The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 3 Apr.

The Speaker submits and other mixed messages...
Welcome to another uninspired edition of DFWC:

• AP reports San Fran Nancy Pelosi is in the Middle East attempting to spread Haight-Ashbury values to folks who are probably the state sponsors of terrorism. Perhaps Nan is simply urging America's enemies to hold on for just a while longer because the complicit Democrats will soon to return to what they regard is their endowed place of power: when Dems lose, the election has been stolen; when Dems win, it is a mandate from all the people.
  
  In any event, at the same time perplexing and disquieting is the image of an American leader, second in line to the Presidency, wrapped in the submissive symbolism of the traditional Muslim veil. Perhaps it's just a Democrat thing. Remember oompa loompa Kerry and tank man Dukakis?

• The Washington Post reports President Bush today offered no compromise in his standoff with Congress over funding for the Iraq war.
  
  President Bush also denounced "irresponsible" Democrats for going on spring break after approving an unpalatable, pork-ridden spinach and peanut bill with a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
  
  Simply put, Congress will need to approve money to fund the war effort, or risk being responsible for a situation where American troops in the field are left without without the resources necessary to defend themselves.
  
  

  "Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq," Bush said. "In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership -- Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds."
  
  <...>
  
  "They need to come off their vacation, get a bill to my desk, and if it's got strings and mandates and withdrawals and pork I'll veto it," the president said. "And then we can get down to the business of getting this thing done."

  Extra bias from Jennifer Loven at The Associated Press.

• Also in the news, AP reports Congressional critics of President Bush's Iraq policy "seem to be rooting for failure," former White House chief of staff Andrew Card said Tuesday.
  
  "We should be rooting for success," Card said. "I'm very upset that I see many of his critics, who are partisans, Republicans or Democrats, who seem to be rooting for failure. You know, they don't like his plan, therefore they want it to fail."
  
  Sadly, Democrats have made anti-Bush anti-war the party's defining platform. As such, the are married to defeat and have no option but to follow their flawed political strategy into oblivion.

• Here's an update on a story I covered in Sunday's DFWC about an undergraduate student's papier mache sculpture of Obama as a messianic figure -- entitled "Blessing,"which went on display Saturday at a downtown gallery run by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
  
  David Cordero, 24, made the sculpture for his senior show after noticing all the attention Obama has received since he first hinted he may run for the presidency, AP reports.
  
  

  "All of this is a response to what I've been witnessing and hearing, this idea that Barack is sort of a potential savior that might come and absolve the country of all its sins," Cordero said. "In a lot of ways it's about caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on one individual, and expecting them to change something that many hands have shaped."

• Britain called for direct talks with Iran to resolve a dispute over 15 captive Britons Tuesday after its first contact with the chief Iranian negotiator, according to AP. The announcement followed the sudden release of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq that raised new hope for resolving the standoff.
  
  Meanwhile, AFP reports the U.S. Navy said Tuesday it had stepped up vigilance following Iran's recent seizure of 15 British marines and sailors for allegedly entering Iranian waters.

• AFP reports President Bush said he took climate change very seriously Tuesday, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that the government must regulate greenhouse gases, seen by climate change alarmists as a potential watershed in fighting global warming.
  
  It's a good thing someone is paying attention, too. That term "potential" doesn't mean "actual" -- no matter how many ways you try to spin it.
  
  

  Bush said that "whatever we do, it must be in concert with what happens internationally. Because we could pass any number of measures that are now being discussed in the Congress, but unless there is an accord with China, China will produce greenhouse gases that will offset anything we do in a brief period of time.

• The New York Coal Trade Association, headquartered in New York City, recently held its 94th annual banquet and meeting at the New York Hilton. The New York Sun reports one of the guest speakers was Bob Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy Corporation and probably one of the few CEOs brave enough to challenge the militant climate control movement that threatens the future of America's economy. In his speech, he dared to say that he regards Al Gore as the shaman of global doom and gloom. He is not joking when he says, "He is more dangerous than his global warming."

• And finally, The Daily Mail reports the Rolling Stones guitarist has admitted how he snorted his own father's ashes in a drugs binge.
  
  The 63-year-old detailed in a magazine interview how he mixed the ashes with cocaine and inhaled them.

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