The late Rep. Tom Lantos of California, who until his recent death was chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, lambasted the PEPFAR opponents a short time before he died. He cited studies that "found that the abstinence-only earmark has forced a reduction in programs preventing transmission of the virus that causes AIDS from mother to child, has reduced prevention efforts with high-risk groups, and has undermined efforts to implement [prevention] programs."

With regard to the opposition to the integration of HIV/AIDS and birth control services, Lantos added, "this provision will ensure contraceptive assistance to HIV-positive women who wish to delay or prevent a subsequent pregnancy. Do the people objecting to this provision want to stand in the way of a sick woman trying to avoid getting pregnant?"

Understanding the deal the U.S. has made with Sadr is key to understanding what the surge strategy is really all about, and why treating the surge as representing any kind of "success" for the Iraq war is a bit like celebrating winning twenty dollars at blackjack right after having lost a thousand at poker.

In exchange for Muqtada's cooperation in reigning in the more extreme elements of his militia and his help in reducing violence from staggering to merely unacceptable levels, the U.S. has effectively ratified his control of a large, formerly mixed areas of Baghdad, secured his position as arguably Iraq's most popular Shi'ite political leader, and consigned thousands of Iraqis to life under a proto-state regime of religious fundamentalism that is about as authoritarian as Saddam's was, but with the added bonus of no liquor, no movies, and with women forced to veil themselves and and prohibited from skilled professions. And, as a double-bonus: This regime is oriented toward Shi'ite Iran.

Years ago, the last time this gays-in-Scouting dust-up made it onto my radar, my brothers and I -- all three of us are Eagle Scouts -- fretted over the right expression of dissent. We considered sending back our Eagle badges, as others did, in protest. That we ultimately didn't says less about the extent of our outrage than our pride in achieving something fewer than 1% of Scouts manage. I worked hard for that -- suffered, even -- and, ashamedly in retrospect, I wasn't willing to give it up in the name of principle.

For me, the edification of Scouting came in the form of lifelong calls for strong community, an awareness of one's effect on the natural world, self-reliance and leadership skills. (Camping, however, remains just above waterboarding on my list of favorite activities.) To claim that these qualities are somehow reserved for heterosexuals, either as teachers or students, is to miss the point entirely.

McCain was best described as a progressive - like Teddy Roosevelt, whom he cited constantly. McCain tended to see politics as a contest between the national interest and the selfishness of private agendas, and he favored a role for government in counterbalancing the excesses of organized wealth.

Roosevelt, as McCain knew full well, abandoned the GOP over what he regarded as its subservience to big business. McCain did not leave his party, but he came close. The Washington Post (at the time) and The Hill (again last year) reported that, in 2001, McCain met with Democratic leaders to ponder a party switch. McCain and his allies deny these accounts, which are obviously devastating to his current prospects, and reporters almost never mention it in their McCain coverage.

Bureaucracies inevitably conform to the wishes of the ruling party, and as much as CPB would like to rise above politics, every federal appropriation comes laden with political baggage. No government -- Republican, Democrat, or Socialist -- will ever surrender control over media money it disburses.

If media activists were serious about public broadcaster independence, they'd wean public television and radio from the federal government teat. CPB provided 15.3 percent of the $2.3 billion spent by public broadcasters in 2002, with 26 percent coming from station members "like you," 22.8 percent from businesses and foundations, and the remainder mostly from state and local governments and colleges and universities.