Charlotte, N.C.: Re: Uncomfortable -- I'd be wondering if my fiance had been sexually abused, as well. That big of a reaction seems like he's projecting his past onto the writer's best friend. Carolyn Hax: That crossed my mind, but I think it needs to be treated as one of many possibilities. E.g., it could just be he's immature, and so I think it's always a good idea to assume small and then go on to bigger possibilities only if the facts take you there. Thanks for weighing in. re: Different Drives: Does the same advice apply to married folk? Is it insane to think about leaving an otherwise very nice marriage because of completely different sex drives and therefore a "passionless" marriage? My nagging thought is that as we get older, the sex thing will diminish in importance. So I should hang on? Carolyn Hax: I wish I had an answer for you, but one person is reading your question and shouting, "Yes, go!" at the computer screen, and someone else is reading it and shouting, "Stay, the importance of sex does diminish!," and a third is thinking, "I can believe people take their vows so lightly," and another is saying, "Man she's slow." So, the same advice does apply to married folk. It's just that there may be more items to divide up into pros and cons, and more people's happiness to consider than your own and your partner's. Rochester Hills, Mich.: The father molested his daughter, thereby taking away her innocence forever and you decide to attack the friend's fiance for being outraged? Sorry, but I would think most America would have the same reaction. This girl was SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, I would certainly feel uncomfortable being in the presence of a sex offender. I guess you dont feel that way. Carolyn Hax: I guess you feel better being self-righteous? Of course anyone would feel uncomfortable. But with the offender taking responsibility and getting treatment, and his wife responding instantly to the daughter's complaints, and the wife and daughter--ie, the secondary and primary victims--choosing to stand by the father as he deals with his problem, and with the daughter--ie, the primary victim--asking her friend to respect her family's decisions, then my place as the date of the friend and therefore COMPLETELY EFFING IRRELEVENT BYSTANDER would be either to shut up and respect the decisions of the people who's place it was to make these decisions--and behave like a civil adult--or politely excuse myself from the event in question. For Sex Drive: "The what-to-do when you have any unfixable problem is always the same. Is it bad enough for you to want to leave, or can you find a way to live with it?" Are you sure that this is an unfixable problem? For instance, have you tried wearing something other than baggy flannel pajamas to bed? Carolyn Hax: I took from the question that it was something they'd tried to address, but if I took incorrectly it's important to have this out there, thanks. Both parties do need to make an effort, every last effort, especially when a life pledge is on the line. The problem I see most often with the unequal drive, though, is that the one who has lost interest also has no interest in finding it again. Many just aren't attracted to their partners any more, in flannel or flimsies. Many see a dropoff in sex as a relief instead of a problem. Many hate that a partner has gotten heavy or out of shape or even depressed but aren't willing to say something that hurtful or that would make them seem/feel shallow. Sometimes there's a health issue that could be addressed, but the person isn't willing to admit it even to a doctor. Many, many paths lead to unfixability. Just FWIW. Re: Rochester Hills: I just love the way people respond to these things, as though there aren't degrees or differences; that a one-time assault by someone who was himself abused as a child, who has since sought treatment, and who has done -- according to the writer -- his very best to atone for his crime against his daughter, and whose wife and spouse have forgiven him, is somehow as deserving of ostracism as the most flagrant, unrepentant, unremorseful, vicious, violent sex offender on earth. I guess I wouldn't be comfortable standing next to anyone who would be so quick to judge, and so unwilling to differentiate between various crimes. Ever hear of judge not, lest ye be judged? Which means you're going to be held to the same yardstick you hold up to others. There are differences, and to be blind to them is to be blind to the full panoply of the human condition. And yes, what exactly is the interest of the "bystander" in all of this? What are you getting for all this outrage and hatred? What happened to YOU? Carolyn Hax: Thank you for saying so well what I believe the fiance was saying about himself with his extreme reaction. So many times you guys come up with the fuller explanations I don't have the time or words or presence of mind to write. Bravo. Baltimore, Md.: Different sex drives - Not to be crude, but if A wants daily and B wants weekly and eveything else is going great - can't A "handle things him/herself" to take up the slack? Now if it more like daily/yearly then there's issues. Carolyn Hax: Very delicately put, actually. Some people would be fine with your plan, some would find it a lonely life sentence. It always comes back to a deeply personal choice. Washington, D.C.: Here's a positive story for Friday: Last week, my wife's ex-husband came over to our house and taught my son -- our son -- to play lacrosse. I looked outside and it was just happening. Carolyn Hax: That you see it as a positive is also a positive, thanks. re: Different Drives: Being the one who has lost their drive due to stress, work, and general tiredess after a 60 hour work week -- not to mention having to sit on your emotions all week while at work so you don't lose it on an idiot coworker -- maybe it would be nice for the one wanting sex to get the other in the mood via an act of kindness ( e.g. flowers, a nice dinner, a trip without a lot of sleep built in so the drive COMES BACK, etc) Sorry but not all people just like to drop and hit it! It is important to consider that life changes people and how they relate to one another, so making the extra effort is important, even when you don't want to. Carolyn Hax: Another good point, thanks--and I'll add only that receptiveness to that kind of extra effort is also important. So many people do a reflexive Heisman when they're tense, and that can really kill the desire to make a big effort again. Differing Sex Drive: I find that, um, mastering my domain doesn't help my feeling undesired and hence undesirable. In fact, I think this might be the root of many affairs, a need to feel desired and desirable. Carolyn Hax: Yes. Often it is a mistaken sense--that sexual rejection says you're undesirable, when in fact it could be that you're just fine and your partner is preoccupied, or isn't that physical, or has broken plumbing. But when the net result is that you go through life virtually untouched, the prospect of being touched again can inspire some desperate choices. Dallas, Tex.: Did you know banging your head against a wall burns 150 calories an hour? Carolyn Hax: You wouldn't know by looking at me. But then I guess it defeats the purpose when you do it while eating a donut. What's a Heisman...: ...other than a college football award? Carolyn Hax: Ever seen the trophy? Guy is holding a football and throwing a stiff-arm (presumably at a defender but maybe at his frustrated wife). Unrequested mullet: Regarding the conclusion of last week's chat, I'd just like to say that the only thing worse than an unrequested mullet is a requested mullet. Carolyn Hax: Thanks for the important distinction. Carolyn Hax: Sorry for the delay, guys--we've got a screaming situation here (babysitter is in the hospital, usual sub is out of town ...). Will try to be back in 2 min. Carolyn Hax: Okay, I'm back, but the peace is fragile. Sorry about this. Falls Chuch, Va.: Where do you find all these female respondents who want more sex than their boyfriends/husbands? Most men don't believe that's a common problem. I wonder if some of these men are much older than their partners. Carolyn Hax: It is a common problem. The stereotype that men always want sex more than women do does have a foundation in fact, but there are other facts--that for women attraction has a bigger emotional-to-physical ratio, which means that as the relationship progesses women can start to want more exactly when their men are starting to lose interest (b/c the woman is aging and getting less attractive, or b/c familiarity dampens excitement, or b/c their attraction was about the chase and now the chase is over, or whatever). There are obviously stereotypes in that parenthetical, too, but I list them just as an example of why it's not strange at all that a woman would be the one feeling neglected. Re: Differing Sex Drive: Are there actually men out there who desire sex LESS than their girlfriends/wives? As a man, I find this almost unbelivable. FYI: Every real man takes great pride at being able to "deliver the goods" at the drop of a hat. Carolyn Hax: Funny. See above. Curiousville: How old are the kids now? Carolyn Hax: 2, 2 and 1 (28 months x 2 and 13 months, for those who appreciate the distinctions). Usually they're deep into naptime right now--I guess word of our sitterlessness got out. I had to explain to my wife that saying "Don't touch me -- are you nuts" conveys a VASTLY different meaning than "I would love to except I had a really bad day and am bone-tired so can we take a raincheck." Carolyn Hax: Sorry you had to explain, but so much better that you did than stalk off in a huff. I'm coming from the guy's angle similar to the previous molestor question. My girlfriend was date-raped in high school by her best friend's brother. Unfortunately, She never spoke up about it and just let it pass by. I think he was two or three years older. Her and her friend have kept in sparse touch through the years. About 15 years later, this friend called up and said she was having a party. Long story short, it widdled down to that I would love to go to the party and have a good time, but I don't want to talk, acknowledge or be introduced to this guy. She got upset and said she didn't want to make a big deal of it. I know I'm not alone here in this forum, but there are few things worse in this world than rape. Well, I think she conveniently forgot about it and we never went. Thing is, I can't see myself shaking hands with guy. I guess the difference between the two stories is, the father got help for his illness and past trauma, but this guy's actions were never brought to light. How should I react in this situation? On a side note, I feel I am sensitive to this type thing as, even more unfortunate, I have had several girlfriends go through a similar situation. Am I being too pig headed, too? Carolyn Hax: It sure doesn't sound like it. I think there's also another distinction between the two stories that it's really important to make--that the victim in the wedding story faced her abuse and abuser, and the victim in yours chose to hide from both. That makes it much harder from someone in your position to embrace civility as the best way to support the victim. I think by saying you didn't want to be put in the position of having to be nice to the guy, you were within your rights, though you did put your girlfriend in the position of having to accommodate you, vs take care of herself (even though she's not really taking care of herself, which brings us back to the problem). I think the ideal reaction here would have been for you to say to your GF that you want to support her but it is a big deal, and that you will follow her every lead except in denying it happened. Carolyn Hax: I'm going to have to go soon, but I don't want that to be the last word on such a sensitive topic. If there aren't comments I can post to challenge or supplement my answer, we'll pick it up next week (please remind me). RE: rejection: What to do when one person "persists" in feeling rejected and undesirable? I'm tired of having to explain rationally and nicely, and getting a temporary "I understand," only to repeat this every other time. (Underscore the word "other.") One of us must be doing this wrong. Carolyn Hax: If the person doesn't in fact understand, saying "I understand" is wrong. However, right and wrong get to be beside the point after a while. Now the point is, you don't line up in this sense, and neither is changing. What to do from here that will keep you from having to keep discussing it? WDC: There are a few other things worse than rape? Uhhh...has this guy been raped or does he even know the emotional/physical drama of being raped. Very insensitive thing to say online. Carolyn Hax: I thought he was saying there were "few other things worse than rape." Not A few. Big difference. Let me check. Carolyn Hax: Yeah, you read it wrong. Carolyn Hax: Okay I have to run. If anyone wants to reopen that guy's issue next week, please say so--I'm specifically thinking victims who disagree with one or both of us, since that's the viewpoint that's missing (and matters most). Thanks for your patience everyone and type to you next Friday. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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On TV

2005061219

Join Lisa on Friday, June 10 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the latest on TV. De Moraes has written "The TV Column" for The Post since 1998. She served as the TV editor for the entertainment industry trade publication the "Hollywood Reporter" for almost a decade. Washington D.C.: We have TiVo so I was just able to watch Hit Me Baby One more Time. Holy crap, is that a BAD show. Setting aside the concept, the execution was just terrible. The production values were total crap (looked like a bad Sat afternoon TV show a la Soul Train) and who the heck is the host? And then what the heck is the purpose? My goodness. On another subject, I was in England this year and saw their dancing reality show. Exactly the same (I think the British judge was on it) with the silly ice skater-type interviews and the judges fans with glitter numbers. Except it wasn't "stars" it was two people who wanted to break into dancing. I think the high ratings here have to do with people liking watching talent shows, not the celebrities. If the U.S. was going to rip off the show entirely, why not have it be real people instead of c list "celebrities?" Lisa de Moraes: And miss Trista? Are you nuts? (Hi, by the way). I am, alas, not in charge of ABC, and so cannot explain why the network went with C-list celebs instead of nobodies. I can, however address "what the heck is the purpose" of NBC's Hit Me Baby One More Time. It's to get viewers, so they can sell advertising. The host is some Brit DJ, or VJ, or both. Don't you love the way he refers to Vanilla Ice as "Vaniller"? It's so cute. Dancing with Stars: What do you think about Trista being the first to be kicked off "Dancing with the Stars"? The soap actress is a worse dancer, and had lower scores from the judges. Viewers must either be sick of Trista (if they vote people off), or over her after four reality shows (if they vote people on). Lisa de Moraes: It happened because I prayed and prayed and prayed -- really hard. I take full credit. Hopefully, ABC took notice of her early departure (she got voted out by viewers even though other couples weren't as good as Trista and Latest Victim) and will never, ever bring her back. After suffering through Trista on "Bachelor," "Bachelorette," "Scary Trista Wedding" and "Dancing with the Stars," America deserves to live Trista-free and happily ever after. Washington, D.C.: Hit Me Baby One More Time. Genius! Wyle E. Coyote GENIUS! But the host, what's his name, really tall British beanpole guy that says "Vaniller Ice." What do you think -- cross between John Elway and Mick Jagger? Lisa de Moraes: Funny, Vernon Kay reminds me more of Monkees' Davy Jones after eight days on a torture rack.... Memphis, Tenn.: Was watching the most recent season (from a year ago?) of the Sopranos on DVD and realized, to my surprise, that I was bored. Forget the next season (a year from now?) ... is this show already out of gas? Lisa de Moraes: Was it only a year ago? Seems like part of my early childhood. HBO certainly hopes it's not out of gas, because their original series aren't pulling in "Sopranos" kind of numbers. Here's the part where HBO contacts me to remind me that's it not about the numbers because they don't sell advertising (unless they do a really big number in which case they like for reporters to write about the numbers.)"Entourage" returned last Sunday with an average of about 1.6 million viewers, after which Lisa Kudrow's new series "Comeback" opened with 1.51 million. The next night, "Six Feet Under" returned for its alleged final season with 2.6 million viewers (last year's season debut clocked 4.2 million, but on Sunday night, not Monday). And "Deadwood" averaged just shy of 3 million viewers in its initial telecasts on Sunday during the season that recently wrapped. Here's the part where HBO contacts me to remind me that they don't just telecast an episode once, it is repeat several more times across their schedule. Colorado: What's with HBO moving Six Feet Under to Mondays? Is this because of low ratings for 6FU, or are they trying to cultivate a Monday audience? Are they trying to get out of range of Desperate Housewives, maybe? It seems so odd given the amount of effort they've put into developing the Sunday audience so that a lot of us consider Sunday night our HBO night. Lisa de Moraes: All of the above. Monday is a night of high viewing levels, and HBO can promote a Monday lineup during its Sunday lineup, so moving into Monday territory is a no brainer. And, it's clear "Desperate Housewives" has scooped up some viewers who had been watching various other networks on Sunday at 9. Everyone took a hit. Arlington, Va.: Pookity-dookity-do: Re: Dancing with the "stars": I have found my peace with dreaded Trista. She can be on TV as long as she is humiliated in the process. I rather enjoyed watching her stand there taking criticism. Those are my conditions. (Although I hated seeing her on Discovery HD talking about romantic getaways. It was too much like having her in my home.) And is it just me or did Evander Holyfield's dancing remind anyone else of the "putting on the Ritz" scene from Young Frankenstein? Lisa de Moraes: Hopefully, no one from ABC is reading or next thing you know, they'll be making over her home on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to accommodate her petiteness -- lower kitchen counters, shorter sofa legs, etc. -- while sending her and That Poor Man on an all-expenses paid vacation to Wisteria Lane, where she'll turn up on an episode of "Desperate Housewives" -- or that island, where she'll play a guest monster on "Lost." I too thrill at the prospect of Trista humiliated but it's best to cut her off completely. Colorado Springs, Colo.: Lisa, There actually is some decent TV viewing this summer. BBC America's "Mystery Mondays". Right now they're showing "Second Sight" with Clive Owen, and soon they'll be showing "Prime Suspect", from episode 1. Long live cable! Lisa de Moraes: Yes, hooray and all that. I thought Lisa Kudrow's HBO show was interesting too. And, this alleged last season of "Six Feet Under" is great for making you feel like your life doesn't suck after all... DON'T Hit Me Baby!: Hi Lisa -- Well, I finally got around to watching this show last night. I should note that I am in the target audience for this show -- a thirtysomething child of the 80's who LOVES VH1's Bands Reunited -- but I turned off Hit Me Baby after 5 minutes! So many problems, but let's touch on the obvious: Why do they insist on having audience cheering (probably canned) going on during the entire show -- both when acts are performing and when not? And, more importantly, how much are they paying all those beautiful 20 year-olds to cheer madly for washed-up artists that they've never heard of? What a mess! Lisa de Moraes: I suspect all those beautiful 20 year olds are waiters/wanna be actors so there's no stopping them, they'll just move on to the next reality series. Cheering during the performances is actually a public service. I can't explain it, but this show continues to win its timeslot among younger viewers, though this week it only averaged about 7 million viewers overall. Deadwood: After listening to my husband compare Deadwood to Shakespeare, I finally started watching the first season on DVD. I am hooked. This is an amazingly written show, fascinating characters, and they don't feel the need to spell everything out for you. So I ask as a recent convert, are you on board with Deadwood? It doesn't get the buzz that the Sopranos and some other great shows (justifiably) get. Lisa de Moraes: Seven minutes of cussing per hour -- what's not to love? I'm hooked -- and I love your husband's Shakespeare thing. I'll use that next time someone gets all sniffy about what I do for a living. Anon.: Hey Lisa! I read a book last weekend. Lisa de Moraes: Me too! What did you read? And, I played the piano. And I took my dogs for a walk. And I still found time to watch TV. I'm a regular Renaissance Woman.. Reston, V.A.: Why does Hollywood feel the need to turn classic TV into movies? "Dukes of Hazzard," "Bewitched" and "The Honneymooners" are all being released this summer. Shouldn't these TV gems remain untouched? Is it all about profit? Lisa de Moraes: No, it's about art.... Of course it's about profit! This is a business, pookie -- no handouts from Corporation for Public Broadcasting (thank goodness). And they're doing it because earlier remakes of terrifically horrible TV series did well at the boxoffice. "Charlie's Angels" -- need I say more? San Francisco, Calif.: What news do you have of Dennis Miller? Why do you think that CNBC cancelled his show? Lisa de Moraes: I think he's doing a commercial for some phone company. What the heck happened to him, by the way? He used to be so funny. Now he's just angry. Washington, D.C.: After watching the Tonys, I defy anyone to identify a more self-obsessed celebrity than Billy Crystal. And speaking of the mere 6.5 million who watched him last Sunday, why do you suppose so few of us tune in? Is it that the likes of Spamalot, the "best of Broadway", is pure dreck? Or do we as a nation hate Harvey Fierstein that much? Or is it possible that fewer than 100 people in all of America know what A Light in the Piazza could possibly be? Lisa de Moraes: I assume it's because so few people have seen any of these plays so they have no rooting interest, unlike, say, the Academy Awards..... Mars: Honey: Do you think there could be anything as glorious on planet earth as viewing Evander Holyfield ballroom dancing? (Even though he needed an oxygen tank after his performance.) What a show. What a show. What a show. I'm so battered by all of the new summer entries, because for me it was just an exhausting Sept-May 2004-2005 season. My eyes hurt. Lisa de Moraes: Clearly you lack the stamina to become A Reporter Who Covers Televisions. I told you it was a tough job. Buck up! Waynesboro, Va.: What will it take to revive the sitcom? I come home from work at night and flip on WTTG for "Seinfeld," "The Drew Carey Show" and "Frasier," which remain a cut above most of the few alleged sitcoms on these days. And yes, "Arrested Development" is okay, albeit overrated (I sense some critics wouldn't be so ga-ga over it were it a "traditional" three-camera show or if it used a laugh track). Meanwhile, "That '70s Show," which I used to enjoy, is well past its prime; Laura Prepon should leave and develop her own sitcom vehicle. Where's the good characterization and clever writing in the tradition of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"? Doesn't that appeal to young demographics anymore, or do they want something as smugly contrived as "Friends"? Lisa de Moraes: I was with you until you got to "That 70's Show" being past its prime. "That 70's Show" never had a prime. And, grievously, having seen most of next season's sitcoms, I have to report that it does not look like next season will be what it takes to revive the sitcom. Although they have yanked Shannen Doherty as star of one of next season's new sitcoms, which is a big step in the right direction -- though it does beg the question "who thought that scary, scary woman could carry a comedy and don't they read the tabs?" Arlington, Va. : When are new episodes of "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" going to air in the fall? I'm going through withdrawal and it ain't pretty .... Lisa de Moraes: Um, they're going to air in the fall. I don't have a start date. Hang in there, you've got a couple months to go... Ancient Italy: What is the buzz on the new HBO series about Rome? I recently watched the old BBC miniseries I, Claudius, and even though it was tame BBC stuff it was still pretty horrifying in parts. I presume the HBO series will be much worse. Will it be any good? Lisa de Moraes: As far as I know HBO has not sent out DVD's on "Rome" yet. It's scheduled to debut this fall. I have seen nothing on it so can't report if it's going to be any good. Meanwhile, ABC's competing miniseries "Empire" is scheduled to debut June 28. "I, Claudius" gave me nightmares the first time I saw it. Full disclosure: "Peter Pan" gave me nightmares the first time I saw it. Washington, D.C.: As if it hadn't already been clear, shows such as 'Fire Me' are making it more obvious that there isn't much that's real about 'reality TV.' (They manage to put cameras all over these small businesses, but the manager and co-workers are supposedly not in on what's going on?) The premise is phony, the contest isn't legitimate, much of the dialogue is scripted instead of spontaneous -- so please, tell me how this is different from what was going on in the 1950s on the quiz shows that caused such a scandal? Lisa de Moraes: Congress is far too busy working to keep Janet Jackson's breasts off of television and talking to their agents about which network to sell TV rights to their biographies to, to focus on whether "reality" television shows are deceptive. Centreville, Va.: Lisa, I have some Nielsen questions. I guess I can't believe some of the shows that get good ratings. I fully understand, and subscribe to P.T. Barnum's theory, yet can America really be this lame? Anyways, who decides who gets to be a Nielsen? Does Nielsen send out applications? Do they want a wide variety of watchers -- equal amounts of Dems and Repubs? Do they have age requirements? Do the networks have their own internal ratings that they go by? I know, lots of questions but it's all crap to me. Lisa de Moraes: Yes, it appears America really can be this lame? Nielsen decides who gets to be a Nielsen home and yes, they shoot for diversity, though there are some -- like owners of stations whose networks target specific audiences -- who say otherwise, which is part of what the flap over the local people meters is about. Fairfax, Va.: Hi, Lisa - NBC lineup question. Does the network's decision to leave Scrubs off the season's upfront plans mean the suits aren't fans of the show? Lisa de Moraes: I have given up trying to figure out what NBC has in mind when it comes to Scrubs. It defies reason. Death by scheduling, that's what happened to "Scrubs." Dancing with the Stars: Ouch. I was mildly entertained by the first episode, but couldn't bear to watch the second. And I'll pretty much watch any old cr-p. I don't understand why this was such a huge hit in Australia. Evander Holyfield should be ashamed of himself! At least the public was smart and voted Trista off first. Hopefully she will take the hint and we won't be subjected to "Trista and Ryan Have a Baby". Lisa de Moraes: Trista doesn't know the meaning of the word "hint." She can't afford to because Trista, according to ABC's bio of her on the show's web site, is a professional "reality star." I'm betting Trista will have a camera in the delivery room. Arlington, Va.: Is it true that Romber were booed when they came onstage during the CBS advertiser get together? And if so, why didn't you share that nice little tidbit with us? Lisa de Moraes: There was a distinct lack of warmth from the audience at the CBS upfront presentation when Rob and Amber came on stage. Especially compared to the roar that went up when the winners of the latest Amazing Race came on stage -- the couple that beat Rob and Amber. There is sooo much that goes on at the upfronts that I cannot squeeze into the column. Write to my bosses and tell them to give me more room in the paper that week...I could write volumes... Northern Virginia: I know that I am one of the few people who watched the Tony awards on Sunday night, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who found Billy Crystal to be totally obnoxious. His schtick pretending to be the host of the Tony's was funny for the first few minutes, but then it just became grating. I tuned in to see Hugh Jackman, a real stage actor both on Broadway and in London's West End, as host. Perhaps Billy did deserve the Tony for Special Performance for his "200 Sundays", but did he deserve all the TV time he got? (The camera kept panning to him even when they finally got him offstage.) Anyway, Hugh Jackman was his usually gracious self and we viewers who tuned in to see him were treated to two song/dance routines by him. Lisa de Moraes: Maybe he was the only celebrity the cameraman recognized? I've noticed that recently on trophy shows the cameras keep panning to the same two people in the audience. It was very bad during the Oscars -- they kept turning to Oprah in the audience for her reax to whatever was going on up on stage. Is Oprah laughing at Chris Rock's opening remarks about Jude Law? What does Oprah think about Hillary Swank's "I'm just a gal from a trailer park" acceptance speech? Is Oprah okay that "Born into Brothels" beat "The Story of the Weeping Camel" for best documentary feature? Does Oprah think "Aviator" got robbed in the race for best picture? Am I OK?: Should I be concerned that I enjoy The Bad Girls Guide with Jenny McCarthy? Lisa de Moraes: Get help. Immediately. But, out of morbid curiosity, which part of the show do you enjoy? The writing? The acting? The cleavage? Trista: She can have a camera in the delivery room as long as she doesn't have a camera at the conception, although I'm sure she's considered that. Lisa de Moraes: Thanks, now I have to go dip my eyes in lye again... Detroit, Mich.: Ah! The Mary Tyler Moore show. I recall coming across the script from the clown-died episode, reading it, and laughing so hard stuff came out of my nose. They knew how to write banter then. Who does now? Lisa de Moraes: People who are so old -- like 40 -- the networks won't hire them.... HBO-less: We've never had HBO at our house so the good stuff we miss we catch when it comes out on DVD. We have just finished watching the first season of Six Feet Under and really enjoyed it; however, I've heard rumblings that the series took a serious nose dive at some point. Is it safe to proceed to the second season or will we just be disappointed? When does it jump the shark? Lisa de Moraes: First season was terrific. Downhill from there. Rent second season.... Centreville, Va.: Hi Lisa. According to Nielsen, I'm one of about six people who watch American Morning on CNN. And I even like the show. However, the one person who I like the least is Soledad, and she appears to be the one who CNN likes the most. She is way too Crappy Katie Couric for me. Anyways, why is Bill Hemmer leaving and where is he rumored to end up? Him, I like. Lisa de Moraes: "Chemistry," says CNN/US chief Jonathan Klein. He thinks Miles will have better chemistry with Soledad who, apparently, it untouchable. So Rick Squarejaw is out and is leaving CNN -- very sad stuff. I'm one of the other five watching the show; I like it too. I'm particularly sorry they're losing Jack Cafferty (though he's not leaving the network, instead going to Wolf Blitzer's three-hour p.m. show). I thought he was a fun jolt in the morning.Did I mention that Blitzer is going to be on for three hours? Dancing with the Stars worst nightmare:: Rob and/or Amber. Need I say more? Lisa de Moraes: Fortunately, the dancing show is on ABC, not CBS, so not gonna happen. We may see Ty Pennington on Dancing with the Stars, with his tool belt... Newark, N.J.: Do you think the brilliant Hugh Laurie will get a chance to appear on a decent talk show like Jon Stewart's or Ellen's? What was Fox smoking when they made their breakout new star have to endure the agony of Regis and Kelly a few weeks back? Who makes these choices anyway? Lisa de Moraes: please tell me you're kidding. He went on Regis and Kelly? I'm sick... Arlington, Va.: I'm a 26 soon to be 27 year-old-man and I still arrange my weekday early evenings and Sundays around the Simpsons ... am I just too obsessed or should I seek counseling? Lisa de Moraes: You don't really give me much of a choice there: "too obsessed" or "seek counseling." They seem to be one in the same. I'm guessing you think you should seek counseling and/or get a life. Wow, that was so Carolyn Hax. Reverting back to TV Column-speak: there is NOTHING wrong with you, you are a man of discerning taste.... Here and There: How's this for a TV concept -- American Idols meet Fear Factor -- karaoke wannabes belching out cheesy pop tunes while performing death-defying and swallowing live insects? Lisa de Moraes: Can we have a moment here where we instead try to come up with a concept for a good scripted comedy series, which is what is desperately needed on the TV landscape? Reston, Va.: Have seen the previews for Dick's, I mean Tucker Carlson's, new show. It appears to be the "PTI" of political talk. What a rip-off! Is Tony K complaining already? Lisa de Moraes: Tony, alas, is now Too Important to come to my little office at The Washington Post to discuss television with me, so I cannot tell you whether he is complaining already. You'll have to ask Tony directly....sigh. Re: Hugh Lawrie: Lisa, please explain to all of us guys out here what exactly makes that House dude attractive to women? I didn't realize that skinny and unkept was the look. See, guys are never this confusing -- Pam Anderson is hot -- you ladies may think she looks slutty and trashy (exactly), but at least you can see what guys like about her. For the Simpsons Obsessed: Counseling? TiVo. It will solve all of your problems. Best to get the 80-hour one. Lisa de Moraes: True, but he's still discerning, right? Hit Me Pookie: Not sure that I agree that the host -- Dylan McKay, or Vernon McKay, or whatever his name is -- gives off a tortured Davey Jones vibe (although wouldn't that make a great reality show: Inquisition of the Stars ? This week's guest -- Trista Ryan). Anyway, back on point -- I think Vernon (or Dylan or the Little Bopper or whatever) reminds me more of a younger version of that guy who played the English neighbor on The Jeffersons, with a really bad, faked attempt to make him seem "hip" thrown in. Just a thought ... Lisa de Moraes: "Inquisition of the Stars." I'm still laughing. What a wonderful show concept. I confess, I'd love to see Trista on that one. Centre of Ville, Va.: Oh Gawd! Did you just say 3 hours of Wolf in the AM? I'll never make it to work. I'll fall back to sleep .... hey, maybe not such a bad thing! Lisa de Moraes: No, he's going to be on 3-6 p.m. so you can fall asleep at your office.... McLean, Va.: Eyes? Cancelled (closed)? Re: Dennis Miller: 9/11 happened to him. Seriously. Don't know about you but it still makes me angry. Lisa de Moraes: Do you mean 9/11 still makes you angry, or the fact that Dennis Miller hasn't been funny since 9/11 that still makes you angry? Rosslyn, Va.: How bad has TV become when I consider shows such as Drew Carey to be infinitely better than some of the sitcoms on today? I'm actually having trouble believing I just wrote that ... good lord! Lisa de Moraes: You must never ever write that again. Bruce Helford must not be encouraged.... Wooster, Ohio: Did you happen to see Katie Holmes on Letterman last night? Letterman was his typically hilarious "acting deferential but subversively mocking you" best. While not Tom on Oprah train wreck, she was so awkward I almost felt sorry for her. Lisa de Moraes: Did Letterman put his hand on her leg? I love watching him do that when he interviews pretty young stars..... Scrubbed "Scrubs" Fan: Pookie, you said "I have given up trying to figure out what NBC has in mind when it comes to Scrubs. It defies reason. Death by scheduling, that's what happened to 'Scrubs'." I loved this show, but got lost trying to watch it because I could never be sure when it would be on. How close are they to the "Magic 100" number of episodes so they can clinch syndication and we can at last get a chance to see it on a somewhat regualr basis? Lisa de Moraes: My records show they have 93 episodes. I could be wrong... Potomac Falls, Va.: Like the above chatter, I'm a huge fan of "Deadwood". Will that make me more or less insterested in "Into the West"? Lisa de Moraes: Not much cussing in "Into the West." There's a place for WHO?: What is the deal with the ad repeated all through the Tony broadcast w/ someone singing 'there's a place for us' from West Side Story (some insurance company) and then Hugh Jacksman and Aretha sing the SAME SONG at the end of the Tonys -- did the company pay for it to be sung or know ahead of time and buy the ad time ? it can't be a coincidence. Thanks oh she who knows all Lisa de Moraes: No, it can't be a coincidence. I missed it. (Actually I fell asleep before the closing number....) Philadelphia, Pa.: When Billy Crystal can high-kick with the best of the Rockettes (while singing on-key), then I'll put up with him hosting -- or pretending to host -- the Tony Awards. Until then, keep him away and let the real stage pros handle it. Lisa de Moraes: Wow, you people are so hard on Billy Crystal. Let's focus instead on all those wonderful years he hosted the Academy Awards, and cut him some slack... Yes, Hugh can high kick and sing on key and he's terrific and all. Re: touchy feely Dave: I have noticed that too but especially love that they don't seem to mind ... Lisa de Moraes: That's because they're trained professionals... Arlington, Va.: Will aliens invade County General during the ER season premier? The show had done the impossible -- it has used up all other outrageous stunts. Lisa de Moraes: November sweep -- count on it... Reston, Va.: Did you catch any of the MTV Movie Awards. Not bad. But EeeeewwFahhhhh ... Tom Cruise made me throw up in my mouth a lil bit. Loved that Napoleon Dynomite did so well. Lisa de Moraes: I just can't get enough of the Tom Cruise meltdown on television. I hope one of these shows puts him up for an Emmy. Like Oprahs show. they could submit him for best guest actor, playing himself. It's been done before... Deadwood, S.D. Territory (pending): Should they just mail Ian McShane his Emmy now and save everybody the bother? Lisa de Moraes: No, they should mail it to Hugh Laurie and save Ian McShane the embarrassment... Actual UPN Viewer: I absolutely adored the Taye Diggs show "Kevin Hill". I'm crushed that it was cancelled! Is there anything I can do to get them to bring it back? Lisa de Moraes: no. nothing. get over it. that never works....unless DVD sales go through the roof. then they will bring it back... TiVo for the Discerning: I cannot answer questions such as that. I am just saying that we live in a great world and have the technology for someone to record the shows they love and still lead their Renaissance-based life. TiVo is like money -- it is neutral. You can use it for good (BBC Summer Mysteries) or evil (Trista and Ryan's Really Pink Baby Special). Lisa de Moraes: wow -- that's deep.And yes, the nice think about Tivo-esque technology is that it puts the viewer in charge. It's also what makes the networks nuts... Washington, D.C.: 9/11 still makes me angry. You being silly or just offensive? Lisa de Moraes: neither -- just confused by the wording of the question. But it's perfectly clear that you're still angry.... Falls Church, Va.: Lisa, I'm a guy, and I have trouble distinguishing between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Any helpful tips? Thanks. Lisa de Moraes: Brad Pitt is the one who, if he married himself, would be "Bratt," as in Ben... Tom Cruise is the other guy. Rockville, Md.: I heard Carnivale on HBO was cancelled. Any truth to this? What are your thoughts? I have to admit, I was disappointed with the season (series?) finale. Lisa de Moraes: It's gone.... Arlington, Va.: Any chance American Dad will get cancelled? Please! Lisa de Moraes: This time, after prematurely canceling "Family Guy," then seeing DVD sales go through the roof and bringing "Family Guy" back, I'm assuming Fox will wait to see how DVD sales are....and, by the way, "American Dad's" in-season numbers weren't terrible.... Leesburg, Va.: There was some chatter a while back about making a TV miniseries out of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. Is that still a possibility (or at least a living rumor)? Greedy incompetence taking over and forcing the smart people out seems like a really appropriate theme to pursue just now ... Lisa de Moraes: I hear it's in development at JLo's company..I'm out of time. bye... 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Brown Approved For D.C. Circuit

2005060819

The Senate confirmed Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit yesterday, handing President Bush and his conservative supporters a long-sought addition to the nation's second most influential court. Brown, a California Supreme Court justice whose forcefully stated views have infuriated liberals and delighted conservatives, was approved 56 to 43 after two days of often emotional debate. Democrats had blocked her since 2003, but they were forced to accept her confirmation -- and those of two other appellate court nominees they strongly opposed -- when a bipartisan group struck a deal last month quelling a Republican threat to ban filibusters of judicial nominations. Minutes after confirming Brown, the Senate voted to end debate and schedule a confirmation vote today for former Alabama attorney general William H. Pryor Jr., appointed by Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. If Pryor is confirmed as predicted, he will join Brown and Priscilla R. Owen -- sworn in this week to the 5th Circuit -- as the trio of sharply contested nominees whose approval was the price that liberals paid to retain the right to filibuster future nominees, possibly including those to the Supreme Court. Bush hailed yesterday's vote, saying Brown "has distinguished herself as a brilliant and fair-minded jurist who is committed to the rule of law. Justice Brown exemplifies the American dream of personal achievement and excellence, and she will be a great asset" to the appellate court. One Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, joined the Senate's 55 Republicans in voting to confirm Brown. The other 43 Democrats voted against her. Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) did not vote. Liberals were especially eager to block Brown, because the D.C. Circuit is considered second in influence only to the Supreme Court. It handles appeals of decisions by federal agencies on matters of commerce, communications and other issues that have huge financial implications and affect millions of Americans. Three of the Supreme Court's nine justices were promoted from the D.C. Circuit. Analysts said Brown will give a rightward push to the court, which now will have six judges nominated by GOP presidents and four by Democrats. Bush has nominated Thomas B. Griffith and Brett M. Kavanaugh for the court's two remaining vacancies, but the Senate has yet to schedule votes. In an unsuccessful appeal to moderate Republicans, Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a Senate speech that Brown "has repeatedly assailed protections for the elderly, for workers, for the environment and for victims of racial discrimination. If confirmed today, she will be newly empowered to destroy those protections" because the D.C. Circuit "has special jurisdiction over protections for the environment, consumers, workers and women." But Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called Brown "a superb judge" who has been subjected to "harsh and, I believe, unfair attacks." Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said Brown "has made undiplomatic statements, but she's not in the State Department." He called her "worthy of confirmation." Brown's biography and judicial record gave both parties ample grist for the 50 hours of debate that senators devoted to her, dating to 2003, when Republicans first failed to muster the 60 votes needed to end debate on her nomination. Supporters repeatedly noted that she is an African American who grew up in segregated Alabama and raised a child as she worked her way through law school. Her status as a sharecropper's daughter was cited so many times that Specter simply mentioned "sharecropper's" near the end of yesterday's debate, and everyone seemed to know what he meant. Opponents focused on Brown's stinging critiques of government programs, including those designed to help low-income Americans. She once called a landmark 1937 court decision allowing federal regulation of workplace conditions "the triumph of our own socialist revolution." She wrote that "where government moves in, community retreats and civil society disintegrates. . . . The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." In a speech, she said, "If we can invoke no ultimate limits on the power of government, a democracy is inevitably transformed into a kleptocracy -- a license to steal, a warrant for oppression." Several Democrats noted that in a dissenting opinion in California, Brown wrote, "We cannot simply cloak ourselves in the doctrine of stare decisis, " the Latin term for the principle that courts should follow precedent decisions. "She is the epitome of an activist judge," Reid said, needling conservatives who long have decried "judicial activism." Brown "is a judge; she is not a legislator," Reid said. "She has no right to do the things that she does." Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) strongly defended Brown and denounced Democrats for targeting conservatives with "strongly held personal beliefs." He said Brown, "an eminently qualified jurist, was one of the primary targets of this radical strategy. For a few thought-provoking speeches that she had given, some have tried to label her too extreme for the bench." Marcia D. Greenberger, head of the liberal National Women's Law Center, said the Bush administration "is one judge closer to its goal of stacking the federal courts with judges more true to ideology than established law." The D.C. Circuit's Republican-appointed judges are Douglas H. Ginsburg, David B. Sentelle, Karen LeCraft Henderson, A. Raymond Randolph and John G. Roberts. The Democratic-named judges are Harry T. Edwards, Judith W. Rogers, David S. Tatel and Merrick B. Garland. George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen, who once clerked on the court, said, "The conventional wisdom is the D.C. Circuit is evenly split now" between Republican and Democratic influences, but the continued role of three GOP-appointed "senior judges" tilts it more to the right. The confirmation of Brown will further that tilt, he said. "In recent years, it has been a remarkably collegial court," Rosen said. "If Janice Rogers Brown or Thomas Griffith comes in and attempts to be a potential bomb-thrower, they might not find a very warm reception on either the left or the right."

Senators also vote to end debate and schedule a confirmation vote today for former Alabama attorney general William H. Pryor Jr.

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The Actress Who Had A Leg Up on Stardom

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"To this day, when men meet me, there's always that movie in the back of their mind," Anne Bancroft said to me in the winter of 2002. She was referring, of course, to a movie she'd made half a lifetime earlier, the film that enshrined her for all time as the Sexy Older Woman. The movie was "The Graduate," and the woman stuck in all those guys' heads was Mrs. Robinson. (Did she even have a first name?) It was a cool, dry cocktail of seduction that she stirred in Mike Nichols's witty satire, a blend of lust, danger and disillusionment that made her completely irresistible. The potion she'd mixed on the screen was so flammable, she could still sense its effect on men 35 years later, men who'd spun their own elaborate fantasies, wondering whether they'd have been any smoother than the sputtering, bumbling Benjamin Braddock, played to perfection by Dustin Hoffman. Bancroft reminisced for me that day -- yes, I can proudly boast that I was alone in a hotel room with Mrs. Robinson -- while she was preparing to portray the sculptor Louise Nevelson in a biographical play, "Occupant," by Edward Albee. (I was invited in my capacity as a reporter for The New York Times.) Though she got her start on the stage -- she earned a Tony for her first Broadway role, opposite Henry Fonda in "Two for the Seesaw" -- Bancroft only rarely returned to the theater over the years. She'd made her reputation in films, most notably the one for which she won an Oscar, "The Miracle Worker." And it is for those movie roles of the '60s and '70s that she'll most certainly be remembered. "Occupant," whose run was shortened by the actress's bout with pneumonia, would be one of the last performances she'd give in any medium. Bancroft died on Monday evening of uterine cancer at a Manhattan hospital, survived by Mel Brooks, with whom she forged one of the sturdier of Hollywood marriages; their son, Max; and a 2-month-old grandchild. She was 73. If Mrs. Robinson was a defining role, the experience of "The Graduate" in no way defined her life. She was an actress more than a star, a formidable presence on screen or stage, often teamed up in movies with actors of equal firepower. In "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964), portraying a lonely wife ensconced in an unhappy English marriage, she held her own against Peter Finch and James Mason. Thirteen years later, in "The Turning Point," the story of the rivalry of two aging ballerinas, one who had given up ballet to raise a family, the tension on the screen between her and co-star Shirley MacLaine seemed so real, their climactic physical confrontation could have been fueled by actual bile. It's interesting that in "The Turning Point" she played the combatant who'd given up a private life to continue her career, because in actuality, Bancroft did not pursue roles with ferocity. Bancroft was never uncomfortable taking breathers from acting. She said when other obligations arose, she did not feel pangs of guilt turning down parts. The price she paid, she told me, was not working as much as she might have. Still, she managed over the years to embody a gallery of forceful characters, from her Tony-nominated turn as Israeli leader Golda Meir in "Golda" to the bookish New Yorker corresponding with Anthony Hopkins's London bookseller in the epistolary movie "84 Charing Cross Road." In the latter project, her native New York locutions came through: She was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano in the Bronx in September 1931. But she could divest herself of the Bronx, as she had to for "The Miracle Worker," in which she played, unforgettably, Annie Sullivan, the hardheaded Irishwoman who sets about the seemingly impossible task of teaching an incorrigible blind and deaf child, Helen Keller, to communicate with the outside world. Bancroft's malleable talent was such that she played Sullivan both on Broadway -- earning her a second Tony, the year after "Seesaw" -- and on film. It was an ability to project a blazing vivacity that kept her in good stead. After winning the Academy Award for "The Miracle Worker," she was nominated for an Oscar four more times for intensely dramatic roles. Her comic instinct, it should be noted, was never exploited successfully in the movies, and there were times, in film comedies like "Garbo Talks," when she could seem ill-used. In person, Bancroft exuded an endearing, nervous energy. She was eager to talk about her successes, but she seemed even prouder of Brooks's, particularly of his historic Broadway triumph with "The Producers," for which she claimed some credit. Writing the show, Brooks had been plagued by insecurity and doubt, she said. Her contribution, she explained, was to order him into a room and tell him he could not come out until he'd finished writing the lyrics. How lovely, then, that in one of her final performances, she appeared with Brooks on Larry David's HBO comedy series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." The couple's assignment was to send up "The Producers" by playing a parody version of a scene from the 1968 movie, in which Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom realize their lives are ruined because their show's a hit. It was a treat to see Mrs. Robinson, so in her element, and funny as heck.

"To this day, when men meet me, there's always that movie in the back of their mind," Anne Bancroft said to me in the winter of 2002. She was referring, of course, to a movie she'd made half a lifetime earlier, the film that enshrined her for all time as the Sexy Older Woman.

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Oscar-Winning Actress Anne Bancroft Dies at 73

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Anne Bancroft, the versatile actress who won an Academy Award for portraying Helen Keller's teacher in "The Miracle Worker," but who may be best remembered as the sultry suburban housewife who seduced Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate," died June 6 of uterine cancer at a New York hospital. She was 73. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Ms. Bancroft won every major acting award -- the Oscar, Tony and Emmy -- and played such a range of roles that she defied typecasting. She performed opposite such stars as Anthony Hopkins, Sean Penn, Shirley MacLaine and two generations of Fondas, Henry and Jane, and was considered as formidable an acting talent as any of them. "She was the most wonderfully rich, malleable, interesting, independent actress I ever worked with," Arthur Penn, who directed Ms. Bancroft in the stage and film versions of "The Miracle Worker," said several years ago. "She can play anything." Besides her Academy Award for "The Miracle Worker" (1962), a role she originated on Broadway in 1959, Ms. Bancroft received Oscar nominations for "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964), "The Graduate" (1967), "The Turning Point" (1977) and "Agnes of God" (1985). She received a Tony Award in 1958 for her first starring role on Broadway, playing opposite Henry Fonda in "Two for the Seesaw." The following year, she won her second Tony for the role of Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker," in which she was the teacher working with the blind and deaf Helen Keller, played by 12-year-old Patty Duke. "She and I spent a moment in time that can never be re-created," a tearful Duke said yesterday from her home in California. "By her example, she was a teacher to me. What she gave me in those times has taken me through my whole life." Ms. Bancroft lamented that "The Miracle Worker" had become overshadowed in recent years by her role as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate." Ms. Bancroft's stocking-clad leg arched across the movie poster, its signature song by Simon and Garfunkel ("Mrs. Robinson") was a huge hit, and the movie's themes of rebellion and alienation made it a cultural touchstone of its generation. With her low, smoky voice and her matter-of-fact seduction of the young college graduate played by Hoffman, Ms. Bancroft could almost be said to have seduced an entire nation. In a statement, Mike Nichols, who directed "The Graduate," praised Ms. Bancroft for her "combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense. . . . Her beauty was constantly shifting with her roles, and because she was a consummate actress, she changed radically for every part." In later years, Ms. Bancroft received praise for "Golda," her one-woman portrayal on Broadway of Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in 1977 and 1978; as a mother superior in "Agnes of God"; as the sympathetic wife of the unemployed Jack Lemmon in "Prisoner of Second Avenue" (1974); as a letter-writing bookworm in the charming "84 Charing Cross Road" (1986); as a centenarian widow of a Civil War veteran in "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" (1994). For her role as the mother of a mixed-race child in the TV film "Deep in My Heart" (1999), Ms. Bancroft won an Emmy Award. Explaining her ability to play such diverse roles, she told the Virginian-Pilot in 2001, "To be an actress, you have to be a liar." She was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano on Sept. 17, 1931, into a family of Italian immigrants in the Bronx, N.Y. By age 4, she was taking dance and acting lessons. At 9, she wrote on the fence behind her family's house, "I want to be an actress." She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York before going to Hollywood in 1950. It was Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Twentieth Century Fox, who gave her the name Bancroft.

Versatile actress who may be best remembered as the sultry suburban housewife in "The Graduate," died on June 6 of uterine cancer.

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Past-Their-Prime-Time Shows Carry the Week

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Has-beens here! Has-beens there! Has-beens everywhere on last week's prime-time lineup, and viewers lapped it up. Here's a look at the week's in and out: "Dancing With the Stars." Inexplicably, about 13.5 million viewers watched the unveiling of ABC's dance competition starring C-list has-beens such as New Kids on the Block's Joey McIntyre, Rod Stewart's ex-model spouse Rachel Hunter, former world heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield and professional reality-series star Trista Sutter. That's the most watched summer series debut since "Survivor" opened in 2000. "Hit Me Baby One More Time." Since January, NBC has been searching for a way to win a week among the 18- to 49-year-olds it craves. Last week, has-been bands Loverboy, a Flock of Seagulls and Arrested Development showed NBC the way. "Hit Me" was the week's No. 1 program among 18- to 49-year-olds and the top-debuting summer reality series in two years in the demographic group advertisers love. "Eagles Farewell Tour." Opposite ABC's "Dancing" debut, NBC clocked a six-week time-slot high among younger viewers with the farewell tour of this formerly famous group. Yes, it did better than all those Wednesday May sweeps stunts NBC dreamed up. "Faith of My Fathers." While skewing kind of old -- median age nearly 60 -- A&E's adaptation of Sen. John McCain's book copped 3.7 million viewers on Memorial Day to become the basic cable network's most watched program in more than a year. "48 Hours." In its first Tuesday telecast, CBS's newsmag, which usually languishes on Saturday, landed in the week's top 10 list among viewers of all ages and the coveted 18-49 demographic group. "48 Hours" will air Tuesdays until mid-July, when CBS debuts "Rock Star," its summer reality series about the search for a new lead singer for has-been band INXS. Tony Awards . Last year, against tough competition that included a "Sopranos" season finale and a Lakers game, CBS's broadcast of the Broadway awards suffered its smallest-ever crowd of 6.46 million viewers. This past Sunday, opposite nothing much, the trophy show managed to attract -- about 40,000 more viewers. "Miss Universe." Donald Trump's chick competition scored only 9.2 million viewers -- its smallest audience since 2001. This year NBC moved the show to Memorial Day, when viewing levels are typically depressed. "Entourage"/"The Comeback." Slow starts Sunday for the return of HBO's "Entourage" and the debut of Lisa Kudrow's comedy "The Comeback." In their first telecasts, "Entourage" clocked 1.59 million viewers -- it averaged about 2 million in its first season -- after which "The Comeback" held on to most but not all of those viewers, averaging 1.51 million. The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: CBS's "CSI"; ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" debut; CBS's "CSI: Miami," "Without a Trace," "Two and a Half Men," "Everybody Loves Raymond," Tuesday "48 Hours," "NCIS" and "60 Minutes"; and NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

Has-beens here! Has-beens there! Has-beens everywhere on last week's prime-time lineup, and viewers lapped it up.

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Move It Along, Please

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Linda Raymond of Chantilly has one goal when she goes to the supermarket: to get out as fast as she can. "I am the world's fastest shopper," says Raymond, "because I hate grocery shopping. I hate the money you have to spend. I hate the long lines and the stupid cards you have to use everywhere to get a discount," she adds, as she loads her car with groceries outside a Giant supermarket in Herndon. The mother of an "always hungry" teenage son, Raymond shops three or four times a week. She also works full time and wishes that supermarkets would do more to make shopping fast and convenient. Her suggestions: more express lines and more quick pickup items near the entrance. "Why do I have to go all the way to the back of the store if all I need is milk?" she asks. Raymond isn't the only one who'd like to see some changes at the grocery store. Three University of Pennsylvania marketing experts say the supermarket industry has been slow to respond to consumer needs, in part because grocery chains have some outmoded ideas of how people really shop. Peter S. Fader, Eric T. Bradlow and Jeffrey S. Larson, all of the Wharton School, analyzed data from special tracking devices attached to shopping carts at one West Coast supermarket. The data from 2004 showed, they say, that shoppers move through a store in a very different way than many retailers realize. Among their findings: Shoppers like to go in a counterclockwise direction; they don't weave up and down every aisle, in fact they rarely go all the way down any aisle; and to speed things up, they stick to the perimeter and avoid huge chunks of the store. Fader, a professor of marketing, believes the grocery industry has spent too much time focusing on such things as loyalty programs (discount cards, for example) and not enough time on store layouts that meet shoppers' needs. But a spokesman for the grocery industry says supermarkets do understand consumer buying behavior. "We know consumers are time-starved," says Stephen Sibert, vice president for industry development and membership with the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Sibert says supermarkets are trying new ways to help shoppers, including cooking demonstrations, grouping together products for special events such as graduation parties, and improving store layouts. As it turns out, a convenient layout that makes it easy to shop is important to 93 percent of customers, according to the 2005 "U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends" report, released last month by the Food Marketing Institute, the industry's trade association. Traditionally a phone survey of 500 shoppers, this year's report used the Internet to survey 2,001 shoppers. Conducted by Harris Poll Online, the survey showed that while shoppers want bargains, they -- like Raymond -- increasingly value speed and convenience when they choose a place to buy their food. Those surveyed said they'd shop at their neighborhood supermarket more often if the stores had faster checkout, a quick-stop area for things such as bread and milk, and a convenient spot where shoppers could pick up items for that night's dinner, such as pasta, salad and dessert.

Linda Raymond of Chantilly has one goal when she goes to the supermarket: to get out as fast as she can.

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Almost Heaven

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Ever have that dream -- the one in which you're flying effortlessly, soaring and banking through the clouds, a human F-16? Me neither. In my rare flying dream, I only manage to float about haplessly and get caught in tree branches, like a plastic grocery bag. That's why, when I heard about paragliding, I knew I could finally live the dream I've never had. And that's what landed me in the mountains of central West Virginia a few weeks ago to try paragliding, to pursue human flight, a longing that has persisted since the first human witnessed a hawk soaring in the sky. What is paragliding? If 40 is the new 30, then paragliding is the new hang gliding. Unlike its solid-frame, kitelike counterpart, a paraglider is more of a modified parachute connected to a harness. Both are designed to catch columns of rising air, called thermals, and stay aloft over long distances, and both are launched by running down a slope. But a paraglider is more portable (it fits in a backpack), quicker to set up and easier to master. So you're ready to launch yourself into the sunset? Hold on, Mr. Incredible. First you need practice handling a paraglider and experience assessing weather conditions. You need training from a veteran instructor. You need someone like Dwayne McCourt. McCourt has lived in this part of the Mountain State all his life, has been roaming its airspace since he learned to paraglide 11 years ago and has taught the sport for most of the time since then. He may know this land, and how to negotiate it, better than most. Though he'll only allow that "I know it pretty good." Over the years, he's soared next to red-tailed hawks, spiraling skyward in the same thermal updraft. Once he flew over a mother black bear feeding her two cubs in a clearing. How long can you stay aloft (a good thing to know before flying over mother bears)? "There's no telling," he said, after I'd arrived with my girlfriend, Jamie, for our first lesson. "The longest I've been up is 5 1/2 hours." McCourt's outfit, Fly West Virginia, is one of a few in the mid-Atlantic region that offer paragliding instruction. Within a weekend, even a fledgling can experience flight. The first day involves drills in handling the glider on flat ground. On the second day you'll practice on a hill, where you'll probably catch air for the first time. The terrain is predictable but hardly boring. It rises and it plummets. Sometimes its ridges ascend into rocky crests, skeletal remnants of ancient uplifts laid bare by time and gravity. People have settled this area sparsely and built roads only as the land's contours allow. In short, this magnificent landscape virtually demands to be navigated by air. Out of his home base in Bolair, population about 200, McCourt helps people do just that. We drove out of town and down a long dirt road that passes under a defunct coal conveyor to the beginner's site -- a former mountaintop flattened by strip mining. The process of removing entire peaks to extract their coal has leveled broad swaths of mountainside and left graded, treeless slopes -- perfect spots to launch paragliders. There's still plenty of wilderness to see, but the mining has scarred the land's natural beauty. On our first day, we practiced what is called "kiting," or lofting the paraglider into the wind and controlling it on level ground. Then we ran down a few gentle hills with the paraglider poised above us. We didn't fly the first day, just skimmed the surface a bit, toes barely clearing the grass. It was somewhat exciting and somewhat unnerving, a teaser of what was to come.

Ever have that dream -- the one in which you're flying effortlessly, soaring and banking through the clouds, a human F-16? Me neither. In my rare flying dream, I only manage to float about haplessly and get caught in tree branches, like a plastic grocery bag.

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Pr. George's Cheers Gains In Test Scores

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A year ago, Dodge Park Elementary in Landover was nobody's poster school. Three quarters of its third- and fifth-graders failed to show proficiency on state reading and mathematics tests. Stagnant scores landed the school on a state watch list. Yesterday, Prince George's County school and elected officials converged on the modest hilltop campus to give its rookie principal, Judith White, a standing ovation for a breakthrough. More than half of Dodge Park's students reached proficiency in reading and math, according to Maryland School Assessment test data made public this week. In practical terms, that means a student's grade level within the school now stands for something other than mere age. "Reform doesn't happen unless it happens at the schoolhouse level," said Leroy Tompkins, the school system's chief accountability officer, as he highlighted Dodge Park and other testing bright spots in a news conference that had the air of a pep rally. Rising scores at Dodge Park, a high-poverty school with predominantly black students, fit a larger pattern in which the county's test results rose overall at a faster clip than the state average, helping to narrow a stubborn black-white achievement gap statewide and buff, a bit, the image of a suburban Washington school system that has long had a lackluster reputation. The developments were a welcome change of topic for officials who have had to respond to the May 27 resignation of schools chief Andre J. Hornsby amid an FBI investigation and ethics controversy. "This news today will elevate us, perception-wise and in reality," said County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D). "We're on the right track." With school test scores, achievement is always relative. All school systems face pressure under the federal No Child Left Behind law to raise minority student performance. Montgomery County's black and Hispanic students made major strides this year. So did black students in Anne Arundel County. Caveats abound for the Prince George's scores. The 2005 tests, taken in March in elementary and middle schools, still show the system near the bottom of the pack, far trailing others in the percentage of students reaching advanced performance. Of 24 systems statewide, data seem to show that only Baltimore city schools scored lower than Prince George's overall. Dorchester County schools, on the lower Eastern Shore, ranked behind Prince George's in eighth-grade math and third-grade reading. So did Somerset County schools, also on the Eastern Shore, in fifth-grade reading. When compared with its Maryland neighbors, Prince George's still scores lower, well behind Howard, Calvert, Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties and somewhat behind Charles County. In addition, Prince George's has more schools on the state watch list -- 73 -- than any system except Baltimore City. When the state releases new ratings in coming days that show how many schools made adequate yearly progress according to federal law, Prince George's might have to do more explaining than boasting. A school could be considered failing if just one group, such as special education students, do not show sufficient improvement. Dodge Park, for instance, is thought to be just on the cusp of making adequate progress.

A year ago, Dodge Park Elementary in Landover was nobody's poster school. Three quarters of its third- and fifth-graders failed to show proficiency on state reading and mathematics tests. Stagnant scores landed the school on a state watch list.

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Co-Defendants in Fla. Deny Ties to Conspiracy

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TAMPA, June 7 -- Three co-defendants of accused terrorist leader Sami al-Arian, a former Florida university professor on trial here, staunchly deny any connection to the Palestinian terrorist group at the heart of the case, their lawyers said in court Tuesday. "This is a case of no evidence," said Bruce Howie, attorney for Chicago dry cleaner Ghassan Zayed Ballut. After scouring six years of his client's computer use and all his bank records, "the government came up with nothing." There is a vast discrepancy between the gravity and detail in the charges against al-Arian, and those against the other three on trial, whom the prosecution calls rank-and-file members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) organization, which sponsors suicide attacks on Israelis, according to court documents. Some defense attorneys said outside the courtroom in recent days that the three defendants -- Ballut, former university student Sameeh Taha Hammoudeh and Illinois charity manager Hatim Naji Fariz -- were swept into the case because of prosecutors' need to build a criminal case of conspiracy -- in this case, conspiracy to kill and maim hundreds of Israelis since the 1980s. Legal experts said that the U.S. government had little choice but to craft a conspiracy case. The vast bulk of their evidence, derived from years of secret wiretaps and monitoring of faxes, centers on the early to mid-1990s, before al-Arian's offices and home were searched and he became more circumspect over the telephone. But the statute of limitations allows the prosecution to charge someone for crimes going back only five years -- unless the charge is conspiracy, in which case the government can bring in allegations going back decades, as it has done in this trial. The problem for the prosecution, defense attorneys said, is that those secretly monitored wiretaps and faxes show al-Arian discussing intimate details of PIJ's operations not with his three co-defendants but with five other men. All of those five men were top PIJ leaders with al-Arian for years, U.S. prosecutors said, and all of them have been charged with him with conspiracy to murder -- but they are overseas and will not be tried in this case. Defense attorneys and criminal lawyers who have observed the case said the government was in a jam -- how could it put on a trial for criminal conspiracy and have only one conspirator at the defense table? "The three defendants on trial with al-Arian are basically stage props," said Steve Crawford, a former federal prosecutor who has followed the case and who recently represented Hammoudeh's wife on an unrelated fraud charge. "The government didn't have enough of the big guns [from PIJ] here to give a visual showing of a conspiracy, so they sweep in the poor mopes at the bottom." Defense lawyers and prosecutors declined to comment. U.S. District Judge James Moody has barred them from speaking about the case outside the courtroom. The five overseas defendants who are not on trial now were caught in hundreds of phone calls and faxes discussing the key strategic issues then facing PIJ -- deep internal struggles, the disappearance of millions of dollars, how to placate its angry financial backers in the Iranian government, and whether to merge with the Islamic Resistance Movement, a competing militant Palestinian group. The five are Ramadan Shallah, who worked at an al-Arian think tank at the University of South Florida and who now runs PIJ from Syria; Abd al Aziz Awda, PIJ's original spiritual leader; al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen al-Najjar; leading Muslim scholar Bashir Nafi; and Muhammed Tasir al-Khatib, the group's alleged treasurer. Lawyer Stephen Bernstein said in court that his client, Hammoudeh, was not part of any criminal conspiracy and staunchly believes in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, although PIJ bitterly opposes them. "His views are the antithesis of PIJ," he said.

TAMPA, June 7 -- Three co-defendants of accused terrorist leader Sami al-Arian, a former Florida university professor on trial here, staunchly deny any connection to the Palestinian terrorist group at the heart of the case, their lawyers said in court Tuesday.

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Violence Linked to Taliban Swells in Afghanistan

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KABUL, Afghanistan, June 8 -- Insurgents linked to the former Taliban regime have set off a wave of violence in Afghanistan, launching a string of almost daily bombings and assassinations that have killed dozens of U.S. and Afghan military personnel and civilians in recent weeks while spreading fear throughout the international aid worker community. Analysts say the rash of attacks appears calculated to undermine stability in the lead-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for September and has undercut predictions by U.S. and Afghan officials during the winter that the radical Islamic militia was on the verge of collapse. "The Taliban may be limited in their movements and unable to take territory and hold it," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist based in Pakistan who has had frequent contact with the Taliban, "but they are very much here and they will be for a long time. . . . They are telling us they have no shortage of volunteers to fight." In the past week, an election worker was shot in the face; two de-mining specialists were killed in a roadside ambush; a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile was fired at a U.S. aircraft; four U.S. soldiers were killed -- including two who came under mortar fire Wednesday as they unloaded a helicopter in the eastern province of Paktika; and a suicide bomber killed 20 people in a mosque in the southern city of Kandahar during a funeral for an assassinated pro-government cleric. The Taliban denied involvement in the mosque bombing but asserted responsibility for the cleric's murder. Development projects near the Taliban's southern strongholds have been suspended, and a virtual lockdown is in effect for many of the roughly 3,000 international residents of Kabul, the Afghan capital. The city was already on edge after a month of heightened unrest, including the kidnapping of an Italian aid worker, a rocket assault on NATO's headquarters compound, an apparent suicide bombing at an Internet cafe that killed two people, and several days of violent anti-American protests across the country that were sparked by a news report -- since retracted -- that guards at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had desecrated the Koran. The protests led to 16 deaths, and the Pentagon has since detailed five confirmed cases of desecration. At least some of the attacks are the work of non-Taliban groups, including criminal gangs, drug traffickers, citizens who blame foreign aid workers for their country's slow economic progress, and factional leaders vying for control of local districts, some analysts and government officials said. But Taliban fighters are widely believed to be behind most of the assaults in the south and east. The movement's resilience 3 1/2 years after its ouster from power by a U.S. bombing campaign has also been evident during an ongoing American and Afghan military campaign to flush insurgents from their southern and eastern mountain redoubts. Since March, that effort has boasted many successes, according to American officials. About 270 Taliban fighters have been killed; they are estimated to number anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000. But during several pitched battles in early May, the Taliban militia also showed itself to be a well-equipped, vital foe, with units of 20 or more firing rocket-propelled grenades and light machine guns for hours despite taking heavy casualties. "These are guys that stand and fight," observed 1st Lt. Ken Wainwright, who hunts the Taliban in the golden, craggy mountains of the southern province of Zabol as part of the Second Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry.

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 8 -- Insurgents linked to the former Taliban regime have set off a wave of violence in Afghanistan, launching a string of almost daily bombings and assassinations that have killed dozens of U.S. and Afghan military personnel and civilians in recent weeks while spreading fear...

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Bush Praises Turkey, Offers Ally Little More

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President Bush praised Turkey yesterday as a close, democratic ally in the Middle East but stopped short of meeting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's plea for greater U.S. assistance to defeat a Turkish terrorist group operating out of northern Iraq. Erdogan, whose country is considered the United States' closest Muslim ally, came to Washington seeking more help from the Bush administration in cracking down on a rebel group -- called the Kurdistan Workers' Party -- that has killed hundreds of Turkish troops in recent attacks. After meeting with Bush, Erdogan told reporters the president expressed concern about the terrorist groups but promised little in terms of new assistance to cut off the group's logistics and financing. "We are exchanging information," Erdogan said. "However, we don't think it is sufficient. We want [the cooperation] to be taken further." He said Bush's priority is getting the new Iraqi government in place before shifting attention to other problems. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush is committed to defeating the Turkish rebel group and other terrorist organizations operating in Iraq. "There are a number of challenges we continue to face in Iraq, and the president talked about that," he told reporters. "This is one area where we will continue working with Turkey and the transitional government in Iraq to address." At a short, joint appearance after their meeting, Bush did not mention the Turkish terrorist threat, instead paying tribute to Turkey's democracy and role in finding peace in the broader Middle East. "We've had an extensive visit about a lot of issues," Bush said. "And the reason why is because Turkey and the United States has an important strategic relationship." Bush did not allow for any questions from the media. More Turkish troops have been killed by the rebel group in recent months than U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. The Kurdish Workers' Party uses many of the same techniques the insurgents battling U.S troops and Iraqis employ, including explosive devices detonated by remote control. The U.S.-Turkey relationship was strained over the Iraq war, especially the 2003 decision by the Turkish Parliament to deny U.S. troops the ability to attack Iraq from its border. Pentagon officials still complain that Turkey's decision hampered the U.S. plan to quickly topple Saddam Hussein and capture or kill members of his Baathist Party. "We will continue to have the same kind of solidarity we've had in Turkish-U.S. relations in the past and the future, as well," Erdogan said after he left the White House. "Our strategic relationship will move and take place in the future as it has been done in the past." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), speaking on the floor, said Erdogan should "move beyond recent tensions" with the United States and stamp out anti-American passions in his country. "The first step is for Prime Minister Erdogan to speak clearly in defense of our partnership and to dispel a wave of anti-Americanism that runs counter to the last five decades of cooperation," Frist said. In his brief remarks, Bush provided little more than an economic nod. "And, finally, we discussed the domestic issues. We discussed our economies. And the prime minister reminded me that the -- in his judgment, Turkey is a good place for U.S. investment."

World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.

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GOP 'Coronation' of Kilgore Intensifies Opponent's Desire

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NEWPORT NEWS -- It's 6 o'clock in the morning and already 70 degrees on the way to 90. George B. Fitch, mayor of a tiny town in Northern Virginia, is shaking hands with shipyard employees and passing out slick brochures that say "George Fitch, Republican for Governor." "I'd appreciate your vote on June 14," he says repeatedly as civilian and military employees of Northrop Grumman stream into the shipyard at the 50th Street gate. Cody Lawrence, 23, a nuclear refueler, is one of the few who stop to shake Fitch's hand. "I've never actually met someone who is running for office," Lawrence said. "You never usually see them getting up this early," Fitch mumbles. On Tuesday, voters will choose the Republican nominee for governor. Fitch, 57, insists he can beat former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore. "We're gathering momentum. We feel it. We're getting a response," he says as he sips a second cup of coffee after 90 minutes of campaigning. "I'm running to win." It's an audacious goal, and he knows it. One moment, he's in charge of the Fauquier County town of Warrenton, with its 100 employees and a population of about 7,000. The next, if Fitch gets his way, he'll be managing the entire state of Virginia -- directing tens of thousands of workers and overseeing its two-year, $63 billion budget. But it's not only the size of the political promotion that looms before him. The entire apparatus of the Republican Party of Virginia, and, indeed, the national Republican Party, is determined to make sure Fitch has nothing more to do Wednesday than go back to Warrenton. Although Fitch's presence officially creates a contested primary, Kilgore has essentially been anointed by the Republican Party and its politicians. In fact, Kilgore and most of the GOP leadership have done everything they can to ignore Fitch and declare Kilgore the candidate to challenge Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) in the general election. "Since the beginning of this campaign, we have been focused on one thing, and that is the finish line of November 8," said Tim Murtaugh, Kilgore's press secretary. "Jerry Kilgore will be the Republican nominee and Tim Kaine will be the opponent." That kind of comment tears at Fitch. More than just about anything, he said, it's the reason he's running in the first place. "So because I'm a loyal Republican, I have to abide by some strange, misguided terms of the party that in this instance we don't want any competition?" he asked. "We want a coronation?"

Get Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia news. Includes news headlines from The Washington Post. Get info/values for Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia homes. Features schools, crime, government, traffic, lottery, religion, obituaries.

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Johnson's Homer Keeps Nats in First

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He comes to the ballpark with two thoughts: See the ball, hit the ball. At this point, why would he alter them, even slightly? "I feel pretty good," Nick Johnson said last night, the definition of understated. Consider how he spoke about last night's game, when he went 2 for 3 with a double, a walk and the decisive two-run homer, and picked out an essential double-play ball -- all the elements the Washington Nationals needed in a 2-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics. "Just got to keep grinding every at-bat," Johnson said. "Just keep doing my work that I've been doing, and try to execute when I go to home plate." Johnson is sending those simple messages to the rest of the Nationals, who have won five straight and eight of nine, and have reached a season-high six games over .500. Thus, this torrid homestand continued behind Johnson's torrid hitting, and the Nationals -- to the joy of 26,879 at RFK Stadium -- remained in first place, leading the National League East by a game over Atlanta and the New York Mets. "We've just got to keep doing what we're doing," Johnson said. Johnson would be well-served to take his own advice. The homer, his eighth this year, came in the sixth off A's left-hander Barry Zito. Tony Armas Jr. pitched fairly well to that point for the Nationals, overcoming three walks to hold the A's to a single run. Zito, who had stifled Washington, walked Jose Guillen on four pitches to start the inning. That brought up Johnson. Zito, just trying to get in the strike zone, fired a fastball on the first pitch. "I was geared up for it," Johnson allowed. He sent it on a line toward right-center, and it sailed over the wall to the left of the 380-foot mark, where precious few homers have been hit this season. The swing showed his power potential. But so many other things go into his season, his personality. Johnson leads the Nationals in batting average (.338), on-base percentage (.458), slugging percentage (.552), runs (31), hits (68) and RBI (35). He is so focused at trying to reach base -- any way, anyhow -- that after the homer, he bunted in his final at-bat. He has been especially hot during this homestand, going 14 for 25. "I don't know if it's a groove," catcher Gary Bennett said, "or that's just him." One key to Johnson's success is his health, which has been impeccable, a contrast to the past five seasons, when he spent time on the disabled list. He is also the one National who has been in this position -- leading a division, playing in the spotlight -- for he came from the New York Yankees, where he appeared in the 2003 World Series.

Nick Johnson's two-run homer keys a 2-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday and keeps the Nationals atop the NL East for another day.

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'Iron Mike' Searches For Peace as 'Mr. Mom'

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The left side of Mike Tyson's face is covered by a large tribal tattoo. The right side is remarkably unblemished after a lifetime in the ring. As Tyson nears his 39th birthday and the end of his once-promising boxing career, he seems to be living two lives as well, one in which he is forced to fight for financial solvency after turning a $400 million fortune into $34 million of debt, and another where he seems to be finding happiness in the most unlikely of places -- suburban America. It is a place where Tyson reflects on a 20-year career in which he evolved from the biggest box office draw in sports to a social pariah whose transgressions in and out of the boxing ring came to overshadow his considerable achievements. "I didn't know who the hell I was," Tyson said. "I was 'Iron Mike.' I was who those people told me I was. I was egotistical and thought I was an elitist. I was trying to help people, but I was helping the wrong people." Tyson still owes more than $20 million to creditors, including more than $12 million in overdue taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, according to records filed last month in U.S. bankruptcy court and obtained by The Washington Post. An ambitious reorganization plan submitted by Tyson's attorneys and accountants and approved by the bankruptcy court calls for him to fight seven times -- including Saturday night at MCI Center against Kevin McBride. Saturday's bout will earn Tyson $5.5 million and his challenger $150,000. Under the proposed plan, Tyson could pay off $15.2 million in taxes and 80 percent of his total debt and still pocket more than $20 million for retirement. Tyson probably won't fight six more times, however, and may never completely free himself from his debt. Bankruptcy has forced the fighter once known as "the Baddest Man on the Planet" to trade in his formerly lavish lifestyle -- filled with extravagant cars, jewelry and clothes -- for a more self-effacing existence in the northern suburbs of Phoenix. The fighter who once shared a 48,000-square-foot estate with his ex-wife, Monica Turner, and owned a pair of multimillion dollar mansions in Las Vegas resides in a dated brick ranch house on a quiet street, surrounded by middle-class neighbors and retirees, with his girlfriend, their two children and his niece. His girlfriend bought the house two years ago for $140,000, according to property records. "This place is like utopia for me," Tyson said during a recent interview. "When I was younger, life was about acquiring things. But as I get older, I've realized life is about losing. Life is about dealing with loss and accepting loss and becoming a better person. What is it they say? 'You get old too soon and smart too late.' Living recklessly was exciting, but coming down is hard." During a recent late afternoon, Tyson sat on lawn furniture in his backyard. Tyson worried about getting his youngest son Miguel, 3, into a youth soccer league. When Tyson left his backyard and went into the house, he returned with Miguel, whom he rustled out of bed. The boy was wearing a soccer jersey. "He wants to play soccer so bad," Tyson said. "But they said he's too young." It's hard to imagine that this is the same Mike Tyson who once ranted, "I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him. I want to eat his children," referring to Lennox Lewis before their 2002 fight. Some of Tyson's closest friends in boxing, including promoter Rock Newman, say they've never seen the fighter more content. "Whether he realizes the end is coming or he's just enjoying the moment, he seems to be really happy right now," Newman said. Turner, who divorced Tyson in January 2003, left her job as a pediatric resident at Georgetown University Medical Center to help her ex-husband rebuild his life. They have two children, Rayna, 9, and Amir, 7, and she also cares for Gena, 16, Tyson's daughter from a previous relationship.

As Mike Tyson winds down his career in a considerable amount of debt, he is finding happiness in the most unlikely of places.

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Home Sense

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Home Sense columnist Mike McClintock is online every other Thursday at Noon ET to answer your questions about home building, remodeling, repairs and the wide range of home-consumer issues. If it has something to do with the place where you live -- from home security to the latest on appliances, energy-saving and a lot more -- just ask. Mike has the answers. McClintock's column appears in the Post Home section every Thursday. He is the author of 10 books, including "Alternative Housebuilding." Mike McClintock: Hi there: While I start with your questions, this time a quiz up front about product brand names, but from a global perspective as surveyed and compiled for 2004 by brandchannel.com. The group polled 1,984 people worldwide in their annual Readers' Choice Awards, asking about brands that have the most impact (positive or negative) on our lives. "Impact" isn't defined- and who knows how a brand name affects your life anyway- but it generally seems to mean "most recognized". See if you can pick the top three- thinking globally- and then check some info about a very offbeat ripple effect of brand name popularity along with the quiz answers end of hour as usual. HOME SENSE- BRAND NAMES -QUESTION From this list of Brandchannel.com top ten brands with the most impact globally (and some surprising names there), can you name the top three? - on to your questions Herndon, Va.: I want to install a new phone jack, and the nearest existing jack is in the room downstairs. How difficult is it to run wires between floors? Will I have to drill thru the floor behind the wall? Mike McClintock: The trick is to drill from the old jack area into an empty space that you can drill into from the destination. Sounds easy, but it can be an art that electricians call fishing. Think to keep it simple i would just drill up near the baseboard so there would be just a tiny tail of wire below the new jack. Hot in Herndon, Va., and its only June!: I live in a townhouse where the summer heat on the 3rd floor makes the bedrooms too warm. How much difference in comfort level and cooling costs would it make to add an electric roof fan to a townhouse? Would it be worth the trouble to have one installed? Or would the difference be minimal? Thanks. Mike McClintock: It's strange (world out of whack) when the weather goes from way too cold in May to way too hot in June. As to fans; they always make you feel cooler, but can be a budget drain if they are exhausting AC air. The best bet is an exhaust fan in the attic or attic crawl space. The floor of the attic should be heavily insulated. Above that should be enough ventilation to make the air almost the same temperature as the air outside. You might accomplish this simply by increasing the vent area- the size of the intake and outtake grills. If that's not practical, a thermostatically-triggered vet fan would help. First, I'd try measuring the ceiling temp- taping a thermometer to the ceiling. The rule of thumb is that if the wall (in this case ceiling) temp is more than five degrees warmer than the room temp (read that by setting a thermomter on a chair midroom) you probably will benefit from more insulation and more ventilation. I'd do the insulating and venting before investing in the fan- specially if you get a 10-15 degree difference in the readings. Springfield, Va.: We recently power-washed and stained our deck. Unfortunately, the stain no longer matches the surrounding fence. Do we need to powerwash the fence too or simply apply a new coat of stain? Thanks for any tips. I am eagerly awaiting the use of our deck. Mike McClintock: A deck is the place to be now- maybe under a huge umbrella. So it really depends on how exact a match you want. But if the fence doesn't need power washing, think i would add a semi-transparent stain that's in the ballpark and chalk up any small difference to weathering. Alexandria, Va.: I want to replace the linoleum on my condo kitchen floor. Pulling it up is easy. But how can I make it smooth underneath without buying expensive heating or rolling devices? I want to lay new tile down myself. Mike McClintock: When the tile comes up sometimes the roughness that remains is glue- and that is very difficult to remove. If the existing floor is sound (and maybe just the wrong color with some cracks and chips) you could lay right over them. If the floor is really too up and down for new tile one way or the other, the solution is to add an underlayment- a thin, usially no more than 1/4" layer. Laurel, Md.: Hey Mike. I enjoy these discussions very much. I will be installing new laminate flooring in our kitchen this weekend. I won't mention the brand name, but it is the floating, glueless, snap together type sold in most home improvement stores. My question: should I install around the kitchen island OR temporarily remove the island, install the floor, and then put the island back on top of the new floor? I've asked several people and I get conflicting answers. HELP! Thanks. Mike McClintock: You know you can mention brand names all you like here online- even ones like Pergo that don't need mentioning; we don't have software that keeps track and sends your name to the brabnd name police, i.e. you can even say the brand name didn't work for you, even that you hate it, i suppose. Anyway, removing the island sounds fairly gargantuan (though it is the right approach when tiling around a toilet). So you could do one of two things: either install trim around the island and then lay flooring to the new trim; or, better yet, the island must have some type of trim (baseboard) that you could remove, then lay flooring close to the island wall, then reinstall the base to cover? And if there is no trim, get a few pieces that match the flooring or island or both and add them to cover the gaps. Arlington, Va.: We have an attic fan in our split-evel house. Should we be running the fan all the time in the summer? What time of year and time of day should we run the fan? Mike McClintock: Overnight there's not much point unless there's a eastern el nino or some other weather abberation. The nice part of a thermostat-controlled system is that the fan kicks in when the attic overheats, but won't run othere times. Dumfries, Va.: Hi Mike, thanks for your wonderful columns! My question is about thermostats. I have a typical thermostat that doesn't seem to work properly. I've recently been setting it to 70, but when I want to turn off the AC, I have to turn it close to 90 before it goes off. Anyway, I'd like to get a digital thermostat, and would like to know what type of contractor does this type of work. Is this something an electrician would do, or would I need to call a heating/cooling company. Also, how hard/detailed of a job would this be? Thanks. Mike McClintock: Some systems have a delay that might make you think 70 or 72 isn't working. In any case, an electrician should easily be able to install a digital replacement- or a heating-cooling contractor, of course. It's almost always a very straightforward job. My advice is not to get a unit with a milion options; some havetoo many setbacks to cope with, inculding vacation days, saturdays versus sundays. Unless you lead an unbelievably regimented life, you'll find a basic unit offering setbacks overnight and morning, will do just fine. Delta, Pa.: Hello Mike, Hope you can help with a question about old garage doors. On this street several are the same make and model as all the houses were built in the early 1990s by the same builder. Recently, a neighbor had the hood of his car crunched in when the garage door came down and didn't reverse. Does that mechanism have a shelf life, and can you check for that kind of problem? I'm more worried about it hitting one of the kids than the car. Mike McClintock: Can't predict shelf life of one unit in particular because there are too many variables- like how often it's used. But early 90s is on the edge of a basic technology change when the CPSC mandated entrapment protection, usually an electric eye mounted in line with the opening about six inches off the floor. If anything breaks the beam- child or car- the door should reverse before it hits anything. Sounds like that didn't work (or wasn't part of) your neighbor's door susyem. Same could go for youirs, too, I guess. To check, first make sure the door is balanced. Trip the release mechanism (that pull cord from the motor) with the door closed. Then you should be able to lift the door without much effort and it should stay three or four feet off the floor. Next, test the force setting by holding the bottom of the door as it closes. It should reverse as you apply moderate resistance. Finally, check the reversing feature by setting a block of wood (like a piece of 2x4) in the path of the door. If the door doesn't reverse when it hits the block you need either a service call to replace that part of the system or a new unit that has the post-1993 safety feature. Follow-up to attic fan question.: So assuming that we don't have a thermostat on it (I don't think we do), we should be running it all the time in the summer? Mike McClintock: - but not at night, right? it's coler at night, at least where i live. Washington, D.C.: I am in the process of having the front exterior of my house painted. I can't decide whether to paint the concrete steps or power- wash them. If they are painted, how often would I have to re-paint? I want to stay as low maintenance as possible. Thanks. Mike McClintock: If concrete looks okay- and often it does- power wash and don't paint. Coooncrete is the one material where power washers really work well because you can turn up the pressure. (High pressure can eat away wood and some softer brick and mortar). Paint and, depending on exposure and foot tyraffic, you'll be back scraping and repainting in a few years, again and again. Boyds, Md.: Thanks, Mike, for making yourself available to answer our questions. My shower has holes in the caulk where the tiles meet, and the grout underneath the caulk is falling away. How best to replace the caulk and grout? Can I plug the hole or does the entire string need to be replaced, and how do I replace the grout ... the tile is buckling ever so slightly. Thanks! Mike McClintock: That last sentence is the killer; changes everything. No grout or caulk will stay in place if the tiles are moving, and buckling now means movement. To really fix it, you'll need to remove the loose tile, and then see what's what. If thje wall behind is spongy it, too, has to be replaced because it won't support tile in a rigid enough mount to hold grout. Yeah- digging into problems often reveals even more problems. If the wall seems sound, you could scrape away opld adhesive, reinstall the few loose tiles, then grout- and use an exterior-grade silicone in the final joint next to the tub. Baltimore, Md.: Thanks for sharing your expertise with us. I just had the original windows in my house replaced with vinyl replacements. I now need to weatherproof and paint the window opening on the exterior of the house -- that part was left for me to do. There are some gaps between the exterior trim and the side of the house. In other words, some of the trim is not flush to the side of the house. The window installer recommended trying to close the gaps somewhat by adding extra galvanized nails. I'm wondering if stainless screws wouldn't work better. Can you give me your opinion? Also, could you recommend what kinds of caulk/sealant, paint, and primer I should use to finish the job? If it helps, the exterior trim is previously painted hardwood. It looks like the sill area was painted with oil based paint and the trim was painted with latex. The exterior sill doesn't have much slope to it ... it's more like a staircase, so I know it will be important to do a good job of painting and weatherproofing. Sorry for the lengthy question. Thanks for any advice you can give. Mike McClintock: Can't wuite picture it, maybe because replacement windows are installed in the existing openings, so the trim-to-siding should be the same, with replacement inside the trim. Wish we could send pixtures, or sketches. Anyway, "pulling" trim into place with nails or screws isn't likely to close gaps permanently. You might need to trim the trim to close the gaps before ecaulking. Central Pennsylvania: Just bought a 1915 house with a great gable-shaped attic, lots of room and lots of natural light. Would like to use the attic for an office. But don't know how to handle insulation and temperature extremes. If we put insulation between the rafters and then finished it with beadboard, would that make it usable with a space heater in winter? Thanks. Mike McClintock: Tough part is that you always need to leave some vent space between the top of the insulation and the nottom of the roof. Without it you get moisture, the insulation compresses, the wood rots, etc. So to put in enough insulation to make the space comfortable (your local building dept. can tell you how much is required), you may need to add furring or somehow build down the rafters. Space sounds great- and worth the effort. Re: Hot in Herndon, Va., and its only June!: : I had a similar problem (too hot/cold on the third floor of my townhouse) that I've been able to solve by adjusting the dampers in my ducts. It takes a little time to experiment with but has worked out to be a nice "no-cost" solution. Mike McClintock: Good idea- just adding more cooling- but if the ceiling is hot more insulation and venting will require less AC. Motorized dampers are another AC upgrade that can deliver more AC where you need it. Arlington, Va.: I have a 1935 house with some replacement windows (wood frame w/ double panes). Some of the double panes are leaking air (condensation). Local window repair company said they can't repair without damaging frames and suggest we find new wooden frame windows. Any suggestions on sourcing this sort of thing? All the local window companies seem to focus on vinyl replacement windows (which we can live with if necessary). The glass shop said Home Depot may be able to get them? Mike McClintock: Better makers tend to produce windows that don't rupture (the seal between panes) and let in moisture. You'll need to do a lot of comparison shopping, with warranties, too, which vary a lot. Saw recently in Consumer's Checkbook that they got bids on a test job- same specs for every bidder- and the prices as i'm remembering were something like $2500 to $5,000 for exactly the same job. Herndon, Va.: Is there any maintenance to be done to a window well? Mine seems to have a lot of dirt and it splashes all over the window when it rains? House is 28 years old if that matters. Do you ever have to dig them out and put new rocks/stones/whatever in down there? Mike McClintock: Some window wells have a drain, but most have just some gravel to aid drainage a little. If it's all mud down there, digging out and adding a few inches of gravel will help- a little. If you want less maintenance, install a plastic hood (like half an umbrella) over the opening. They don't stand out much at all from the yard, and do a pretty good job shedding rain. Just got a quote on replacing the seven windows on our (tiny) rowhouse -- $1000 per! Seems crazy high to me, am I misguided? What you do you think? Mike McClintock: TRhat's high- unless there is a lot of extra work required at each opening, and probably not. I'm guessing at my memory of a note from Pella --- gad, i mentioned a trade name--- that said something like $900 per installed, and that's for one of the priciest products on the market. But you saw the last answer- about the 100 percent difference in job proves from checkbook. Clifton, Va.: Dumfires, I installed a programmable thermostat myself. Was easy. Most important thing to remember is to not let the wire that runs to HVAC unit pull back into the wall. Tie a pencil to it. You can mark the wires by color as you remove them from the old thermostat if necessary. I just matched red wire with red terminal on new thermostat, etc. Took less than 20 minutes to install. You need two pencils -- one to tape to the wires, a screwdriver, cordless drill, level, tape. Old thermostat is easy to remove. Annapolis, Md.: My guess: Coca Cola, Apple and Al-Jazeera (for now). Two questions: when should I be concerned about asbestos flooring? Have '73 Split foyer and lino flooring is peeling but there's vinyl flooring underneath that looks fine. and can I paint kitchen cabinets that are hollow, plastic and brown. Thanks Mike McClintock: Preetty darn good; you got two of three first time. Vinyl tile under the linoleum from that vintage is likely VAT (vinyl asbestos tile) and best not disturbed but covered. "hollow and plastic and brown cabinets? oddm but wash and scuff-sand a little out of the way spot and try latex to start. Flushing (question, not N.Y.): Mike, My new low-flow toilet only manages to achieve a proper syphon effect about half the time. I've got the water level in the tank up to about 1/4" of the max fill line. Should I try bumping it up to, or slightly above, this line to get it to flush more consistently? Thanks for taking the question. Mike McClintock: Bump it up as far as it will go without leaking- and suuming no one put a brick or something in there which was popular at some point for reducing water flow. Also, low-flows added to older homes often, very often, don't work due to the drain slope, and the only answer is to install an older, higher-flow toilet found at a renovation supply house. Vienna, Va.: A few years ago, during some record breaking hot weather, I saw a problem with a beam in my attic. One of them had buckled. The inspector from my insurance company insisted that this problem resulted from an inferior beam -- one that should have been rejected by the builder when the house was built 30 years ago. He recommended a repair, which I had done -- to afix another beam to the broken one. So now I have this very noticeable double beam in my attic. I'm very worried that this may be a problem when I sell my home. I'm due to have my roof replaced within the next three years. Should I just have that beam replaced at that time? Mike McClintock: Difficult question because it's a tossup. You did fix the problem, but it looks like a proble. If you're reroofing, tearing through to replace a beam is a big job just to forestall a possible question about something that's not really a problem. Phoenix, Md.: I live in a fairly rural area and have a septic system. For the last two weeks, there has been a sewage smell in one of my bathrooms. Sometimes it is better bad, other times barely noticeable. The other two bathrooms are fine. There is no evidence in the yard that there is a problem with the septic system, and it was cleaned out six months ago. Any ideas what could be causing this and how to treat it? Mike McClintock: Only at one source means it's likely a problem at that point. Could be a bad trap (curved pipes that keep a water seal to cut off sewer gas) or could be a worn wax seal at tghe toilet- at the connection between toilet and drain line. I've run into situations where overgrown trees or semi-blocked vent pipes (through the roof) can also send some of that smell wafteing back into the house, but only once in a while. Asbestos Shingles: Hi Mike, Love your chats! I have a home with asbestos shingles as siding, which I hate. I think my options are to put vinyl siding over the asbestos or remove the asbestos and put up wood shingles (the more expensive but better looking option). How expensive is it to remove asbestos shingles (compared to vinyl siding)? What do the experts say now about asbests removal vs. leaving it be? Thanks! Mike McClintock: Used to be the hazmat guys in white suits and a very elaborate (and expensive) process for removal and diposal. Now, the more sensible approach is top leave asbestos that is sound and encapsulate it. (Some ragged, called friable, asbestos does need special attention,) I'm guessingf the cover job with vinyl might be a quater or less of the stripping and wood shakes- and then there's staining or painting to boot. Georgetown, Washington, D.C.: Hi Mike. I've been firing up the burgers outside and noticed that the grill, with a few rust spots, is kind of old, maybe 8 or 10 years. It works OK, but I'm wondering if gas grills reach a point where they aren't safe anymore, and maybe if certain parts or the whole thing ought to be replaced? Mike McClintock: Writing a column about them maybe a year ago, it turned out that most accidents related to charcoal grills were consumer error while most with gas grills were equipment failure. So you're onto something, though there's no way to say for sure that a working gas grill has so many more burgers to go and that's it. And some of the biggest risks have been fixed with improved industry standards. The mainb ones, in the mid 1990's, were leak-tight hose assemblies and automatic shutoffs triggered by a gas leak or overheating. Newer codes only about three years ago solved another common problem- leaks due to overfilling LP cylinders. The problem was (and still is on older units like yours) that propane goes into the cylinder cold but expands when heated, say, out in the sun on youir deck. With no room left for expansion the gas can be forced through the valve. Newer cylinders (after 2002 i think), have an overfill prevention device and limit refill to about 80 percent capacity. Those tanks have triangular knobs; older units without the feature have rounded valve knobs. If my grill were pre 2002 but working fine I'd probably keep it, but pre 1995 I'd be thinking about replacement with or without rust. Frederick, Md.: Mike, there is a new couple moving into the townhouse next to me and I just found out that he smokes. What is the type of paint that I can put on the interior walls of my townhouse to keep the smoke from permeating into my house? Thanks! Mike McClintock: Slicker surfaces are less porous, but air has a way of finding any point of entry, including at corners and edges- so you might want to be clear-caulking along the bottoms of baseboard- if it starts to be noticeable. Re: Power-washing: The previous owners of my home painted the deck rather than stain it. I would prefer a natural stain. I have let the paint peel, but a lot still needs to be removed. Would power-washing be a good way to remove the remaining paint? This seems like a project I can tackle myself -- remove paint, stain, seal, etc. -- or would you suggest bringing in professionals? Thanks. Mike McClintock: It's definitely DIY- kep part being to get enough pressure to strip the paint without eroding the wood. You need to test several settings. Downside is that high pressures erode the soft parts of wood and can leave a slightly ridges surface. Purcellville, Va.: My 3bd, 2.5ba SFH has 1832 sq ft at present and I am considering adding an addition (1bd, 1ba; family rm). I would like to know that the money I am putting into the project will be re-couped when I sell. My question is, how can you determine the value added to your house when you make this kind of improvement? Thank you! Mike McClintock: Remodeling Magazine puts out an annual report with just that name i think "added value". But it's national. Best bet for you is to do local real estate comparatives- a lot of them, which means finding very houses very similar to yours as it is and again as it might be. Dual zone A/C: The previous owner of our bungalow ran central a/c into the house (not an easy task). Given extremes in temperatures b/w upstairs and down, we're thinking maybe a dual-zone system would be efficient for us. What would be involved in that type of upgrade? Mike McClintock: Probably just one motorized damper in a central location, and an extra themostat for the second zone. If the bunglaow has somewhat oddball ducts you would need an imaginative contractor to rig the system. But it's an improvement that eventually pays for iteself- and talked about a little in a recent column that ran 5/26. Virginia: Hello! I really need your advice on some wood putty that was applied to the rotting wood (from the window frame) on the outside of my townhouse. It has since dried up and looks like clay now. Recently I received a letter from the HOA to remove the "clay" from the window frame. How do I do that and how to fix the rotting wood myself without having to get someone to build me a new window frame? Many thanks! Mike McClintock: You can scrape or maybe chisel away, the old stuff. Then look into epoxy repair products. The dense liquid is usually applied over dug out sections with a spackling blade or plastci spatula in stages. It's very dense and hard when dry- and will require some heavy-duty sanding, but can fill out a badly damaged area in wood. Mike McClintock: -out of time already, thanks for the Q's, and here are the answers to the quiz and some extra info HOME SENSE- BRAND NAMES -QUESTION From this list of Brandchannel.com top ten brands with the most impact globally (and some surprising names there), can you name the top three? HOME SENSE- BRAND NAMES -ANSWER The offbeat ripple effect of brand name popularity comes from a 2003 BBC News piece about a Nebraska psychology professor who surveyed US social security records for 2000, and concluded that "Americans are increasingly turning to the world of popular culture to name their children." "Professor Cleveland Evans has found that car models are a popular source of inspiration; 22 girls are registered as having the name Infiniti while 55 boys answer to Chevy and five girls to Celica." The professor says seven boys have the name Del Monte, after the food company, and 49 boys were called Canon, after the camera. Two boys are named ESPN after the sports channel. Almost 300 girls were recorded with the name Armani, six boys were named Timberland and seven boys were named Denim. It's an odd thing to keep track of, for starters, and I'm wondering if those 55 "Chevy" boys may be CH-evy, as in Chase and not SH-evy, as in cars, but maybe the professor never watched Saturday Night Live. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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National Security and Intelligence

2005060819

Dana Priest covers intelligence and wrote " The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace With America's Military " (W.W. Norton). The book chronicles the increasing frequency with which the military is called upon to solve political and economic problems. Dana Priest: Hello everyone. I'm back in the saddle after a trip out of town. Let's begin! Monroe, N.Y.: Hi Dana, Now we know that FBI #2 Mark Felt, with likely help from a group of senior FBI officials, saved the country from a criminal and corrupt presidency. Since learning this I've become convinced that the firing of those top CIA officials (by Porter Goss and his cronies) was clearly designed to prevent another Deep Throat situation arising with the CIA regarding WMDs and Iraq. Aren't there important stories here: the ethical values embodied in career civil servants, the limits to partisan loyalty, the dangers in excessive administration control over government agencies, and the conflicts which limit muscular oversight by the Congress (and the press)? Dana Priest: Your observations at the end are concise enough for an editorial. My hope was that the Felt self-outing would convince people of the core value of anonymous sources. Yes, journalists have to be very careful, but you just can't expect people to put their jobs on the line (which some do anyway even when they speak anonymously) in the midst of a scandal. The Goss firings were maybe in part for that reason. But mostly I think it was a case of runaway bad management, hubris on the part of his new cadre of staffers and misplaced paranoia about leaks. Tampa, Fla.: To step back from the problems at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib for a minute, how much actionable intelligence have we gained from those imprisoned there? I recall seeing an FBI memo saying (in connection with Abu Ghraib, I believe) NONE. Further, do we hold high-value suspects at Gitmo? If not, why haven't those held there gone stale? Does al Qaeda entrust its flunkies with its top secrets? Finally, is it true Rumsfeld said even acquittals won't free people from Gitmo? Dana Priest: I wish I could pin it down in a definitive way. In general, U.S. and foreign intelligence officials say none of significant value. But then DefSec Rumsfeld says the opposite, as he did yesterday. We know for certain there were one or two "big fish" there. But don't know of more than that. Beckley, W.V.: With the disclosure of the Downing Street minutes does this prove the President abused his executive powers? And if so to what extend can he be prosecuted? And how would that process be started??? And lastly how will Karl Rove try to make this all go away, by simply ignoring it like everything else? Dana Priest: No. The memo lacks those kinds of specifics or evidence really. What bothers me most about this drumbeat about the memo is that we now know--and have written many times--many more specifics about the administration's misjudgments and exaggerations, and the intelligence community's misjudgments and exaggerations (in the dissection of the National Intelligence Estimate) than is contained in that memo. It's just not the smoking gun some people want it to be, in my opinion. It's his insider opinion, which is very valuable by itself. And it fits with what we have learned, more or less, over the past year or so. Wexford, Pa.: How come The Post didn't do more with the British memos, especially the meeting minutes? I know Blush (Blair and Bush) said the other day the minutes memo was before they went to the U.N. but, frankly, going to the U.N. was just done to give the impression they were seeking other options, wasn't it? It seems clear this administration was determined to invade no matter what. Also, an Italian newspaper managed to remove the redacted portions of the final report into the shooting of an Italian agent by U.S. forces and the paper printed it. How come no U.S. papers, including The Post, did that? Dana Priest: I like the Blush thing. On the rest, see above. On the readable--redacted version of the Italian memo, my recollection is that we had already printed the gist of what happened; that the Pentagon had some specific concerns about publishing the "rules of engagement"--something they never do because then the bad guys will know what rules the troops operate under and can take advantage of that. That request seemed reasonable, as did the request not to publish identities. There may have been more to it, but my colleague who wrote the story is not around for me to check the rest with. Bethesda, Md.: Would the minutes of the meeting which the author of the Downing Memo attended be a potential smoking gun? I understand those minutes are classified. Dana Priest: Is this a campaign? Los Angeles, Calif.: I'm getting the impression that the Iraqi insurgency will not be defeated even in the medium term. It's too easy to wreak havoc and there are too many people in the region itching to kill Americans and make the U.S. endeavor in Iraq a failure. Even as U.S. forces learn and improve their tactics, I can't envision a definitive victory. I don't think this bodes well for the President's legacy unless a wave of democracy sweeps the Middle East and the region turns into a love-fest. I don't think the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon counts as a major victory, as significant as it was. In sum, I think Iraq is going to be a major liability for the U.S. over the long term. I'm wondering what your thinking is on this matter? Dana Priest: I agree. I predict we will see the White House redefining victory. It will move, as it already has really, from defining success as a democratic Iraq, to a place that's stable enough, with enough Iraqi security forces to suppress a civil war. Re. Memo drumbeat: You wrote, "What bothers me most about this drumbeat about the memo is that we now know--and have written many times--many more specifics about the administration's misjudgments and exaggerations, and the intelligence community's misjudgments and exaggerations (in the dissection of the National Intelligence Estimate) than is contained in that memo." But where's the drumbeat to hold someone, anyone from this administration accountable? Just because they say their intentions were noble doesn't cut it, does it? The misjudgments and exaggerations have cost tens of thousands of lives! Dana Priest: I don't question, even for a second, anyone's right--duty--to hold elected officials accountable for their actions, their words, and especially their decision to go to war, given how enormously costly and unpredictable war is. We do our part by digging beneath the surface, as we have done. I think it was wrong for the Post not to have published the memo when it first came out (read our ombudsmen column on that), but I think it was a comedy of errors rather than any nefarious. That kind of thing just happens from time to time. But we've remedied that and now it's up to readers, broadly defined to include political parties, to make something more of it, or not. We will chronicle that too. This is not unique to this subject. I completely agree about the Downing memo. Quite a while ago, Paul Wolfowitz clearly stated that the war was "marketed" with WMD because the administration believed it was the best way to get the American people on board with a preemptive attack on Iraq. And, as with all marketing campaigns, selective facts are used to bolster the argument. News Over There, But Not Here. You opined, "a place that's stable enough, with enough Iraqi security forces to suppress a civil war." Why does the phrase "status quo ante" come to mind? Dana Priest: Yep, sadly. But maybe there's hope yet. The frustrating thing about trying to judge Iraq is that you can't really do it except week by week. Things could turn around, and it sometimes looks like they will. But it doesn't look that way this week. Munich, Germany: I was actually going to ask a question about the worldwide increase in defense spending and, according to a Frankfurt newspaper, my startling discovery that in the period between 2000 to 2004, Russia and not the U.S. is the largest exporter of arms in the world ($26.9 billion for Russia versus 25.9 billion for the U.S.). But after reading The Post article on Omar Khadr's imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay, I started to doubt the strategy of keeping people like Khadr at Gitmo without trial. What kind of intelligence information can a man like Khadr offer? He was captured as a teenager. Dana Priest: I believe that is one reason there is so much pressure to close Guantanamo and to bring the detainees to fair trial, not to the secret court proceedings that have so far been roundly criticized by so many people. Re. redefining victory: I believe it will be redefined as, "The world's better off without Saddam" - and so we've won. Doesn't matter whether there's civil war or not. By the way, I am appalled that you seem to express doubts about the vice-president's claim to Larry King that the insurgency is waning. Hi Dana. What do you make of the Vice President's comments that the insurgency in Iraq is "in its last throes." Does he really believe that? Our leaders have really lost touch with reality, wouldn't you say? Dana Priest: Wishful thinking? Or else he knows something that the reporters writing about this haven't been able to detect. For the first six months of the insurgency the administration liked to refer to the insurgents as "dead-enders," people with no hope, with no plan, and with no organization. They lost valuable time in not taking them serious, as a determined, if decentralized, enemy. College Park, Md.: Does everyone who writes in to you hate President Bush? One would get that impression -- or perhaps there are lots of those on the angry, bitter left who frequent Internet chat boards. Thanks. And as always, good reporting on your part. Dana Priest: You know. I agree. I'm always looking through the questions to find some that will balance out the Bush critics. I get a 1 to 10 ration, in general. I've asked around about this and, unscientifically speaking, the view is that liberals like chats and conservatives like talk radio. A generalization I know, but it's one explanation and I don't have any others. Harlingen, Tex.: Speaking of Mr. Goss, he seems to have quite thoroughly disappeared from the scene. How are things actually going on the seventh floor at Langley? P.S: And have any candidates for the new National Reconnaissance Office director surfaced? Dana Priest: I've not checked in on the NRO recently. Good nudge. Things with Goss seem to be on low simmer. I can't detect anything new, innovative or bold that he's trying to launch, despite the fact that terrorism remains the national security priority numero uno. On the contrary, I'm always picked up hints of DOD's push into this area. I could be wrong, because this information is not easy to come by, but I don't think so. Herndon, Va.: What do make of the executive order, reported in Time Magazine this week, that essentially takes away the CIA's Seat at the NSC (presumably at Negroponte's instruction)? What do your sources tell you about the mood and any reaction to the move over at Langley? I can't imagine the once mighty CIA is pleased at having been frozen out of the council and losing the direct ear of the President. Do the career folks blame Goss for losing a turf war or was this an expected move given the new DNI position? Dana Priest: There's no good new from Langley these days. People seem to be demoralized and witnessing their own emaciation. And yes, there's resentment and disappointment that Goss is not fighting harder. Norfolk, Va.: Dana - Thanks, as usual, for all your fine work. I had to respond to the question about the Bush-hating majority on this chat. The fact is, liberals prefer The Post because it presents a whole world view with a wide range of facts, as well as opinion. Conservatives want and get their news from places like Fox and Limbaugh, because it reinforces what they already believe. Thanks. Dana Priest: Hmmm. I don't think our readership is skewed that way, but I'll get back to you on that. Interesting point. Certainly one could not make the case that the editorial page is liberal, at least not on foreign policy matters. Los Angeles, Calif.: What is your professional opinion on the strategic implications of the UBL's death at the hands of U.S. forces? From where I sit, it seems to me that we have done everything he has wanted us to do. We left Saudi Arabia. We invaded Iraq. It occurs to me that if we are at war with UBL, we ought not acquiesce to his wishes. I have heard Peter Bergen state that he is ready to die for his cause, and that secretly he may want to die. Would it not be exponentially smarter (albeit much more difficult) for the U.S. government to capture UBL instead of killing him? Dana Priest: I certainly would defer to Peter Bergen, which is especially easy in this case because I also agree with him. Also, the US is already a target, it's not going to become a bigger one because we hold UBL in custody. On the other hand, there would be benefits to showcasing the sadness and devastation his actions have brought to the completely innocent families of 9-11. Anonymous: Hmm. Not being privy to your questions, I guess we'll never know if most folks chiming in really "hate" Bush or not. No doubt, most comments you post are fairly loaded, but ... "hate" seems kinda strong. I wonder if this has more to do with people looking to you, as a Post reporter (and fantastic one, at that) to fill the role of aggressive questioner in the face of obvious spin. And then, perhaps, the additional roles of judge and executioner. Dana Priest: Thanks. I need that right now since I'm getting pummeled by comments about the memo--again--and in response to my response. I think you've hit on a good visual: questioner, judge and executioner. I'll take the first and give you back the latter two. Fairfax, Va.: What "digging beneath the surface" are you talking about in all the "coverage" The Post has provided? Did you discover whether Bush was fixing the facts leading up to the war, because I never saw a Post headline stating that conclusion or for that matter the opposite. Neither has The Post followed up on Sen. Roberts decision not to hold the second phase hearings he had promised before the election. Your answers today on the Downing Street Memo are very illuminating and frankly, scary. Since when is your job to "chronicle" what the White House says and does without investigating the truth of those actions? Dana Priest: You should try reading the newspaper more thoroughly, perhaps you won't make such silly statements. Arlington, Va.: All of those suicide bombers and assassinations of officials in Iraq cause me to wonder about the excellence of the intelligence that the insurgents have and think about the possibility that it is hard for us to win this one when the other side's intelligence gathers can blend into the general population so easily. Dana Priest: Intelligence is the tactical key to weakening an insurgency and yet, when you're operating in a foreign country, in a foreign language, in a context that you barely understand, it's nearly impossible to acquire. The French had a chance in Vietnam and Algeria because they had occupied both countries. Same could be said of the Israelis. Then you would have a chance to acquire informants over a long period time. Not so in a place like Iraq. It's the hardest of scenarios. Arlington, Va.: Why are so many people worried that there will be a civil war in Iraq? I would think this is in our favour as all the terrorist will be fighting each other. It might not look nice but let them kill each other. Any comments? Thanks. Dana Priest: Well, that's certainly the hard way to go about it, given that the terrorist-to-civilian-to-U.S. soldier ratio is probably 1 to 5,000. Ashland, Mo.: With respect to the character of the questions you receive, I think pro-Bush sentiment is expressed on other chats - not Washington Post chats. Part of that is a supposition that chats aren't really for an exchange of different views, but simply statements of personal opinion masked as questions seeking information. Another part is the questioner's hope to be supported by the host, not likely by pro-Bush supporters who don't believe (rightly or wrongly) that Post reporters respect their views. Dana Priest: Generally I get about 2/3 and 1/3. 2/3 of the questions seem to want to validate a strongly held belief (and as I mentioned before, the majority is a liberal point of view). 1/3 seem to really want an answer to a question. I'll end today with another from the 1/3. Clifton, Va.: How come no news sources ever mention the fact that Al Qaeda operates in South Korea and follows U.S. troops around South Korea and conducts intel ops there? Interesting that the son who was recently arrested for alleged ties to Al Qaeda in California flew from Seoul to the California. Dana Priest: Probably because we've never heard about that in any credible way. But I can check into it. Dana Priest: Gotta run. See you next week. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/06/AR2005060601928.html

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Service for Disabled Is Troubled

2005060719

As Marquette Henderson's vision dimmed and he could no longer drive, he sought help. He signed up for training through Blind Industries and Services of Maryland and found a job as a clerk at its store on Bolling Air Force Base. To get there and back to his Fort Washington apartment, he relied on MetroAccess, the transportation service for the disabled that Metro is required to provide under federal law. What at first seemed like a blessing ended up adding to his difficulties. The transportation was so unreliable that one day in January 2004, Henderson didn't get to work until 12:30 p.m. for his 8 a.m. shift, he said. Sometimes, he said, he would call his wife to pick him up as he set out for home on foot, straining to see as he tapped his cane along the dusty edges of the highway. He stopped getting bonuses. His boss put him on notice because he was frequently tardy. Last summer, he was forced to quit, he said. "I have three teenage kids and a wife, and I'm a blind person going out there and trying to be responsible in this life, and I need some help," said Henderson, 46. "But the help I have is costing me my job." While Henderson was navigating the breakdown lane of Indian Head Highway, Metro was paying LogistiCare, the company that has run MetroAccess since 2000, hefty performance bonuses. For years, Metro told Henderson and other customers that their complaints of late or missing drivers were exceptions, citing LogistiCare statistics that the vast majority of rides for its 14,000 users were on time. But LogistiCare's contract with Metro contained a loophole: When drivers failed to show up, the trips weren't recorded as late and didn't count against the company when performance bonuses were awarded. Although Metro could have regularly spot-checked LogistiCare's numbers, agency officials said they failed to do so. And even as Metro managers were publicly wringing their hands about the escalating costs of the program, they failed to take recommended steps to control them. At the same time, LogistiCare and others were warning the agency that it was losing money to fraud by dishonest drivers and customers, according to records and interviews. Now, problems have culminated in legal action on two fronts. Henderson and other customers have sued Metro, claiming that MetroAccess is so unreliable, it violates the Americans With Disabilities Act. And a Metro investigation into possible fraud in the program has led to a Montgomery County grand jury probe, according to court records and Metro officials. Officials at LogistiCare, an Atlanta-based company that manages transportation for disabled Medicaid recipients across the country, said they have and will continue to cooperate with any investigation. They said they are proud of the service they provide to the region's disabled residents.

Third of four articles As Marquette Henderson's vision dimmed and he could no longer drive, he sought help. He signed up for training through Blind Industries and Services of Maryland and found a job as a clerk at its store on Bolling Air Force Base. To get there and back to his Fort... The transit...

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Off the Rails

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Washington Post staff writers Jo Becker and Lyndsey Layton were online Tuesday, June 7, at Noon ET to discuss the four-part series "Off the Rails." Lyndsey Layton: Good afternoon, everyone. We've got lots of questions pouring in, so let's get started. Washington, D.C.: Thank you so much for your series on metro. The biggest problem for metro has been a total lack of accountability for management and the metro board. Hopefully this series and all your previous pieces (including the best one ever that showed that only one person on the metro board actually takes metro) will finally hold metro accountable. What I got from the series is that Richard White and the rest of metro management must be replaced. It would be one thing if he were new but it has been nine years and everything has gotten worse. As your series points out, the problems cannot be blamed on outside factors, but on incompetent management and lack of accountability and oversight. Richard White must go. Lyndsey Layton: Well that's one perspective. Other thoughts? Silver Spring, Md.: I have certainly experienced Metros escalator 'improvement' program. My heart is still benefiting from the MONTHS I spent going up and down the stairs at the Silver Spring station on the Colesville Rd. side. I think the process suffered from a lack of planning. They took the escalator apart, and then did nothing for months. About a week before the date the sign said it would be completed workmen started showing up. Even if the escalator couldn't be used, there could have been two stairways all those months. Why start a repair when the labor and materials aren't ready? My guess is that it's funny accounting and a culture of non-performance. Jo Becker: We spoke with many customers who, like you, felt frustrated by the escalator overhaul program. As you know, it takes months to take the escalators apart and put them back together again, and we found that more than a third were working worse afterwards. As for routine maintenance, several audits found that Metro mechanics didn't always have the parts they needed to make repairs. Washington, D.C.: How is Metro coping with the problem of ground water leakage into the subway tunnels and stations? Didn't they choose not to install water barriers when the system was built? Wasn't this a huge oversight and potentially a major expense for Metro to correct? Lyndsey Layton: Hi Washington DC, Yes, groundwater is a huge problem. On any given night, when it's dry in Washington, it's raining underground - water is seeping into the Metro, corroding the system. When Metro was first constructed, engineers coated the tunnels with "shotcrete", a substance they thought would repel water. But it's been no match for groundwater, particularly along the Red Line from Medical Center to Farragut North. Arlington, Va.: So is there anything you think that Metro has done to improve upon how it operates? Jo Becker: During the preparation of this series, Metro took a number of steps to try to improve the agency. CEO Richard White reorganized the agency and put someone new in charge of Metro's projects to buy new and overhaul old rail cars. On the safety front, he recently developed a new policy. Now, when the safety department makes a recommendation, other agency divisions will still have the opportunity to dispute that recommendation, but if White's office upholds it, then managers will have set deadlines to implement the recommendation or face disciplinary action. Washington, D.C.: Why does The Post give considerably more coverage to Metrorail than Metrobus, when ridership on the two systems are about equal? (The current series on Metro barely mentions Metrobus.) While Metrorail has had a lot of problems in the past year, bus riders have always had to contend with a lack of reliable service (largely because buses get stuck in traffic). I'd like to read more about bus service and efforts to improve it, to give those of us waiting for the bus some hope. As a daily bus rider, I understand your frustration. And I agree that Metrobus is ripe for a closer look. We decided to focus this series on the rail system because the railroad consumes such a massive amount of public money, far more than the bus system. Reston, Va.: Based on your research do you feel that it is wise to extend the Metro system at this time (i.e. Rail to Dulles)? It seems to me that the problems need to be corrected and the existing system needs to be maintained before we pour billions more in and create an even larger problem. Jo Becker: That's a debate for the region and the federal government. The Federal Transit Administration as given Metro money to do engineering studies but has not yet committed to funding a portion of the construction. Washington, D.C.: THANK YOU!!! This series has been an eye-opener for those who don't ride Metro and a confirmation for those who do. How do you respond to Metro's "official" press releases questioning your reporting? Personally, until the Metro board and Mr. White start riding Metro more than once in a blue moon, they should keep their press releases to themselves. Jo Becker: We feel that the reporting speaks for itself and that riders who experience the system every day are able to judge for themselves. Washington, D.C.: I appreciate The Post investigating problems in the Metro system that need to be addressed. However, it seems unfair for the paper to spend so much time and ink on the problems of Metro, while riding in a vehicle is many, many times more dangerous. (Over 40,000 people were killed in car accidents in the United States last year.) When can we expect The Post to give a similar level of scrutiny to the dangers of car travel? Jo Becker: Riding the subway is far safer than getting in a car, as we point out in the article. Arlington, Va.: Fantastic set of articles, and a perfect example of the investigative reporting that I look forward to in The Post. On to my question. I've always been curious as to why Metro continues to spend money on carpeting in the metro trains. I would think that the cost associated with cleaning and repairing the carpets would be fairly substantial. Frankly, the carpets look horrible and often smell as the mold begins to grow -- I would have no problem with a tile floor and I would think it would be easier for Metro to clean. Have you heard anything as to why they continue to stick with the carpet? Thanks for your note. When I wrote a story a few years ago about mold on the carpets of Metro trains and the related odor, I got a call from a carpet industry spokesman who said carpeting subway trains was just asking for trouble. The carpeting decision stems from Metro's original planners, who wanted to set Metro apart from mass transit in other cities (most especially New York). They envisioned a subway that was more upscale and comfy, hence the cushioned seats, carpets and two-by-two seating. Bethesda, Md.: You made sure to mention more than once that Metro does not have a specific government to which it reports and acts an oversite for the system. Do you think this is necessary if Metro is to improve (i.e. will someone that can actually penalize the system actually do it?)? If so, who gets the job - D.C., Virginia, MD, or the Feds? That's such a good question. I do think our fractured political landscape makes accountability/oversight of Metro much more complicated. Maybe it would ultimately require the federal government to intervene, since Congress created Metro in the first place. In places where the transit authority is located wholly within a state (Boston, for example), the governor or legislature could make reforms. Arlington, Va.: As a regular rider of both Metro trains and buses I knew the system was deteriorating, but nothing prepared me for the level of neglect and incompetence exposed by your series. Each article makes me wonder how Richard White has managed to keep his job for so many years? Would any other CEO of a failing business remain in control for so long, with almost no one calling for his removal? In fact, the Metro board of directors did discuss White's performance during closed sessions earlier this year. But White laid out his plans to correct problems and the board apparently backed his strategy. Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post team obtained information about internal WMATA safety audits and failed programs, etc., that haven't been public before -- because you were the Post. WMATA isn't subject to the kinds of local laws that other government agencies observe -- open meetings laws, etc., because of its creation through an Interstate Compact. Going forward, what changes should WMATA adopt to make more information readily available to the public without a Post investigation: internal audit reports and the responses of Metro management to those recommendations, full texts of peer group reviews, etc.? What else? Thanks. Jo Becker: Metro recently adopted a new records policy to set up a process that more closely mirrors the federal government's, but I believe that only Congress would have the authority to subject Metro to federal or state public records laws. Kalorama: Fine, fine work this week, thanks for your reporting. I know this is "Off the Rails," but will you be devoting a project of similar urgency to the Metrobus situation? I think regular bus users are even more frustrated than rail riders, and I think there is just as much fraud, corruption, unsafe practices, and management problems to unearth in the bus world. Thanks! Please see my earlier response about Metrobus. I agree there's plenty to look at regarding the bus system, which carries some 500,000 people a day. If you have specific ideas, feel free to email me at [email protected] Alexandria, Va.: I ride Metro every day to work and seldom have a problem. If I do have a problem it's temporary. Compared to New York's subway, Metro is a palace. I don't expect anything to be perfect. The Post should try fair and balanced reporting. You wouldn't be perfect but you would be more credible. You can always compare Metro to other transit systems and say, gee, it's so much cleaner/better/easier here. The point of the series was to compare Metro against itself, to understand the factors behind Metro's deteriorating performance and try to explain them. Washington, D.C.: When you examined performance statistics for your articles, was there any factoring in ridership levels? For example, more crowded trains (say during cherry blossom time), may lead to more breakdowns, disruptions, etc. If this year was more crowded than the past several years, it may be unfair to simply compare actual number of breakdowns rather than somehow "normalizing" the statistics to account for ridership levels. We did take that into account and still found the growth of breakdowns and delays outpaced ridership growth. Alexandria, Va.: What a sad, sad story. I remember the region before there was any Metrorail (there was actually a Metro subway car on exhibit at the Smithsonian, to show what the "subway of the future" would look like--people would line up to walk through it). It was something to be so proud of in the early years. What can we do to fix this? Does the multi-jurisdictional Metro Board have the clout to insist on changes to the attitudes of "the frozen middle" that your sources referred to? Would more money help? The problems seem so numerous as to defy solution -- but on the hopeful side, I also remember when the same was said about the derelict, collapsing fiasco that was Union Station, now a showplace. Jo Becker: While Metro remains popular with riders, as evidenced by a recent Washington Post poll and by increasing demand, we spoke with many long-time riders who, like you, believe that the system isn't what it used to be. CEO Richard White makes the case that more money would improve the system. The region will certainly debate that as Metro pushes forward with a campaign for a dedicated source of funding for Metro, such as a regional sales tax. Washington, D.C.: The evidence presented in The Post's article is a pretty devastating illustration of incomprehensible mismanagement at the highest levels. As the typical Metro commuter, I've seen the decline in Metro's services over the past five years first hand. Now, I know why. Here's my question: Why did it take The Post so long to write this article? Metro has never before released the documents that were key to this investigation - internal audits and investigation reports. The agency has always claimed it is immune from local, state and federal records laws which would make those documents available to the public. Once we started getting the records, we had to review them - and they numbered in the thousands. Washington, D.C.: Despite the headlines, your articles seem to indicate that Metro is trying to fix most of of the problems you highlight, albeit belatedly. Do you think Metro will be able to solve these problems on its own, or will it need additional oversight or further shake-ups to get back on track? I think it's too early to know if these reforms will be effective and longlasting. As we point out in the stories, this is the third time in nine years that Richard White has reorganized his management structure at Metro. Dumfries, Va.: What has Metro done to correct the heavy-handed Gestapo tactics of Metro police in handcuffing a 12-year-old for eating a french fry or arresting a pregnant woman for talking too loud on her cell phone? Your article mentioned these incidents, but didn't describe what Metro management has done to ensure further injustices don't take place. The transit police underwent special training to learn how to defuse situations and avoid the kind of arrests that led to such bad publicity. And the police department is also hiring a consultant to take a closer look at its operations. Re: immunity: "The agency has always claimed it is immune from local, state and federal records laws which would make those documents available to the public." That explains a LOT. It seems to me that if Metro feels it is immune from public records laws, it ought to be immune from public money as well. If they can't take the scrutiny as well as the benefits, they have no business being in operation. Lyndsey Layton: To its credit, Metro did voluntary hand over the documents the Post requests late last year and it recently reformulated its public records policy to try to make it more akin to the federal Freedom of Information Act request. Northern Virginia: MORE MONEY, MORE MONEY!; That is what CEO Dick White claims will solve all the problems. Just how much does he make? He seems obsessed with ridership figures, not performance. Does he receive a bonus or salary increase based on the number of riders, regardless of the quality of service they receive? How about we dock his pay for every incident? If I'm late for work because of Metro this is what happens to me. Lyndsey Layton: Self-serving plug alert: Read tomorrow's Post, Northern Virginia. Alexandria: Metro is so upset with your story that Metro employees will be passing out a rebuttal at stations this evening. Is this a legal use of taxpayers and riders' money? I can't think of any law that would be violated. Washington, D.C.: While this series of articles is great and all, I would like to comment that it seems every time Metro is "exposed" they raise fares. I understand that there are a lot of safety concerns for metro, but really do we need them spending another 30-50 million on frivilous things? For instance it cost 20+ million just for bomb proof trash cans -outside- of the turnstyle and then they wonder why the trains are so messy. While in a perfect world it would be great to ride in a super comfy air-conditioned car with room to spread out but in reality I just want to get to work and get home ... cheaply. The prices now are out of control and with these reports surfacing it's only going to get worse. The real problem is that metro isn't regulated by the local governments that hand them cash. Jo Becker: Metro has no plans for a fare increase next year. Arlington, Va.: From what I saw about your series, the two of you spent six solid months doing your stories, right? I don't get why it would take so long to write the articles. It seems like most of what I've read is a global look at stuff/information that has been in the news before. Can you explain your process? You don't want to hear the ugly details but we obtained thousands of pages of documents from Metro, the FTA, the NTSB, digested them, analyzed them and then conducted hundreds of interviews with Metro officials, contractors, transit experts, federal officials and riders. The series contains many findings that have never been previously reported. It takes time. Chevy Chase, D.C.: Has Metro talked to transit operators in other cities with similar issues? I'm thinking specifically of Moscow, with its tremendously long escalators and countless trains. Just try walking down a stopped Moscow elevator -- the attendants at the bottom will give you quite the earful! I'll second a few other suggestions here for a similar story on Metrobus. Its a system that is terribly advertised, but yet serves a dedicated population. Will they ever publish maps that show each stop? will the M4 ever run on time? That said, I have seen Metro reps over the past few weeks tracking which bus arrives at certain stops at what time. How long has it been since they actually looked at the routes they drive and where their passengers end up going? In my opinion, Metrobus has its downside and daily frustrations, but it is largely a system with huge untapped potential. Jo Becker: Metro recently brought in a team of officials from Boston, London, New York and other subway systems to suggest changes that would make Metro more efficient. Judiciary Square, D.C.: How thoroughly do they clean the escalators that have acted as stairs? Because for months, I've been walking up a recently repaired escalator at Judiciary Square that's chock full of ground-in straw wrappers, paper towels and cigarette butts. It's going to take more than a superficial cleaning to take care of it -- and could easily break the escalator when it starts moving again ... I don't think those escalators are regularly cleaned, if ever. I've seen the same cigarette butts. Washington, D.C.: I got a flyer this a.m. outside Metro Center that asked us to support a strong Riders Advisory Council for Metro. This seems like a step in the right direction for Metro. Do you know any more about the Riders Advisory Council? Lyndsey Layton: The Riders Advisory Council idea sprang up not too long after the Post ran a story about the fact that none of the Metro board members are daily riders. The Sierra Club proposed the idea of a committee of riders that could advise the Metro board on policy. Metro backed the idea and appears to be trying to set it up. The council would be a creation of Metro and funded by Metro, not an independent body like the Straphangers' Campaign in New York. Lyndsey Layton: I'm afraid we've run down the clock, folks. Thanks for chatting. Sorry if we didn't get to your question. If you have a specific story suggestion, please email us directly at [email protected] or beckerj@washpost. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Washington Post staff writers Jo Becker and Lyndsey Layton discuss the four-part series "Off the Rails."

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Robert MacMillan - Wired New World

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The first time I felt like turning back the time on technology was in college. It was 12 or 13 years ago, and I was reading "The Overworked American" by Juliet B. Schor for a sociology class. Schor changed my world when she suggested that labor-saving devices actually allowed us to do twice as many things in half as much time. It made technological "advances" seem like just another scam, not far from the plot of that short story by J.G. Ballard, "The Subliminal Man," in which mega-corporations urge people to spend and replace their devices as soon as they can to avoid being thought of by their neighbors as obsolete. Ballard's story, written sometime in the mid-1960s, commented on the human consequences of the proliferation of consumer products designed after World War II -- fatigue, stress and alienation. Today's supposed labor-saving devices -- the wireless phone, the handheld organizer, the laptop, the GPS locator -- serve valid purposes. But as often as not, they also are tools that force us into an endless cycle of work. USA Today and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer examined this theme in articles published during the past week. What made the pieces more interesting than other technology-meets-life stories were characters who fiercely defended their hectic lifestyles instead of saying, "I know I need to slow down." The Post-Intelligencer profiled Doyle Albee, an account director at public relations firm Metzger Associates in Boulder, Colo.: "Far from thinking a BlackBerry or a cell phone can be a distraction, Albee said the devices allow him to stay connected and to focus on a client during a meeting. At meetings, for example, Albee discreetly checks the e-mail on his cell phone every 10 to 15 minutes to make sure no emergency is awaiting him. That, in turn, eases lingering anxieties and allows Albee to be 'more involved in the moment.'" Sure beats all that Buddhist meditation, no? Albee also told the P-I about the time that his seventh-grade daughter sent him a text message saying she forgot her lunch money. Albee was able to drive to school and deliver the money in time for lunch. It seems funny that he couldn't wire the money to her with his Blackberry, but here's betting that will be possible within in a year or two. The stars of USA Today's story say that they wouldn't be able to lead their full lives if it weren't for the Internet: "James Cudney manages three kids, frequent business trips and up to 15 homeland defense programs for a technology company. His wife, Elaine, works full-time at a top accounting firm and is active in a business club. He's a Cub Scout leader; she's the Scout pack treasurer. They go to church, attend community events and rarely miss school functions. ... 'But I would not be able to be involved if it wasn't for the Internet,' says James Cudney, 41. 'I wouldn't have been able to be the Cubmaster of Pack 152 without e-mail. I don't have time to do traditional phone trees and calendars by hand.'" Technology, the paper suggests, might be repaving the road to civic engagement as more people discover that e-mail, Blackberries and other means of constant communication are filling in potholes such as 18-hour-a-day jobs and other professional commitments. Some experts say these disembodied communications are replacing old-timey Elk and Kiwanis clubs, Moose lodges, Rotaries and other artifacts of social involvement. It's a trend, USA Today said, that grew with public gathering sites like MeetUp.com and MoveOn.org. Technology is especially driving a renaissance in public involvement among community associations, schools, churches and seniors' groups. Here's one example from USA Today: "Jeff and Susan Sanders' Atlanta-area company, AtHomeNet, creates Web sites for homeowners' associations across the country. They started in 1998 and have 2,500 associations as clients. Their reach: more than 650,000 homes. 'It's a nice way for people to get a feel for their neighbors,' Susan Sanders says. 'People create little e-mail lists and get updates.' When a major ice storm hit Pocono Pines, Pa., owners of vacation homes there who are scattered through the Northeast got instant damage reports and photos of their properties via their developments' Web sites. They also could check on retirees who live there year-round to make sure they were OK." It sounds good, but the big question is when will the backlash begin? Remember back around the time that Schor's book came out? It's when nightly news reports were full of human-interest stores about Wall Street yuppies and other refugees of the caffeine and coke era who cashed in their cozy city digs for polished wood and chipped paint in country farmhouses. The people featured in those stories often said they felt like something was missing, and they had to "go back" to find it. I expect the same thing to happen among the ultra-wired of the current generation. Sooner or later, some of them will find that they prefer to eat a blackberry instead of typing on one. Seattle is starting to experience some problems with the wireless Internet access -- or WiFi -- world. Even as the city ranks No. 1 in a new report on "unwired" cities, resistance to the always-wired trend is increasing in the ranks of one of its other homegrown industries: "At least one Capitol Hill coffee shop, frustrated by laptop-lugging table hogs, decided to shut it off on the weekends, and others have limited the hours Wi-Fi is available. Most, however, spend too much time thinking about how to bring more people in to cut off the flow," the Post-Intelligencer reported. The paper said it's not just about people spending too little money and eating too much wireless time, it's about a cold roomful of silent people ignoring one another in favor of their online lives. Here's more about the radical move by Jen Strongin, co-owner of Victrola Coffee & Art: "Strongin never expected that the move, designed to allow more people to cycle through her shop, would spur such intensely polarized reactions, spread through an article written by local wireless expert Glenn Fleishman. 'We never advertised it and never wanted to be an Internet cafe,' Strongin said. 'I am not trying to force people to talk to each other, but now the place feels more lively on the weekends, more like a cafe and less like a library.'" The article also includes a little wishful thinking from reporter Kristen Millares Bolt: "If Wi-Fi customers treat their cafes well by buddying up at tables and plunking down some cash every 45 minutes, then those cafes will continue to cough up the money every month to keep their wireless up and running. But if more weekend Web monkeys keep clogging up Seattle's favorite cafes with nary a thought to the owner's bottom line, they might see the coffee hot spots cool down. Shoot, people might even start buying the paper again." Confessions of a Dangerous Blog Have you seen the recent stories about the Web log for secret confessions? The site is Post Secret and it works like this: People describe their dark secrets and peccadilloes on a postcard and drop it in the snail mail. The blogmaster then posts the submissions for the world to see. Ivor Tossell in the Toronto Globe and Mail writes that the idea is gaining ground as a new darling in the publishing world: "Public self-flagellation hasn't been this hot since the Middle Ages. Because the Web is both anonymous and sinful, the idea of the Internet confessional is only natural. ... And you can tell it's become a bit of a fad when publishing companies are getting in on the action. For instance, the venerable notproud.com takes anonymous confessions and files them under the seven deadly sins. Now, Simon & Schuster Inc. has published a compilation of their best entries. And after last year's U.S. presidential election, the site sorryeverybody.com solicited photos of Americans holding signs that apologized to the world for having re-elected George W. Bush. It took off. Thousands of submissions poured in, and not long ago the compilation book turned up at Indigo." Tossell suggests that this inevitable progression from spontaneous blog to the rough draft of a mass-market paperback trounced the notion of these Web sites acting as accurate reflections of what the "common man" thinks. He cites Post Secret as his proof: "Instead, you get artfully prepared entries from people who obviously have a knack for it. (Angst and artists, together at last. Who'da thunk it?) On Post Secret, the whiff of talent crushes the Web's democratic ideal. It might amuse the site's curators to be accused of art, but it's what they've got on their hands." Confessions of a Dangerous List The Christian Science Monitor today ran an article on the "43 Things" Web site, another online agora for people to share something besides their deepest, darkest secrets -- their to-do lists. Some of the items up there now? "Pass the CPA exam," "Live in another country," "Be Jewish," "Love without fear" and "spend an entire day watching the extended version of all three Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back-to-back." The Monitor says people from more than 2,500 cities have posted such lists. Among the most popular goals: Stop procrastinating at 1,705 members. Switching to the Firefox browser ranks as the top most-achieved goal. Who knew? Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com.

Technology is fueling a rebirth in American civic life, at least according to the ultra-wired suburbanites who run their own businesses, manage their local scout troop and organize the church bake sale via Blackberry. So when does the backlash begin?

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Bush, Blair Agree on Aid For African Famine Relief

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President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who forged a close and complicated relationship over Iraq, agreed yesterday to increase financial assistance to developing African nations suffering from famine, AIDS and war. But the two leaders parted ways over how much money rich nations should provide to Africa and how they should ease global warming. In their first visit together at the White House since winning reelection in campaigns dominated by Iraq and U.S. foreign policy, Bush and Blair trumpeted a new U.S. plan to spend $674 million more on famine relief and said a deal to erase millions of dollars owed by poor African nations is imminent. "Helping those who suffer and preventing the senseless death of millions of people in Africa is a central commitment of my administration's foreign policy," Bush told reporters. Bush, however, refused to endorse Blair's more ambitious plan to double aid from rich nations to $25 billion each year and $50 billion annually starting in 2015. Instead, Bush promised more U.S. money and a deal on debt relief at next month's economic summit of the world's seven wealthiest nations and Russia, known as the Group of Eight (G-8), which Blair will host in Scotland. "We know there's a lot more to do," Blair said. In a news conference that highlighted their complex alliance, Blair defended Bush over the "Downing Street memo," in which a top British official alleged in 2002 that the United States was manipulating intelligence to justify a military invasion of Iraq. The memo surfaced in the British media last month. "The facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all," Blair said. This was neither the first time Blair has rushed to Bush's defense on Iraq nor the only time the president did not reciprocate by providing the prime minister complete cover back home. Blair's unwavering support for toppling Saddam Hussein proved instrumental in Bush's war planning. The prime minister provided thousands of troops, more than any other nation beyond the United States, and, perhaps more important, has offered a passionate intellectual and emotional defense of the war and efforts to create a democracy in Iraq. The friendship almost cost Blair an unprecedented third term this year. The war remains very unpopular in Britain and a source of controversy and distraction for Blair's ruling Labor Party, which sustained heavy losses in the parliamentary elections. The British tabloids frequently lampoon the prime minister as Bush's "poodle" who gets little in return for the support Britain gives to the United States. While sensitive to Blair's domestic problems, Bush often stops short of meeting the prime minister's political needs. When the two leaders met in April 2004, for instance, Bush praised Blair's support for the Iraq war but broke with the prime minister over the Middle East peace process, including the disposition of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Many Britons saw Bush's position as a setback for Blair. Yesterday, both said they were committed to negotiating a peace deal that would create a Palestinian state. This time, the White House leaked word of Bush's plan to announce increased aid to Africa the night before Blair arrived as way to divert attention away from the president's refusal to back Blair's more ambitious plan to dramatically increase global financial assistance to Africa. But the prime minister still made clear that he would have liked more. The plight of Africans is taking center stage in international politics, as Blair travels the world asking rich nations to double aid; U2 and other bands plan a summer music tour highlighting AIDS and famine epidemics; and atrocities in Sudan command the attention of lawmakers, Christian activists close to the White House and the news media. Bush is often criticized for not doing enough -- both to stop what he calls a genocide in Sudan and provide more money to supply medication and other assistance to people with AIDS and food for the needy. The Bush administration has tripled aid to Africa to $3.2 billion in 2004 and promised several billion more annually through the "Millennium Challenge" account, though that money has yet to be delivered. The president has also pledged almost $3 billion in annual AIDS relief, most of which will go to Africa. The new $674 million commitment, which comes from money already approved by Congress for humanitarian relief, would mainly provide food to Ethiopia, Eritrea and a few other African nations threatened by famine. The White House said this money should provide food for 14 million people. Several advocacy groups said the amount of money is insufficient unless it is coupled with debt relief and additional financial assistance. "I see we've got a fantastic opportunity, presuming that the countries in Africa make the right decisions. Nobody wants to give money to a country that's corrupt, where leaders take money and put it in their pocket," Bush said. On global warming, Bush and Blair did not appear to make much progress. Bush has long opposed the 1997 Kyoto treaty that the United States refused to ratify. Blair, who plans to make the issue a key topic at the G-8 summit, wants world leaders to agree on the science of climate change and to lead an immediate worldwide effort to find solutions. "I think everyone knows there are different perspectives on this issue," he said. Climate change was a key topic of a British Embassy breakfast Blair held for a bipartisan group of senators yesterday, with some Democrats urging him to lobby Bush more forcefully on the matter. Toward the end of the hour-long meeting, Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) told Blair he had the best chance of persuading the president to embrace mandatory carbon dioxide emission cuts. "More than anyone sitting around this breakfast table, our president owes you a great deal," Carper told him. "I would not be shy about reminding him of that fact." If he did, it did not appear to work. Bush, who has challenged studies suggesting man-made pollutants are causing Earth's temperatures to rise, said: "In terms of climate change, I've always said it's a serious long-term issue that needs to be dealt with." Staff writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who forged a close and complicated relationship over Iraq, agreed yesterday to increase financial assistance to developing African nations suffering from famine, AIDS and war. But the two leaders parted ways over how much money rich nations...

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The Rollback of Democracy In Vladimir Putin's Russia

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On a cold afternoon in the winter of 2004, Vladimir Putin summoned his long-serving prime minister to his Kremlin office. "Unfortunately," Putin told him, "I have to fire you." Mikhail Kasyanov was stunned. The Russian president gave no reason for the abrupt dismissal. Facing a national vote on his reelection just two weeks away, Putin had chosen a surprising time to shift governments. As he absorbed the news, Kasyanov assumed he would have to leave after the election. No, Putin corrected the prime minister. "I mean now." The power of paranoia had gripped the Kremlin. For four years, the men around Putin had done everything possible to guarantee that no one could challenge his authority. The government had taken over national television, emasculated the power of the country's governors, converted parliament into a rubber stamp, jailed the main financier of the political opposition and intimidated the most potent would-be challengers from entering the race. The Kremlin had proved so successful in eliminating competition that Putin's token competitors were now plotting to drop out en masse to protest the manipulation. And Putin's aides feared such a move could result in turnout on election day falling below the legal minimum. If that happened, the prime minister would become president for a month before a new election, putting him potentially in a position to do to Putin what Putin had done to his rivals -- a remote prospect but still untenable for a leader who believed no detail of democracy was too small to be managed. "In his mentality," one senior Putin aide said later, "every risk should be minimized to zero." The risk posed by Kasyanov no longer seemed acceptable four years into Putin's rule. By now, the fledgling democracy of the post-Soviet era had been transformed into a system meant to serve one master. The revolution that Boris Yeltsin had started when he helped bring down the Soviet Union in 1991, however flawed, however unfinished, had been ended by his handpicked successor, a man drawn from the ranks of the old KGB. "The Russian people," Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, regularly told colleagues behind closed doors, "are not ready for democracy." This account of Putin's rise to power and his campaign to consolidate authority in his Kremlin was drawn from interviews with dozens of Russian political figures, including Putin advisers who had rarely spoken to Western journalists before. Out of fear of retribution, many of them shared their insights on the condition that they not be named. Putin, now 52, had come to office promising stability after a decade of dislocation. But in 2004, four years later, his Russia was a country of contrasts, with a booming economy floating on oil and with political space for dissent rapidly disappearing. Creeping crises threatened the future, whether a demographic collapse fueled by alcoholism and AIDS that could slice the Russian population by a third in coming decades or the blood-feud war in Chechnya that had left hundreds of thousands dead, injured or homeless and spawned a wave of horrific terrorism. But Putin was running for reelection with soothing words for his tired nation. His prime minister was as unpopular with the public as Putin was popular, and there would be no ballot-box consequences if he were jettisoned. "The time of uncertainty and anxious expectations is past," Putin had told voters in his one and only campaign appearance. Physically, Vladimir Putin was hardly a dominating figure in any room, a relatively slight man at 5 foot 9, rail-thin with a retreating hairline, hard eyes and a strained, joyless smile. In keeping with his KGB training, he had a skill for listening and taking on the persona desired by his interlocutors. But Putin was not a born president. He commanded no mass following, articulated no grand vision for his country, had never been elected to public office. At the moment when Yeltsin publicly anointed him his chosen successor in 1999, polls showed his popularity rating at just 2 percent. He was the creation of one of the most extraordinary political projects in history -- "Project Putin," as some of those in the Kremlin came to call the effort they were enlisted to run.

This article is adapted from "Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution," published today by Scribner. Physically, Vladimir Putin was hardly a dominating figure in any room, a relatively slight man at 5 foot 9, rail-thin with a retreating hairline, hard eyes and a... By...

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"Kremlin Rising": Putin's Power

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The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union brought with it great hopes for Russian democracy. In recent years, however, the prospects have faded as President Vladimir Putin has consolidated power over the press, economic assets and electoral politics. Washington Post reporters Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, who spent four years as bureau chiefs in Moscow, tell of Putin's reversal of post-Soviet reforms while chronicling the impact on Russian citizens in their new book "Kremlin Rising." To what extent has Russia reverted to Soviet-style authoritarianism? What is the outlook for Russia under Putin and his potential successors? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, authors of "Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution," were online to discuss Putin's power and the threat to Russian democracy. Read an excerpt from "Kremlin Rising": The Rollback of Democracy in Vladimir Putin's Russia. "Kremlin Rising" was released on June 7. Potomac, Md.: Your portrayal of Putin is quite harsh. How do you square that with polls showing he is very popular? If democracy is the goal, isn't that the highest form of democracy? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Hi, thanks everybody for joining us. We're thrilled to have the chance to hash through some of the interesting issues raised by President Putin and Russia today. The questioner is absolutely right of course that Putin is very popular; our book attempts to explain why that is, but also to look at how the Kremlin has shaped public opinion in the first place. After the 1990's, even the word "democracy" was discredited in Russia; Putin is very very skillful at playing off that sentiment. Fontana, Calif.: What connection, if any, do you see with Solzhenitsyn's recent interview, and the events unfolding within Putin's Kremlin ? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Very interesting idea... for those who haven't seen it, the famous Soviet gulag survivor Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was interviewed over the weekend. Told Russian TV that Russian democracy isn't in jeopardy because there is no such thing as Russian democracy -- in essence, this is really the line that Putin himself and his aides take. In fact, in our book we quote Putin ex-chief of staff Voloshin telling colleagues in private, "the Russian people are not ready for democracy." This is a key to understanding Kremlin thinking. Chesapeake Beach, Md.: Do you think the Secretary of State is too "Moscow-centric" in her dealings with Russia? She seems to focus too much on the capitol, and less so out on the rest of the country. Couldn't the U.S. start to deal more with regional authorities to lessen Putin's influence, such as the governor of Tartastan or some of the other areas? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Interesting notion, but probably impossible in the very top-down state Russia inherited from the Soviet Union (and the tsars for that matter). Tatarstan, where we've been several times, is a great example of a regional fiefdom under Shamiyev but he has had to cede much power to Moscow in order to stay in office under Putin. Silver Spring, Md.: Do you think Putin will leave office at the end of his current term, or amend the Constitution to allow him a third? Or is it more likely that he will sit on the sidelines and plot for 4 years and then run again in 2012? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Excellent question. Really it's the number one topic among the Moscow elites, who call it the 2008 question. Putin has said he will not seek a third term or amend the constitution but it's also hard to imagine that he and his team would have done so much to reconsolidate power in the Kremlin only to give it up after eight years. That's given rise to scenarios like the one you suggest... Stay tuned. Washington, D.C.: Thank you so much for your time--I've long admired the quality on your reporting on Russia for The Post and look forward to reading your book. I have two questions. First, do you think that the decline of Russian democracy has shaped Moscow's reaction to recent the political changes throughout the post-Soviet region? Second, do you believe that those changes in Georgia, Ukraine, and in several Central Asian republics will effect Russia in 2008, when President Putin is scheduled to leave office? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Thanks so much for the question. On the post-Soviet space, Russia still feels very proprietary about its periphery. And Putin seemed genuinely surprised that he could not influence the outcome of last year's Ukrainian election the way he has so many elections at home -- exporting "managed democracy" turned out not to work, at least in this case. But reaction in Russia might not be the same, in fact many Russians across the political spectrum still seem to harbor resentment about the collapse of empire. Fontana, California: Concerning your comment on Solzhenitsyn: However, Solzhenitsyn is quite scathing in his criticism of Putin's policies. Can these seemingly diametrically opposed views be reconciled? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Sure. You can have a similar analysis of whether Russia is a democracy or not, but at the same time take very different views about how Putin is actually running the country. Historically, Solzhenitsyn has been relatively supportive of Putin, perhaps seeing in him a fellow "Great Russia" patriot. Washington, D.C.: "... to create the image of United Russia and to destroy the Communists." I found that "mission statement" to be quite profound, considering that the KGB and its "siloviki" were once the ultimate protectors of Communist ideology and cause!!! (Sigh). Great article, I enjoyed reading it. Along the context of the changing Russian political scenery, can you give us your your insight on Putin's relationships with the U.S., specifically with President Bush? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Thanks for the comments. Interesting to note that the KGB veterans we talked to for the book were at pains to portray themselves not as the upholders of Communist ideology but as the neutral "servants of the state." And that's how many view Putin -- not interested in resurrecting the Communist part of the Soviet Union but in restoring its superpower status. Washington, D.C.: Peter and Susan, I was wondering if you could offer your perceptions of the Bush/Putin relationship. It seems to me that Putin plays Bush like a fiddle, understanding that he can get what he wants if he flatters the man and makes him feel grand and important. What would Bush have seen had he truly peered into Putin's soul? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: The Bush-Putin relationship has evolved from that first, very generous view, "soul"gazing and all that. Now it seems to be much more skeptical. But Bush, having basically embraced Putin in the past, finds himself in the tricky position of being stuck with the his dance partner. And Russia right now is not exactly the center of the administration's attention Arlington, Va.: Many of the more alarmist prognoses for Russia warn of a return to Stalinist rule. But it seems to me that the model Putin is aiming for is not Stalin but Deng Xia Peng. Having decided that trying to achieve political democratization and market reform simultaneously is a pipedream, he is trying to turn the clock back to 1988, not 1938, in hopes that market reforms can be implemented more slowly without all that pesky democracy. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Yes, China is always the model that Moscow elites were wistfully citing to us, as the road not taken. Of course, it's too late to go down that path, the democracy genie is out of the bottle, there was 1991 and the fall of the Berlin wall not Tiananmen. But certainly that's what Putin and his aides would have preferred (and seem in a way to be trying to emulate now, to the extent that they can). Washington, D.C.: Do you think there are any powers in Russia to oppose Mr. Putin? Are there any leaders who could be the next president? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: No. At least not that anyone can see at the moment. Kennesaw, Ga.: It sounds rather less as if democracy in Russia is being rolled back than as if it was a seed planted in very shallow soil that sprouted briefly and is now dying. I've only read The Post's excerpt from your book, not the book itself. However, it appears that at no time did Putin's drive for power encounter anything like serious public opposition, only scattered opposition from Yeltsin former entourage, regional political figures and the oligarchs. Which leads to this question, pertaining to how American should relate to Russia's new reality: From the time of the Soviet Union's dissolution American government officials have spoken as if Communism was dead, at least outside of the Russian Communist Party. Is this wise? Putin's rise and regime are unthinkable without the legacy left in every aspect of Russian society by Soviet Communism, and I wonder whether it does not make sense to regard this legacy as an enemy that has still to be fought and killed. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Well, we hope you do read the book... Your insights strike us as very thoughtful and on point. Russia never came to terms with its past, never genuinely disavowed the Soviet legacy -- without that sort of a truth and reconciliation process, Russia seems trapped in a debate over history and the ghosts of Stalinism still loom large. Though, in reality, there's surprisingly little open debate even on this. Moscow, Russia: How different do you think Russia would have turned out if Putin had allowed a system more open to criticism and choice? He has always been genuinely popular, and Russians' praise for his policies can be very heartfelt. He may be centralizing power, but it's not always clear that a more participatory government would have chosen a very different path. Let me start to answer my own question to show you what I'm thinking. I personally suspect that (a) Chechnya would be a different, hopefully better place if the press had been more free to comment on the awful situation there, and rally public opinion for a political solution, (b) I don't think Ukraine's and Georgia's current governments would be as wary or hostile if they found at least a few like-minded individuals in the Duma and in the administration, (c) the problems with monetization of social benefits perhaps could have been headed off if they had been discussed more by advisers who were more willing to tell the emperor that he had no clothes. What other examples are there? I've lived in Moscow twelve of the past fourteen years, working with refugees and human rights. This country has big problems. I sometimes find it difficult to pick apart the effects of policies from the effects of the past twenty (hundred?) years. I admire both your efforts and your results! Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Dear Mark in Moscow, What a tantalizing what-if scenario... You are absolutely right about Putin's genuine popularity (how many babushkas have you met who praised him to the heavens for his sober youthfulness?), but at the same time we had so many people tell us there was no meaningful alternative to Putin they could ever consider and therefore no point in criticizing his policies. Best summed up for us in case of an underwear salesman in Nizhny Novgorod who voted for Putin, didn't like any of his policies and told us, "For 1500 years the government has been blaming us just for living in Russia." Fairfax, Va.: Why doesn't Putin better understand the U.S.? For instance, during a recent meeting with the press he claimed that the U.S. government had a role in forcing Dan Rather to retire from the evening news. That seems like a very fundamental misperception and not one you would normally expect from the leader of a powerful country that has been closely watching the U.S. for decades. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Yes, an interesting thing to pick up on. We tell a story in our book about a Bush Putin meeting where Putin accused the US of maintaining two separate sets of chicken plants -- one to make the "bad" chicken for Russia, the other making "good" chicken for America. "Vladimir, you're wrong," Bush said. But he couldn't convince him. Washington, D.C.: You suggest Putin has "rolled back" democracy in Russia. This, of course, begs the question of whether there was any democracy to be rolled back. As one questioner already noted, Solzhenitsyn just made this very point. You quote Voloshin as saying the people are not ready for democracy, but Voloshin was Yeltsin's chief of staff as well. In any case, it seems to me the real issue is not what Putin's goals may or may not be, but why can't he implement them or propose any kind of coherent national strategy. Several reasons come to mind: corruption, organized crime, continual fights over property--and these are not unique to Putin's tenure. Your thoughts? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Certainly a fair point -- many people have noted that Yeltin, especially by the end, was no pure democrat and nor were many of the "young reformers" like Chubais, who took an almost Bolshevik like view of means and ends. But what's striking about the Putin presidency is the direction it's heading; even the fiction of the democratic experiment is over and now the Kremlin doesn't even define it in those terms. Stratford, N.J.: Were there any significant repercussions in Moscow from Putin's backing of the now-defeated Yanukovich during the Ukrainian election drama, aside from embarrassment? Is Putin "untouchable" domestically? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Ukraine fallout is a fascinating issue. Kremlin was certainly worried -- even set up its own proxy youth group, called "Nashi" (Ours), in case they needed to counter street protests as happened in Ukraine. But so far there's no real massive grassroots action in Russia. And what some Russian democrats felt Ukraine showed the passivity of the Russian population, which they could not imagine turning out in numbers comparable to those in the streets of Kyiv. Washington, D.C.: I'm a U.S. citizen and I was in St. Petersburg last year and was stunned at the police's thug mentality: in the span of one week, I was approached and very physically interrogated on the street for no cognizable reason. Russians I spoke with tell me that I was actually lucky -- they live in constant fear of the police. Putin's justification for the crack-down, they say, is terrorism. In your opinion, do not the current trends in Russia remind you of what happened at the turn of the 20th century, when Tsar Nicolas II, in response to terrorist threats, clamped down on civil liberties (such as they were). And it seems that Putin's paranoia rivals Lenin's after the revolution. Thoughts? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: First on the police -- an unfortunate omnipresent reality in Russia today, particularly if you are not Slavic looking in appearance. At the same time, the police are so widely held to be corrupt and ineffective at preventing terrorism, Chechen guerrillas regularly taunt Russians that their terrorist attacks wouldn't be possible if the police weren't so easily bribed to let them into places like the Beslan school. Second, on the historical comparison to the age of Nicholas II, one difference is that the economic deprivation of that time was so stark and for the moment at least oil has managed to float the economy and raise overall a standard of living battered sorely in the 1990's. Acton, Mass.: Well, it looks like Putin was battling Russia's Communist party all along, same as Boris Yeltsin. Why is this bad? Also, was not Khodorkovsky's support for Communists, and pipeline to China project moves directed against U.S. interests in Eurasia? How is his downfall a bad thing in itself, if he tried to buy factions in the Duma and control Russia's lawmakers? About Kasyanov: What can you say about his 'nickname' Misha 2%, supposedly earned when he was arranging Russia's Paris Club deals? Is not it bad when prime minister is widely suspected of corruption and bribery? I mean, maybe there were other reasons to fire him, but if he was so openly corrupt his days were numbered anyway. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Taking Kasyanov first, we'd point out that he wasn't fired for being corrupt but for being a potential threat and member of the losing faction of an internal Kremlin power struggle. But absolutely one of the reasons Putin maintains his popularity is because of a general perception that others in politics are far more tainted than he. On Khodorkovsky, our reporting suggested that Putin's anger was focused on his grand political aspirations rather than any concern about 1990's fraud and tax evasion. And no one thinks that Khodorkovsky wanted to bring Communism back to Russia; if he was bankrolling Communist candidates that was to get votes in the Duma for his agenda, not theirs. Washington, D.C. File under strange but true-- Putin's allegation of the U.S. sending "bad" chicken to Russia is not just an indication of his paranoia. Russian meat packers buy unwanted dark meat from the U.S. (where we love our boneless-skinless chicken breast) and white meat from China (where they prefer the tasty, fatty legs) and combine the two back into "whole" chickens for the Russian market. So yes, Russia does get our cast-off chicken. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Sure. And they call them "Bush legs." But the interesting point to us is Putin's apparent belief in the existence of actual segregated factories to ship the bad stuff to Russia. Bethesda, Md.: You portray Putin as a strict autocrat, almost a control freak, especially in terms of his public image. Is this because he feels/is insecure in his power (despite his high ratings)? Where might his fear of weakness come from? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: When Putin was young he idolized a popular spy series called "The Sword and the Shield." In it the hero, a KGB agent, says "my ambition is to have as few people as possible to order me around and to have the right to command as many as possible." Putin seemed to remember that when he took over as president. When an interviewer asked him what he liked about being in the Kremlin he said, "Nobody controls me here. I control everybody myself." Arlington, Va.: What are the contributions Russia has made and is making to the War on Terror effort? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Good question. The Bush administration constantly cites this as a justification for continued close relations with Putin even at a time of democratic rollback, but there have been few public and substantive examples of what this cooperation yields since the early days after 9/11 when Russia did a significant favor to the U.S. by allowing American troops in to Central Asia. Long Beach, Calif.: Voloshin is quite right, I'm afraid. The Russian people have greater respect for Russian power and image in the world than they do individual freedoms. A top topic of debate in my home. My Russian wife's favorite retort: "What freedom? Here (U.S.) we are slaves to the economic engine, with no health care, no child care for working parents, little old age security... we (the former Soviet Union) had all those things!" It doesn't bother her that she needed an internal passport to travel between Russian cities, that she couldn't leave the country without great scrutiny (and even then only to countries within the bloc), or that class privileges (read for party members) were alive and well in the "communist utopia". Russians are very patriotic people, they want Russian spoken, they want their views to be the correct ones, and they want a leader who projects these things. Remind you of any other late 20th century super-power? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Yes, we've heard this debate before as well... even among our dinner guests in Moscow. Munich, Germany: One of my thoughts is that Russia as a democracy would never have a chance to rein in corruption and dismantle the powerful Russian Mafia. On the other hand, are there any signs that Putin is catering to either one of these Russian facts-of-life (corruption and Mafia)? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Sure. One school of thought holds that Putin has not so much taken on the oligarchy as created his own oligarchs. Corruption is such a fact of life in Russia at every level -- remember the suicide bomber who bribed her way onto the plane last year in Moscow for the low low price of $34. Fontana, Calif.: Concerning Ukraine's effect on Russia: But isn't the situation in both countries quite different? Kuchma was quite unpopular, Putin is quite popular. Why would thousands of Russians have an Orange Revolution in Russia if they seem to be basically satisfied with what he's doing, especially their perception of his cracking down on corruption, excesses of the oligarchs, etc.? This is quite different from Kuchma's reputation. Shouldn't perhaps the so-called "democrats" in Russia be more concerned about building grass-roots democracy, in trying to get in touch with the people, than in bickering among themselves and complaining about all the freedoms they don't have? Does this smack of a certain amount of elitism on the part of the so-called democrats? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Absolutely. The "democrats" in Russia are generally speaking a very elitist group. Remember this was the crowd whose main campaign ad on television in 2003 showed its three leaders on board a private jet, soaring high above the everyday Russia in cream leather seats... Washington, D.C.: While Putin is certainly consolidating economic and political power, how much reach does this power have into Russian's everyday lives? Does the current regime have the resources and support to really monitor what is happening in all the provinces as in the real "big brother" days of the Soviet Union, or can ordinary folk-- loyal, dissident, or criminal-- pretty much go about their lives? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Yes, life goes on. You can tell a mean joke about Putin (or sign on a web site, www.vladimirvladimirovich.ru for harsh satire on the guy) without worrying about being hauled in by the KGB the next day. This is neo-Soviet, not Soviet. The main focus is on people with genuine potential to act as rivals in the political sphere or challenge the Kremlin's monopoly on power -- media, business, politicians, courts, etc. Wheaton, Md.: So far, Putin has failed to bring Islamic terrorism under control. Does this show he may not be as powerful as believed? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: This was a line of criticism of Putin after last year's horrific Beslan massacre of schoolchildren. For all his power, it's clear he not only does not have absolute control but many argue that his prosecution of the war in Chechnya has only radicalized a new generation of terrorists. Then again, the opposition needs to have credibility to make that case. And right now they don't. Washington, D.C.: Thanks for the insightful coverage of Putin and Russia. What are the prospects for democracy when Putin is no longer president? How much do the prospects for true democracy in Russia depend on WHO is president, and how much do they depend on other factors (pre-established institutions, the Russian people's desire -- or lack thereof -- for democracy, etc.)? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Russia has almost always been a top down society, so it does matter who's at the top. At the moment Russians don't seem inclined to protest the changes in the country under Putin. So a radical course change seems unlikely. Then again, Russia is a birthplace of revolutions, and this may be the historical ebb to that flow. Washington, D.C.: Fascinating excerpt; looking forward to reading the book. As I read it, however, I was struck by certain parallels with the Bush administration -- paranoia, consolidation of power, etc. In particular, the sentence beginning "The government had taken over national television, emasculated the power of the country's governors, converted parliament into a rubber stamp . . ." really seemed quite similar to what's happening now in the U.S.. As you wrote the book, were you struck by the same observations and, if so, what do you think the experience in Russia under Putin might say about our future in this country under Bush and/or his Republican progeny? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Thanks for the comment. Lots of these Bush comparisons, not sure whether they're warranted -- always dangerous to throw in the apples and the oranges. Harrisburg, Pa.: What are most likely scenarios you see Russia taking in a post-Putin period, and what are the major factors that will determine which of the paths Russia will end up taking? Peter Baker and Susan Glasser: Thank you all for the great questions today -- we're heartened that there seems to be so much interest in Russia and its future course. For us, one telling window into that future was the time we spent with a high school history class in Moscow which upended many of our preconceived notions. Instead of a nostalgic Soviet vintage teacher with new generations kids pushing for capitalist opportunity, we found a class where the majority thought "Lenin was right after all" and that Russia needed to revert to its authoritarian history. In the end, the teacher told us of her students, "they're not really for democracy but at least their brains are moving." Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.

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E-Mails Detail Air Force Push for Boeing Deal

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For the past three years, the Air Force has described its $30 billion proposal to convert passenger planes into military refueling tankers and lease them from Boeing Co. as an efficient way to obtain aircraft the military urgently needs. But a very different account of the deal is shown in an August 2002 internal e-mail exchange among four senior Pentagon officials. "We all know that this is a bailout for Boeing," Ronald G. Garant, an official of the Pentagon comptroller's office, said in a message to two others in his office and then-Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Wayne A. Schroeder. "Why don't we just bite the bullet," he asked, and handle the acquisition like the procurement of a 1970s-era aircraft -- by squeezing the manufacturer to provide a better tanker at a decent cost? "We didn't need those aircraft either, but we didn't screw the taxpayer in the process," Garant added, referring to widespread sentiment at the Pentagon that the proposed lease of Boeing 767s would cost too much for a plane with serious shortcomings. Garant's candid advice, which top Air Force officials did not follow, is disclosed for the first time in a new 256-page report by the Pentagon's inspector general. It provides an extraordinary glimpse of how the Air Force worked hand-in-glove with one of its chief contractors -- the financially ailing Boeing -- to help it try to obtain the most costly government lease ever. The inspector general's report, slated for release today at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, adds a new dimension to what Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) have already called one of the most significant military contracting abuses in several decades. Already, the scandal has resulted in prison terms for former Air Force principal deputy assistant secretary Darlene A. Druyun, and a senior Boeing official, Michael M. Sears. Besides documenting precisely who was responsible, the new report details the Air Force's vigorous efforts on Boeing's behalf. It also shows how Air Force leaders and Boeing officials jointly manipulated legislation to authorize the deal and later sought to suppress dissenting opinion throughout the Pentagon. After interviewing 88 people and reading hundreds of thousands of pages of e-mails, the inspector general's office concluded that four top Air Force officials and one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's former top aides, Undersecretary of Defense Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge, violated Pentagon and government-wide procurement rules, failed to use "best business practices," ignored a legal requirement for weapons testing and failed to ensure that the tankers would meet the military's requirements. The report also connects Rumsfeld to policymaking on the lease, recounting a statement by former Air Force secretary James G. Roche that Rumsfeld had called him in Newport, R.I., in July 2003 to say "he did not want me to budge on the tanker lease proposal," despite criticism. Earlier, after Roche made what he acknowledged was a "special pleading" for the lease at a key meeting with Rumsfeld on Jan. 31, 2003, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita jokingly said "that my comments 'were brought to you by the Boeing Company,' " Roche later told Air Force Chief of Staff John P. Jumper in an e-mail. "I didn't rip his heart out," Roche added. Air Force spokesman Douglas Karas said he could not comment on the report in detail until it has been officially released. He said, however, that "we've learned from this experience" and will apply the lessons to future procurement of large weapons systems. Di Rita and Rumsfeld were in Thailand yesterday. A Boeing spokesman said the company could not comment on a report it has not read. The Pentagon and Congress ultimately killed the lease deal. Pentagon officials have noted that the department is now conducting special oversight of Air Force weapons-buying, in part because of the problems with the Boeing deal.

Report shows how Air Force leaders and Boeing officials jointly manipulated congressional legislation to authorize a tanker deal and later sought to suppress dissenting opinion throughout the Pentagon.

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Finland Diary

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Washington Post associate editor Robert G. Kaiser and Post staff photographer Lucian Perkins have been touring Finland for the past few weeks. Their goal: to find out why this rarely noticed little country has the world's best educational system, produces talented musicians and architects and has more cell phones per capita than Japan or America. Kaiser and Perkins have been chronicling their trip for washingtonpost.com in Finland Diary . Kaiser and Perkins were online live from Finland Tuesday, June 7, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss their trip, what they've learned and answers questions about Finland. Elmhurst, Ill.: More a comment than question. First, thank you, thank you, thank you for covering another region in a way that penetrates superficial stereotypes. As for drawing comparisons between the U.S. and Finland. Despite unique differences, every society faces universal questions about economic survival, technology, work, housing, family, marriage, childbearing, childrearing, education, healthcare, care for the aged and disabled, violence, criminal behavior, national defense, pollution, immigration/emigration, etc. It is fascinating to me how different countries confront these issues. Instead of seeing any successful alternatives as a criticism of our American way doing things, why not look at these solutions as a databank of ideas and experiments we could explore to our advantage? Robert G. Kaiser: Boy do I agree with you! This is a good way to start our chat. Lucian and I are both in our temporary Helsinki home, a flat on Tehtankatu, a very pleasant street in an upper-middle class part of town. Out our window it's after 8; the sun is still pretty high in the sky. In a few weeks it will be light virtually all night.We look out at the sea, down a nice street. Trams rumble past us. It's a great location. Americans do tend to think they invented the wheel. They didn't, by the way. I knew before we got here, from reading and interviewing in Washington, that we would see that Finns do some things a lot better than we do. One of them is clean the air. There are a couple of gigantic smokestacks above Helsinki's coal-burning power stations that are running all the time, giving us the hottest hot water I have ever experienced. (The city's heat and hot water all comes from central plants.) I have stared and stared at the tops of those smokestacks, but never seen a whisp of smoke. The Finnish clean air requirements apparently make it so clean it's invisible. Pattijoki, Finland: Are you going to go to a Finnish baseball game? It's our national sport and not really played anywhere else. And it's completely different from American baseball. A lot more tactical and a lot less boring. At least HyvinkÒ.ear Helsinki has a good team. Lucian Perkins: I did watch and photograph kids playing baseball. They were having a great time. And you are right, it is very different from American baseball. Unfortunately,our schedule never quite fit with the "game time." St. Augustine, Fla.: Finland is much more gender-equal than the U.S. How does this affect Finnish women? In other words, how are Finnish women different from American women? Robert G. Kaiser: actually I have concluded that this is not the case. We have pursued the issue, and have concluded that gender equity in Finland still has a way to go. Pay scales are revealing; women earn, on average, about 20 percent less than men in Finland. (They earn less in most places.) We were entertained in four or five Finnish homes, and never saw the man in the kitchen. I'd say today's Finnish women are in about the same position as the well-educated women in America--my two grown daughters, for example. They do not feel constrained by gender stereotypes, they have career opportunities in many fields that were closed, or nearly so, to their mother, but they also live beneath a glass ceiling that still limits how far they can go--not as individuals, but as a group. Arlington, Va.: I am a Finn who has lived overseas for the majority of my life, but I still love my country. My question is this: What have you learned about the travel habits of Finns and/or their mobility overseas? Like many other Northern Europeans, many Finns love to travel south on holidays. Also, in the U.S., for example, there are pockets of Finns of various generations, such as in Lake Worth and Lantana, Florida. Lucian Perkins: Almost everyone we have talked to has traveled to Europe at the very least. What I found interesting was the amount of people, mostly the younger generation in Helsinki, who said that they have not traveled much in their own country. In some ways I suspect it is more exciting for them to jump over to Europe than to travel north. Hancock, Mich.: Are you going to go back to Finland in December to do more reports for The Post? Lucian Perkins: We are very grateful that our paper gave us three weeks here already. However, having said that,I would love to come back here in the winter. Just from a photographic point of view, it would add another dimension to the story of Finland. I might even jump into an ice covered lake--though not until after a very hot sauna Tampere, Finland: Hi, Some people say that Finland is the most american country in the world.Have you noticed if it is true? Does Robert G.Kaiser cheer for the Washington Capitals, because I read he has been interested hockey since he was young. Robert G. Kaiser: No, America is the most American country in the world. But Finns and Americans do have a lot in common. I confess I am indifferent to the Caps, and really to the NHL. I would rather watch Finland play Sweden or the Czech Republic. Our hockey has too many fights, too little art. I think the northern European version is better. Of course, a lot of the players in both venues are the same. Espoo, Finland: The reporter's job is to do the topic interesting. Answer please simply: could you think to live let's say in Helsinki for a long period of time and expect a joyful life! (the weather is usually better that you have now experienced) Charlotte, N.C.: I noticed there were many critical comments and differing opinions in the "comments" sections from Finns or people who have been to Finland, have you red them how have these comments influence you? I personally thought it was interesting to see a the internal political dialogue going on in Finland and also to see, that things like education and social welfare are actually hotly contested political issues, with the government actually getting rid of some of the things you reported on. Robert G. Kaiser: thanks for this question. Yes there are big disagreements here about some issues, but they occur within a remarkably strong political consensus. We have looked for, and not found, a single sober Finn who thought taxes should be cut by a lot, or wanted kids to pay their way to college, or felt the medical system was either no good or too cheap. But of course, Finns are people and they have disagreements. We have looked at the blog comments, which are fascinating. You've seen that nearly all are from Finns, I think mostly young people. this is great as far as I am concerned. But --as the impression you have gotten from them suggests -- a lot of them are ill informed, or emotional. There have been cuts around the edges of the Finnish welfare state, and there will be more. But it is lavish by our standards, and it will still be lavish after the next round of cuts is made. "Compared to what?" I have learned ovder four decades in journalism, is often the best question. The cuts being made in social programs here are very modest, and will not fundamentally change the system in my view. None of the basic social benefits here is being "gotten rid of." Bethesda, Md.: On the other hand, while you were cavorting about in Finland, your newspaper was busy ignoring further evidence (via the Downing St. memo) that our president fixed the Iraq info around his policies. What's up with that? Robert G. Kaiser: What's up with you? Can you read? Did you read Walter Pincus's excellent journalism on that memo? Washington, D.C.: There has been a lot of bashing the welfare state in the U.S. media after the French and Dutch referendums. After your trip, do you believe that the welfare state is a good idea? By the way, today's papers say that every fourth American has mental problems, more than any other nation on the planet. In my mind this is somehow related... Lucian Perkins: There are trade offs regardless of what system you live under and sometimes the terminology, like the welfare state, mean different things to different countries. The best way I know how to answer this question is to say the the Finnish quality of life is very high. We could learn a lot from it. Espoo, Finland: Have you experienced the strong anti-American sentiment that we see as Americans living in Finland? Robert G. Kaiser: No we have not. We have heard a lot of sharp criticism of American government policy, however, Herndon, Va.: This was a great series of stories! Would it be fair to say that Finland gives an example of a very successful "non-diverse" society? Robert G. Kaiser: Yes it would. I have written a story about exactly this that could run as early as tomorrow, or later in the week. When it runs in the paper it will also appear in the Finland Diary. Naperville, Ill.: Your article about music and the Finnish spirit/soul were right on the mark. As a music teacher who has visited Finland 10 times (soon 11), I am intrigued by the talent of Finnish musicians. They are a dedicated, creative and precise group, no matter what the genre or style of music. I hope you took the time to listen to recordings (or live performances) of Tapiola Children's Choir, HIM, Nightwish, or some of the many classical, jazz or world music groups that you find in abundance all over Finland. Folk festivals abound, as do jazz festivals (most notably the Pori Jazz Fest in July). Listening to music is a favorite pasttime, but active participation also seems to be big in Finland. Even if it is just a group of Finns standing around the fire, beer ja makkara in hand, singing folk songs of their country, it is music from the heart, soul, and spirit of these fascinating people. It is a soulful music whose power and strength (sisu) also become part of your own heart and spirit. Robert G. Kaiser: Thanks for this good posting. We'll do a little more about music here before the diary is finished, but we could have devoted the whole thing to that rich subject. your post helps. I agree with it entirely. Goose Creek, S.C.: Prior to joining the European Union, Finland was pretty isolated with regards to allowing guest workers, refugees, etc., into Finland. They also held pretty tight reign on their media (TV and Radio were pretty much state operated and the only show in town except for a few small independent stations in Helsinki). How has the Finnish culture changed with the openness of membership in the European Union? Do the Finns think this is good or bad? An example...there were no McDonalds in Finland in 1983 when I first visited, little Coke/Pepsi/Budweiser, etc., availability. Now it appears that every small town has one or more McDonalds, and American soft drinks, beer, and snack foods have taken over and displaced the local versions. Maybe the French are right? Robert G. Kaiser: The French are right about some things, but not about others! Finland is definitely more cosmopolitan and more open than in earlier eras. I hadn't been here since the early '70s; the contrast is dramatic. The Finish Broadcadsting Co. is not a propaganda outfit; it has complete independence, and does a great job I understand. I wish I could understand th enews! And Finland has a great tradition of good newspapers, which are better read here than in any European country, I believe. Naperville, Ill.: What aspects of the Finnish public schools do you think could be used or adapted to improve the public schools in the United States? During my visits to public elementary schools in Finland, I've found the frequent breaks for outdoor physical activity do not fatigue the students or interrupt their academic studies. Rather it has been apparent to me that these physical activity breaks in the day actually energize the students, causing them to be more alert throughout the day. Also the free lunch for all is an excellent idea! Lucian Perkins: I met a Finnish H.S. student, who graduated from a U.S. HS in NY and just graduated from a Finnish school. Your point was exactly one he made about frequent breaks and physical activity. As for the lunches, they are not only free, but very healthy. One comment the student made was his shock at the excessive amounts of soft drinks children drink in American society. He felt he won a small victory we he convinced his host family to cut back on their consumption. Rauma, Finland: What were the most difficult things for you to adjust to during your travels? What things were you pleasantly surprised about or were things you didn't expect in Finland? Robert G. Kaiser: This is one of dozens of similar questions we have received for this chat. I won't answer many of them, because I don't think the answers could be sincere or accurate or meaningful. What is the "best" or "worst" doesn't work for me. I am struck by things that are interesting, beautiful, ugly, sad--but comparatives are always difficult, and often just phony. But I do want to use your question to show Americans and other non-Finns how hungry Finns are for the appraisals of foreigners. We have seen this everywhere we have gone, and in the blog and e-mail comments we have received. It's a cliche about Finns that they are this way. Like many cliches, this one is rooted in some truth. Perkins' snoring was the hardest thing to adjust to, on the (mercifully rare) occasions we could hear one another at night. The quality of the food, at homes and in restaurants, was higher than I expected, and I don't know what I based my expectation on exactly. Washington, D.C.: In finnish congress there are memebers of 8 different parties. Comparing our system members comes from either R. or Dem. party mostly. So could it be that Finnish superior democracy has lead Finland where it is today? Robert G. Kaiser: No. Finnish democracy is very different than ours. Our Founders designed a system that is based on a pessimistic assumption that holders of power will abuse it unless carefullhy watched and checked and balanced. Early in our history, for mysterious reasons, we divided into two political groupings, and have stayed with them since, more or less. In Finland all eight parties agree about most issues that are contentious in America. See our interview with Pekka Himanen, the first item in the Finland Diary, for more on this. Finns have a remarkable consensus about public policy, and also about respect for their leaders and their institutions. Neither is related to the number of parties here, I don't think, but both set Finland apart frm the U.S. Helsinki, Finland: Hello Robert and Lucian, Thank you for the excellent blog! Here is my question: Do you reckon you could live in Finland? By the way, you could visit some bars in Kallio (where the city sauna was). Just to see the contrast between downtown and Tehtaankatu. Lucian Perkins: Easily, though we haven't spent the winter here yet. I'm still amazed at how well almost everyone speaks English here. When I first approached people, I would ask them if they spoke English. Soon I quit doing that and just started talking speaking English. Rauma, Finland: From an American viewpoint and based upon your travels, what do you feel are the weakest points in Finnish society? Robert G. Kaiser: Easy: the lack of diversity. But, I hasten to add, for many Finns this is also a strength. This is a classic matter of taste at one level. I, a native Washingtonian and patriotic American, can't imagine a country as blonde and physically unvarried as this one. And the issue goes well beyond physical attributes. Here it is hard to be different. It is hard to be rich. It is very difficult to be poor. It is hard not to be a nominal Lutheran, but unlikely that you will be a churghcoing Lutheran. And on and on. Finns are cut from a narrow piece of cloth. It's a nice piece, but it doesn't vary much. Sipoo, Finland: Just wanted to thank you for doing this Diary. I hope you enjoyed doing this as much as I enjoyed following it. Robert G. Kaiser: At least as much! And it will continue until Friday. Helsinki, Finland: Regarding the question from St. Augustine, Fla.: and your response, Bob, I would like to make a point that a comparison of the gender equality would be more interesting and revealing between Finland and the other Nordic countries on one hand and Russia and other former communist countries on the other hand. Robert G. Kaiser: For you, I would agree. For that reader in St. Augustine, I doubt it. Anonymous: You talk a great deal about Finland's high quality of life and how we can learn something as Americans. I can't help but think that it's a lot easier to accomplish in a homogeneous nation of only five million rather than a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, diversely religious country of more than 280 million, no? Robert G. Kaiser: You've been asleep at the wheel: we are on the verge of 300 million. Of course you are absolutely right. Washington, D.C.: In all seriousness, and I mean this sincerely, why are you not in China instead of Finland? When I look ahead to the coming decades, I see China as a profound and far-reaching impact on our future and the world's. Frankly, Finland doesn't even show uyp on the radar screen. Thank you. Robert G. Kaiser: Now THAT's a silly attitude. In my opinion. Bethesda, Md.: Great series of stories especially the photo essays and blog on the Web site. But I'm still puzzled why the newspaper would want to spend so much time studying Finland when there is a war to cover. Robert G. Kaiser: why don't you do a comparison of the number of words in the Post over the last three weeks about Iraq, and about Finland. If the ratio is less than about 10:1 in Iraq's favor, I will buy you lunch. And dinner. Lohja, Finland: It would be very intresting, I think, for both the Americans reading your articals as well as the Finns if you made an article on the Swedish speaking minority in Finland. The position the Swedes in Finland have is, I believe, almost unique in the world. Robert G. Kaiser: This is one of many questions on the Swedish minority in Finland, just more than five percent of the total. For centuries before 1809, Finland was part of Sweden. There has never been a Finnish artistocracy of any kind, but the Swedes had one, and created an economic one here as well. There are still old families with Swedish names -- some Swedish speaking, I am told, some finnish speaking -- who enjoy high status in the society because of their bloodlines. We met some wonderful Swedish Finns. I never saw a compellig story in them, probably my blindness, but also, perhaps, a consequence of the fact that by my American standards, a physically indistinguishable minority that suffers very little prejudice or discimination is not all that striking. Teaneck, N.J.: An African-American friend of mine lived in Finland for three months and said that Finns are very racist and that he would never go back. Is it true that Finns have problems tolerating people of different backgrounds and especially of different skin color? Robert G. Kaiser: Yes it is -- the subject of my next story for the paper and the diary. Bethesda, Md.: Dear Robert and Lucian, Your travel diary is fascinating. My questions: 1. If you compare the educational systems of USA and Finland, which would be the similarities and differences, pros and cons? How the educational system influences in the global competitiveness of the country? 2. How did you experience the people's attitude to nature and environmetal protection? Lucian Perkins: Bob has written a lot on question number one and I suspect he will elaborate again somewhere here tonight. As for number 2, the importance and concern of the environment extends from the man on the street to big business and the government here. We have seen businesses and the local governments cooperate much more than in our country to ensure a healthy environment. And for the average person their are a lot of societal no, nos. I've never seen anyone litter here and seen very little evidence that people do. Helsinki, Finland: Hi! Two questions: 1. Do you think that less ignorance about well working social models, such as the one in Finland, could change attitudes in the U.S. towards state inveolvement in things like education and social security? I mean, do Americans know that there are countries with high tax rates ets (welfare model) which are growing quite fast, which have only little bureaucracy, where people work less because they choose to and which are even more free, secure and democratic than the U.S.? 2. If you see that the Finnish current system works well, how much do you personally feel its thank to the fact that the people homogenous here, unlike in the U.S.? Or do you think this model could work (even better?) with more immigrants? Robert G. Kaiser: Two good questions. Americans have long has caricatured views, if that's how you spell it, about other countries on all sorts of issues, including the welfare state. I'm sure lots of Americans would be deeply impressed if they had seen what we saw here in schools, health care centers and hospitals, homes for the aged and infirm and universities. All those things are financed by the Finns' very high taxes, and the people here seem, with very few exceptions, to think this is a good deal. But Americans are ornery and opinionated and don't all share the same values. That's where homogeneity becomes important. Finns do share the same values: Lutheran respect for hard work; egalitarianism; fairness; a high regard for nature's works; a high value on directness and fulfilling one's responsibilties, on and on. This, I think, is a key reason why Finland works as well as it does. Helsinki, Finland: I understand what people are saying when they say that implementing the Finnish system in the U.S. would be impossible due to the size, multiculture, etc., of the U.S. but since you are such a wealthy country I refuse to be so pessimistic! Why couldn't i.e. a universal healthcare system be set up in the U.S.? Robert G. Kaiser: Thanks for the post. Personally I expect my daughters to live to see the day when America has a national health care system that works. We do already have the best medical care anywhere, for those who can get it. But we spend 14% of GNP on healthcare. The Finns get better results (longer life expectancy, much lower infant mortality) and spend 7 percent of GNP on healthcare. Eventually, practical, sensible Americans are going to see that our system is just too expensive. It is already killing some important American companies (GM, Ford?) and this will only get worse. This is my reporter's judgement, not a recommendation or ideological position. New York, NY: What food items did you miss or do you think the Finns might like from America? For me, it was iced tea and also oat bars. Robert G. Kaiser: I haven't thought about ice tea in three weeks. I never thought about oat bars in my life. I missed the morning paper. That would be The Washington Post. I don't think of anything else. Naperville, Ill.: Thanks (kiitos paljon) for enlightening so many on the wonders of Finland. What aspects of Finland -- nature, culture, people -- surprised you? What was very different from the stereotypes you had heard were "typically Finnish." Lucian Perkins: First of all I love the sound of the word "kittos," (which means thank you for our non-Finish speakers, and that includes me with the exception of a very few words). I can't say really that I've been "surprised" (well except for Nordic skiing) about much, but a better word would be "impressed." I've been very impressed with the high level of education of almost everyone here. I've also very impress with the artistic talent here--across the board. i suspect that we will be seeing more international recognition of Finnish artists in the coming years. Arnold, Md.: I have enjoyed of this diary and all what it has offered for people to read about my country. I'm a Finn living in USA for 1-1/2 years now and I've been schoked how little people here know about the world that is surrounding them. One certain thing that has puzzled me is that some people don't even know if I say that I'm from Finland whether it's a country or state. Why is that? Other thing I've been waiting for you to visit our beautiful city Tampere, are going to do that at all? Robert G. Kaiser: We are sympathetic. American ignorance about the world, though far from universal, is certainly humiliating. We wish it were not so! We loved Tampere, and went to church there in the Cathedral. We have not been able to write about every place and every meeting. Just too much. Kakkamaki, Finland: If you had to choose just one aspect of Finland to bring back to the U.S. and incorporate into American life, what would it be? Robert G. Kaiser: I'll give you a quick answer, reserving the right to reconsider later: The helsinki trams. I grew up with, and loved, the Washington streetcars. They efficient, quiet, clean, fun to ride, admirable in all respects. I wish we still had them in my home town. Espoo, Finland: Your report on Finland's educational system has given the impression that there is little testing, and that lukio = high school, which is not the case. Students must test into lukio and test out of it. The grade and test pressure on 7-9th graders and lukio students is severe. The system is very unforgiving in this regard. Many young people either finish school after 9th grade or go into the excellent vocational education system that exists in parallel to the lukio system. So any calculations of percentage of students going on to higher education must take this into account. Robert G. Kaiser: you need to check out an American school system. Yes there are tough exams here, but they are written, essay-question exams that seem genuinely to measure skill and knowledge. I have heard no one question their legitimacy. The multiple-choice tests that have taken over American education are much more problematic, and they are given repeatedly during every school year in public schools now. There is really no comparison. Washington, D.C.: Were you sorry to be out of the country (and The Post newsroom) when the Deep Throat news broke? Robert G. Kaiser: Sure. But it was great fun to read all the stories on line, and to share the excitement by e-mail with some colleagues in the office. Helsinki, Finland: During your visit, has there been any "What the ..." moments? I mean, something that has been so profoundly weird or different that you have needed the help of "locals" to figure it out? Robert G. Kaiser: Just once, in Kuopio, our second stop, when i saw a photographer's shop whose window was full of young people of both genders wearing a white hat that reminded me of the U.S. Navy. What is that hat? We now know, of course, that it is the symbol of an educated person, given to every graduate of an academic high school on the last day of th eyear--which this year was on Saturday. We wrote about it at length, and now Lucian's personal archive is full of the same sort of strange pictures! Falls Church, Va.: Great articles about your travel and very open and enlightened view of differences in Finnish and American culture. Just wondering about some of the comments about why is The Post discussing Finland. First in tech, education, and standard of living seems like three good reasons to me. But, more improtantly it is good to explore other cultures if for nothing else but to learn to appreciate our own culture. While near Turku, you may want to visit Naantali and Rauma. Robert G. Kaiser: Thanks. I of course agree with you. We spent two nights witha wonderful family in Naantali. Great town. Washington, D.C.: Bob, it is said that when one travels, one adjusts the view of one's own country. Having lived in a country which is comparatively more liberal than the U.S., are there any issues in American policies that you have now changed your mind on? Robert G. Kaiser: Not yet. Still thinking about it. too many new impressions in my head at the moment. Washington, D.C.: Hey Lucian, great job with the audio recordings to accompany your photos! Lucian Perkins: Thanks, I'm starting to get the hang of it. Espoo, Finland: Have you used the public transportation system in Finland and if so, can you comment on your experience? Lucian Perkins: We have (mostly in Helsinki) and find it very convenient, clean, and easy to use. On our first subway trip I was surprised to learn that you don't actually need a ticket to get into the subway, tram, or bus. There is not gate to stop you from entering the subway for example. Ticketing is based largely on the honor system, though they do have people that occasionally check the buses and subways to make sure that you bought a ticket. By the way, you can also buy your ticket using your cell phone. If an inspector stops you, your just show them a text message (as I understand it) on your phone. Southfield, Mich.: Have you learned the word and Finnish "trait" called SISU? You might find it interesting to ask some Finns how they would interpret it. There are many different interpretations -- guts, stubborness, intestinal fortitude; but no matter what the interpretation, Finns are said to possess this sometimes good and sometimes not so good trait -- and it carries on in the American Finns also. Robert G. Kaiser: I think Sisu is very important. Sisu helped the Finns beat the Russians in World War II. It has helped them reinvent their country twice since then. And a lot of Americans, not just Finns, have something very like sisu. Helsinki, Finland: Have you heard anybody to praise Finnish people, that we are honest and have high moral. And there is very litle corruption. And that is explanation, why we are a good place to make business, although we have high taxes. Do you agree, or was it too short time to say anything such. (Personally I think, that things have gone to worse direction lately in this respect, while Finland has changed to more urban and multicultural country...) Lucian Perkins: We have heard that and haven't found much to dispute that. Norristown, Pa.: Did you have any problems with the language, or do most people there speak English? Robert G. Kaiser: Finnish language skills are remarkable. I went to a concert last night with a young woman who speaks excellent English, beautiful French, German, Swedish to her Swedish-speaking boyfriend, and some vietnamese, from her five months as a student in Hanoi. She is 26. I know no American 26-year-old with comparable language skills. Washington, D.C.: Mr. Kaiser, asking why you are not in China instead of Finland is not "a silly attitude," as you put it. A good part of my family lineage comes from Scandanavia, including Finland. But even with family pride in my roots, I'm not silly enough to think its quaint culture unlike China's, will be a driving global force. Robert G. Kaiser: who said it would be a driving global force? who said that is the only criterion that makes another society interesting? Goose Creek, S.C.: What is your impression about Finnish youth and how they deal with drugs, safe sex, peer pressure, etc.? Do they face the same magitude/types of problems our youth do? Robert G. Kaiser: good question. We wrote about the fact that condoms were being given out in great quanties at a rock concert in a downtown park here on Saturday. We asked a lot of kids about drugs, and got the impression that there aren't many drugs in Finland. There is alot of beer in Finland, and there are a lot of kids drinking too much of it. I don't think i could compare the pressures on Finnish and american youth. But I have been deeply impressed by Finnish respect fo ryoung kids, and a desire to let childhood be childish. Finns start first grade at age 7. This seemed quite brilliant to me. St. Augustine, Fla: I disagree completely on the gender-equality question -- lengthy, paid maternity leaves, job security during a maternity leave, free childcare, etc. -- affect Finnish women's lives in ways American women can only dream about. And on a larger level, you can't really argue that the U.S. is ready for a female president, let alone for a divorced, single mother president, as Tarja Halonen is. Lucian Perkins: We found that in some respects the gender equality issue wasn't quite what was advertised. But having said that you are right on every point you raise. The care that the Finns give to their mothers and children is admirable and something we should take notice of. And from what we have heard about Finland's "divorced, single mother president," she is very well liked and appreciated here. Rapid City, S.D.: I wondered about the impression you gave that universal education in Finland is a relatively recent event. My father, who grew up on a farm in southeastern Finland, went to grammar school in the 1890s -- then to high school in town and to a business college in Helsinki. He came to the U.S. about 1914, unable to speak English. He married my mother whose parents were immigrants. Their three children and six grandchildren all have graduate degrees, including three doctor's degrees. I have always credited their commitent to education to their Finnish roots. I can also remember that Helsinki for many years had the world's largest book store and Finland had the world's highest literacy rate... and this was long before the 1970s. Thank you VERY MUCH for this informative series! Robert G. Kaiser: thanks. No, universal no-fee education is a very recent development in Finland, since the '70s. Alexandria, Va.: It's impressive -- in a sad way -- that, 40 minutes into this chat, you appear to have received more questions and comments from Finns than from Americans. It'd be interesting to know how many Post readers have been following your articles. As for me, I've enjoyed the series and learned a lot from it. Most interesting detail: the box of baby items sent to new parents. Such a gesture couldn't help but convey that new babies are valued by all members of society, and that all members of society are concerned about the well-being of new babies. Wish I could point to some evidence of such concern for infants and new parents in the U.S. Robert G. Kaiser: Thanks for the Post. If you look at the blog on the Finland Diary, you'll see how intensely interested some Finns have been in what we are doing. They have asked more questions than Amerians in this chat. We have touched a nerve over here. But we've heard from lots of American readers, today and earlier. Arlington, Va.: I suspect that if you traveled to cities and regions within the U.S. (mostly the Midwest, i.e. parts of the Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa) that have descended from all the Scandinavian countries, social and cultural attitudes would be very similar to modern-day Finland. Work ethic, Lutheran traditions, ethnic homogeneity -- these indeed HAVE been transplanted to the U.S., albeit on a regional scale. There's a Scandidiaspora in the U.S if you look for it. Robert G. Kaiser: Interesting point. Thanks. Golden, Colo.: Enjoyed every article... learned a lot, although I have studied history and read some of the classic novels in translation in my attempt to "know" the land of my Mohter's parents... going back for my third vist with family (discovered four years ago) in December, so see how the "dark time" is! Robert G. Kaiser: thanks. it will be dark. Long Beach, Calif.: About five years ago there was concern in Finland about a growing drug abuse problem. Have any of the Finns you interviewed addressed this issue or expressed concerns about it? Lucian Perkins: The biggest concern raised to us was drinking. We talked to a number of high school kids who said that their peers rarely use drugs, but they drank a lot. But our trip was too short to really explore this issue. Helsinki, Finland: Hey Bob and Lucian, what's your take on how "sellable" Finland is to Americans -- would you think that Americans visited Finland more if advertized the right way? Or do you think that the Finnish way of life is boring or unattractive per se? We really don't have any wonders of the world or huge attractions, like in Paris, Rome, London etc. Great series of articles! A friend of mine living in Portland, Maine, arrives in Helsinki tomorrow and says that he can't wait to get here after reading your articles. Robert G. Kaiser: Good question. I think the combination of very good food, interesting cities, wonderful music from rock to opera and classical, and friendly (if reserved!) people who speak English constitute a very sellable tourist destination. However, this is not my specialty. Minneapolis, Minn.: What would you like an average reader of The Post to take away from the series of articles about Finland and the Finnish people? Robert G. Kaiser: The fact that other people do things that we do very differently than we do them, and sometimes extremely well. Helsinki, Finland: One story I'd like to see: the (conscript) army. Six to 12 months of the great outdoors -- paid handsomely, too (round $4 a day). Robert G. Kaiser: This is an important topic that we have failed to get to. I have been impressed by the fondness with which Finnish mean of all kinds recall their mandatory military service. I sense this is a source of great strength in Finnish society--that men of all kinds and backgrounds spend 6-12 months in intimate circumstances and create bonds that long outlive their tours of duty. I wish we had learned more about it, and visited a basic training facility or the like. Washington, D.C.: Finland? Please! Doesn't The Post have anything better to do than to send a top reporter and photographer on a three week trip to Finland? Maybe figure out how everyone missed the story on WMDs? Lucian Perkins: We thought maybe they would be here. Lake Worth, Fla.: I want to thank you for this wonderful Finland Diary! I have followed your story with a bittersweet home sickness here in my Florida home. We also have a small piece of Finland here in Lake Worth, the Finnish-American Rest Home with 90 residents of Finnish decsent with Finnish food, culture and traditions. That means 90 interesting stories of immigration, hard work, raising children and chicken, plenty of "blood, sweat and tears" before peaceful retirement in the largest ethnic Finnish concentration outside Finland. You are warmly welcome to pay a visit, we will offer you "kahvi and pulla" with interesting stories! P.S. We also have a sauna -- of course... Pirjo-Leena Koskinen, Rest Home Manager Robert G. Kaiser: Now this sounds like an intriguing rest home! Thanks for the message. Stroudsburg, Pa.: Did you try the Finnish candy called Salmiakki -- it's a sort of fiery licorice? Also, did you try potato pies? (Karjalan piirakka.) Robert G. Kaiser: Yes and yes. Both edible. Los Angeles, Calif.: As you say good bye to Finland what will be your single best memory of this little country of my ancestors? Thank you so much for your wonderful coverage. Lucian Perkins: There were a lot of memorable moments. My two saunas are great examples. Our private concert, so speak, in Kuhmo. I loved a three hour walk I had around Kuopio on a lovely evening where the light was magical (especially for photography). That city is almost surrounded by lakes and everyone was out to enjoy the moment and weather. That was when I really appreciated Finland and its love for its land and environment. Robert G. Kaiser: Out of time, and more importantly, out of gas after a long day. It's 9 p.m. here. Thank you thank you for a really lively chat, and for all the comments on the blog and in e-mail. The diary continues through Friday. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Washington Post Associate Editor Robert G. Kaiser and staff photographer Lucian Perkins discuss their tour of Finland and their online travelogue, "Finland Diary."

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Regional Storms Thrash Trees, Leave 25,000 in the Dark

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Winds gusted to near hurricane force, trees went down and thousands of homes went dark last night as a powerful line of thunderstorms pelted the region with hail and rain. In a day that was filled with the steamy atmospheric drama of summertime Washington, temperatures reached record levels in the afternoon before giving way to dark clouds and lightning. Electricity was knocked out for a while to about 25,000 homes. About 15,000 of them were in the District and Montgomery and Prince George's counties, according to Pepco. Fueled by the heat and humidity of the day and touched off by cool air advancing along a broad front from the Great Lakes area, the storm appeared to churn directly across downtown Washington on a turbulent track from the northwestern part of the region to the southeastern suburbs. Fire caused damage estimated at $475,000 to a house in the 9900 block of Vineyard Haven Drive in the Montgomery Village section of Montgomery County after lightning apparently struck the roof, said Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the county fire department. In Rockville's Manor Lake section, lightning damaged a carport after apparently first striking a backyard tree in the 14900 block of Waterway Drive, Piringer said. In the District, lightning knocked out the electrical system of a house in the 5900 block of Willow Street NW about 9. The house smoked and smoldered, but no fire broke out, said Alan Etter, a spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services. The storm tore down trees in Greenbrier State Park in Washington County, Md., and at sites all over Frederick County. Also in Ashburn, Ellicott City, and Germantown and in the District, Arlington, Severna Park and on Route 210 about two miles south of Oxon Hill. In Ashburn, a National Weather Service employee reported a wind gust of 72 mph -- 2 mph below hurricane force. Children's Hospital in the District reportedly clocked a gust of 64 mph. Hail fell on the western edges of the region, including Berryville in Clarke County, Va. At Dulles International Airport, the temperature reached 92 at 1:43 p.m., a record for the date. At Reagan National Airport, the official reading was three degrees lower but still the hottest of the year.

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Taylor Is Excused For Rest of Offseason

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The Washington Redskins have decided to excuse safety Sean Taylor from the remainder of their offseason activities, including the mandatory June 17-19 minicamp, following his arrest for aggravated assault with a firearm over the weekend in Miami. Coach Joe Gibbs declined to discuss the matter yesterday beyond reading from a statement issued by the team, and team officials said that Taylor is expected to participate in training camp, which begins July 31. "Everybody is aware of Sean's situation this week in Miami," Gibbs said, "and basically the league has a personal conduct policy, and we're going to be discussing all of these matters with the league. All questions regarding that should go to the league, if there's any questions about their policies there. "And with that in mind we're going to notify Drew [Rosenhaus], Sean's agent, that he's going to be excused from participating in the remainder of our voluntary offseason program and including the minicamp coming up next week. We think as an organization right now it's better for him to concentrate on these personal issues and kind of get this hopefully squared away for him." Taylor has been unavailable for comment and Rosenhaus has not returned calls since news of the investigation into Taylor broke on Friday. Taylor, 22, the fifth overall pick in the 2004 draft, will be arraigned on two felony counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and one misdemeanor count of simple battery on June 24 in Miami after turning himself in to authorities Saturday night. He was released on $16,500 bond. Taylor is accused of pulling a gun Wednesday night on two individuals he believed had stolen two all-terrain vehicles from him, and then later fighting with one of the victims. His third-degree felony charge carries a maximum sentence of up to five years, although Taylor's lack of prior felonies would work in his favor. According to a source in the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, certain three-year or 10-year minimum mandatory sentences from Florida's 10-20-Life law could potentially be applicable in Taylor's case, if he is convicted. A prosecutor has not yet been named and such determinations would be made much further along in the judicial process. Greg Aiello, the NFL's vice president of public relations, said that the league reviews cases such as the one involving Taylor under the terms of its personal conduct policy, which stipulates that "violent and/or criminal activity" committed by any player is "unacceptable." Should a player be charged with a conduct in violation of the policy he must undergo a clinical evaluation, and, "if appropriate," additional counseling. Failure to comply with that evaluation and treatment is punishable by fine and suspension. Anyone convicted of a criminal violation of the policy is subject to disciplinary actions including a "fine, suspension without pay, and/or banishment from the league," the conduct policy states. According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, Taylor's contract includes a clause found in "99.9 percent" of NFL deals permitting his team to attempt to recover a percentage of his signing bonus should the player miss any mandatory team activities such as minicamp, training camp or games due to conduct in violation of the personal conduct policy. In such cases the union would generally then file a grievance on the player's behalf, and an arbitrator would ultimately rule on the issue. Taylor, who was a rookie last season, has already drawn several disciplinary actions from the league and Redskins. He was acquitted of a drunk-driving charge in January. His decisions during the offseason to remain in Florida, decline to return phone messages left by Gibbs and skip voluntary offseason workouts have chafed some veteran Redskins, although several players said Taylor's defensive abilities and positive demeanor in the locker room make him a welcome part of the team, even now. "What better way can you embarrass the Redskins than by not returning calls from [Gibbs] a guy who has been there and done good things for this team and this organization?" veteran defensive lineman Phillip Daniels said. "But we've got to support him. He needs us, and we need him on the field. We don't need him out there doing crazy stuff like this over an ATV. "Sean's got to be smarter. Right now it's not about the fact that we need him, it's the fact of how he is as a person, and right now he's destroying his career. He's destroying it real fast. The worst thing you can do in this league is for someone to look at you and say, 'Oh, he's a knucklehead, he's always in trouble.' " Daniels and other players said they expect Gibbs and Gregg Williams, assistant head coach-defense, to address the team about Taylor's situation today, when players are expected at Redskins Park for a voluntary practice. Taylor has not been seen at the training facility since the final individual meetings with coaches at the conclusion of last season in January. "He needs to get himself motivated" to play football, offensive lineman Randy Thomas said. "With guns and all of that, I don't get into all of that; it's so childish. Personally, I just try to stay away from things like that. The guy is a great player, but as a man, he's got to take some steps decision-wise." Redskins Notes: The Redskins signed free agent wide receiver Kevin Dyson yesterday after a workout. Dyson, who turns 30 this month, was productive with Tennessee before suffering major knee problems. He played one game for Carolina in 2003 and was cut by San Diego prior to the 2004 regular season. . . . The Redskins worked out Antonio Freeman, another free agent wideout attempting to revive his career, but he left without a contract. . . . Salary cap manager Eric Schaffer was promoted to director of football administration, the team announced.

Info on Washington Redskins including the 2004 NFL Preview. Get the latest game schedule and statistics for the Redskins. Follow the Washington Redskins under the direction of Coach Joe Gibbs.

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In High Idle

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Fabian Basabe wears a watch, but don't ask him for the time because he has no idea. He never does. "It says it's 4 o'clock on the 14th," he says, grinning at his silver Rolex, which at the moment is off by 13 days and 1 hour. "If I take it off for too long it stops and I don't have the patience to keep resetting it. But after a while you get used to wearing one." Though useless as a timekeeper, Basabe's watch functions amazingly well as a metaphor for its owner, a thoroughly polished 27-year-old known in gossip columns and New York's upper-tier social scrum as Manhattan's "It" boy. Like everything else in Basabe's world, the Rolex costs a bundle and was a gift from his father, a businessman from Ecuador who bankrolls his son's enchanted life. And like Basabe, the watch doesn't work -- although it certainly is in working condition. Basabe has tried his hand at a job or two, but he's over the idea that he needs to punch a clock in some office to feel fulfilled. "For a while I was intimidated by these people who said they worked for some investment bank," he says, sipping a cappuccino at his favorite Upper East Side restaurant, Mediterraneo. "It sounds great and really prestigious, but those jobs work you to death and they aren't very glamorous." Full time and low glamour is not Basabe's style. For the past five years he's been a smiling and faddishly coiffed perennial on Manhattan's good-life circuit, popping up at one charity event after another, high-fiving doormen in the city's exclusive nightspots, hanging out with a pack of young trust-funders and Wall Street millionaires. At some point during all this revelry -- through some combination of charisma, ubiquity and, on one memorable evening with young Barbara Bush, uproar -- Basabe graduated to It-dom. "He's popular for being popular," says Sam Doerfler, his agent at the Ford modeling agency, which is starting to shop Basabe to fashion companies for something called "spokesmodel" gigs. "He walks into a room and he gets the energy level up. When people go to a club or a show they want to have a good time, and when he shows up, they start having a good time." Think Paris Hilton, but the male version and with his clothes on. Basabe is trying to parlay our fascination with the rich and the idle into nationwide fame and, like Ms. Hilton, a paycheck. It's unclear if getting photographed on red carpets is enough to launch a career, but Basabe is going to give it a shot, trying to turn himself into a one-man brand using nothing more than his looks, status and likability. He's just returned from Los Angeles, where he and his new West Coast agent met with television executives for a round of meet-and-greets. The subject: possible reality TV projects, or maybe a correspondent job on one of those "Access Hollywood"-type shows. That's the dream, anyway. For now, he's just the highest-profile young socialite in the city, and snicker all you like, plenty of people in Manhattan depend on Basabe and other members of his Platinum Card tribe. Putting Basabe's name on an invitation to a charity event or a club opening is a splendid way to create buzz. "He makes people feel that they're in the right place," says Johanna Piazza, a reporter for the Daily News gossip column Rush & Malloy. "Which is important for business. You get a steady flow of socialites like Fabian in the bar during the week, and by the weekend, the goombahs are lining up around the block." You might be inclined to dislike Fabian Basabe from afar because he's rich and pampered and good-looking and because he's kind of a layabout and doesn't care what you think about that. Or you might envy his recent marriage to the gorgeous Martina Borgomanero, the Italian heiress to the La Perla line of high-priced lingerie. Across a room, arm in arm with his bride, Basabe looks a little too fabulous for his own good. Up close, though, it's different. Basabe is disarmingly candid and in a way that isn't calculating. Instead of arrogance, there's a soft-spoken gentility and almost goofy enthusiasm, like a kid on the way to the circus. Dressed a bit preppy in a casual dark sweater, he's the picture of Upper East Side suave, but -- there's no other way to put this -- he's a sweetheart.

Get style news headlines from The Washington Post, including entertainment news, comics, horoscopes, crossword, TV, Dear Abby. arts/theater, Sunday Source and weekend section. Washington Post columnists, movie/book reviews, Carolyn Hax, Tom Shales.

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A Defeat For Users Of Medical Marijuana

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The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the medical marijuana movement yesterday, ruling that the federal government can still ban possession of the drug in states that have eliminated sanctions for its use in treating symptoms of illness. By a vote of 6 to 3, the court ruled that Congress's constitutional authority to regulate the interstate market in drugs, licit or illicit, extends to small, homegrown quantities of doctor-recommended marijuana consumed under California's Compassionate Use Act, which was adopted by an overwhelming majority of voters in 1996. The ruling does not overturn laws in California and 10 other states, mostly in the West, that permit medical use of marijuana. In 2003, Maryland reduced the maximum fine for medical users of less than an ounce of the drug to $100. But the ruling does mean that those who try to use marijuana as a medical treatment risk legal action by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration or other federal agencies and that the state laws provide no defense. Writing for the court majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said the case was "troubling" because of users' claims that they needed marijuana to alleviate physical pain and suffering. But he concluded that the court had no choice but to uphold Congress's "firmly established" power to regulate "purely local activities . . . that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce." Echoing an argument advanced by the Bush administration, Stevens expressed concern that "unscrupulous physicians" might exploit the broadly worded California law to divert marijuana into the market for recreational drugs. The Bush administration, which has been emphasizing marijuana enforcement in its anti-drug strategy, hailed the ruling. "Today's decision marks the end of medical marijuana as a political issue," said John P. Walters, President Bush's director of national drug control policy. "Our nation has the highest standards and most sophisticated institutions in the world for determining the safety and effectiveness of medication. Our national medical system relies on proven scientific research, not popular opinion." But California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said that "seriously ill Californians will continue to run the risk of arrest and prosecution under federal law when they grow and or they use marijuana as medicine." The ruling, he said, "shows the vast philosophical difference between the federal government and Californians on the rights of patients to have access to the medicine they need to survive and lead healthier lives." Supporters of medical marijuana, noting that Stevens wrote that "the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in the halls of Congress," said the fight over federal drug policy will shift to a new battleground. "The decision highlights the opportunity we have to go to Congress and change these laws," said Robert Raich, a lawyer whose wife, Angel Raich, was one of two women who had sued to block enforcement of federal marijuana laws against them. A House bill that would forbid the use of federal funds to prosecute medical marijuana use in states that permit it was defeated overwhelmingly last year but will be voted on again soon, advocates of medical marijuana said. Yesterday's Supreme Court decision represented a victory for the court's supporters of federal power over its proponents of states' rights. In two cases in the past decade, the court limited Congress's power to make laws in the name of regulating interstate commerce, saying that it had begun to intrude upon local affairs. Backers of medical marijuana had hoped to apply those precedents in this case, Gonzales v. Raich, No. 03-1454. But Stevens concluded that the court was still bound by a 1942 Supreme Court decision that defined interstate commerce broadly to include, under certain circumstances, even subsistence wheat farming. Much modern government regulation exists because of this broad definition of interstate commerce, which permitted the court to uphold, as exercises of Congress's commerce clause power, laws including New Deal farm controls and the ban on racial segregation in hotels and restaurants. Stevens was joined by the court's three other consistent supporters of federal power, Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. He also picked up the votes of two justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy, who usually support states' rights. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas dissented. Writing for the three, O'Connor noted that she "would not have voted for the medical marijuana initiative" in California, but she chided the majority for stifling "an express choice by some States, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently." In a separate dissent, Thomas added that if "the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives and potluck suppers throughout the 50 states." The two California women who sued to block federal marijuana enforcement in California are Diane Monson, who was prescribed marijuana for lower-back pain, and Raich, who said that she must take the drug at least every two hours or else she will lose her appetite and die from a "wasting syndrome" whose medical cause is unknown. "I don't know how to explain it," she said yesterday. "I just can't swallow without cannabis." Monson's home was raided and her marijuana plants seized by federal agents in 2002; Raich says she receives the drug free from caregivers and joined Monson's lawsuit because she fears that her marijuana could be seized. Neither woman has been criminally charged. Raich's suppliers are also in the case, as John Does One and Two.

Supreme Court ruled Monday that the federal government has the power to prosecute the use of marijuana for medical purposes even in states that have enacted their own laws permitting it.

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Terrorism Trial Opens for Fired Professor in Fla.

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TAMPA, June 6 -- Sami al-Arian, the former Florida university professor whose trial on terrorism charges began here Monday, might hold controversial or even scary views in support of the Palestinian resistance against Israel, but it would be un-American if he were convicted for speaking his mind, his attorney told jurors. "The language of resistance, of political discourse, is sometimes harsh," lawyer William Moffitt said in an opening statement in defense of his client, standing trial for conspiracy to murder Israelis in suicide attacks. "But a political speaker must be free to excite his audience." Al-Arian and three co-defendants are charged with a years-long conspiracy through their alleged membership in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Their trial opened with the lead prosecutor recounting the group's 19 years of sneak attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including stabbings, shootings and suicide bombings. Prosecutor Walter Furr outlined how al-Arian, co-defendants Sameeh Taha Hammoudeh, Ghassan Zayed Ballut and Hatem Naji Fariz, and five others who have not been arrested disseminated news of the group's attacks and other propaganda, raised money for it, and helped its leaders communicate by telephone and fax without, they thought, being detected. But a decade's worth of wiretaps to be used in the case show that al-Arian was an Islamic Jihad leader and "for a time maybe the organization's most powerful man in the world," Furr said. Al-Arian attorney Moffitt noted that his client has not been charged with actually taking part in any violence. He neither denied nor confirmed that his client was affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a 26-year-old group designated as terrorist by the U.S. government in 1995. Instead, Moffitt urged jurors not to convict al-Arian if they conclude he has connections to the group. "The government itself has said you are free to praise groups that engage in terrorism as a means of achieving their ends," Moffitt said. "This case concerns Dr. al-Arian's right to speak, our right to hear what he has to say and the attempt of the powerful to silence him." Al-Arian's supporters rallied outside the federal courthouse here. "He knows he didn't do anything wrong," said his wife, Nahla. "We have been waiting for this moment to have the trial." Noting that some of the U.S. intelligence about Palestinian Islamic Jihad dovetails with Israeli intelligence on the subject -- and referring to dozens of Israeli victims of Islamic Jihad attacks who have been called to testify by the government -- Moffitt said, "most of the evidence will come from Israel. Israelis are here to silence Dr. al-Arian." "If hundreds of Israelis are here to silence Dr. al-Arian, we say, go home," Moffitt added. "In the United States, we remain true to our heritage." He said that al-Arian "came to the U.S. to publicize the continued favoritism for Israel here in the Middle East conflict" and that those political activities are what the government is trying to criminalize in the case. Referring obliquely to U.S. District Judge James Moody's decision to allow only brief references in court to the opposing historical grievances of Palestinians and Israelis, Moffitt said, "There will be no truth about the Middle East conflict in this court." Al-Arian, a professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida until he was fired in 2003, was the leader of two Muslim institutes affiliated with the university that the government says were fronts for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The secret probe of him began in 1991, with wiretaps starting in 1994, Furr said Monday. The recorded conversations -- Moffitt said there eventually were 472,000 of them -- were kept secret from the part of the FBI that handles criminal probes until about the past two years. But while al-Arian and his colleagues were talkative about their activities at the start, after October 1995, when their offices were searched, they became extremely tight-lipped, the indictment shows. Because that was the same year the U.S. government declared Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist -- meaning all dealings with it were illegal -- the government is using a conspiracy prosecution to build a case around the al-Arian group's pre-1995 statements and actions. The conspiracy charges allowed prosecutors to include in the pre- and post-1995 material as part of a wider pattern of alleged criminality. Among the revelations in court Monday was prosecutor Furr's statement that Islamic Jihad had sent $1.8 million to al-Arian's university-based group in Tampa between 1990 and 1993, before Islamic Jihad's financier, Iran, cut its funding in a short-lived dispute.

TAMPA, June 6 -- Sami al-Arian, the former Florida university professor whose trial on terrorism charges began here Monday, might hold controversial or even scary views in support of the Palestinian resistance against Israel, but it would be un-American if he were convicted for speaking his mind,...

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In Tokyo, a Ghetto of Geeks

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TOKYO At his favorite neighborhood cafe, Shunsuke Yamagata, a college student who proudly calls himself a nerd, smiled shyly behind his horn-rimmed glasses at waitresses hurrying about in black Minnie Mouse shoes and lacy, racy mini-dresses inspired by Japanese comics. The place is a dream come true for Yamagata, whose passion is collecting comics and cartoons. He giggled with glee when his servers addressed him in the squeaky little character voices they use to delight their fantasy-loving clientele. For Yamagata, 20, it was just another night out with the pocket-protector crowd in Tokyo's neon-splashed Akihabara district, where "costume cafes" are the latest of hundreds of new businesses catering to Japan's otaku , or nerds. A subculture of social misfits obsessed with electronic role-playing games, manga comics and Japanese animation, they began gathering in Akihabara in the late 1990s, lured by the district's proliferation of electronics retailers and stores selling everything you would need to build your own computer. Maligned and shunned by mainstream society, here they stayed, their tastes and habits transforming the area also known as Electric Town into what sociologists are calling an urban first -- a ghetto of geeks. On streets once packed with housewives or couples shopping for refrigerators and microwave ovens, hundreds of thousands of nerds -- mostly men between about 18 and 45 -- now wander through the area's multi-story comic warehouses and elaborate game arcades. Eyeglass adjustment kiosks compete for space with shops selling nondescript dress shirts and thick leather shoes. There are bigger-ticket items, as well. With some analysts estimating the Japanese geek market to be worth as much as $19 billion a year, companies are jostling to cash in. One Akihabara antique electronics boutique displays an intact 1985 NEC computer, gingerly housed behind glass, with a $2,500 price tag. "We have been discriminated against for being different, but now we have come together and turned this neighborhood into a place of our own," said Yamagata, nursing his tea as he sat with a portly computer technician friend at Akihabara's Cos-Cha, one of a dozen "maid cafes" in the neighborhood. Here, the waitresses' uniforms are inspired by the French maid-meets-Pokemon outfits of adult manga. At other cafes, waitresses greet patrons at the door with a curtsy and the words "Welcome home, master." "In Akihabara, we don't need to be ashamed of who we are and what we like," he said. "We can feel comfortable because here, we outnumber everyone else." Sociologists and urban planners compare the phenomenon to ethnic and social enclaves such as New York's Chinatown or San Francisco's gay Castro district, born of a blend of discrimination and shared cultural cues. Japanese geeks are outcasts in a society known for its rigid social norms. But their culture has gone mainstream. Tokyo's subways and trains are filled with teenagers and grandfathers unabashedly reading thick, often adult-themed manga. Japan's biannual Comic Market lured more visitors this year than the annual Tokyo Motor Show. T-shirts proclaiming their wearers to be akiba-kei -- or Akihabara types -- can be seen even in Tokyo's mega-fashionable neighborhoods of Shibuya and Harajuku. Takashi Murakami, a contemporary artist, was in New York recently to present indoor and outdoor exhibitions filled with some of the darker symbols of Japan's nerd subculture, which include a jarring mix of doe-eyed anime characters, fetish sexuality and fantasy games. A noted designer, Kaichiro Morikawa, generated a buzz at the 2004 Venice Biennale by recreating parts of Akihabara's landmark Radio Hall, a building where Japanese nerds rent transparent, locker-size cubicles in part to sell, but mostly to show off, collections reflecting their distinctive tastes. Prized items range from air guns and model battleships to anime characters in sexual poses and miniature Godzillas. "I think we have a long way to go before the otaku themselves are considered cool," Morikawa said. "But the motifs of otaku culture have permeated Japanese society and beyond. Just look around you. They are everywhere."

World news headlines from the Washington Post, including international news and opinion from Africa, North/South America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Features include world weather, news in Spanish, interactive maps, daily Yomiuri and Iraq coverage.

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Shortly After Setting Up, an Iraqi Base Is Bombed

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BAGHDAD, June 6 -- Iraqi security forces at a new base in the working-class neighborhood of Amil spent Monday belatedly constructing a barrier of bricks and concrete blocks hours after a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives straight into the building where the men were housed, witnesses said. Once inside the former factory, the driver detonated his cargo, killing himself and ending a three-day lull in such attacks in the capital. The full extent of the casualties from the Monday morning attack was unclear; al-Arabiya television reported that five people were killed, but the Associated Press quoted a police official saying three policemen and three bystanders were wounded. Police at the scene declined to comment. The Iraqi forces "only moved there three days ago, so they did not have any concrete barriers or obstacles or any kind of security or reinforcements for the building yet," said Ali Jabur, who works next door to the new base. "That is why this suicide bomber was able to drive directly from the main street to the building. They shot at him -- I heard that, they tried to stop him -- but he did not stop and continued right inside." The level of violence in Iraq remained relatively low, however, and officials continued to attribute the lull to an ongoing security crackdown called Operation Lightning. The U.S. military said Monday that an American soldier was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing near the northern city of Kirkuk. And in Kirkuk early Monday, unidentified gunmen shot and killed an Iraqi man, Mohammed Ghazi, who neighbors said had worked closely with U.S. forces in the city. A U.S. military spokesman confirmed that there had been a fatal shooting in Kirkuk but said he had no information on the victim. In Baghdad, Iraqi political leaders continued their efforts to involve more members of the Sunni Muslim minority in a new government led by Shiite Muslims. With the committee drafting Iraq's permanent constitution set to meet again Thursday, Sunni Arab leaders were weighing a proposal that would allow them to add 14 or 15 new members to its ranks, according to a Sunni political leader involved in the discussions. The 55-member committee currently has just two Sunni members because it is drawn from Iraq's National Assembly, which is dominated by Shiite Arabs and Sunni Kurds. Sunni Arabs, who make up an estimated 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq's population, largely boycotted elections in January. Kurdish members are pushing an alternative proposal that would expand the committee to about 100 members. Under existing rules, only the original 55 committee members have voting rights, but the panel's leaders could rule that all decisions will be made by consensus or legislation could be passed to allow new members to vote. The committee must complete a draft constitution by Aug. 15 or take a six-month extension that would delay the nationwide referendum on the document, scheduled for October. "If decisions are made by consensus, then the numbers don't matter so much," said Saleh Mutlak, the Sunni leader involved in the discussions. "But to get an agreement by consensus on anything in such a short period of time might be an excuse to get an extension. That would be a bad thing. We want the government to finish as soon as possible." The bombing Monday in Amil, a neighborhood on Baghdad's west side, could easily have been more devastating than it was, residents said. The explosion spewed flaming wreckage and shrapnel 150 yards, but none of it apparently caused serious damage to the girls' high school across the street or to Jabur's business -- a government-run facility for dispensing cooking fuel. If the wreckage had hit any of his four huge gas tanks, Jabur said, "it would be worse than a nuclear bomb." Jabur said he has worked at the same location since 1991. Before last week, he said, the factory next door had housed squatter families, and it once produced furniture for the government of Saddam Hussein. His new neighbors posed dangers he hadn't faced before. "If they will not move from here, I will quit working here," Jabur said. Another local resident, Modhafir Fadhil, said Monday was the day for final exams at Madhil High School across the street. "Can you imagine what happened to those girl students when they were taking the exam?" he said. Fadhil, 52, said he lives in an apartment building adjacent to the new base. "I do not know where to go now," he said. A nearby police station has been a frequent target of insurgent attacks, "and now this base across the street. I will be living in a battlefield." Correspondent Jonathan Finer in Baghdad and special correspondent Marwan Ani in Kirkuk contributed to this report.

BAGHDAD, June 6 -- Iraqi security forces at a new base in the working-class neighborhood of Amil spent Monday belatedly constructing a barrier of bricks and concrete blocks hours after a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives straight into the building where the men were housed,...

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World Opinion Roundup: Blair and The Downing Street Memo

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In his weekly discussion, washingtonpost.com staff writer Jefferson Morley conducts a freewheeling tour of the best of Internet news sites from Afghanistan to Beijing to Mexico City to Paris to Zimbabwe. Jefferson Morley was online Tuesday, June 7, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the Downing Street Memo and Prime Minister Tony Blair 's visit to the White House. Read today's World Opinion Roundup: The Downing Street Memo Story Won't Die. Roundup brings the diversity of the global online media to your screen, presenting today's news and views from journalists, pundits and commentators from every continent. We'll talk about America in the eyes of the world, compare journalistic practices, analyze politics and perspectives, examine the nature of news and debate styles of journalism. Waynesburg, Pa.: Why has there been so little said about the Downing Street Memo in the U.S.? This is much worse than Watergate in my book. (Watergate did not kill our military personnel and innocent civilians). Seems some smart reporter somewhere would grab this story and run with it in Woodward/Bernstein fashion. Jefferson Morley: I think some combination of cynicism, complacency and insulation has stifled the instincts of very good reporters. I also think there is also a failure of leadership at the senior editorial level. The issues raised by the Downing Street minutes are very serious. To pursue them is to invite confrontation. This means that "beat" reporters cannot realistically pursue the story. I say all this way of explanation, not rationalization. There are several natural follow up stories to the Downing Street memo that we should be pursuing right now. London, England: As you are saying you will compare journalistic practices around the world, I am curious as to how British journalists are generally viewed in the U.S. Jefferson Morley: British journalists are, by legend, witty, prolific and cynical and sodden with drink. The reality is slightly different. Bethesda, Md.: (I haven't seen your column yet, so this may be redundant by then.) As quoted by Steve Cobble in The Nation, constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz is exploring whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses: After Downing Street, a Resolution of Inquiry. "The question must now be asked, with the release of the Downing Street Memo, whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. Is it a High Crime to engage in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into a war? Is it a High Crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means of trying to justify a war against another nation based on 'preemptive' purposes? Is it a High Crime to commit a felony via the submission of an official report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launching military action?" Is there any way a minority party, joined by majority members of conscience (like Rep. Jones of N.C.) can initiate such a Resolution of Inquiry? Jefferson Morley: You got to read my column to get answer. Bethesda, Md.: In case your readers hadn't seen it yet, Rep. Conyers' petition to the President (to respond to the comments of the head of British Intelligence that he had "fixed the info" on Iraq) can be read at: Letter to President Bush Concerning the 'Downing Street Minutes'. To your knowledge has the White House had any response to the 90 lawmakers who signed a letter of inquiry to the President on the matter? Jefferson Morley: On May 17, Scott McClellan said that the White House saw no need to respond to the Conyers letter. Laurel, Md.: It seems that most of the American media has ignored the Downing Street Memo and not questioned the administration about this very troubling information. On Meet the Press, Tim Russert questioned RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman about the memo. Mehlman indicated that the findings "have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it," including the 9/11 commission and the Senate. Russert gave a brief retort and then moved on. Why is much of the media covering the missing teen in Aruba, Michael Jackson's trial and the Runaway Bride, but ignoring this potential scandal? Jefferson Morley: I think its because the Washington press corps is oriented around "news" as generated by the White House and the executive branch. When it comes to Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the White House and the Congress have settled on the following narrative: that the U.S. government had every reason to fear the nexus of Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, that the intelligence community agreed that Hussein had WMD and therefore war was not only justified but necessary. The Downing Street Memo invites the thought that maybe that was illusory, that in fact people in the Bush administration were having meetings dedicated to figuring how, as Richard Dearlove said, "fix the facts and the intelligence." I think its hard to journalist's born and bred in the ways of Washington to contemplate the implications. Los Angeles, Calif.: I'm happy to see this memo is getting some attention somewhere! What, in your opinion, is the reason U.S. MSM has not been more aggressive in reporting this very important issue? Have any members of the White House Press Corps directly asked President Bush about it? Thank you for taking questions. Jefferson Morley: I've given some reasons, focusing on the responsibility of the media. But a big part of the problem is that there are no voices in the majority party demanding accountability. Remember, no small part of the growth of the opposition to the Vietnam war were the very serious and informative hearings that Sen. William Fulbright had in 1965-66. It was hear that the American people heard policymakers explain and defend their policies. There is no such venue for accountability today. Knoxville, Tenn.: This story is the perfect proof that the idea of the "liberal media" is nothing more than another urban myth. Just imagine if 10 years ago it came out that President Clinton had mislead the American public on when he had decided to send troops to Bosnia. We would have had 24/7 media coverage of when the impeachment hearings would begin. Also this brings up the question of how many administration officials have perjured themselves while testifying under oath before Congress for the 2002-2003 year that the administration was lying to the American people. Now it becomes extremely clear why Bush and Cheney and Rice all demanded not to be put under oath when "visiting" with the 9/11 commission and why no records of their discussions were kept. But why should the Bush crime family worry with the crack White House press corps on the case--at last Tuesday's press conference the issue was never even brought up to Bush. And after Tim Russert's "hard" follow-up questioning of Ken Mehlman's lies about the memo on Sundays "Meet the Press" the story will die of neglect on network news broadcasts. Other than maybe a Jon Stewart or Keith Olberman piece on this network TV will do all they can to ignore it until the next missing blonde or celebrity in legal trouble story shows up to fill the airwaves. Jefferson Morley: I understand the temptation of cynicism. News organizations in Washington have lost their bearings but I have to believe that they can recover them. This is a story about credibility and accountability. To me the Downing Street Memo is directly related to the military's recruiting problems. There have been a lot of good stories about parents trying to thwart military recruiters. Once proud to send their kids into post-September 11 action against the country's deadliest enemies, mothers and fathers now hesitate because they don't believe the government's statements on the war. The Downing Street Memo is one reason why. Glasgow, United Kingdom: Mr Morley: Do you think it is public fatigue on the question of whether the war was justified that has meant it has received so little noise in the press? Everybody I mentioned this story to, and have sent the link to, have been shocked by this. What else stops the press from giving more attention to this story? Jefferson Morley: I think that there is some public fatigue but I don't think it is about the war. I think the fatigue is with polemics about the war (on the part of opponents) and non-credible statements (on the part of the administration). But as the military recruiting crisis shows there is a real price that the country pays for this fatigue. New York, N.Y.: It won't die? Perhaps for the far left wing - John Conyers, The Guardian, former writers for The Nation such as yourself, the "Internet" denizens that John Kerry refers to. Back here in the reality-based community, though, the "intelligence was fixed" charge was discredited by a BIPARTISAN investigation. But I suppose the bipartisan nature of the investigation is really irrelevant unless the bipartisan investigation has the result you desire, no? Jefferson Morley: The Senate Intelligence Committee did not interview Richard Dearlove and they didn't interview many of the U.S. policymakers with whom he was dealing, so we really don't know why he came away from consultation with the administration saying that "the facts and the intelligence" would be fixed to meet the policy. If Dearlove was fantasizing about the intentions of U.S. policymakers, then the minutes of his meetings kept by the U.S. side should show that. On the other hand, such minutes might confer Dearlove's account. Those minutes, needless to say, are highly classified. Sparks, Nev.: Will anyone from The Washington Post ask Tony Blair on his visit here the question... is the Downing Street Memo true? I think the problem is that the major press and network reporters are afraid to investigate this. If The Post reporters don't ask the question... tell us, why not? Jefferson Morley: I have shared my view that the story can and should be pursued. If Post reporters don't ask Blair about the memo, they have abdicated responsibility in my view. Yonkers, N.Y.: Dear Mr. Morley Here is a suggestion for Prime Minister Tony Blair: He should tell President Bush that he is going to war with Sudan and Somalia to install democracy because democracy is their God given right and he expects the U.S. to contribute 30 billion dollars a year in reconstruction costs for the next 5 years. Blair can distribute the money accordingly throughout Africa. Perhaps, he can persuade L. Paul Bremer to administer the reconstruction process. Seriously though, can anyone doubt that the Downing Street memo is accurate? Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack shows an administration (with the exception of Colin Powell who got rolled like a cheap cigar) that was on a mission to go to war and did not want to be dissuaded. Jefferson Morley: There is no dispute about the authenticity of the Downing Street memo. Reporters need to assess its accuracy. Who is Richard Dearlove? Is he a reliable reporter? Does he have an animus against Bush policy or policymakers? What was said in the meetings he attended that gave him the idea that the Americans were seeking to "fix" the policy. questioning other people who attended the same meetings as Dearlove Westlake, Ohio: What can we as citizens do in order to see that the Downing Street memo isn't swept under the rug? Jefferson Morley: Talk about it with your friends Write a letter to your Congressman asking for his/her explanation. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper asking them to print the Downing Street Memo and comment on its significance. Pacifica, Ca.: It's interesting that Republican officials like Mr. Mehlman are so dismissive of the Downing Street Memo. They certainly have not come up with very many good reasons why it should be ignored. The memo, coupled with the fact that bombing of Iraq by the U.S. and U.K. clearly picked up in 2002 seems to indicate that war was indeed inevitable and that the battlefield was being "prepped" for an invasion. What do you think are the chances of a real, fact-based investigation by Congress being conducted? And, do you think Tony Blair will be asked about this during his visit? Or will the bulk of the media continue its non-confrontational practices? Jefferson Morley: I think Congress is unlikely to investigate until the story is better understood. I hope Blair is asked about it. My two-fold question would be, "Mr. Prime Minister why do you think your intelligence chief came away from meetings with U.S. officials in July 2002 seeming to believe that they were seeking to "fix" facts and intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq? And in your experience was Mr. Dearlove a reliable reporter of U.S. government policy deliberations?" Tampa, Fla.: Mohammed El Baradei was one voice that said our intelligence was wrong. Many inside the CIA said not to trust information from "Curveball". How can the Bush administration claim that they were not fixing policy, but had bad intelligence when they chose to only listen to those who supported their view on Iraq, and shut out any voices opposing their planned invasion? The reason that the Downing Street Memo story is so potentially big and politically difficult to address is because it radically challenges the Bush administration's account of the "intelligence failure" on Iraqi WMD. West Haven, Conn.: Why did Ken Mehlman claim the memo had been discredited on "Face the Nation" Jefferson Morley: I guess because he didn't want to talk about it. No one questions the authenticity of the memo and the administration has provided no accounts of its meetings with Richard Dearlove in July 2002 that dispute his account. If the administration supporters are correct in their claims that there is no story here, then the minutes of the U.S. meetings with Dearlove should confirm their viewpoint. There is absolutely nothing new in the Downing Street Memo. Its just being played up between the left wing groups and their friends in the mainstream media who hate Bush. Bush won the election. America is at war. Stop trashing the war effort from home. Millions of people are free in Afghanistan, and Iraq is making real progress, despite the car bombs. The world is much safer and our troops should be supported and not trashed by the latest Abu Ghraib/ Koran Flush/ Downing Street/ Richard Clark / Halliburton story. The Post, The Times and the television media are painting yourselves forever as the liberal anti war media. I think I will look back upon this time where my opinion of the media finally reached its low point. Jefferson Morley: What's new is Richard Dearlove's statement that Bush policymakers were seeking to "fix the facts and intelligence" to justify a U.S. attack on Iraq. No Bush administration official has ever said this. No intelligence official, American or British, has ever said this. The question is, Is Dearlove a reliable reporter? Asking this question is not "trashing the war effort" and it is not undermining the troops. People who are risking and losing their lives on our behalf deserve the whole truth, not just the truth preferred by elected officials. Tampa, Fla.: Have you noticed any differences on how newspapers treat the Downing St. Memo story based upon which chain owns them? Are any of the chains particularly known for allowing their papers to go after stories without interference from corporate headquarters? Or vice versa? Here in Tampa it is well known the editorial board of the Tampa Tribune wanted to endorse Kerry, but their corporate masters said no. I realize editorial and news management is separate, but I think the analogy apt. Jefferson Morley: Well, Fox News is hostile to the story so I wouldn't expect Fox outlets to pursue but, no, I have not noticed a pattern of ownership shaping coverage. It is something worth keeping track of. The problem here is that the normal journalist impulses seem to be checked: Any editor knowledgeable in the ways of the national security bureaucracy can come with follow up stories on the Downing Street Memo that would have nothing but readers. It is time for us to start doing a couple of those stories and see where they lead us. If the President's partisans are correct that there is no story here, then good reporting should show that. Washington, D.C.: There is no balance to the questions and comments on this chat. They're all liberal/left!! Jefferson Morley: Thanks for your comment. Let's get away from the liberal/left readers for a spell. Philadelphia, Pa.: Did you get a chance to read James S. Robbins article "Causing a Commotion" about this memo, in yesterday's National Review Online? If so, what did you think? Jefferson Morley: I did read that piece and it doesn't change my point of view that further reporting is warranted. Indeed Robbins raises a useful question that needs to be answered: Did Dearlove talk to the President? (Or Vice President Cheney) And he asks another useful question Maybe Rycroft or Dearlove could elaborate; by 'fixed around' did they mean that intelligence was being falsified or that intelligence and information were being gathered to support the policy? There is nothing wrong with the latter - it is the purpose of the intelligence community to provide the information decision-makers need, and the marshal their resources accordingly. So I read Robbins and I come away more convinced than ever that we need to do more reporting. Arlington, Va.: Do you ever get tired of getting yelled at in these by people from both sides who either think this isn't getting covered enough or those who think its getting too much attention? How polarized is this country anyway? Maybe if a miracle happened and a politician actually gave a straight answer to a question just once it would help this country, but I guess that's just a pipe dream. Jefferson Morley: I do get tired of it but it comes with the territory. And there's nothing wrong with people caring about abuses by the government or by the media. Anonymous: Mr. Morley, you said that Bush is being accused of "fixing the intelligence" to attack Iraq. Why can't he use the same intelligence that Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger and the rest used when they bombed Iraq, and build up our troop presence in Kuwait? Or are those reasons no longer valid? Jefferson Morley: The questions raised by the Downing Street memo are very specific to run-up to the Iraq war in 2002. The memo doesn't concern the Clinton administration. It is true that Clinton pursued a policy of regime change against Iraq and used military force and it is clear that he and his advisers used U.S. intelligence sources in making that policy. But no senior intelligence official has said that Clinton and aides were fixing facts and intelligence to pursue their policy. If you have such information, that would be a good story. Please send such information to [email protected]. All information will be held in strictest confidence. Washington, D.C.: You say "There are several natural follow up stories to the Downing Street memo that we should be pursuing right now." Are you pursuing these or do you defer to your fellow reporters? Also there was a segment on www.democracynow.org yesterday on this matter. They also reference http://www.afterdowningstreet.org so it seems that this is escalating...but perhaps it will be a slow burn? Where should we look to keep track of the status and developments? Meaning who do you think is covering this completely and accurately? Jefferson Morley: My job is covering the foreign media, not the White House or the intelligence community. I am conveying to as many editors as possible my own belief that there are stories worth pursuing here. I don't talk about the stories that I am or am not pursuing. Wallingford, Conn.: Republicans are unlikely to allow an investigation of the President, but there are not many Democrats pushing for one. Sen. Kennedy has posted a petition on his Web site for people to encourage their Senators to take action on the memo. Why do you think the Democrats are not pursuing this aggressively? Jefferson Morley: I think that may be changing. Ted Kennedy has come out with a strongly worded statement. San Antonio, Tex.: Would you mind refreshing our collective memories and tell how the Downing Street memo came into the hands of the British press? Was it leaked and if so, by whom? Dearlove? What kind of play did it get when it was first reported--front page coverage or buried in the back of the "A" section? Did the British government make any statement at the time the memo first appeared in print journalism? The Downing Street memo was published in the Times of London on May 1. The Times did not identify its source (of course) but made clear that it came from forces critical of Blair's war policy in the senior level of the British government. The story received front page treatment on the Sunday before the British elections, so it go major coverage, even from The Time's competitors. The British government responded by saying there was "nothing new" in the memo. The authenticity of the memo was not disputed. Black Mountain, N.C.: I cannot say how much I appreciate the increasing attention to the Downing Street Memo from the washingtonpost.com. In terms of print media and nightly news, why haven't they run headline news - "Administration cooked intelligence to lead country to Iraq War?" Isn't that news? Is the media concerned that covering the memo will lead to... more military deaths, more anti-American anger, more terrorist attacks, and not spreading democracy across the Middle East? Jefferson Morley: We should be very concerned about the implications of the memo. If facts and intelligence were deliberately altered to magnify threats and justify war, then U.S. soldiers who risk their lives on our behalf were deceived. If this is a possibility, the press needs to investigate. A decent sense of patriotism requires it. Arlington, Va.: The memo is such a dud because there is no news there. And, then Kerry is at it again - From your article: "I think it's a . . . profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home," Sen. John Kerry told a Massachusetts audience last week. Wasn't it John Kerry that said he would have authorized the invasion -even if- he knew there were no WMD? WMD was the best public/world excuse for invasion after the terrorist connection didn't take. Clearly, the governments of the U.S. and U.K. thought the immediate invasion and removal of Hussein was required, but that the real excuse might not pass muster in the public eye. Plus, there was a chance they would get lucky with some nerve gas or something. Stuff like this happens all the time when you have a democracy and the tough choices of the geo-powerful. Jefferson Morley: Thanks for your cynical point of view. As for me, I see too much cynicism in the news business so I try to avoid it. New York, N.Y.: The Downing Street Minutes seem to confirm the testimony of Richard Clarke from more than a year ago regarding a sought-after excuse to attack Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, suggested a similar climate within the administration. What source would be legitimate enough to warrant coverage? I ask this question in the context of the recent revelation of Deep Throat's identity. Jefferson Morley: O'Neill was talking about pre-9/11 planning. Clark was talking about post 9-11 planning. The Downing Street minutes document the war planning in the summer of 2002. But there does seem to be a continuum there. San Antonio, Tex.: "My job is covering the foreign media, not the White House or the intelligence community. I am conveying to as many editors as possible my own belief that there are stories worth pursuing here," So, how are other European countries, other than Britain, reacting to the Downing Street memo? How about the reaction from the Arab press? Jefferson Morley: Very good question. The Downing Street Memo has gotten very little attention in the Arab press. I think this is in part because of a wide consensus in the Arab world that, of course, the Bush administration acted in bad faith. I also think it is based on lack of knowledge about how the Western national security bureaucracies truly function. Manheim, Pa.: It seems we need some new 21st century Deep Throats and Bob Woodwards. Why is it there seems to be no heroes to help bring down this criminal administration? If I were a reporter I'd be all over this and many other things I feel have not gotten the attention they desire from the media. Know any news organizations I could go to and give them the Big scoops, that would help bring down the most criminal administration in America's history? Thank you Jefferson Morley: Let's not romanticize the past. No one regarded Woodward and Bernstein or their sources as heroes when they were reporting on Watergate in 1972 and early 1973. They were out on a limb and much criticized by the White House. Its not a pleasant place to be and reporters are understandably reluctant to go there. Sterling, Va.: Don't the revelations of the Downing Street minutes now clarify the purpose of John Bolton's mission to seek the ouster of Jose Bustani from the U.N.'s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons? Isn't it now clear that with the march to war locked in, the United States could not afford for the U.N. to make a fact-based inquiry that would presumably have proven what we now know to be true: that there were no chemical weapons stockpiles in Iraq? Jefferson Morley: I think it does clarify it. It may be that one of the ways to "fix" the intelligence, was to remove from positions of responsibility people who might put forward intelligence that impeded the war policy. We need to know more about Bolton's actions in 2002 to know if this is the case. I would like to know: Did Dearlove or his deputies meet with Bolton in 2002? Wayzata, Minn.: Has it become a myth that one of the core reasons people become journalists is the desire to report the truth to the public? Because I don't know what journalists right now are working so hard for. Is it for ego, praise or.. what? It can't be money! I mean, it is so obvious that good, hard working journalists are laying down on this Downing Memo, and I don't know why. What are they afraid of? Jefferson Morley: What are they afraid of? I don't think Post reporters are afraid of this story. In general, I think reporters are afraid of being used by the President's opponents. I think they're afraid of a secret document that they don't have. I think they are afraid of losing access to high-level sources. Such fears are entirely justified. The reporter who doesn't think about them isn't doing the job right. Of course, acknowledging fears does not require succumbing to them. Baltimore, Md.: Re: Bolton's involvement in firing a U.N. official, as detailed in your column: This AP story got front page above the fold in the Baltimore Sun on Sunday. Yet I looked for it in The Post on that day and saw nothing? Did I miss it? Jefferson Morley: No. It wasn't there. Washington, D.C.: This memo is the latest try to destroy the war effort by defeating Bush. It's cynical. I'm surprised you've given it as much respect, Mr. Morley. We had this debate in this country, we know Saddam had weapons, used weapons and violated the sanctions, we know because no less than the U.N. (hardly a friend of the administration) told us so. The fact is you libs are trying to destroy this country by running wild with speculation and fantasy, ignoring the historical facts leading up to and during the war. Try and mentioning 17 resolutions, try mentioning the consensus of the West on WMD, try mentioning any of this and you get more fantasy and liberals assign crazy motives to everyone. Its over guys, you lost the election and now you've officially enter "KOOK" status. Move to Canada already. Jefferson Morley: I'm puzzled. Charles Deulfer and David Kay of the CIA investigated and concluded that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction in 2003. They were not trying to destroy this country. Nor am I. I love this country and love that free speech is one of its foundations. I am trying to say there's a real story worth perusing here. If Richard Dearlove was way off base in his reporting on the Bush administration's policies in mid 2002, then U.S. government and officials should be able to demonstrate that with more accurate recollections and documents. Your notion that there was consensus in the West on Iraq's WMD is not historically supported. The British officials who met with Blair said the case for war to remove Saddam's alleged WMD was "thin." Clinton, Mont.: Jefferson, This isn't a question but a hearty congratulations! Having just read through your article, I have to say, you just may be the leading story scoop champ of, at least the day. Your article really does cover the critical points at least on the presently known surface, and really does put you way out in front of MSNBC, Newsweek, CNN, and CBS. You have potential to actually go down in history as the one main-stream journalist that is really pulling the facts together in the true spirit of the outing of Deep Throat - a genuine Woodward and Bernstein. I love it! Keep up the digging. I've always thought that someone just needed to "connect the dots" as they say about 9/11, and the true picture will emerge. By now you know that Senator Kennedy has come forward presenting the DSM story in Congress. Why don't you interview him and start asking him what the next steps are in getting to the actual truth involved in this horrid fraud perpetrated on America. Jefferson Morley: Thank you, Clinton. Laurel, Md.: Is it possible that the real reason that the media is mostly steering clear of this story is that past stories such as CBS's coverage of Bush's military service and Newsweek's coverage of the Koran abuses, and the way that the White House manipulates that coverage, have made many media outlets a bit "gun shy"? It is starting to seem that the White House is winning the cat-and-mouse game that it is playing with the American public and the truths that it denies so vehemently. Jefferson Morley: I would say every reporter should be "gun shy" about making serious allegations in print. And its good to be aware of how an accurate story may attract fire But neither of these is a reason not to pursue the implications of the Downing Street minutes. San Antonio, Tex.: What do we know about Dearlove? Any chance that the administration would release minutes of the meeting(s) with Dearlove, especially if the minutes of any meeting(s) were incriminating to the administration? Where does the public's right to know play into the story? Jefferson Morley: I don't know a lot about Dearlove, save that he recently left the British government for a business venture of obscure nature. There is little chance that the Bush administration will release its minutes of the meetings that he attended. This story is all about the public's right to know. We have the right to the information that will enable us to determine if the Downing Street minutes are accurate or not. Arlington, Va.: For the record, not everyone who wants to know more about this is a Bush-hating liberal who needs to move to Canada. Some of us just want to be sure we weren't lied to. And with that very timely reminder, I have to sign off. I regret I couldn't get to all the questions but we are way over time. I did answer every question from those readers who disagree with my views on the Downing Street Memo. If you want to get World Opinion Roundup via email, send a message to [email protected] and put the word "subscribe" in the subject line. Your address will not be shared with any other party. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

washingtonpost.com staff writer Jefferson Morley discusses discusses how international pundits view foreign news.

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A 33-Year-Old Pledge Was Kept at a Price: The Post's Lost Scoop

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How, after 33 years of secrecy, did The Washington Post get scooped on its own story about the tantalizing mystery of Deep Throat? The answer is that Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Ben Bradlee felt they were in a box -- the promise of confidentiality made to W. Mark Felt during the Nixon administration -- and were not convinced that the 91-year-old former FBI agent was lucid enough to release them from that pledge. Family members "have said he just doesn't have any memory now," Woodward said yesterday, referring to e-mails he received from Felt's relatives. The dilemma, said Woodward, was whether "someone in his condition and age" was "competent" to make the decision to go public. "I had been in touch with Mark Felt," said Woodward, the best-selling author who is an assistant managing editor at The Post. "How was his health? Had he changed his mind about being identified? This was an ongoing reporting enterprise." Felt suffered a mild stroke in 2001. Woodward said the Vanity Fair story detailing Felt's role came as a total surprise to him when it was released Tuesday morning. "I didn't know he was gearing up to go public," he said. To Bradlee, who was the paper's executive editor during Watergate, there was no decision to be made. "If you give your word you're not going to do it, you can't do it," said Bradlee, now a Post Co. vice president. "We were the only people who were clinically and morally bound not to break this story, so how could we break it?" What's more, Bradlee said of Felt, "the guy has not got all his marbles. The question was whether he could have given us permission." The image of Woodward meeting Deep Throat in a Washington parking garage -- stamped on the public consciousness by Robert Redford and Hal Holbrook in the movie "All the President's Men" -- had made Felt the most famous unnamed source in modern history. The unexpected disclosure of Felt's role as the former No. 2 official at the FBI who guided Woodward about the investigation of Nixon administration corruption has re-energized the debate over the press and unnamed sources. It is a debate with particular resonance in 2005, as a special prosecutor seeks to jail reporters Matt Cooper and Judith Miller for refusing to reveal their sources in the Valerie Plame leak probe, and as Newsweek is reeling from a retracted story about the alleged desecration of the Koran that was based on inaccurate information from an unnamed government official. "Reporters live by the law of the jungle," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the nonprofit Project for Excellence in Journalism. "You have your word, and the words have to mean something literally. Your credibility with all the future sources you might deal with, and the credibility of your organization, depends on people understanding that. The Post looks better today because Woodward and Bernstein allowed themselves to be scooped." The Post began planning for a Deep Throat story about two months ago, when Leonard Downie Jr., who became executive editor in 1991, heard Woodward say in an interview that the legendary source was very old. Downie recalled telling Woodward that he didn't want to be "caught flat-footed" if Deep Throat died, and Woodward offered to let him read a lengthy piece he was preparing on their relationship, "with the obvious implication that for the first time I would know who Deep Throat was," Downie said. Woodward, who had visited Felt in California in 1999, said Felt's daughter, Joan, forwarded him a May 29 e-mail from John D. O'Connor, a San Francisco area lawyer who had been working with Felt and is the author of the Vanity Fair article.

Get Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and national news. Get the latest/breaking news, featuring national security, science and courts. Read news headlines from the nation and from The Washington Post. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/nation today.

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At FBI, Reflections On Felt and Loyalty

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When Bob Gast was a junior agent at FBI headquarters in the early 1970s, W. Mark Felt "loomed large" as the bureau's second most powerful official and an acolyte of the legendary late director, J. Edgar Hoover. "He was not one of those flashy guys, particularly," Gast recalls. "He wasn't the type of fellow who was in front with PR appearances and all that. . . . He got things done quietly. He was a real force within the bureau." But Felt's biggest impact turns out to have been his role as "Deep Throat," the unidentified Nixon administration official who helped guide two young Washington Post reporters as they chased the unfolding Watergate scandal. Tuesday's revelation that Felt was Washington's most famous anonymous source has come as a shock to many retired and current agents at the FBI, some of whom say they are discomfited by a senior FBI executive leaking details of an investigation to the press. In some chat rooms frequented by retired FBI veterans, Felt is even being accused of betraying the bureau. But for the most part, many current and former agents said in interviews yesterday, Felt is viewed as a reluctant hero who was seeking to preserve the integrity of a criminal investigation that was under political attack from the Nixon White House and its allies. "Having a senior bureau official go around the system and go to the media is probably something most of us would not condone in general," said Gast, who is president of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. "But it was also a very difficult time, and the bureau was caught in the middle." Glenn F. Kelly, executive director of the FBI Agents Association, which represents current bureau employees, said "people are a little bit shellshocked" by the revelation. "Agents are typically very loyal to the bureau," Kelly said. "I'm sure that's what he saw himself as doing." Felt's identity as a key source for reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein was revealed Tuesday with the help of Felt's family in an article for Vanity Fair magazine. Woodward, Bernstein and former Post editor Benjamin C. Bradlee confirmed Felt's role. Now 91 and in poor health, Felt worked for 31 years as the prototypical FBI loyalist. Although Felt hoped to be named director after Hoover's death in 1972, President Richard M. Nixon turned instead to a Justice Department official, L. Patrick Gray III. Several former FBI agents argued that Felt felt trapped by the presence of Nixon loyalist Gray, who would be identified as a conduit of information to the White House in the Watergate scandal. Paul V. Daly, a former longtime FBI official who was involved in many of the major Watergate-related inquiries in the 1970s, said Felt's aid to The Post "was done for a noble purpose," though he is not sure whether he approves of the methods.

Get Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and national news. Get the latest/breaking news, featuring national security, science and courts. Read news headlines from the nation and from The Washington Post. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/nation today.

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Follow the Money: The Marketing of Deep Throat

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On Tuesday, an old man emerged from the shadows to solve a mystery that had long intrigued political experts, journalists and just plain Americans. Yesterday, as he was chauffeured away from his house in Santa Rosa, Calif., he rolled down his car window and jovially told reporters that he now plans to "write a book or something and get all the money I can." Welcome, Deep Throat, to the modern media marketing machine. No one knows yet what W. Mark Felt -- aka Deep Throat, The Washington Post's long-secret Watergate source -- has to say, or how well he can say it, given that he's 91 years old and suffering from both physical and mental deterioration. But everyone, it seems, wants to know more about his story. Major publishing houses -- HarperCollins, Random House and Little, Brown among them -- fielded calls from David Kuhn, a media agent representing Felt's family and his attorney, in New York yesterday. They may have listened with skepticism, or excitement, or a mixture of both, but many signed up for meetings later this week. Court TV executives listened to multiple pitches from producers interested in making Deep Throat/Watergate made-for-television movies. Alice Mayhew, editor on Bob Woodward's multiple best-selling books for Simon & Schuster, came down to Washington from New York to pay a personal visit to her client -- and read Woodward's previously undisclosed manuscript about the relationship he had with his famous source. BlackBerrys buzzed from Los Angeles to Washington to New York. "Whenever you have a celebrity book -- and in a way this is a celebrity book, although perhaps a celebrity book with a 202 area code -- there is often a lack of material on the page," said Geoff Shandler, editor in chief at Little, Brown. "You're buying into the concept as much as anything." The landslide started with the advance release Tuesday of an article slated for the July edition of Vanity Fair, in which Felt acknowledges that he was Deep Throat. In the article, written by family attorney John D. O'Connor, family members acknowledge that a factor in going public now, rather than after Felt's death (which was long the understanding between Felt and Woodward), was financial gain. Kuhn, a former magazine editor who now has his own agency, Kuhn Projects, was making calls less than 24 hours after the story broke. Though Kuhn had no comment on the family's plans, meetings involving him, O'Connor and several publishers are scheduled for late this week and early next. The family is also reportedly interested in television and film projects. One publishing house that did not get a call from Kuhn is Simon & Schuster, publisher of the previous 12 bestsellers by Woodward. Woodward confirmed yesterday that he and Carl Bernstein plan to tell their story, but the how and when, he said, has not yet been settled. Nevertheless, the industry was abuzz about what the book will say and how soon it will hit the shelves. "Bob Woodward owns the story," said Jonathan Karp, a senior editor at Random House, a competitor of Simon & Schuster. "I'll be on line the first day it's on sale at Barnes & Noble. I'll even pay the full retail price." Several editors expressed some significant reservations about the viability of a Felt book on several fronts, but that doesn't mean they're passing on a meeting.

On Tuesday, an old man emerged from the shadows to solve a mystery that had long intrigued political experts, journalists and just plain Americans. Yesterday, as he was chauffeured away from his house in Santa Rosa, Calif., he rolled down his car window and jovially told reporters that he now plans...

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Deep Throat: The Post and Watergate

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The Washington Post Tuesday confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon. The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories. Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. was online Wednesday, June 1, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the confirmation of Mark Felt as Deep Throat and The Washington Post's reporting of the Watergate story. Forestville, Md.: Will we see any interviews, statements, or even these chats with Woodward, Bernstein or Bradlee? Leonard Downie: Bob Woodward is today writing a story for tomorrow's paper and washingtonpost.com about his relationship with Deep Throat. He may do interviews and chats after that. Silver Spring, Md.: Thanks for taking questions today! Surely yesterday must have been a disappointing day for The Post. After loyally maintaining confidentiality for 33 years, you deserved to be the ones to break the story. That said, is there also a sense of relief that the story is finally out there, people can stop bugging you about it, and The Post is, after all, vindicated from suspicions about Deep Throat's existence? Leonard Downie: There is indeed a sense of relief that people now know the identity of Deep Throat and we can tell everyone everything about it. It was more important to us that we maintain our vow of confidentiality than necessarily be ones who broke the story, since readers can only get the full story from us anyway. Atlanta, Ga.: When the story first broke yesterday, Woodward and Bernstein issued statements reiterating their stance of 30-plus years; that is, they wouldn't reveal Deep Throat's identity until that person passed away. Who, then, made the final decision at The Post that they would break that long-held vow and confirm Felt was indeed Deep Throat? Leonard Downie: They made those statements before we all had a chance to study the Vanity Fair story, confer with each other (we had to converge on our newsroom from a variety of locations) and decide what to do. Once we had that, we decided that Mark Felt's family and lawyer had, in effect, released us from our confidentiality agreement and we could go ahead and confirm his idea as Deep Throat and write about it. Scranton, Pa.: How many people in the Chain of Command at Washington Post had to resolve themselves to secrecy for all these years? Leonard Downie: Just Ben Bradlee, because Bob and Carl. No one else knew until recently. Kensington, Md.: Who came up with the name "Deep Throat" -- and why "Deep Throat?" Leonard Downie: The late Howard Simons, who was managing editor of The Washington Post in 1972, coined the phrase in humorous reference to a then popular, off-color movie -- and the name stuck. San Bruno, Calif.: Would today's Washington Post allow two junior reporters (such as Woodward and Bernstein) to identify a source only to the senior executive editor (such as Bradlee)? Or it is expected that the reporter would reveal the source name to his or her immediate supervisor? Leonard Downie: Our rule is that anytime we attribute information in the paper to an anonymous source, at least one editor needs to know the identity of the source. Washington, D.C.: Can you expand upon how the decision was made to confirm Felt's identity as Deep Throat? Did you weigh in, or was it left up to Wood/Bern/Bradlee? Did the three of them meet privately? How did you pick David Von Drehle to write the story today? Were any of his questions NOT answered by the above three? Leonard Downie: I made the decision after conferring with Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward in the way I described in an earlier answer. I had picked David Von Drehle weeks ago to be prepared to write the Deep Throat story when Deep Throat died, without Von Drehle knowing who Deep Throat was. He prepared by reviewing information about Watergate and Deep Throat. Philadelphia, Pa.: W. Mark Felt's revelation has brought even more questions into the ongoing feud over confidential sources, an argument that some media have made into a polarized discussion. As a journalism student, I'm worried about what the state of journalism will be when I enter the field. How do you think the "Deep Throat" revelation will affect the state of confidential sources? Leonard Downie: For a variety of reasons, most news organizations have tightened up their use of anonymous sources and studies show that their use has decreased in many large news outlets, including The Washington Post. But they are still necessary in holding the powerful accountable to the rest of us when the primary sources fear losing their jobs or worse if they become whistle-blowers. Washington, D.C.: Haldeman is recorded on the Nixon Tapes October 19, 1972, telling Nixon that Felt is leaking information to The Post. He (Haldeman) says an "official" at The Post was his source for fingering Felt. The official says he got the info from a Post reporter. If we are to treat the transcripts of the Nixon tapes as "the Bible of Watergate" or at least the "Book of Nixon," are we to believe the Nixon White House had their own "Deep Throat" within The Washington Post camp? Do tell, please... Leonard Downie: No. I don't think so. The Nixon tapes show that he and his aides often threw around speculation that had no basis in fact. Arlington, Va.: A multi-part question, Mr. Downie. Have you had much discussion with the Felt family since the story broke? Will his revelations change the after-the-fact face of Watergate? Does The Post feel it's in any danger of losing news credibility because this story is now out? Thanks very much! Leonard Downie: I think the Post's credibility is enhanced by the fact that we stuck to our confidentiality agreement until Mark Felt's family and lawyer revealed his identity. The coverage that will continue about him and his role in Watergate may well reveal still more details about Watergate but probably not anything that would change our general understanding of what happened. Washington, D>C.: Tell us the truth, unvarnished: Do you view today's New York Times news account, with its emphasis on you guys supposedly being scooped by Vanity Fair, as sour grapes? The New York Times wasn't exactly leading the charge in the 1970s on the Watergate story. And they had the first edge, with the Pentagon Papers. Leonard Downie: I always let our coverage speak for itself and other paper's coverage speak for itself. I believe in the intelligence and wisdom of our readers. Alexandria, Va.: It's important to point out that Felt was never the sole source on a story published by the Post during Watergate. Everything he said or led them to had to be confirmed by at least one other source, I believe. Could Felt be a sole source on a story today? Would the Post publish such a story without further corroboration? Leonard Downie: You're right. Everything Felt told Woodward had to be corroborated by other sources, of which there were many. We operate under the same rules today. Linkwood, Md.: Regarding The Post rule on editors knowing the identity of a source, didn't Bradlee violate that? He said he didn't know Deep Throat's name until after Nixon resigned. Leonard Downie: He was told about Deep Throat's access to information and was satisfied by that and by the fact that everything he said had to corroborated by other sources. Today, our rule is that an editor has to know the source's full identity. Washington, D.C.: You wrote that you picked Von Drehle weeks ago to write the Deep Throat story when Deep Throat died. Did you have any reason at the time to think Deep Throat was in ill health? Had Woodward asked you to be prepared to write such a story? Did he know the article was in the works at Vanity Fair? Leonard Downie: Woodward had said publicly that Deep Throat was very old. So I decided it was time to prepare a contingency plan for when he died. A couple of months ago, Woodward showed me information about Deep Throat to help with that. I then assigned Von Drehle to get ready without telling him Deep Throat's identify or knowing whether we would be writing about him in a month or many years. Arlington, Va.: What is Woodward and Bernstein's relationship like? Are they friends now, or were they ever? Leonard Downie: Woodward and Bernstein have been friends ever since they started working on Watergate 33 years ago. Bethesda, Md.: Okay, I know this is inside baseball, but could you elaborate on how you approached von Drehle. I'm trying to imagine his being called into an office with the blinds drawn, you sitting behind a desk, and then Donald Graham stepping out from behind a shadow. Brad Pitt portraying von Drehle slowly turns to assess the group.... Leonard Downie: Sounds like a good movie, but I want Brad Pitt playing me (they'll need to add some wrinkles in makeup). It was just a conversation between David and me in my office. Chicago, Ill.: It has been posited that Felt had other, more official avenues (governmental) open to him with which to expose what was going on. Were these truly options? Would he not been in extreme danger after bring such information to someone in the official chain of command? Leonard Downie: I agree with the premise of your question. Woodward will soon provide more details about his assessment of Felt's motivation, but it certainly appeared that he would been thwarted or worse if had tried to express his concerns to his superiors. Cambridge, Mass.: Why did The Post seem so surprised by this announcement? Didn't Vanity Fair fact check this story, giving you a heads up? Leonard Downie: Someone sent Woodward a copy of the Vanity Fair story yesterday morning. As Paul Fahri reported in the Post and on this site today, the Vanity Fair operation for this was very secret. Arlington, Va.: One has to remember the courage of Katharine Graham in backing Bradlee up as he potentially risked so much by letting these two young reporters take things as far as they did. I think she would be enjoying this week's events. The fact that Felt was a higher-up at the FBI must have helped to fuel Bradlee's confidence in the source. I just hope people understand the huge risk Bradlee, Graham and all at The Post took by following this story. Those were scary times. Leonard Downie: I totally agree with everything you said, especially about Mrs. Graham, who was very wise and brave in this and many other decisions she made while running this company. Her book, Personal History, is a wonderful autobiography that everyone should read. Alexandria, Va.: Given both the mistrust of the "liberal media" and Felt's prior repeated denials, isn't it probably better for The Post that Deep Throat's identity was released by Felt rather than by The Post after his death? Even if Woodward and Bernstein had concrete written proof, I could see naysayers doubting whatever they released. Leonard Downie: Yes, I think so. Hartford, Conn.: What kind of burden does the responsibility of the Watergate story bring to bear on The Washington Post? And how does that impact the editorial direction of the paper? Leonard Downie: Ever since President Nixon's resignation and the book and the movie, the Post has had to work hard to maintain the credibility and responsibility it earned during Watergate. It makes us take very seriously what we do here in the public interest. Re: Von Drehle: Spectacular choice. He's a superb reporter and writer. Leonard Downie: Oh, come on. We want to keep this guy modest. Washington, D.C.: You wrote in reply to another question: "A couple of months ago, Woodward showed me information about Deep Throat to help with that. I then assigned Von Drehle to get ready without telling him Deep Throat's identify or knowing whether we would be writing about him in a month or many years." This makes it sound as though you did learn Deep Throat's identity before yesterday. Thus, the question is, what did you know and when did you know it? Leonard Downie: Bob revealed it to me a couple of months ago so that we could prepare journalistically for his death. I told no one else. Northford, Conn.: Did either Woodward or Bernstein have advance knowledge that Felt was intending to reveal himself to the press? How much contact have they had with him since the Watergate scandal? And why do you think he chose Vanity Fair and not the Washington Post to cover this revelation? Leonard Downie: The only things I know in answer to your questions is that Bob Woodward had maintained contact with Mark Felt and his family, but was surprised by the Vanity Fair article. Groton, Conn.: How would have The Post done a story in collaboration with Mr. Felt? One great comment in the Vanity Fair article was that Mr. Felt was a prisoner of sorts for the past 33 years. Does The Post have any regrets to that? Is there anything you would have done different or encouraged if you had the choice? Leonard Downie: By all accounts, Mark Felt has led a full life since Watergate. I am proud that Bob and Carl maintained their pledge of confidentiality until his family and lawyer revealed his identity. San Francisco, Calif.: Do you think the vast coverage surrounding Deep Throat's revealed identity, and the resulting discussion about what he did, will encourage or discourage new government whistle blowers? Leonard Downie: I believe most whistle blowers, like Mark Felt, are motivated at least in part by their patriotism, which I do not expect to be diminished by the revelation of what Mark Felt did. Chicago, Ill.: A University of Illinois journalism professor spent four years leading various classes through an investigation into Throat's identity. They came up with Fred Fielding as the source, and now the professor says Woodward and Bernstein provided misleading information about Throat's identity. Any comments? Leonard Downie: To may knowledge, Bob and Carl have never publicly provided any misleading information about Deep Throat, including in their newspaper stories and books. The professor is referring to what he claims was an early, uncorrected,unpublished draft of something they wrote. Santa Fe, N.M.: Why have we yet to hear from Woodward in the paper? I would have thought a story authored by him would have been a high priority in today's Post. Surely, Woodward would have anticipated this day and had something at least partially ready. Is there still some underlying discomfort with questions of Mr. Felt's current competency at The Post that are causing delays? Leonard Downie: Bob is writing a lengthy story about his relationship with Mark Felt which will appear in the Post and on this site tomorrow. Baltimore, Md.: I understand that Bernstein is an editor at Vanity Fair. What was his relationship with their article? Did he know it was coming? Did he influence it at all? Leonard Downie: No, no and no. Frederick, Md.: I just finished reading "All the President's Men" a few weeks ago and with the revelation of Deep Throat's Identity, I can't help but think of Mrs. Graham and how she would react if she were still alive today. She put a lot on the line for the Watergate stories and I can't remember if the book mentions why she was never told the identity of Deep Throat. Did she ever have her suspicions as to the identity of this most famous confidential source? Leonard Downie: She famously told Ben, Bob and Carl that as long as the Watergate reporting held up, as it did, she did not need to know who Deep Throat was. Washington, D.C.: Prior to finding out the identity of Deep Throat, who was your main suspect and why? Leonard Downie: My first suspect was Elliott Richardson because he would have been in a position to know some of the information and had Yale and Navy connections that might have met he would have known Woodward for a long time. After that and another mistaken guess on my part, several years ago I wrote down a third guess -- Mark Felt -- on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope that I gave to Bob. He never indicated whether I was right or wrong or even whether he had opened the envelope. I had guessed Felt, after my earlier mistakes, because he also was a position to know much of the information and had struck me, when I was a reporter and he was a senior FBI official, as a man of confidence, courage and integrity. Freeland, Mich.: Was there ever any concern that Felt's participation was only a result of his lack of promotion, that is to say, he was involved only as a matter of revenge? Does that make any difference in the coverage? Leonard Downie: Sources have many motives for blowing the whistle. We always try to make certain that the information is correct, regardless of motive. Laguna Niguel, Calif.: Do you have any insight as to why John O'Connor approached Vanity Fair, an not The Post, to publish his article identifying Felt? Leonard Downie: No. In answer to this and other questions about why the family and their lawyer went to Vanity Fair, I can only cite what Paul Fahri reported today. Washington, D.C.: Regarding you response: "Bob revealed it to me a couple of months ago so that we could prepare journalistically for his death. I told no one else." Thanks for being so straight-up and letting us know. And Katharine Graham did not need to know, but really, to prepare, you did. I think this has been handled very professionally and I'm eager to read Mr. Woodward's piece. Washington, D.C.: Maybe this is already well known by Deep Throat groupies, but I've never heard -- Does the parking garage where Woodward met with Felt still exist? Where is (was) it? (Or maybe they built the Reagan building on it?) Leonard Downie: Good question. I'll ask Bob. Washington, D.C.: Is it true the Nixon Administration threatened to deny FCC licenses to The Post? Could they have gotten away with such blatant censorship or disregard for freedom of speech? Do you see similarities with the Bush Administration's FCC witchhunt against journalists/publications for unfavorable coverage of the president? Could The Post be crippled by the White House today? Leonard Downie: During our reporting on Watergate, some of the Post's television license renewals were challenged by a friend of the president's, which was a threat to the Post's financial well-being. I have not seen such an action by any administration since then. Copenhagen, Denmark: Did the articles of Woodward and Bernstein lead to the fall of Nixon, or did they just expose information that was bound to come out anyway? Where they responsible for the fall of Nixon or is this just the popular myth? Leonard Downie: We just don't know what would have come out without Bob and Carl's reporting. We do know that their stories, Judge Sirica's outspoken comments and Senator Ervin's Watergate hearings combined to reveal what was going on, which led to Nixon's fall. Confidentiality Agreement: Was Woodward's agreement with Felt a handshake arrangement or was it put down in writing? Leonard Downie: It was a spoken agreement, as such things usually are. Myersville, Md.: There is still speculation that Deep Throat was a composite source because some conclude Felt could not have known all that has been attributed to him at the times he was supposed to have provided information or confirmation. Are you satisfied that the record will prove consistent about Felt being "the only" Deep Throat? Still, are there other important White House sources for Woodward and Bernstein's work that are as yet undisclosed? Leonard Downie: Mark Felt, not a composite, was Deep Throat. As has always been publicly known, Bob and Carl also many other sources, named and unnamed. Maryland: It says in the story today that Woodward has a book ready for Deep Throat's death. On the other side, Felt's family says they had tried to publish a book with Woodward and then that he was going to "get all the glory." Was there an economic dispute between Woodward and the family? New York, N.Y.: I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that you were told by Woodward who the source was a few months ago. Could you give us further insight into that conversation? Were you surprised? Was it frustrating that there was nobody you could discuss it with? After all, the whole nation is talking about it now! Leonard Downie: As the newspaper's editor, I have had to keep many such secrets, some for many years -- or even forever, so I've gotten used to it. I was pleased, when I found out, that I had finally guessed right after several wrong tries, and I was pleased that we could get ready to produce the kind of journalism that appeared in the Post and on this site today and will continue tomorrow. Raleigh, N.C.: As someone who was born in the time that Watergate was going down, I have always been a little fascinated by it all but really did not have any knowledge of it. Are you happy about the renewed interest in this story especially from people my age? Leonard Downie: Yes. It is an important, reassuring story about both the role of American journalism and the strength of the American political journalism, which is good to be reminded of during a time of political polarization and media controversy. Frederick, Md.: It has been said that the print media is the primary source for all other news outlets. How important is it that major newspapers continue to pursue investigative journalism? What is the legacy of Deep Throat today and in the years to come? Leonard Downie: It is vitally important that major newspapers continue to pursue investigative journalism, what I call "accountability reporting" -- holding the powerful accountable for their use of power. No other news medium has the resources and expertise for this kind of journalism that major newspapers have. Berkeley, Calif.: The cynic in me is a bit wary of all the pomp surrounding this announcement -- after all, weren't Woodward and Bernstein just doing what good journalists are supposed to do: question authority, follow tricky leads, and stand firm against those who would abuse their power? Do you think that, given recent events -- the lack of media scrutiny of the Iraq war decision, the tendency to chase false news like the Schiavo case etc. -- it's still possible for the next generation of Woodward and Bernsteins to topple a crooked regime (yes, I am thinking about present circumstances)? Leonard Downie: Yes, it is possible and likely. Reporters continue to do exactly the kind of work you describe. As to Iraq, while we did not do a good enough job of highlighting dissenting views before the war, we have done a thorough job since of scrutinizing the war's origins, conduct and aftermath; most of what you know about all that came from the news media rather than any other source. Columbus, Ohio: I read somewhere yesterday that The Post only got one story wrong on Watergate and that was a piece on some grand jury testimony. After the story was published the White House made the famous accusation that The Post practiced "shabby journalism." Is it true that that one story was the only one The Post got wrong and can you elaborate on what the error was? Leonard Downie: The only error in the Post's Watergate coverage was a report that something had been stated in grand jury testimony, when it had not been. We corrected it. Alexandria, Va.: I know you were late in arriving, but can you give us some color from the newsroom yesterday with Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein all together again? What was the atmosphere like? Leonard Downie: I actually arrived in the newsroom before they did (although Ben was elsewhere in our building). It was wonderful and nostalgic to see them all together again, talking about Watergate. Lake Placid, N.Y.: According to today's Post, there were long periods when Woodward and Bernstein did not have anything to report regarding Watergate. Was there a point when Bradlee or others considered stopping them from continuing with the story? Leonard Downie: Never. Ben kept pushing for more. Although there were periods when they were not ready to publish more, their reporting continued unabated until they found more. Boston, Mass.: If Washington Post and staff were to cover the Watergate story again, how would you suggest current concerns about journalistic sources and their use might affect today's "Watergate-like" coverage and use of "deep background" material? Leonard Downie: We'd do it the same way. Laurel, Md.: Could you explain the differences between background, deep background and off the record and how those rules apply at The Post today and during Watergate? Could Woodward and Bernstein quote Deep Throat anonymously or could they just use him to confirm information they already had from some place else? Leonard Downie: We prefer all sources to be on the record. If not, we prefer that a source be "on background" so we can use the substance without identifying the source. We avoid having source's go "off the record," because that means we could never use what they say, even to seek corroboration elsewhere. Deep Throat was "on deep background," meaning we could publish only what could be completely corroborated by other sources. Leonard Downie: Thanks everyone. Keeping reading washingtonpost.com and the Post. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.

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Wine Decision's Aftertaste

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The story once was mise en bouteille almost exclusively by the technology press, especially when dot-com entrepreneurs were making millions of dollars every time they discovered one more product they could sell on the Internet. But once a bunch of lawsuits sprang up over the subject, it quickly ripened into a spicy topic. At issue, as many of you will remember, was whether more than two dozen states could defend laws on their books forbidding out-of-state wineries from shipping their vintages to customers in their home states. Happily for all us oenophiles, the justices trampled all over the states' rights arguments. It seemed that there was hardly a reporter or editor who could resist topping their stories with references to "popping the cork" and "toasting" the ruling, but the New York Times reported that the wineries' gain could be the distributors' and retailers' loss in a very human way: "Now that the ruling's likely effect is settling in, distributors and retailers fear that out-of-state wineries may gain an advantage, leading to a loss of sales and jobs in New York. And a few wine producers have expressed concern about potential new costs, like licensing fees and bookkeeping," the Times wrote. "On the plus side, the markets of 49 other states would be open to New York State wines. But on the minus side, the state's vineyards could lose what was effectively a monopoly on direct shipments to the thirsty New York market, whose wine drinkers would be able to simply point and click to buy a sauvignon blanc from Santa Barbara County in California or a pinot gris from Willamette Valley in Oregon, in addition to some of the award-winning Rieslings that they have been ordering up to now from the Finger Lakes in upstate New York." Gov. George Pataki (R), meanwhile, has submitted a bill to the state legislature to allow direct shipments, but not everybody likes it, the Elmira Star-Gazette reported: "Pataki's bill would limit the amount of wine that can be shipped to individuals to two cases a month and not allow retailers to ship the wine -- steps that Sen. George H. Winner Jr., R-Elmira, doesn't like." Here's a note on the paper's editorial cork board: "What the governor needs to accept is that dropping the ban is supposed to open the market for all takers, not just the wineries but also the retailers. He should not be trying to restrict free enterprise. The same argument holds for whether a customer wants one case of wine in a month or four." The Leader of Corning, N.Y., says local winemakers argue that "out-of-state customers who sample their wineries on a visit to the Finger Lakes would like the ability to replenish their supply without making a return trip." Kentucky may not enjoy the distinction of being the nation's No. 2 wine-producing state, but husband-and-wife winemakers Chuck Smith and Mary Berry told the Louisville Courier-Journal that they expect to find some new business thanks to the Supreme Court. Larry Leap, president of the Northern Kentucky Vintners & Grape Growers Association, told the paper he expects to make $80,000 to $90,000 a year more from selling wine across state lines "without even trying." A short Associated Press dispatch reported on the flipside of the situation across the border in Indiana: "The Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission sent a letter May 20 to Indiana's 31 wineries warning them that in-state shipment of wine is a misdemeanor. But some vintners -- like Kathleen Oliver, owner of Bloomington's Oliver Winery -- say they've been shipping in-state for years. She says a lot of wineries are upset by the commission's letter." The state's warning letter leaves us wondering what on earth those bureaucrats have been smoking, er, drinking. One of the arguments that friends of the wholesalers used against interstate wine shipments was that the Internet could make it easier for teenagers to avoid parental supervision when ordering booze. After all, your spam filter can't ask your kid to fork over ID. An executive at the Tallahassee-based company told the Miami Herald that it has applied for a software patent that checks public databases when customers fill orders on the Internet. "One of IDology's clients, Wine.Com, a San Francisco company that specializes in interstate wine shipments, says the software ... has a remarkable success rate," the Herald reported. "'When we did the test' of IDology software, said [Wine.Com technology chief] Francis Juliano ... 'It was completely accurate with known data and 98 percent accurate with random data.'"

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month in favor of interstate wine shipments is enjoying a nice, long finish as newspapers across the country dissect it for how it will affect local readers.

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Hope for Affordable Housing

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Amid all the talk about the boom in real estate prices and the concern about the "housing bubble" some day bursting, one fact tends to be forgotten. Far too many families are simply being locked out of decent shelter by the shortage of affordable housing. The latest official estimate is that the country lacks 1.6 million units of low-income housing. According to the 2003 American Housing Survey, 7.5 million households were "severely burdened" by their housing costs, meaning that more than half their income went for rent or mortgage payments. It has been 10 years since the federal government put any substantial sums into building affordable housing for families, but last week a glimmer of hope appeared from an unexpected source. A bipartisan bill emerged from the House Financial Services Committee that could generate $400 million a year or more for low-income housing. The measure's main purpose is to provide new, more stringent regulation for the two giant government-chartered mortgage finance agencies, best known by their nicknames, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their mandate is to increase the availability of housing. These GSEs, or government-sponsored enterprises, got into hot water because of their accounting practices, and Congress has been figuring out how to keep closer tabs on them. When the bill was being drafted last week, the two key Republicans, Ohioans Michael G. Oxley and Robert W. Ney, the chairmen, respectively, of the full committee and its housing subcommittee, decided that to lock in Democratic support, they would include a proviso from the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, to earmark 5 percent of Fannie and Freddie's annual profits for preservation, rehabilitation and construction of low-income housing. It's estimated that this would produce at least $400 million a year, and perhaps as much as $1 billion, depending on the way the two mortgage giants eventually work out their accounting problems. Economists at the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the leading advocacy group in this field, calculate that with construction costs estimated at $70,000 to $100,000 per unit, the program could build between 4,000 and 14,000 units a year. Sheila Crowley, the group's president, said that would be "an important step forward in our fight to make sure that safe and decent housing for all Americans, regardless of income, is once again a national priority." The step is not guaranteed. Committee conservatives tried to knock out the 5 percent set-aside. Their amendment, sponsored by Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican, failed on a 53 to 17 vote, but backers expect more support when the bill reaches the House floor. They contend that the potential billion-dollar sum would be better applied to lowering the costs of mortgages underwritten by Fannie and Freddie, rather than creating what they term "a slush fund" for the politically well-connected GSEs. A spokesman for Ney told me that even though he represents a largely rural area, his constituents are all too familiar with the problems of affordable housing, so he joined Oxley in lining up most of the committee Republicans against the Royce amendment. What will happen on the House floor remains to be seen. On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, has sponsored similar legislation -- an outgrowth of an interest in housing issues he told me he developed in the 1980s as a young member of the state legislature. The Reed amendment became part of a housing bill that never came to a floor vote in the last Congress. A new bill will be crafted in committee, perhaps later this month. So far the Bush administration has not weighed in for or against the low-income housing fund, but Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said in a statement that his priority is "enforcing the affordable housing goals" for Fannie and Freddie -- something that would not necessarily provide new construction grants. Over the years, the federal commitment to affordable housing has shrunk steadily, with the only remaining large-scale program being Section 8 vouchers, which help qualified families with rent subsidies but do not expand the supply of housing. It is more luck than anything else that has made Fannie and Freddie plausible sources of new affordable-housing construction money. Were it not for the regulatory problems that they brought on themselves, it's doubtful this Republican Congress would have thought to tap their profits for such a purpose. Call it the silver lining in this cloud of financial scandal.

Amid all the talk about the boom in real estate prices and the concern about the "housing bubble" some day bursting, one fact tends to be forgotten. Far too many families are simply being locked out of decent shelter by the shortage of affordable housing.

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AOL Aims to Get Up to Speed With DSL

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America Online Inc. yesterday began offering high-speed Internet access with AOL e-mail and content in the Washington area and Chicago, a move that company officials hope will stem the loss of dial-up users as the service is rolled out nationally later this year. The Dulles-based firm has lost more than 5 million subscribers to faster and cheaper Internet services in recent years. The new $29.95 per month service, dubbed AOL High Speed, gives the company something fresh to offer fleeing dial-up users. AOL officials said they plan a series of cable television ads and online marketing to encourage the firm's dial-up subscribers, who pay $23.90 per month, to switch to AOL High Speed. "This makes a lot of sense," said Charlene Li, an analyst with Forrester Research. "If you have any desire to stay with AOL, you are going to look at this deal very seriously. It sounds smart." Despite losing about 2.3 million subscribers in the past year alone, AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc., remains the nation's biggest Internet service with 21.7 million subscribers. The company's ad revenue has begun picking up again after a few years of decline. The new high-speed product is the first time AOL has offered a simple, competitively priced way for its subscribers to get faster online access and keep AOL services and content, too. In the Washington area, AOL High Speed is priced in the same range as standard high-speed Internet services sold by Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., which dominate the market. But in Chicago and other cities yesterday, rival service provider SBC Communications Inc. began aggressively cutting the price of its Yahoo high-speed offering to just $14.95 a month, bringing prices for fast Internet connections below the cost of AOL dial-up for the first time. Both the AOL and SBC high-speed offerings operate over the same lines used by home telephone service. Cable television companies typically charge more for their services, which they say are even faster. The five-week test in Washington and Chicago by AOL reflects a fundamental shift in the online business environment and demonstrates how the company is trying to adapt. Several years ago, AOL made its name by offering a one-size-fits-all dial-up service. But the world changed, and computer users left for cheaper dial-up or faster connections provided by others. Now, with its $9.95 Netscape dial-up service, its $29.95 AOL High Speed and its traditional dial-up offering, AOL has a broad range of products at different price points, a move analysts said is essential given the segmentation in the marketplace. AOL is also looking to capitalize on the boom in Internet advertising by beefing up its free AOL.com Web site. It hopes to attract millions of computer users to the site with music, games, news and other content, as well as by giving away free AIM.com e-mail accounts. If it works, the AOL.com portal strategy would be similar to Yahoo Inc.'s business model. To provide the one-stop shopping experience for high-speed Internet service, AOL is partnering with telecommunications wholesaler Covad Communications Group Inc., a California firm that leases phone lines from the regional phone companies, providing access to about 50 million homes. AOL will handle all the branding, marketing and customer-service calls while Covad will provide the high-speed phone lines and modems. David McMorrow, executive vice president of Covad, said the partnership with AOL is likely to benefit both companies because consumers will have the ability to get high-speed service through one phone call to AOL. He predicted that AOL's strong brand name nationally, coupled with Covad's coverage, would give America Online a way to begin recovering from subscriber losses. "The two parties are putting together a compelling offer in the market, not only for AOL users, but for folks looking for a good combination of broadband and content at a competitive price," McMorrow said. "They have customers and brands and experience at the Internet layer, and we have the infrastructure, footprint and systems." But if yesterday's aggressive price cutting by SBC leads to slashing in the price of high-speed Internet connections around the country, AOL and Covad may find themselves with fewer customers and less revenue to share than they had projected.

America Online Inc. yesterday began offering high-speed Internet access with AOL e-mail and content in the Washington area and Chicago, a move that company officials hope will stem the loss of dial-up users as the service is rolled out nationally later this year.

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The Push Behind Prepaid

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Two years ago, 17-year-old Brittney Brooks would never have considered carrying a prepaid cellular phone, which shouted its cheap-o status through bulky, unattractive handsets twice as big as most cell phones today. "I thought of prepaid as a bad thing," the District high school student said. "There weren't any good prepaid phones." Now, the junior at M.M. Washington Career High School proudly carries around a small Kyocera K9 phone from Virgin Mobile USA, a prepaid phone service. It helps her control the cost, she said, and the K9 is a silver, ergonomic little number that comes with text messaging and an array of accessories. She estimates 60 percent of her friends use prepaid service, even her mother and her cousin. "I wanted it because of good prices; Mom didn't want a contract." And just like that, prepaid or pay-as-you-go phone service is becoming the next big wireless thing. Customers buy a phone, refill their accounts by paying online or buying a card with a code on it, then draw down from their balance with every call they make or text message they send. With calls at roughly 20 cents a minute, the average prepaid phone user spends about $30 a month, rather than the $55 a month paid by a customer with a contract. That kind of service accounts for roughly 10 percent of the 182 million U.S. cell phone subscribers, many of whom are young like Brooks; still others have bad credit. The rate of prepaid usage is far less than the 95 percent of wireless users in Italy, or 50 to 55 percent in Germany and the United Kingdom, according to Ovum, an industry research group. Prepaid has already become the standard in developing countries all over the world, because the plan doesn't require sophisticated financial or billing systems. Historically, prepaid services haven't been as popular in the United States because carriers preferred to target the bigger fish -- professionals and families with good credit who were willing to sign long-term contracts. But now that market is nearly saturated, sending wireless companies looking for new customers. And exclusively prepaid services like Boost Mobile LLC and Virgin Mobile USA are posting the industry's biggest growth. The appeal of prepaid is that it requires no long-term contract, and because customers pay in advance for their talk time, no credit check is required. Nextel Communications Inc., which owns three-year-old Boost, generated 40 percent of its new subscribers from that service last quarter; Virgin Mobile, which is half owned by Sprint Corp., was founded in late 2001 and accounts for about 60 percent of Sprint's new subscriber additions. Prepaid service, which primarily targets people age 13 to 24, is growing at a yearly rate of 25 percent to 30 percent, which outpaces the wireless industry's overall growth rate of about 5 percent. "Three to four years ago, prepaid had a bad reputation," said Dan Schulman, chief executive of Warren, N.J.-based Virgin Mobile, which has more than 3 million subscribers, two-thirds of whom are under the age of 30. "It was very second-class citizen," with bad customer service and big, ugly handsets with few features, he said. Cost of such services were also high -- about 60 cents a minute -- so customers abandoned the service almost as fast as they signed up for it, he said. "The stigma of it being prepaid is going away," said Don Girskis, vice president and manager of Boost Mobile, which has 1.5 million users, 80 percent of whom are under age 34. Today carriers are charging far less, 20 cents or less a minute, offering better phone options, and designing services to cater to increasingly specific needs -- like cheaper international long-distance calling for immigrants, he said. "Now it's becoming a legitimate category, and you'll see a lot more advertising around it." Drawn to the potential size of the prepaid market, companies are putting new energy into efforts to tap the harder-to-reach users. Last week, Cingular Wireless, which bought AT&T Wireless last year, relaunched the GoPhone service under the new Cingular brand. Verizon Wireless relaunched its FreeUp prepaid service in February and renamed it INpulse. In the next year, companies plan introductions of a slew of services offering some form of prepaid service. Amp'd Mobile, a prepaid and post-paid wireless service directed at twenty-something and thirty-something men, is set to launch this fall, offering music, gaming and erotic content. Owners of Hispanic television network Univision are teaming up with Sprint to launch Movida, a service directed at Spanish speakers, planning to sell its prepaid handsets and phone cards at Wal-Mart stores. Viva Liberty, InPhonic's Hispanic offering, started selling service March. "It's filling cracks in the industry," said David Steinberg, chief executive of InPhonic Inc., a District-based company that resells wireless service online and owns a prepaid service of its own, called Liberty Wireless. Roughly 40 percent of Americans have poor credit or no credit, which means prepaid has a large potential audience. People like Brooks, who is under 18 and can't enter into a legal contract, are typical prepaid candidates. So is Brooks's mother, who doesn't want to sign a one- or two-year contract, as is standard for post-paid cell phone service. Or retirees on a fixed income, who don't want to pay monthly charges for a service they seldom use. Brooks spends a fifth of her monthly wages earned working at an ice cream shop on her phone bill, and having a prepaid plan helps her limit her usage, she said. "We talk about cell phone bills," she said. After school, classmates sometimes warn their friends, "Call me on my house phone because I ran out of minutes," she said. It's not easy to make money catering to prepaid users because their spending is erratic and they aren't locked into contracts. "You have to run your business at very low cost," said F.J. Pollak, president and chief executive of Miami-based TracFone Wireless, the largest reseller of prepaid phones, with 4.8 million customers. "We're able to make money on $20-a-month customers," while most carriers are focused on those whose bills total $100 a month, he said. But it's a challenge: The key to making it work is investing in customer service, so customers aren't inclined to leave, he said. TracFone has figured out a way to make money on its 10-cents-a-minute service, in part because they display the number of remaining minutes on the handset screen, which minimizes customer-service calls that are expensive for the company, said Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum. TracFone also keeps its customers happy by offering high-end phone options, he said. "So the customer can have the Porsche or the Ferrari, even if they don't drive it that much." A sleeker phone made Brooks happy with her prepaid service. Now that she has it, she's developed a distaste for that other thing she used to use: the pay phone. "It's 50 cents to use the pay phone and no one can call you back on the pay phone," she said. "Besides, pay phones are kinda disgusting."

Prepaid cellular service, which primarily targets people age 13 to 24, is growing at a yearly rate of 25 percent to 30 percent, which outpaces the wireless industry's overall growth rate of about 5 percent.

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Residents Flee as Homes Fall in Calif. Landslide

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LAGUNA BEACH, Calif., June 1 -- A landslide sent 17 multimillion-dollar houses crashing down a hill in Southern California early Wednesday as residents alarmed by the sound of walls and pipes coming apart rushed from their homes in their nightclothes. At least five people suffered minor injuries. About 1,000 people in 350 other homes in the Bluebird Canyon area were evacuated as a precaution. In addition to the 17 houses destroyed -- earlier reports said as many as 18 had been destroyed -- 11 were damaged and a street was wrecked when the earth gave way around daybreak in this Orange County community about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles. "The pipes started making funny noises and the toilet sounded like it was about to explode," said Carrie Joyce, one of those who fled. "I could see one house, huge, we call it 'the mausoleum,' 5,000 square feet or more. It had buckled, the retaining wall in the front of it was cracked. It just looked like the whole house was going." Residents were alerted to the slide shortly before 7 a.m. by popping and cracking as power poles went down, homes fractured and trees disappeared. People grabbed their children, pets and belongings and fled as streets buckled around them. The cause of the landslide was under investigation. But Ed Harp of the U.S. Geological Survey said it was almost certainly related to winter storms that drenched Southern California. A geologist contracted by the city agreed the cause was most likely rainfall but said more tests are needed. Laguna Beach has been dry since a trace of rainfall nearly a month ago, but before that, Southern California had its second-rainiest season on record. The region has gotten nearly 28 inches of rain since last July, more than double the annual average. The slide occurred about a mile from the beach on steep sandstone hills covered with large homes. Two children were admitted to a hospital in good condition, and two others were treated at the scene for minor injuries, authorities said. A 71-year-old woman whose house was destroyed was taken to the hospital, suffering what appeared to be the effects of stress. Laguna Beach, offering vistas of the Pacific from coastal bluffs, has some of Southern California's most desirable real estate. Houses in the area where the slide occurred generally sell for $2 million or more, residents said.

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3 Killed in Richmond In Shooting Rampage

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A gunman killed three men at separate locations in Richmond's Southside area last night, shouting racial insults at at least two of the victims as he shot them in the head in front of their customers, police said. One of the victims was of Arab descent and the other was Asian, Richmond police said. The other man was black, as is the gunman, who remained at large early today. "We've got officers working all over the city," said Richmond police Detective Ron Brown, who added that the slayings are being investigated as possible hate crimes. Shortly before 7 p.m., the gunman shot and killed Derrick Conner, a black man, outside a public housing complex in the 1600 block of Glenfield Avenue, police said. About 10 minutes later and three miles away, the gunman walked into the James Food Market, a convenience store in the 1800 block of Broad Rock Road. He then started yelling ethnically insensitive comments at store employee Abdulrahman Aldhabhani, 43, and shot him in front of customers, Brown said. The gunman grabbed some cash and store items before fleeing, Brown said. The gunman then walked next door to Poly Cleaners and started yelling at Jong Doh, 39, who is identified in documents as owner of the dry cleaner. Customers there also witnessed the shooting, police said. The gunman ran out of the business and fled in a large, gray, older-model car, Brown said. Witness accounts at the second and third shootings led police to believe that all three shootings were committed by the same man, he added. Conner was pronounced dead at the scene. Aldhabhani, of Richmond, and Doh, of Midlothian, a Richmond suburb, were pronounced dead on arrival at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, police said. Brown said early today that police were reviewing a surveillance videotape from the convenience store.

A gunman killed three men at separate locations in Richmond's Southside area last night, shouting racial insults at at least two of the victims as he shot them in the head in front of their customers, police said.

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Deep Throat Revealed: Ben Bradlee

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The Washington Post Tuesday confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal. The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories. Ben Bradlee , vice president at large and former executive editor of The Washington Post, was online Thursday, June 2, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss Felt and his work with Woodward and Bernstein to uncover the Watergate Scandal. Bradlee served as executive editor of The Washington Post for 23 years, through the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, and became vice president at large in 1991. washingtonpost.com: Ben Bradlee will begin his discussion in just a few minutes, a slight delay. Please stay with us. washingtonpost.com: Ben, thank you for joining us online today. The unmasking of Deep Throat is a moment you've known was coming for 30 years. Clearly, the way Mark Felt's identity was revealed was not what you, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein expected, but how does it feel to finally have the epilogue of the Watergate story finally written? Ben Bradlee: It feels good. And it's good for history that this story is becoming really complete and over now. Escanaba, Mich.: Is it true that you were against the investigation into who was involved at the White House? Ben Bradlee: It certainly is not true. As the story progressed the clues all pointed higher up and finally into the White House itself and of course ultimately to the president himself. What newspaperman could be against that? Silver Spring, Md.: Mr Bradlee: When you first learned that Mark Felt was "Deep Throat," were you concerned about his motivations, and what did you do to assure yourself that he was not pursuing a personal agenda? I ask, of course, because Felt was then known to have been disappointed in his ambitions for the FBI top job in the wake of Hoover's death in 1972. Were you worried that he might be trying to embarrass L. Patrick Gray, the outsider who got the nod over Felt, the long-time Hoover loyalist? Ben Bradlee: Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive. That's just a given. And good reporters always -- repeat always -- probe to find out what that motive is. In Felt's case it seemed obvious that he was concerned about abuses of power coming from people who worked for the president. Including his highest advisers, including the attorney general of the United States and that seemed a totally decent motive. Fairfield, Conn.: What is your reaction to the strong criticisms leveled at Mark Felt by Pat Buchanan and Charles Colson? Ben Bradlee: I am really baffled by Colson and Gordon Liddy lecturing the world about public morality. Both of them went to jail after being convicted of misbehavior surrounding the Watergate cover-up. They were threatening and they paid a price for it. And as far as I'm concerned they have no standing in the morality debate. Buchanan is a little different because he hasn't done time, but I'm not ready to be part of his indignation. washingtonpost.com: You're one of the legendary editors in the news business. Turn that critical eye on John O'Connor's Vanity Fair article. Any edits? Ben Bradlee: I haven't perused it with an editor's eye. But I thought the story was fascinating and he was obviously authoritative and I would like to have seen it in The Washington Post, but we had this little problem. Woodward and Bernstein and I had given our word that we wouldn't tell a soul and we hadn't been freed from that restriction by Felt himself. We finally concluded that after Felt had talked publicly about the whole deal we were freed. Sarasota, Fla.: Bob Woodward and the Post have benefited financially from the cooperation of Mark Felt. Do they have a moral obligation to help him financially? Ben Bradlee: Woodward benefits financially from books that he writes. On his own time. The Post benefits from every news source -- whether it's a football team or a five-alarm fire or a president. We can't go out of the news business -- ever. Your interview with Koppel was really neat. You came off as a tough SOB. Thanks for everything. I am going to go into journalism because of All the President's Men. Say, can I look you up for a job in two years? Ben Bradlee: If I'm still around, of course. Pine Bluff, Ark.: Mr. Bradlee: At a time in which circulation among all major newspapers appears to be declining, do you fear that publishers and managers (and perhaps editors) are increasingly prone to giving readers what it is believed they want as opposed to the journalism they need? Would editors today give "a third-rate burglary" as much attention as they do Laci Peterson or Michael Jackson? Ben Bradlee: I do worry about how newspapers respond to falling circulation figures. I'm not sure that the answer is for newspapers to try to cater to whatever seems to be the fad of the day. I think probably Michael Jackson is being overcovered. I am so sick of that trial I don't read it anymore. I think that editors -- and that's plural -- should have the widest interests and follow their own judgments about what to cover. Did you and Woodstein ever discuss how you would go about divulging Deep Throat's identity after he died? Ben Bradlee: Two or three months ago Woodward and I talked about a story to appear in The Post the day after Deep Throat died. There would obviously be a news story -- not by Woodward or Bernstein -- that described the impact that Watergate had on American society and the fallout on American politics. I felt that the paper should get a first-person singular story out of Woodward with special emphasis on his relationship with Deep Throat and that he needed to bring the current executive editor, Len Downie, into the loop and he did that. A later version of that story is in the paper today. Pottsville, Pa.: What have you done since leaving the Post? Have you thought of doing a book of your own about the events of Watergate? Ben Bradlee: I am at The Post almost every day. Someone described me as a "stop on the tour." But I am available to editors and reporters for whatever good they think I can do for the paper. When Katharine Graham was still alive, she and I were available to reporters and organizations and things haven't changed that much in that department since she died. I have other gigs. I'm on the board of directors of a company that owns newspapers in Ireland, South Africa, London, New Zealand and various other countries and that gets me out of Washington pretty regularly. I am also involved in historic St. Mary's City, a museum centered on the third-oldest settlement in America, 90 miles south of Washington. And I'm on the board of trustees of St. Mary's College, an excellent small liberal arts college next to the museum. Rockville, Md.: How confident are you that Felt is truly competent to understand what is going on? And does that matter to you? Ben Bradlee: Bob Woodward has been in touch with Felt off and on for 30 years. Mostly off, but recently mostly on. I have no doubt that Felt is telling the truth and that's good enough for me. As I understand it, you knew Deep Throat was an FBI official, but you never asked about his identity. If this is correct, I have to ask -- given what was at stake, how did you decide to display such an extraordinary amount of trust in two very young reporters, who did not enjoy anything near the prominence they enjoy today? How could you be sure? Thank you for your service, both militarily and at the Post. Ben Bradlee: I didn't know Deep Throat personally. I never met him. I did know -- generically -- where he worked. That was the Justice Department, which of course included the FBI. I did not know he was the number two person in the FBI. But the important thing about Deep Throat from day one was that he was telling the truth. Everything he told us was true and in that sense that was all I needed. After Nixon resigned I felt that some people were threatening the bonafides of our reporting and I thought that I had to know Deep Throat's identity. Woodward and I went for a walk down to McPhereson Square and I asked him for Deep Throat's name and he gave it to me. Took about three minutes. Woodward and Bernstein were, in fact, very young and green but they were right. I was under some pressure to put one of the many talented veterans on the story but how could you take the story away from people who were doing such a good job? I couldn't answer that then and I can't now. Las Vegas, Nev.: I watched your Nightline interview with great interest. In explaining how you were all but convinced Nixon was lying, you said, "That national security red flag is -- I've heard it before and I'm just sick of it." In saying,"I'm just sick of it," it sounded for all the world as though you were about to draw a parallel between Nixon's lies and rationalizations and others you're hearing in 2005. Your thoughts on this? Thank you. Ben Bradlee: It's very hard to stand up to the government which is saying that publication will threaten national security. People don't seem to realize that reporters and editors know something about national security and care deeply about it. I spent almost four years on a destroyer in the Pacific ocean during World War II and it makes my blood boil when some guy who maybe ran an insurance company in the Midwest becomes an assistant secretary of this or that and tells me about national security. It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth. Remember that Nixon's first comment about Watergate claimed that he was going to be unable to answer questions about Watergate because Watergate involved "matters of national security." That was baloney and Nixon knew it, but the charge convinced some people otherwise. Too bad. Washington, D.C.: What do you think your pal, the late Mrs. Graham, would think about this week's reveal? Ben Bradlee: She would've had one wonderful time. She loved the business and she loved to come into the city room for a "fix" two or three times a day when we really had a tiger by the tail of a story. San Francisco, Calif.: How much pressure were you really under at the time? Was it movie hype when Robards said the story could sink the paper? Weren't you comfortable knowing the info was coming from the senior FBI guy heading the investigation? Ben Bradlee: I didn't need Jason Robards to tell me that if we were wrong the damage to the paper would be incalculable. I didn't know exactly who the information was coming from but I gained confidence week by week when his information proved to be accurate. There were almost 400 Watergate stories and I think we gained confidence as these stories proved to be on the button. Alexandria, Va.: How much concern did Woodward and Bernstein, as well as yourself and others on the paper who were known to be involved in the whole story, have for their personal safety? Ben Bradlee: On one occasion Deep Throat told Woodward that our lives "were in danger." Given his track record you had to take that seriously but I don't think any of us really believed him on that occasion. We paid special attention to things like tax returns and we concentrated on being good citizens. Washington, D.C.: How do you think the revelation that Deep Throat was a leader of the FBI will impact leaks and unidentified sources in the future? Do you think we will see a further decline in governmental sources who are willing to go off the record in an attempt to have the truth told to the public? Ben Bradlee: There will always be leaks -- in Washington, everywhere. I can remember a congressman reaching into his desk drawer and bringing out a scissors to cut off the "secret" classification on a government document and then give me the document. His motive was perfectly obvious and as far as I could see did not threaten national security. He simply wanted to convince people of the rightness of his view. In this case, his motive was obvious and no harm was done. Cambridge, Mass.: Is there a Deep Throat out there today, ready to save the nation once again? Ben Bradlee: I hope so. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Ben Bradlee, vice president at large and former executive editor of The Washington Post, discussed The Post's confirmation of Mark Felt as Deep Throat and The Post's role in coverage of Watergate.

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The Clintons: Looking Toward the Future

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Washington Post reporter John F. Harris was online to discuss his two-part series on the Clintons. Read more: Heeding the Past as She Looks to the Future. Bill Clinton Takes Spot on Global Stage. Alexandria, Va.: I am writing as a loyal Democrat. My comment is about Hillary, of whom I have always been a supporter and admirer. I have to say now, though, that I am very worried about all this talk of her running in the next Presidential election. I think that would be a horrible mistake which could not only leave the Democratic Party but also the whole nation politically shattered. I believe that Hilary is a brilliant, committed, tough woman who is limited in her political skill. She is terrific in front of an audience that is already on her side, but has no persuasive power with her political opposites (and in fact has a special gift for offending and infuriating a huge segment of the American public). If she gets bored with being a Senator from New York, she should focus on becoming a GREAT Senator from New York and bravely resolve that she will not run for President; hopefully, then, somebody who is equally smart but possessing of more charm and talent will rise to the occasion and work to bring this nation together. (Though I confess at the moment I don't know who this person might be.) If on the other hand she is overcome by ambition and hubris, then, ladies and gentlemen, meet President Jeb Bush. John F. Harris: Well, my personal hunch--and supported by reporting done with people who know her well--is that we'll get to find out what kind of presidential candidate she would be in 2008. She is obviously a controversial figure with many. The only caution I would make about your prediction that she would be a "horrible mistake" for the Democrats is that she proved to be a more effective candidate than a lot people expected in New York in 2000--even in Republican areas upstate. Harrisburg, Pa.: Why is aspiring to the Presidency considered a bad thing, and no one wants to ever admit they are considering running for President? Frankly, I admire someone who says: yes, I want the job, I've been studying how to do the best I can at the job for years, and I am ready to fight to be the best person for the job. John F. Harris: I totally agree. I don't understand why she can't admit the obvious..."Yes, I'll give serious thought to this if it looks like the right thing to do in 2007." Most voters assume this to be the case in any event, I feel sure. Richmond, Va.: I know you once covered Virginia politics. Do you think popular Virginia Governor Mark Warner could emerge as the "anti-Hillary" and win the Democratic nomination for President? John F. Harris: As a long-time Warner watcher, I would find this an interesting campaign to to watch. I don't doubt that Governor Warner might try to position himself this way in a subtle way. He does not seem to enjoy hard-hitting campaigning, and indeed his appeal in Virginia is as a more consensus-seeking politician. Would he be able/willing to aggressively make the case against HRC, who would start out as the vastly better known politician? Silver Spring, Md.: Apparently, Bill Clinton thinks Mark Felt is a hero for being Deep Throat. Do you think either of the Clintons think Linda Tripp is a hero? Given the circumstances of his own impeachment I do admire Bill Clinton for being able to say "Deep Throat" with a straight face. That's truly heroic. John F. Harris: Well, if you asked President Clinton this question directly I am sure you would get a good answer--along with the jabbed finger and squinted eyes that we see when he is angry. I feel confident in saying he does not regard his failings in the Lewinsky case as being on a par with the matters that were at the root of Watergate. Ultimately, the country did reach this same judgment, which is why Clinton stayed in office while Nixon did not. Bethesda, Md.: Do you think the country has matured and gained perspective in the past few years? In the mid-90's we had a President who lied about an affair that hurt his wife and family, but no one else (surely not the country). Since then, we've had a President who misled the country into a war he wanted, resulting in the deaths of 1,600 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis. Is there more of a grown-up sense now that some untruths might be more damaging than others? Or am I giving the electorate too much credit? John F. Harris: The issues at stake in a post 9-11 world are indeed more consequential than many of the controversies that roiled the Clinton years. As I don't need to remind you, the questions you raised got litigated in the 2004 election. Kerry came close but could not command a majority for your point of view. Brussels, Belgium: Any plans on releasing this book in Europe? The excerpts I read on The Post site were very interesting, well-written, and especially thoroughly researched, and I wonder if the full book be available sometime soon at my local English-language bookstore. John F. Harris: My book, "The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House" is being published this week by Random House. Generally decisions about foreign publishing are not made until months after a book's U.S. release. Needless to say, I'd be delighted if I can attract an audience overseas. Washington, D.C.: The President said last night on Larry King that he had not read your book. Given your access, didn't you feel a need to offer it to him to read before publication? Thanks. John F. Harris: I did feel an obligation to make sure he saw an early copy. Rest assured, I did make sure his office got a couple copies several weeks in advance. Some people close to the Clintons did tell me that he had seen and reacted to portions of it, but I did see his comments on King last night that he has not yet read it. The early reviews have praised the book as a fair portrait, which was my aim, but I don't doubt that he'll have objections to some of it. Alexandria, Va.: While I appreciate the popularity of Hillary Clinton within her party, I wonder if she and the Democrats understand that there have been very, very few presidents elected directly from the legislative branch. It just isn't a very good jumping off point. John F. Harris: Well, yes, that's been true in recent decades. I'm not sure how much of this is coincidence, and how much is based in reality that the electorate prefers people with demonstrated executive experience as a governor. Woodstock, Md.: Mr. Harris, regarding your response to Harrisburg's comments, I agree with you both that it should not be held against someone if he/she were to candidly admit that they were planning to run for President. But in Sen. Clinton's case, such an answer would haunt her every day in her 2006 Senate re-election campaign. Chances are, she'll follow her husband's example when he ran for re-election for Arkansas Governor in 1990; he said he planned to serve a full-term, and then spent the year after the election criss-crossing the state "asking" the voters for their permission to run for President. Just my $0.02 worth. Thank you. John F. Harris: But I think most New Yorkers must assume there's a good chance she may run, and even if she took a pledge very few people would believe it, for the reason you suggest. I thought Clinton's experience in 1990--a bogus pledge, and then an artful extraction from it--was kind of lame. New York, N.Y.: Given the power and critical role of the American Presidency to shape the lives of peoples all over the world and given that President Clinton is the only recent American President who enjoys global 'affection,' he can and should be encouraged by the current administration and by the people of America to fully utilize the potential he has to do good for the large numbers of people living in abject poverty and to project American values such as the inherent dignity of every human being and helping those most in need. John F. Harris: Clinton agrees with you that ex-presidents have unique opportunities to focus attention on problems in the world and do some good toward solving them. I think the work he is doing on AIDS and global energy is interesting and potentially significant. El Segundo, Calif.: If the position of Secretary General of the U.N. traditionally does NOT go to a person whose country has a permanent status on the Security Council, how difficult is it to buck that kind of tradition? Is it written in whatever bylaws govern the U.N., or is it really just tradition? Could it be changed by a certain percentage vote of the General Assembly? For example, Security Council member's citizen be approved by a 70% yea vote? Personally, I think Bill Clinton would do wonders for the world - and the U.N. - even though he'd give many U.S. conservatives apoplexy. John F. Harris: It would take pretty extraordinary circumstances for an American generally or Clinton specifically to become U.N. secretary general. Clinton has said as much in recent interviews. That's why this is still in the category of "dream job" for him, rather than imminent possibility, though he has discussed his U.N. ambitions with many friends and advisers. No Hillary: She is probably the second most-hated person behind her husband in areas where the Democrats NEED to win in order to avoid "President Jeb". Is there a fund to which we can contribute to persuade her NOT to run? I'm a Democrat, but have they lost their minds even proposing this? Number one, a woman president is not going to happen in my lifetime and number two, a very polarizing woman is not going to win. If she runs and wins the nomination, the Democrats deserve to lose. John F. Harris: I can't agree with you that a woman is not going to run in your lifetime (unless you happen to be especially sick or old.) But the points you raise are going to be well debated by the Democrats in the next couple years. I don't know about such a fund. Rochester, N.Y.: I would love to meet Clinton. What a monumental figure. He must have a remarkable understanding of human nature. Did you see any good examples of this while working on your book? John F. Harris: I grew up in Rochester. Clinton is a larger-than-life personality, and I think he succeeded as a politician because he did establish a connection with the electorate which was strong enough to carry him through the storms. I called my book "The Survivor" and I do think his most admirable trait is his ability to keep standing and fighting through adversity. New York, N.Y.: If Hillary is supposedly so controversial, why is she consistently at or near the top of the list of the women Americans most admire? Or is it a case of a few rabid right-wingers who try to sound like the majority? I have never yet heard an intelligent argument articulated for disliking her--it's always about "femnazis" and "who elected her?" (electorally rich New York, that's who). John F. Harris: This is a good posting, since it raises the counter-argument to some of the earlier comments. She probably will never win over the support of the hard core who really dislike her, but this hard core who is not likely to vote for any Democrat. But, as I suggested earlier, I think her New York experience does suggest that she is able to command a majority made up of Democrats and independents. The latter group of swing voters may have reservations about her, but they are entirely within the persuadable zone, it seems to me. No Hillary Again: Ah, I'm not saying a woman won't be RUNNING for president in my lifetime--I just doubt I'll ever see a woman PRESIDENT, as in, won the election in my lifetime. I'm in my 30's and as far as I know in good health. John F. Harris: This is a relief, and I'm sorry if I misread you earlier. Stay in good shape and avoid trans fats and you could have another sixty years or more. Do you really think you'll never see a woman president? I think we'll see one within a decade or so, or even by 2008. I also don't see it as that big a hurdle. We are different politically than Great Britain. But Margaret Thatcher was elected there a quarter-century ago. Columbus, Ohio: As a Democrat in a Republican leaning state, I'm much less worried about a Jeb Bush run than a McCain candidacy - especially against Hillary. It seems to me that McCain's straight-forwardness and moderation is extremely appealing to an electorate that has been battered by the partisanship of the last 5 years. What is the Clinton camp's take on this possibility? John F. Harris: They certainly regard McCain as a formidable opponent because he has a demonstrated record of appealing to independent swing voters. The Clinton political model--which he really honed starting in 1995 after the Republican takeover of Congress--is based on always fashioning policies and rhetoric to appeal to those swing voters. Hillary Clinton has borrowed this same approach from her husband, and her pollster/strategist, Mark Penn, was also a dominant figure in the Clinton White House. President Bush and his strategist, Karl Rove, also worry about swing voters, but they do not organize their strategy around them centrally. They worry first about an excited and cohesive base of conservatives. Possum Kingdom Lake, Tex.: Last night, Larry King and Bill Clinton kept their distance from discussing numbers of war dead due to the Iraq war. I had expected Clinton to bring up the number of deaths occurring among the 20,000 or so of our wounded soldiers - or, at least remind all that the 1,700 reported soldier deaths are incurred on the battlefield. Is this area of discussion a trifle to sensitive - even for Clinton and King? John F. Harris: President Clinton has said that all Americans should want victory in Iraq, regardless of whether they supported the war in the first place. Privately, people close to both him and Senator Clinton say his political analysis is that Democrats look weak if they sound any hesitant or second-guessing notes about Iraq. You are looking in the wrong place if you are hoping Clinton will be a leader in stating the anti-war case. Palm Springs, Calif.: It has appeared to me and others I know that the so-called 'hate' held against Hillary Clinton comes primarily and almost exclusively from the far right religionists. Is there any at least semi-official support to that 'appearance?' If not, then why the ongoing claim? John F. Harris: You may be right about the "hate" coming primarily from the right. But I think the misgivings or hesitations about her often come from the center, including from women, in my experience reporting on her. She faced a lot of these questions in New York in 2000---is she motivated solely by personal ambition, etc.--and managed to put them to rest. I think she would face them on a larger scale in 2008 if she runs. Washington, D.C.: Democrats would be crazy not to nominate Hillary, she is scandal tested. The right wing already threw everything plus the kitchen sink at her. If we nominate somebody else we might not be able to recover in time from the eventual "Swift Boat veterans" type smear. The media a FINALLY bored with Clinton scandal but will fall over for any new contrived non - Hillary scandal. John F. Harris: I'll post this to make sure all sides are seen. I have a hunch people in my business are not going to be bored by stories with a Hillary Clinton angle for a long time. Lapeer, Mich.: Are there still questions remaining in regard to both Clintons involvement in Vince Foster's suicide? What is your opinion on how influential this and other instances such as Whitewater could be in yet another onslaught designed to discredit both Clintons political ambitions? John F. Harris: Here is a question that has been definitively put to rest, in my view. I think five different investigations have reached the same conclusion on the Foster suicide. I do not think after all this time Whitewater has much energy as a story. Remember, the Whitewater prosecutor's final report made some critical comments but did not include any recommendations for prosecution. I'll move abroad if I have to spend the years to come reporting on Whitewater. The 90's were enough for me. Possum Kingdom Lake, Tex.: When answering interviewers' questions, Bill Clinton behaves most kindly towards George Bush - embracing the 'positive' and eschewing the 'negative.' What do you suppose prompts that behavior? John F. Harris: This is my observation as well. This answer will upset some conservatives, but I don't think even as candidate and president Clinton very often used the harsh or personally accusatory language against his opponents that the used against him. He certainly could be tough in denunciation of their policies. As for the recent chumminess between the Clintons and Bush's, I must confess I think it's somewhat on the level but certainly not all on the level. I think Clinton has respect for Bush as a politician, but he takes a very dim view of his policies, and always thought the Bushes conveyed a certain entitlement--as though the White House belonged to them and Clinton was an usurper. I think the new friendly relationship elevates Clinton to more of an elder statesman status, which he obviously appreciates, and it makes President Bush look less partisan to be seen reaching out to a Democratic predecessor. Puzzled: Why the enormous difference between the Drudge accounts of your book and The Post excerpts? John F. Harris: It was kind of strange, wasn't it. Whoever gave Drudge his material seemed to emphasize the more sensationalistic aspects of the book. While there are some interesting scenes and anecdotes, "The Survivor" was written to be a serious and comprehensive history, and those are the parts I try to emphasize. Washington, D.C.: "I'll post this to make sure all sides are seen." All sides? We've had one comment vs. Clinton and the rest asserting all Clinton haters surely must be right-winger religious zealots. Well, I'm a moderate, independent and I think that the Clintons are just plain sleazy liars who don't take responsibility for their own actions. John F. Harris: Here's another one. I have a hunch we as a country are going to be arguing about the Clintons for a long time. Thanks for your comment. Washington, D.C.: Do you take a position (as Media Matters just did) that it's wrong to say Hillary is "moving" to the center when she's taking the same exact position she always had? Or is she emphasizing different things to different voters? John F. Harris: I agree that Senator Clinton is not lurching to the center in some dramatic way. She has spent five years in the Senate crafting a very centrist record, and was never in my view the dogmatic liberal that some thought. That said, I do think she has dramatically changed her approach to politics. She arrived in Washington in the early 1990's girded for combat, but she has learned over time a more pragmatic, less partisan approach. This is going to have to be the last question. I appreciate them all and am sorry I could not take all. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.

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Driving Schools

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It's time to choose a driving school. Whether you're a teenager or an adult just learning to drive, you may have some questions to pose or some lessons learned to share. Where do you start? What's a good way to cost compare? Will it affect your car insurance? And what makes a quality driving school? AAA Mid-Atlantic's Lon Anderson , director of public and government affairs, and John Townsend , manager of public and government affairs, were online Thursday, June 2, at 3 p.m. ET to find provide the answers to these questions and more. Maryland Area / D.C. Area / Virginia Area Lon Anderson: Welcome everyone to this forum on driver education and new drivers. I'm Lon Anderson and joining me is John Townsend and we are both from AAA Mid-Atlantic's Public&Government Affairs office. We've spent many years working with the local state legislatures to try and strengthen the laws governing new teen drivers. This year, we experienced quite a bit of success in Maryland. With that said, we are happy to jump into the questions and again, thank you so much for joining us. Chevy Chase, Md.: I am a thirty year old woman who never learned to drive. I would like to take lessons, but am unclear as to which Maryland requirements apply to me. What classroom requirements are there to get my license? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Chevy Chase: Great question. Your requirements are basically the same as those of a new teen driver. Driver education and certification of 40 hours of practice are required for all new drivers. Currently, the law is 40 hours of practice and 4 months for holding the learner's permit. After September 30, 2005 you will be required to hold the learner's permit for 6 months and have 60 hours of practice behind the wheel. Good luck and drive safe. Chevy Chase, Md.: As an adult just learning to drive, is there anything special I should look for in a driving school? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Chevy Chase: Great question because over the years there have been a lot of bad driver education schools/programs out there. AAA recommends that you choose a school with adequate classroom space and certified instructors. All instructors should be licensed and well-trained in current methods of teaching and rules of driving. Lessons should span 6 to 8 weeks and classroom and in-car sessions should occur at the same time. Local MVA or DMV often have lists of schools with records of complaint and a quick check with the Better Business Bureau might be helpful. After all of that, you should be okay. Good luck! Maryland : As far as I'm aware, AAA doesn't offer driving instruction to adults. Why is that? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Maryland: AAA Mid-Atlantic currently offers two types of programs. We have instruction for seniors -- Mature Operator Program, which helps seniors stay mobile and continue to be excellent drivers. The program teaches skills that help seniors compensate for the physiological changes that can cause driving skills to deteriorate. The second program we offer is a defensive program for all ages that teaches accident avoidance techniques and how to handle a car under emergency circumstances. This class is taught at race tracks and the driving instructors are typically police or former police. The defensive driving course is open to drivers of all ages. Upper Marlboro, Md.: Have the laws been changed to teens not having any drivers for 4-6 months. What have the passed or trying to pass regarding passengers and cellphone usage. I have a 16-year-old son and I am really afraid for him to drive. I think I would feel a little more comfortable if he was not allow to have passengers. Sometimes kids will still try to sneak and pick other riders up, even if you told them not to. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Upper Marlboro: You've done your homework. The new laws which take effect in Maryland on October 1, 2005 include: a restriction on new teen drivers from having any passengers, other than family members, during the first five months of the provisional period. And use of cellular phones is restricted for all drivers under age 18, except in emergency situations. Olney, Md.: Last year we enrolled our son in driving classes with idrivesmart.com . What was interesting was that every instructor was an active duty police officer. I can assure you that the kids in the class paid attention and at least my son thought that they were excellent instructors. I felt very confident that he got a good grounding in both the classroom and driving portions of the training. I certainly felt better about having him learn to drive with a policeman in the car next to him when it came time for him to go on the road. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Olney: We've heard a lot of good things about those programs. Kids do pay attention when police or former police are teaching and that's why we often employ them as well. It's a good program and I'm sure your son is a better driver for it. Congrats! Derwood, Md.: I remember AAA used to offer driver education training for new drivers. When I go to the AAA site no courses for new drivers were offered. Will AAA offer this type of training again in the future? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Derwood: AAA Mid-Atlantic probably will not be offering new teen driving courses in the future. We offered them for several years but found the competition to be fierce. We wanted to only use top instructors and new cars which made our courses more expensive than most others. For those reasons, we have decided to focus on education for seniors and to offer defensive driving programs for all ages. Washington, D.C.: I am so glad I found this chat! I'm 21 and just recently decided to overcome my fear of driving. My biggest problem at the moment is that I don't have a car to learn in. Are there any good driving schools in D.C. and do they allow their students to use the school's car for the driving test? Any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear DC: As long as you have a learner's permit you will be able to use a driving school's cars. In selecting your driving school, you will want to pay careful attention to the quality and kind of vehicles used by the driving school. Most schools will also allow you to use their cars for the test, although they may charge an additional fee. We cannot recommend any specific schools but look to some of our previous answers for tips on finding a good school. Thanks so much for writing and please be a safe driver once you overcome your fear. Manassas, Va.: Is it safe to assume that if a school is listed on the Virginia DMV approved school that it is a good school? + Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Manassas: Our expert says NO, absolutely not. Many are licensed and probably, therefore, listed but that is no indication of the quality of instruction. You still have to do the homework discussed in previous answers. Good question! Silver Spring, Md.: While driving schools should teach you to obey the law, shouldn't they also provide general guidelines about following the flow of traffic even if speed limits are being exceeded? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Silver Spring: You raise a really interesting issue. There are essentially two speed limits on roads like the capital beltway. It is posted for the most part at 55 but the speed enforced is more like 65 or higher. A driving school must teach respect for the law but must also me mindful of safety. Going significantly slower than the speed of traffic can be dangerous. We certainly do not want to encourage anyone to break the law, but would tell you if you want to drive 55, make sure you do it in the right lane not the left or you will be putting yourself in a great deal of danger. Thanks so much for your question. Rockville, Md.: The defensive driver and performance drive schools are helpful to improve the safety of adolescent or young drivers? Where can one find information about these kinds of courses? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Rockville: You can check the AAA Mid-Atlantic Web site at aaamidatlantic.com for a listing of our classes in your area. The MVA also posts a list of approved training programs on their web site. Good luck! Fairfax, Va.: I bought a package of driving classes for our nanny (she has a license from a country in Latin America, but only a learner's permit in VA). I selected a school with Spanish-speaking instructors, to eliminate the language barrier. Unfortunately, the nanny's driving doesn't seem to have improved at all after 5 (1.5 hour) classes. She still changes lanes without looking, has trouble staying in her lane, and accelerates going into turns and approaching stop lights! Should I have ridden along on a class to see how the driver instructor was doing? I feel like I just tossed $250 bucks out the window. Needless to say, she is not driving our kids anywhere at this time. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Fairfax: It probably would have been a good idea for you to ride along to be able to reinforce what your Nanny learned in school, during outside practice sessions. If you weren't riding with her and giving her practice sessions between the classes, then she was getting no reinforcement and it is probably no surprise that he driving has not improved. Maryland, for example, as of October 1, will require at least 60 hours of behind the wheel practice in addition to the driver education and 100 hours of practice would be an even better idea. Driving is a very demanding and complex skill set. Literally it takes thousands of hours of practice to become a good driver. AAA research shows it takes 5 years of driving to become as good as the average driver. Glad you are looking out for your kids, good luck with your Nanny. Olney, Md.: I don't think driving schools prepare a student for dealing with an accident. Shouldn't proper procedures like what info to exchange, whether or not to move a car and how to deal with police and insurance agents be taught? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Olney: Great question. Typically, this information is not taught but since over 40% of teen drivers, by the time they turn 18, have been involved in a crash it probably should be. That said, most insurance companies and many police departments have brochures on what to do in case of a crash. Colesville, Md.: What attributes of a driving school should I look for when deciding which one my 15-year-old son should attend? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Colesville: When investigating a school, you want to look at the classroom facilities, the appearance and model of the cars they use, the year of the cars. In Maryland, schools are not supposed to use cars over 6 years old or 80,000 miles. Quality of the instructors is important, they must all be certified by the state of Maryland but a good school has instructors with other advanced certifications. Also, check the Better Business Bureau. You can also contact the AAA Driving school to get a copy of a brochure on "How to Choose a Driving School." Don't choose a driving school by price alone. Wheaton, Md.: Would getting a passing grade from a driving school affect insurance rates of a licensed driver? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Wheaton: No, not in Maryland since drivers education is required for new drivers. It would be best to check with your insurance company if you need to know about other states. Potomac, Md.: Is the AAA driving school still open in Wheaton? I heard a rumor they closed. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Potomac: The driving school is still quite open in Wheaton. We just discontinued new driver education in 2004. We still offer several programs. Please check our web site. Thanks for the question. driving schools?: I guess my question goes to why this is a necessity? I personally learned to drive (granted in rural Pennsylvania) from my parents -- does this Md. state law prohibit parents from teaching their children, and is there a similar law in Virginia?? -- I don't have any children at this time, but I would like to be the one who teaches them to drive. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Driving Schools: You can't home school in Maryland unless one of the parents is a certified driving instructor. Maryland does require all new drivers to take a course from a certified instructor. Please remember that whether or not your teen is in a certified driving school, the parent is still the first and foremost instructor of driving for their teen. In fact, Maryland just extended the mandatory training period for parents/guardian from 40 to 60 hours including 10 at night. Parents are the primary driving instructors regardless of driver education. Good question. Silver Spring, Md.: From my limited experience it seems that being a driving school instructor is a thankless job with early burnout and lots of turnover. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Silver Spring: It is a thankless job, but an important job. And AAA like many schools is always looking for good instructors. A lot of our instructors have been with us for several years so we have not experienced a high burnout rate but we offer better pay and benefits than many other schools. That said, there is no doubt that teaching young kids to drive well and safely can be a very tough job but very rewarding when you remember you may be saving their lives. When, if ever, do you anticipate the driving age might be raised in Maryland or other local areas? And is there anything we mere citizens can do to encourage such a move? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Bethesda: Actually, the driving age in Maryland will be going up by two months as of October 1 because of the two month extension that the learner's permit must be held. Interestingly, we have done polling and found that area drivers support raising the driving age to 17 by about a three to one margin. There is a trend here... Learn to Ride Motorcycles: I would like to learn to ride a motorcycle. Does AAA offer these types of courses? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Learn to Ride: AAA does not offer motorcycle classes, however Maryland does offer courses through the Prince George's Community College which anybody in the Washington area can take. Fairfax, Va.: I just got a speeding ticket in Fairfax for going 18 mph over the speed limit. This is my first ticket. Can I go to my court date and request traffic school to make this ticket completely disappear? If the court allows me to take traffic school, will my insurance company still find out about the ticket and raise my rates? Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Dear Fairfax: Your insurance company will only find out about the ticket if points are assessed to your license. Most times, you can get a reduction in points by taking a sanctioned driver improvement program, such as one offered monthly by AAA in Chantilly. Good luck and lighten up on the pedal. Lon Anderson and John Townsend: Hey everyone. John and I and our driving school guru, Kurt Gray, very much appreciated all of your questions. We look forward to doing this again sometime soon. Drive safely and do everything you can to keep your teens alive on the road! Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

AAA Mid-Atlantic's Lon Anderson and John Townsend answered your questions about choosing a driving school for yourself or for your child -- from cost to finding the best fit.

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FBI's No. 2 Was 'Deep Throat'

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Deep Throat, the secret source whose insider guidance was vital to The Washington Post's groundbreaking coverage of the Watergate scandal, was a pillar of the FBI named W. Mark Felt, The Post confirmed yesterday. As the bureau's second- and third-ranking official during a period when the FBI was battling for its independence against the administration of President Richard M. Nixon, Felt had the means and the motive to help uncover the web of internal spies, secret surveillance, dirty tricks and coverups that led to Nixon's unprecedented resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, and to prison sentences for some of Nixon's highest-ranking aides. JavaScript is required to display this interactive graphic. If it is turned off, please enable JavaScript in your browser preferences. Felt's identity as Washington's most celebrated secret source had been an object of speculation for more than 30 years until yesterday, when his role was revealed by his family in a Vanity Fair magazine article. Even Nixon was caught on tape speculating that Felt was "an informer" as early as February 1973, at a time when Deep Throat was supplying confirmation and context for some of The Post's most explosive Watergate stories. But Felt's repeated denials, and the stalwart silence of the reporters he aided -- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein -- kept the cloak of mystery drawn up around Deep Throat. In place of a name and a face, the source acquired a magic and a mystique. He was the romantic truth teller half hidden in the shadows of a Washington area parking garage. This image was rendered indelibly by the dramatic best-selling memoir Woodward and Bernstein published in 1974, "All the President's Men." Two years later, in a blockbuster movie of the same name, actor Hal Holbrook breathed whispery urgency into the suspenseful late-night encounters between Woodward and his source. For many Americans under 40, this is the most potent distillation of the complicated brew that was Watergate. Students who lack the time or interest to follow each element of the scandal's slow unraveling in comprehensive history books can quickly digest the vivid relationship of a nervous elder guiding a relentless reporter. As dramatic as those portrayals were, they hewed closely to the truth, Woodward said. "Mark Felt at that time was a dashing gray-haired figure," Woodward recalled, and his experience as an anti-Nazi spy hunter early in his career at the FBI had endowed him with a whole bag of counterintelligence tricks. Felt dreamed up the signal by which Woodward would summon him to a meeting (a flowerpot innocuously displayed on the reporter's balcony) and also hatched the countersign by which Felt could contact Woodward (a clock face inked on Page 20 of Woodward's daily New York Times). "He knew he was taking a monumental risk," said Woodward, now an assistant managing editor of The Post whose catalogue of prizewinning and best-selling work has been built on the sort of confidential relationships he maintained with Deep Throat. Felt also knew, by firsthand experience, that Nixon's administration was willing to use wiretaps and break-ins to hunt down leakers, so no amount of caution was too great in his mind. Woodward rode multiple taxis, sometimes in the wrong direction, and often walked long distances to reach the middle-of-the-night meetings. For once, real life was as rich as the Hollywood imagination. But yesterday Woodward and Bernstein expressed a concern that the Deep Throat story has, over the years, come to obscure the many other elements that went into exposing the Watergate story: other sources, other investigators, high-impact Senate hearings, a shocking trove of secret White House tape recordings and the decisive intervention of a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court. By tethering the myth to a real and imperfect human being, Americans may be able to get a clearer picture of Watergate in the future, they said. "Felt's role in all this can be overstated," said Bernstein, who went on after Watergate to a career of books, magazine articles and television investigations. "When we wrote the book, we didn't think his role would achieve such mythical dimensions. You see there that Felt/Deep Throat largely confirmed information we had already gotten from other sources."

The secret source whose insider guidance was vital to The Washington Post's groundbreaking coverage of the Watergate scandal was a pillar of the FBI named W. Mark Felt.

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How Watergate Unfolded

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It began with a bungled burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex early on the morning of June 17, 1972, and the arrest of five suspects. A security guard named Frank Willis had discovered tape-covered door latches in a Watergate stairwell and had called the police. Two of the five suspects arrested possessed address books with the entries "W. House" and "W.H.," scribblings that quickly linked them to two shadowy figures: E. Howard Hunt, a onetime CIA agent who had recently worked in the Nixon administration White House, and G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who was on the payroll of the Committee for the Reelection of the President, Richard M. Nixon's campaign organization. Nixon dismissed the break-in as "that pipsqueak Watergate" and John N. Mitchell, the reelection chairman, denied any link. But over the next two years, the burglary metastasized into one of the biggest scandals and constitutional crises in modern U.S. history. Ultimately, Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment, and more than 30 government and Republican campaign officials were convicted of charges including perjury, burglary, wiretapping and obstruction of justice. Nixon and his top aides attempted to cover up involvement in the break-in and in other political dirty tricks and intelligence-gathering operations that were employed in the 1972 reelection victory over Democratic challenger George McGovern. While the media and members of Congress ignored or played down the significance of the break-in, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two young reporters on the metropolitan news staff of The Washington Post, doggedly pursued leads that led to the highest levels of government. Woodward and Bernstein were greatly helped by "Deep Throat," a confidential source who was privy to the details of the FBI investigation. Yesterday, it was revealed that "Deep Throat" was W. Mark Felt, the FBI's acting associate director at the time. The Post published remarkable findings -- that a $25,000 cashier's check earmarked for the Nixon campaign wound up in the bank account of one of the burglars; that Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret fund for intelligence operations against the Democrats; and that John D. Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide, supervised covert actions of a special unit known as the Plumbers that burglarized the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Within months of Nixon's landslide victory, his administration and career began to unravel. On Jan. 30, 1973, Liddy and James W. McCord Jr., a former CIA employee and chief of security for Nixon's reelection campaign, were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. White House Chief of Staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst resigned on April 30. The Senate Watergate committee began televised hearings in May. The following month, The Post reported that former White House counsel John W. Dean III told Watergate investigators he had discussed the cover-up with Nixon at least 35 times, and Alexander P. Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, testified to the Senate panel in July that Nixon secretly taped his conversations and telephone calls from 1971 on. Nixon's firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Oct. 20 -- which triggered the resignation of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy -- and a unanimous Supreme Court ruling on July 24, 1974, telling Nixon to surrender 64 tape recordings, hastened the president's demise. With the House bearing down on him and moving toward approval of three articles of impeachment, Nixon announced his resignation on Aug. 8, 1974.

It began with a bungled burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex early on the morning of June 17, 1972, and the arrest of five suspects. A security guard named Frank Willis had discovered tape-covered door latches in a Watergate stairwell and had called...

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Conflicted And Mum For Decades

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W. Mark Felt always denied he was Deep Throat. "It was not I and it is not I," he told Washingtonian magazine in 1974, around the time that Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace after a lengthy investigation and threat of impeachment, aided in no small part by the guidance Felt had provided to The Washington Post. It was a denial he maintained publicly for three decades, until yesterday. Throughout that period, he lived with one of the greatest secrets in journalism history and with his own sense of conflict and tension over the role he had played in bringing down a president in the Watergate scandal: Was he a hero for helping the truth come out, or a turncoat who betrayed his government, his president and the FBI he revered by leaking to the press? JavaScript is required to display this interactive graphic. If it is turned off, please enable JavaScript in your browser preferences. There were plenty of reasons that he felt such conflict. He was an FBI loyalist in the image J. Edgar Hoover had created for the bureau in its glory days -- a career official who lived by the bureau's codes, one of which was the sanctity of an investigation and the protection of secrets. He chased down lawbreakers of all kinds, using whatever means were available to the bureau, and was convicted in 1980 of authorizing illegal break-ins -- black-bag jobs, as they were known -- of friends of members of the Weather Underground. He was later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. But if there were reasons to resist playing the role of anonymous source, there were other motives that drove him to talk. Felt believed that the White House was trying to frustrate the FBI's Watergate investigation and that Nixon was determined to bring the FBI to heel after Hoover's death in May 1972, six weeks before the break-in at the Democratic National Committee's Watergate offices occurred. "From the very beginning, it was obvious to the bureau that a cover-up was in progress," Felt wrote in his 1979 memoir, "The FBI Pyramid." Felt may have had a personal motivation as well to begin talking to Post reporter Bob Woodward. At the time of Hoover's death, he was a likely successor to take over as FBI director. Instead the White House named a bureau outsider, L. Patrick Gray III, then an assistant attorney general, as acting director and then leaned on Gray to become a conduit to keep the White House informed of what the FBI was learning. Felt's identity was revealed with the help of his family in a Vanity Fair article released yesterday. A statement from the family, read by Nick Jones, Felt's grandson, described how conflicted he was over whether his role was noble or dishonorable. "Mark had expressed reservations in the past about revealing his identity and about whether his actions were appropriate for an FBI man," Jones said. "But as he recently told my mother, 'I guess people used to think Deep Throat was a criminal. But now they think he's a hero.' " Felt operated during extraordinary times in U.S. history, and in the history of the bureau he had been trained to protect at all costs. Faced with a rogue White House, an explosive investigation and political pressure that must have been excruciating, he decided to spill secrets, anonymously helping to change the course of history through clandestine meetings with Woodward in the middle of the night in underground parking garages. Nixon and his White House colleagues during this period were engaged in what the House Judiciary Committee would eventually call a series of criminal acts -- obstruction of justice, withholding of material evidence, coercion of witnesses, and misuse of the CIA and the Internal Revenue Service. A secret investigative unit was run from the White House, supported by the CIA and financed by campaign funds to spy on enemies and to break into a psychiatrist's office in a search for confidential files. Twenty-one participants in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal, including the president's counsel, chief domestic adviser, attorney general and campaign finance director, pleaded guilty or were convicted of the crimes documented by the FBI and brought to light -- with Felt's help. Throughout his career, Felt was seen as a model FBI official. Harry Brandon, who retired from the FBI as deputy assistant for counterintelligence and counterterrorism, recalled making a presentation to Felt as a young agent in the bureau. "He was a tough guy," Brandon said yesterday. "Straight. Very honest. Very straight."

For three decades W. Mark Felt lived with his own sense of conflict over the role he played in the Watergate scandal: Was he a hero for helping the truth come out, or a turncoat who betrayed his government, his president and the FBI he revered by leaking to the press?

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Deep Background

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Vanity Fair's big scoop almost didn't happen. It started with a cold call two years ago from John D. O'Connor, a prominent lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area, to the magazine's editor, Graydon Carter. O'Connor, according to David Friend, an editor at the magazine, said he had a client "who is Deep Throat, and he wants to come out in the pages of Vanity Fair." And so began the drama that led to Vanity Fair's revelation yesterday that former FBI official W. Mark Felt was journalist Bob Woodward's famed anonymous source on the Watergate scandal. Woodward's subsequent confirmation filled in what former Post executive editor Ben Bradlee yesterday called "the last act, the last unknown fact" about the events that led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. JavaScript is required to display this interactive graphic. If it is turned off, please enable JavaScript in your browser preferences. Guessing at the identity of Deep Throat has been a Washington parlor game and journalistic sub-industry for almost 33 years. Many have tried to unmask the man who was perhaps the most famous whistleblower ever. A few have actually gotten it right. The problem for Vanity Fair, Friend said, was that O'Connor wanted the magazine to pay Felt and Felt's family for the story -- a condition the magazine would not agree to. O'Connor -- who had become acquainted with the Felt family through Felt's grandson, a Stanford classmate of O'Connor's daughter -- decided instead to publish Felt's account as a book. But after a year of trying to find a publisher, Friend said, O'Connor was back at Vanity Fair's doorstep. Therein began a long and secretive process to render Felt's story into print. Although O'Connor was the lead writer, the magazine supplemented his work with research and fact-checking. It corroborated Felt's account by getting his daughter, his son, his daughter-in-law and a former companion to confirm that he had previously revealed his identity as Deep Throat. About 15 Vanity Fair editors and staff people were eventually assigned to the story, which was code-named WIG (a corruption of "Watergate"). All of those involved signed confidentiality agreements that bound them not to reveal Felt's identity if the piece didn't meet publication standards. The concern about leaks was such that Joan Felt, Mark Felt's daughter and a key source on the story, began referring to her father as "Joe Camel" -- an alias for a man with one of the most famous nicknames of the past 30 years. As the magazine moved toward publication, the editors used a dummy cover line to shield their story as it went to the printer: "The Car Door Slams." Friend said neither Woodward nor his Watergate reporting partner Carl Bernstein -- a Vanity Fair contributing editor -- knew about the story until Friend e-mailed them a copy of it yesterday morning. "We felt that if we let Bob or Carl know, The Washington Post would be out before us," said Friend, who was the lead editor. In fact, The Post was scooped, after keeping Felt's secret for more than three decades. Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said yesterday that Woodward "did the honorable thing by sticking by his confidentiality agreement" with Felt. "He had agreed not to reveal his identity until [Deep Throat] released him from his pledge or the source died, and he did that." Although Woodward had checked in with the Felt family periodically, and is writing a book about his relationship with Deep Throat, Downie said Woodward was never told by Felt or his family that he was going public. "Bob was really kind of helpless" because Felt never indicated that their agreement was over, said Downie, who rushed back to Washington from a corporate meeting on the Eastern Shore when the story broke yesterday.

Vanity Fair's big scoop almost didn't happen. It started with a cold call two years ago from John D. O'Connor, a prominent lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area, to the magazine's editor, Graydon Carter.

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Contemporaries Have Mixed Views

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Prominent figures from the Watergate era expressed a mixture of reactions yesterday, from shock to admiration, upon learning that the number two official at the FBI had guided Washington Post reporters investigating illegal activities by the Nixon administration. Richard Ben-Veniste, a top lawyer in the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, said W. Mark Felt's acknowledgment of his role showed that "the importance of whistle-blowers shouldn't be underestimated, particularly when there are excesses by the executive branch of government -- which in this case went all the way to the executive office." But Charles W. Colson, a senior Nixon adviser who served seven months in prison for obstruction of justice in connection with Watergate abuses, declared that he was "personally shocked." "When any president has to worry whether the deputy director of the FBI is sneaking around in dark corridors peddling information in the middle of the night, he's in trouble," said Colson, who founded Prison Fellowship Ministries after leaving jail. "There were times when I should have blown the whistle, so I understand his feelings. But I cannot approve of his methods." Speaking last night on MSNBC's "Hardball," former Nixon speechwriter Patrick J. Buchanan labeled Felt a "traitor" for having worked with reporters on stories that did severe damage to the administration. It was those kind of reactions that led Felt to keep secret for more than 30 years his role as source for Post investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. But others credited Felt with having performed a great public service, at a time when many top officials of the government, including officials in the FBI and the Justice Department, were attempting to brush the scandal under the rug. Terry Lenzner, a senior Democratic counsel on the Senate Watergate committee, said the special panel "wouldn't have existed if those articles hadn't been written, because the whole thing would have been buried." Felt's guidance helped Woodward and Bernstein understand that they were on the right track, and it was therefore crucial in keeping up the momentum that eventually led to criminal investigations, a full-fledged Senate inquiry and finally the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. "Frankly, I think the reason Felt turned into Deep Throat was that he had a sense that [FBI Director L. Patrick] Gray was participating in the coverup and that it would destroy the reputation of the FBI. He was a classic FBI guy," Lenzner said. "His motives were that he had to protect the FBI. And he did." Scott Armstrong, who worked for Lenzner on the Senate Watergate committee and helped Woodward and Bernstein report and write "The Final Days," a book about the end of the Nixon administration, said Deep Throat did not supply detailed facts about illegal activities. But he was invaluable to the two young reporters who at the outset were alone in attempting to unearth the connections between the White House and the burglary at Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate hotel and office complex. "Only journalists understand how important it is to have someone on the inside," he said.

Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2004 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.

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Bill Clinton Takes Spot On Global Stage

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In 2001, in the opening months of his ex-presidency, Bill Clinton confided to an aide that he had decided on his dream job for the next chapter of his life: secretary general of the United Nations. The goal may not be realistic, he acknowledged, but he then went on to analyze all the factors in minute detail, as though he were preparing for a political campaign: whether a U.S. president would ever see fit to back him, for one, and what it would take to persuade other nations to bend the long-standing tradition that the top job does not go to someone from a country with permanent status on the U.N. Security Council. His ambition, as the aide described it, was both breathtaking and entirely logical for a natural-born politician who had reached the top of the American political ladder: "president of the world." Four years later, say several associates who have spoken with him in recent months, Clinton regards his dream of leading the United Nations as something more than a flight of fancy and something less than a serious prospect. Already, however, he has succeeded to a surprising degree in fashioning his ex-presidency to make himself a dominant player on the world stage. His ambitions are no less obvious than when he was on the rise as a domestic politician. Clinton wants to present an alternative face of America to the rest of the world -- in implicit opposition to President Bush, and to create a legacy that builds on his eight years in office. His recent appointment as the U.N. representative on tsunami relief is the highest-profile example of Clinton's travels and activities abroad. The extent to which the 42nd president has preserved influence even after leaving the White House will be far more obvious in September. That is when a large delegation of world leaders, U.S. politicians, business leaders and celebrities of various stripes will arrive in New York for the first Clinton Global Initiative. The event, as Clinton recently described it, is modeled after the famous annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But Clinton has said he wants his three-day event to be more focused on concrete results. "I'm telling people not to come unless they are prepared to make a commitment to do something when they leave" on the conference's themes of fighting poverty, religious conflict and environmental degradation. Among those planning to attend are British Prime Minister Tony Blair, King Abdullah of Jordan, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). Even Rupert Murdoch, whose New York Post and Fox News network are favorite platforms for many of the harshest Clinton critics, plans to be there. Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, also organized his post-presidency around international endeavors. But, as the upcoming meeting illustrates, Clinton's post-presidency is in many ways without precedent. Carter, whom Clinton has described as the most impressive modern ex-president, eventually won a Nobel Peace Prize, but first he spent several lonely years recovering from his 1980 reelection defeat by toiling in relative obscurity. Much of his work has been in remote Third World villages, with no cameras. Clinton, by contrast, relishes the headlines that invariably follow from his overseas jet-setting. So far this year, he has visited 22 nations and met with more than 30 current or former heads of state. Aides say Clinton's aim is to use his celebrity and networking talents with heads of state and various other famous and wealthy people on behalf of causes such as clean energy and AIDS relief. His Clinton Foundation, for instance, has negotiated steep discounts with pharmaceutical companies on antiretroviral drugs and is facilitating their delivery to about 110,000 people with AIDS in the developing world, with a goal of reaching 2 million by 2008. Viewed from a long perspective, Clinton's post-presidential career contains an interesting historical twist. In the early years of his administration, the wide perception was that he was predominantly a domestic president.

In 2001, in the opening months of his ex-presidency, Bill Clinton confided to an aide that he had decided on his dream job for the next chapter of his life: secretary general of the United Nations. Viewed from a long perspective, Clinton's post-presidential career contains an interesting...

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Justices Overturn Andersen Conviction

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The Supreme Court overturned the 2002 criminal conviction of Enron Corp.'s accounting firm yesterday, nullifying with a single stroke one of the government's biggest victories in the corporate scandals that climaxed the bull market of the 1990s. The court ruled unanimously that the Houston jury that found Arthur Andersen LLP guilty of obstruction of justice was given overly broad instructions by the federal judge who presided at the trial. As a result of the faulty instructions, the justices ruled, the firm was convicted without proof that its shredding of documents was deliberately intended to undermine a looming Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry in fall 2001. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon should have instructed the jury that the law required the government to prove that Andersen knew it was breaking the law, the court ruled. "Indeed, it is striking how little culpability the [judge's] instructions required," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote in the opinion for the court. "For example, the jury was told that, 'even if [Andersen] honestly and sincerely believed that its conduct was lawful, you may find [it] guilty.' " Legal analysts said the decision was a major setback to the Justice Department's corporate crime prosecutions. "To lose a case like this is huge," said William B. Mateja, a former official of the Justice Department's corporate fraud task force. "Arthur Andersen was the poster-child case of all the corporate fraud cases." More broadly, some lawyers said the court's decision shows its sympathy for corporate America's view that companies should be freer to engage in routine document destruction -- often under the ironic title of "document retention policy." That is important because the statute under which the Justice Department prosecuted Andersen was amended by Congress in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law to make it easier for the government to prosecute wrongful document destruction. "The Supreme Court may be using this as a vehicle to signal some concern" about Sarbanes-Oxley, said Henry T.C. Hu, a professor of corporate and securities law at the University of Texas. But Mateja, now in private practice, said that Congress's intent to prevent improper document destruction was clear. "I'm still going to counsel clients to be extremely careful if and when they dust off document-retention policies," he said. Although a rebuke to the government, the court's decision is little comfort for Andersen and its former employees. The Chicago-based firm has a staff of only 200 left out of the 28,000 people who once worked there. But the company said the ruling may help the firm in its main remaining task: fighting shareholder lawsuits related to its work for Enron, Global Crossing Ltd. and other clients. "We pursued an appeal of this case not because we believed Arthur Andersen could be restored to its previous position, but because we had an obligation to set the record straight and clear the good name of the 28,000 innocent people who lost their jobs at the time of the indictment and tens of thousands of Andersen alumni, as well as to help secure a fair resolution of the civil litigation facing the firm," company spokesman Patrick Dorton said in a statement. Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Richter said in a statement that the Justice Department had charged Andersen because of its "determination that the substantial destruction of documents in anticipation of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission violated the law."

The Supreme Court overturned the 2002 criminal conviction of Enron Corp.'s accounting firm yesterday, nullifying with a single stroke one of the government's biggest victories in the corporate scandals that climaxed the bull market of the 1990s.

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Ruling Won't Deter Prosecution of Fraud

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The Supreme Court's resounding decision in favor of disgraced accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP is a harsh rebuke for federal prosecutors but will not force a retreat in the Justice Department's three-year-old effort to prosecute corporate fraud, legal experts said yesterday. Andersen's March 2002 indictment marked the first big federal prosecution of business abuses as multibillion-dollar frauds at Enron Corp., Rite Aid Corp. and WorldCom Inc. were exploding into public view. The accounting firm's conviction a few months later helped end the company's accounting practice, created momentum for other corporate prosecutions and helped silence critics who claimed that the Bush administration was too cozy with corporations to hold them accountable for fraud and misconduct. Justice Department officials yesterday expressed disappointment with the high court's decision overturning Andersen's conviction for obstructing justice. They said they had not yet decided whether to retry Andersen, a once-respected Chicago accounting firm with 28,000 employees across the nation. "We remain convinced that even the most powerful corporations have the responsibility of adhering to the rule of law," acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Richter said in a prepared statement. Defense lawyers and former prosecutors said the unanimous Supreme Court ruling will not substantially deter the government from prosecuting businesses and high-profile executives. One major reason is that the witness-tampering law under which former Enron auditor Andersen was indicted has been supplanted by a new obstruction-of-justice statute in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, corporate accountability legislation Congress passed after investor outcry. In addition, the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force has won important victories since Andersen went out of business, including several for obstructing justice. Prosecutors have convicted former WorldCom chief Bernard J. Ebbers, former Adelphia Communications Corp. chief John J. Rigas and domestic entrepreneur Martha Stewart, among others. However, defense lawyers for investment banker Frank P. Quattrone yesterday asked an appeals court for more time to appeal his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, citing the Andersen decision. In May 2004, Quattrone was convicted of two counts of obstructing justice and one count of witness tampering, with that charge under the same law as the one in the Andersen case.. "What [the ruling] ought to do is make the government more reflective before they pull the trigger in certain circumstances," said E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., a longtime Washington defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor." Andersen has fewer than 200 workers, whose principal employment is helping the firm defend against civil lawsuits, which makes the Supreme Court decision something of an empty victory. Even so, spokesman Patrick Dorton issued a statement yesterday saying the court recognized "the fundamental injustice" of imposing what amounted to a corporate death penalty on the accounting firm. The indictment drew criticism from business groups, which argued that it would irreparably damage Andersen and reduce competition in the audit industry, by reducing the field from five big players to four. Rusty Hardin, the Houston lawyer who served as Andersen's lead lawyer in the 2002 trial, said, "The next time these things come up, let's tread a little bit more lightly before we look for scalps." The government already may have taken some of that criticism to heart. Since Andersen's demise, prosecutors increasingly have employed deferred prosecution agreements with companies accused of wrongdoing. Under the terms of those deals, companies will face increased financial penalties and other sanctions if they violate the terms of their corporate probation. That avoids the business-destroying approach prosecutors took with Andersen. "Andersen was not without fault for what it did," said Arthur W. Bowman, an industry analyst and author of the Bowman's Accounting Report newsletter. "But Andersen became the scapegoat for a lot of things. Not only were accountants doing shoddy work and getting too close to clients, but so were investment bankers and lawyers." The Sarbanes-Oxley Act imposed new requirements on auditors, corporate board members and top executives, in an effort to get them to take more responsibility for financial statements. It also created an oversight board putting discipline for accounting firms in the hands of an independent body for the first time in 70 years. In recent months, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups have argued that auditors are overreacting and performing too much work in an effort to insulate themselves from regulatory action. Meanwhile, yesterday's government defeat provides ammunition to defense lawyers who continue to fight the Justice Department's Enron Task Force. Michael Ramsey, a lawyer for former Enron chief executive Kenneth L. Lay, who is to face trial in January, said the decision is a "vindication" of his arguments that prosecutors have overreached and damaged their credibility. Daniel M. Petrocelli, lead defense counsel for former Enron executive Jeffrey K. Skilling, who awaits trial alongside Lay, said, "The Supreme Court's message is loud and clear: You cannot criminalize innocent conduct." Andrew Weissmann, director of the Enron task force, declined to comment yesterday. But the Justice Department's Richter said in his statement that prosecutors moved swiftly against Andersen because they believed the firm was shredding documents to impede securities regulators.

The Supreme Court's resounding decision in favor of disgraced accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP is a harsh rebuke for federal prosecutors but will not force a retreat in the Justice Department's three-year-old effort to prosecute corporate fraud, legal experts said yesterday.

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A Crash Course in Dealmaking

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The competing developers stepped over condoms and other trash in the stairwells to make their pitch to tenant association President Thaia Grace and her neighbors at 1020 Monroe St. NW. The 22-unit apartment building, within walking distance of two Metro stations, had a tentative offer on it for $1 million -- proof that Washington's almost insatiable demand for luxury condos and rentals had reached the eastern edge of Columbia Heights, where barren lots, graffiti and crumbling sidewalks had been the norm. Under D.C. law, tenants have the right to match any offer on their building or, as is most often the case, assign it to a developer for a price. When the market turned its forces on their building early last year, the teachers, college students and day laborers at 1020 Monroe were thrust into the role of neophyte dealmakers. Their task? To hold their own in a hyper-competitive market that tempts them with quick cash and puts them in the same room with real estate professionals eager to seal the next deal. At 1020 Monroe, tenants were offered new windows and doors by one suitor and steep discounts to own their overhauled apartments by another. All dangled thousands in cash to renters who would pack their things and leave. "It all sounded good," said Audrey Roberts, 29, who weighed the offers while juggling graduate studies and two small children. Even after choosing a developer, she and other tenants later would question whether they made the right choice. "It was confusing because it was something most of us had never done." A cottage industry of lawyers and pro-bono advocates has formed to help tenants. Even so, advocates for the poor said renters who have little education often end up with nothing or are intimidated into accepting small sums that are depleted quickly by higher rents elsewhere. Many who write the checks aren't happy, either. Owners of multiple apartment buildings, in particular, are complaining that a law intended to protect affordable housing has been hijacked by tenants who stall legitimate sales. Because the agreements are private, they fall outside the purview of city regulators that monitor rental housing. "By the time we know anything, the land owner has made the tenants an offer they can't refuse," said James Aldridge, an administrator at the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. "It's becoming so sophisticated that tenants associations will approach the owner to get the best deal they can." As soon as the D.C. law governing apartment sales and conversions was instituted in 1980, renters began trading those rights for cash and other incentives, a practice that continues today but is largely unnoticed by those not directly affected. Recently, the trade in these government-granted rights has drawn attention from city officials and residents who contend that the rush for quick cash is making it more difficult for low wage-earners to remain in the city . Demand for units in the price range of people working at or near minimum wage outstrips availability by 2 to 1, even though about 20,000 units of affordable housing have been built or preserved since 1999, said Milton J. Bailey, executive director of the D.C. Housing Finance Agency. The steep cost of land makes preservation difficult, he said. Almost everyone agrees that the competition to win over tenant associations with offers of cash -- an enticing lure for those living month to month -- doesn't help.

Despite a number of attractive offers from developers eager to buy their apartment building, some D.C. tenants are choosing to look beyond a quick sale.

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Fashion Sense

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Some designers play their roles well. They are exhaustingly animated, quick with witty cocktail talk and effortlessly exuding universal sex appeal. In more than one way, Akris designer Albert Kriemler seems miscast. With his short salt-and-pepper hair and his black-rimmed rectangular spectacles, he has the bookish manner of a graduate student. He does not fidget or gesture broadly; his physical stillness is a prelude to conversations that require time and focus. Kriemler speaks in fully realized paragraphs rather than in snappy sentences. And he gives a new acquaintance friendly encouragement to visit exhibitions on architecture, which is his personal passion, and Gustav Klimt, whose paintings are this season's fashion inspiration. Kriemler, 45, is not spoken of with the familiarity that is common in the fashion industry. He's no Giorgio or Donatella, no Ralph or Calvin. He most definitely is not a Tom, as in Ford, formerly of Gucci, who had much of the industry -- male and female -- in a matinee idol swoon over his every dalliance whether creative, financial or image-making. Neither Kriemler nor Akris engages in that sort of bravado. At least not yet. The family-owned company has quietly built a reputation for dressing women of authority and means in a manner that is both luxurious and understated. Kriemler recognizes that simply because the fashion sensibility of official Washington is reserved and authoritative, it is not stodgy and sexless. It does not mean that these women are uninterested in fashion. "You can deal with economic matters and still like style," said Constance Morella, U.S. representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and former congresswoman from Montgomery County. At the time, she happened to be in Paris, sitting through her second fashion show -- first Valentino, now Collette Dinnigan -- on a Sunday morning in March. Akris has succeeded, in large part, because it is one of the few high-end brands that still makes the kind of blazers that women feel comfortable wearing to a law firm or to greet a head of state. The clothes identify the wearer as well-heeled, but without any of the identifying markers of social climber, fashion groupie or arriviste. The collection speaks of diplomacy and self-confidence for a customer who is concerned with the way in which the public will read her attire. "It's pure luxury and it's understated. The fit is consistent and the look is clean," enthuses Peter Marx, president of Saks Jandel, which has had an in-store Akris boutique for about five years. "We love Akris. We love the family. We love the clothes." Kriemler has lured many of his customers away from stalwart labels such as Chanel, whose stylish designs and logos are readily identifiable at 100 paces and offer a virtual soliloquy on wealth and class. (The Akris shop at Saks Jandel occupies the floor space vacated by Chanel.) He has also swiped customers from Giorgio Armani, Escada and even St. John -- which in the slow-to-change fashion culture of Washington is akin to persuading Linus to put down his security blanket. "I do simple clothes, but I try to do interesting clothes. They're feminine, without the frills and flowers," Kriemler says. "We're trying to dress women in a modern way." The company might have continued with its quiet growth among the moneyed and powerful had it not been for a particularly Washington kind of endorsement. In February, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made her first official visit to Europe, she wore Akris. She was dressed in a cognac and black-checked Akris suit when she met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and later with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Her ensembles received glowing critiques in Europe. Britain's Daily Telegraph said "Condoleezza Rice is without doubt the most glamorous occupant of the office of Secretary of State of the United States, not to say one of the most astute." Media reports had the French declaring her "impeccably groomed and seductive." The Germans found her "coquettish." The Sunday Times called her "America's most glamorous diplomat." Rice followed up less than a month later by wearing a lilac Akris jacket to the Palestinian conference. "I was totally surprised," Kriemler says. "She discovered us." Rice made her Akris purchases locally from Saks Jandel, the designer says. Before anyone thinks that Akris had observers reducing Rice to an expensively attired Barbie doll, her reputation for being both smart and powerful went unblemished. Washington women -- and men -- fret that even the hint of fashionability will deflate their intellectualism like a hatpin pricking a balloon. Rice's stylish power-brokering travels suggest that Akris might be one of the few labels that can alleviate that fear.

Akris is one of the few high-end brands that speaks of diplomacy and self-confidence for a customer who is concerned with the way in which the public will read her attire.

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Spanish Ads On English TV? An Experiment

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On a recent Monday night, during the back-to-back wrestling shows "WWE Raw" and "WWE Raw Zone" on the cable's Spike TV, David Carcamo saw a commercial. The for-the-boys programming on Spike, it must be said, is in English. The 30-second commercial, touting the auto Web site Vehix.com, however, was in Spanish. "I was like, ' What?!' " says Carcamo, 18, a senior at Cardozo High School in Northwest Washington. He understood the commercial, no problem there. But a Spanish spot on an English-language channel? "Maybe the antenna was off. Or something. Maybe it was just a mistake," he wondered. "I was confused when I first saw it," says his friend, Sergio Romero, 19, also a senior at Cardozo. Like Carcamo, he's bilingual. "I thought I accidentally changed the channel to Telemundo." Vehix.com., a one-stop shop for car buyers, is using the Washington area -- home to an affluent, diverse, growing Latino community -- to conduct an experiment: running a Spanish-speaking commercial on cable channels such as Spike, Nick at Nite, FX and Sci Fi, to name a few. The first ad, put on the air in February, features a bald, chubby actor and a Spanish voice-over. Three weeks ago, it began to be replaced by an ad featuring Latino actors speaking in Spanish. Either way, the result is more eye-catching than reading a flier in English on one side and Spanish on the other about a yard sale in Columbia Heights. Andrew Ward, a vice president at Comcast Spotlight, the advertising division of the nation's largest cable provider, says these are the only Spanish ads on English channels of which he knows. The Salt Lake City-based Vehix is also running English-language ads on cable in an attempt to compete with bigger auto sales Web sites such as Automotive.com and AutoTrader.com. But money also speaks en Español , and marketing to Latinos has gotten more complex. "When a lot of people talk about the Hispanic market, they really mean the Spanish-speaking market, which is only a part of the market," says Jeff Valdez, co-founder and chairman of Sí TV, a Los Angeles-based channel whose slogan is "Speak English, Live Latin." "When you speak in that limited term -- Spanish TV for Hispanics -- you're only reaching a segment of a very big population," Valdez says. Not every Latino is watching channels such as the Spanish versions of ESPN, Discovery Channel and CNN, says Chris Satovick, vice president of consumer and dealer products for Vehix. There's a generational gap at work, and it's symbolized by the Carcamo family. David's parents, Lucy and Tereso Carcamo, emigrated from El Salvador. Mom works at the Hotel Washington; Dad's a custodian downtown. They speak to their sons, David and Danny, in Spanish, but the boys, born and raised in the United States, answer in English or Spanish. Or Spanglish. Sure, their mother catches Cristina Saralegui -- the Oprah Winfrey of Spanish TV -- on Univision, but her 18-year-old and 10-year-old sons opt for "South Park" on Comedy Central. The family rarely watches the same shows together. "We know, because of the research we've done and everything we've seen, that there are a lot of bilingual TV watchers and that they're watching English channels," says Satovick. His firm prides itself as a "road map to the automotive world." On its site you can post an ad selling your car, find a used or a new car, read vehicle reviews of used and new cars, etc., and it's affiliated with more than 1,500 car dealerships in the country, 51 of them in the Washington area. The crossover ads are working, Satovick says. On the company's Web site, there's a Spanish-speaking module -- a voice-over piece -- and in the past two months the number of users clicking on that module has increased, Satovick says. "It's still less than 5 percent of our total users -- more than 30,000 unique users check out Vehix.com per month -- but the increase has been more than 300 percent," he says, adding that the company is looking to expand the TV commercial experiment to other cities such as Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta. There's also been a bit of a backlash, he admits; a number of consumers have written to the site's customer feedback e-mail address. Satovick paraphrases them: Last time I checked, this is America; English is spoken here. Whether he's losing Anglo customers isn't clear, though he is convinced he's gaining Latino ones. "It isn't at all surprising what that car company is trying to do. No market is black or white. Only English. Only Spanish," says Raul Cano-Rogers, president of the Washington area's Ibero American Chamber of Commerce. "You can't just say, 'I'm gonna do it in English because everybody speaks in English.' You can't just say, 'I'm gonna do it Spanish because Hispanics only want to hear Spanish.' It's complicated." Indeed, even though David Carcamo has seen the commercial often, each time it grabs his attention. It hits him harder, he says, not because it is in Spanish but because it is in Spanish on an English channel. "I guess that's what they" -- meaning the advertisers -- "think they gotta do to keep up with us," he says.

On a recent Monday night, during the back-to-back wrestling shows "WWE Raw" and "WWE Raw Zone" on the cable's Spike TV, David Carcamo saw a commercial. The for-the-boys programming on Spike, it must be said, is in English. The 30-second commercial, touting the auto Web site Vehix.com, however, was...

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A Singer Who Played It Cool & Kept the Heat On

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Singer-songwriter Oscar Brown Jr. spun actor's magic on Washington stages in the early '60s, transforming himself into the phantasmagoria of characters who inhabited his exquisite creations: the inquisitive child of "Dat Dere" and the tired junkman of "Rags and Old Iron"; the coldhearted slave auctioneer of "Bid 'Em In" and the black man demanding reparations in the proto-rap tune "Forty Acres and a Mule." A quest for social justice underpinned the music of Oscar Brown Jr., who died Sunday at age 78.(He was the proud, loving father of "Brown Baby" and "Maggie," written for the son and daughter who'd grow up to perform with him; the sly sensualist who could conjure a waitress's charms in "Hazel's Hips" and hilariously celebrate having two girlfriends in "Living Double in a World of Trouble." Brown's astonishing 1960 debut, "Sin & Soul," and his 1964 live disc, "Mr. Oscar Brown Jr. Goes to Washington," are monuments to socially conscious songwriting on a par with the best work of Curtis Mayfield and Gil Scott-Heron, who also wrote about the full panoply of black life -- joy, anger, love, frustration, humor -- and helped define Afrocentrism. Brown did it first, in a way that managed to be both entertaining and serious, melding soul, jazz and musical theater into a body of work that always deserved far more recognition than it got. "I started out to be an Open Negro in the late '50s," Brown told me in 1992. "That meant that I wanted to reflect -- in my presentation and in what I wrote -- the things that I'd experienced, to be black, not incidentally but deliberately , culturally . I'd like to think I was in the wave [of Afrocentric artists]; which drop of water I turned out to be, I don't know." Brown, who died in his home town of Chicago on Sunday at age 78, was an optimist -- and a realist, knowing that any social progress was hard-won. The first of his songs to be recorded, by gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, was "Brown Baby." Jackson sang it with quiet majesty, but when Brown recorded it later, it was a soft-spun lullaby of aspiration, not only for Oscar Brown III but for all black babies: "I want you to live by the justice code, I want you to walk down freedom's road / Brown baby, it makes me glad that you will have things I have never had / When out of men's hearts all the hate is hurled, you're gonna live in a better world." He also captured the wondrous energy of childhood in "Maggie," gleefully recounting that "to bounce my baby on my knee / To see her smiling back at me / Makes living sweet as it can be." Brown ended the song insisting, "Who's Who may never know my name / And not much money can I claim / But I'm important just the same to Little Maggie." In truth, Oscar Brown Jr. was important to a lot of people. An upcoming documentary about him is titled "Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress," and truth is, there was no division in the best of his work, including the horrifying "Bid 'Em In," in which Brown evoked the singsong call of an auctioneer selling off a female slave, often embodied onstage by Brown's wife and frequent singing partner, Jean Pace. I'm looking for four. And $400, she's a bargain for sure Four is the bid, 450, five; $500 now look alive Bid 'em in; get 'em in. Don't mind them tears, that's one of her tricks Five-fifty's the bid, and who'll say six? She's healthy and strong and well-equipped

Singer-songwriter Oscar Brown Jr.  who died in his home town of Chicago on Sunday at age 78, transformed himself into the phantasmagoria of characters who inhabited his exquisite creations.

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Taste Test: Better Fast Food

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Now that we're past Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, vacations lie ahead -- and with them ample opportunity for nutritional mischief on the road. But this year, you may want to think seriously about stopping at a fast-food establishment to grab a healthful meal. That's right. Facing pressure from advocacy groups, public officials, lawsuits and (maybe) increasing consumer preference, many fast food chains have begun taking the healthier parts of their menus more seriously. That means more nutritious foods, from fruit and low-fat yogurt parfaits to tempting salads with low-fat dressings and grilled shrimp. The Lean Plate Club recently recruited members of the Health section staff to taste some of this healthier fare. While none of the meals rated four stars, most testers were surprised at how good the food tasted. "I'd buy this and eat it," was the consensus for all the items tasted -- even the veggie burger from Burger King (although we do admit that the toppings, especially the ample dollop of mayonnaise, helped account for its appeal). So as you hit the road this summer -- whether you travel turnpikes, back roads, through airports or train stations -- here's a guide to help you make smart travel food choices when you're tired, hungry, hectored by cranky kids and surrounded only by Golden Arches or other fast-food icons. · Expect high sodium. Even some of the entree salads packed 900 milligrams of sodium and more before adding dressing or croutons. The recommended level is 2,300 milligrams daily for those aged 45 or younger; 1,500 for those older, for African Americans and for people with high blood pressure. Snack on fruit high in potassium (bananas, oranges and raisins) to help balance the sodium. · Resist the urge to super-size, since doing so can easily add up to a day's worth of calories and more than a day's worth of fat. Burger King The "have it your way" chain was the first to introduce Morningstar Farms veggie burgers -- a food you can buy in grocery stores -- to its menu. Burger King's patty (with the mayo and other toppings) has 420 calories, including 16 grams of fat, but only three of those grams are saturated and there's no unhealthful trans fat. Our testers liked it. High in protein, the veggie burger also has seven grams of fiber and 1,000 milligrams of sodium. If you've got a hankering for meat, skip the trendy Angus Steak burger (570 calories) and have the single burger. At 310 calories, 13 grams of fat (five of them saturated), minimal trans fat and half the sodium of the veggie burger, it's a decent alternative. But for great taste, nearly a day's worth of veggies and fewer calories than most of the burgers, choose the salads. They clock in at around 200 calories, without dressing (which adds 70 to 130 calories per packet) and the garlic parmesan toast (70 calories). Both the Fire-Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad and the Fire-Grilled Chicken Garden Salad earned high marks from our testers. There are also shrimp versions of both, which contain healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

Now that we're past Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, vacations lie ahead -- and with them ample opportunity for nutritional mischief on the road.

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Getting Pumped

2005060119

"It's not a Frankenstein thing," Bill Redfern joked, as a medical attendant at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville cuffed him flat to a medical table by his calves and thighs. Green rubber hoses poked from the blue cuffs wrapping the legs of the 73-year-old Maryland accountant. Several wires linked his chest to a large gray box near the head of the table. A switch was flicked, and the machine began a pulsing sound, an unfamiliar whoosh-CLICK! whoosh-CLICK! At each pulse, three sets of cuffs strapped to Redfern's legs rapidly inflated and deflated, one after another, so powerfully that his body jerked upward until he seemed to float above the table. On the box was a bright red knob that Redfern could pull at any time to stop the procedure -- "just in case." "It's not something you'd want to do for a long time," Redfern admitted as he started the 34th of his recommended 35 hours on Enhanced External Counterpulsation, or EECP. But the bizarre-looking procedure, which is administered over a period of seven weeks, also has a unique selling point to patients with coronary artery disease: it's nonsurgical. That means less risk, lower cost, less pain, less time in the hospital. And it seems to work. Yet EECP has never made it into the major leagues of heart disease treatments. That's so even though it's been around for decades and has passed muster with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Medicare as a treatment for angina -- chest pain or discomfort that occurs when the heart muscle does not get enough blood. A lack of patients isn't the problem. Coronary artery disease (CAD, or clogging of the arteries leading to the heart) is a leading cause of premature death and permanent disability among adults in the United States. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), 7 million Americans suffer from one of the disease's primary symptoms, a painful squeezing or pressing sensation in the chest called angina pectoris. The AHA says 400,000 new cases of angina are diagnosed each year. But doctors are divided on the merits of EECP. Even though the treatments are offered at prestigious medical centers including the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Virginia, most cardiologists -- if they have even heard of EECP -- disparage it. Stuart Seides, associate director of cardiology at the Washington Hospital Center, is emphatic: "Many of us remain skeptical about the true value" of EECP, he said. "It makes absolutely no physiologic sense." The minority camp, led by Dennis Friedman, chairman of cardiology and research at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, is equally outspoken. "This uncomplicated procedure, with few risks factors, has huge benefits for patients with angina [who] don't have any other options," said Friedman. It shouldn't be so hard, he suggests, for patients who've exhausted other alternatives to learn there's one more option to try. EECP first became popular in China, where coronary heart disease affects a relatively small percentage of the population. There, doctors spent two decades developing and testing a noninvasive technology using counterpulsation to treat coronary heart disease. Counterpulsation means pumping blood during the heart's rest phase. During treatment, the cuffs compress the blood vessels in the lower limbs -- first calves, then thighs, then buttocks -- pushing blood toward the heart; each wave of increased blood flow is timed to arrive at the heart at the moment the organ relaxes. When the heart pumps again, pressure is released. Some studies suggest the process may produce lasting effects by stimulating the formation of collateral blood vessels in the heart. Compressing these vessels also mimics the effect of regular physical exercise, releasing hormones and other substances that may promote greater blood flow. The Chinese "had all this data worked out [on EECP] 20 years ago," said Friedman, "but it wasn't very sexy for the United States." American doctors, instead, showed more interest in invasive procedures. Though a few Americans researchers experimented with producing counterpulsation, their studies -- which reported symptom relief but didn't look at mortality -- drew little attention. The Chinese, however, reading the same journals, got to work. Their clinical experience led to the installation of more than 1,500 external counterpulsation units in China during the past 15 years. Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Japan also set up study sites. Meanwhile, some scientists at the National Institutes of Health, the Cleveland Clinic and Stony Brook Medical Center in New York continued work on the technique. Vasomedical Inc. of Westbury, N.Y., also funded research into its own products; its efforts resulted in 1998 FDA approval for its EECP device and therapy for treatment of angina. In 1999, Medicare recognized and began reimbursement for EECP as an alternative therapy for advanced angina that is not treatable by bypass surgery or angioplasty. More than 300 health insurers now cover the procedure for this purpose. And, in June 2002, the FDA also approved EECP as a treatment for congestive heart failure (CHF) -- a condition in which the heart weakens, often as a result of heart attacks, coronary artery disease and uncontrolled blood pressure -- and loses the ability to pump blood to the body. (CHF affects nearly 5 million Americans.) But despite scores of studies -- appearing in such respected journals as the American Journal of Cardiology, Circulation, Heart and the Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- that enthusiasts say show the treatment's benefit -- EECP has had a hard time winning acceptance. Seides says he and many of his colleagues regard EECP with skepticism because the studies have not been scientifically rigorous; only two randomized controlled trials on EECP have been published to date. The one most often cited by EECP proponents is a study of 139 angina patients at seven U. S. medical centers, published in 1999 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Some patients received EECP, the rest a sham procedure; patients didn't know until the end of the study which treatment they'd received. Columbia University researchers found patients in the treatment group had a clinically significant decrease in angina episodes and in use of nitroglycerine to relieve chest pain. But while patients were unaware which treatment was being used, medical staff applying the treatment weren't -- so they may have inadvertently suggested the form of treatment being administered. The study also relied on patient recall -- always fraught with potential bias -- about angina episodes and the use of nitroglycerine. And the study examined short-term effects only. Another set of studies, published in the American Journal of Cardiology (AJC), followed more than 5,000 patients from more than 100 centers around the world. Researchers found that 73 percent of patients treated with EECP reported a significant reduction in the severity of their angina; half reported an improvement in their quality of life after EECP. These results, the investigators found, still held in a follow-up study on the same group two years later. The AJC study authors acknowledged, however, that their study lacked a control group and didn't compare EECP's reported benefits with those from other treatments, including medical therapy, lifestyle modification and an invasive procedure called coronary revascularization. The researchers couldn't rule out the possibility that at least some of EECP's reported benefit was the result of the placebo effect, in which patients do well because they believe they will. As the authors wrote, they were working with "a population of highly symptomatic patients enthusiastic for an emerging novel therapy." Despite their shortcomings, the studies have swayed some cardiologists, Friedman among them. "I am an interventional cardiologist," he said. "I like to do all these [invasive] techniques, but I also believe in the basics. . . . I don't think intervention and medicine are mutually exclusive. I think they should both be used concomitantly." He prescribes EECP for patients like Redfern, who "no longer have an option for bypass" or artery stenting either because of frail health, complicating conditions or because they've run out of blood vessels that can be harvested for bypass. (EECP is not appropriate, though, for patients with irregular heartbeats, bleeding disorders, clots or inflammation of blood vessels in the legs, or for pregnant women.) Gail Driskill, an EECP therapist at the cardiac rehab clinic at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, said that since 1998 she's seen EECP used with more than 190 patients, each of whom she knows personally. "Their quality of life is much better, they can do a lot more than they were able to do before," she said. "Some of our patients, when they come here they can't even go one flight of stairs. And we actually have them at the cardiac rehab exercising at the end of treatment." Redfern, who's a veteran of one heart attack, at least six angioplasties, a bypass surgery, a couple of stents and a pacemaker, said he's convinced EECP has helped him. Since beginning treatment this winter, he's taken fewer nitroglycerine pills, and his exercise tolerance has improved dramatically. Just the other day, he said, he took the stairs to his second-floor office. "I went up 30 steps, no problem, which is amazing, because before I got on this table I could barely go up 10 steps." But such stories don't impress Seides any more than the studies do. Angina, he said, "is a symptom that can regress and progress spontaneously," and "most of the studies rely on patients' self reporting of symptoms." Perhaps relevant to the controversy over EECP as well: It's time-consuming (the typical course of treatment requires five hours a week for seven weeks) and, at about $7,000 a treatment course, less profitable for the cardiologist than invasive procedures. Says Friedman: "Maybe it's not as rewarding professionally, or financially, and therefore this does not become a high priority." (Seides slams that ball back: "I would posit that the driver here is not the unwillingness of the interventional cardiologists to refer," he said, "but rather the opportunity for the noninvasive cardiologists to retain patients and capture income by setting up one of these [EECP] centers.") Because it makes minimal use of cardiologists' specialized medical training, EECP also presents an image problem: Operating a heaving, chugging set of hoses, say some, just doesn't match the traditional picture of what a cardiologist does. EECP "smacks of physical therapy," said former University of Pittsburgh professor of medicine Richard Fogoros, an author in the fields of cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology. "It's just not cardiology. It doesn't fit into how [cardiologists] view themselves as practitioners," said Fogoros. Seides as much as acknowledges that tension when he calls EECP "the revenge of the noninvasive cardiologists." Of colleagues who refer patients to EECP, he said, "You wonder how hard they are trying to treat the angina." The treatment, he said, gives the noninvasive cardiologist "an opportunity to do something . . . rather than refer to a top-end center. . . . The major risk of any treatment like that is that you will delay seeking treatment that is more effective." More effective, in this case, also means more invasive and more expensive. According to an April 2004 study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, "charges for full EECP treatment are approximately $7,000, one-third of the charges associated with balloon angioplasty (PTCA) and one-fifth of the cost of bypass surgery (CABG)." Seides said he's not surprised Medicare likes EECP: "Regulators and payers are conservative, and the notion that here's something that you can treat angina with, that while it ain't cheap, it's cheaper than a bypass," may appeal to them, regardless of the science behind it. In which case, he said, patients lose. Fogoros worries that patients lose in other situations--if, say, doctors shy away from a treatment like EECP for reasons that have nothing to do with its effectiveness. "This is a general problem patients face," he laments. "They may not be hearing about all the useful treatments out there." Patients have to educate themselves and "find out what all the alternatives are," he said. In the meantime, EECP research is picking up. Scientists are continuing to study EECP's effectiveness as a treatment for congestive heart failure. Findings from EECP's second randomized controlled trial, presented at the recent annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, showed, says the manufacturer of EECP equipment, greater effectiveness for EECP therapy than drugs in improving exercise duration (a marker for how well the heart is working). Experts meanwhile agree that more studies are needed. "If the proponents of EECP prove the methods by which this works, I think it is going to go a long way to prove that this is science as opposed to witchcraft," said Fogoros. Seides agrees. "I am open-minded," he said. "Show me the data. If it's the best thing to do for enough patients, we could certainly offer that." · Ranit Mishori, a family practice resident at Georgetown University/Providence Hospital, recently wrote for the Health section about the development of needle-free drug delivery.

"It's not a Frankenstein thing," Bill Redfern joked, as a medical attendant at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville cuffed him flat to a medical table by his calves and thighs. Green rubber hoses poked from the blue cuffs wrapping the legs of the 73-year-old Maryland accountant.... Perhaps...

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Landscapes of Fury

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By Yaroslav Trofimov. Henry Holt. 312 pp. $26 America's struggles against militant Islam and Iraqi nationalism since Sept. 11 have been overburdened by theory and interpretation and undernourished by reliable facts. Seeking to assess several interlocking wars, U.S. intelligence analysts continue to offer tentative and sometimes wildly varying estimates about such basic questions as who is the enemy, how many of them are afoot and why some commit suicide in battle. In the political sphere, policy debate in Washington is rich with abstract argument about democratic reform in the Arab world but often barren of detail about prospective candidates, their ideologies, their sources of funding and other messy particulars. Yaroslav Trofimov's political travelogue, Faith at War , is an illuminating arrival in this season of fog. The book is essentially a series of independent-minded letters from the frontlines of the Middle East's shooting wars, as well as its wars over ideas. Trofimov is an intrepid, Arabic-speaking traveler who moves in landscapes few other Westerners traverse. As a roving foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, he has often produced newspaper stories rich in detail and nuance, and he has established himself as one of the best in the business. Now he has taken his sweat-stained notebooks and pulled together what he describes as "a personal account of what's happening on the ground" in the Islamic world. His dispatches from a zigzagging three-year tour after Sept. 2001, across nearly a dozen countries, describe "some bright spots . . . some reasons not to lose hope," as he puts it, but also "numerous signs that the battle isn't going as planned" for the United States. At his best, Trofimov is a master of microcosm. He is drawn to graffiti and found objects, signifiers of time and place, as in the tattered documents he discovered in the rubble of Uday Hussein's former Baghdad playpen, the Iraqi Yacht Club. One circular issued by Saddam Hussein himself banned the placement of "any nylon tablecloths on the tables in the palaces, unless specifically ordered otherwise." Trofimov observes dryly: "Like most files in the shed, it was marked 'top secret.' A regime's paranoia can be measured by what it chooses to classify." His voice is arch and skeptical -- an itinerant Dashiell Hammett of the Middle East -- and some of his darker analyses, written last year, today feel a bit dated or overly pessimistic. He describes "many Iraqis," for example, as "growing nostalgic for Saddam Hussein's sadistic dictatorship," and he labels Afghanistan "a war zone, with the Taliban once again controlling large parts of the country" -- assessments that seem to run ahead of the evidence, or at least choose to emphasize a glass half-empty. Yet the region he knows so well has long rewarded doubters, and its latest turmoil -- far from finished -- may ultimately confirm his instincts. Somewhat more frustrating for a book that describes itself as being about "faith," he presents little empathetic reporting about ordinary Muslim religiosity and its connection to politics and violence. Trofimov offers few accounts of individual faith, daily ritual, symbolic rites or the complex ways in which some preachers and militants have converted -- or perverted -- an enduring and diverse religion into an ideology of suicidal attack. Instead, Muslim belief often appears here as an oppressive, irrational and abstract force, not as intimate personal experience or a basis for the sort of subtle politics practiced by the dominant Iraqi Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, or the notionally peaceful wings of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Still, this distance from the lived experience of Islam does not matter much from page to page. Trofimov is an entertaining, serious, surprising reporter; it is a pleasure to go with him. In Yemen shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, he searches audaciously for genuine jihadists, attracting angry mobs and secret police in equal measure. After the Treasury Department in Washington designates a honey shop in central Sanaa as part of Osama bin Laden's supposed global business empire, Trofimov rushes over for "a spoonful of jihadi honey . . . with a slight whiff of ginger." As he listens to the shopkeeper rant against the United States, he notices that the store has blotted out all the faces on its cosmetics boxes, in keeping with an austere interpretation of Islam. In one of the book's most original chapters, titled "Teaching Freud to the Mullahs," Trofimov illustrates Tunisia's struggle between top-down secularism and bottom-up Islamic activism by exploring the manipulated history of Zeitouna, a famed citadel of Islamic scholarship lately used by the country's authoritarian government to promote peaceful, compliant religious thought. He presents an unusual, sophisticated study of how state-managed Islam, constructed in a relatively progressive alliance with the West, can struggle for convincing success. At the center of Trofimov's book -- literally and thematically -- are four chapters that describe his travels in wartime Iraq, where he entered as a risk-taking "unilateral," as those journalists who did not accept Pentagon embedding were called. He snuck across the border from Kuwait when the invasion began, dodged death for several weeks and returned at intervals as the war's initial images of toppled statues yielded to bloody insurgency and political frustration.

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With Friends Like These

2005060119

By Gerald Posner. Random House. 254 pp. $24.95 The dust jacket of Gerald Posner's Secrets of the Kingdom calls it an "explosive study" of Saudi Arabia. In 14 of its 15 chapters that's not true, but in chapter 10 it is -- literally. There Posner reports that Saudi Arabia has wired all of its major oil facilities with interlocking Semtex explosive charges that can be detonated from a single control point. Moreover, he says, the Saudis have blended radioactive materials into the Semtex so that detonation would not only destroy the facilities but also contaminate them beyond repair. Why would the Saudis set off what's essentially a networked dirty bomb over their oil infrastructure? Because, according to Posner, they want to make certain that nobody could benefit from invading their country or taking down the ruling House of Saud. If the al Saud family goes, Posner writes, the world's petroleum-based economy goes with it. Posner, the muckraking author of nine previous books, acknowledges that he cannot be sure this story is true. And indeed a Saudi official has questioned the credibility of the allegations. Posner attributes the story to conversations among Saudi officials intercepted by the National Security Agency and Israeli intelligence and compiled by the NSA into a file called "Petro SE" -- for "Petroleum Scorched Earth." It is possible, he concedes, that the Saudis knew their conversations were being overheard and concocted the doomsday scenario to ensure that the United States would come to their aid in a crisis. "What better incentive for Western powers, particularly the United States, to come to the aid of the House of Saud if it were under external or internal attack," Posner writes, "than to think that if it fell, like the shah of Iran did a quarter century ago, they would take the energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia with them" and cause worldwide chaos? The wealth of detail in Posner's account gives it an air of credibility. Moreover, Saudi Arabia does have a Nuclear Energy Research Institute, with scientists who are familiar with radioactive materials such as cesium that could be used in dirty bombs. Because (according to U.S. intelligence reports) the kingdom financed the development of nuclear weapons by Pakistan, it would have had access to nuclear material, if only through the clandestine network of Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. And while Saudi Arabia is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has never agreed to an international inspection protocol. On other levels, though, Posner's account defies belief. Hundreds of Americans work for Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, many in senior positions and many with intelligence connections. Would none of them have spotted this mammoth undertaking and reported it? Would the Saudis really destroy facilities in Medina, a city so sacred that non-Muslims are prohibited from going there? And who, in a royal family that operates by consensus and spreads out decision-making power among several senior princes, would have his finger on the detonation button? Thinking that the House of Saud would give absolute doomsday power to one individual runs contrary to Saudi Arabia's history for the past half century. Moreover, if the story is true, what should the world do about it? Posner does not say. Having rolled this grenade under the reader's chair, so to speak, he just leaves it there. He does note that Semtex has a shelf-life of about 20 years and that the Saudis allegedly acquired their supply in the early 1990s -- which means that a few years from now the explosive network (if it exists) will no longer be functional. What are the implications of that? Posner says such questions can usefully be addressed only after the Saudis have been persuaded to allow international inspectors into the facilities that supposedly have been wired to see whether, in fact, they have been. Saudi officials and Americans familiar with Saudi oil installations have greeted Posner's account with derision. "The idea makes no sense, and whoever wrote it has no credibility," Saudi Oil Minister Ali Nuaimi said while in Washington earlier this month. Aside from the chapter about the oil-field explosives, there isn't much new in Secrets of the Kingdom . Readers who were persuaded by the intimations of skullduggery in Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud , which reached a wide audience via Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11," will find their suspicions reinforced; those who take a more nuanced view of Saudi Arabia and U.S.-Saudi relations are likely to find Posner's book a tendentious rehash of old material, repackaged to put the kingdom in the worst possible light. We can stipulate that Saudi Arabia has more than its share of odious, reprehensible people, some of them with American blood on their hands; that its social customs are sometimes alien to Western sensibilities; that its human rights record is deplorable; that business deals there have been landmarks of corruption; and that a lot of Saudi money has supported bigotry and funded terrorism. Posner reviews these issues but adds very little to our knowledge of them. Except for the "Petro SE" material, he relies almost entirely on secondary sources, drawing heavily from mainstream news outlets and well-known earlier books. Mike Ameen, a longtime Aramco executive, and Hermann Eilts, a former U.S. ambassador to the kingdom, are quoted only from their remarks on a PBS documentary, even though both men are easy to find. The result is a briskly written narrative that will shock anyone who has been marooned on a desert island for 40 years but contains little new for readers who have been paying attention. Here are stories about Adnan Khashoggi, Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan, various kings and princes, and the puritanical Wahhabi religious establishment. The controversial 1980 public television film "Death of a Princess" surfaces here, and the 1981 fight over selling AWACS planes, and the Carlyle Group, and the BCCI bank-fraud scandal and the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74. These are entertaining tales, but often told. Some of the supposedly new material is also flimsy. "The 9/11 Commission gave the Saudis a free pass," Posner asserts in his opening chapter. "This book shows why." But he neither establishes that a whitewash took place nor explains why it allegedly occurred. To support his charge, he offers an entire chapter about the extravagance of Prince Mohammed bin Fahd and another about the global business dealings of Prince al Waleed bin Talal. But the former's excesses are well known, as are the latter's business ventures, and Posner does not even suggest that this information has anything to do with the work of the 9/11 Commission. Relying mostly on news reports, Posner assembles a coherent narrative of Saudi funding of terrorist groups, but he acknowledges that on this issue the 9/11 Commission did indeed go after the Saudis, noting in its final report that "al Qaeda found fertile fund-raising ground in Saudi Arabia." Posner includes a hair-raising account of how the Saudis fund the distribution of extremist literature and ideas inside the United States, but that ground, too, has been extensively plowed, most notably in a long report last December by Freedom House, a nonprofit group that supports democracy abroad. It is understandable that Posner wanted to keep his manuscript secret in hope of making news upon its release, but it would have benefited from a good vetting by a reader more knowledgeable about Saudi Arabia and the region. Such a reader would have caught the obvious errors that pockmark the text. Posner writes that in 1957 King Saud "was still smarting over the U.S.'s support of Israel in its 1956 war with Arab countries," when all Arabs know that Suez was the one Arab-Israeli war in which Washington stood with them against Israel. The Shatt al Arab is a waterway, not "a disputed region of land." The Bedouin are not a single clan. And Aramco's Mike Ameen would never have said of King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, the kingdom's founder, that "people who dealt with him never considered him bright," as Posner reports. Ameen was talking about Abdul Aziz's dimwitted son, Saud -- as he confirmed when I called him, which Posner never did. Posner's best chapter is his last one, entitled "The Future?". The question mark is apt. Posner gives a compelling summary of the economic, social, educational and political choices facing Saudi Arabia and its rulers and notes that there are "no easy choices." As he observes, Saudi Arabia must make major changes to satisfy the aspirations of its restless younger generation, but "if it moves too quickly, it will destabilize the peace within the fractious monarchy itself, especially when King Fahd dies and succession again confronts the country." Well put. It's regrettable that Posner didn't put his powers of observation to more productive use in the rest of the book. · Thomas W. Lippman, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, is the author of "Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia."

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How Do You Cure a Broken Heart?

2005060119

It is the most beautiful spring afternoon. Sunshine glints off water in the harbor. Karen Schillings, 55, wears a light jacket in case it gets chilly. The Girl Scout leader from Homewood, Ill., is always prepared. But it has been mild all day, and Karen feels almost luxuriantly relaxed as she strolls the grounds of historic Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Up ahead, Karen's youngest daughter walks hand in hand with her boyfriend. Corinne Schillings and Andrew Roccella, both 26, lean into each other laughing. They are so in love they are in their own little world, Karen thinks, pleased. Corinne and Andrew have been in love for years. They've been in love since the year after they met as Purdue University juniors studying in Italy. They've been in love so long that one of Corinne's girlfriends teases that she has a mind to telephone Andrew and demand he pop the question. Corinne, cheerful and steady like Mom, always says she is certain Andrew will propose when he is ready -- and whenever that is will be just the right time. It is Saturday, March 6, 2004. At 3:23 p.m., a wind gauge atop a Howard County middle school -- 30 miles from the fort -- records 57 mph gusts. A fast-moving line of thunderstorms is sweeping across Maryland, heading for Baltimore. The harbor is calm as the young lovers, who have brought their parents together for a day of sightseeing, wait on the Fort McHenry pier for a water taxi to take the three couples back across the water to Fells Point. Sitting on a bench on the pier, Corinne shows off little treasures she's picked up at the fort gift shop: a book on the history of the early American stronghold that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner," and a commemorative brass Christmas ornament. Corinne is an accomplished young woman who speaks five languages, but she's still a little girl about her favorite holiday. Wherever she travels in the world she buys sentimental baubles to hang on the family Christmas tree. It is beginning to look like rain. The sky darkens, and a cool breeze appears. Karen wishes the water taxi would hurry up and get there or they'll all get wet. She notices that Andrew isn't wearing a jacket, and worries he'll be cold. "Oh, these young kids, they never have their jackets on!" she thinks. "You know how the mom in you comes out," Karen says months later, recounting that day in an interview. Karen feels lucky when the Lady D, a 36-foot pontoon boat with a two-man crew, docks, boards its maximum 23 passengers and pulls away from the pier just ahead of the rain. Seconds later, the heavens open. Sightseers aboard the water taxi gasp and exclaim excitedly about the sheeting rain. It is just before 4 p.m. -- about the time the National Weather Service issues a warning of possible thunderstorms in the area with gusting winds. As the water taxi pulls farther from land, the wind picks up suddenly. The harbor is instantly choppy, and the small pontoon boat, just 12 feet across, begins to rock violently.

It is the most beautiful spring afternoon. Sunshine glints off water in the harbor. Karen Schillings, 55, wears a light jacket in case it gets chilly. The Girl Scout leader from Homewood, Ill., is always prepared. But it has been mild all day, and Karen feels almost luxuriantly relaxed as she...

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China Repeals Textile Tax, Threatens WTO Grievance

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SHANGHAI, May 30 -- China on Monday threatened to take the United States to a dispute proceeding at the World Trade Organization if the Bush administration persists in restricting imports of Chinese-made textiles. China also rescinded tariffs on its own textile exports, asserting that it will do nothing to limit its shipments as it offered to do last week so long as the United States and Europe impose their own restrictions. At a news conference in Beijing, China's commerce minister, Bo Xilai, unleashed the latest rhetorical volley in an intensifying trade conflict, warning that his government might formally accuse the United States of foul play if the Bush administration does not lift quotas on its textiles. "This is a legitimate right that China is entitled to, and we will resort to this mechanism when it is time to do so," Bo told reporters, according to Bloomberg News. That threat came only days before Bo was scheduled to receive his American counterpart, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, who is due in Beijing on Thursday for meetings on the textile conflict and the larger issue of how to lessen China's $160 billion trade surplus with the United States. The growing intensity of the dispute underscores the degree to which domestic pressures appear to be leading both sides to push hard, lest they face accusations of appeasement. Analysts emphasized that Beijing and Washington both appear to be engaged in a show of toughness aimed at assuaging their domestic industries and not at a genuine escalation. 'This is entirely about domestic politics in both countries," said Andrew Rothman, China strategist at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Shanghai. "They're doing the dance that they always do. I don't see this turning into a trade war." The textile dispute stems from the expiration of an old system of global quotas that for four decades limited how much clothing any single country could ship to the United States and Europe. Since the lifting of those limits at the beginning of the year, shipments of Chinese-made clothes into the United States have grown by more than half, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Volumes of some goods, such as cotton pants and shirts, have soared by more than 1,000 percent. That surge has increased pressure on the Bush administration to choke the flow. Domestic textile manufacturers and a vocal contingent in Congress have accused the administration of being soft on China, allowing a renegade trade power to inundate the market with cheap goods at the expense of American workers. The Bush administration earlier this month slapped new quotas on several categories of Chinese clothes and textiles, limiting their growth to 7.5 percent this year. The administration has the right to impose such "safeguard" quotas under the agreement that brought China into the World Trade Organization three years ago. China reacted by accusing the United States of violating the spirit of free trade. Officials in Beijing maintain that China is simply using its advantages -- an abundance of cheap labor and natural resources -- to produce high-quality goods at a lower price. China asserts that it is being made a scapegoat for the inevitable decline of American manufacturing. In a bid to persuade the Bush administration to drop the safeguard quotas, China last week said it would quadruple the tariffs it imposes on its textile exports. But on Monday, China said it would withdraw those tariffs altogether so long as the safeguard limits remain.

SHANGHAI, May 30 -- China on Monday threatened to take the United States to a dispute proceeding at the World Trade Organization if the Bush administration persists in restricting imports of Chinese-made textiles.

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Logging On With A New Campaign

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It's a Thursday morning in a downtown office building on K Street. Five staffers are fielding phone calls, soliciting help, blogging and brainstorming. Handmade posters are taped to drab walls, tracking their plans and progress. White boards are scribbled on, erased and scribbled on some more. Boxes sit unpacked. Dating lives have been put on hold. There are no plans for a summer vacation. Weekend rest is fleeting. In other words, not much has changed since these staffers were with the Howard Dean, Wesley K. Clark and John F. Kerry presidential campaigns. But this time, they are trying to win one for the Wal-Mart workers. Their group is the latest manifestation of the ongoing campaign to change Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest private employer. After years of failed attempts to help Wal-Mart workers organize a union, leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers are trying an Internet-oriented approach developed in recent failed presidential campaigns. When Joseph T. Hansen became president last year, he decided to switch from approaching employees inside the stores to putting on a wider campaign designed to win over the company's customers and general public. His hope is that public reaction and negative publicity will force the company's executives to change some practices. In January, the UFCW hired 29-year-old Paul Blank, former political director of the Howard Dean presidential campaign. He pulled together a team of other young former staffers from failed Democratic presidential campaigns to start a grass-roots effort to draw in consumers. The group calls its effort Wake-Up Wal-Mart, and it tries to use tools developed in political campaigns. "For a number of years, we were going by the rules," attempting to sign up workers under rights granted by the National Labor Relations Act, said William T. McDonough, head of UFCW's organizing department. "We got very frustrated." The mega-retailer's public image had already taken some hits before the campaign began, in part because of earlier attempts by organized labor to draw attention to what it argues is the downside of Wal-Mart's dominance. Wal-Mart is facing the largest ever class-action lawsuit charging gender discrimination. Its critics say it does not pay a fair wage and creates a burden for localities because it fails to provide adequate health care for its workers. Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $11 million to settle a federal investigation that found hundreds of illegal immigrants were hired to clean its stores. McDonough said two well-known failed organizing attempts showed that the unions had to change their tactics: Wal-Mart eliminated meatpacking positions nationwide and began to sell prepackaged meat after meatpackers at a store in Texas voted to organize in 2000. The company said it had intended to do so before the workers voted for a union. "That had a chilling impact on any other organizing," McDonough said. Wal-Mart in April closed a Jonquiere, Quebec, store where workers had voted in a union. Wal-Mart said the store was underperforming. And so the union decided to respond with a more public campaign. "It's a very small group dealing with very big things," Blank said. Involved in politics and campaigns since he worked in Bill Bradley's office at age 12, he most recently worked for Joe Trippi, Dean's former campaign director. The other staffers include Buffy Wicks, 27, an antiwar activist who worked on the Dean campaign and is Wake Up's political director, and Jeremy Bird, 26, who grew up in Missouri and whose mother used to work for Wal-Mart. He went to Harvard Divinity School and was a Dean campaign worker "until the bitter end." Brendan Bush, 25, runs the group's blog. He was on the Internet crew for the Kerry campaign. "Back before I knew I was a Democrat," he said, he teased his uncle who was proud of his union membership in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. The group's communications adviser, Chris Kofinis, 35, helped originate the DraftWesleyClark.com campaign and was a strategist for TheNaderFactor.com, a Democratic group that worked to pull Nader voters to other candidates. Wake-Up Wal-Mart's first major action was to garner opposition to Wal-Mart for Mother's Day. The group launched a campaign called "Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart." Shoppers signed a petition promising not to buy a Mother's Day gift at the store. News of the petition went out on blogs and community activist sites. About 22,000 people signed the online promise in the week and a half before Mother's Day. Kofinis said he considered the signatures a success, not because they had an impact on Wal-Mart sales, but because he thinks they helped raise awareness of the group's criticisms of Wal-Mart.

Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland business news headlines with stock portfolio and market news, economy, government/tech policy, mutual funds, personal finance. Dow Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ quotes. Features top DC, VA, MD businesses, company research tools

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Deep Throat Revealed

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The Washington Post Tuesday confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon. The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories. Washington Post staff writer David Von Drehle was online Wednesday, June 1, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss Felt's role in the Watergate story. David Von Drehle: Good morning and thanks for joining me. I'll do my best to answer your questions but for many of the details we'll have to wait for Bob Woodward's story in tomorrow's paper. Lots of interest in this one, so let's get started! Washington, D.C.: 1. At what point did Woodward and Bernstein publicly refer to their source as "Deep Throat"? 2. In the transcript of the Nixon tapes, many references are made that Felt was a 'leaker'. Haldeman even says on 10/19/1972 "He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything." Why wasn't he the front runner for the mystery identity? David Von Drehle: "Deep Throat" was a nickname coined by then Managing Editor Howard Simons--a play on the "deep background" rules governing his guidance to Woodward. This became public when Bernstein and Woodward published "All the Persident's Men" in 1974. As for Felt as a suspect--I think he HAS been among the leading suspects among the most knowledgeable Watergate experts. Chevy Chase, Md.: Did Mark Felt try to approach the White House to stop the cover-up before he went to The Washington Post? Did he also talk to the New York Times? David Von Drehle: What Mark Felt understood, from the very beginning, was that the Nixon administration was desperate to keep a lid on this. They began using acting FBI director L. Patrick Gray to thwart and mislead the investigation. To take his complaints to the White House would have been like taking suspicions about mob activity to John Gotti. He had very few options for pushing the investigation, but one was his relationship with a relentless young reporter at The Post, Bob Woodward. I don't think he had that sort of relationship with anyone at The Times. Washington, D.C.: John Dean, among others, remains skeptical. He says Felt couldn't have known some of the closely held things that Throat is reported to have told Woodward, such as a "problem" White House tape. Also, Woodward and Bernstein paint Throat as a heavy smoker, whereas Felt quit smoking around 1943, according to reports. Was this a deliberate smokescreen (pardon the pun) by Woodward to throw people off the track of Deep Throat? David Von Drehle: John Dean has enjoyed his hunt for Deep Throat, but doesn't have a very good track record at getting the right answer. You have to remember that Felt was a senior FBI agent for decades, one of the top law enforcement officers in Washington. He knew lots of people in Washington,including people in the White House. He wasn't just reading FBI files. As for the smoking--Bob Woodward told me they made nothing up and printed nothing untrue. Certainly Felt would not be the first ex-smoker in history to take up the habit again while dealing with withering pressure. Maryland : Did Woodward and Bernstein intentionally mislead any Post staffers about Deep Throat's identity? Anybody over there mad at them? David Von Drehle: I can't find evidence they misled anyone. They just said, over and over for three decades: "We aren't telling." Brooklyn, N.Y.: What do you make of the reaction of the right wing -- such as Pat Buchanan -- calling Mr. Felt a "traitor?" At least Chuck Colson was a bit more nuanced in allowing that he should have blown the whistle, too. David Von Drehle: Pat Buchanan calling Felt a traitor is darkly hilarious. I had the good fortune to cover his 1992 campaign, when I learned from the twinkle in his eye that he is not serious much of the time. Washington, D.C., Next Door to Woodward's Old Apt.: What should we make of Woodward's near-admission yesterday that Deep Throat is, indeed, basically a composite? It could not have been Felt alone. Woodward lived in a building near 17th and P Street NW during Watergate. His story, that he would signal Throat by putting a flag in his balcony flowerpot, is false -- the balcony isn't visible from the street. I used to live directly across the back alley from Woodward's apartment, I've checked it from every angle (even borrowing a friend's car to check from the street at 20 mph once), and it doesn't work. Same thing with the Throat-signal-to-Woodward -- marking a page in the morning paper which was in front of Woodward's door. The building has had a doorman since 1968, with the papers always having been delivered in a stack so that subscribers could just take one off the top. Note also that (1) Throat apparently ignored the Philip M. Bailley/Alfred Baldwin "follow the money" concept for several months while Woodstein went down the wrong road and said nothing; (2) some of the FBI info Throat provided was outright wrong. Mark Felt performed an extraordinary service in the interest of truth. It's time for Woodward and Bernstein to do the same. Deep Throat was a composite character; Felt was the key element, but not the only one. David Von Drehle: Either this is Adrian Havill or you've been reading his book! Bob told me something that should be obvious: Mark Felt was a human being. Human beings have complicated motives, and are fallible. Sometimes he wasn't helpful. Sometimes he said things he thought were true, but were not quite right. He made mistakes. But he was honest. Personally, I don't find the descriptions of today's duPont Circle powerful evidence of anything. Washington, D.C.: DVD: Aren't most media sources pretty much vain people who think they've been passed over and attempt to get even in the media? I mean, it's hard to look at his picture on page A8 of this morning's paper and think this isn't a man possessed of a great vanity. Maybe the miracle is he stayed anonymous so long and the ultimate insult is that with his name disclosed, few people have ever heard of him or even remember. David Von Drehle: Media sources are people, and people are flawed. All except opinion columnists, talking heads, and Internet opinionators, who are, of course, perfect. Atlanta, Ga.: So, Woodward and Bernstein at the time of the Watergate stories were local ("Metro") reporters and not national correspondents for the Post? David Von Drehle: Yes. Two young Metro reporters who had to overcome the initial feelings of the National desk that this was not a big story. Fullerton, Calif.: In a documentary by CBS on Watergate, Mike Wallace said that Nixon said Felt was Deep Throat. It appears Nixon had it figured out years ago. Comment please. David Von Drehle: No one knew Washington intrigue better than Richard Nixon. Powell, Ohio: Now that we know who Deep Throat was, who are the leading candidates for the other anonymous sources cited by Woodward and Bernstein? David Von Drehle: This is a great question. I talked with Bob and Carl about this yesterday--why Deep Throat became such an iconographic figure, while the other anonymous sources mentioned in the book faded to obscurity. It has to have a lot to do with the powerful portrayal of those parking garage meetings between Felt and Woodward (or more precisely, Hal Holbrook and Robert Redford) in the film version of "All the Persident's Men." Tampa, Fla.: In the book "All The President's Men", Throat is described as a heavy smoker, yet I've also read published reports that Felt gave up smoking 30 years before Watergate! Which is it? Are there other false information about Throat in the book? Will Woodstein be addressing this soon? David Von Drehle: You've got my answer on the smoking, which I predict will ring a bell with any and all ex-smokers out there. As for the Woodstein account--look for tomorrow's Post. Arlington, Va.: Would Bradlee have published the stories without Felt? David Von Drehle: This is a key point in the story of The Post's Watergate coverage. Both Woodward and Bradlee talked to me yesterday about this aspect of Felt's role. You have to picture the huge risk The Post was taking, pushing the edges of the Watergate story, describing a much broader conspiracy than anyone suspected--and doing much of it on the authority of two young Metro reporters. It WAS crucial for Bradlee to know that Woodward's "friend"--Deep Throat--was a very senior official in the FBI, as close to the director's office as possible. He didn't learn specifically that it was Felt until after Nixon's resignation. But the fact that The Post was getting such high-level guidance was the source of Bradlee's "comfort"--Woodward's word--in pursuing the story under heavy fire. Anonymous: Pat Buchanan said, 'Watergate Was A Coup D'Etat' by the Political elite ... was it? David Von Drehle: Ludicrous. Buchanan should read the diaries of H.R. Haldeman, who spent more time with Nixon in a month than Buchanan spent with him in a lifetime. Haldeman's portrait of Nixon is devastating,and leaves no doubt who was to blame for Watergate. Washington, D.C.: What was John Mitchell's relationship to Felt? Didn't Martha Mitchell also leak information to Woodward? David Von Drehle: Woodward tells a very funny story in "All the Persident's Men" of his visit to New York in hopes of getting some info from the voluble Martha Mitchell. Bottom line: No, she didn't provide much useful material. Cleveland, Ohio: Is the lawyer, O'Connor, who wrote the Vanity Fair article a Democrat or Republican? David Von Drehle: I don't see how it matters. Crofton, Md.: As a trusted Nixon appointee, is there any evidence that Mark Felts ever approached anyone in the Nixon administration with his concerns? David Von Drehle: Felt was not a Nixon appointee. He had 35 years of service to the FBI before Nixon reached the White House. As I said earlier, going to the White House with complaints about Watergate would have been like asking the fox to fix the busted lock on the henhouse. Columbia, Md.: I've read "All the President's Men" but I can't recall. Is Felt mentioned anywhere in the book as himself, as W. Mark Felt, not Deep Throat? Canonsburg, Pa.: How did the Washington Post get information after Felt left the FBI (i.e tape erasures, etc.) unless there was or were other significant inside sources? Felt wasn't privy of some of this information, am I correct? David Von Drehle: Even after his retirement, Felt remained one of the best-connected men in Washington and routinely learned sensitive information from his longtime friends, colleagues and sources. Salt Lake City, Utah: Mark Felt was one of the ones who was long suspected of being Bob Woodward's secret source. If keeping his identity was so important, why did Felt agree to allow Woodward to write so much about about their meetings in the book "All The President's Men?" David Von Drehle: Describing the meetings and the relationship for publication after Nixon's resignation did not violate their agreement. Bob asked Felt if he would allow his name to appear in the book, but Felt said no. Indeed, he kept it a secret even from his family until recent years. Ashburn, Va.: David, more of a personal question to you. What has the last 24 hours been like at The Post? Did you get chills seeing Bob and Carl sitting at the desk together again? What can we expect to hear from Bob in his article tomorrow?? David Von Drehle: Thanks. It was an extraordinary day and I felt lucky it watch it unfold. A couple of people have asked about my small walk-on role here, so let me say that our editor, Len Downie, asked me earlier this year to begin refreshing my memory of the book, the movie, subsequent Watergate and Deep Throat investigations, so that I would be ready to write a news story when Deep Throat died. I wasn't told who he was, and I didn't WANT to know. I could just picture someone guessing the right answer, and me being blamed for blabbing! Anyway, Bob Woodward said there was no reason to believe the source would die anytime soon, so I was going about my business in my usual lackadaisical way. Then the Vanity Fair story was made public. Len was out of the building at a corporate retreat. Bob and Carl and Ben all needed to read the story and digest it. The four of them finally had a chance to confer in the middle of yesterday afternoon. They concluded that the family and Felt's attorney has unilaterally decided to reveal the secret and for The Post to stonewall could have the effect of misleading the public. So I got busy typing. Reston, Va.: Okay, you're cracking me up with your responses ... David Von Drehle: Pat, is that you? Northwest D.C.: How was the decision made as to who would write the main story in this morning's paper? David Von Drehle: As for this, I can't say. I sure feel lucky though. I can still remember the color and model of the car driven by my best friend's dad in 1976 when he drove us to the mall in Aurora, Colorado to see "All the President's Men." (Two-tone gold-brown Chrysler Cordoba. It was the 70s!) If you had told that 15-year-old that someday he would write the story in The Washington Post identifying Deep Throat, you would have gotten a dumbfounded stare. A day like this reminds me how very lucky I am in my work and my life. Georgetown, Washington, D.C.: Do you or anybody else know the location of the famous parking garage where Felt met with W and B? David Von Drehle: Bob told me we'll learn this very soon ... David Von Drehle: Oh, and let me add--Carl never met with Felt in the garage. He had his own important sources. Deep Throat was Bob's alone. Herndon, Va.: David, I've read that the Felt family is seeking some financial windfall from this revelation. Given that the man is in ill health and went through a stroke, do you truly believe this information was brought out in the most professional manner? Why should the Post be "scooped" on the story when Felt clearly had a strong relationship with Bob. David Von Drehle: Joan Felt, the daughter, says in the Vanity Fair piece that if there is money to be made on this revelation, they feel the Felt family should get some of it. I'm not going to second-guess that. After all, I get paid for writing and hope to continue to. But obviously Mark Felt was not motivated by a desire for money in this saga. Arlington, Va.: Why didn't the Woodward/Bernstein story on Deep Throat run today? Hasn't this piece essentially been 'in the vault' for years? David Von Drehle: No,it isn't. Bob had written the draft of a book and I believe plans were being made to shape a much shorter piece of that. But that work had not been done yet. Given the fact that The Post did not decide until late that we would confirm the story, I think it was wise to take a day, rather than a few hours, to shape the best piece possible. This is an extraordinary story and Bob is right to want to tell it as well as he can. I guess you could say we should have been more ready, but this is pretty typical of the daily newspaper business. Long-range planning is not our forte! Silver Spring, Md.: So, all remaining questions will be answered tomorrow? Is there another book in this for someone? David Von Drehle: I bet there will be more than one! Washington, D.C.: Seems a bit unethical for the Post to triumphantly "confirm" Deep Throat's identity. Its employees (albeit a selective few) have known the identity for 30 years. Now that the story is broken by another person in another publication, The Washington Post sweeps in to create a media event. David Von Drehle: You have a weird sense of ethics. My mom taught me that when you make a promise, you should keep it. The Post kept its promise to Mark Felt to preserve this secret. We did so until he, his lawyer and his family changed the nature of the promise, at which point The Post immediately provided to our readers the available facts. Washington, D.C.: I think it was Pat Buchanan - or another Nixon loyalist on the Today show this morning, who said that Felt should have resigned and announced his knowledge of corruption and cover up instead of leaking to The Post. Aside from the fact that seems to be an enormous sacrifice to require of a whistleblower, do you think that course of action would have resulted in the same outcome? David Von Drehle: Right. He should have gone public so that Pat Buchanan and other Nixon smear artists could go out and denounce him, assassinate his character, parade his hippie daughter through the press, etc. I'm telling you people, Pat's pulling your legs! Inside the Beltway: Well, I'm disappointed that the mystery is finally solved... so I'm holding out hope that this is all a big conspiracy to throw us off track from the REAL Deep Throat (Rehnquist, Kissinger, Diane Sawyer, etc.) David Von Drehle: Wouldn't Diane Sawyer have been the greatest. Washington, D.C.: Could Mr. Felt now be charged with possessing or passing out classified information? David Von Drehle: I don't know the law on this. After Watergate a wave of reforms were passed to provide legal protections for people who expose corruption, but the state of the law in 1972-3 is beyond my ken. New Hope, Pa.: Is the lying and denying for three decades-- the denial by W. Mark Felt -- worth the downfall of one president? Where was Mr. Felt during The Clinton era? David Von Drehle: The first question is for each citizen do decide for himself or herself, I suppose. During the Clinton years, Mark Felt was a retiree in his 80s living with his daughter in California. Annapolis: Did you decide to become a reporter after seeing the movie? David Von Drehle: I guess I did. A lot of us did. That, plus the fact that I was a rotten English lit. graduate student with lots of debts and no marketable skills beyond typing up stories. Washington, D.C.: What was Katharine Graham's role or perspective on the Watergate revelations, as they were happening, and later? Was she reluctant to let the paper go out on such a limb, or once convinced of the soundness of the sources, willing to let her editors and reporters use their judgment? David Von Drehle: Mrs.G's role in this thing is simply unbelievable. She had such trust in Ben Bradlee and his newsroom that she never even asked who The Post's sources were, according to Ben. Remember, this was at a time when the Nixon administration was threatening to revoke her television licenses--a source of enormous revenue to her company. That woman had the guts of an Army Ranger on D-Day. You should read her memoir, "Personal History," if you haven't already. Manassas, Va.: Do you think the Post was "scooped?" I think not and am sick of the national media portraying it this way. I think Vanity Fair's role is quite sketchy in fact. It's not like the magazine had some team of reporters competing against a team of Post reporters to suss out the truth. To me, the real "scoop" is getting Woodward's confirmation, which The Post obviously got. What do you make of it? David Von Drehle: If I say The Post was "scooped," I'm going to make a headline on a media news bulletin board somewhere. But I promise you there is not an editor in America who would not have wanted that Vanity Fair story. And this, too, is important: The Post promised Mark Felt that this institution would keep his identity secret until he died. He ain't dead yet. So we were handcuffed--honorably and ethically--in pursuing this particular scoop. Los Angeles, Calif.: Any chance Bob Woodward will host an online chat to discuss Deep Throat? David Von Drehle: I hope so! I'd love to read it. David Von Drehle: THIS JUST IN ... from Liz Kelly of Live Online: "The offer is out to Bob, btw." New York, N.Y.: Joan Felt and the rest of the family seem kind of sleazy -- it's clear from the Vanity Fair piece that her father didn't want to come out, and their main interest is money and accolades. And didn't they shop the story around? It's kind of appalling reading about a 91-year-old man with dementia being pushed like that to do something he didn't really want. I know today's zeitgest is all about confession (I say this as a Gen Xer) but some people don't want to let everyone everything. It seems Woodward and Felt are the only ones in that story who could keep a secret -- everyone else told "just one person." David Von Drehle: Interesting view, thanks. Washington, D.C.: I've heard a lot of talk about how The Post is now a sounding board for the government and that "reporters like W and B" do not exist anymore. What is your opinion? David Von Drehle: Baloney. Spend more time reading the paper and less time reading slanted blogs and propaganda Web sites and the extent of The Post's investigative journalism will be clear. Teaneck, N.J.: I understand that over the years a number of people have stepped forward and claimed to be DT. Can you give the list? (With Woodstein's confirmation, I'm not doubting Mark Felt; I'm just curious about the identity of some of the deluded publicity hounds who are out there. Or are they now all confined to the Napoleon wing of St. Elizabeth's?) David Von Drehle: Don't no of anyone who claimed the title before--certainly there were many suspects over the years. Gotta go now--thanks for a great chat, and for reading. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Washington Post staff writer David Von Drehle discusses W. Mark Felt's admission to Vanity Fair magazine that he is Deep Throat, the figure who leaked secrets about Nixon's Watergate cover up.

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European Reform

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Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein was online to discuss his latest column , in which he examines the implications of recent votes in France and Germany. He writes that we can put aside any lingering hope that Western Europe might finally be ready to abandon the socialist economic model and embrace an enlightened form of global capitalism. Lots of assumptions and omissions: First, that's a nice assumption and mindless snarky point about Europeans "can't be rich if they insist on working a 35-hour week, retiring at 55 and overtaxing those who are productive and ambitious to subsidize those who aren't." Didja ever think most of them don't want to be rich? I realize that's a horror show here in the States, but maybe just maybe they prefer to be comfortable with summer vacations. Of course its not as cool as working 60hr weeks, never seeing your kids, and (maybe) getting in a vacation week, followed by an 80hr week catching up on the crap you didn't get the week before (don't forget the 2 hr commute each day!). But at least we're "rich"...except for the ever increasing split between the top 10% and everyone else...but who am I to question? (Oh, and fun omission...US and French productivity rates have proven out to be the same, according to numerous studies.) Personally, I only wish I had the Euro deal. I'm sick of crappy vacations, fear of unemployment because my MS means bankruptcy if I'm off health insurance, and getting pittance of the revenues I generate so corporate executives can make insane amounts of money...all while folks like you cheerlead our system as though its the only way to go. Also, to claim a French reaction to Google is representative of anything is sheer silliness. The French live in a world of their own, culture wise. These are the same people that purged the official dictionaries of all English derivatives. They represent themselves, not all of Europe. Are we all idiots because our Congress voted in the name "Freedom Fries"? Steven Pearlstein: Lots of good and fun and interesting points there. But I think, fundamentally, you're kidding yourself. The European deal right now looks like a good deal, but it is a fantasy -- it is unsustainable. The jig is up. Many want to freeze things the way they are, even if it means falling a bit further behind the US or UK. But that's not a choice. A lot of French prosperity is based on exporting its high value added goods to other countries. But the world is too competitive now and French exports won't be able to compete unless they are more efficient and innovative. And without the exports to generate the high incomes, they can't afford to provide a good living and generous social benefits to their service sector. Already, France has pretty much lost its pharmaceutical industry and its computer industry. Young university graduates live at home for a decade until they get to the front of the employment queue. That just can't continue if they want to maintain this lovely lifestyle you covet, which was the product of a very unique period of time in history after World War II. Oakton, VA: With these votes, Europeans are doing two things simultaneously, one right and one wrong. First, they are rejecting a so-called constitution that was designed and supported by a bunch of elites who don't like democracy or the voters. What the elites want to do is create a super-bureaucracy, with submerged national identities, power concentrated in the hands of a mostly unelected few, and little or no regard for the wishes of the citizenry. Such willful disdain of the desires of the people should be rewarded with rejection. The second (and wrong) message they're sending is that they are trying desperately to stave off the real world as long as possible. They don't want to compete in the global economy. They like things the way they are, with economic policies circa 1962, never mind that such a statist, stagnant mindset cannot possibly be maintained, given their demographics and the expense of the social programs and economic subsidies. I think the European public knows deep down inside that this cannot go on, but they simply don't want the only realistic alternative -- economic liberalization. Europe's economic and cultural prospects are grim unless change is undertaken, and soon. There is some irony here. One of the arguments used by the opponents of the constitution is that its adoption would lead to the "Anglo-Americanization" of the economy. That's ridiculous. In fact, the "government" created by the EU constitution would have simply imposed the Franco-German model on every member nation. I suspect that the elites of Europe want this government created precisely to preserve this outdated economic structure. Steven Pearlstein: I don't know who you are, Mr or Ms Oakton, but you have it exactly right. I wish I'd written that. I really enjoy your work, please keep it up. My question deals with the decline in the Euro, why the drop? If markets are efficient as we are taught a "non" should have been discounted well in advance. This wasn't unforseen at all. Secondly do you have hope for Germany? The Dax is moving up rather decently. I think given the "swarm of locusts" lbo, private equity and hedge funds the large companies are being forced to become more shareholder friendly, whether they want to or not. Also European shares are fairly cheap and mergers are picking up. Doesn't this bode well for the future, even given the mess of the wellfare state? Steven Pearlstein: Thanks for the nice comment. The recent fall in the euro reflects the changed perception about the political prospects for economic liberalization. There is new information there in the last few weeks, and the market is adjusting to that. And both the currency movement and the news on which it is based will both have a tendence to push European stock prices down. Whether that makes them a good bargain or not is debatable: even European companies are directing their investment away from the west, both because of sluggish demand growth in the west and better returns on investment elsewhere. I don't know whether any of you read a series of columns I did last year from Germany and Eastern Europe, but basically I left it that Germany was at a crucial turning point. It could either embrace the modest reforms Schroeder had proposed, and build on them, or retreat. Now it looks like they've retreated, which will make it just that much harder for the next reformer to make headway. So I'm not a Euro-optimist at this point. The economic illiteracy on the part of political leaders and voters makes it particularly hard to set aside silly arguments, like the one against private equity companies investing in middle sized German firms. Without a vibrant IPO market and with banks already reeling from bad business loans, where do the Germans think equity investment is going to come from, if not private equity funds? And yet they dominize them as locusts, even though the record is that they have helped revive and grow these firms once they invest. Washington, D.C.; : A succinct definition of the 'third way' please? Steven Pearlstein: The idea, floated by Clinton and Blair, was that there was "third way" between unfettered, overly harsh and unfair capitalism, and state socialism as practiced in western Europe -- a kinder, gentler, more humane market capitalism. The problem is that while this is theoretically possible, its not turning out to be politically possible in western Europe because the general attitude is still very anti-market. You can go from a market-oriented economy to one that is a bit less harsh, I suspect, but it is turning out to be more difficult to go the other way. Wringing out the socialist, collectivist, fairness-uber-ales attitude and trusting in markets to accomplish many things is turning out to be just to high a hurdle. Danvers, MA: Bah! This is the dog that didn't bark column. More important than the protestations of some librarian is that the central bank has maintained a contractionary policy for years, and this is for the benefit of finance, not job creation or innovation or anything else one may trot out. It's a very short jump to link Euro market labor arbitrage between the 15 old and the ten new members to the finance oriented money strategy: both benefit the investor class. (Heck, I'm in that class, I'm a finance guy, I can see what benefits me, but I have working neighbors, and I can see the arb at work in their lives, and I can also see what strong currency does.) So, altogether now, the poor are that way because they earned it, things are getting worse because the people are too lazy. Please. The bottom line is the people of France know what will make their lives better. Always balance your story by asking the guy at the barrel end of the gun what he thinks about it. John Steven Pearlstein: Its very nice to say Europeans aren't lazy, which they aren't exactly. They work hard when they work, and productively too. But in Italy and France, people were willing to shut down the economy for weeks at a time to protest eliminating one measley national holiday tied to a religious event that is irrelevant in these very non-religious countries. If the French and Italians aren't serious enough about reform that they can give up one of their dozen paid holidays every year, it is certainly going to be harder to tell civil servants they can't retire at 55 or retail workers that they may have to work on Sunday or tell plumbers that they can't use their guild to set minimum prices. These people just aren't serious about competitive markets, and they aren't serious about competing in global markets against Asians and others that are willing to work much harder than they do. They are still stuck in "protecting" what they have. Well, its time to get over it and move on, because what they had can't be maintained. Sorry, but that's the reality. Dublin, VA: What is the central lesson to be gained from the French "No" vote? I have read some studies on the demographics involved including urban (majority yes) vs. rural voters (majority no) as well as economic status (the wealthier tended to vote yes, lower incomes no). If the Dutch vote "no" today, do you believe that there is a common thread running through both of these events? The most important goal that the EU should work for is the advancement of democratic governments and economic growth in Eastern Europe. The inclusion of Turkey will never work - there are too many differences to overcome: culture, religion, no democratic tradition, human rights, etc. Steven Pearlstein: I agree with you: Turkey's admission to the EU is a big mistake. It is just too hard for too many to swallow, particularly at a time when they are trying to incorporate Poland, the Czech and Slovak Repubilc and Hungary. They just ought to slow down. These other states ought to form their own free trade zone on their own, get some of the benefits of that, improve their living standard. Then, maybe in another decade or so, the conversation can resume with the rest of Europe. Or maybe it will be irrelvant at that point. washingtonpost.com: You can read the columns in the European series Steven mentioned earlier: Europe's Capitalism Curtain , 'Old Europe' Unprepared for New Battles , The Pitfalls On the Path To Paradise , Refusing To Compete In Frankfurt , Germany's Tradition Vs. Strength , Can 'Old' Europe Preserve Its Prosperity? LEEDS UK: Mr Pearlstein seems to believe that Free Market Capitalism somehow works of its own accord and believes that taxation is bad. he seems to ignore the fact that infrastructure has been put in place which unfortunately has been, in recent years here in the UK, given over to free marketers, included here are the railways, electricity, gas, water, buses. All these now receive more money in subsidies from taxpayers money than they cost the taxpayer when the taxpayer owned them. That infrastructure in the UK dates back to the 1870 Education Act and subsequent Education Acts all of which were geared to the free market requirements of employers. We have now reached the stage in the UK that a free marketeer can put up a million pounds and have a school to run even though 1M pounds is a tiny amount of the cost. Is this the "free market" Mr Pearlstein means? I for one would be interested in his answer. Steven Pearlstein: Mr. Leeds, you assume that because some privatizations have gone badly in UK, it proves once and for all that the socialist model is superior. No, it doesn't prove that at all. It simply proves that these things are hard to do and people screw it up once, twice, even three times before getting it right. I agree that, here inthe US and maybe in Britain, as well, some genuinely public services have been inappropriately privatized. But that doesn't mean the state should own the coal mines and the electric companies again. New York: Your comments on Europe remind me of the original barcode system: it did not have a country identifier as if only the USA existed. The continuing growth of the US economy is basically due to the "Chinese Marshall Plan" that allows America to live above its means and produce such conundrums as the "working poor" or the world's most expensive health care system with the poorest results in terms of public health. You forgot to mention that the French proposal for a parallel European digital library was also supported by "New Europe", i.e. Poland an the Czech Republic. Most small European countries, with languages that would be overlooked by Google, will certainly also support it, because diversity is the essence of Europe, which we want to preserve, even if it costs a packet in salaries for interpreters and translators (once you've taken them out, the EU's "huge bureaucracy" shrinks down to less than that of New York City) Steven Pearlstein: Look, if there is a market for a French-oriented or a Czech oriented search engine, then in a free market system, somebody will come along and design and sell it. In fact, it may even be Google. But why does the state have to get involved, and create a national champion that it will protect against competition with regulation, and subsidize with taxpayers money. And then what we know happens is that these national champions get fat and happy and corrupt in their relationship to politicians and political parties, and they miss the next iteration of technology, because they are not subject to the ususal market disciplines. It is true markets can't provide every "good" that people value. I've written that many times. But markets are pretty good at providing most things, and there is no reason to suspect that a culturally-sensitive search engine isn't one of them. Washington, DC (London, UK): I have two comments. I wonder whether you are reading the Dutch antipathy to the EU constitution correctly. As far as I am able to see, the Dutch concerns with deepening of political union have much more to do with the relinquishment of democratic power at the national level than economic issues. Also, there is a strong backlash domestically against political correctness in immigration policy, typified by Pim Fortuyn, which has not yet fully played out. The Dutch do have a problem with integration of a large Muslim population within a very secular culture. Isn't this more of a slap in the direction of their national politicians, all of whom support the constitution? I would also note that the UK pensions authority has just issued a preliminary report on the impact of the "A8" (new EU accession state) workers on the UK labor market. The impact is said to be positive, albeit with some pressure on wages in some sectors. Any comments? Steven Pearlstein: Thanks for that. Dayton, OH: Steve - I worked in France in the 90s, and I still keep in contact with my colleagues there. You're right on the money. Those under 40 who have some gumption and ambition, know that they are living in an economically dysfunctional system. My friends email me every year, wondering what it would be like to emigrate here. Steven Pearlstein: They probably wouldn't like it at first is my guess. But nothing good will happen until your under 40 friends rise up and take control of one party and win an election. Washington, D.C.: Do you think that the euro will be able to regain credibility? What's more important: the twin deficits in the U.S. or the lack of any prospect for a political union in Europe? Is a new core Europe possible without Poland and the Czech Republic, much less Ukraine and Turkey? Steven Pearlstein: I don't think the euro has lost credibility,actually. But, yes, the center of gravity in Europe is moving eastward. I suspect the Czech Republic may be the richest country in Europe before too long. College Park, MD: It seems the Europeans are constantly trying to play catch-up to the US instead of inventing their own products and services. You listed the Google text scanning thing. At least the French will probably only spend a few million on that. The EU decided to build its own GPS because they don't want to depend on the US. So now they're probably going to put in billions of Euros to get Galileo running, and if it isn't better than GPS, they'll have to subsidize the production of units that are compatible with it. But also from your article it seems the old version of point to the US and say, "That's not what you want is it?" isn't working any more. We complain about 5.5% unemployment, numbers that Germany and France would love. So are the people actually asking for a more liberalized economy, or just a change in upper management? It seemed the globalists and socialists didn't like the constitution, so I don't know what to make of it. Steven Pearlstein: The constitutional vote was really not so much a referendum on the proposed text as a referendum on the loss of national autonomy, on the parties in power and in economic liberalization. These are all related, and hard to tease out of the election returns. But there is definitely a sense of people saying: we've seen the changes over the recent years and we've had enough. New York: Not long ago the Dutch model had been touted as having achieved that elusive "Third Way". What went wrong? As for France, Mr. Chirac has now been through at least a few prime ministers. Does the problem perhaps lie with he himself? Steven Pearlstein: Not sure fully what went wrong with the Dutch model, which as you point out was held out as a success. The last five years have generated lousy growth in the Netherlands. And it may turn out that while their labor markets were a bit more flexible, their big companies stumbled (Shell, Phillips, Unilever) because they were too insular and bureaucratic and their social safety net still too expensive. But, in truth, that's just a guess. good deal, but it is a fantasy -- it is unsustainable: You mean, of course, that its utterly unsustainable by having a near total trade balance, and very limited govt. debt. I totally agree. Our "muscular free market capitalism" is so much more sustainable, especially with those ever so sustainable huge debts and trade deficits! We're doing fab! We can keep this up forever! Spare me. I'd buy your argument if you'd bother noting that our supposed "free market" system was in even worse shape than the Euros are in. Between our huge debts, and our addiction to SUVs and gas guzzling, we're far more likely to go down than they are. Steven Pearlstein: Maybe you should move to the eco-socialist paradise of Finland or Sweden. Washington DC: Do you really think any government even slightly to the left of ours is socialist? You keep using that word like you think it's appropriate here - ask anyone who lived in a communist state who now lives in europe, and they'll tell you how very ignorant you appear when you throw around labels you apparantly don't understand. Would you be as apt to label any government to the right of ours facist? Steven Pearlstein: These labels are imprecise, I admit. What would you call the French-German-Italian model. Democratic socialism? State-managed capitalism? I understand very well the difference between communism and socialism and unfettered, free-market capitalism. Do you? Burke, VA: One of the things I like about your articles is that even when I disagree with you I can follow the logic well. However, we here in the US have higher unemployment than is shown by the numbers - I'm not sure if the people who have stopped looking were added how we would fare. Heath care here is much more expensive, and people are in deep fear of loosing their health care. You in particular are a winner in the American system, so you may be willing to go on on how wonderful it is, but for the many losers of the American economy, those without health care, those whose real wages keep on going down, a bit of France looks pretty good. Steven Pearlstein: I don't think anyone who reads my columns would say I am unmindful about the drawbacks of the U.S. system. But these are problems that an be fixed within the context of our basic system -- we don't need to go to a quasi-socialist to solve them. Arlington, VA: Give these losers who expected to be coddled by the State hell, Steve! Sorry, but that's the reality: Again, assumption. A more closed market will generally not touch 80% of the population. Relatively speaking, their standards of living won't be all that effected. On the other hand, the investor class will get clobbered. Gee, I wonder what motivates the go-go rush to trade liberalization again? Funny how that matches the voting pattern too. But who am I to question? I guess I need to learn that we should all be happy with a top 20% of wealth upper class churning itself, while everyone else gets shut out of social mobility (not my opinion, was a special section in that radical leftist journal, The Economist), or driven downward by nice cheap foreign labor. Ever notice that we don't ever need foreign investment bankers, business executives, or loudmouthed "economics" columnists because they will "work harder" for less? How about a little globalization there, too? Steven Pearlstein: Your first statement is simply false. A closed market will affect 100 percent of consumer and 100 percent of workers. Otherwise, how do you explain that barbers get paid more in the U.S. than they do in Turkey. It is because the general wage structure is set in the traded sector, and because the flow of best practices is from the more competitive traded sectors to the untraded sectors. The reason our banks are more efficient today is that they are building on the knowledge gained by the auto companies that were getting their brains beat out of them by the Japanese in the 1980s. Washington DC: Let's not pretend that economics is a science at the level of Newtonian physics or basic chemistry. Economists, even very good ones, are often contradictory or wrong to various shades in their predictions. Free-market economists have routinely predicted economic disaster due to growth of employee rights and benefits over the last century, and the opposite has routinely occurred. So forgive me if I'm less than frightened for Europe's sake that they are not chopping away at their systems of government and economic management. Free-market economic theory bows down before the all-important GDP growth number, but in fact governments must be judged on the living standard that they afford to each individual citizen. By those standards the governments of both the U.S. and Europe are doing just fine. Steven Pearlstein: We are both doing fine. But they are slipping. Washington, DC: Ever since I began studying German and Germany in early nineties, Americans have been labeling the German economy "unsustainable" and "nearing collapse." Having just returned from that nation, I attest that somehow the Germans are indeed surviving and continue to live well. Yes, Germans are aware of demographic problems and are puzzling over how to support the aging population (just as we in the U.S. are), yet the mood is hardly one of catastrophe. Perhaps the GDP is growing slowly, but higher GDP certainly doesn't guarantee wealth or happiness for the populace (not the way the "free market" distributes the wealth anyway). Unemployment may seem high by U.S. standards, but then again our unemployment statistics are artificially low compared to Europeans because we do not count our huge incarcerated population or those so disenfranchised as to be entirely out of the job market (e.g. the never-employed and those who have quit searching). Why is it considered an economically preferable model to allow wages to become so depressed that workers at the bottom cannot afford housing, healthcare, or childcare? Is it really so superior to force a poor mother to work two minimum wage jobs and stash her kids in daycare all day while we subsidize her employer (welfare-to work program) and her childcare provider rather than just subsidizing her family directly? Germans can't be doing too poorly anyway, I personally know two Americans seeking citizenship there, and a German grocery store is moving into my neighborhood. Steven Pearlstein: Call me in a decade. I suspect you'll be wanting to revise your thinking on that. Maybe you should move to the eco-socialist paradise of Finland or Sweden.: Maybe you should address the point, instead of hiding behind a pithy comment. Europe - Unsustainable. Has near trade balance, and contained national debt. US - Sustainable paradise. Has massive debt which threatens to collapse it's currency, and out of control trade balances. Steven Pearlstein: The macroeconomic imbalances you site are a big problem, reflecting a host of problems in the U.S. and outside the U.S., including the slow growth in Europe because of its microeconomic problems. The macroeconomic imbalances, which are global, are not sustainable, and in this country we have to deal with the biggest contributor to them, which is the federal budget imbalance. But that is a very separate issue than the competitiveness and productiveness of our private sector, which are far and away superior to the business sector fo Europe. You are mixing micro and macro too easily. Burke, VA: I just don't see that privatizing everything is a good idea - electricity, gas, and water are public utilities, and should be run for the common good. Every time I've seen these industries privatized they tend to be underfunded so you get outages, or the rate is hiked to pay for the purchase of the utility, or water is sold to the highest bidder, not to those who need it. Then you get things like the California energy crisis, where the companies used it's control of the power to overcharge people in California, creating an energy and political crisis, where there was none. Bah - I don't want none of that privatization. Steven Pearlstein: California is a good example of wrong-headed privatization. Any serious person who has studied it agrees with that. I suppose you would also prefer going back to the regulated airline model, where it would cost you $5,000 in today's dollars to fly to LA. Washington DC (London, UK): I agree with much of what you say. However, perhaps there is some nuance here that should be added. A good micro-example of this nuance is in the health care sector. American system: Free-market rules, chaos, expensive system with excellent care for some, and bad care or no care for many (or most?). Often little or no choice of physicians. British system: Pure socialist system. Cheap system, bad care for most, but everyone has care. Little or no choice of physicians, physicians badly paid and too few of them. Catastrophic illness dealt with reasonably well. German system: Strongly managed competition with state elements. Excellent care for all, expensive system, free choice of physicians, excellent supply of physicians. Steven Pearlstein: Health care is the best example of where markets, left to themselves, don't provide everything we need. Our system has lots of problems, which I've written a lot about. I don't think the solution is a government run system, and the German system of managed competition offers some thigns we need to replicate here. But all of these systems are fundamentally unsustainable because of demographics and the dramatic technological advances in medicine that require some form of rationaing of finite resources. Oh, the irony!: Washington, DC: Ever since I began studying German and Germany in early nineties, Americans have been labeling the German economy "unsustainable" and "nearing collapse."... Steven Pearlstein: Call me in a decade. I suspect you'll be wanting to revise your thinking on that. Steven Pearlstein: I stand my the remark, as ironic as you find it. Boston, MA: Why do economic writers constantly claim systems that have been going on for 40 years are unsustainable. There is no difference between your article today and one printed in 1982 on 'Eurosclrosis'. 10 years from now the French will still have 35 hour weeks and 6 weeks of vacation and 12% unemployment. Americans will still work like animals while the rich get richer and the poor stay the same. They live a different lifestyle and have different values. They will reject cheap labor and try to shut it out, and we will invite it and exploit it to the bone. They may protest and throw out a government here and there but if they had to live with the uncertainty and risk that comes with American wealth they would be much more unhappy. They medicate themselves with wine and vacation and we medicate ourselves with therapist and anti depressants. Everything will work out fine, just fine. Steven Pearlstein: That might be true. On the other hand, things may have reached a tipping point in terms of global competition that will make the next 20 years different than the last. Austin, TX: A general comment about the relative merits of US versus European capitalism: I'll take the arguments that the US model is superior a lot more seriously if somebody will fix the health care / insurance mess in this country. A closed market will affect 100 percent of consumer and 100 percent of workers.: In different levels. First, the internal economies don't compare. The difference would still exist, due to that. But even so, what differences come from the trade difference are relatively minor. But looked at internally, the foreign barber would be closer on the economic scale to the top 20% there, than here...by a huge margin. You also ignore that those evil social benefits would guarantee the barber health care, and make education available which offered much greater social mobility. NOTE: Most European leaders come from middle class, and some from even lower social class by birth. With the exception of Bill Clinton and a few others, ours come from the top 10% by birth. Steven Pearlstein: Its nice to know, comrade, that there is still one class-hating Marxist out there. Power to the People! But why does the state have to get involved: Oh, you mean as opposed to US govt. subsidization of Boeing? Or our "race to the bottom" process of freebie tax abatements to steal businesses between states and localities? Or the "farm subsidies" that go to big agribusiness? Or the fact that our all of our "free market" computer revolution in fact comes from govt. money paid out to silicon valley in the 50's and 60's (Xerox PARC especially), and the fact that innovation slowed when this money stopped? I could go on. Again, you seem to be retyping canards from the "markets" hallelujah chorus, and ignoring all the funny facts that get in the way. Steven Pearlstein: I don't think you've been a very close reader of my columns. You set up a straw man when you assume I say that everything is perfect in the U.S. system. On balance, it is better, but hardly perfect. Google-land: Last time I checked, Google ALREADY supports about 100 languages. AOL has huge chunks of content in Spanish for Latin America&for the Hispanic population in the US. Lots of good open-source software is developed in Germany and Sweden. Europe doesn't need state-supported tech; the entrenched interests are the ones who want it. Steven Pearlstein: Thanks for the lively discussion, folks. Until next week, A bientot. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein was online to discuss his latest column, in which he examines the implications of recent votes in France and Germany.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/05/26/DI2005052600927.html

https://web.archive.org/web/2005060119id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/05/26/DI2005052600927.html

"A Jew Among Germans"

2005060119

As a young boy, Marian Marzynski survived the Holocaust in Poland. But his father and most of his relatives did not. In "A Jew Among the Germans," Marzynski sets out on a personal quest to find out how Germans have designed a memorial to the murder of six million Jews. It is being unveiled this month, on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Over three years, he has encountered artists, architects, and planners struggling with the big questions of guilt, responsibility and memory. He struggles to reconcile his own relationship to the German people and meets a young "third generation" of Germans who declare their distance from their parents and grandparents and how earlier generations have dealt with the Holocaust. The film aired on PBS (check local listings): "A Jew Among Germans." PBS Frontline producer Marian Marzynski was online to discuss his film. Minneapolis, Minn.: Sir: Your film Shtetl portrayed Poles as subhuman anti-Semites. Your current film shows Germans in a more favorable light. Given that Germans caused the Holocaust and Poles did not, can you explain the contrast between your desire to rehabilitate Germans (and "feel safe among them") and your desire to whip up ethnic hatred toward Poles? Marian Marzynski: I strongly disagree that I portray Poles as subhuman in my film Shtetl. I think that I presented them with the same degree of humanity that I portrayed Germans with in my last film. Marian Marzynski: The role of Germans and Poles in the Holocaust was obviously apples and oranges. Germans are responsible for the extermination of the Jews. Poles were Jewish neighbors. In my film Shtetl, I didn't accuse them of killings, I just raised the question of the attitude between neighbors, and I found that those attitudes varied from heroism to indifference to viciousness. In other words positive, neutral, and bad. Grand Island, Neb. I too was eight years old when the war ended. I was born and grew up in Berlin. The required school lessons, ordered by the Allies, on war and the Holocaust we children received after 1945 seemed to us often so painful, despite the horrors we ourselves had just experienced. But this education must have been quite effective since I have thought about the war and the Holocaust almost every day of my life. Like so many other Germans of my age group, I am embarrassed to meet and speak to Jewish people despite that my parents had many Jewish friends in Berlin before the war. My parents never felt the guilt and responsibility I feel today. You suggested that without guilt the Holocaust might become trivial or forgotten, and you mentioned the concept of "good guilt". I would be grateful if you could define this idea a little more. Marian Marzynski: About "good guilt": I do not think the third generation of Germans is guilty in the precise sense of the word, meaning legal responsibility. But I am not comfortable with the loud request to proclaim them not guilty. One of the reasons is that probably as we speak somewhere in Germany a neo-Nazi group is demonstrating under the banner against the cult of "guilt." As long as the campaign against guilt is pronounced by the neo-Nazis, we, I, should promote the word "guilt." Unfortunately, it's all political. By saying good guilt, I am saying that each individual should figure out if he or she can afford the "good guilt," meaning an active attitude toward the past, remembering it, and not being ashamed of the word that obviously doesn't apply to the person that mentioned it. To many people this will not be possible to which I say of course, you are not guilty. I am receiving questions about how you create "good guilt" and I say it is up to the people who try, some succeed and some not. To me it is the same as shame, as much as I am ashamed of killing Native Americans, I want Germans to have a sense of "guilt." I am using this word as an intellectual provocation, not as a precise description. San Diego, Calif.: I was very moved by the piece. I have 2 comments: 1. Guilt will not work. I am German - although admittedly from many, many generations ago. Both of my grandfathers served in the War for the U.S. I do not feel guilty about the Holocaust. I feel horrified. I ask myself how could we, as a human race, got so far astray. I ask how anyone could kill another human being. If I felt as though someone were trying to make me feel responsible for something that my grandparents had done I would feel defensive. I would not want to listen to them. It is important to let go of the guilt so that they (the new German generations) can really learn about what happened. I would rather the Germans learn about the Holocaust as something that the Nazis did and learn to abhor it rather than have to deal with the guilt and conflict caused by knowing it was their parents or grandparents. It is not easy to process a parent that is guilty of murder and it gets in the way of the important learning that must occur. 2. The young third generation Germans are wrong. You do not need to know a Jew in order to not feel prejudice towards a Jew. That is not why their prejudice exists. It is like understanding yourself. It is understanding that a Jew NOT someone or something that is different, rather someone that is the SAME. A Jew, a Latino, a Pacific Islander, Black, African, Cuban, homosexual, whatever, we are all the same. If you understand that, you do not need to know someone to accept them. Marian Marzynski: I agree with you that you don't need to know a Jew in order to not feel prejudice toward a Jew. However, you are forgetting the victims who are still around and who are telling their offspring the horror stories about the German crimes. In order to relieve the victimhood tensions, it would be a great idea if the offspring of perpetrators knew the victims. This way, a more active attitude towards remembering and toward taking a stand against the evil would be easier. Los Angeles, Calif.: Dear Marian, I watched your film last night, and I was moved by your honesty and courage. One thing that you said stood out for me in particular. When you were asked if you hated the Germans for what they did, you replied, "Hate is a frozen concept. If you believe in hate, then you don't believe in change. If you don't believe in change, then what is the point of living." My question is this, have you always felt this way? Or did this come about over time? If so could you explain what guided you personally to this outlook? Sincerely, Student of Santa Monica College Marian Marzynski: The person who guided me to feel that way about hatred was my mother. She survived the horror of the war, lost her husband and most of her family, and retained an optimism for life. I don't understand how she came to this conclusion but my belief is that what triggered that was her love for me, and her joy in my survival. I think we are touching probably a miracle of life and our unlimited ability to rebuild ourselves emotionally. That happens actually after the death of a close one each time, some of us are destroyed and some of us are capable of rebuilding. I also understood that this optimism was the reason my mother survived and that among the people who perished, the pessimism was probably present more often than optimism. We don't have statistics about who is a pessimist and who is an optimist, but I believe that the pessimists are a majority. But since my mother put me on this track of optimism I am practicing it and not doing too badly. Williamsburg, Va.: Mr. Marzynski, Thank you so much for doing the Frontline piece. Obviously the immediate generations can feel a closeness to that time in history because there are people from that period still among us. But what of decades from now, how does "positive guilt" help a society a century after the crimes were committed? Or is "guilt" the wrong word? Marian Marzynski: I see the Holocaust only as one representation of the evil we have experienced throughout our history as human. So my provocation called "good guilt" does not apply to the Holocaust only. As such, it should be carried into the future. Unfortunately, for as long as humans are capable of killing other humans there will be need to address the question of guilt/shame/responsibility for the deeds of other people, even if we have nothing to do with it. I believe that this is a generalist concept. I'd like to promote this generosity of being responsible for the bad deeds of fellow man, I think it is an active approach to life and I think it can produce much good. Los Angeles, Calif.: Both my parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland. They lost everyone. I'm talking large families. My father's mother was one of 18 children! They were all wiped out. The effects of hatred were very clear to me growing up without any family other than my parents and a brother (who tragically died at a young age). It did not surprise me to find out to find out that 1 in 2 young Germans does not know about the holocaust or that much of the world equates Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with that of the Nazis towards the Jews. It's a good thing that my parent's who suffered so much as a result of the Nazi persecution are no longer alive and have to listen to such vile filth. Marian Marzynski: The comparison of the Holocaust with the treatment of Palestinians is obviously senseless. In the first case we are dealing with a concept of extermination of an entire people promoted by government and executed by the people. In the other case, that of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we are dealing with human rights abuses in a political struggle between two national entities. If the concept of extermination exists in this conflict, this is on the side of the Palestinians and not the Jews bit again I believe that the "good guilt" should also embrace the abuses of human rights of the Palestinians but I am against the political balance of different crimes taken out of context and actually reducing the importance of the evil by comparison with other events. That's what I call a political abuse of moral issues. It is absurd to think that the horror of the Holocaust is lesser because years ago there were abuses of other people on the Jewish side. Marian Marzynski: Thank you for participating in this chat. We will never be able to be precise in describing moral and ethical dilemmas. Guilt or not guilt, most of us talked about the same thing. We cannot afford that the atrocities of the past will be frozen in human memory. And to be alive my position is, that it should be more the task of people at the dinner table in conversation with parents and children, than the task of the governments. The problem with governments is that they come and go. We have a "good" government in Germany to which makes references to the past bad government of Nazi Germany, but are we sure that the good government will last forever? How do we know that a monument erected today will not fall down tomorrow? Living in the communist country of Poland, I witnessed too many such monuments falling down. Therefore, I repeat my approach-the question of guilt/responsibility and other moral attitudes toward the evil is best treated in our homes at the dinner tables and when the parents talk to their children. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

PBS Frontline producer Marian Marzynski, who survived the Holocaust as a child, will be online to discuss his film, "A Jew Among the Germans."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/05/31/DI2005053101174.html

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Deep Throat Revealed

2005060119

The Watergate mystery that endured more than three decades of scrutiny has finally been resolved. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and former Post executive editor Ben Bradlee confirmed W. Mark Felt as 'Deep Throat' following a Vanity Fair report that the 91-year-old former FBI official had revealed that he was the source who leaked key details that aided the reporters during their investigation. Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz was online to discuss the revelation of Deep Throat's identity. Read today's article: Is Deep Throat a Hero or a Villain? Northern Va.: I've seen a lot of different opinions about Felt's actions - I'm wondering, is there a generational difference in the way he's viewed? I'm (barely) under 30, and I view him as a hero, and in my post-Watergate world view, it is the job of the media to be a watchdog for those in power. Is that different for older generations? And do people younger than I am care at all? Howard Kurtz: I would have thought it was the opposite -- that people who had come of age during Watergate, who remember the atmosphere of fear as the revelations of wiretapping, audits, break-ins and other Nixon White House skullduggery came out, would be more likely to view Throat as a hero. Younger people who have no memory of Watergate might not share that view, I thought. But the 1976 movie that so many people have seen may have shaped public perceptions of all this. Pauling, N.Y.: Hi Howard, I've been annoyed that the networks seem to mainly have former Nixon staff commenting on Felt/Deep Throat (Buchanan, Gergen, Colson, although BenVeniste has appeared a couple of times to provide some balance). Why don't the Democrats or the networks feel a responsibility to at least provide an alternative opinion to the rehabilitation efforts of Nixon's former staff? Howard Kurtz: It's a natural instinct of TV bookers to get people who were at the scene of the crime, so to speak, and to book people who personally knew Mark Felt at the time. Also, some of the Democrats of that era who might naturally be called upon -- Sam Ervin, Peter Rodino -- are dead. Of course there's always Hillary, who was a counsel to the impeachment committee. Astoria, N.Y.: I enjoy your analogy to present day and it is so appropriate. Deep Throat helped to expose a secretive and deceitful administration and ultimately reduce the power of the Presidency. How ironic that President Bush is now trying to restore the power of the Presidency and also, how this administration is one of the most secretive in recent history. At a time when our nation is at war, and the government is intruding on our rights (the Patriot Act), this discussion is even more important. There seems to be an us-versus-them mentality where the politicians are in one corner, the media in another corner and the people in yet another corner. Well, none of this would be necessary (Deep Throat, the Newsweek retraction, the use of anonymous sources, and the overall distrust) if we had the kind of government which our nation's founders wanted - an open government by the people and for the people. I think that too many inside the Beltway forget that the people have a right to know. Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't need anymore Deep Throats? However, as long as the government is secretive and adversarial, then I think we have to praise those who come forward at possible personal expense to protect our democracy. Whatever Mr. Felt's reasons are, I praise him as a hero. Thanks. Howard Kurtz: I think there will always be a need for Deep Throats, not only in government but in the corporate world as well. Secrecy and corruption are hardly new phenomena in American history. Jefferson, for one, said if given a choice between no government and no newspapers, he would rather have a free press. Of course, who knows what he would have made of cable? Washington, D.C.: Felt has come out now because he says that most Americans consider "Deep Throat" a hero. Do you think that is because we are more dependent on 'whistle-blowers' to get the 'real' story in this current administration's relationship to the media. Or is it just that the end justifies the means? Howard Kurtz: I don't think it has anything to do with the current administration. There was deep, almost unbelievable corruption in the Nixon administration, extending from the White House to John Mitchell's Justice Department. Felt helped blow the whistle on that. Whether he should have betrayed the administration he worked for in order to help get the story out is a fascinating debate, but there's little question in my mind that this could not be properly investigated by the Nixon administration itself. After all, the tape that led to Nixon's downfall was the one where he tried to use a claim of CIA secrecy to block or limit the probe by Felt's FBI. Baltimore, Md.: It's pretty much beyond my comprehension how Felt could be viewed as anything other than a hero. The members of Nixon's administration and its admirers that are painting Felt as a traitor for going against his President seem to forget that everyone's loyalty should be pointed towards the nation and not the administration. Howard Kurtz: Good point. But the people who worked with him have been saying on television that he should have worked within the system instead. Morgantown, W.V.: I'm a former journalist (now professor) and I can't believe how excited I was to have this mystery revealed. I've read all the accounts including the story in Vanity Fair. Woodward was e-mailing with the daughter and said he was reluctant because he was concerned about Felt's mental status. He had no idea the lawyer was talking to Vanity Fair? It seemed like the family was a little surprised that yesterday was the day the news would break (grandson undressed at the door). Didn't Vanity Fair give everyone a heads up or did it get leaked? Howard Kurtz: The family certainly knew this was coming out. Vanity Fair blasted it to the world (including the unsuspecting types at The Post) yesterday morning. Stafford, Va.: Why would a 90+ year old man admit that 30+ years ago he starred in the movie Deep Throat? Howard Kurtz: Perhaps because he hasn't got much time left and wants to influence how history views him? The encouragement of Felt's family was also a factor. Santa Rosa, Calif.: With all that we're learning about Richard Nixon why the onus on someone who brought to light a truly insidious plot to cover up his misdeeds? I rather consider Mark Felt a hero, one who should be honored for bringing out the truth. Howard Kurtz: That seems to be the view of many on this chat today. Somerdale, N.J.: Howie, Why have a steady stream of Nixon apologists been trotted out to denounce Deep Throat on Cable? I understand that some were players, but on MSNBC for example I saw Liddy, Colson, Monica Crowley, and Pat Buchanan on every show from Hardball to Scarborough. Buchanan was even on the simulcast of Imus to call Felt "the lowest form of Life". Where were the people who believe that he was a hero? Even the usually balanced David Gergen was denouncing him. You would think that the LIBERAL MEDIA could drum up someone to praise Felt's actions, as opposed to only criminals and Nixon loyalists/sycophants. Howard Kurtz: I'm sure we'll hear from the pro-Felt camp in the coming days, but as I said, the natural instinct is to book people who knew the guy, and to see whether 30 years has changed their view that he betrayed a president we now know to have been a criminal. Arlington, Va.: Why now? One word: money. Is Felt running out of it or perhaps his daughter is being opportunist? Howard Kurtz: Well, The Post reports today that Felt originally wanted to sell this as a book but couldn't find a publisher, and that Vanity Fair turned down a request for payment. So money may have been a factor (though he surely could have cashed in many years earlier), but as far as I can tell he is now telling his story for free. Did an anonymous source tip you off on this Deep Throat revelation, thus delaying your online chat or was it just because of the Monday Holiday? Great article today! I have to agree with the original Edward Jay Epstein piece. "On the other hand, if governmental activity is viewed as the product of diverse and competing agencies, all with different bases of power and interests, journalism becomes a much more difficult affair.'" It is this reason why I feel the blogs and cable news are important today. Felt did the right thing, but not for God and Country as a press 10 years ago would have shoved down us. He wouldn't have been blogged into oblivion either. However, I think journalism's entry into the real motivations of people is a great frontier, and it can only be done by a diverse set of reported angles that are available today - in all sorts - and wasn't available in the past. Howard Kurtz: I had no advance warning, though Mark Felt was my personal candidate for Throat for a long time. You know, even in the age of cable, blogs, podcasts etc., it still takes old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting to break important stories. The focus on Throat has made people forget how Woodstein went through phone lists, knocked on people's doors at night and otherwise painstakingly pieced together the mystery of Watergate, with some mistakes, the hard way. Washington, D.C.: Howie, I read your Media Notes today. Some good points, as usual, but Felt is a "hero" to most people? If so, it might be only because people do not know him. It seems as though Mr. Felt: (a) is a criminal who abused his power as a law enforcement officer; (b) engaged in an illegal leak of investigative information in a way that he himself stated a few years ago would be a complete violation of the trust that was shown him in his position at FBI; and (c) acted primarily (if not exclusively) because he felt slighted at being passed over for promotion. This is not the picture of an idealistic whistle blower. The facts are not flattering for Mr. Felt, even if the consequences of his actions was to bring to light wrongdoings by those in power. Do you expect Felt to go down in history as somewhat famous or somewhat notorious? Howard Kurtz: He'll have a mixed legacy, I'm sure. He's certainly no saint--he was later indicted and convicted (and pardoned by Reagan) for his role in other Watergate-era break-ins. And he has lied about his involvement with Woodward for 30 years. But as for the "illegal" leaking of information, what is your duty when you find yourself in the midst of a corrupt administration and the trail leads all the way to the president? New York, N.Y.: Your comparison between W. Mark Felt and the Plame leaker is absurd. Felt may have had ulterior motives, but his leak were exposing corruption in the highest levels of government. In the Plame case, the leaks were the corruption. Howard Kurtz: You missed my point, which was that leakers have different kinds of motivations. Felt may have had some personal motivation -- being passed over at the FBI, etc. -- but primarily wanted to get the story out. The Plame leaker was trying to hurt administration critic Joe Wilson by outing his wife's role as a CIA operative. An awful lot of revisionism is going on now thanks to the remaining "Nixon's Men," led by Pat Buchanan. Listening to them, you would have thought Watergate was just a little break-in exaggerated by all those Nixon-haters. Buchanan has continually laid the blame for the fall of Vietnam at Felt's feet. Disgraceful! It seems that the coverage has been heavily titled toward Nixon men and not so many opponents. "Hardball," "Scarborough Country" and the "Today Show" all had on Buchanan, Colson, Haig, and Monica Crowley. Where's the balance? Howard Kurtz: I've answered this before, but it's also interesting to hear what Liddy, Buchanan, Colson et al. have to say 30 years later and why they still feel compelled to criticize Felt and, implicitly at least, defend the Nixon administration. Fairfax, Va.: I always thought that CIA Director Richard Helms deserved kudos, as well. Of course, he was only doing what was right, but so few did. People who vilify Felt today forget how wide the corruption had spread--even the Attorney General was part of it. There was much paranoia, most of it justified. I remember following the story from the first article. The Watergate story was slow in getting off the ground, and The Washington Post was not the influential paper it is today. In fact, must of its prestige dates from the Watergate story. Howard Kurtz: That is true. The paper at the time took a clear back seat to the New York Times, which was slow on the Watergate story. That story gave The Post an international reputation and of course made Woodward and Bernstein into millionaires and, in the cinema-going public's mind, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. The reputation of journalism, needless to say, is very different today. St. Paul, Minn.: Howard, in this age of so-called news, where the political events in Paris have to share the spotlight with the engagement of Paris Hilton, do you think news agencies would be as willing to invest the time and money in uncovering a story as The Post did in the Watergate era? Personally, I believe they should. But I also believe the public wouldn't care. Howard Kurtz: I think a shrinking number of news organizations are willing to invest that kind of time and money. They tend to be the same ones that spend a lot of money on maintaining bureaus around the world. The broadcast networks don't do the kind of groundbreaking investigative reporting they did in the 1970s and have dramatically cut back on their number of foreign bureaus. Washington, D.C.: Felt's spokespeople said that he wanted to have a book published about this, but couldn't find a willing publisher. How can this possibly be true? Wouldn't publishing houses fall all over themselves to get the rights to this story? Wouldn't Hollywood be all over this too? Howard Kurtz: Maybe publishers didn't believe him. Maybe some felt a man approaching 90 couldn't go out and promote the book on the TV circuit. As for Hollywood, well, that movie's already been made, hasn't it? Arlington, Va.: Why now? We have known for years that the secret would be revealed when Deep Throat died. If I was him, I would absolutely want to see public reaction when the truth was finally revealed. I am interested in how long his family members have known, how long have they kept the secret. Can't have been long, I would guess. Howard Kurtz: I can't really assess Mark Felt's motivation in acknowledging his role after all this time. Clearly his family played an important role in nudging him toward coming clean. Washington, D.C.: What is your opinion of the W. Mark Felt's family actions in revealing this 30-year secret and going to Vanity Fair and not The Post (Vanity Fair insists they refused payment to the family.) What do you think of their 2 year effort to persuade Felt to admit his role. Especially given the fact, the man is 91 years old and has suffered a stroke!!! I find it so ironic that out of all people, Mr. Felt's own family are acting in such a sleazy and manipulative way exploiting a vulnerable and ill man. Howard Kurtz: I don't think that's fair; it's obviously they love him. But I think The Post would have been the last organization they would have come to, because then Woodward would invariably have written his account. What the family wanted was for the story to be told from Felt's point of view. Baltimore, Md.: Felt is a hero, period, because Nixon was clearly an unindicted co-conspirator. Further, I agree with a lot of the sentiment here that it's ludicrous for the media to first trot out the Nixon defenders. Why hasn't there been more stories to explain exactly what was going on during Watergate? The burglary, the hush money, etc... If the media wanted to cover the story, and not sensationalize it by booking Pat Buchanan, there would be more coverage of the crimes of the Nixon administration. As an aside, I believe Senators Sarbanes and Howard Baker were on the House committee investigating Nixon. Why hasn't the media put them on television yet? Howard Kurtz: I'm sure the calls are out to people like Howard Baker. And yes, we need more stories to remind people about the magnitude and complexity of Watergate. It wasn't just Throat and the impeachment committee and the tapes. There was a plan dubbed COINTELPRO that involved a massive amount of domestic spying on groups perceived to be enemies of Nixon. There was the plumbers unit trying to plug leaks to the press. There was the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. There was Judge Sirica's role and John Dean's role. This was quite a far-ranging criminal conspiracy. Baltimore, Md.: Do you think the revelation of Deep Throat's identity will spur more whistle blowers to help the press and public become better informed about back room deals and shenanigans? Howard Kurtz: Not necessarily. After all, we've known about Deep Throat's role for 30 years. The new information about who it was doesn't change the basic story line, except to confirm that it was a high-ranking FBI official. McLean, Va.: How can you, and others including Katie Couric, imply that Vanity Fair scooped The Post? It's only because Bob Woodward is a man of his word, and because O'Connor is only concerned with money. "In the end, it's hard to escape the irony that Vanity Fair beat The Post on the secret Woodward had kept for more than 30 years." Howard Kurtz: All of that is true. But it's also true that Vanity Fair scooped The Post and deserves some credit for the way it handled the story. College Station, Tex.: Why do you suppose so many people on the right continue to discount the serious threat that Watergate posed to our democracy? Some of my neighbors look upon Felt as a traitor and others think Nixon was run out of office for crimes that other administrations got away with. It was all a liberal plot, in the minds of many who lived thorough the epoch but never took time to learn the details. Is obstruction of justice and attempted election rigging so enigmatic in comparison to garden-variety crimes such as robbery and murder -- so much so that the average guy on the street cannot comprehend it? Howard Kurtz: I'm not sure that people on the right do discount the seriousness of Watergate. The reason Nixon resigned, after all, is that a group of Republican senators told him that he would probably be convicted on the impeachment charges. Conservatives who today defend the Bush administration (George Will is one example) were extremely critical of Nixon over Watergate. I do think the passage of time has eroded memories, though, of how far-reaching a criminal conspiracy Watergate was. Washington, D.C.: Dear Howard: I thought you were taking a well deserved vacation. The Deep Throat revelation just must have been irresistible.... I thought your comments were very well taken this morning on Media Notes. The thing that concerns me is whether there is a concerted effort by the administration to dry up reporter's use of anonymous sources. Was the anonymous source to Isikoff engaged in counter-intelligence? The administrative reaction with talk of Newsweek's alleged treasonable activity surpassed even the vitriol from the Nixon White House. How many news outlets will continue to rely on these sources? I think Nixon must be out there chuckling somewhere. Howard Kurtz: I thought I was taking a well-deserved vacation too. Every administration tries to limit leaks to the press. The Clinton White House used to crusade against leaks from Ken Starr's office during the second impeachment inquiry of the 20th century. But there's zero evidence to suggest that Isikoff's source on the Koran story was trying to mislead Newsweek. He just got his details wrong. Albuquerque, N.M.: Felt is 91 and has had a stroke. It sounds as if his family tried to push him to come forward. My question has been whether or not this was his choice or his family's choice to come forward at this time. It seems that his relationship with Bob Woodward would make him more likely to have had him release the information. Are we getting this information because the family wants money? Howard Kurtz: Well, the family clearly wanted money at one point, but at this point has proceeded to tell Felt's story for free. Alexandria, Va.: On MSNBC yesterday, G. Gordon Liddy said of Felt: "He is someone who behaved unethically, in that he did not take his evidence to the grand jury and seek an indictment." This is even more ridiculous than Buchanan calling Felt a traitor. G. Gordon Liddy is a convicted felon who broke his oath to his country ... who is he to condemn Mark Felt's ethics? And who is he to say that Felt should have worked within the system? This is the very system of laws that Liddy scorned. Do you think the right-wing's smear campaign of Felt will get any traction? Howard Kurtz: Liddy is a guy who refused to talk about what he had done even after he was convicted. But the notion that Felt could simply have mounted an investigation in a Justice Department headed by John Mitchell, Nixon's longtime confidant who would later go to jail, and in an FBI whose efforts were being stymied by the White House, is pretty far-fetched. Boston, Mass.: I contend that Deep Throat is neither hero or villain. The entire Watergate era has undergone historical revisionism. Gerald Ford was awarded a Profile in Courage Award for pardoning Richard Nixon, who committed a felony. Nixon himself, well before his death, emerged as an elder statesman. The Post's Woodward and former reporter Bernstein ought to write what they know and bring us into the present. Otherwise, the entire matter will go down as sorry footnote, with all the culprits forgiven. Howard Kurtz: Woodward is writing a long piece on the subject. I think it's fair to question everyone's motivation in that constitutional crisis, and it's also true that 30 years changes your view of things--a number of liberals now say they can see where Ford's pardon spared the country an endless ordeal of a trial of Nixon. But I'm sure others still feel that this was a perversion of justice. Thanks for the chat, folks. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/05/31/DI2005053101216.html

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Deep Throat Revealed

2005060119

The Washington Post Tuesday confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon. Ronald Kessler , author of "The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI," was online Wednesday, June 1, at 2 p.m. ET to discuss Felt's admission and the history of the FBI during the Watergate era. washingtonpost.com: Thank you for joining us today. Can you give us a little bit of background on Mark Felt and his history at the FBI? Ronald Kessler: Thank you for having me. Felt joined the FBI in 1942 and spent most of his career in counter-intelligence and catching spies who engaged in espionage. He was a lawyer, also. He rose through the ranks both because he was very smart and competent, but also because he knew how to flatter J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director. That was very important in the bureau. He was number two in the bureau at the time of Watergate and he was in charge of the Watergate investigation, which meant that he was totally informed every day on new developments. Beverly Hills, Calif.: What was your first reaction to the news and did it confirm your gut feeling about the identity of Deep Throat? Ronald Kessler: To tell you the truth, I felt a little down because I knew that I would be deluged with media requests. Certainly there's nothing like actual confirmation and it was remarkable to think that someone in that position was helping Woodward and Bernstein. At the same time, I felt absolutely sure that he was Deep Throat. Not only because he was in such a perfect position to provide the information, but more importantly, when I went to interview him in 2001 for my book, "The Bureau: The Secret HIstory of the FBI," his daughter Joan told me that Woodward had been out about a year and a half earlier under rather mysterious circumstances. She said Bob showed up unannounced and that Felt considered him a friend and that Bob had his limo parked 10 blocks away. Now, why would Bob be seeing Felt in the first place and why would he go to such pains to keep his meeting a secret? In my mind, there was only one explanation which I gave in the book: that Mark Felt was in fact Deep Throat. Washington, D.C.: How do you feel about some people's characterization of Felt as a traitor? Ronald Kessler: People who say that, I don't think, realize how scary this time period was in our history. Richard Nixon was actively engaged in not only covering up his own criminal involvement in Watergate, but in trying to supress the FBI investigation. I would not have put it past him to tear up the Constitution because he was ordering illegal break-ins, wiretaps, investigations -- so I think Mark Felt did a public service by making sure the FBI investigation would not be supressed, getting this out in the public through Woodward. It was also true that Felt was offended that Nixon had appointed L. Patrick Grey as acting director over him. But he had legitimate grounds for feeling that Grey should be ousted since Grey himself had engaged in Watergate improprieties. So even though he may have had a personal ambition to become FBI director himself, from the FBI standpoint he had a legitimate reason for hoping Nixon would be gone and that Grey would be gone with him. Washington, D.C.: Were Mr. Felt's "deep background" discussions with The Post illegal at the time? That is, by divulging information garnered during an ongoing investigation, was he technically breaking the law? Ronald Kessler: Very good question. If he was not disclosing information from the grand jury, and I don't think he was, then he may not have been violating criminal law, but certainly could have been fired. I think he was careful in what he told Woodward. He tried to steer him in the right direction and reassure him that he was on the right track instead of giving alot of info. The truth was that Woodward and Bernstein had lots of sources because they were doing the digging. I sat next to Carl during Watergate and every night Woodward would go over to his desk because Karl was the writer and would write the stories and the two would argue and discuss their sources, so I know they had many and would stay up to midnight knocking on doors and most of the stories could have run even without Felt's help. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Have things changed at the FBI to make it more or less likely for the possibility nowdays of someone with the position that Felt had to be a whisleblower? (E.g., do all FBI employees undergo lie detector tests, etc.?) Ronald Kessler: Well things have become far tighter at the FBI and so I think it would be pretty inconceivable that this sort of ongoing leaking could occur now without the person being caught. Columbia, S.C.: Mr. Kessler, do you feel Mark Felt has been pressured by his family to reveal his identity as Deep Throat due to his declining health and the potential to enjoy some sort of financial gain? Ronald Kessler: I definitely think the impetus for this disclosure came from the family. I think they are proud of him and want him to be recognized publicly before he dies. It seems that if they have a monetary interest, they certainly are a little late in trying to make money. Monroe, N.Y.: There seem to be many parallels between Nixon's fight with the FBI and the present Administration's anger with the CIA. Have memories of Watergate created institutional mechanisms that prevent another Deep Throat from influencing political matters? Ronald Kessler: I don't see Woodward's and Bernstein's stories as a manifestation of a political battle. This was a criminal act -- a break in -- and they were two low level reporters who simply did the hard work to follow the money and get the story. I think the people who helped them in general were concerned about the future of the country and really cooperated with them because it was in the best interests of the country. Both the FBI and the CIA are under much tighter control now than they were during this period, so in terms of abuses that went on -- I just don't see that they are going to happen because the fact is they have not happened since the days of J. Edgar Hoover. Coralville, Iowa: Before you interviewed Felt's daughter in 2001, did you think it was Felt, or had you thought it was someone else? Ronald Kessler: I did think it was Mark Felt. Just based on all my knowledge of the FBI and how Watergate went down. Ronald Kessler: I was hoping that he might admit it to me since this was really the only on the record interview he'd given as far as I knew, but he said he was not Deep Throat. Vienna, Va.: Do you believe that whistleblowing was characteristic of the way Mr. Felt led his FBI career? Do you believe that his exposure of the Watergate crimes were truly instigated for ethical reasons or do you think he could have had other motivations, such as perhaps politics? If so, what do you believe would have prompted his revellations to Woodward and Bernstein? By the way, great book! Ronald Kessler: Mark Felt did give Woodward information about the shooting of George Wallace just before the Watergate break in so that shows that he was willing to cooperate regardless of Watergate. Woodward is just a very tenacious reporter who seems to always go to the top of an organization to get his information and I think we have to give him a lot of credit to him for knowing how to get that information out of them. I think the way Woodward and Bernstein did these stories -- never relying on one source, always obtaining corobboration, presenting the stories honestly, and being extremely concerned about inaccuracies -- is a model of how journalism should work and I think stands in contrast to a lot of the journalism we see today. Arlington, Va.: Did Felt and Gordon Liddy know each other at the FBI ? Is there anything interesting about the relationship or what Liddy is saying now ? I think I heard that Liddy was skeptical of something having to do with the announcement of Felt. Ronald Kessler: No, they did not know each other at the FBI. Boyds, Md.: How do you suppose Felt reconciles his not dissimilar criminal activities relating to the Weather Underground? Ronald Kessler: Actually, I think the indictment of Mark Felt was unfair because what he did -- which was to engage in break-ins that were not authorized by search warrants -- was directed by the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and was something that hundreds of FBI agents engaged in, thinking it was entirely proper because it had been authorized by the director. Bentonville, Ark.: Pat Buchanan condemns Mr. Felt for leaking information to the press and lying about it later. Buchanan said that Felt should have just resigned his position in protest to how the White House was covering up the Watergate affair and "blow the whistle" at that point. In your opinion, had Felts resigned in protest, would the course of subsequent events led to Nixon's resignation as well? Ronald Kessler: You know, it's really impossible to say whether the resignation would or would not have occurred. The FBI was conducting a criminal investigation which did lead to many convictions, but the question was whether Nixon would have been able to supress it if these public disclosures were not coming out. I think Woodward and Bernstein could've done most of the stories without his help. But it was so scary to go after the president of the U.S. and was a criminal and using the government to cover himself, and it was so important to get assurance from the inside that they were on the right track. Gambier, Ohio: Do you think W. Mark Felt acted as a 'clearing house' of info coming from other sources ~ White House, Pentagon, etc. ~ or could there have been more than one person that Woodward and Bernstein led to believe that 'only they' were Deep Throat? I'm thinking we may see others come forth and say, "Hey, I'M Deep Throat - not him!" Ronald Kessler: Woodward and Bernstein had many sources, some of whom have since publicly declared themselves -- for example, a bookkeeper, but no one cares about those sources because they didn't have a sexy name. The name was given by Howard Simons, who was then managing editor of the Washington Post and had a wry sense of humor. So there's been much more focus on Deep Throat than really was warranted -- at the same time he was important in the Watergate investigation. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Congrats again (I sent you a congrats email yesterday morning). With so much written about whether or not DT was essential to the unravelling of the entire Watergate story, the focus has shifted from who and wow, to whether DT was important at all. Many point to the Senate and the Judiciary, and the other sources Woodstein relied on. But, isn't it true that without DTs confirmations of initial source material that Woodstein would have found it especially difficult to gain momentum, and bully others into giving information? There is a tipping point, and wasnt DT essential to that? What is your take? Ronald Kessler: I would estimate that Deep Throat accounted for 25 percent of what actually came out. In the book, "All the President's Men," they honestly portray what his importance was and you can tell from that that he was not critical to doing the story. Falls Church, Va.: OK, all I want to know is: Have you been able to figure out how Felt put his "sign" (i.e., the clock) in Woodward's copy of the New York Times? THAT is the real mystery now! Ronald Kessler: No idea, but the fact that Mark Felt instructed Woodward to communicate with him by moving his plants around is another little indication that Deep Throat was Mark Felt, because he spent most of his career in counter-intelligence in the FBI, and these techniques are classic ways for spies to communicate. Mount Laurel, Md.: Mr. Kessler, Isn't it true that Felt's Presidentially appointed superior at the FBI, Patrick Gray, was found to have deliberately destroyed documents related to the Watergate investigation? That is one reason why Mark Felt had a valid reason for wanting Grey to be removed -- aside from his own personal ambition to be FBI Director. Beverly Hills, Calif.: What can you tell us about W. Mark Felt that we don't know or haven't already read in The Post or elsewhere? In other words, tell us something original and break some news here! Ronald Kessler: When I interviewed Mark Felt he had dementia from strokes and I felt it would be very hard to rely on what he said. When I mentioned Bob Woodward, he thought that Woodward was a government lawyer, so how much he was involved in deciding to go public I really don't know. Detroit, Mich.: What enduring personal lessons are there in Watergate, not just for the media and government, but for all of us? How can we understand that this event brought out the best and worst in different people? Ronald Kessler: It certainly goes to the heart of the ethical question that one might face when one's ultimate superiors are engaged in wrongdoing and yet we are not supposed to disclose information publicly. If you go to what happened in Nazi Germany, the excuse that is given by many Nazis was they were just following orders and in the case of the FBI they were proceeding with their investigation, but yet Mark Felt knew that Nixon could have stopped it at any time. Nixon did fire the Watergate special prosecutor and made up some story about CIA secrets that should not be revealed and therefore the FBI should not proceed with this investigation. So given all that I think Felt made the right choice in investigating with WOodward for the benefit of the country. Manassas, Va.: When did Felt leave the FBI? How did it end? Ronald Kessler: Felt left the FBI when he was indicted and then he was pardoned, so in the end he did not have a criminal record. Boise, Idaho: You mention your relationship with Carl. In 'All the President's Men' he said he was planning to take the vacation time The Post owed him and ride his bike across country when he changed plans due to the Watergate work. Do you know if Carl ever did his cross-country bike ride? Ronald Kessler: I'm quite sure he did not. One of the little footnotes to this is that the editors asked me twice to replace Bernstein on the investigation a week or two after the break in because they were mad at him over his handling of his expenses. He, for example, rented a car and left it in a parking garage and forgot about it. A month later, the Post got a bill. I brilliantly declined. I like to do my own investigative stories, but Carl was known as a free spirit so there are always stories about him. Washington, D.C.: The FBI engaged in some pretty awful practices from 1942-1972. Mr. Felt did not blow the whistle during his rise to No. 2 and was even convicted of complicity. Please comment. Ronald Kessler: The FBI really thought that they were authorized to do these illegal wiretaps and illegal break ins because J. Edgar Hoover and frequently attorneys general approved them. It was a strange time when Congress did not engage in oversight to any great degree and everybody was afraid of J. Edgar Hoover because he literally had blackmail material about members of Congress and presidents. It was a totally different era. Silver Spring, Md.: If Hoover had stayed alive, would there have been a Watergate investigation or would it all have been covered-up? Ronald Kessler: I think it would have been covered up. No question. Hoover, first of all, almost never investigated public officials and he always wanted to have blackmail material on presidents. So this is something he would've known about and collected information about, let Nixon know that he knew about it and thereby further ensured his own job security. Washington, D.C.: Woodward was a U.S. Naval officer out of Yale ROTC. His last job in the military was as a briefer to Gen. Haig. Does that give him the edge? Ronald Kessler: I think it certainly helped him develop contacts, but he also boldly went to the top of any organization and knew how to give the impression that he knows more than he really does and would get people to confirm information. That was his real talent. Alexandria, Va.: If Felt was morally appalled by what he was seeing, were there other honorable avenues before him or was leaking his only choice? Ronald Kessler: At that time there were very few choices. Today there would be many choices, but the mechanisms for making these agencies accountable and making the president accountable, really didn't exist at that time. I just can't tell you how scary it was to think that Nixon was pulling the levers of power, trying to engage in corrupt acts to cover up his own criminal involvement and that was the atmosphere in which Watergate occurred. Garrison, N.Y.: Does it not strike you as odd that an assistant FBI Director would have time and capability to drive around looking for potted plant signals and arranging for messages in newspapers to be delivered to Bob Woodward? Even if Felt was the only person to speak to Woodward as Deep Throat, do you think he may have had assistance in other aspects of his endeavors? Ronald Kessler: No, I don't think it's at all strange. He would usually meet Woodward at midnight and FBI agents are very used to working strange and long hours. It makes perfect sense to me. Miami, Fla.: Would say that the instititution Felt loved so much is actually weakened since he left? He seemed have high hopes for an ideal outlook that probably was not fulfilled in the last three decades. Ronald Kessler: The FBI today is a very effective agency under Robert Mueller. Since he took over in 2001 there has been no example of a major screw up or an abuse and I think the FBI has been very effective in pursuing terrorists, all within the law. Despite what you hear about the Patriot Act, the FBI does have to get a judge's order for any search and I think we're lucky that we have an FBI like that today. McLean, Va.: Will history judge Felt as a hero, a traitor, or a person with a personal motive (ie revenge after Gray being promoted)? Thanks. Ronald Kessler: Well, I think of him as a hero and I think longterm he will be viewed that way because the bottom line is that our country survived and it was in part due to his efforts and Woodward and Bernstein's efforts. It was a totally different era.: For people in my age group, I'm 32, can you explain J.Edgar Hoover and his influence? I get it, but at the same time I don't. Can anyone in today's world have the same type of influence? Why or why not? Ronald Kessler: J. Edgar Hoover, in many ways, had more power than any president. He could gather information about people as he wished. He could use it as he wished. He did create a very effective law enforcement agency with an advanced filing system, an advanced laboratory, but at the same time he engaged in massive abuses, such as illegal wiretapping and amassing blackmail files. So, it's a mixed picture, but this claim that Hoover wore a red dress at some party is totally phony. No, today, we have all kinds of checks and balances that would prevent the kinds of abuses that the FBI engaged in under Hoover. We have the Freedom of Information Act, which allows people to see what kind of info the FBI may be gathering about them. We have rigorous Congressional oversight, we have inspectors general and quite a few other mechanisms. Arlington, Va.: What's the most reliable and comprehensive source on all the activities that, together make up "Watergate?" There are so many books by people who were involved in various ways. Is there one source you could point to that would provide a chronology of events, along w/ a "where are they now" feature indicating what became of all the main players? Ronald Kessler: I don't know of anything like that, but I think the first book to start with is Woodward and Bernstein's "All the President's Men," which lays out very honestly how they pursued the investigation. In my book, "The Bureau," I do go into the investigation by the FBI and what Woodward and Bernstein's role was. I interviewed almost all of the agents who were assigned to investigating Watergate and quote them about what they were finding, what they thought about the leaks, so I think that is another source. Beverly Hills, Calif. (again): Thanks for helping us to understand Woodward more in your earlier comment. What about Ben Bradlee ... I find him to be fascinating (not only as he was portrayed in the film by Jason Robards) but in real life. What did Ben bring to the party that made him such as an asset and why is he so darn fascinating? Ronald Kessler: Well, first he put in place very good editors who wanted to pursue this investigation. One was Howard Simons, a second was Barry Sussman, the city editor and a third was Harry Rosenfeld, who was over Metropolitan News. There was a courageous atmosphere that Ben Bradlee engendered and also an atmosphere that required accuracy and responsibility and all of that made a big difference in uncovering Watergate. Ronald Kessler: Thank you for all your excellent questions. I think it's important to revisit this chapter in our history so that we learn not to ever let these kinds of abuses occur in the future and also so we can appreciate the work that Woodward and Bernstein did with the support of the Washington Post and I do think of it as a model of how journalism should operate and therefore it's a very instructive pursuit to look into how this all unraveled. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Join live discussions from the Washington Post. Feature topics include national, world and DC area news, politics, elections, campaigns, government policy, tech regulation, travel, entertainment, cars, and real estate.

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Federal Agents Search Orbital Sciences Offices

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Rocket-maker Orbital Sciences Corp. said yesterday that federal government agents executed search warrants Thursday at its Dulles headquarters and at a design and manufacturing facility near Phoenix. Orbital said an investigation led by the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix appears to be focusing on "contracting procedures" related to "certain U.S. government launch vehicle programs." The company's products -- sold to government and commercial customers -- include launch vehicles that send satellites into orbit, rockets used to test missile defense systems and interceptor booster vehicles designed to protect against missile attacks. Despite some failed launches in recent months, Orbital Sciences has been involved in dozens of successful launches over the past decade, and it has attracted some high-profile talent: NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin is a former employee and on Wednesday the company named former Air Force secretary James G. Roche to its board of directors. Orbital has about 2,100 employees at its Dulles and Chandler, Ariz., facilities. "We're not aware that we've done anything wrong or that we have any violations," said Barron Beneski, Orbital's spokesman. "We're going to be fully cooperative with the authorities . . . and we're working with the authorities to learn more about the nature of the investigation." Sandy Raynor, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Phoenix, confirmed that Orbital is the subject of an "ongoing investigation" but she declined further comment. "Nothing about this is public," she said. Orbital, a major Washington area defense contractor, reported $200 million in profit on $676 million in revenue last year. The company said 54 percent of that revenue came from work it did for the Defense Department and government intelligence agencies. The raid surprised top officials at the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, a principal Orbital customer, according to a senior military officer at the agency. "That's nothing we initiated," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman for the agency. "We're still waiting to learn the details of what triggered the raids and what it's about." Founded in 1982 by three friends not long out of Harvard business school, Orbital in its first 20 years found a niche in the aerospace industry, supplying target missiles to the Pentagon but also making small rockets and lightweight satellites for NASA and other government agencies. Its business was concentrated on research and development programs, not major weapons systems. That began to change in 2001 when Orbital was selected to supply some of the booster rockets for the Bush administration's ambitious new system for defending the United States against ballistic missile attack. As the government's other booster supplier -- Lockheed Martin Corp. -- floundered with its version, Orbital emerged as the lead producer. Under a contract with Boeing Co., Orbital produces the booster rocket for the interceptor, which is designed to carry a "kill vehicle" into space that then separates from the booster and homes in on enemy warheads. Since last summer, eight such interceptors have been installed at launch sites in Alaska and California. Another six are scheduled to be installed by the end of this year. The Pentagon has had difficulty carrying out recent tests to demonstrate that the program can work. Two attempts to launch interceptors at mock warheads have been aborted at the last minute for what defense officials blamed on minor glitches -- flawed software code in December and a faulty silo retracting arm in February.

Rocket-maker Orbital Sciences Corp. said yesterday that federal government agents executed search warrants Thursday at its Dulles headquarters and at a design and manufacturing facility near Phoenix.

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China Makes Its Move

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"The storm center of the world has shifted . . . to China," Secretary of State John Hay said in 1899. "Whoever understands that mighty Empire . . . has a key to world politics for the next five hundred years." Well, everything is different and nothing has changed since Hay announced the famous Open Door policy, which demanded American commercial access in China equal to that of other major nations. A century of Sino-American ups and downs -- with far more of the latter -- followed, but today, in very different ways, the United States still seeks an open door; the secretary of the Treasury and an enraged Congress are hammering China to revalue its currency to give U.S. companies a better chance to compete with the world's fastest-growing major economy. Arguments over the exchange rate are a small part of what goes on these days between the two most important nations in the world. Washington and Beijing have several vital common interests, notably in the war against terrorism and the desire for strategic stability in the Pacific and South Asia. And the two nations are still making an effort to work together; on the American side, responsibility for what Washington calls "the global dialogue" is primarily in the hands of Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who is planning a visit to Beijing soon. But although both sides officially deny it, Sino-American ties are slowly fraying while other issues take up the attention of senior American officials. Beyond the never-ending Taiwan issue and Washington's concern over China's growing military muscle, two huge factors put the relationship under constant pressure: first, substantially different attitudes toward the rights of people to express themselves freely and, second, the massive trade imbalance. What vastly complicates U.S. relations with China is that every major foreign policy issue between the two countries is also a domestic matter, with its own lobbying groups and nongovernmental organizations ranging across the entire American political spectrum, from human rights to pro-life, from pro-Tibet to organized labor. The bilateral agenda, even a partial one, is daunting: Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, religious freedom, press freedom, the Falun Gong, slave labor, North Korea, Iran, trade, the exchange rate, intellectual property rights, access to Chinese markets, export of sensitive technology and the arms embargo. In Washington, where different parts of the executive branch dominate on each issue and Congress plays a major role, it can be difficult to stick to a coherent overall policy. China, on the other hand, with its highly secretive, tightly disciplined and undemocratic system, can establish long-term policy goals and then work slowly toward them: The Chinese, are, as they like to remind visitors, a patient people. China's advance toward long-term goals has produced extraordinary economic results since Deng Xiaoping's reforms began in 1979, notwithstanding the terrible 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square. In foreign policy, however, things had been different until recently. After its war against Vietnam in 1979, China became defensive, even passive, on the world stage. But China's new leaders have begun to match their economic power with a more assertive foreign policy. Taken individually, Chinese actions may look like a series of unrelated events. But they are part of a long-term strategy. Some recent examples: · Premier Wen Jiabao's self-proclaimed "historic visit" to India in April, during which the world's two largest nations announced a "strategic partnership" -- vague words, of course, that could mean almost anything, but quite different from those that have, over the past 50 years, characterized this tense rivalry (which included one war). · President Hu Jintao's stunning meetings in late April and early May with two top Taiwanese political leaders, marking the first such face-to-face meeting since Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek met in 1945. · The anti-Japanese riots in April, which could not have taken place without the acquiescence of the government. Ostensibly meant to protest Japanese schoolbook misrepresentations of World War II atrocities, the demonstrations were in fact a crude signal that no matter what China's official position is, it does not really want Japan to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. · The highly unusual public criticism on May 12 by a Chinese Foreign Ministry official of American policy toward North Korea. Beijing is just plain tired of being called upon by Washington to salvage the six-party talks that North Korea has boycotted for almost a year, when, China says, there has been a "lack of cooperation from the U.S. side." · China's intent -- for the first time since Beijing took over the Chinese seat in the United Nations -- to play a central role in the choice of the next U.N. secretary general, who is slated, by regional rotation, to be from Asia. The new secretary general, who takes office Jan. 1, 2007, cannot be Chinese (no permanent member of the Security Council can have one of its own in that post). One leading candidate called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this month, but Washington has not yet paid the issue enough attention. · Finally, China has begun buying oil fields in such remote areas as Sudan and Angola, part of a long-term strategy to address its rapidly growing energy needs. With energy policy come major foreign policy interests; this is probably related, for example, to China's reluctant attitude toward strong U.N. action in the Darfur region of Sudan. China's gradual emergence as a political player on the world stage comes when there is a growing impression among other countries in East Asia that Washington is not paying the region sufficient attention. (Ironically, this is in sharp contrast to India, where relations with the United States are at their historical best.) If we lose interest and political influence in the Asia-Pacific region just as it grows in economic importance, the imbalance will surely return later to haunt a new generation of policymakers -- and the nation. The challenge is obvious, but the lack of clear focus at the highest levels in Washington on our vital national security interests in the region is disturbing. Richard Holbrooke, who served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the time of normalization of relations with China, writes a monthly column for The Post.

"The storm center of the world has shifted . . . to China," Secretary of State John Hay said in 1899. "Whoever understands that mighty Empire . . . has a key to world politics for the next five hundred years."

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Democrats Extend Debate On Bolton

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Senate Democrats refused to end debate on John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador yesterday, extending the contentious issue into next month and angering Republicans only three days after many had heralded a bipartisan breakthrough on judicial nominees. Some Republicans expressed confidence that they can confirm Bolton eventually, but yesterday's action seemed to stun party leaders and undermine talk of a newfound comity stemming from Monday's brokered deal on judges. "The honeymoon is over," Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) said sharply as he left the floor moments after senators voted 56 to 42 in favor of ending debate on Bolton's nomination. The vote fell four short of the 60 needed to halt a filibuster and move to a confirmation vote, which would require only a simple majority in the 100-member chamber. All the Republicans present voted to end debate, but they were joined by only three Democrats: Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.). Congress is in recess next week, and the Senate will resume the Bolton debate in early June. Democrats said they launched the delaying tactic only as a means of pressuring the Bush administration to provide documents related to Bolton's handling of classified information and his role in preparing congressional testimony about Syria in 2003. They rejected the administration's argument that some of the requested information is not relevant to the confirmation debate. "We are not here to filibuster Bolton -- we are here to get information," Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said on the floor shortly after the vote was taken. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who led the opposition to Bolton, said: "I have absolutely no intention of preventing an up-or-down vote on Mr. Bolton." He later said he did not know whether full disclosure of the information he is seeking would sink the nomination. The filibuster question is sensitive because senators narrowly averted a showdown over the parliamentary tactic earlier this week. With Republicans threatening to bar filibusters of judicial nominees, a bipartisan group of 14 senators struck a compromise intended to make judicial filibusters highly unlikely this year or next. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who appeared dour as yesterday's 35-minute roll call took place in an unusually crowded chamber, called the results "very, very disappointing." Earlier in the day, he said on the floor, Reid had given a speech calling for "comity and cooperation." "But tonight, after the Democrats have launched into yet another filibuster of a presidential nomination. . . . those words seem empty and hollow," Frist said. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) told reporters that Democratic leaders had assured Frist that he would get 60 votes to end debate if he tried. But Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the Democratic leader "told Senator Frist this afternoon he did not have the 60 votes needed, and urged him to consider holding off on the vote" while Biden and others pressed the administration for the requested documents. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters that the setback to Bolton "is temporary, and I believe it might actually lead to his much easier confirmation when we come back." He said Democrats will be "a little bit embarrassed about this, and now they have pushed it over the edge." White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "Just 72 hours after all the goodwill and bipartisanship in the Senate, it's a shame to see the Democratic leadership resort back to a partisan approach."

Republicans fall four votes short of ending debate, in yet another setback for the nominee and a renewal of intense partisanship in the Senate only days after the judicial compromise.

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The Graduating Class of 9/11

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Scott Murphy's voice lowers to a gentle cadence as he enters the Naval Academy's Memorial Hall. Inside, engraved on limestone panels lining the walls, are the names of every alumnus killed in action or support operations since the Civil War. Ten names have been added since Murphy arrived here as a plebe, as freshmen are known here, in the summer of 2001. He recognizes the newest, a Marine from the Class of 2003 killed last November in Fallujah, Iraq. "I used to come here when I was having tough times at the academy," said Murphy, a 21-year-old from Boise, Idaho, who will follow his former classmate into the Marines. "I'd just stare at the wall of the dead and reflect. It's humbling, standing before their legacy." Today, when President Bush delivers their commencement address, Murphy and his classmates will trade midshipmen's anchors for the bars of ensigns and second lieutenants, formally launching their careers as Navy and Marine officers. When the president last spoke at the school four years ago, he told 2001 graduates they "inherit a safer and more peaceful world." That was the world Murphy's class knew when it entered the academy, a world that shattered three weeks into their first semester. Instead, memorials to fallen alums, e-mail from friends patrolling the streets of Baghdad, course work imbued with lessons of Iraq and taught by veterans freshly returned from combat have made their Annapolis years ones of unexpected urgency. While the rigor of academy life has not changed -- nor the camaraderie and pranks that go with it -- it has been tempered by the prolonged reality of the conflict that awaits them. Classroom discussions instantly turned from lessons of past wars to the conflict unfolding in front of them. "It kind of put a somber effect on everything we were doing here," said Jason Brownlee, 21, of Richmond Hill, Ga. For some, such as Will Rietveld of Holland, Mich., waiting was the hardest part. Rietveld, 25, had been an enlisted aviation technician stationed at Whidbey Island north of Seattle when officers urged him to apply to the academy. The idea appealed to him. "I was the guy fixing the airplane," he said. "I wanted to be the guy flying the airplane." He was accepted, but soon after his arrival, the EA-6B Prowlers he once worked on were flying radar-jamming missions over Afghanistan. "It was really frustrating," he said, "knowing that the operational tempo of our forces was picking up and we had to kind of sit on the sidelines for the next four years."

While the rigor of Naval Academy life has not changed -- nor the camaraderie and pranks that go with it -- it has been tempered by the prolonged reality of the conflict that awaits this year's class of Navy and Marine officers.

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'No' Camp Holds Lead Ahead of French EU Treaty Vote

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PARIS (Reuters) - The leaders of Germany and Spain made final pleas to French voters on Friday to back the European Union's constitution, seeking to reverse the "No" camp's lead in opinion polls on the last day of campaigning. One survey showed a sharp drop in the size of the majority opposing the treaty, giving its supporters some hope before Sunday's French referendum. The lone poll could be a lifeline for the "Yes" camp, led by President Jacques Chirac. Supporters say rejection would kill the constitution and weaken France in Europe. Opponents say a "No" would force the EU to redraft the treaty and improve it. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Schroeder made an impassioned plea to French voters to back the charter. "We ask the French people to vote 'Yes' with all their hearts," he told a rally in the southwestern city of Toulouse. Germany's upper house of parliament's approved the constitution earlier on Friday. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero French urged voters not to use the referendum to vent their discontent with Chirac's conservative government, which is unpopular because of its cost-cutting reforms and high unemployment. "The elections -- they last four or five years in France, but a constitution is for a whole generation. It's a whole life plan for millions and millions of Europeans," Zapatero, a Socialist, told a rally in the northern city of Lille. A poll by Ifop research group showed the "No" camp far ahead on 56 percent support. But a survey by CSA polling group showed 52 percent of voters who have decided how to vote will oppose the charter, a drop of 3 percentage points since Thursday. The CSA poll put supporters of the treaty on 48 percent, a figure that rose to 49 percent among voters questioned on Friday -- one day after Chirac made a final televised plea to voters to back the constitution. Backers of the treaty were also lifted by an appeal from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for voters to support the charter. The architect of the text, former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, said he hoped for a "Yes" vote. DUTCH "YES" CAMP ALSO GAINS An opinion poll showed opposition to the constitution also falling among Dutch voters to 52 percent from 54 percent a week earlier. The Netherlands votes in a referendum next Wednesday.

PARIS (Reuters) - The leaders of Germany and Spain made final pleas to French voters on Friday to back the European Union's constitution, seeking to reverse the "No" camp's lead in opinion polls on the last day of campaigning.

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'Hecuba': Redgrave's Blazingly Controlled Fire

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Vanessa Redgrave with blood on her hands: Now that's something you pay to see. Her Hecuba, ensconced in the Kennedy Center, is regal, ruthless, shellshocked. When she thrusts those scarlet fingers at Agamemnon, proof of the vengeance she's exacted against her son's slaughterer, her sickly smile confirms the primal pleasure she derives in giving as good as she's gotten. A homicidal banshee, however, she is not. The actress has in mind a subtler sort of executioner in the vibrant, provocative "Hecuba" that opened last night in the Eisenhower Theater. A Trojan queen reduced by the Greeks to groveling slave, Redgrave's Hecuba is a shattered woman driven to barbarity not by madness but by a desperate calculation wrought of grief. Watching the actress wreak chaos with such control, you can't help wondering how she'd do tackling a total monster like Lady Macbeth. Redgrave appears on a Washington stage for the first time in this latest visit by the Royal Shakespeare Company. And though the production she's chosen does not make an urgent claim on the heart -- the "Medea" brought here in 2002 by Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw, for instance, was far more gripping -- tears do not seem the point. You do miss the going for the gut. But what's targeted in this admirable if more earnest enterprise is the conscience. For Hecuba, it seems, is not the only creature of the stage settling scores here. This version of Euripides' play, adapted and directed by Tony Harrison, suggests clearly -- perhaps more clearly than necessary -- that an unchecked superpower of the ancient world has a direct descendant in the modern one. The militant Greek city-states that invade and subjugate Hecuba's Troy are, in this interpretation, part of a "coalition force" answerable to no one. Metaphorically, the topic seems to be the corruption of American might. The events of this "Hecuba" occur on the edge of a modern refugee camp. Es Devlin's stirring set -- redesigned for the American leg of the production's tour -- consists of a mountainside crammed with army tents. The effect of this is to intensify the sense of a powerless Hecuba crushed by a machine of overarching superiority. Divested of throne, wealth, husband and children, Hecuba is suffering's bottomless pit. Greek officials come to the camp to see how much more Hecuba can bear. Among them is Odysseus, played by Darrell D'Silva with a hunch-shouldered swagger that seems contrived to conjure a certain Texas politician with a reputation as a global gunslinger. In a foreword to his script, Harrison leaves no doubt as to who is in his thoughts. "I wonder what President Bush would reply if the RSC asked him to write a preface to my version of 'Hecuba' to coincide with its visit to the Kennedy Center in Washington," he muses. "And would he weep for Vanessa Redgrave's Hecuba if he could be somehow tricked into attending a performance?" "Tricked" seems such a revealing word. Still, this "Hecuba" holds on to too much of the flavor of Euripides to be regarded as outright agitprop. It appears that Harrison -- who took over the directing duties after the run in London, where many critics found the production wanting -- has altered the physical environment to give it a more direct political relevance. Judging from the London notices, it's clear, too, that other ingredients have been retained. One of these is a Greek chorus that sings. The 11 actresses of the chorus are Hecuba's fellow Trojan travelers in the camp. Barefoot, wearing soiled gowns and robes, these women peer out from scarves covering their heads, and their stony expressions are akin to those recorded by war-zone photographers. The harmonies composer Mick Sands gives the women to sing enliven an aspect of Greek drama that sometimes becomes soporific. Here the music, set to an emphatic drumbeat, not only energizes the chorus but also places its members on a unified emotional plane. It's as if their national anthem is a dirge. The play follows an inexorable arc of pain, beginning with the dramatic testimony of the ghost of Hecuba's murdered son, Polydorus (an oratorically gifted Matthew Douglas) and continuing through Hecuba's soul-withering traumas. In an early interlude, her daughter Polyxena (the poignant Lydia Leonard) is condemned as a sacrifice, demanded by the ghost of Achilles. (The afterlife is an active peanut gallery in the play.) To Leonard's credit, the explanation Polyxena provides for her surprising response sounds eminently rational. It all builds to a blood-soaked climax revolving around Hecuba's revenge on Polydorus's murderer, Polymestor (D'Silva, once again). Redgrave's bearing is an asset here. Is there any actress more persuasive as royalty? Hers is a vigorous physical performance. Taller than almost everyone else onstage, she bends and twists and folds her body in grief: truly, a great personage brought low. She's most in her element in the ghoulish undercurrent of gleefulness she brings to the task of gouging out an eye for an eye. Waiting to direct Polymestor and his two boys into her tent, she's the impatient hostess she might have been at court. The sordid deeds completed, this Hecuba appoints herself the contented custodian of the newly butchered. In a terrific moment, she triumphantly brings out the dead, pulling their bodies on a little cart. D'Silva is fine, screaming his ineffectual denunciations of Hecuba, and Malcolm Tierney plays Agamemnon with an impressive evenhandedness. Adam Silverman's lighting aptly evokes a white-hot Mediterranean world. The final fade-out is, of course, on Redgrave herself. Only when Hecuba's work is done does Redgrave let herself go. The otherworldly shrieks resound across the ages. Hecuba , by Euripides, in a new version by Tony Harrison. Sound, Fergus O'Hare; movement, Gary Sefton; choreography, Heather Habens; company voice work, Charmian Hoare. With Alan Dobie, Judith Paris, Christopher Terry. Approximately 1 hour 40 minutes. Through June 12 at the Kennedy Center. Call 202-467-4600 or visit http://www.kennedy-center.org/ .

Get style news headlines from The Washington Post, including entertainment news, comics, horoscopes, crossword, TV, Dear Abby. arts/theater, Sunday Source and weekend section. Washington Post columnists, movie/book reviews, Carolyn Hax, Tom Shales.

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It's a Video Game, and an Army Recruiter

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The Army's flagging recruitment numbers are serious business. So Army officials increasingly are turning to a game for help. It is an online, multiplayer video game that they believe will lure teenagers into Army culture, hoping both to educate them about the military and to spark interest in volunteering to serve. The game, dubbed America's Army, employs a realistic and team-oriented approach to give players a sense of what it is like to join the Army, to train how to use weapons and then how to work together on missions. Players progress through the game and its many updates in a variety of ways, learning how to jointly accomplish military tasks while using different skills, such as fighting as an infantryman or saving lives as a medic. First-time visitors go through weapons training on the game Web site and learn how to jump from airplanes. They are punished for their "criminal" mistakes -- such as shooting the drill instructor -- by doing time at Fort Leavenworth's prison. Then players join others from around the country on virtual missions, helping one another move through lifelike scenarios. "We want kids to come into the Army and feel like they've already been there," said Col. Casey Wardynski, who as director of the Army's office of economic and manpower analysis came up with the idea. "A game is like a team effort, and the Army is very much a team effort. By playing an online, multiplayer game, you can get the feel of being in the Army." Wardynski began developing the game after a similar recruiting crisis in 1999, when top Army officials were looking for a way to reach out to potential recruits with minimal cost. Wardynski wanted an economical way to counter pop-culture images of the military with a no-nonsense approach to being a soldier. The game, he decided, would provide a gateway to information and entertainment, targeting boys 14 and older. With many potential recruits put off by images of basic training and drill sergeants, Wardynski said, the game tries to break down those barriers. "It's designed to give them an inside view on the very fundamentals of being a soldier, and it's also designed to give them a sense of self-efficacy, that they can do it," Wardynski said. Players start out completing obstacle courses and learning how to fire realistic Army weapons, such as automatic rifles and grenade launchers. "We want them to see that they can succeed in doing this. You don't have to think what it would look like -- you can see what it looks like." Since the game's launch in 2002, nearly 5.4 million users have registered on the game's Web site, and more than 2 million users have passed through basic training in the latest version of the game, which focuses on the Special Forces. Wardynski said the game and its nearly 20 updates have been downloaded 20 million times, and recruiters have issued almost 2 million copies of the game on CD-ROM. The Army also has licensed the game for release on Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation platforms later this year. Although the game runs through its own Web site ( http://www.americasarmy.com/ ), its developers purposefully built privacy into the game -- no personal information is gathered from players. Army officials know how many people have registered and how they are doing within the game, but have no way to contact the players individually. There are links within the game for those who want to contact a recruiter or to learn more about the Army. Recruiters have used the game, however, to get people to come to them. America's Army is the subject of gaming tournaments around the country, giving recruiters an opportunity to interact with people already familiar with Army basics and might be more apt to join. Sgt. 1st Class Bo Scott, recruiting station commander in Newport News, said he was able to meet 70 people at a recent tournament he sponsored with a local college. Out of the group, one video gamer has already enlisted through his office, and another has contacted him about signing up. There are no statistics about how many people have joined the Army because of the game, or after playing the game, but Army officials have plenty of positive anecdotes and say it can only help in a very difficult recruiting environment. "The game is never going to overcome someone's trepidation and fears regarding the ongoing war on terror," Scott said. "But it does get some people talking to recruiters who might not have otherwise. It opens a window, and if they look in and they decide to join, great."

The Army's flagging recruitment numbers are serious business. So Army officials increasingly are turning to a game for help.

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Chirac Makes TV Pitch For E.U. Constitution

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PARIS, May 26 -- With his hopes for Europe and a considerable chunk of presidential prestige on the line, President Jacques Chirac reached out to his countrymen in a dramatic televised appeal Thursday -- warning that they hold "France's destiny in their hands" in a weekend vote on a continent-wide constitution. Chirac said a "oui" vote in Sunday's referendum would enable France to "defend its interests and remain one of the motors of Europe." The latest polls show French opponents of the European Union charter widening their lead, with two surveys giving them 55 percent and another 54 percent. Chirac warned of dire consequences if France rejected the landmark document -- planned as the next major step in a 50-year process of European integration. "It would open a period of divisions, of doubts, of uncertainties," he said in the televised address from the presidential Elysee Palace. "What a responsibility if France, a founder nation of Europe, took the risk of breaking the union of our continent." The president dismissed the arguments of some opponents, who say the text could be renegotiated to make it more amenable to the French if they vote "no," as "an illusion." A "no" could, at least temporarily, kill the proposed constitution and its goal of closer integration among the 25 E.U. member states. Each state must approve the text by referendum or parliamentary vote for it to take effect in 2006. Chirac said one of the challenges facing Europe was economic competition from the United States, Japan, China and, eventually, "India and others." Europe must also preserve its social model and defend its "values of peace and justice," he said. Proponents say the constitution will streamline E.U. operations and decision-making and give the bloc a president and foreign minister. But French opponents say it will lead to a loss of sovereignty and an influx of cheap labor. If voters reject the constitution, Chirac would suffer the humiliation of becoming only the second leader, after Charles de Gaulle, to lose a referendum since the founding of the French Fifth Republic in 1958. The issue is not divided along party lines. Chirac's conservatives and the rival Socialists are pushing for approval, while figures from both parties are loudly dissenting. Bucking the party line of the Socialists, former prime minister Laurent Fabius has campaigned strongly for a "no." On Thursday, he warned opponents not to succumb to the belief that they had already won, calling for them to turn out in force Sunday. "Everyone is saying: This is it, it's already done," Fabius told France-Info radio. "I don't believe that. It's not the polls that count, it's the vote."

PARIS, May 26 -- With his hopes for Europe and a considerable chunk of presidential prestige on the line, President Jacques Chirac reached out to his countrymen in a dramatic televised appeal Thursday -- warning that they hold "France's destiny in their hands" in a weekend vote on a continent-wide...

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Archives Thief Gets Two Years

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A Virginia man was sentenced yesterday to two years in prison for stealing more than 100 Civil War-era documents from the National Archives, including some he tried to sell on eBay. Howard Harner, 68, took letters authored by Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other historical figures. Federal prosecutors sought a lengthy sentence to help discourage trafficking in stolen American history. Harner, of Staunton, pleaded guilty in March to hiding the documents in his clothing and smuggling them out of a National Archives research room from 1996 to 2002. Prosecutors said he made $47,314 by selling the documents to a history buff and through various auctions. He expressed remorse to U.S. District Judge James Robertson and pledged to do whatever he could to help recover 61 documents that still are missing. The judge then handed down the two-year sentence and ordered Harner to pay a $10,000 fine. Authorities caught Harner after a Civil War researcher from Pennsylvania noticed on eBay that someone was trying to sell a letter written by Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead. The researcher recalled reviewing the document at the National Archives and notified archives officials. The thefts led to tight new regulations that require checking researchers' shoes and clothes as they enter and leave the building and forbidding anyone to bring purses into the research room. All four archivists for the agency's Civil War collection attended the sentencing yesterday. "This sentence sends a very clear signal that theft of cultural property belonging to the American people will not be tolerated," U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein said in a statement. Weinstein urged manuscript dealers and collectors to cooperate with authorities in their search for the other missing documents. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Chasson said that Harner caused two kinds of damage. "Not only is a piece of the nation's history gone, but it's also had serious ramifications for the operations of the archives and is going to have the effect of crimping the freedom that researchers have at the archives," she said. "There's a trust that's been broken between the archives and researchers who rely on it."

Get Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia news. Includes news headlines from The Washington Post. Get info/values for Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia homes. Features schools, crime, government, traffic, lottery, religion, obituaries.

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Tell Me About It

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Appearing every Wednesday and Friday in The Washington Post Style section and in Sunday Source, Tell Me About It Bæfers readers advice based on the experiences of someone who's been there -- really recently. Carolyn Hax is a 30-something repatriated New Englander with a liberal arts degree and a lot of opinions and that's about it, really, when you get right down to it. Oh, and the shoes. A lot of shoes. Denver, Colo.: Carolyn, Age old question: how do you get a man to be more romantic or romantic at all?! We've been married less than a year and although he was never Mr. hugely romantic, he was just the right amount... then we got married and basically it's turned into a business relationship with the occasional "I love you" thrown in. I don't want to nag or complain -- do you or the 'nuts have any suggestions? Carolyn Hax: All you can do is tell him, as nicely but directly as you can, how sad you are that this part of your relationship seems to have died. Then you can follow up by providing opportunities for him to be his former self, though I say this with the caveat that if you're becoming your marriage's full-time cruise director, you're only going to alienate him and make yourself really really angry. We missed you last week!;: Is everything ok? Carolyn Hax: Thanks! All's well--one of the little guys kept me up all night and I never got a chance to nap, and I figured you guys probably didn't want advice from someone who was hallucinating. Unless you think I'm onto something. Germantown, Md.: My mother, now in her 60s, has made some unfortunate choices in her life. Now again divorced, she has begun amassing cats (way too many cats) and picking fights with the neighbors. I am told that I need to listen to her angry and hostile thoughts so that she can purge them, but to me it sounds more like she's whipping herself into a lather. Any attempt on my part to talk about these issues -- and I'm the only one willing to brave the lioness in her den -- results in her getting really angry. Same with suggesting therapy. I'm the mess cleaner-upper in the family, the crisis-coper, and my spidey senses are tingling. Help? Thoughts from the crowd? Carolyn Hax: Actually, I'd suggest thoughts from a psychiatrist. If you're the designated crisis manager, you ought to go in to battle prepared, especially if your mom's "unfortunate choices" aren't so much choices as manifestations of some undiagnosed something, which I strongly suspect. You can then learn about that something and address it accordingly, which will make your attempts to clean up after her much more effective. Arlington, Va.: I meet lots of great guys and have no trouble getting dates. Recently though, it seems the ones I really like aren't into me, and the ones I am not really into want to be with me. Is this just dumb luck, or is this a pattern? Is it true that we always want what we can't have? Carolyn Hax: Yes, and if your current misalignment of affection is truly the exception rather than the rule, then most people want what you have. Wait it out, and if you're still waiting a year or so from now, then maybe start to think pattern. I recently found out that my girlfriend was sexually assaulted by a previous boyfriend. She was reticent to tell me this and we're three years into our relationship. I'm glad that she trusted me enough to tell me this and can see why she was afraid of telling me. This revelation didn't change my view of her, in fact, I think it made me love her more. My question is what do I do with this information? My first two reactions were to find this ex-boyfriend and beat him within an inch of his life and the other was finding out more details to satisfy my morbid curiousity about the circumstances; obviously these are not viable courses of action, and I've managed to surpress them both. I'm afraid to bring it up again in conversation because I don't want to cause her pain, but I'm worried about whether or not she's healed from this incident. Should I try talking to her about it, or just stay silent and wait for her to bring it up again, if ever. Carolyn Hax: Channel your morbid curiosity into learning more about sexual abuse and its long-term effects on its victims. Then make an informed decision on how to handle your girlfriend's disclosure. In the meantime, though, don't just stay silent; that just leaves the door open for her to think the worst. Tell her you're glad she trusted you, tell her you love her. Then explain that if you aren't saying or doing the right thing, then you want her to say so, because you want nothing more than to support her but you're unsure of yourself and might need some time (and coaching, if she's willing) to get a clue. Carolyn Hax: Just make sure when you say this, you don't cross over into making it about you. I.e., explain that you intend to go out and get help understanding it so that it doesn't become her job, on top of everything else, to make you okay with it. This is an important distinction. For Germantown: Talk to your mother's regular physician, especially if she has already gotten angry at you/family members for suggesting counselling. Tell her physician that you are worried about your mother, that she seems to be acting in ways not in her best interest, and that you think she needs to be checked over and perhaps referred to a specialist. Carolyn Hax: Good suggestion, thanks. Washington, D.C.: I'm unclear on where you stand with respect to adults not working. In a past column, you told a man who married his wife thinking that she would always work outside the home, and who had done his long-term financial planning based on that, that he was cruel for not wanting her to stay home with their new baby. Last Wednesday, on the other hand, you smacked around a woman who had always explicitly planned to stay home with her kids. So what's the deal? It's okay for women to decide on the spur of the moment that they want to be supported by someone else, but if they plan for it years in advance, they're looking for a sugar daddy? Carolyn Hax: I'm unclear on what's unclear. One is taking the facts of her life and making a choice, and the other is making a choice and arranging the facts of her life to conform to it. Which would be fine if the choice were to, say, become a doctor and the fact-arranging meant going to med school. But when the facts you're arranging are relationships, that's strictly for domestic mercenaries, who are best found in Wharton novels. re: Sugar Daddy rehab: Carolyn, Thanks for your reminder in your advice to the upwardly mobile woman that you shouldn't marry someone who isn't currently happy with their own life. I shudder to think that either your correspondent or her fiance harbors the delusion that marriage would change the fights they're currently having about her job angst. Or that getting married would give her the direction or energy to look for a new job/changer her life/make her into a different person. I was wondering though. If the fiance were to write in, what would you tell him to do? Carolyn Hax: Hard to say exactly because, apparently, the letter-writer left out some big facts that might make her more sympathetic and her situation more complicated. So that might influence my answer now. But I did advise the guy indirectly in my answer to her: to accept that she's starting from scratch in more ways than just her career, and decide either to be patient and give her time, or admit that this wasn't what he signed up for and leave now instead of torturing her with unfair expectations. If you were looking for the "Run run run," though, it was never going to be there. Remember, she was self-aware enough to point us all to her own shortcomings. That's a big deal. Working or not: You forgot the most import difference between the two questioners: one actually has children, one does not. Carolyn Hax: I didn't forget it, I referred to it incomprehensibly. Thanks for the Hemingway version. Domestic Mercenaries?: the woman in that sugar daddy question did sound bratty, but I don't think having a goal of staying home with kids is any less honorable than becoming a doctor. Carolyn Hax: I'm going to cry, hard. What's not honorable is selecting a husband based on his ability to finance your stay-at-home motherhood. Choosing a med school based on its ability to train you to be a doctor, however, enjoys the social acceptance it deserves. Green, Grass: How can I overcome my extreme envy and sometimes anger that my boyfriend gets to sleep in, stay up late, do nothing... because he quit his job a month ago. I'm on the 40-hour-a-week schedule and it drives me crazy sometimes. I'm better now than I was the first week, but sometimes this bad feeling still gets a choke-hold on me. And it's not like I don't pay for things so he can still do stuff... so thinking without money he can't have much fun isn't applicable. Carolyn Hax: So you're working 40 hours a week and supporting him while he takes an indefinite vacation? And he's not rearing children, or addressing a health problem, or keeping house, or paying his own way through a mid-career philosophical crisis? I believe extreme envy and sometimes anger are appropriate, and are meant to be overcome by your explaining to him that this arrangement is getting rearranged by the end of next week. North Carolina: So how did the ALS Gala go? What's the going price for Carolyn and Nick (so we can all save up for next year) Carolyn Hax: Very successfully, thanks so much for asking. Our going price is $1,100. Ann Arbor, Mich. -- Husband hunting: I think you also need to point out that the woman isn't only picking a husband who can support her if she stays home with kids, but a husband who can support her in a particularly upscale lifestyle. After all, she could likely stay home with kids regardless, but one is much harder. By the way, why are people having a hard time understanding your advice on this one? Carolyn Hax: Maybe I'm just late to the hallucinating thing. One more on sugar daddies: I had a professor in college who used to say: If you marry for money, you do earn it. He spoke from experience (although he always laughed when he said it). Carolyn Hax: And he had a killer tan. Metro Washington, D.C.: My current boyfriend is still in touch with his former girlfriend and sees nothing wrong with it. In fact, he belives it's OK to even see her for lunch. Of course, he says it's all innocent. Why am I so concerned with this? Your thoughts? Carolyn Hax: Because you are in the half of the population that thinks it's unconscionable to keep in touch with a former love, and he is in the half that thinks it's unconscionable to drop a former love just because the romantic feelings are dead. There is great common ground here that I wish weren't so hard to find: agreement that it's okay unless one of the formers is acting inappropriately enough to put the new mate on the defensive, in which case the ex/friend is cut loose--EXCEPT in the case of a new mate who goes on the defensive on a daily basis over everything. Then the new relationship's got to go. Washington, D.C.: Happy Friday Everyone! I have a dilemma, not sure if anyone can relate. I am getting ready to go to the beach for a long weekend with my family, boyfriend in tote. Everyone gets along just fine, but my mother and sister are so critical of themselves, even though they are tiny creatures. This always makes me feel like crap, especially because they will kind of look over at me in a sympathetic way as to say "oh honey, you shouldn't worry about that white flab." I don't want it to bother me, but if anyone comments on my weight I don't want to get upset. And my boyfriend is wonderful, he thinks I look great which (he may be lying) but makes me feel great, too. Carolyn Hax: Everyone gets along just fine, except for that whole psychological warfare thing. I won't suggest you avoid your family, but do you need to go to the beach with them? If you've thought about it and made the choice that the good of wearing Lycra around them compensates enough for the bad, then I guess all you can do is remind yourself of that choice when they take shots at you. And there's always the device of reminding yourself that this is about their effed up priorities and not your white flab. Boston, Mass.: Thanks for the great chats. I could use some words of wisdom... I'm about to make a long distance move to live with my boyfriend of three years. While I'm excited about him, I'm sad to leave my current city for a place where I don't know many people and where job prospects aren't too great. How can I keep my spirits up, and not let a tough transition hurt our relationship? Carolyn Hax: Hm. I think the trick is to get as comfortable as you can with the idea of letting things play out and seeing what it all tells you--about where you're moving, about yourself, about the guy, about the relationship. That said, it couldn't hurt to line up a few structured outlets for yourself that don't involve your boyfriend, like a volunteer gig or a part-time job or a club or a class or a team or whatever suits your interests. Getting into a funk and depending on someone completely can suck the romance out of a relationship like little else can. Ex-girlfriends with lunch benefits...: Don't forget, if the boyfriend on this case is keeping the ex away from his current girlfriend, it does call into question his label of "just friends." Nothing fuels jealousy like guarding your "private time" with a friend/ex. I'm friends with some exes, and make sure to include my current SO in my outings, after all, we really are just friends, and someone who I like as a friend is also someone my SO usually likes, too. I bring mine, the exes bring their girlfriends, we all hang out drinking beer and playing horseshoes. Puts everyone at ease... So if the guy is refusing to enlarge his circle of "friends" to inlcude both new and old SOs, then I say the new one should pack her beer and iron pegs and move on. Carolyn Hax: Thanks, it's definitely something I'd file under "inappropriate." Washington, D.C.: I'm pregnant, and I find that people offer unsolicited, strong opinions all the time. Usually they're trying to be supportive of whatever I'd just stated, but it still rubs me the wrong way. Example: "Are you going to find out the sex?" "No, we're going to wait." "Good. I think it's terrible when people find out ahead of time." What I want to say is that's it's really up to each couple, and to mind your own business -- I don't find it terrible if someone else wants to know early. I realize I'm not asking this very eloquently, but what's a nice, non-MYOB way to say MYOB? I get this kind of response on everything ranging from maternity fashions to whether or not a parent should stay at home after the birth. Carolyn Hax: "Eh, to each is own." Nice way to say, "The only people I judge are people who feel the need to judge." Laurel, Md.: Hi, My boyfriend and I broke up last week. This is my first real break-up, in the sense that we had been in this relationship for the last five years and were very close to each other. I'm trying to go about it as maturedly as possible and trying to be calm. But the problem is that I have not been able to concentrate on my work. In a week, I have done about as much work as would do in a day. I'm starting to feel guilty about it but can't get myself to concentrate. Could you give me some tips on how to deal with this. Carolyn Hax: Tips! I can do tips. I think. Try scheduling your grief. Stupid as that sounds, grieving isn't entirely dissimilar from being tired or burned out or stressed by a project. In all cases you end up too tired and eotional and preoccupied to concentrate, so it can help to delineate work time abnd you time, work time and you time, work time and you time. Work for 50 minutes, walk and stretch for 10, or whatever combination you can get away with/adapt to. And really concentrate on using each type of time for its purpose. Arlington, Va.: I gained a lot of weight a few years ago from anti-depressants. I'm now working on taking off about 25 pounds, which is a slow process. How do I deal with a mother who says things in her fake sweet voice like, "Have you gotten on your scale recently? I'm surprised how much I weigh and need to cut down. We all need to cut down." This is the woman who told me I was fat when I wore a size 5. She is no longer directly attacking me but taking this "we're all in this together" approach. She doesn't know about my meds, but thought I was depressed as a child because it was my personality. Carolyn Hax: I hope you're dealing with that mother in the talk therapy you've scheduled to treat your depression in concert with the medication. (And the weight problem with a doctor-sanctioned exercise program, since the most effective treatment for depression is currently believed to be a comination of medication, talk therapy and regular exercise.) Specifically for the fake sweet voice, I'm partial to, "If you have something to say to me Mom, please say it," but that's only treating the symptom. Washington, D.C.: My father is getting remarried (my mom passed away) later this year and I'm not too thrilled -- not the world's biggest fan of his fiancee or the way he's handled everything. It has really strained our already distant relationship. Basically, I'm not looking forward to this wedding very much. So I'm bringing along a friend, who is just a friend -- not my boyfriend -- but am dreading the onslaught of looks and questions from my relatives who are constantly on the prowl for me to "get" a boyfriend. There will be raised eyebrows, "he's a cutie," etc., and I will have to explain that he's just a friend, but then that raises the same "well why don't you have a boyfriend" issues. I really want someone there who's in my corner, so to speak, but I also am dreading having to explain. I feel like it's a lose-lose for me -- go alone and suffer nosiness, or go with friend and suffer nosiness and awkwardness. Any advice on how to deal with the well-intentioned but increasingly annoying (and frankly none of their business) comments from relatives, and also how to fake being happy about this whole wedding thing? Thanks. Carolyn Hax: Back to front: I wouldn't advise faking happiness about the wedding. That just adds to the pile of chips already teetering on your shoulder. Either suck it up and go because it's your father and you'd rather go and preserve the status quo than skip it and make a scene--it is after all one lousy day--with free food!--or, find a way to be genuinely happy for the guy. Try this random selection of rationalizations: 2. Be glad she makes him happy. 2a. She's not your first choice but, hey, at least she's his problem not yours. 3. Your mother would have wanted him to get on with his life. 4. Finding someone new doesn't mean he didn't love your mom. 5. He's doing his best. 6. He is who he is, what can you do. ("I'll have a number 2, a number 4, and ... a 5 please, thanks!") Also, if bringing a crutch is going to add to your stress/chip pile this dramatically, then chuck the crutch already and go alone. You can handle it. (Especially if you give yourself a chance to.) Tired and Frustrated: I've just come from another marriage counseling session. Turns out that the woman I married 4 years ago admits she wasn't really herself then and is just now "finding herself" through a local fundamentalist mega-church. I think we're headed for separation. Sigh - just looking for some kind words from anyone on a depressing day. Carolyn Hax: When the worst is over, you will be better. I swear. Kensington, Md.: To the women who wishes her husband were more romantic. Reward him with something that he really wants as a reward when he is romantic... men are a lot like Pavlov's dogs... I'm sure you could think of some incentive... Carolyn Hax: Wait. I don't understand. Boca Raton, Fla.: Help me! One of my roommates has become convinced that he and I are "meant to be together." He can't wait until we "make love." I like the guy, but I'm just not interested in him romantically. I have told him time and time again that I don't want to date anyone right now, but nothing seems to get through. Is there any way I can keep him as a friend and get this idea of us together romantically out of his head? Carolyn Hax: You can explain to me why you want to keep him as a friend when he shows chronic disrespect for your wishes. Be clear--"I don't want to date YOU," since "I don't want to date anyone right now" is just an invitation for him to try later--and then be somewhere else. Seriously, move out. This is not a good situation. Orlando, Fla.: Hi Carolyn, I'm about to be engaged and want to avoid the "bridezilla" disease that seems to sweep through during the wedding season. Can you tell me the symptoms of being a bridezilla so I don't turn into one without knowing it? Thanks! Carolyn Hax: Any decision you make should either honor your beliefs about marriage or comfort your guests. Beyond that, it's just stress in service of a fairy tale, and no one young enough to expect fairy tales has any business getting married. I understand!;: Something he really wants = a plasma tv!; God, Carolyn, you'd think you know this by now. Carolyn Hax: It's the sleep deprivation! It is! Carolyn Hax: Have you ever looked really closely at all those little lines on your hand? Arlington, Va.: Handling grief: it is not commonly known that very intense grief (including feeling bad over a breakup, not just death) can only be borne for about 10 minutes. Thus, one way to handle a breakup and still get some work done in the office (or just live) is to Concentrate Very Hard on feeling bad (remember all the great things about him -- whatever it takes) and let yourself feel terrible, cry, anything. After about 10 minutes of this, your body stops feeling so bad, you even feel a kind of catharsis or relief, and for an hour or so you can concentrate on work, or just on not feeling bad. Carolyn Hax: Very cool if true, thanks. Washington, D.C.: Hi! So how do you respond to the question, "Why don't you have a boyfriend?", or "Why has it been so long since you've dated someone?" I usually say something sarcastic, but I don't want to seem bitter and angry... I just haven't found anyone yet. Carolyn Hax: I'm still looking for the better non-bitter non-comeback than, "If you forgive me for not answering, I'll forgive you for asking." Could be tough to use on the fly, though, in which case a blank stare or your reflexive sarcastic remark seem just fine. The latter especially if it's funny. "I want to date, just not you": So what's a kind way to say this? I think a lot of women hide behind the "don't want to date anyone right now" to avoid being hurtful -- been there, done that, and regretted it the minute I became "available." Carolyn Hax: "Thank you, but I'm not interested." But I'm not convinced everyone has to dispense with all little white lies just because a few people fail to recognize or choose to ignore when they're being told a little white lie. Yes yes yes lying is never the best way to send a message. But most people get it just fine (and appreciate the delicacy) when they're told, "Oh, garsh, I'm busy Friday," and no "... but maybe some other time?" is forthcoming. It's when a person doesn't get it and starts to pressure you that you HAVE to be very clear--"I do not want to date you"--and at that point being polite about it should be the least of your concerns. Again, to underscore: Gracious honesty ideal, white lie okay in absence of gracious-honesty skills, unwavering honesty (followed by breaking off of all contact) necessary at first sign that suitor is willfully disregarding previous two. This is "Gift of Fear" stuff, by the way. Gavin de Becker. When I went through that, I spent every lunch hour at a neighborhood church sobbing in the corner. Got myself together and went back to work in better shape to focus in the afternoon. It does help to "schedule" grieving time as you suggested. Somehow folks don't seem to mind or bother you if you're crying in a church -- but they do in a lunch room or on the street. It's hard, but it can be borne as long as you don't suppress the grief. Hugs to the original poster. Carolyn Hax: Sorry you had to go through that. I'm grateful, though, for the church suggestion--so simple and makes so much sense. re: Why don't you have a boyfriend?: I was always fond of "I guess I'm just not ready for people to start asking me why we're not married yet or why we don't have kids." Handling Grief: Is that 10 minute thing really true? I swear I've been able to last longer than that -- what's the source? Sorry, just never good at the accepting on faith thing. Carolyn Hax: I can't vouch for the 10-minute thing (thus the "if true") but I can vouch for the body's difficulty in sustaining intense emotion. That much I already knew. Washington, D.C.: My boyfriend of three years (we're early 30s) and I recently broke up. He said he didn't know what he wanted in life, so it wasn't fair for us to be together. Every once in a while we talk, but NEVER about the break. And, he's said he misses me quite a few times. What gives? Is he having second thoughts. Carolyn Hax: Assume not until he actually says he does. Otherwise you're just fueling your own false hopes. I'm sorry. Washington, D.C.: Can you be friends with someone when you have a terrible unrequited crush on them? Or, more accurately, how do you convey to someone that you can't be their friend because it hurts/makes you too insecure to be around them/ drives you crazy to hear anything about their love life/ generally turns you into a 12 year old, without it coming off as manipulative and pathetic? In this case the person already knows about the crush, but perhaps not the intensity. And I have tried being a grown up about the whole thing, but it doesn't work-- can't get over him. Carolyn Hax: "I'm sorry, I still have feelings for you and it hurts for me to be around you." Anyone who could be so frank would seem more ballsy than pathetic to me. Boca Raton, Fla.: Hi Carolyn. PLEASE answer my question about my roommate. I have asked each week for the last three weeks, and the situation is not getting any better. He really wants to be more than friends, and I do NOT. It seems as though we won't even be able to be friends if he doesn't get the idea of us being romantically linked out of his head. I really don't want to move, and he sure as heck won't move as long as I stay. What can I do? Carolyn Hax: Move. In case it didn't sink in the first time. You're not going to get a perfect outcome here, no matter how badly you want it. You have a problem, so face it. Does that include breakfast, or do you go dutch? Carolyn Hax: Breakfast included. Belgian waffles! All you can eat! My gratitude again to those who rallied. That's it fer now. Thanks everybody, and apologies for last week's collapse. Have a great long weekend and type to you next Friday. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents

2005052619

Pentagon officials said yesterday that investigators have identified five incidents of military guards and an interrogator "mishandling" the Koran at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but characterized the episodes as minor and said most occurred before specific rules on the treatment of Muslim holy items were issued. Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said investigators have looked into 13 specific allegations of Koran desecration at the prison dating to early 2002 and have determined eight of them to be unfounded, lacking credibility or the result of accidental touching of the holy book. Of the five cases of mishandling, three were "very likely" deliberate and two were "very likely accidental," he said. But Hood declined to provide details, citing an ongoing investigation. Hood's comments marked the first time the Pentagon has confirmed mistreatment of the Muslim book at Guantanamo Bay. Captives and some military personnel there have made claims of Koran desecration, but in a statement last week, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said the Defense Department had received no credible claims of such abuse. Nevertheless, he said, officials were reviewing the allegations. Hood took pains to specifically deny a now-retracted report in Newsweek magazine's May 9 issue that said officials had confirmed a detainee's claim that a guard had flushed a Koran down a toilet. The White House, the Pentagon and others have linked that report to riots overseas that left 16 people dead. The news conference came a day after the American Civil Liberties Union released summaries of memos from FBI agents at Guantanamo Bay that reported detainee allegations of Koran desecration. Hood played down the mistreatment as a vestige of Guantanamo Bay's early days and said it occurred without any systemic frequency. He said most of the 13 cases involved accidental or inadvertent touching of the Koran by guards and interrogators -- such as someone bumping into the holy book, or one case in which an interrogator stacked two Korans on a television set. The five confirmed cases of Koran mishandling involved four guards and one interrogator, Hood said. Six other "resolved" cases involved guards, and two involved interrogators, he said. Hood said a soldier was reassigned after one recent accidental mishandling of the Koran, and another soldier faced an unspecified disciplinary action for an incident some time ago. He added that there were also 15 cases in which detainees mishandled the Koran, including one who purposefully ripped pages out of his own book. "I want to assure you that we are committed to respecting the cultural dignity of the Koran and the detainees' practice of faith," Hood said. "Every effort has been made to provide religious articles associated with the Islamic faith, accommodate prayers and religious periods, and provide culturally acceptable meals and practices." Pentagon officials said investigators did not look into the claim that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet before the Newsweek article was published. While looking into the desecration claims after protests erupted overseas, investigators re-interviewed a detainee who had told FBI agents in July 2002 that guards had put a Koran in a toilet. That interview, on May 14, with a prisoner the Pentagon identified this week as "an enemy combatant," led investigators to believe that the claim lacked credibility. The detainee said that he "wasn't beaten or abused, but that he had heard rumors that other detainees were," Hood said.

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Arnold Meets His Match

2005052519

The Great Republican Overreach has hit a wall. In the Senate, Bill Frist's plan to ram through a succession of hard-right judges by eliminating the filibuster has been undone by a coalition of centrists. Meanwhile, the president's plan to privatize Social Security has been relentlessly losing support as the American people balk at the notion of trading in their insurance for a retirement based on risk. And in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval ratings have plunged 20 points -- to 40 percent -- in the wake of his singularly reckless attack on the pensions and working conditions of the state's nurses, police officers, firefighters and teachers. Republicans must now even confront the possibility that a Democrat could unseat the Great Orange Hope next year. (Somehow, the governor has retained his metallic glow -- the word "tan" doesn't really describe it -- during the wettest year California has known in a century.) The D.C. GOP has mistaken its narrow but effective control of all branches of government for a popular mandate to roll back the New Deal and roll out a new era of social conservatism. The L.A. GOP has mistaken Arnold's ascension, in the Gray Davis recall election, for a popular mandate to hack away at the public sector. Never mind that Schwarzenegger did not run on any such program, that while he railed at politicians, he never said a word about the public institutions on which Californians depend. Schwarzenegger's right turn, though, should not have come as a surprise to Arnoldologists. The Governator has always been something of an economic libertarian, though during the campaign and his early days in office, more attention was paid to his social libertarianism -- for instance, his pro-choice stance. Some (chiefly libertarians) have argued that this across-the-board libertarianism was exactly the formula that would revive Republicanism in a state such as California. They couldn't have been more wrong. With the burgeoning Latino population clamoring for more and better public schools, beachgoers insisting on coastal protections, and gridlocked motorists yelping for more roads or more rail, the demand for activist government and adequate public services in California remains high. One example of this demand is a law, signed by Gray Davis and slated to have taken effect on Jan. 1 of this year, that establishes a ratio of one nurse to every five patients in California hospitals. Two days after last year's November election, though, Schwarzenegger suspended the regulation, incurring the wrath of a number of groups, but none more so than the California Nurses Association (CNA). This proved to be a huge mistake. For a decade, the CNA had played a gadfly role in California politics, but in its battle against Schwarzenegger, it has become the little union that could. (The CNA has 60,000 members, up from 20,000 10 years ago.) Brandishing banners proclaiming "Hands Off Our Ratios," nurses began demonstrating at Arnold's appearances. Confronted with a gaggle of uppity nurses at his women's conference last December, Schwarzenegger ad-libbed: "Don't mind the special interests. I kick their butts every day in Sacramento." Nothing could have been better calculated to put the nurses on the warpath. In response they began showing up, in uniforms and in numbers, at every one of Arnold's mega-dollar fundraisers with financiers and industry magnates. "I've been frustrated with the labor movement for letting workers be defined as special interests," says Rose Ann DeMoro, the CNA's executive director. "By focusing on his fundraisers, the nurses have forced the press to look at who, exactly, are the real special interests." This spring, when Schwarzenegger threatened to back an initiative that substituted 401(k)s for pensions for public employees (and that eliminated survivor benefits for the widows and orphans of police officers and firefighters killed on the job), the nurses were joined in the streets -- and in television ads -- by teachers and firefighters. At such demonstrations, the cops have proved particularly helpful, positioning the demonstrators, for instance, in the most mediagenic locations. "It's kind of fun having the police with us," says DeMoro, a longtime troublemaker unaccustomed to such cooperation. Facing a collapse in the polls, Arnold backed off his pension-abolition plan, though he is threatening to support another initiative this November that would make it more difficult for public-sector unions to raise political funds from their members. (An earlier iteration of this initiative failed at the ballot box in 1998.) His reversal of the nurse-patient ratios seems almost certain to be overturned in the courts -- as it already has been in the court of public opinion. So, as George W. Bush has run smack into the public's undiminished support for social insurance, Arnold Schwarzenegger has run afoul of its undiminished support for public services and public servants. From sea to shining sea, the Republican offensive has, for now, stalled.

The Great Republican Overreach has hit a wall. In the Senate, Bill Frist's plan to ram through a succession of hard-right judges by eliminating the filibuster has been undone by a coalition of centrists. Meanwhile, the president's plan to privatize Social Security has been relentlessly losing...

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A Race Against Time in The Mideast

2005052519

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is in Washington for a meeting this week with President Bush. As president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas has pursued a strategy that depends on his being able to show that his way -- the way of nonviolence -- will deliver for the Palestinian people. Exit polls at the time of his election in January indicated that Palestinians, weary of daily deprivations and loss of income, wanted a restoration of calm, freedom of movement and their jobs -- and expected that Abbas would deliver. To be sure, the public also wanted an end to corruption and lawlessness in the Palestinian cities and administration. Here, too, there were expectations that in the aftermath of Yasser Arafat's deliberate strategy of chaos, Abbas would produce change. Unfortunately, at this point, Abbas has been able to deliver little of what was expected. While he has made some moves against corruption -- treading carefully, given the opposition of the old guard of Fatah -- he has not been able to produce much on employment or freedom of movement. Palestinians still give him the benefit of the doubt, but they are increasingly dissatisfied with the absence of real change. One sign of this is the increasing appeal of Hamas -- an appeal that is growing not because of its Islamic agenda but because, unlike the Palestinian Authority, it is perceived as clean and capable of delivering services. Another sign of the increasing dissatisfaction are polls that indicate that more than 75 percent of Palestinians believe that there has been no change or change for the worse on the economy during Abbas's tenure. All this should be an alarm bell for the Bush administration and the world. Abbas believes in secular governance, the rule of law, nonviolence and coexistence with Israel. If he cannot make it, if he cannot demonstrate that his way offers a future for the Palestinian people, what message does that send? Who do we think will take his place? The possibility of Hamas's winning elections, tying his hands and eventually supplanting him is not a fantasy. Photo opportunities will not provide him much help. And while Abbas must press harder against those resisting change, including in the security area, he needs more than rhetorical encouragement -- he needs real help from the outside. Material assistance must be provided -- not just pledged. Last December, donor nations pledged $1.2 billion to the Palestinians. Six months later, less than 10 percent of the money has materialized. And the money that has been provided -- as important as it is -- is not going to meet the urgent needs created by unemployment. Per capita income in the West Bank and Gaza was $1,800 a year in 2000 and is down to $1,000. Jobs are urgently needed; labor-intensive projects must be financed and launched now. The international community acts as if a business-as-usual approach will suffice in providing the assistance that has been pledged. That could mean that by the time the money begins to appear, it will be Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, making the calls on how it is spent. It's time for the Bush administration to make a major push to get donors to deliver. The Abbas visit should provide the catalyst for such an initiative. While the administration's assistance request has almost worked its way through Congress, there is little prospect that money from the United States will flow to labor-intensive projects before the elections. Nonetheless, our request for $350 million for the Palestinians gives us leverage to press the Persian Gulf oil states to do their fair share. To date they have not fulfilled their pledges, let alone pledged the additional funds they should be providing. The Bush administration needs to call publicly, not privately, for the creation of a Gulf Cooperation Council fund of $1 billion for Palestinian development. This money should be available immediately to finance housing projects that are labor-intensive and for which there are existing Palestinian blueprints and contractors; provide the $240 million the Palestinian Authority would like to spend on social programs to compete with Hamas; and underwrite the cost of the pensions Abbas needs to pay to those he has retired from the security organizations. Oil revenue for the Persian Gulf oil states (excluding Iraq) has increased by $58 billion in the past year. These countries should be more than capable of providing $1 billion for the Palestinians. It is time for the U.S. administration to speak bluntly -- something on which it prides itself -- to the gulf states. Beyond the money, it is essential to cement the cease-fire between Palestinians and Israelis. In the past week there have been rocket and mortar attacks against Israeli settlements in Gaza and the Israeli city of Sderot. The Israeli defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, has given instructions to "use all necessary" means to strike at those responsible. It would not take much for the current calm -- which has led to a dramatic reduction in Palestinian attacks and IDF targeted killings -- to unravel. Neither Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is already under enormous pressure because of his decision to withdraw from Gaza, nor Abbas can afford for the current period of calm to explode. Nothing will happen by itself; the cease fire and the security situation will not be shored up on their own nor will donor assistance for labor-intensive projects just materialize. The clock is ticking, and President Bush must seize the opportunity of the Abbas visit to make these things happen before it is too late. The writer was director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H.W. Bush and special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton. He is counselor of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of "The Missing Peace."

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is in Washington for a meeting this week with President Bush. As president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas has pursued a strategy that depends on his being able to show that his way -- the way of nonviolence -- will deliver for the Palestinian people. Exit polls...

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House Defies Bush on Stem Cells

2005052519

Defying President Bush's threat to impose his first veto, a broad swath of House Republicans voted with an overwhelming number of Democrats yesterday to repeal his restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and plunge the government deeper into the controversial science that supporters say could lead to cures for debilitating diseases. The 238 to 194 vote, unusual because 50 Republicans broke with Bush and top House leaders, followed a highly personalized, occasionally tearful debate in which a parade of lawmakers recounted medical tragedies that had afflicted their families, while opponents contended that the science is built on destroying human lives. The legislation, which has strong support in the Senate, would make federal money available for research on embryonic stem cells extracted from frozen embryos donated by couples who no longer need them for fertility treatments. It would lift a restriction imposed by Bush nearly four years ago that limits federally funded research to fewer than two dozen embryonic stem cell colonies, or lines. The president and other opponents focused on the fact that the embryos are destroyed in obtaining the cells. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) called it a "vote to fund with taxpayer dollars the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings for the purposes of medical experimentation." "The best that can be said about embryonic stem cell research is that it is scientific exploration into the potential benefits of killing human beings," said DeLay, who set up pro-adoption posters as a backdrop. DeLay, who had lowered his profile amid the storm over his travel and dealings with lobbyists, spent the afternoon on the House floor leading opposition to the bill. The vote carried an echo of Monday's Senate deal that averted a showdown over Bush's judicial appointments, with moderate lawmakers working across the aisle to triumph over their party leaders. The stem cell bill, which was opposed by 14 Democrats, was sponsored by Rep. Michael N. Castle (Del.), president of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership, and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who spent two years building a winning coalition. House leaders scheduled yesterday's vote so that the contentious issue would not be raised repeatedly as an amendment to other critical bills. Bush said last week that he would veto the bill. With the debate underway at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, he underscored his opposition by holding an East Room ceremony surrounded by children whose families had adopted them as embryos. The same families had appeared several hours earlier on Capitol Hill, with parents and children alike sporting stickers that said "Former Embryo." "This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life," Bush said. "Crossing this line would be a great mistake." Polls have shown that the public is strongly supportive of the research, and Nancy Reagan's backing made the issue politically palatable for many conservatives. When Bush announced his decision in August 2001 to permit federal funding for the first time for research using a small number of embryonic stem cell lines, the White House estimated scientists would have a choice of more than 60 cell lines on which to conduct federally supported research. But just 22 lines have materialized, and all of them have been grown in laboratory dishes on layers of mouse cells, making them less than ideal for use in human experiments. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.), who was among the one-third of Republican committee chairmen who supported the bill, said the loss of his father to diabetes at age 71 and a brother to liver disease at 44 had shaped his decision to support expanded research. And Rep. Lane Evans (D-Ill.) described his own struggle with Parkinson's, saying the disease that is destroying his nerve cells "doesn't keep me from doing the things that are important to me" but does affect every day of his life. "Only embryonic stem cells hold enormous potential to turn into any cell in the body" and potentially offer him a cure, he said.

Legislation that would overturn some limits on government funding of embryonic stem cell research is approved despite President Bush's threatened veto.

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For GOP, Deeper Fissures and a Looming Power Struggle

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The fallout from the Senate compromise that averted a showdown over judicial filibusters fell most heavily on the Republican Party yesterday, signaling intraparty warfare that is likely to shape the battle for the party's 2008 presidential nomination and further strain the unity the GOP has enjoyed under President Bush. Monday's surprise deal left two of the party's most prominent potential 2008 candidates, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), on opposite sides of an ideological and strategic divide that is likely to widen as the party begins in earnest to hunt for a successor to Bush. Perhaps mindful of the power of social and religious conservatives, other GOP senators with presidential aspirations, including George Allen (Va.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.), condemned the deal. The compromise forged by 14 Democratic and Republican senators represented a rare, if temporary, rebuff to religious and social conservatives. Their condemnations, whether from James Dobson's Focus on the Family, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh or conservative bloggers, were quick and strong. Dobson labeled it a "complete bailout and betrayal," and Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, branded the GOP negotiators "seven dwarves" who had given Democrats the right to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. Outside analysts took a more measured view of the terms of the agreement that blocked for now the use of the "nuclear option" to bar judicial filibusters; they contended that social and religious conservatives may have done better than they are willing to acknowledge, including the likely approval of three of Bush's most controversial appellate court nominees. The agreement, they said, may look much better to the right in a month or two. "If they think more incrementally and realistically about what can be achieved, they managed to get a lot of the people [judicial nominees] they wanted without blowing up the United States Senate and without slowing down other elements of the president's agenda," said James L. Guth, a professor of political science at Furman University. But leading voices among social conservatives sharply disagreed. "It's a rebuff of both the president, Senator Frist and the socially conservative base of the party by a handful of senators," said Gary L. Bauer, a former presidential candidate and president of American Values. "The heart of the Republican Party is as unhappy as I can recall." That unhappiness stems in part from the huge investment that conservative groups put into the fight to kill the use of the filibuster in judicial nominations. Much of the energy came from religious conservatives, and Frist even appeared in a telecast last month sponsored such groups that was designed to drum up support for up-or-down votes for all judicial nominees. But Frist's inability or unwillingness to strike a deal with Harry M. Reid (Nev.), the Senate Democratic leader, empowered McCain and his allies to seize control of the debate. The body language of the two GOP senators -- McCain ebullient in announcing the deal, and Frist taut and drawn in interpreting it moments later on the Senate floor -- spoke volumes about the immediate reading of who won and who lost. That could change as the two-page agreement is played out on the Senate floor and more of Bush's nominees win confirmation. Frist drew no direct criticism from social conservatives, and he could claim a measure of credit if Bush succeeds in placing more conservatives on the appellate courts and on the Supreme Court. By leaving open the option for Democrats in the Gang of 14 to filibuster future nominations and for Republicans in the group to support the nuclear option, the agreement may only heighten the stakes over any Supreme Court vacancies. McCain is at odds with the bulk of his party by challenging the religious right, as he did in his 2000 presidential campaign. His presidential aspirations depend more than ever on mobilizing and attracting independents and moderate Republicans. Others interested in running in 2008 will battle for religious and social conservatives' support. The biggest surprise in that group was Hagel, who was quoted a month ago in the Omaha World-Herald as saying that although judicial nominees deserve a Senate vote, protection of minority rights in the Senate is important as well. "I would hope that these differences can be resolved without eroding the protection of minority rights in this institution," he said then. Yesterday, he criticized the agreement for not assuring up-or-down votes. As Republicans squabbled loudly, Democrats, led by Reid, tried to put up a united front in support of the agreement. But with three of Bush's long-delayed nominees ticketed for approval under the compromise, cracks began to show within the Democratic ranks as well. The Congressional Black Caucus blasted the agreement as "more of a capitulation than a compromise" for allowing those votes. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) said it would encourage the White House "to send more nominees who lack the judicial temperament or record to serve in these lifetime positions." Some Democrats privately fretted that others in their party had been too quick to claim victory, and even the party chairman, Howard Dean, questioned whether the compromise is good for Democrats. "We don't know if this is a victory in the long run or not," he said on CNN's "Inside Politics." That could leave Democrats in a different posture a few months from now, depending on what happens when Bush is presented with a Supreme Court vacancy. But for now, the compromise struck on Monday night has done more to highlight the coming power struggle within the Republican Party.

Latest politics news headlines from Washington DC. Follow 2004 elections, campaigns, Democrats, Republicans, political cartoons, opinions from The Washington Post. Features government policy, government tech, political analysis and reports.

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The Senate's Real Leader

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The Monday night agreement to avert a showdown vote over judicial filibusters not only spared the Senate from a potentially ruinous clash, but also certified John McCain as the real leader of that body. In contrast to Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was unable to negotiate a compromise with Minority Leader Harry Reid or hold his Republicans in line to clear the way for all of President Bush's nominees to be confirmed, McCain looks like the man who achieved his objectives. If -- as many expect -- McCain and Frist find themselves rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, the gap in their performance will be remembered. To be sure, McCain was only one of 14 senators -- seven from each party -- who forged an agreement to clear three of the roadblocked circuit court nominees at once, shelve two others, and reserve the option of future filibusters only for "exceptional circumstances." And the deal forged in McCain's office probably would not have been possible without the support of such Senate elders as Republican John Warner and Democrat Robert Byrd. But no one else in the negotiating group has McCain's national stature, and no one else is a likely presidential contender three years from now. So, while such would-be candidates as George Allen of Virginia and Sam Brownback of Kansas lined up behind Frist, McCain took the harder road and helped organize the bipartisan effort that averted the looming crisis. He did that knowing he would incur the wrath of the conservative activists who want no barriers placed before their favorites for possible vacancies on the Supreme Court. But contrary to myth, the heroes of the far right rarely win presidential nominations -- as witness the fate of Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson, among others. Until now McCain has been noted mainly for the battles he has fought -- with sporadic success -- for campaign finance reform and against pork-barrel spending. Those fights have endeared him to special constituencies while antagonizing many of his colleagues. This week he placed himself at the nexus of a debate central to the institutional life of the Senate. This was an ad hoc coalition, forged around one question, but the cadre of supporters he found in both parties is large enough -- if it remains cohesive -- to be a shaping force on many other legislative issues. The success of the "Gang of 14" was a rare and welcome triumph over the antagonisms that have been so deeply rooted in the political generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, when the nation was torn by conflicts over civil rights, women's rights, abortion and, most of all, Vietnam. Three of McCain's collaborators -- Warner, Byrd and Dan Inouye of Hawaii -- are of the World War II generation, a time of national consensus. Six of them are between 42 and 52, which means they were 16 or younger at the height of the anti-Vietnam protests. They are forerunners of a generation that may provide greater harmony in our politics as its members move into positions of leadership. Only four of the negotiators -- Republicans Olympia Snowe and Mike DeWine, and Democrats Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson -- were of an age to have been swept up in the turmoil of Vietnam while in their twenties. McCain himself served in Vietnam and endured 5 1/2 years of captivity and torture in a Hanoi prison camp. But unlike many others who fought in that war or protested against it, such as John Kerry, McCain has always insisted that Vietnam was not the defining experience of his life. Long before he undertook this act of reconciliation within the Senate, he had made peace in his own life with the antiwar protesters of his generation. Twenty years ago McCain accepted apologies from an activist named David Ifshin when they met at a Washington forum. They formed a friendship. Ifshin, who had gone to Hanoi in 1970 and made an antiwar radio broadcast that was piped into McCain's prison, later became a close friend of and campaign counsel to President Bill Clinton. When Ifshin died of cancer in 1996, McCain delivered a eulogy at the funeral, saying of Ifshin, "He always felt passionate about his country. He always tried to do justice to others. . . . I learned about courage from David, learned to look for virtue and I learned the futility of looking back in anger." Those lessons served McCain, the Senate and the country well this week.

The Monday night agreement to avert a showdown vote over judicial filibusters not only spared the Senate from a potentially ruinous clash, but also certified John McCain as the real leader of that body.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/24/AR2005052401347.html

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A Matter Of Public Record

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Betty (but call her BJ) Ostergren, a feisty 56-year-old from just north of Richmond, is driven to make important people angry. She puts their Social Security numbers on her Web site, or links to where they can be found. It's not that she wants CIA Director Porter J. Goss, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, or Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to be victims of identity theft, as were millions of Americans in the past year. Ostergren is on a crusade to scare and shame public officials into doing something about how easy it is to get sensitive personal data. Data brokers such as ChoicePoint Inc. and LexisNexis Group have been attractive targets for identity thieves because they are giant buyers and sellers of personal data on millions of people. But as federal and state lawmakers try to keep sensitive information from falling into criminal hands, they face a difficult dilemma: The information typically originates from records gathered and stored by public agencies, available for anyone to see in courthouses and government buildings around the country. What's more, local governments have in recent years rushed to put these records online. A wealth of documents -- including marriage and divorce records, property deeds, and military discharge papers -- containing Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other sensitive information is accessible from any computer anywhere. Many of the online records are images of original documents, which also display people's signatures. Ostergren began organizing citizens and complaining to officials on the issue in 2002, when a title examiner called to warn her that her county was about to put a slew of documents online, including pages with her signature. A longtime activist in local politics, Ostergren swung into action, bringing enough pressure on Hanover County officials that they halted their plans. Then she broadened her attack, targeting other counties in Virginia and elsewhere. Today, she is eager to guide reporters to her favorite example: the Social Security number of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), which is viewable via the Internet on a tax lien filed against him in 1980. "Don't you think if I can get Tom DeLay's Social Security number . . . that some guy in an Internet cafe in Pakistan can, too?" she asks, her voice rising with indignation. "It's just ridiculous what we're doing in this country." The drumbeat of identity-theft revelations is the stuff of nightmares for cash-strapped county recorders, court clerks and other custodians of public records, even without people like Ostergren hounding them. They could start masking out sensitive data tomorrow for new documents they receive, but billions of records already are online. "It's a national issue and it's hitting everybody," said Kathi L. Guay, the register of deeds in Merrimack County, N.H., who participates on a joint task force of public agencies and companies addressing the issue.

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