Lexington Lawyer, Bryan S. Coffman, Is Indicted In $34 Million Oil And Gas Scam.

Lexington lawyer is indicted in $34 million oil and gas scam
By Bill Estep - bestep@herald-leader.com

A Lexington lawyer took part in a long-running scheme to fleece investors of more than $34 million selling fraudulent investment programs to drill oil and gas wells, a federal grand jury charged Friday.

Bryan S. Coffman and his wife, Megan, both 46, were named in the 30-count indictment along with Gary Milby, 55, of Campbellsville and Vadim "Victor" Tsatskin, 36, of Ontario, Canada.

Brian Coffman, Milby and Tsatskin are charged with mail fraud and wire fraud. The Coffmans also face 11 counts of laundering money from the alleged scam.

The fraud raked in money from hundreds of investors in several states and countries by promising big returns from wells in south-central Kentucky that were actually "dry holes" in many cases, or which had little potential to produce as pledged, according to the indictment and a motion in a related lawsuit.

Coffman apparently is the same person who ran for 6th District U.S. representative in the Republican primary in 2004, and also ran for the Urban County Council in 2006, both times unsuccessfully.

That candidate listed the same home address as the Bryan Coffman named in an affidavit related to the new criminal charges. The affidavit is included in a lawsuit the government filed last year in an attempt to seize money and property — including a yacht — in Lexington and Charleston, S.C., from the Coffmans.

A man who answered the phone at a number listed for Coffman refused to comment Friday.

In a 2004 response to a Herald-Leader endorsement of another candidate, Coffman said he was a man of vision, courage, values and integrity. He promised that if elected "I will never place myself in a compromising situation or bring shame to the office." A magistrate judge ordered the Coffmans and Milby to appear in court Dec. 16. He issued an arrest warrant for Tsatskin.

The four face up to 20 years on the wire- and mail-fraud charges if convicted, while the Coffmans also face up to 20 years on the money-laundering charges, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney James Zerhusen.

(To continue reading, go here).

Editor's comment: Actually, the lawyer, if the allegations against him prove to be true, could have made a GREAT Kentucky politician!

Wink!!

Kentucky Corrections Department WISELY Decides NOT To Appeal Adverse Lethal Injection Supreme Court Ruling. Read More Below.

Corrections will not appeal lethal injection decision
By Beth Musgrave

FRANKFORT — Death row executions in Kentucky will remain on hold through at least April 15.

The state Department of Corrections has decided to comply with a November state Supreme Court decision and will adopt a lethal injection protocol through the lengthy administrative regulation process, said Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which includes the Department of Corrections.

The department is drafting a regulation that will likely be filed with lawmakers this month, Brislin said.

It’s difficult to say how long it would take the lethal injection protocol to be enacted. If the department files the regulation by Dec. 15, the deadline for executive branch regulations, the earliest it could be enacted is April 15. But it could take longer.

The process includes a public hearing as well as an opportunity for the public to comment via e-mails or written letters about various aspects of the lethal injection protocol. The Department of Corrections then can respond to those comments. The Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee, a legislative panel, would also review the regulation. The House or Senate Judiciary committees could also choose to consider the proposal.

However, even if a legislative committee denies the regulation, Gov. Steve Beshear can overrule the rejection.

In November, the state Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the state could not execute anyone via lethal injection until the Department of Corrections formally adopts the lethal injection protocol.

(To continue reading, go to Lexington Herald Leader).

Editor's comment: Knowing that legislators will play their "tough on crime" charade, I hope Steve Beshear gets ready to overrule their rejection of the correction dept.'s proposal.

David Broder Views "2010: A Daunting Year [For Democrats].

2010: a daunting year
By David Broder

WASHINGTON — It is now as certain as anything can be in politics that 2010 will be a painful year for Democrats — a year of high unemployment, staggering deficits and a growing list of casualties from an unresolved war.

Inside the Obama administration, that fact — and its implication of a sharply reduced congressional majority — is acknowledged. Strategy sessions now turn to the chance of curing some or all of these liabilities before the President faces the voters in 2012.

The economic calamity has been evident for more than a year. The housing bubble collapsed before Obama was even elected and the financial system was on its knees before he took the oath of office. The national debt exploded with the passage of necessary fiscal rescue efforts and it has been painfully clear for months that recovery will be slow and grudging — and nearly devoid of job growth.

This week, we learned that Afghanistan — the other nightmare he inherited — will also test the nation's patience and its capacity for absorbing pain. Obama's long-awaited speech laying out his latest effort to formulate a policy for that 8-year-old war demonstrated nothing so clearly as his inability to escape the miserable choices he has been dealt.

He bowed to the inevitable in agreeing to send 30,000 more American troops to fight the Taliban and their terrorist allies. He had long acknowledged that the presence of al-Qaida, the growing strength of the Taliban and the shakiness of the nuclear-armed regime in neighboring Pakistan all dictated that the United States could not afford to lose its leverage with the people running Kabul.

Corrupt and inefficient as they may be, they are less of a threat than the Taliban would be. And so we must prop them up. If Obama were to acquiesce in the return of those who harbored the 9/11 attackers, even the divided and obstructionist GOP could be ushered back into power.

Obama's rhetoric was skilled enough that many of his listeners Tuesday thought they heard him promise that the buildup of forces in Afghanistan he has ordered will be suspended as early as 2011. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is incapable of dissembling, quickly made it clear that the withdrawal will begin — not end — that year and only if battlefield conditions permit.

Meantime, U.S. troops will be fighting the enemy in the most perilous parts of Afghanistan through all of next year — and probably well beyond.

Obama's reference to his hope that 2011 can see a reversal of the escalation he has ordered was interpreted broadly as a way of putting pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up his corrupt government and start delivering services for his people.

This may be the ultimate aim, but the immediate effect is more likely to be felt by the American military. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American and NATO commander, got almost everything he asked for from the commander in chief, but one more thing beside: an implicit timetable that places an enormous strain on him and everyone in his command to show quick results.

Setting 2011 as the targeted turnaround time for American forces in Afghanistan may make it a bit less painful for dovish Democrats to accept what Obama has done. But it leaves McChrystal and his troops almost no margin for error. It will be mid-2010 before the last of the 30,000 new troops are in the country. And longer than that before the buildup and training of Afghan forces can be accomplished.

Meantime, the Taliban can continue to exploit public frustration with the dysfunctional Afghan government, recruiting new fighters perhaps as fast as McChrystal can woo people away.

This kind of patient struggle for the allegiance of survival-minded people is difficult under the best of circumstances. When the orders are to get it done now, it becomes almost impossible.

It is well that Obama does not panic. Holding things together will be a constant test through every day of 2010.

David S. Broder is a columnist with The Washington Post. His e-mail address is davidbroder@washpost.com.

Editor's comment: Hello?

Knock, knock.

Anyone home?

It's the economy, stupid!

Nigeria's Central Bank Chief, Lamido Sanusi: "If We Say There's No Problem In Nigeria Then We Would Be Dishonest,"

C.bank boss laments Nigerian "culture of corruption"
By Camillus Eboh

ABUJA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Nigeria's "culture of corruption" contributed to the crisis which led to a $4 billion bank bailout earlier this year, with bank chiefs too cosy with powerful politicians, central bank chief Lamido Sanusi said on Thursday.

Sanusi sent a shockwave through the corporate establishment in August and October when he injected funds into nine banks and sacked the top managers of eight of them, saying lax governance had left them so weakly capitalised they posed a systemic risk.

Nigeria's anti-corruption police have filed charges ranging from recklessly granting loans to share price manipulation against many of the executives, including members of a business aristocracy which had long been seen as untouchable.

"You cannot be a good regulator if you are hob-nobbing with the operators. Bank MDs (managing directors) were always in the (presidential) villa," Sanusi told an African stock exchange conference in the capital Abuja.

"How many regulators can discipline the CEOs of banks who were friends to the president? Bank CEOs were sponsoring politicians and political parties. So we have to address the culture of corruption," he said.

"I've been very fortunate to have a president who supports what I'm doing."

The 1.14 trillion naira ($7.6 billion) in bad loans run up by the first five banks bailed out alone is roughly equivalent to the combined annual income of the poorest 20 million people in Africa's most populous nation, who live on around $1 a day.

Yet the bailout shocked Nigeria not for the amounts of money involved but because after only two months in the job, Sanusi had taken on some of its most powerful business figures, with interests ranging from shipping and hotels to oil and media.

"He's always been a radical and his speeches and essays show this," said Kayode Akindele, a director at Lagos-based financial advisory firm Greengate Strategic Partners.

WINNING POWERFUL ENEMIES?

Sanusi's readiness to take on powerful vested interests in a country ranked among the most corrupt in the world has won him praise from international investors, but even his supporters in Nigeria fear it may win him powerful enemies at home.

Sanusi is a related to the Emir of Kano, one of the most powerful traditional rulers in Nigeria, and his royal lineage is seen as helping him to cut through the turbulence and in-fighting of Nigerian politics.

Analysts say he stands out as one of relatively few serving public office holders willing to speak their mind.

"If we say there's no problem in Nigeria then we would be dishonest," he told the Abuja conference.

"It's not only in banking. In Ghana, for instance, a sitting president was defeated with 40,000 votes and he left office. This will never happen in Nigeria. In Nigeria, a president that has left office will be dictating to a sitting president."

Ghana won praise from foreign powers including the United States for electing President John Atta Mills in a peaceful, transparent vote a year ago that defied the stereotype of a region blighted by conflict, coups and crisis.

The Ghanaian vote was a marked contrast to Nigeria's last national elections in 2007, which were so marred by ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation that they were deemed not to be credible by foreign observers.

Nigeria has seen vocal reformists like Sanusi before, such as former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former anti-corruption chief Nuhu Ribadu, but they fell out of favour when the political wind changed.

Some analysts fear Sanusi risks the same fate.

"Although there are one or two good things going on in Nigeria at the moment -- the banks, the oil reform bill -- there is no overarching sense of a reform programme and I think Sanusi in some sense is trying to compensate for this," one Nigeria analyst said, asking not to be named.

"It would be a real shame, but also a silly mistake, for the banking reforms to fail because he can't stay on his own turf."

Lower Unemployment News Makes POTUS Barack Obama "Encouraged" On Economy. Watch Video.

Jack Ditty Plans To Take On Robin Webb For Kentucky Senate Rematch. Read More Below.

Ditty plans rematch against Webb for Senate seat

FRANKFORT – Republican Jack Ditty, a Greenup County dermatologist who narrowly lost a special state Senate election in August to Democrat Robin Webb, said Friday he will run next year for a full four-year term for the office.

“I’m definitely running. I’ve never stopped running and believe with the experience I got in my first bid for public office, I can win,” Ditty said in a telephone interview.

Webb, who won the special election race for the 18th Senate District race in northeastern Kentucky by 282 votes, said she is not surprised that there will be a repeat race next year.

“I feel good about what I’m doing, enjoying it and am honored that the people have sent me to the Senate,” said Webb, adding that she will file to run for the office next year after Christmas.

The 18th District covers Mason, Bracken, Robertson, Carter, Greenup and Lewis counties.

Editor's note: check out the Herald Leader for more.

Freedom’s Martyr: It Is Fitting And Proper To Grant Abolitionist John Brown A Posthumous Pardon.

Freedom’s Martyr
By DAVID S. REYNOLDS

IT’S important for Americans to recognize our national heroes, even those who have been despised by history. Take John Brown.

Today [December 1] is the 150th anniversary of Brown’s hanging — the grim punishment for his raid weeks earlier on Harpers Ferry, Va. With a small band of abolitionists, Brown had seized the federal arsenal there and freed slaves in the area. His plan was to flee with them to nearby mountains and provoke rebellions in the South. But he stalled too long in the arsenal and was captured. He was brought to trial in a Virginia court, convicted of treason, murder and inciting an insurrection, and hanged on Dec. 2, 1859.

It’s a date we should hold in reverence. Yes, I know the response: Why remember a misguided fanatic and his absurd plan for destroying slavery?

There are compelling reasons. First, the plan was not absurd. Brown reasonably saw the Appalachians, which stretch deep into the South, as an ideal base for a guerrilla war. He had studied the Maroon rebels of the West Indies, black fugitives who had used mountain camps to battle colonial powers on their islands. His plan was to create panic by arousing fears of a slave rebellion, leading Southerners to view slavery as dangerous and impractical.

Second, he was held in high esteem by many great men of his day. Ralph Waldo Emerson compared him to Jesus, declaring that Brown would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” Henry David Thoreau placed Brown above the freedom fighters of the American Revolution. Frederick Douglass said that while he had lived for black people, John Brown had died for them. A later black reformer, W. E. B. Du Bois, called Brown the white American who had “come nearest to touching the real souls of black folk.”

Du Bois was right. Unlike nearly all other Americans of his era, John Brown did not have a shred of racism. He had long lived among African-Americans, trying to help them make a living, and he wanted blacks to be quickly integrated into American society. When Brown was told he could have a clergyman to accompany him to the gallows, he refused, saying he would be more honored to go with a slave woman and her children.

By the time of his hanging, John Brown was so respected in the North that bells tolled in many cities and towns in his honor. Within two years, the Union troops marched southward singing, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul keeps marching on.” Brown remained a hero to the North right up through Reconstruction.

However, he fell from grace during the long, dark period of Jim Crow. The attitude was, who cares about his progressive racial views, except a few blacks? His reputation improved a bit with the civil rights movement, but he is still widely dismissed as a deranged cultist. This is an injustice to a forward-thinking man dedicated to the freedom and political participation of African-Americans.

O.K., some might say, but how about the blotches on his record, especially the murders and bloody skirmishes in Kansas in the 1850s? Brown considered himself a soldier at war. His attacks on pro-slavery forces were part of an escalating cycle of pre-emptive and retaliatory violence that most historians now agree were in essence the first engagements of the Civil War.

Besides, none of the heroes from that period is unblemished. Lincoln was the Great Emancipator, but he shared the era’s racial prejudices, and even after the war started thought that blacks should be shipped out of the country once they were freed. Andrew Jackson was the man of his age, but in addition to being a slaveholder, he has the extra infamy of his callous treatment of Native Americans, for which some hold him guilty of genocide. John Brown comes with “buts” — but in that he has plenty of company. He deserves to be honored today.

For starters, he should be pardoned. Technically, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia would have to do this, since Brown was tried on state charges and executed there. Such a posthumous pardon by a state occurred just this October, when South Carolina pardoned two black men who were executed 94 years ago for murdering a Confederate veteran.

A presidential pardon, however, would be more meaningful. Posthumous pardons are by definition symbolic. They’re intended to remove stigma or correct injustice. While the president cannot grant pardons for state crimes, a strong argument can be made for a symbolic exception in Brown’s case.

By today’s standards, his crime was arguably of a federal nature, as his attack was on a federal arsenal in what is now West Virginia. His actions were prompted by federal slavery rulings he considered despicable, especially the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. Brown was captured by federal troops under Robert E. Lee. And the Virginia court convicted him of treason against Virginia even though he was not a resident. (He was tried in Virginia at the orders of its governor, probably to avert Northern political pressure on the federal government.)

There is precedent for presidential pardons of the deceased; in 1999, Bill Clinton pardoned Henry O. Flipper, an African-American lieutenant who was court-martialed in 1881 for misconduct. Last year, George W. Bush gave a posthumous pardon to Charles Winters, an American punished for supplying B-17 bombers to Israel in the late 1940s. In October, Senator John McCain and Representative Peter King petitioned President Obama to pardon Jack Johnson, the black boxing champion, who was convicted a century ago of transporting a white woman across state lines for immoral purposes.

Justice would be served, belatedly, if President Obama and Governor Kaine found a way to pardon a man whose heroic effort to free four million enslaved blacks helped start the war that ended slavery. Once and for all, rescue John Brown from the loony bin of history.

David S. Reynolds, a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, is the author of “John Brown, Abolitionist” and “Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson.”

Is POTUS Barack Obama Leaving Himself WIGGLE Room On Afghanistan Troop "Surge 2" Withdrawal Date? Watch Video.

Words To Ponder.

When it is a question of money everyone is of the same religion.

-- Voltaire

Joel Pett Takes On Jim Bunning And Mitch McConnell And Provides Today's Laughter.

Amanda Ross' Family Sues Mary Nunn, Steve Nunn's Daughter, For Her "Wrongful Death".

Nunn's daughter added to wrongful death suit
By Stephenie Steitzer

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The family of Amanda Ross, the Lexington woman allegedly murdered by former state Rep. Steve Nunn, has sued Nunn’s 28-year-old daughter.

Mary Nunn of Glasgow was added as a defendant in an amended wrongful death lawsuit filed Thursday against her father, who has been indicted on charges of murder and violating a domestic violence protective order in Ross’ death.

Steve Nunn, 57, is accused of shooting Ross, 29, his ex-fiance, outside her Lexington townhouse on the morning of Sept. 11. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held in the Fayette County Detention Center.

Ross’ family originally filed the wrongful death suit in September and added Mary Nunn as a defendant Thursday. The amended complaint alleges that Steve Nunn fraudulently transferred personal property in his house to his oldest daughter after the suit had been filed. She subsequently sold the items at auction.

The suit seeks damages for pain and suffering, medical expenses, Ross' funeral costs and the loss of her future earning capacity, as well as punitive damages. It does not include a dollar figure.

Steve Nunn transferred possession of the household items to his daughter in September, according to documents. A Fayette Circuit judge ordered that proceeds from the sale of the items be held in an escrow account of her attorney, David Broderick of Bowling Green, until further orders from the court.

The order resulted from objections to the sale by Ross’ mother, Diana Ross, who contended that Nunn transferred the property fraudulently.

It is unclear from court documents how much money was placed in Broderick’s escrow account or what items were sold.

Broderick did not return a call seeking comment, and Mary Nunn couldn’t be reached.

The amended suit also accuses Steve Nunn of fraudulently transferring his Glasgow home to his attorney, Warren Scoville of London, to cover his attorney fees.

Scoville, whose firm also was added as a defendant, sold the property at auction in November for $170,000. After liens, property taxes and auction fees were paid, $137,000 remained. A judge also ordered that money to be held in an escrow account until further orders from the court.

Scoville declined to comment Thursday.

Earlier this week he asked the court to release the money in his escrow account. A judge could decide the matter at a hearing Friday in Fayette Circuit Court.

In a response to Scoville’s request, an attorney for Ross’ family objected to the release. Lexington attorney R. Burl McCoy alleges that Nunn could have accessed his legislative pension to pay his attorney’s fees, rather than transferring his property to Mary Nunn and Scoville.

The response states that Nunn, who served 16 years in the House, has a pension worth more than $550,000 but “against which the plaintiff likely cannot attach a judgment.”

McCoy didn’t return a call seeking comment Thursday.

Donna Early, executive director of the Kentucky Legislators Retirement Plan, said legislators’ pensions are not subject to garnishment under state law.

Nunn’s pension is significantly higher as a result of his serving one year as deputy secretary in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

State law allows legislators to use a non-legislative salary in another state job — Nunn made $117,875 in 2008 — to calculate their legislative pensions.

The court documents state that Nunn has immediate access to the money, although he hasn’t yet reached retirement age.

Early said Nunn could access his pension early, but state law does not allow legislators to withdraw their pensions in a lump sum.

According to public records, Nunn could access $1,764 a month if he retired at his current age. That’s a 25 percent reduction from what he would otherwise be eligible to collect if he waits until he is 62.

Even if Nunn is convicted of murder, Early said he would still be eligible to collect his pension. Pensions are forfeited only if a legislator is convicted of a crime related to serving in office, such as bribery.

Reporter Stephenie Steitzer can be reached at (502) 875-5136.

Senator Jim Bunning Aims To Derail Ben Bernacke For Fed Chairman. Watch Video.

"Scoring High On Tests, Doesn't Mean You're Smart". AMEN To That Nwes!

Scoring high on tests, doesn't mean you're smart, says Grawemeyer winner
By Nancy C. Rodriguez

Ever met someone who had a perfect score on the ACT college-entrance exam, but just wasn’t that swift in real life?

It turns out there is a reason for that, and University of Toronto’s Keith Stanovich not only studies it, he has a name for it — “dysrationalia.” The term refers to the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence.

In his 2009 book, “What Intelligence Tests Miss: Psychology of Rational Thought,” Stanovich argues that intelligence tests as well as college entrance exams fail to measure a person’s ability for rational thought. In fact, his research shows that intelligence “is a mild predictor at best” for rational thinking skills, which people use in every day life to plan, evaluate and weigh risks.

“It is ironic because most lay people are prone to think that IQ tests are tests of, to put it colloquially, good thinking,” Stanovich said. “Yet assessments of good thinking — rational thinking — are nowhere to be found in IQ tests.”

The book and its findings have led Stanovich — a professor of human development and applied psychology — to be selected as the 2010 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award winner in Education.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” Stanovich said during a phone interview. “It’s not the type of thing that people expect.…You don’t sit around and think about winning.”

Stanovich — who was chosen from among 34 nominations world-wide — will receive $200,000 and will speak at U of L in April.

Bill Bush, a U of L education professor who is the director of the education award, said the Stanovich “makes a good case that current tests miss the mark in measuring the full range of our thinking and reasoning.

“He also encourages us to rethink what intelligence means and come up with a better way to measure this important human trait,” Bush said, noting that Stanovich’s work has potential for changing not only the way we view and assess intelligence but also how we structure learning and teaching goals in schools.

The research is particularly timely for Kentucky, where state leaders and policy makers are grappling with developing new tests that will assess whether school children are acquiring the skills they need to succeed in postsecondary education and the workplace. The ACT — and several other similar type tests developed by ACT for lower grades — are already part of the state’s school testing system.

Editor's note: Go here to continue reading.

Kathleen Imhoff, Former Lexington Library Chief Executive, Has Been PORNING Us. No Kidding. Read The Audit Report.

Yes, read the audit report here, and the H-L account below:

City audit finds adult materials, deletions on library CEO's computers
By John Cheves

A city audit of the Lexington Public Library turned up 1,522 "adult materials" on the laptop computer assigned to Kathleen Imhoff, the library's former chief executive, in violation of library policy. In addition, more than 10,000 files were deleted from the director's computer two days after she was notified not to alter or remove any documents, the audit said.

The audit also found that Imhoff had unauthorized outside employment that used library time and resources; and that there were tens of thousands of dollars in "questionable spending" on library credit cards.

The audit was made public Thursday and provided to Mayor Jim Newberry and the Urban County Council.

City auditors started to examine the library in April when the Herald-Leader detailed more than $134,000 in spending by Imhoff on travel, meals, gifts and other items over five years, with little oversight. Most of the library's $15 million annual budget comes from Fayette County property taxes.

The library board fired Imhoff in July, shortly after Newberry removed the board's chairman and vice chairman.

Imhoff's attorney did not immediately return a call Thursday seeking comment on the audit.

Among their recommendations, city auditors advised that all library credit cards be canceled and replaced, if necessary, with a limited number of procurement cards that cannot be used for non-business purposes. In its response to the audit, the library board agreed with that recommendation and pledged sweeping reforms in how the library spends its money.

KARL ROVE: "[POTUS Barack] Obama Can Win In Afghanistan".

Obama Can Win in Afghanistan
If the president keeps his nerve, he'll get the country's support.
By KARL ROVE

President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday night deserves to be cheered. Over the objections of his vice president and despite opposition from his political base, the president is sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to fight terrorists.

But praise for Mr. Obama's decision needs to be qualified. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, had said he could use as many as 40,000 troops, a figure he arrived at after carefully evaluating what would be needed to accomplish the mission Mr. Obama assigned him in June.

Mr. Obama hopes NATO can make up the difference between troops he's sending and the top number Gen. McChrystal asked for. So far, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has rounded up 5,000 additional forces that can be sent to Afghanistan, but they may not have the combat capabilities Gen. McChrystal needs.

Mr. Obama also announced he would begin withdrawing the surge troops in 18 months. While he didn't specify the pace and end date of that drawdown and made it conditional on where things stand at the time, setting an arbitrary date will likely embolden our enemies and raise questions about our commitment to the war.

The president's tone was defensive as he implausibly argued that his lengthy review hadn't delayed anything, because all the options he considered included sending new troops next year. But because of the inaction over the past three months the military will now be put under extra stress in order to deploy troops before the spring fighting season.

Mr. Obama did match the surge with a reaffirmation of the comprehensive counterinsurgency plan he announced March 27. But the president's staff explained his policy better in background briefings than Mr. Obama did in his speech.

Mr. Obama missed a chance for a grace note when, while finally acknowledging the success of the Iraq surge, he couldn't admit he was wrong to oppose it or bring himself to praise President George W. Bush for ordering it. And in a bow to his party's antiwar fringe, Mr. Obama wrung his hands over the economy and domestic concerns, which came across as out of place in a foreign policy speech.

Middle Eastern leaders are probably trying to understand why Mr. Obama talked about the importance of a stable Pakistan, while discouraging talk of nation- building in Afghanistan. They may ask what happened to the candidate who wrote in the Washington Post in July 2008 that "The Afghan people must know that our commitment to their future is enduring, because the security of Afghanistan and the United States is shared."

Still, Tuesday's speech should improve Mr. Obama's standing at home. It wasn't just former Vice President Dick Cheney who disapproved of what he called the president's dithering on Afghanistan. So did the American people: Mr. Obama's job approval on Afghanistan slid to 35% immediately before his speech this week, from 56% in July.

Yet the American people seem poised to accept Mr. Obama's action. In late November, 47% told Gallup they supported a troop increase in Afghanistan, while only 39% backed a reduction. This was up from 42% in favor and 44% opposed about two weeks earlier. Unleashing his military and national security team to swarm Congress and TV talk shows will help his case.

The Democratic Party's antiwar faction is upset over the president's decision. It's almost as if they didn't think Mr. Obama meant it when he said of Afghanistan during the presidential campaign that "this is a war we have to win" and a "war of necessity."

It is not simply grass-roots malcontents or backbenchers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan," House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey called it "a fool's errand," and Sen. Arlen Specter denounced the surge as a "venture not worth so many American lives or the billions it will add to our deficit."

Fortunately, the antiwar left has little power to stop the president from making good on his commitments. Notwithstanding Mr. Obama's vote against funding the war in Afghanistan in May 2007, the White House can win a battle over war funding by standing with a coalition of victory-centered Republicans and Democrats who don't want their president embarrassed.

Only a failure of presidential nerve or an unwillingness to make further midcourse corrections as the need arises will keep Mr. Obama from achieving the goals he has spelled out.

Victory can still be won. It won't be quick and it won't be easy, and it will take active leadership from Mr. Obama. But it is now within his grasp.

Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of the forthcoming book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).

GEORGE F. WILL Laments "War Without End".

War without end
By GEORGE F. WILL

WASHINGTON — A traveler asks a farmer how to get to a particular village. The farmer replies, “If I were you, I wouldn't start from here.” Barack Obama, who asked to be president, nevertheless deserves sympathy for having to start where America is in Afghanistan.

But after 11 months of graceless disparagements of the 43rd president, the 44th acts as though he is the first president whose predecessor bequeathed a problematic world. And Obama's second new Afghanistan policy in less than nine months strikingly resembles his predecessor's plan for Iraq, which was: As Iraq's security forces stand up, U.S. forces will stand down.

Having vowed to “finish the job,” Obama revealed Tuesday that he thinks the job in Afghanistan is to get out of Afghanistan. This is an unserious policy.

Obama's surge will bring to 51,000 his Afghanistan escalation since March. Supposedly this will buy time for Afghan forces to become adequate. But it is not intended to buy much time: Although the war is in its 98th month, Obama's “Mission Accomplished” banner will be unfurled 19 months from now — when Afghanistan's security forces supposedly will be self-sufficient. He must know this will not happen.

In a spate of mid-November interviews — while participating in the President's protracted rethinking of policy — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described America's Afghanistan goal(s) somewhat differently. They are “to defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies” because “al-Qaida and the other extremists are part of a syndicate of terror, with al-Qaida still being an inspiration, a funder, a trainer, an equipper and director of a lot of what goes on.” And: “We want to do everything we can to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida.” And: “We want to get the people who attacked us.” And: “We want to get al-Qaida.” And: “We are in Afghanistan because we cannot permit the return of a staging platform for terrorists.”

But al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan do not number in the tens of thousands, or even thousands. Or perhaps even hundreds. Although “the people who attacked us” were al-Qaida, the threat that justifies today's escalation is, Clinton says, a “syndicate of terror” of which al-Qaida is just an important part. But is Afghanistan central to the syndicate?

George W. Bush waged preventive war in Iraq regarding (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction. Obama is waging preventive war in Afghanistan to prevent it from again becoming “a staging platform for terrorists,” which Somalia, Yemen or other sovereignty near-vacuums also could become. To prevent the “staging platform” scenario, U.S. forces might have to be engaged in Afghanistan for decades before its government can prevent that by itself.

Before Tuesday, the administration had said (through White House spokesman Robert Gibbs) that U.S. forces will not be there “another eight or nine years.” Tuesday the Taliban heard a distant U.S. trumpet sounding withdrawal beginning in 19 months. Also hearing it were Afghans who must decide whether to bet their lives on the Americans, who will begin striking their tents in July 2011, or on the Taliban, who are not going home, because they are at home.

Many Democrats, who think the $787billion stimulus was too small and want another one (but by another name), are flinching from the $30billion one-year cost of the Afghan surge. Considering that the GM and GMAC bailouts ($63billion) are five times bigger than Afghanistan's GDP ($12billion), Democrats seem to be selective worriers about deficits. Of course, their real worry is how to wriggle out of their endorsement of the “necessary” war in Afghanistan, which was a merely tactical endorsement intended to disparage the “war of choice” in Iraq.

The President's party will not support his new policy, his budget will not accommodate it, our overstretched and worn down military will be hard-pressed to execute it, and Americans' patience will not be commensurate with Afghanistan's limitless demands for it. This will not end well.

A case can be made for a serious, meaning larger and more protracted, surge. A better case can be made for a radically reduced investment of resources and prestige in that forlorn country. Obama has not made a convincing case for his tentative surgelet.

George Orwell said the quickest way to end a war is to lose it. But Obama's half-hearted embrace of a half-baked nonstrategy — briefly feinting toward the Taliban (or al-Qaida, or a “syndicate of terror”) while lunging for the exit ramp — makes a protracted loss probable.

George F. Will is a syndicated columnist with The Washington Post. His e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com.

Update: Bonus cartoon below:

Admiral Mike Mullin, Chairman Of The Joint Chief Of Staff, On POTUS Barack Obama's Afghanistan Troop "Surge 2". Watch Video.

Bob Herbert: "A Tragic Mistake."

A tragic mistake
By Bob Herbert

"I hate war," said Dwight Eisenhower, “as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

He also said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

I suppose we'll never learn. President Obama went on TV Tuesday night to announce that he plans to send tens of thousands of additional American troops to Afghanistan to fight in a war that has lasted most of the decade and has long since failed.

After going through an extended period of highly ritualized consultations and deliberations, the President has arrived at a decision that never was much in doubt, and that will prove to be a tragic mistake. It was also, for the President, the easier option.

It would have been much more difficult for Obama to look this troubled nation in the eye and explain why it is in our best interest to begin winding down the permanent state of warfare left to us by the Bush and Cheney regime. It would have taken real courage for the commander in chief to stop feeding our young troops into the relentless meat grinder of Afghanistan, to face up to the terrible toll the war is taking — on the troops themselves and in very insidious ways on the nation as a whole.

More soldiers committed suicide this year than in any year for which we have complete records. But the military is now able to meet its recruitment goals because the young men and women who are signing up can't find jobs in civilian life. The United States is broken — school systems are deteriorating, the economy is in shambles, homelessness and poverty rates are expanding — yet we're nation-building in Afghanistan, sending economically distressed young people over there by the tens of thousands at an annual cost of a million dollars each.

I keep hearing that Americans are concerned about gargantuan budget deficits. Well, the idea that you can control mounting deficits while engaged in two wars that you refuse to raise taxes to pay for is a patent absurdity. Small children might believe something along those lines. Rational adults should not.

Politicians are seldom honest when they talk publicly about warfare. Lyndon Johnson knew in the spring of 1965, as he made plans for the first big expansion of U.S. forces in Vietnam, that there was no upside to the war.

A recent Bill Moyers program on PBS played audio tapes of Johnson on which he could be heard telling Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, “Not a damn human thinks that 50,000 or 100,000 or 150,000 (American troops) are going to end that war.”

McNamara replies, “That's right.”

Nothing like those sentiments were conveyed to the public as Johnson and McNamara jacked up the draft and started feeding young American boys and men into the Vietnam meat grinder.

Afghanistan is not Vietnam. There was every reason for American forces to invade Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. But that war was botched and lost by the Bush crowd, and Barack Obama does not have a magic wand now to make it all better.

Obama told the public Tuesday that he is sending another 30,000 or so troops to Afghanistan. And while he has a strategy in mind for eventually turning the fight over to the ragtag and less-than-energetic Afghan military, it's clear that U.S. forces will be engaged for years to come, perhaps many years.

The tougher choice for the President would have been to tell the public that the U.S. is a nation faced with terrible troubles here at home and that it is time to begin winding down a war that veered wildly off track years ago. But that would have taken great political courage. It would have left Obama vulnerable to the charge of being weak, of cutting and running, of betraying the troops who have already served. The Republicans would have a field day with that scenario.

Lyndon Johnson is heard on the tapes telling Sen. Richard Russell, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, about a comment made by a Texas rancher in the days leading up to the buildup in Vietnam. The rancher had told Johnson that the public would forgive the president “for everything except being weak.”

Russell said: “Well, there's a lot in that. There's a whole lot in that.”

We still haven't learned to recognize real strength, which is why it so often seems that the easier choice for a president is to keep the troops marching off to war.

Bob Herbert is a New York Times columnist.

Breaking News: Secret Service Folks May Lose Jobs Over White House Dinner Crashers FIASCO. Yes, They Should, And So Should Others.

Secret Service agents could be fired for White House breach
By Scott Wilson and Jason Horowitz

"Secret Service chief Mark Sullivan told a Congressional committee Thursday morning that the agents who admitted Tareq and Michaele Salahi through a White House checkpoint at last week's state dinner have been placed on administrative leave and could lose their jobs."

Editor's note: to continue reading, check out the Post here.

Watch secret services mea culpa video:



Editor's comment: Remove the "could" and substitute "will" for it and then we are talking.

Many others, not just the secret service folks, should lose their jobs over this fiasco that put a lot of our leaders in possible danger.

Lexington Herald Leader Sees A "Reasonable Option In A Bad Situation".

Reasonable option in a bad situation

Having inherited a badly botched mission, President Barack Obama has outlined as good a strategy as is probably possible for salvaging U.S. interests in Afghanistan.

A 30,000 troop surge with an 18-month timeline gives the Afghans time and support to take control of their country from the repressive Taliban — plus the incentive of a deadline.

Some Republicans, including Sen. Jim Bunning, are criticizing Obama for not making an open-ended commitment of troops and money.

But an occupation would never succeed. Afghanistan isn't called the graveyard of empires for nothing. Just ask the Russians.

With this deployment, Obama will have doubled U.S. forces in Afghanistan, giving Gen. Stanley McCrystal the opportunity to carry out a swift counterinsurgency, stabilize the country and build Afghan capacity for self-governance.

We would have liked to see the U.S. out of Afghanistan yesterday; it's been eight years, after all, and the U.S. won there once.

But the Bush administration neglected this legitimate front in the war on terror to pick an unnecessary and still unfinished fight in Iraq. The defeated Taliban was allowed to regroup, especially along the lawless border with Pakistan.

Letting Afghanistan fall back under Taliban control, and again become a safe haven for al-Qaida to launch terrorist attacks, would pose a direct threat to this country and the world.

Obama, in contrast to his predecessor, arrived at this decision through deliberation and planning.

Now that the decision is made, the president is moving swiftly to give McCrystal the extra troops by early next year, which is when the general sought them in his original request.

Obama's strategy has big risks. But Afghanistan is not Vietnam. The U.S. was attacked from Afghanistan. The Taliban, who want to impose a Medieval social order, lack broad support from the Afghan people. And our allies are with us in Afghanistan.

Also, the dangers of a domino effect are real if the Taliban and al-Qaida destabilize nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Obama, who had no good choices in Afghanistan, laid out the rationale for his new strategy as eloquently as always. The hard part will be carrying it out.

Cal Thomas: America's, Not Obama's, War.

America's, not Obama's, war
By Cal Thomas

President Barack Obama should be commended for committing 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to root out al-Qaida and stabilize major portions of the country. I am far less certain about establishing a timetable, though Obama did say it depended on conditions on the ground. This isn't like telling your college student he has so many months to stop partying and get his grades up or the tuition gets cut off. In this war, a timetable can only encourage the enemy to hang on until we depart.

Mentioning the cost of the war is another caveat that ought to be less important than he made it. What was the cost of 9/11 in human and economic terms? What would be the cost of another 9/11, especially if it involved weapons of mass destruction? In such an instance, the argument would not be whether we spent too much, but whether we spent too little.

The President is likely to get more support for his decision from his critics on the right than his liberal supporters, who are still living under the misconception that we can stop wars by not fighting them. As the President said at West Point, we didn't attack al-Qaida; they attacked us.

Opinion polls, while volatile, continue to show that the public doesn't want to lose this war. According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll (Nov. 20-22, 2009), 60 percent of the public does not believe the United States made a mistake when it attacked al-Qaida in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. Only 36 percent believe we did. According to a CBS News/New York Times Poll conducted in February 2009, 89 percent supported the war effort in October 2001. What is remarkable is the support level has not declined further given America's preference for short conflicts.

There is a cautionary note in the polling. Only 30 percent in the USA Today/Gallup Poll think the war is going “moderately well.” Forty-five percent believe it is going “moderately badly” and 21 percent think it is going “very badly.” That is no doubt why the President laid down markers for the Afghan government to meet. But will it? Can it? We saw how long it took to train Iraqis to take over from U.S. forces. Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is far more complicated.

A CBS News Poll (Nov. 13-16, 2009) indicates support for the President's management of the war continues to decline. As recently as October, the President's approval-disapproval numbers were 42 percent and 34 percent. Last month's poll showed public approval had flipped with 43 percent disapproving of his handling of the war and only 38 percent approving of it. The surge could change that, as the Iraq surge changed President George W. Bush's approval numbers.

The problem for the public and for political leaders is that there has never been a war like this one. We are making up the strategy as we go. Unlike our enemies whose only focus is killing Americans, destroying our economy and imposing Sharia law, we battle political correctness and the false notion that we can make terrorists like us by being nice to them. In fact, the only thing terrorists understand is power and resolve. They must be crushed, not accommodated, and not with kindness.

The failure of the Obama brand of diplomacy is on display in Iran. After several overtures to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and lots of speeches stressing diplomacy, Iran has announced plans not to dismantle its nuclear program, but to build 10 more nuclear facilities, ignoring U.N. resolutions and pleadings from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Democrats have a problem. Following 9/11 they supported the war, but when polls showed public approval declining, they criticized it in hopes of bringing down President Bush's approval numbers. The party's liberal wing is increasingly against the war, but now that President Obama has ordered more troops to Afghanistan than President Bush, Obama and his party effectively “own” it. Which is too bad, because this war ought not to “belong” to one party or persuasion. It is America's war to win or lose. Americans of all political stripes should hope and pray the President's strategy works, not for any political benefit he might derive, but for America's sake.

Cal Thomas is a columnist with Tribune Media Services.

Louisville Courier Journal Editorial: "[POTUS] Barack Obama's Conflict".

Afghan escalation

Even in the eternal fog of war, one thing about Afghanistan is apparent: It is now Barack Obama's conflict.

The President announced a military build-up Tuesday night, when he told the Corps of Cadets at West Point that he is authorizing deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

The strategy he outlined involves intensified fighting — to reverse alarming gains by a revitalized Taliban insurgency and to destroy remaining pockets of al-Qaida fighters. But it also aims to strengthen training and readiness of Afghan forces, to prod the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai to curtail corruption and to build public support, to provide greater aid to civilians, to increase assistance from neighboring Pakistan and from NATO allies, and to lay the foundation for a U.S. withdrawal beginning in mid-2011.

Mr. Obama, in a word, is betting that he can escalate the conflict, achieve quick military and diplomatic progress, and then leave. It is not an irrational belief, and the White House insists it represents the best choice from a menu of bad options. But it is nonetheless a very high-risk gamble whose fragile prospects of success depend on a lot of other people fulfilling assigned roles.

First, Americans must hope that the presence of 100,000 U.S. troops and another 40,000 foreign soldiers will not actually fuel insurgency, as occupying forces often do. Mr. Karzai, who has seemed inept and at best indifferent to corruption and drug trafficking, must respond effectively to American demands that he establish legitimacy in his people's eyes. NATO allies must commit to a stronger military effort, even though the war is deeply unpopular in Europe and Canada. American domestic support must remain strong enough to permit prosecution and funding of the war.

The biggest wild card, however, may be Pakistan. Indeed, it is tempting to conclude that Pakistan is really at the heart of the President's thinking. The spillover of al-Qaida and Taliban forcesinto Pakistan has triggered terrorist bombings and fighting in Pakistan and nurtured a nightmare scenario in which a nuclear-armed state falls into the hands of Islamist fanatics. Persuading the skeptical Pakistani political and military leadership to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida more aggressively is a key to the President's plans.

Americans of all political persuasions should hope the mission can be achieved and that a withdrawal can begin in less than two years. Surely, the entire nation yearns for the safety and success of the young men and women who must wage the fight against the enemy in Afghanistan.

But the President's new directives rest heavily on military progress to achieve political results. As Vietnam and Iraq demonstrated, that is a precarious premise.

An alternative approach, one that we would have preferred, would have been to push Afghanistan harder toward a broad political settlement, even if it meant trying to negotiate with less radical factions of the Taliban. Meanwhile, perhaps military operations could have been gradually reduced to air strikes, missile attacks and operations by special forces that pinpoint al-Qaida units, not just in Afghanistan but also in Somalia, Yemen and other countries where the terrorist organization has established bases.

Finally, whether one agrees or differs with the President's decision, Afghanistan is yet another example of the wreckage left Mr. Obama by his predecessor — two wars that were going badly, economic crisis and soaring national debt.

In the case of Afghanistan, President George W. Bush appropriately ordered an invasion in 2001 to destroy the al-Qaida terrorist network which had planned the 9/11 attacks and to depose the Taliban regime that had given the plotters safe haven. However, as a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee report makes clear, the Bush administration deployed too few troops to the mountainous area where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was holed up in December 2001, with the result that bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida and Taliban officials escaped.

The failure to capture or kill bin Laden, the report concludes, strengthened al-Qaida, eliminated prospects for a quick U.S. exit from Afghanistan and triggered an influx of militants into Pakistan. Moreover, the Bush administration's misguided shift of attention to Iraq led to a long period of neglect in Afghanistan.

But that is the past, and that was Mr. Bush's war. Now it is Mr. Obama's.

Florida Police Release After Accident Pictures Of Tiger -- Or Is It Cheetah -- Woods. Watch.

Joel Pett Reacts To POTUS Barack Obama's Afghanistan Troop "Surge 2". LOL.