DebateGate

What’s Bill Clinton hiding this time?
Editor and Publisher put a gushing headline on the story: “Bill Clinton Asked His Staffers to Investigate — Him!”

What a swell guy that Bill Clinton, huh? Read the first 4 paragraphs:

An article by Marc Ambinder in the forthcoming May issue of The Atlantic (not yet available online) explores what he calls one of the “the juicier subplots of the 2008 presidential campaign” – the role to be played by former President Bill Clinton will play.

Ambinder reveals that at Clinton’s urging “researchers at his presidential library and his offices in Harlem embarked on a highly secretive two-year project: investigating their own boss.

“The team conducted a painstaking reexamination of all the well-worn issues from Clinton’s presidency, poring over trial transcripts, internal White House documents, notes, and public and private correspondence, searching for any overlooked information that could be used to give new life to old embarrassments. Perhaps more important, the researchers covered Clinton’s postpresidential history too, with a muckraker’s eye, including the rumors about his private life that inevitably trail him.

“All but a handful of Clinton’s staff and friends were kept in the dark about the vetting process, though two who did know about it confirmed its existence to me. Neither would describe how the results were disseminated or who has access to them now. But the purpose of the exercise is clear enough: Bill Clinton wants to know what everybody else could know about Bill Clinton. Knowing that, we can safely conclude this, too: Bill Clinton hopes to play a major role in his wife’s campaign.”

No honest man would do such a thing.

Bill Clinton obviously has something to hide. He wants to see if anyone can find it — and then obviously, destroy the evidence found.

This is not a game. This is a mission with a purpose.

The left lean of the Editor and Publisher story and the Atlantic Monthly’s pro-Clinton leanings tell me the Clintons leaked the story for a reason.

The Clintons are sitting on tons of money right now (I weigh money at $10,000 per pound) with few rules on how the money is spent. Opposition research is a routine expenditure. Self-oppo research is routine as well. Bill Clinton’s reputation as a cad is a known. If he cheats on Hillary now, who cares? Unlike when he was in office, cheating today would not count as sexual harrassment.

The signs point to there being something more. Ambinder said Clinton has “a longing to return to the presidential campaign trail that Al Gore overcautiously denied him.”

Gore is no rocket scientist, but he knows politics. There was a reason he shunned Clinton in 2000 and continues to do so today. Seems to me it would take something bigger than Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and the rest of the crowd to make Al Gore distance himself from Clinton — especially in such a close race.

This curious self-oppo research story raises that old issue.

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2007/04/07/604/

ANOTHER BAD REVIEW FOR PELOSI, in Lebanon's Daily Star:


We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus." Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.

Pelosi embarked on a fool's errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad - when she wasn't on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni - is "the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah." What the speaker doesn't seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria's enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.

via Instapundit

TACOMA, Wash. - A family feud may be behind a fake ad on Craigslist that invited people to take whatever they wanted for free from a Tacoma home, but it appears police aren't ready to haul anyone to jail for it.

Neighbors tell KING 5 News the woman who used to live in the home died recently. Her children lived there with her, but after her death, homeowner Laurie Raye kicked out her brother and sister. That's leading some to speculate the siblings may be responsible for the ad.

Tacoma Police say they consider the case to be a civil matter, not a criminal one.

A phone caller alerted Raye to the destruction. She walked through her garbage strewn front yard to find her house dismantled.

"Including the front door," said Raye. "This used to be a very nice vinyl window here."

From the light fixtures to the hot water heater, everything is gone - including the kitchen sink.

Her neighbors later reported seeing strangers hauling stuff away from her home, seemingly looking for salvage material.

The "ad" was posted on Craigslist last weekend.

"In the ad, it said come and take what you want. Everything is free," said Raye. "Please help yourself to anything on the property."

An off-duty Tacoma police officer noticed the Craigslist ad last week, inviting people to enter the unlocked house and take whatever they wanted. Later, that same officer noticed the ad was flagged and canceled after a reported burglary at the house.

"We've had a lot of scams off of Craigslist," said Detective Gretchen Ellis, Tacoma Police Department. "We've had prostitution things happen, rental scams, fraudulent activity. In this case, it appeared the items were going to be given away, but they were not."

"This can happen to anybody, but look what happened to me," said Raye.

Raye believes the unknown person who posted the ad carries a personal grudge against her, but that person also conned unsuspecting people into taking part.

"The instigator who published this ad invited the public to come in and vandalize me," said Raye.

When Raye contacted Craigslist, she received an email back saying they can't release information about who posted the ad without a subpoena or search warrant. Tacoma Police say they are not going to require Craigslist to reveal who placed the ad.

KING 5 was unable to get anyone from Craigslist to personally respond to this story, but the Web site has a long list of rules that clearly prohibit people from posting material that is illegal, harmful, threatening or harassing.


http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_040507WABcraigslistadLJ.34e92f1d.html#

Here’s a fun question to ask people after a few drinks: What’s your permanent age?

I’ve observed that everyone has a permanent age that appears to be set at birth. For example, I’ve always been 42-years old. I was ill-suited for being a little kid, and didn’t enjoy most kid activities. By first grade I knew I wanted to be an adult, with an established career, car, house and a decent tennis game. I didn’t care for my awkward and unsettled twenties. And I’m not looking forward to the rocking chair. If I could be one age forever, it would be 42.

When I ask people about their permanent age, they usually beg it off by saying they don’t have one. But if you press, you always get an answer. And the age they pick won’t surprise you. Some people are kids all their lives. They will admit they are 12-years old. Other people have always had senior citizen interests and perspectives. If you’re 30-years old in nominal terms, but you love bingo and you think kids should stop wearing those big baggy pants and listening to hip-hop music, your permanent age might be 60.

Another way to divide people is by asking if they live in the present or the future. I live in the future. I don’t dwell on the past. I’m always thinking about what’s next. When I sit down for a movie – no matter how much I expect to like it – I always look at my watch and imagine it being over. My mood is mostly determined by my expectations of how tomorrow will be. This works for me because I’m an optimist, and the future can’t disappoint me in the present.

Other people live in the moment. If today isn’t just right, they believe today is a bad day. Tomorrow is too far away to influence how they feel today. That’s a good point of view as long as today is going well.

Some people are locked in the past; it sneaks into all of their conversations and colors their perceptions more than it should. They spend their lives either consciously or unconsciously trying to turn the future into the past. They tend to be unhappy.

So what age are you? And do you live in the past, present or future?

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/03/whats_your_perm.html

Dobson Offers Insight on 2008 Republican Hopefuls
Focus on Family Founder Snubs Thompson, Praises Gingrich
By Dan Gilgoff
Posted 3/28/07
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday.

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, took issue with Dobson's characterization of the former Tennessee senator. "Thompson is indeed a Christian," he said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."

In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian—someone who talks openly about his faith."

"We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," Schneeberger added. "Dr. Dobson wasn't expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy; he was trying to 'read the tea leaves' about such a possibility."

Thompson has said he is leaving the door open for a presidential run and has won plaudits from conservatives who are unenthusiastic about the Republican front-runners. A Gallup-USA Today poll, released Tuesday, showed Thompson in third place among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain.

While making it clear he was not endorsing any Republican presidential candidate, Dobson, who is considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the country, also said that Gingrich was the "brightest guy out there" and "the most articulate politician on the scene today."

Gingrich recently appeared on Dobson's daily Focus on the Family radio program, carried by upward of 2,000 American radio stations, where he made headlines by discussing an extramarital affair he was having even as he pursued impeachment against President Bill Clinton for his handling of the investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Dobson's phone call to U.S. News senior editor Dan Gilgoff Tuesday was unsolicited. It marked Gilgoff's first discussion with Dobson in over two years, since the magazine's political writer began work on The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, published this month by St. Martin's Press. Dobson had agreed to answer only written questions for the book.

Dobson's comments yesterday about the 2008 presidential race appear to be his first to a secular news organization in months.

Dobson recently sat down with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at Focus on the Family's Colorado Springs headquarters, marking his only meeting to date with a top-tier Republican presidential candidate. While Dobson would not comment directly on the Romney meeting, he stood by comments he made late last year that many evangelicals would find it difficult to support Romney because of his Mormonism.

"I still think that might be an impediment for him," Dobson said. "There are conservative Christians who will not vote for him because of his Mormon faith. I'm not saying that's the correct view or my view. But [presidential nominees] lose elections by 5 or 6 percent of the vote, so you don't have to lose much of the conservative Christian vote" to make a difference in the election.

Dobson said that neither of the two other Republican presidential front-runners—Giuliani or McCain—has attempted to contact him. "I do not believe that the current excitement over Giuliani will continue," Dobson said.

Dobson was a major force in the 2004 election, giving the first public presidential endorsement of his career to George W. Bush. Bush got nearly 6 million new white evangelical votes in 2004 that he didn't get in 2000, accounting for about twice his margin of victory. Dobson's national activist network led an unprecedented effort to get conservative evangelicals to the polls. Its greatest impact was likely in Ohio, the lynchpin to Bush's re-election, where Bush won by fewer than 120,000 votes.

Dobson, who turns 71 years old next month, has been the subject of recent rumors that he would retire from his position of Focus on the Family chairman and possibly step out of the political spotlight in the next couple of years. In the interview, however, Dobson said that he no intention of doing either.

"I have 10-to-12-hour-a-day energy," Dobson said. "I feel that God has asked me to do what I'm doing. I have no intention to stay away."

   http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070328/28dobson_print.htm

I don't know if this story got any play in this forum, but it seems to me this issue is on par with pharmacists refusing to dispense plan B drugs. BT

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Target is transferring cashiers who avoid pork
Some Somali Muslims say the retailer is overreacting to customer criticism.

By Chris Serres and Matt McKinney, Star Tribune


In the wake of community criticism, Target Corp. is reassigning its Muslim cashiers who refuse to ring up pork products for religious reasons to other jobs at the stores.
Target received a wave of criticism earlier this week after the Star Tribune reported in a front-page article that some Muslim cashiers at Target declined to scan bacon and other pork products. They would call over another cashier to ring up the products, or in some cases, ask customers to do it themselves.

Some customers called and wrote Target to complain about the practice; a few called for a general boycott of Target on the Star Tribune's community blog, buzz.mn.

After the story appeared, Target asked Muslim cashiers who refuse to handle pork to wear gloves or transfer to other areas of the stores. In some cases, Muslim cashiers will be given the option of transferring to other stores. "We are confident that this is a reasonable solution for our guests and team members," Target spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear said in a statement. It remains unclear whether wages would be affected by any job transfers; cashiers are generally entry-level positions at Target.

"Blown way out of proportion"

The move is an effort by Target to balance the religious rights of its employees with customer demands for prompt service. However, some Somali Muslims in the Twin Cities said that the retailer is overreacting to public pressure and that stores should be able to accommodate Muslim cashiers without disrupting service.

"This is being blown way out of proportion," said Abdi Sheikhosman, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Minnesota Law School. "Pork products represent a very small percentage of Target's overall products. ... Accommodations could have been made."

Target's new policy is similar to ones at other grocery stores in the area. Spokespeople for the chains that operate Cub and Rainbow food stores said Muslims who share concerns about pork during the interview process are told of opportunities in departments such as dairy, floral or customer service that don't involve handling pork.

"There are many jobs in the grocery store that do not involve handling pork," said Vivian King, a spokeswoman for Roundy's, which owns Rainbow stores.

Each Target store appears to have some leeway in implementing the new policy. At the downtown Minneapolis Target, employees were called into one-on-one meetings Thursday and asked whether they were opposed to handling pork for religious reasons. Those who said yes were told they could no longer work as cashiers during the store's busiest hours, 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., according to an employee at the store who requested anonymity.

At the SuperTarget off Hwy. 7 in St. Louis Park, which has a full grocery section, Muslim cashiers who said they refuse to handle pork were transferred Thursday to the sales floor to stock shelves or fold clothes. It remained unclear whether that change is permanent. The store manager declined to be interviewed, and Thornton-Greear said the company wouldn't discuss the situation at specific stores.

Suhara Robla, a 20-year-old employee at the store, said more than a dozen Muslim cashiers were asked Thursday to do other jobs. "They told all of us who don't touch pork to go to the sales floor," she said. "They really didn't say why. They just said it was a new policy."

Sinful to sell pork?

Many Muslims believe the pig is an unclean animal and consider it a sin to eat pork. The Qur'an has multiple passages in which Allah instructs believers to avoid eating pig flesh. It is so core to their beliefs that some consider it sinful to sell the meat, because that encourages others to participate in a sinful act.

In the Muslim world, there is even a stronger taboo against pork than alcohol, said Owais Bayunus, an imam at the Abu Khudra Mosque in Columbia Heights. Wearing gloves will not solve the issue, he said. "There is a school of thought within the Muslim community that if you sell pork or alcohol to someone, then you are contributing to the propagation of a sinful activity," he said. "Many Muslims do not want to see non-Muslims involved in a sinful product."

At Target stores, some Muslim cashiers opposed to selling pork had grown accustomed to waving over other employees whenever they came across bacon, ham or other pork products, even pepperoni pizza. In many cases, they simply switched on a little light above their registers and another cashier would rush to their side and swipe the product for them.

The practice seemed to work well for Robla. She said she needed help scanning pork products only "about two or three times a day." In other cases, customers would volunteer to swipe the items themselves.

Occasionally, however, Robla said, people would get annoyed when she told them it was because of her religion. "Some people would say, 'If you won't scan it, then I don't want this thing,' " she said. "I don't understand it. Some people don't even want to wait a few seconds."

Mohamed Muse, who also works at the St. Louis Park store but not as a cashier, has no problems with the new policy. "If someone is trying to buy pork, you can't just say, 'Wait here,' " he said. "You can't put a hold on the work system."

Muse, speaking to a reporter Friday afternoon at the Somali mall just off Lake Street, said when he applied for his job six months ago, a human-resources worker asked him whether he could handle pork. Muse, who arrived in the country eight months ago after immigrating with his family from Nairobi, Kenya, said no. "They said OK. So I work mostly with fruits and vegetables overnight," he said. "It was really no problem."

Still, he understands some of the controversy, which has included discussions on area talk-radio stations. "People are sensitive," he said. "They say, 'You are trying to force me to [your] religion! You are losing my time!' All that stuff."


cserres@startribune.com • 612-673-4308 mmckinney@startribune.com • 612-673-7329

link

Obama the 'Magic Negro'
The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.
By David Ehrenstein
L.A.-based DAVID EHRENSTEIN writes about Hollywood and politics.

March 19, 2007

AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters — musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House.

But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."

The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.-wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .

He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.

As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."

Poitier really poured on the "magic" in "Lilies of the Field" (for which he won a best actor Oscar) and "To Sir, With Love" (which, along with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," made him a No. 1 box-office attraction). In these films, Poitier triumphs through yeoman service to his white benefactors. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is particularly striking in this regard, as it posits miscegenation without evoking sex. (Talk about magic!)

The same can't quite be said of Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy," "Seven" and the seemingly endless series of films in which he plays ersatz paterfamilias to a white woman bedeviled by a serial killer. But at least he survives, unlike Crothers in "The Shining," in which psychic premonitions inspire him to rescue a white family he barely knows and get killed for his trouble. This heart-tug trope is parodied in Gus Van Sant's "Elephant." The film's sole black student at a Columbine-like high school arrives in the midst of a slaughter, helps a girl escape and is immediately gunned down. See what helping the white man gets you?

And what does the white man get out of the bargain? That's a question asked by John Guare in "Six Degrees of Separation," his brilliant retelling of the true saga of David Hampton — a young, personable gay con man who in the 1980s passed himself off as the son of none other than the real Sidney Poitier. Though he started small, using the ruse to get into Studio 54, Hampton discovered that countless gullible, well-heeled New Yorkers, vulnerable to the Magic Negro myth, were only too eager to believe in his baroque fantasy. (One of the few who wasn't fooled was Andy Warhol, who was astonished his underlings believed Hampton's whoppers. Clearly Warhol had no need for the accouterment of interracial "goodwill.")

But the same can't be said of most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son.

The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal. Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically." He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?

The only mud that momentarily stuck was criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg. Speaking as an African American whose last name has led to his racial "credentials" being challenged — often several times a day — I know how pesky this sort of thing can be.

Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate." His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).

Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,7971670,print.story?coll=la-opinion-center

War Bill Includes Tempting Projects
Democrats' Tactic Poses Dilemma for Some Lawmakers

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; A01



House Democratic leaders are offering billions in federal funds for lawmakers' pet projects large and small to secure enough votes this week to pass an Iraq funding bill that would end the war next year.

So far, the projects -- which range from the reconstruction of New Orleans levees to the building of peanut storehouses in Georgia -- have had little impact on the tally. For a funding bill that establishes tough new readiness standards for deploying combat forces and sets an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline to bring the troops home, votes do not come cheap.

But at least a few Republicans and conservative Democrats who otherwise would vote "no" remain undecided, as they ponder whether they can leave on the table millions of dollars for constituents by opposing the $124 billion war funding bill due for a vote on Thursday.

"She hates the games the Democrats are playing," said Guy Short, chief of staff to Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), a staunch conservative who remains undecided, thanks to billions of dollars in the bill for drought relief and agriculture assistance. "But Representative Musgrave was just down in southeastern Colorado, talking to ranchers and farmers, and they desperately need this assistance."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901615_pf.html

Democratic leaders say the domestic spending in the bill reflects the pent-up demand from lawmakers who last year could not win funding for programs that had bipartisan support such as disaster assistance.

But in a formal veto statement last night, the White House denounced what it called "excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending." With unusually caustic and combative language, the statement dismissed provisions of the bill as "unconscionable," and said it "would place freedom and democracy in Iraq at grave risk" and "embolden our enemies."

As the opposition heats up, the Democrats have had some successes in their furious search for support. Yesterday, MoveOn.org announced that with 85 percent of its members backing the bill, the liberal activist group will begin working for its passage. That could prove to be a major boost for Democratic leaders struggling to keep in line the most liberal wing of the party, which wants to cut off funds for the war by the end of this year.

A few Republicans are at least considering a vote for the bill, including Reps. Wayne T. Gilchrest and Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland. Some conservative Democrats who had been expected to vote no on Thursday are wavering.

To get them off the fence and on the bill, Democrats have a key weapon at their disposal: cold, hard cash. The bill contains billions for agriculture and drought relief, children's health care and Gulf Coast hurricane recovery.

For Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), there is $25 million for spinach growers hurt by last year's E. coli scare. For three conservative Democrats in Georgia, there is $75 million for peanut storage. For lawmakers from the bone-dry West, there is $500 million for wildfire suppression. An additional $120 million is earmarked for shrimp and Atlantic menhaden fishermen.

So far, at least in public pronouncements, the $21 billion in funding beyond President Bush's request has earned Democrats nothing but scorn.

For more than a year, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R) has tried unsuccessfully to secure federal funds to prevent salt water from intruding on rice fields in his lowland Louisiana district. So it came as a surprise last week when Boustany found $15 million in the House's huge war spending bill for his rice farmers. He hadn't even asked that the bill include it.

"It gives me no satisfaction to vote against measures that I have been working for since even before [Hurricane] Katrina, but I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill that does this to our troops," Boustany said yesterday, decrying what he called the "cheap politics" of using disaster aid to win votes on a measure this controversial.

House GOP leaders have accused Democratic leaders of flagrant vote-buying.

"The war supplemental legislation voted out of the Appropriations Committee last week was an exercise in arrogance that demonstrated the utter contempt the majority has for the American people and their hard-earned tax dollars," fumed Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.). "We are at war with a ruthless global terrorist network, yet the appropriators allocated hundreds of millions in funds to gratuitous pork projects."

Even some Democrats say the issue of Iraq has become far too heated to be conducive to vote-buying.

"The profile and urgency of this Iraq vote really doesn't lend itself to these kinds of side deals," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), who has pushed drought relief for more than a year.

But the success of adding the spending measures will not really be known until the votes are tallied. Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), who is running for his state's governorship, has conspicuously refused to say whether he can vote against $2.9 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, including $1.3 billion for New Orleans levee repairs.

Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), usually a reliable vote for the Republican leadership, is undecided as he ponders how he can vote against drought relief he has worked for months to secure. The same goes for Musgrave, whose district has been devastated by drought.

Democrats who may well have turned solidly against the bill are still weighing their options. Last year, Rep. John Barrow (Ga.) circulated a petition trying to get Republican House leaders to schedule a vote on drought relief. This year, Barrow's advocacy has yielded $3.7 billion worth of agricultural disaster assistance in the war spending bill, which he bragged about last week in a statement to constituents. The conservative Democrat, who narrowly escaped defeat in November, is now undecided on the Iraq bill.

For the undecided, these days running up to the vote will be difficult. The vote has become a high-stakes showdown between a Democratic leadership that has staked considerable political capital on the bill and a Republican leadership demanding that its members stay united in opposition.

But votes against home-state interests will not go unnoticed. When Appropriations Committee member Rodney Alexander (R-La.) voted against the bill in committee last week, Democratic Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.) shot off a statement to the New Orleans Times-Picayune declaring, "When [Gulf Coast] assistance is on the fast track, Rep. Alexander chose to stand with his party rather than with the people of his region."

North Dakota's Republican lieutenant governor, Jack Dalrymple, was in Washington last week, lobbying for agriculture disaster assistance. "What it's about is the impact on the economy of an entire region," he told the Associated Press. "When you come down to the human level, there is no question that there are farmers meeting with their bankers right now, and whether or not they can farm this year is dependent on whether this program is approved."