TAKING CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS...
...and Everything Else Too

  Fox News reports that there is an alarming and growing trend afoot to remove all vestiges of our Christian heritage not only from public Yuletide celebrations and displays, but from everything else the public square as well.

It seems militant secularist groups with more time and $$$ than brains on their hands are increasingly Hell-bent upon shoving Christianity, including Christmas itself, and Western religion in general down George Orwell's Memory Hole: 
 
...Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not. The FCC allows the "F-word" on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no. And some schools freely dispense condoms to kids, but pencils that read "Jesus loves little children" were confiscated from a first-grade class in Virginia.

Some, like War on Christianity author David Limbaugh, say the list of examples is long and is evidence of an undeclared cultural war on the religion.

But those on the other side of the battle, like Elliot Minceberg of People for the American Way, point to the Constitutional separation of church and state as the reason behind keeping religion out of public life.

...[But] the Constitution doesn't explicitly discuss separating church and state. Instead, what it does say is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...," which means that, unlike in England, the United States decided not to form an official national religion, nor can the government interfere with the practice of any religion.

In fact, in 1789, in the days after Congress passed the First Amendment, it declared a national day of prayer.

Still, the number of bans on public displays of Christianity continue to grow...

  ...AND TAKING CHRISTMAS OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE:
The American Public Takes on the Grinches

  In his nationally syndicated op-ed column of this past Sunday, pundit John Leo notes that there is a growing popular resistance against efforts by the ACLU and other radical "First Amendment" groups to erase Christmas and traditional seasonal references, as well as Christmas carols and symbols, from all public "holiday" displays and events: 

....on the whole, things are not going well for the Grinches. In New Jersey, for example, the Hanover Township school district said it was considering a ban on Christmas carols and other religious songs at school concerts. Parents protested and threatened to sue, so the school board beat a hasty retreat. “If a school wants religious music, they can have it, the way they could before,” said the school board president.

The key phrase here is “threatened to sue.” In the old days, when an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer would show up to hammer some tiny school board into submission, the legal costs of resisting were so high that the boards usually caved in. Now the anti-Grinches have legal muscle of their own. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the Hanover parents, claims to have 700 lawyers ready to fight anti-Christmas assaults around the country. The ADF played a lead role in blocking an attempt by the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League to force a charter school in Elbert County, Colo., to ban religious songs from its holiday concert. The Anti-Defamation League said the school’s program was harming the sense of well-being of Jewish students. But how harmful can it be to sing six Christmas carols, two Hanukkah songs, and a lot of ditties about Rudolph and Frosty?

In Plano, Texas, a school district refused to allow a third grader at a class party to hand out candy canes with a religious message attached. The Liberty Legal Institute and the ADF jumped in last week and demanded that the district back down, arguing that “public schools are not zones of religious censorship.”

The [Catholic] Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., supported a parent’s legal challenge to the New York City public schools’ policy that allows the Islamic star and crescent and the Jewish menorah (which the Anti-Defamation League concedes is a religious symbol) but not Christian religious symbols such as a Nativity display. The schools’ chancellor offered a tortured argument in court: The menorah has a “secular dimension” large enough to qualify as nonreligious. The judge, who was caustic about the school policy during arguments, is expected to rule any day....

STILL STUPID AFTER ALL THESE YEARS:
PETA "Hires" the Blessed Virgin Mary

Just when we thought there was already too much eye pollution along the nation's highways, along comes the perennially obnoxious "animal rights" group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to add even more, this time in the form of a billboard in Rhode Island and (eventually) five other states seemingly designed to offend Catholics. We say "seemingly" because, it turns out, what PETA really had in mind was appealing to Catholics in its ongoing anti-meateating campaign.

The billboard in question depicts Jesus' Mom holding a dead chicken. Alongside this "icon" in large, bold text is the message "Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception." The "O" in "Go" resembles a Celtic cross.

In response to an avalanche of protesting emails, letters, and phone calls from offended Catholics (including William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights) and other Christians (including the Rev. John E. Holt, head of the Rhode Island Council of Churches, who found the billboard "insulting to any Christian"), PETA "explained" that the ad was designed by "a devout Catholic" on PETA's staff and, according to PETA Director Bruce Friedrich (who says he's "a practicing Catholic"), was intended to "raise awareness" of the "plight of chickens" to Catholics, not mock their faith.

"Mary is the embodiment of selfless love and compassion," Friedrich said. "The most oppressed creatures on the planet are chickens." Friedrich added that "The intention isn't to offend people. The intention is to shock people into thinking about the violence they are supporting."

Instead, what Friedrich really succeeded in doing was make even more people think about what utter dunderheads he and his comrades can be. PETA, which seems consistently run by dumb clucks, continues to be even more clueless than the pea-brained poultry they want the rest of us to help them rescue.

ON MUSIC AND SUFFERING:
Within the Darkest of Times Can Lie Beauty and Heroism

Two months ago we noted that Washington DC area singer and recording artist Grace Griffith, a long-time fixture in the DC-MD-VA folk & Celtic music scene, had begun to experience debilitating advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and that she was determined to keep making music in the face of it –and to keep mentoring up-and-coming young artists, such as the late Eva Cassidy, whom Griffith almost single-handedly launched to international stardom despite her awareness of the cost to her own career.

On another note of heroism on the part of another artist, we found in this month’s edition of First Things a particularly moving and thoughtful piece written by theology professor Peter M. Chandler, Jr., a tribute to the late singer Johnny Cash, who died three months ago at age 71 after several years of declining health.

Chandler focuses on how Cash used the suffering in his own life, up to and including his impending death, to grow as an artist and thereby leave behind a body of some of the most remarkable and remarkably original music in modern history. This was only possible, notes Chandler, because in his music Cash both embraced and revealed his own soul, drawing no distinction between himself as a man and himself as an artist:

…Johnny was the kind of person who could simultaneously hold in tension the conflicting parts of his personality and communicate to those who are alienated by a deeply counterfeit culture —particularly a counterfeit Christianity. …We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise.

That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully. There was in him no hint of fraud. At a time when he could have resurrected his career by riding the coattails of others’ popularity (as is the trend today), Johnny did the reverse. On 1994’s American Recordings (on the cover he stands in a field wearing a long black preacher’s coat, alone except for two dogs), he did not simply return to the “old” Johnny Cash and commodify himself for a younger audience. …in a world full of fakes, Cash was authentic.

…[I]n a culture that by and large loves death but does not know what to do with it —a culture simultaneously repulsed and attracted by it— Johnny’s confrontation with his own imminent demise was largely misunderstood. The critics who complained that his voice was not what it used to be missed the point entirely. It is precisely because his voice was not what it used to be that the songs have such power. The beauty of the record lies in that very frailty, the tremolo in his voice that became more pronounced with each album. Even in his younger days, the inimitable strength and fortitude in his voice was mixed with the occasional moment of weakness, the odd quaver and show of vulnerability. In the last few years those moments became more frequent, and his voice became more diaphonous, disclosing more of the effects of illness.

Yet for that very reason, Cash’s voice was all the more beautiful —it had a weakness stronger than others’ strengths….

ON GIVING THANKS:
It's About So Much More Than the Food

In his wonderful reflection this past Thursday, St. Blog's own inimitable Fr. Rob Johansen (who like yours truly is grateful for "good Scotch whisky, good Bourbon, cigars, and micro-brewed beers," among other things) reminds us what Thanksgiving should be all about. In part, he notes:

Gratitude is an indicator of holiness. If you read the writings of, or the Lives of, the great Saints, you'll see that they were suffused with a spirit of Gratitude. They were always thanking God for all they had, and taking notice of the smallest blessings.

Gratitude is also a remedy against Sin. It's the times when I'm most self-satisfied and taking things for granted that I end up being the most susceptible to temptation, and prone to become self-absorbed. Gratitude takes the attention away from yourself and puts it on the Giver. If you make the effort to practice gratitude, you will be come Holy. It's that simple....

There's a "CAT IN THE HAT" MOVIE REVIEW
penned in Dr. Seuss style.
We came across it on the Internet,
reading e-mail awhile.

It's funny and clever,
and as you can see,
is written by a Cath'lic fellow
who has one kid and three.

The reviewer loves the Cat books,
which he knows by heart,
but he says the movie version
is not worthy Seuss art.

The alarmed writer warns
there's no more innocence there,
so in his opinion,
"Parents, beware!"

So it seems Hollywood moguls
have screwed the thing up,
making Seuss fans wonder
if there were drugs in their cup.

MASSACHUSETTS’ JUDICIAL COUP D’ETAT:
Did Four Judges Turn the Bay State Into a Banana Republic?

In the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay "marriage," Daily Standard columnist Hugh Hewitt thinks so:

"JOHN MARSHALL has made his decision," Andrew Jackson is said to have remarked in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision he disliked, "now let him enforce it."

…It is an interesting time for the Massachusetts Supreme Court to have seized control of the elected branches in its state, given the connection between Thanksgiving and the Bay State. Unlike its neighbor to the north, the Look-at-Me State of Vermont, Massachusetts actually has a place in the collective national consciousness and Americans of all regions are interested in its history. Now, in the aftermath of Tuesday's radical diktat from four justices to Massachusetts' elected representatives, Americans are interested in the state's future as well.

…the people of Massachusetts … didn't sign up for a banana republic run by pretenders in robes, and no one in the state's illustrious history ever sacrificed life or limb --from Boston Harbor to Concord, Antietam or the battlefields of Europe and Asia-- for the proposition that four judges get to change everything when they decide to conjure up a reason for doing so….

JACK KENNEDY AND THE CATHOLIC FAITH:
At His Death, JFK’s Catholicism May Have Been More Pivotal Than During His Life

Catholic Exchange writer Michael H. Brown ponders the effect of the Catholic faith on both JFK himself and his wife Jackie, despite JFK's now well-known philandering as well as his indulgence in reckless behavior in other matters, including geopolitics (e.g., the Bay of Pigs debacle and several misguided covert attempts to assassinate Castro).

For example, Brown notes:

Kennedy, despite his roguish ways, had a streak of devotion inspired by his mother Rose — a daily communicant — and so did his wife, who in Dallas had prayed with a priest as he administered the last anointing.

…Did the sacrament count? No one was sure. Extreme Unction — as it was then known — was not valid if the soul had departed. Father Huber sensed that Kennedy's soul was still there. "Through this anointing, may God forgive you whatever sins you may have committed," he had prayed. Through a faculty granted by the Holy See he dispensed remission of sins and a plenary indulgence….

NOVEMBER 22, 40 YEARS LATER:
Noted Blogger Mark Shea Asks His Readers, "Where Were You...?"

Read some fascinating rememberances of that tragic day in Mark's Comments Box HERE

WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE REST OF US?
On Legislating Same-Sex "Marriage" vs. the Common Good

One of the most fundamental principles upon which civil law is based is the concept of "the Common Good," i.e., what is best for the stability and healthy growth of society as a whole. For example, society as a whole benefits greatly when laws and policies are enacted which give deference and certain advantages to men wed to women and vice versa. Why? Because, among other things, it is from these unions that children --and future citizens-- spring. And the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable the children, the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- are the citizens they become.

Moreover, even without children coming from their unions, the evidence has shown since the beginning of recorded history that married adults tend to be happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- as couples than they are as singles. This in turn makes the whole fabric of society stronger and more resilient, particularly because marriage is as much about, if not more about, shared life goals, shared interests, shared enterprises, and shared values than it is about shared beds.

Hence, the protection and strengthening of this timeless and universal institution of monogamous, one-man-and-one-woman-for-life is for the Common Good. And it's no accident that every human society on every continent on this planet since Homo Sapiens arose on the planet has had laws protecting it as well as giving special deference to it. Contrariwise, none of them --with the possible exceptions of ancient Sparta or a handful of polygamous tribal cultures-- has ever legalized or otherwise given the social stamp of approval to "alternative life-style" "unions." That's because they weren't stupid, even if they may have been "intolerant" and "unenlightened" by presumptuous modern Western secularist standards.

Yet all this seems to have been completely forgotten by the four judges sitting on Massachusetts' highest court this week. In fact, they've completely ignored, if not completely jettisoned, the principle of the Common Good when they decided instead that, in essence, official recognition of unions between two adults should be based solely on the whims and preferences of the two adults in question --i.e., merely because "they love each other." In fact, the judges themselves said as much, and there can be no other explanation for their decision; for in what ways can same-sex "marriages" serve the Common Good, as outlined above? The answer is "none," for --by their very nature-- they cannot.

MASSACHUSETTS' COUNTERFEIT MARRIAGE PROPOSAL:
Devalueing Marriage the Way "Counterfeit Money Devalues the Real Thing"

In yesterday's USA Today, op-ed guest columnist Tony Perkins focuses on the central absurdities and disasterous implications of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's asininely arrogant decision to radically redefine marriage by lifting the state ban on same-sex marriage:

....Marriage is the most fundamental institution of society. The law does not create it, it merely recognizes it. Marriage exists to bridge the gap between the sexes by bringing a man and a woman together in the context that is best for the reproduction of the human race and for raising children to be responsible adults. Healthy families are beneficial to the state.

A large and growing body of social science research has shown that husbands and wives and their children are happier, healthier and more prosperous than adults or children in any other living arrangement. The benefits conferred upon marriage under the law are not an entitlement — they are a recognition of the benefits that marriage confers upon society.

Other research has shown that same-sex relationships lack permanence and fidelity. Therefore, if such unions are recognized as "marriage," those values will be further stripped from the ideal of marriage that is held up to our children.

The deliberate creation of motherless and fatherless families will have the government's highest stamp of approval. Expanding the definition of marriage will weaken the institution, not strengthen it, in the same way that counterfeit money devalues even the real thing.....

Next to come down the pike, as surely as we stand here, is the legalization of polygamy and group "marriage," if not incest as well --the end result being the end of marriage itself.

Far fetched? Paranoid? Absurd? NOT REALLY, as Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, points out.

MARRIAGE: "NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING CHILDREN WHAT THEY NEED":
Columnist Maggie Gallegher's Analysis Cuts Through Massachusetts B.S.

Observes Gallagher in her column today:

Four judges in Massachusetts, ruling in a same-sex marriage case, have decided that children don't need mothers and fathers, that marriage has nothing to do with getting children what they need. Marriage is a passing plaything of the latest fashionable ideology, a toy for adults with graduate degrees to tinker with, at their pleasure.

[These judges] displayed their own massive ignorance about marriage, its history and its public purposes. Four people claim that "the government creates marriage." There is no rational reason, they claim, for the state legislature to require that for a marriage you need a husband and a wife, who can become a mother and a father for their children.

So why have marriage at all?, Gallagher asks. Because [quoting the judges]:

"Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, insures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data."

Translation: "So that the civil government can operate more efficiently" and, as Gallagher points out, in this mindset,

"Marriage is whatever the adults want. People have a right to conduct a great social experiment on children because, well, adults want to do it, and doing your own thing is the new law of the land.

As one philosopher pointed out long ago regarding pantheism, if everything is God then there is no such thing as God, for there is no dictinction between the Creator and the created. Likewise, the bottom line is that if marriage can be any and every sort of "relationship" between any and every sort of couple --i.e., there are no dictinctions to be made between marriage and mere coupling-- then, ultimately, there's no such thing as marriage.

MASSACHUSETTS COURT LEGALIZES GAY MARRIAGE:
Plans Now Underway to Legalize All Other Unions

In the wake of its decision to lift the ban on same-sex marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Court will soon be hearing cases in support of other non-traditional unions.

Consider, for example, the efforts of the National Association of Narcissists to seek the legalization of same-person marriage. Or the campaign by the animal rights advocacy group, People for Equal Treatment of Animals, promoting the right of their members to marry their pets. Then there are all those guys who are married to their jobs, their golf clubs, their remotes, or their SUVs --but with no legal recognition whatsoever.

How unfair.

But let not your heart be troubled, at least if you live in Massachusetts: It's only a matter of time.

INTRODUCING "THE PERKY PAPIST":
A Promising New Blog Penned by the Irrepressible Meg Quinn...

...a very talented Catholic writer, and a friend of yours truly.

May her tribe --and content-- increase!

"WAS TERRI BEATEN IN 1990?"
Nat Hentoff Continues His Inquiry Into the Terri Case

This past Friday, in the latest installment of his columns on the Terri Schindler-Schaivo case, Hentoff notes that a Federal agency, the Advocacy Center for Persons With Disabilities (ACPD),

...has sent Michael Schiavo's lawyer a request that he authorize the release of Terri Schiavo's medical records. There was initial resistance, but the records have been turned over.

The purpose for this request by the ACPD is to be better able to determine if husband and guardian Michael Schiavo was telling the truth about how his wife underwent the heart failure which resulted in her brain damaged and quadraplegic condition.

NEW HOPE FOR TERRI?
Nat Hentoff Thinks So In His Follow-up Column

Notes Hentoff this past Tuesday:

In the most bitterly contested right-to-die or right-to-life case in many years, Terri Schiavo's husband and legal guardian, Michael, is back in court urging the removal of her feeding tube. But now, a federally funded investigation has begun by a disability advocacy agency. And a renowned forensic pathologist is asking questions about what actually put Terri in her current condition....

...The investigation — as Jeff Johnson reported on CNSNews.com Oct. 29 (and confirmed by Patricia Anderson, the attorney for Terri's parents) — will probe allegations of neglect and abuse, including therapy judgments, during Michael Schiavo's guardianship of his wife...

On another related note: Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, are scheduled to be interviewed on CNN's Larry King Live this Friday (Nov. 14) at 9:00 PM, Eastern time.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
Mark Shea Responds to Scrappleface's "Report" About the "Matrix" Filmmakers

"As a friend of mine said, it takes a peculiar sort of mind to attend academic conferences in which brilliant people offer massive, closely-reason monographs proving that language has no meaning, especially when they then break for lunch and haggle with the waitress over the bill."

NAT HENTOFF ON THE TERRI "RIGHT-TO-DIE" CASE:
Establishment Media Engaging in "Journalistic Malpractice"

Nationally syndicated Village Voice columnist and long-time pro-life libertarian Nat Hentoff had some choice things to say today about the major media's "reporting" of the court fight in Florida to save brain-damaged Terri Schindler-Schiavo from a court-ordered death via starvation and dehydration:

I have covered highly visible, dramatic "right to die" cases—including those of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan—for more than 25 years. Each time, most of the media, mirroring one another, have been shoddy and inaccurate.

The reporting on the fierce battle for the life of 39-year-old Terri Schiavo has been the worst case of this kind of journalistic malpractice I've seen.....

The media continually report that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state, and a number of neurologists and bioethicists have more than implied to the press that "persistent" is actually synonymous with "permanent." This is not true, as I shall factually demonstrate in upcoming columns. I will also provide statements from neurologists who say that if Terri were given the proper therapy —denied to her by her husband and guardian after he decided therapy was becoming too expensive despite $750,000 from a malpractice suit— she could learn to eat by herself and become more responsive....

...In all the stories on Terri Schiavo and her parents' determined efforts to save her life, the media continually report that the Florida legislature intervened because of many thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails from the Christian Right and pro-lifers. Those groups and individuals are indeed a major factor in rousing support to prevent Terri from being starved to death. But among the many others who sent urgent messages are disabled Americans and their organizations....

...[Yet] I have seen hardly any mention in the press of the deeply concerned voices of the disabled, many of whom, in their own lives, have survived being terminated by bioethicists and other physicians who strongly believe that certain lives are not worth living....

[Many thanks to Amy Wellborn for making us aware of Hentoff's very timely column.]

NONE DARE CALL THIS TREASON?
Memo Suggests Intel Committee Dems Misuse Their Posts for Anti-Bush Strategy

Well, someone came close to calling it that; namely Democratic Senator Zell Miller (D-GA), who has long been a critic of the far-left faction which has taken over his party. Miller refers to it as "treason's first cousin."

This past Tuesday, ABC Radio talker Sean Hannity received from an inside source on Capitol Hill a fax of a memo drafted by someone working for Sen. Jay Rockfeller (D-WV) outlining a suggested plan for Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to use their both positions and sensitive intelligence data in order to undermine the Bush admistration.

Following is a transcript of that memo as read on the air by Hannity:

We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows:

1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard.

For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman [Sen. Pat Roberts] has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.

The fact that the chairman supports our investigations into these offices and cosigns our requests for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't know what we will find but our prospects for getting the access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the majority. [We can verbally mention some of the intriguing leads we are pursuing.]

2) Assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it.

In that regard we may have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims. We will contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified. Our additional views will also, among other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

The Democrats will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of establishing an Independent Commission [i.e., the Corzine Amendment.]

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once.

The best time to do so will probably be next year, either:

A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report, thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public. Additional views on the interim report (1). The announcement of our independent investigation (2). And (3) additional views on the final investigation. Or:

B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence.

In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter footdragging on the part of the majority. For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman. We have independently submitted written requests to the DOD and we are preparing further independent requests for information.

SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.

The approach outlined above seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the administration's dubious motives.

DID SADDAM TRY TO OFFER PEACE AT THE LAST MINUTE?
That's What ABC News and the New York Times Would Like You to Believe

But as with all other stories, this one has at least two sides to it, as reported by Fox News in reply to the Establishment Media's reports this morning:

Messages from Baghdad, first relayed by [businessman Imad] Hage in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi officers to persuade the Bush administration to open talks through a clandestine channel, people involved in the discussion told the Times.

One U.S. official told Fox News that while there were numerous offers and leads as the war neared, they were all thoroughly investigated and it was determined that they weren't in a position to deliver anything that would have been acceptable to the United States.

Additionally, this official says there were several attempts to meet with Iraqi intelligence officers, but each time, those officers were no-shows.

The attempts were portrayed by Iraqi officials as having Saddam's endorsement, but it was not clear if American officials viewed them as legitimate.

...[Pentagon advisor Richard] Perle told the [New York] Times in Wednesday's story that he was dubious Saddam would make legitimate proposals in such a circuitous fashion. "There were so many other ways to communicate," he said. "There were any number of governments involved in the end game, the Russians, French, Saudis."

So things may not be quite as the P. T. Barnums of American journalism would have them appear. Taking their version uncritically may be akin to buying used stock from Enron.

A VICTORY FOR TERRI'S PARENTS:
Bob and Mary Schindler's latest challenge to Michael Schivo's Custody Upheld

Associated Press reports (see full article HERE):

A state circuit judge Wednesday refused to block an effort by the parents of a brain-damaged woman to try to get her husband removed as her legal guardian. Attorneys for Michael Schiavo now have to respond in court to charges in the petition that he withheld proper care and therapy from his wife, Terri Schiavo, and that he has a conflict of interest because he's in a romantic relationship with another woman.

Bob and Mary Schindler, parents of Terri Schiavo, asked Circuit Judge George W. Greer to appoint Terri's brother or sister as guardian instead.

Schiavo had asked for the Schindler's request to be dismissed, but Greer refused.