MY ALMA MATER, YALE LAW SCHOOL, is now going to allow military recruiters on campus, in accordance with the law — though it is challenging the law in court.

I disagree very strongly with the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy (which from the coverage one might almost forget originated with the Clinton Administration) but I think that barring military recruiters on campus is a stupid and unpatriotic response, one that allows law faculties and students who are uninterested in military careers to feel good about themselves at the expense of students who are interested in military careers, and of the nation as a whole.

Here’s an on-the-scene report from Lily Malcolm at Kitchen Cabinet, and here’s a report from the Yale Daily News, which among other things makes clear that Lindsay Barenz, who is identified in the Newsday story linked above only as “a second-year student at Yale Law School,” is in fact “the chairwoman of OutLaws, the Association of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Law Students.” Nothing wrong with that, or with quoting her, but the way she’s presented in the Newsday story does tend to give the impression that she’s just another Yale Law student, rather than a significant figure on one side of the debate.

JUSTIN WEITZ HAS MORE BACKGROUND ON NEW JERSEY POLITICS — and politicians. Ugh.

FRAUD IN SCIENCE AND ACADEMIA — what to do, and what not to do. My TechCentralStation column is up.

MICHAEL KELLY is landing one more blow on Al Gore:

There was Al Gore, telling the world that the killers of Sept. 11 had “gotten away with it” and broadly (if, in his trademark weaselly fashion, coyly) suggesting that the president of the United States was pursuing war for the selfish purpose of winning votes in November. Two days later, there was Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle picking up on Gore’s repulsive slander and vastly amplifying it on the floor of the Senate. A few days later, there was House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt, in a mostly reasonable op-ed column, echoing the calumny: “President Bush himself has decided to play politics with the safety and security of the American people.”

And, last Sunday, there were — most memorably, most indefensibly, most obscenely — two Democratic congressmen, former whip David E. Bonior of Michigan and Jim McDermott of Washington, beamed live from Baghdad, to literally parrot Hussein’s line — to tell Americans that, as McDermott said, “the president would mislead the American people” in order to get his war, but that, by contrast, “you have to take the Iraqis on their value, at their face value.”

This is not a little cabal of contributors to the Nation telling the world that the American president is not to be believed and that he wishes to send Americans off to fight and possibly die in Iraq because war is good for his party. These are men in the leadership ranks of the Democratic Party. This is the party’s mainstream. This is what it, again, has revealed itself to be. Parties do the darnedest things. To themselves.

I think that some Democrats were hoping the Torricelli flap would at least push these things out of the news. Hasn’t happened yet. As I said Monday: What were they thinking?

NOW THAT THE ELECTION IS OVER, Germany is changing its tune. What’s interesting is that the pressure seems to be as much economic — based on fears of an angry reaction by American consumers — as diplomatic:

GERMANY edged closer to a U-turn on its policy towards Iraq yesterday by making clear that new evidence of President Saddam Hussein’s weapons plans could dilute its resistance to a war.

Statements by two Social Democrat foreign policy specialists have indicated a shift as Berlin begins to buckle under the strain of its argument with the Bush Administration.

The German business community has been piling the pressure on Gerhard Schröder, the Chancellor. German exports to the US are already suffering from a strong euro-dollar rate and weakening American demand. Now there is the fear of a consumer boycott.

Underberg, producers of a herbal digestive drink popular in the US since the days of Prohibition, have been the first to react. The company has sent an open letter, signed by 370 employees, to the White House apologising for a German minister’s comparison of President Bush with Hitler.

Other German companies are said to be considering taking out advertisements in US newspapers, a move that would seriously embarrass Herr Schröder’s Government. The city of Hamburg recently bought space in The New York Times to declare: “America — Hamburg stands by you.”

I wonder how many German companies have heard complaints about the Schroder regime’s anti-Americanism? Quite a few, I’d imagine.

ASPARAGIRL LOVES THE TRAILER for The Two Towers. I just watched it, and I do too.

JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN’T HEAR: Democrats want to replace Torricelli with Frank Lautenberg.

Why do I think I’ll soon be tired of hearing about this?

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt, who had Dave Kopel on his show tonight, adds another twist: the military absentee ballots have already gone out.

I repeat what I said yesterday: How does history repeat itself when it was farce the first time?

MERYL YOURISH tracks just how much attention the UN has paid to Israel since the beginning. Rather a lot, really.

STEVEN CHAPMAN OBSERVES:

This point brings home another feature of today’s post-9/11 pro-Europeanism: it is exclusively elite-driven. Zizek’s European Dream, like that of his intended audience, is largely mere theory in the minds of the tiniest of intellectual minorities. Recently a poll suggested that about half of Great Britain would like to emigrate, for one reason or another, and the most popular destination was – you guessed it – America. Today’s ‘huddled masses’ – now huddled under umbrellas rather than in doorways begging for sixpence – are ready to vote with their feet in favour of that same American Dream that Zizek rejects. (Just imagine the consequences for a future Europe were America to adopt an ‘open door’ policy towards European immigrants as it once did..!)

I think we should do it — except that what the ensuing brain drain might do to Europe might cause us more trouble than we want down the line.

SHILOH BUCHER explains why she’s leaving the Democrats behind:

What kills me is that being a Democrat means never having to pay for a mistake. The New Jersey Democratic Party knew all about the allegations against Torricelli when they nominated him. On the last legal day to change the ballot, they gambled that they had a better chance with Torricelli than with anyone else. Now they suspect they were wrong.

Sentiments like these may be the most potent check on the doings of both parties in New Jersey, and elsewhere.

UPDATE: Or maybe not. But here’s another former Gore voter’s perspective.

THE THIRD WORLD AS SAFARI PARK: This one hits the nail on the head.

NICHOLAS THOMPSON WRITES THAT pharmaceutical companies aren’t innovating, and blames over-patenting.

UPDATE: Derek Lowe responds.

IT’S GETTING WORSE.

CRYPTO-TERRORISM? Ken Layne is suspicious of some disclaimers.

RAMESH PONNURU HAS A PIECE in the latest issue of National Review (the dead-tree version, not the online version, alas) about libertarians and the war. The blogosphere plays an important role. Here’s an excerpt:

The anti-war absolutists tend to depict less doctrinaire libertarians as sellouts. But this time, the anti-war crowd is facing a new and aggressive challenge: the rise of the blogosphere. There are bloggers — i.e., individuals who offer regularly updated commentary via their websites (“weblogs”) — of all political descriptions, even Luddites. But libertarians, and articulate hawks, seem to be disproportionately represented among them. Glenn Reynolds, one of the most important bloggers, is a fellow traveler of libertarianism and a proponent of regime change in Iraq. A small army of like-minded web pundits have made the case for what might be called a muscular libertarianism. Indeed, someone whose knowledge of libertarianism came from the web might be forgiven for assuming that it is a fighting faith. One gets the sense, reading the anti-war sites, that these bloggers are the final straw: Now they really feel beleaguered.

Reynolds sums up the differences this way: “I think there’s a split among libertarians between those who view government as the enemy and those who view individual self-defense as the most important right. There’s a lot of overlap in political positions between people who take those views. To a lot of libertarians, the war looks like self-defense writ large. Whereas to another class of libertarians, anything that strengthens the state is wrong, even in self-defense.”

On his site, Brink Lindsey has taken on the anti-warriors’ premises. He argues that they are wrong to regard foreign military intervention as analogous to governmental intervention in domestic markets. The case against the latter rests on the existence of equilibrating mechanisms that intervention would disrupt. By contrast, “there is no invisible hand in foreign affairs.” Other libertarian bloggers have declared themselves agnostic on the question of Iraq. Jacob T. Levy probably speaks for many libertarians when he writes that “the last year has made me more interventionist than I had ever thought conceivable, by convincing me that even the internal affairs of other states can pose a mortal threat.”

In arguing for pre-emptive action against Iraq, the bloggers have not only broken with the anti-war libertarians. They have also implicitly gone beyond organized libertarianism (to the extent that such a thing exists or can exist). The Cato Institute, the Libertarian party, and Reason are all against a pre-emptive strike. Small as their numbers are, then, the libertarians have divided into three camps of roughly equal strength: the anti-war absolutists, the hawks, and a libertarian mainstream that endorsed action in Afghanistan but opposes war with Iraq.

Ponnuru suggests that this debate is more important to conservatism than many might think.

“The Final Straw” would be a pretty cool name for a blog, wouldn’t it?

IAIN MURRAY is debunking a lot of hysterical reportage about teens and alcohol.

IS THE U.S. A CHRISTIAN NATION? That depends on whether you ask Mark Shields, Pat Robertson, or Corsair. But regardless, it looks like China may be well on its way.

MAYBE I’M JUST SLOW, as I just got home and I’m cooking dinner. But this post by Hesiod assaulting Dave Kopel makes no sense. Kopel says a Senate term can’t be extended to 8 years. Hesiod says: what about Jean Carnahan. But Jean Carnahan is defending her seat right now against Jim Talent, just two years after being named to fill the vacant seat.

UPDATE: Okay I’ve reread Hesiod’s post and I think I understand where he’s gone wrong. He thinks that if Torricelli resigns, that creates a vacancy that extends beyond January of 2003. But it doesn’t. Remember — even though Torricelli’s withdrawn, there’s still an election in November, and whoever wins it will be New Jersey’s Senator in January of 2003. That won’t be Torricelli if he’s off the ballot, but that doesn’t make the seat vacant. Torricelli’s term expires this year, and nothing that the New Jersey legislature does can make the term last any longer. When it’s over, it’s over.

If Torricelli won the election and then resigned, the Governor could appoint someone to fill the slot until the next general election. But he’ d have to win, and then it would be the next seat, after the election, that would be vacant. New Jersey can’t take away Forrester’s right to run for the Senate, and take office if he wins, just because Torricelli decides to resign. But that’s what Hesiod seems to think the law does. For the Carnahan analogy to work, Torricelli has to be elected and then resign — or die when it’s too late to take his name off the ballot, and be elected anyway, which is what happened with Carnahan. Or else I’m still misunderstanding him, which is entirely possible. But right now the issue isn’t filling a vacant seat: it’s whether the Dems can fill a vacant spot on the ballot after the deadline for doing so has passed. If they fail to do so, there still won’t be a vacancy next year — it’ll just be filled by Forrester. But there’s no way for the Democrats to avoid an election next month — though presumably if they could get someone both named as a replacement (if they could get Torricelli to resign) and put on the ballot, that person would be more competitive.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jay Caruso has a post on this, too. So does Deinonychus antirrhopus who apparently shares Hesiod’s passion for Greek blognames.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mickey Kaus, on the other hand, seems to agree with Hesiod. But I think that the whole “vacancy-filling” argument based on the 17th Amendment fails when you realize that there is no “vacancy” in the next Senate term even if Torricelli resigns now — because there will be an election that will fill that seat in November, meaning that it will never be vacant. (Later: Kaus has updated — the email from the New York Times is delightful.)

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Eugene Volokh is echoing my analysis here. Also, I did poke around on Westlaw and couldn’t find a case in which a governor was able to cancel a Senate election under these circumstances.

POSITIVELY THE LAST UPDATE ON THIS POST: The Green Papers has a lengthy piece on this. Actually, more than one — follow the links.

ONE MORE UPDATE: Jonathan Adler writes in The Corner that the Democrats may have an argument under New Jersey law — though I don’t see that this answers the “vacancy” issue above.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Robert Prather is suggesting that now would be a good time for Zell Miller to switch parties. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but you can read Prather’s post and decide for yourself. And Porphyrogenitus has a long post on the political maneuverings involved, of which he doesn’t think much. And fellow prof-blogger Jacob T. Levy has some thoughts that are worth reading. I like his conclusion.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here are more thoughts from Robert Musil and The Indepundit says that Hesiod is in “full Florida mode.”

And Eugene Volokh has more too. Scroll both up and down from this post for additional information, including a discussion of whether some New Jersey Supreme Court Justices should recuse themselves because they donated to Torricelli.

Oh, and I just noticed this post from Patrick Ruffini and this one from Josh Marshall.

Here’s the latest from Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire. And how could I have missed James Lileks’ take on the situation?

If the law is upheld, then “democracy” is thwarted. Really? There will be an election with a ballot whose names are the ones chosen by voters in the primary. Sounds “democratic” to me. After all, Toricelli didn’t quit because he discovered an eight-pound neoplasm in his small intestine, or had his brain turned into a fine red mist when a marble-sized meteorite from the Oort cloud struck him in a 7-11 parking lot. He’s not even under indictment. He resigned because there was such a bad odor coming from him and his campaign that actual wavy cartoon stink lines were coming off him, and the cameras were starting to pick it up. He was going to lose. So he quit.

“Actual wavy cartoon stink lines.” You gotta love that, because it’s dead-on accurate.

Deroy Murdock has a column.

THIS REALLY IS THE LAST UPDATE: The New Jersey Supreme Court has decided, the Indepundit is dissing Hesiod and all the updates on the post-decision reactions are here.

LARRY TRIBE IS DEBATING SEAN WILENTZ over at the Jurist site. The topic: Antonin Scalia.

TAPPED is assigning blame for delays in the Homeland Security bill. But I’m not so sure that the word shouldn’t be “credit.”

Since I have never been a fan of this new cabinet department, I’m inclined to think that delays in getting it passed may be a sign of the system working as it should. It’s not that our current approach doesn’t need work — it does, — but I’m not at all convinced that the bill before Congress will solve the problems. Perhaps the foot-dragging and infighting over the bill is evidence that the White House and Congress don’t think so either.

CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL IS BEARISH ON GERMANY:

It is possible that Germany is undergoing a deep cultural change, and also beginning a slow economic spiral down to a standard of living below that of its neighbors. One can also wonder about its role in the world. The anti-American messages with which Schroeder wooed his newly Central European country may subside, and there may be a period of calm ahead for the German-American alliance. But why assume that Schroeder’s distrust of America–and the West?–is a temporary rather than a heartfelt thing? Perhaps it is–but even if it is, something has changed. Should Germany’s economic problems prove insoluble, should relations sour with its European neighbors, the United States has now been established as Germany’s scapegoat of first resort.

Yeah, and people are going to remember it.

BILL HERBERT HAS A DIFFERENT ANGLE on Bonior and McDermott.

WHO IS THE SMARTEST SUPREME COURT JUSTICE? Stuart Buck wonders why we care.

WHY I LIKE WHAT I DO: Just met with a student from my National Security Law seminar. He’s writing a paper on the FBI’s response to the Moussaoui case, and where it went wrong. He’s a West Point alumnus, and is applying some organizational theory — of the “normal accidents” variety — to the various breakdowns in communication and analysis. I’m looking forward to reading it.

BUYING IRAQ: Tom Holsinger writes about a possibly surreal invasion.