Obama Ad: "Celebrity" McCain from Washington

This is smart of the Obama campaign to turn the tables on McCain. He is a Washington celebrity.

Me? A celebrity? What about you, Sen. John McCain?

That's the gist of a TV ad that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign released Monday. Embrace is a response to two recent ads from McCain. Both McCain ads called Obama a "celebrity" and questioned whether he is ready to lead the nation. One compared his fame to that of Paris Hilton's and Britney Spears'.

The script

Narrator: "For decades, he's been Washington's biggest celebrity. John McCain. And as Washington embraced him, John McCain hugged right back. The lobbyists — running his low road campaign. The money — billions in tax breaks for oil and drug companies, but almost nothing for families like yours. Lurching to the right, then the left, the old Washington dance, whatever it takes. John McCain. A Washington celebrity playing the same old Washington games."

The images

Embrace begins as a spoof of McCain's ads. The narrator calls McCain "Washington's biggest celebrity." Images of the Arizona senator hugging President Bush, joking with late-night comedians and appearing on NBC's Saturday Night Live and ABC's The View flicker by.

Reality check

The non-partisan Tax Policy Center says McCain's plans would "primarily benefit those with very high incomes," while Obama would raise taxes "significantly" on that group. Obama would give larger tax breaks to lower-income groups than McCain, according to the center, a project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

Chinese Police Beat Christian Church Activist

Obviously Bush's presence and pro-freedom comments at the games did very little to stop the religious repression.

Police in Beijing on Tuesday denied claims by a Chinese Christian that he was beaten by police and warned off going to a church service attended by U.S. President George W. Bush on the weekend.

The allegations were made by the religious activist Hua Huiqi in a letter released by the U.S.-based group Human Rights in China.

Hua said in the letter that he and his brother were picked up near the church in Beijing early on Sunday morning.

He said they were beaten, dragged into two cars and then interrogated at a nearby building.

Hua quoted police officers as saying, "You are not allowed to go to Kuanjie Protestant Church because President Bush is going there today. If you go again, we will break your legs."

Hua said he managed to sneak out of the building when police were not watching and that he is now in hiding.

A spokesman for the Beijing Public Security Bureau told Kyodo News that police officers had "absolutely no contact" with Hua on Sunday and denied that he had been detained.

However, Hua's brother, Hua Huilin, told the Associated Press that he had received at least two phone calls from the Public Security Bureau saying Hua Huiqi had escaped and asking about his whereabouts.

"I haven't heard from him. We've been waiting here. We're so worried," Hua Huilin was quoted as saying.

Bush urged greater freedom of religion in China after visiting the government-approved Protestant church in Beijing on Sunday.

"Laura and I just had the great joy and privilege of worshiping here in Beijing," he told reporters. "It just goes to show that God is universal, and God is love, and no state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion," he said.

All religious institutions have to be officially approved and come under some form of government control in China, but many Christians belong to illegal or "house" churches which do not submit to state authority.

Pakistan Impeachment of Musharraf: Bush Running Scared?

Could Bush be next to get impeached if his friend, Musharraf, should fall?

The lower house of the Pakistani Parliament was set to convene Monday as the governing coalition geared up to impeach President Pervez Musharraf.

Also Monday, provincial legislatures were to begin offering resolutions calling on Musharraf to step down or face impeachment.

On Sunday, a spokesman for the president said Musharraf had a "clean track record" and would not resign - despite a rising clamor among the governing parties and media for him to quit.

"Abdication is the only option," The Daily Times said in an editorial Monday.

Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999. But his foes swept elections in February to set up a new government and push the former army chief to the sidelines, just four months after he had won a new five-year term in a controversial vote by the previous Parliament.

The coalition announced its impeachment plans last week and said it was preparing a "charge sheet" with allegations against Musharraf including violation of the Constitution, economic mismanagement and political manipulation.

Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for the second-largest coalition party, said the impeachment motion would be filed after the provincial assemblies had passed their resolutions, which could continue into next week.

No president has been impeached in Pakistan's turbulent 61-year history. The coalition contends it can get the two-thirds majority required in a joint sitting of both houses in Parliament to strip Musharraf of the presidency.

Although Musharraf's allies dispute that and have urged the longtime U.S. ally to fight impeachment, they have advised the president against using his authority to dismiss Parliament and the prime minister. Such moves would be contentious and require support from the army, which has indicated it wants to stay out of politics.

The Iraq Government is Demanding a "Timeline"

Now the only people who still argue against a timeline for our troops to leave Iraq are Bush and McCain.

Iraq's foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a "very clear timeline" for the departure of U.S. troops. A suicide bomber struck north of Baghdad, killing at least five people including an American soldier.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters that American and Iraqi negotiators were "very close" to reaching a long-term security agreement that will set the rules for U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Zebari said the Iraqis were insisting that the agreement include a "very clear timeline" for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces, but he refused to talk about specific dates.

"We have said that this is a condition-driven process," he added, suggesting that the departure schedule could be modified if the security situation changed.

But Zebari made clear that the Iraqis would not accept a deal that lacks a timeline for the end of the U.S. military presence.

"No, no definitely there has to be a very clear timeline," Zebari replied when asked if the Iraqis would accept an agreement that did not mention dates.

Differences over a withdrawal timetable have become one of the most contentious issues remaining in the talks, which began early this year. U.S. and Iraqi negotiators missed a July 31 target date for completing the deal, which must be approved by Iraq's parliament.

President Bush has steadfastly refused to accept any timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. Last month, however, Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed to set a "general time horizon" for a U.S. departure.

Last week, two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press that American negotiators had agreement to a formula which would remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 with all combat troops out of the country by October 2010.

The last American support troops would leave about three years later, the Iraqis said.

But U.S. officials insist there is no agreement on specific dates. Both the American and Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing. Iraq's Shiite-led government believes a withdrawal schedule is essential to win parliamentary approval.

American officials have been less optimistic because of major differences on key issues including who can authorize U.S. military operations and immunity for U.S. troops from prosecution under Iraqi law.

The White House said discussions continued on a bilateral agreement and said any timeframe discussed was due to major improvements in security over the past year.

Meet The Press Transcript (8-10-08)

Read the complete transcript.

MR. BROKAW: Let me also say I know you're a sports fan of a certain age. Remember the old Joe Louis line about one of his opponents, "He can run, but he can't hide"? You can come all the way to Beijing, but you can't escape what's going on at home. So I'm going to share with you and with our viewers some of the more tough news that we've heard this week. Freddie Mac lost $821 million in the last quarter, and then Fannie Mae reported a loss of $2.3 billion. These are the government-sponsored mortgage agencies. On July 20th of this year, you told my friend Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation," "Well, I think it's going to be months that we're working our way through this period. Clearly, months. But remember, the long-term fundamentals are very solid." After what we heard from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae this week, have you changed your mind about how long it's going to take to get out of this?

SEC'Y PAULSON: No, I think what, what I said to Bob Schieffer is, is, is consistent what I, what I believe today. I, I believe that we, we have got some serious issues we're dealing with in our economy, and, as I said to him, I believe that it's going to take us well beyond the end of the year to work through the housing--all of the housing problems. But I think the key question is when will the largest part of this housing correction be behind us? Because until the biggest part of the housing correction is behind us, we're going to continue to have turmoil in our capital markets. And I think the housing correction is really at the heart of our economic problems as a, as a nation right now. So, again, I think given that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are solely involved in housing--that's their sole business--and given the magnitude of the housing correction we've had, it, it, it's not a surprise to me to, to see those, those losses.

MR. BROKAW: You have the ability now to insert money into Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Do you think that that's going to become necessary, given the size of these losses?

SEC'Y PAULSON: Well, we have no plans to insert money in, in, in, in either of those institutions. I, I think it was very important that we get these temporary backup facilities because Fannie and Freddie are very important to our capital markets broadly. There's $5 trillion of securities that they have outstanding--$3 1/2 trillion in the U.S., a trillion and a half outside of the U.S.--and they're responsible for funding about 70 percent of the mortgages in the United States today. And so a key to our getting through this, this housing situation, this housing correction and getting some stability is that we continue to have mortgage financing available.

MR. BROKAW: Those two agencies were not well known to most taxpayers in this country...

SEC'Y PAULSON: Yeah, yeah.

MR. BROKAW: ...until the housing crisis hit.

SEC'Y PAULSON: Right.

MR. BROKAW: But we also know that they were caught in some significant accounting irregularities. They changed the management at the top; now they're both hemorrhaging money. You do have the authority to bail them out if it becomes necessary. But a lot of taxpayers are saying, "Why should I have to foot the bill for this?" I mean, there are wealthy investors who bought these bonds knowing that the government would not back them. Now, suddenly, they've got a fail-safe arrangement with the Treasury secretary.

SEC'Y PAULSON: Well, I've heard a lot of those same comments, and what I say to all those who make the comments to me is I say to them, you know, this was not a pleasant task for me to go to the Congress and ask for these backup facilities. Matter of fact, it was a very unpleasant task. But it was an easy one because it was better than the alternative. These institutions are right now critical to the stability of our capital markets, and they're critical to us getting through this, this housing situation.

And I would like to point something else out. In addition to these backup powers we have, these backup authorities, what we have now is a legislation calling for a strong new regulator with real powers to deal with, with capital adequacy, to deal with systemic risk. And the issue we've had, Tom, is, for some time, people in Washington have looked at these government-sponsored entities and on one side people have said they are really significant risks. Others said there weren't significant risks, and for, for, for many, many years nothing was done. And we now have a new regulator with very strong powers. The Fed is going to have a seat at the table. And so, in addition to working through this period of turmoil, we're in a position where the country will now be able to focus looking ahead at the systemic risk, and I, I think it's going to be very difficult for someone to argue there isn't systemic risk.

FOX News Sunday Transcript (8-10-08): McCain's Campaign Manager

Read the transcript here. Chris Wallace interviews McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis.

WALLACE: According to a recent poll — and let's put it up — people rate Obama's ads as positive by a margin of 38 percent to 13. But they view McCain's ads as negative 31 percent to 19.

Mr. Davis, why is the McCain campaign spending so much time and so much of its money attacking Obama?

DAVIS: Well, first of all, I don't think that we are spending that much time and money attacking Obama. And I would say Obama is spending exactly the same amount of time attacking us and, frankly, probably more money.

Obama started negative campaigning on John McCain long before we started punching back, and I think a lot of our effort is really to get back into this game, try and galvanize some of the public attention back onto this race, make sure everybody understands there's two people in this race, not just one, and I think we've been successful in doing that.

And you know, look. You could read a lot of polls right now, and it's August before a presidential election, and I really don't think that these polls are going to make a bit of difference come September.

WALLACE: All right. Let's take a look at one of your campaign's recent ads. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Life in the spotlight must be grand. But for the rest of us, times are tough. Obama voted to raise taxes on people making just $42,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Mr. Davis, especially that last sentence, isn't that misleading?

DAVIS: Nothing misleading about it. Barack Obama voted for a budget resolution that would have increased taxes on people, families, making $42,000. What's misleading about that?

WALLACE: Well, in fact, it only would be single people making $42,000. It would be families making over $60,000. But Obama — as you say, he voted for a non-binding budget resolution that overall talked about doing away with the Bush tax cuts.

In fact, he says, that's not his tax plan, that he supports a middle-class tax cut. And I want to put something up on the screen. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center says someone making $37,000 a year under Obama's plan would get a tax cut of $892. Under McCain's plan, they get a tax cut of $113.

DAVIS: Look, Obama wants to take away the current tax cuts that people now have. That includes a $1,000 child tax credit for people exactly in that category. It means doing away with the marriage penalty and many other things.

In the short period of time Barack Obama has been in the United States Senate, less than 300 working days, he has voted for 90 tax increases.

Now, we could have an ad on every tax increase he's voted on every single day between now and the election and still not get them all in. So I don't think anybody's going to question — who's going to raise your taxes as president of the United States? Barack Obama.

Who's going to cut your taxes and hold down spending as president of the United States? John McCain.

The Anthrax Witch Hunt: Ivins Only the Latest Victim

The more we learn the more we find out that the U.S. investigators are behaving more like the Gestapo or KGB rather than law enforcement officers sworn to uphold the Constitution.

When Perry Mikesell, a microbiologist in Ohio, came under suspicion as the anthrax attacker, he began drinking heavily, family members say, and soon died. After a doctor in New York drew the interest of the F.B.I., his marriage fell apart and his practice suffered, his lawyer says. And after two Pakistani brothers in Pennsylvania were briefly under scrutiny, they eventually had to leave the country to find work.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s path to Bruce E. Ivins, the Army scientist who committed suicide late last month as federal officials moved closer to indicting him for the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, was long and tortuous. Before the investigators settled on Dr. Ivins — and his defenders still say the F.B.I. hounded an innocent man to death — they had focused on Steven J. Hatfill, another Army researcher, for several years.

But along the way, scores of others — terrorists, foreigners, academic researchers, biowarfare specialists and an elite group of Army scientists working behind high fences and barbed wire — drew the interest of the investigators. For some of them the cost was high: lost jobs, canceled visas, broken marriages, frayed friendships.

At the Army biodefense laboratory in Frederick, Md., where Dr. Ivins worked, the inquiry became a murder mystery, the cast composed of top scientists eyeing one another warily over vials of lethal pathogens.

“It was not pleasant,” recalled Jeffrey J. Adamovicz, a former official there. “There was a general sense of paranoia that they were going to get somebody no matter what.”

Some critics fault the F.B.I.’s investigation as ignorant, incompetent and worse. Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who was a Princeton University physicist, said that the disclosures linking Dr. Ivins to the crime notwithstanding, the inquiry was “poorly handled” and “resulted in a trail of embarrassment and personal tragedy.”

[...]Early on, with more zeal than solid information, agents turned on three Pakistani-born city officials in Chester, Pa. One, Dr. Irshad Shaikh, was the health commissioner; his brother, Dr. Masood Shaikh, ran the lead-abatement program. The third, Asif Kazi, was then an accountant in the finance department.

Mr. Kazi was sitting in his City Hall office one day in November 2001 when F.B.I. agents burst in and began a barrage of questions.

“It was really scary,” Mr. Kazi recalled in an interview last week. “It was: ‘What do you think of 9/11? What do know about anthrax?’ ”

Across town, an agent pointed a gun through an open window at Mr. Kazi’s home while others knocked down the front door as his wife was cooking in the kitchen. At the Shaikh brothers’ house, agents in bioprotection suits began hunting for germ-making equipment and carted away computers.

None of the three men had ever worked with anthrax. But for days, they were on national television as footage of the searches ran on a video loop and news announcers wondered aloud if they were the killers.

The men were cleared after it turned out that a disgruntled employee had sought revenge by calling in a bogus tip. But for all three, trouble followed. The Shaikhs’ path to citizenship was disrupted, their visas ran out and both had to find work abroad, Mr. Kazi said.

- Related Posts:

• FBI Case Against Anthrax Scientist Ivins: Where's the Evidence?
• FBI Tried Coercing Ivins' Children into Accusing Their Father in Anthrax Attacks
• Bruce Ivins was a Scapegoat in the FBI Anthrax Investigation
• Another Victim of the Government Anthrax Witch Hunt?
• Scientist Is Paid Millions by U.S. in Anthrax Suit

Russia Ignores Bush Warnings, Escalates Fighting

The fighting in Georgia could easily escalate into a wider war, if not World War III.

Russia expanded its bombing blitz Sunday against tiny neighbor Georgia, a U.S. ally, targeting the country's capital for the first time. Heavy Russian shelling also forced Georgian troops to pull out of the capital of the contested province of South Ossetia.

Amid the escalating attacks, Russia's navy deployed ships to blockade Georgia's Black Sea Coast, according to Georgian officials.

The risk of the conflict setting off a wider war also increased when Russian-supported separatists in another Georgian breakaway region, Abkhazia, declared "full mobilization" on Sunday.

The Bush administration warned Russia to halt its attacks on Georgia or risk "significant" and enduring damage to its relationship with the United States.

Russian jets, which have been roaming Georgia's skies since Friday, bombed a factory Sunday on the eastern outskirts of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi that builds Su-25 jets warplanes. The attack inflicted some damage to the plant's runways but caused no casualties, said Georgia's Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili.

"We heard a plane go over and then a big explosion," said Malkhaz Chachanidze, an artist who lives next to factory. "It woke us up, everything shook."

Georgia's Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said the Georgian troops had to move out of Tskhinvali, the provincial capital of separatist South Ossetia, because of heavy Russian fire.

"Russia further escalated its aggression overnight, using weapons on unprecedented scale. In these conditions our forces conducted redeployment," Lomaia said.

Battle for control of South Ossetia
Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded Tskhinvali.

In response, Russia, which has granted passports to most South Ossetians, began overwhelming bombing and shelling attacks against Georgia and Georgian troops.

The Georgian president proposed a cease-fire Saturday, but Russia said it wants Georgia to first pull its troops from South Ossetia and sign a pledge not to use force against the breakaway province.

U.N. Security Council planned to meet Sunday for the fourth time in four days to try to resolved the situation.

U.S. President George W. Bush called for an end to the Russian bombings and an immediate halt to the fighting, accusing Russia of using the issue of South Ossetia to bomb other regions in Georgia.

"The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis," Bush said in a statement to reporters while attending the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Jim Jeffrey, President Bush's deputy national security adviser, said the United States had made it clear that "if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, that this will have a significant long-term impact on U.S.-Russian relations."

Clinton Campaign Tried to Portray Obama as Foreign

The Clintons are still trying to undermine the Obama campaign.

Mark Penn, the top campaign strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign, advised her to portray Barack Obama as having a “limited” connection “to basic American values and culture,” according to a forthcoming article in The Atlantic.

The magazine reports Penn suggested getting much rougher with Obama in a memo on March 30, after her crucial wins in Texas and Ohio: “Does anyone believe that it is possible to win the nomination without, over these next two months, raising all these issues on him? ... Won’t a single tape of [the Reverend Jeremiah] Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?”

Atlantic Senior Editor Joshua Green writes that major decisions during her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination would be put off for weeks until suddenly Clinton “would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire.”

Green reports that on a staff conference call in January where Clinton received “little response” or “silence” to several of her suggestions for how to recover from the Iowa loss and do better in New Hampshire, “Clinton began to grow angry, according to a participant’s notes,” Green recounts. “‘This has been a very instructive call, talking to myself,’ she snapped, and hung up.”

The eight-page blockbuster, “The Front-Runner’s Fall,” draws on internal memos, e-mails and meeting notes to reveal what the magazine’s September issue calls “the backstabbing and conflicting strategies that produced an epic meltdown.”

Penn, the presidential campaign’s chief strategist, wrote in a memo to Clinton excerpted in the article: “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.”

A key take-away from the article is that Clinton received a lot of accurate advice, including from Penn. He wrote a remarkably prescient memo in March 2007 about the importance of appealing to what he called “the Invisible Americans,” specifically “WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS” — exactly the groups that helped Clinton beat Obama in key states nearly a year later.

But no one synthesized and acted on the good advice.

“The anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even the most reserved Beltway wise men,” Green writes. “[H]er advisers couldn’t execute strategy; they routinely attacked and undermined each other, and Clinton never forced a resolution. ... [S]he never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel.

“What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make.”

FBI Apologizes to Newspapers for Obtaining Phone Records

This is really frightening. Our Constitution is being torn up before our very eyes.

FBI Director Robert Mueller has apologized to the editors of The Washington Post and The New York Times for improperly obtaining phone records of the newspapers' reporters while investigating terrorism four years ago.

Mueller called Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on Friday to express regret that agents did not follow proper procedures in 2004 when they obtained the phone records of a Post reporter and a researcher and two Times reporters. All four were working in Indonesia and writing about Islamic terrorism at the time.

Mueller and other FBI officials told the newspapers that agents obtained the records under a process that allowed them to bypass a grand jury review in emergency cases. The incident came to light through a review by the Justice Department's inspector general of bureau procedures that enabled the FBI to obtain thousands of records from phone companies after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the case of the newspaper reporters, agents obtained toll phone records — records of incoming and outgoing calls, but not details of conversations — using what are known as "exigent circumstances" letters.

Last year, the inspector general uncovered 700 cases in which FBI agents obtained telephone records through "exigent letters," which asserted that grand jury subpoenas had been requested for the data when in fact such subpoenas never had been sought. The FBI eliminated use of the letters in 2007.

Both Keller and Downie said they are seeking more information on the incidents, and Keller said he also wants to know how the FBI intends to prevent future incidents.

Deputy Assistant FBI Director Mike Kortan said in a statement that no investigative use was made of the reporters' phone records, and that "safeguards are now in place that we believe would prevent this from recurring."

But Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project, said in a statement that the episode confirms that "there are insufficient safeguards on the agency's use of national security letters and other intrusive surveillance tools. There aren't enough controls inside the agency, and there aren't enough checks from outside the agency."

"Especially dangerous is the FBI's power to impose gag orders on those ordered to disclose information," Jaffer said. "These gag orders, which are often unnecessary and almost always overbroad, invite abuse.

Video: Protesters Stage 'Die-In' at Tiananmen Square

The struggle for Tibet freedom continues, Olympics or no Olympics.

Olympic "Truce" Fails to Prevent Russian-Georgian War

From the UK Guardian:

As news of the conflict reached the two teams Russia's team leader described the Georgian president as "mentally ill" and the IOC was pressed to defend the Olympic truce, broken so spectacularly just as the opening ceremony of the Beijing games took place last night.

Russia and Georgia will meet in competition in the women's beach volleyball on Wednesday, but the IOC said that it had no plans to introduce special security measures for the game.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin attended the opening ceremony in Beijing and met with IOC president Jacques Rogge, but IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the conflict was not discussed.

"The meeting was very much focused on the sporting agenda, they discussed Sochi [the Russian city hosting the 2014 winter Olympics]. There was no discussion of any political or global incidents," she said.

"The sad reality is that out of the nations who were parading last night a number of them are in conflict and in an ideal world it's not something we would like to see. We can only bring the ideals of how sport can bring people together as friends."

Russian Olympic Committee spokesman Gennady Shvets said that the team had been upset by reports of up to 1,500 deaths, and were following developments closely. He insisted that preparation would not be interrupted, but attacked the Georgian president.

"Our athletes are doing what they've prepared for years. There's no politics." Describing Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is backed by Washington, he said: "He's stupid, a criminal, mentally ill, he should go to a clinic. Normally during the Olympics countries try to calm down any conflicts they have."

U.S. Olympic Coach Family Member Murdered in China

These Olympic games are already a tragedy. And this is supposed to be a police state.

A knife-wielding Chinese man attacked two relatives of a coach for the U.S. Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing, killing one and injuring the other on the first day of the Olympics on Saturday, team officials and state media said.

The man then committed suicide by throwing himself from the second story of the site, the 13th century Drum Tower just five miles from the main Olympics site.

The brutal attack shortly after midday was all the more shocking because of the rarity of violent crime against foreigners in tightly controlled China, which has ramped up security measures even more for the Olympics.

The stabbing came only hours after what by many accounts was the most spectacular opening ceremony in Olympic history and it has already dampened some of the enthusiasm.

"They are deeply saddened and shocked," Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said of the volleyball team.

The U.S. Olympic Committee said in a statement that two family members of a coach for the men's indoor volleyball team were stabbed at the Drum Tower "during an attack by what local law enforcement authorities have indicated was a lone assailant."

One of the family members was killed and the other was seriously injured, it said, without giving details.

The official Xinhua News Agency identified the attacker as Tang Yongming, 47, from the eastern city of Hangzhou. It said Tang attacked the two Americans and their Chinese tour guide, who was also injured, at 12:20 p.m. on the second level of the ancient tower, then leapt to his death immediately afterward. The second level of the tower is about 130 feet high.

Seibel said the two Americans who were attacked were not wearing anything that would have identified them as Americans or part of the U.S. team. He could not name the coach.

"They were not wearing apparel or anything that would have specifically identified them as being members of our delegation" or as Americans, he told The Associated Press.

He said it is "too early to say" whether the U.S. delegation or athletes will require additional security.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Buangan said it was aware of an incident involving two Americans and was working with Chinese authorities to find out more. He said U.S. officials were in contact with relatives of the two Americans who are in Beijing.

Supermarket Customer Fights then Captures Armed Robber

This video shows an armed and masked robber walking into a Tulsa supermarket. After shooting at a customer the thugs gun jammed. Craig Stutzman acted. He tackled the armed man and wouldn't allow him to escape. The heroic Stutzman suffered some injuries and got stitches for fighting the robber wearing a spiderman mask.

al Qaeda Behind Rising Threat to China, Olympics

It isn't just the West that needs to fear from Islamic Jihadists. Unfortunately silence from World over human rights abuses by the Communist Chinese rulers has opened the door for extremists.

Police shut down the bustling International Bazaar in the capital of China's restive Muslim region of Xinjiang on Friday amid threats from an Islamic group that attackers might target buses, trains and planes during the Olympics.

A sign at the entrance of the bazaar in Urumqi did not explain why the area, surrounded by mosques with minarets, was off limits as the country prepared to kick off the Summer Games thousands of miles (kilometers) away in Beijing.

But one of the many security guards in the bazaar's plaza, which was marked off with crime scene tape, told an AP reporter, "The area is closed because of a possible terrorist attack. It's just a defensive measure."

Even a KFC restaurant in the shopping area -- filled with touristy shops selling carpets and jade -- was closed, and a guard sitting on the steps shooed people away. A few Chinese tourists lingered in the area, snapping photos.

The sprawling, far-flung western region of Xinjiang has long been a source of trouble for China's communist government. The rugged, mineral-rich territory is populated by the Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim minority that has had tense relations with the Chinese. Many Uighurs favor independence or greater autonomy for Xinjiang, which takes up one-sixth of China's land mass and borders eight Central Asian countries.

On Thursday, a videotape purportedly made by the Turkistan Islamic Party -- a militant group seeking Xinjiang independence -- was released with threats to launch attacks during the Olympics.

"Choose your side," says the videotape's speaker, grasping a rifle and dressed in a black turban and camouflage with his face masked. "Do not stay on the same bus, on the same train, on the same plane, in the same buildings or any place the Chinese are," he warns Muslims, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. operation that monitors militant organizations.

The Turkistan Islamic Party is believed to be based across the border in Pakistan, where security experts say core members have received training from al-Qaeda.

Another threat being ignored by the West is China's spying.

U.S. intelligence officials issued a strong warning Thursday that Americans traveling overseas, particularly visitors to the Olympics in China, face a serious risk of having sensitive information stolen, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

The travel alert is blunt:

"All information you send electronically - by fax machine, personal digital assistant (PDA), computer or telephone - can be intercepted."

"Somebody with a wirless device in China should expect it to be compromised while he's there," Brenner said.

And those who must take phones and BlackBerries with them should remove the batteries.

"The public security services in China can turn your telephone on and activate its microphone when you think it's off," said Brenner.

China is one of a number of countries pushing active cyber-espionage programs aimed primarily at cracking U.S. national security computers and stealing corporate trade secrets. Billions have already been lost.

In addition, cyber-gangs and criminals, many based in Asia, have stolen bank accounts and credit card numbers from an untold number of Americans.

And Bush just pretends he gives a damn.

George Bush kept human rights high on the Olympic agenda today by calling for freedom of expression and religion just hours before he was to attend the opening ceremony.

The US president, who has irked the host nation all week by raising human rights issues, continued to press his message after arriving in Beijing.

"We strongly believe societies which allow the free expression of ideas tend to be the most prosperous and the most peaceful," he declared at a ceremony to open a new American embassy.

"We continue to be candid about our belief that all people should have the freedom to say what they think and worship as they choose."

The Chinese government has rejected what officials and the state media described as an attempt to use human rights to meddle in its internal affairs and ruin the mood of the Olympic festival.

A foreign ministry spokesman said their country has made progress in opening the media, reducing executions and widening freedoms of religion.

Bush is the first sitting president to attend an Olympic opening ceremony outside America. His presence has been criticised by US politicians and human rights groups as an endorsement of the one-party state.

Bush Agrees to a Timetable: U.S. out of Iraq by 2010?

It looks like Bush is ready to eat crow. In the process, he just cut McCain's legs from under him. Wow!

Iraq and the U.S. are near an agreement on all American combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that, two Iraqi officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. U.S. officials, however, insisted no dates had been agreed.

The proposed agreement calls for Americans to hand over parts of Baghdad's Green Zone — where the U.S. Embassy is located — to the Iraqis by the end of 2008. It would also remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, according to the two senior officials, both close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and familiar with the negotiations.

The officials, who spoke separately on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing, said all U.S. combat troops would leave Iraq by October 2010, with the remaining support personnel gone "around 2013." The schedule could be amended if both sides agree — a face-saving escape clause that would extend the presence of U.S. forces if security conditions warrant it.

U.S. acceptance — even tentatively — of a specific timeline would represent a dramatic reversal of American policy in place since the war began in March 2003.

It is possible the surge did work after all if political debate is replacing political violence in Iraq...or maybe not.

A growing number of Iraqi groups are choosing to pursue their agendas through politics instead of bloodshed, a trend that has helped bring down levels of violence. But as Iraqis leave behind the sectarian cataclysms of recent years, ethnic and regional political disputes in several parts of Iraq are becoming more pronounced.

In the south, the ruling Shiite parties are vying for electoral power against loyalists of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Shiite tribal leaders. In the west, Sunni tribes are challenging the political control of established Sunni religious parties. And in the north, ethnic Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens are in a struggle for control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

"What we have now is people who know how to use weapons and who now want to play politics," said Mithal al-Alusi, an independent Sunni legislator. Even so, some leaders seem unable to decide whether to trust their fortunes to the ballot box.

The fight over Kirkuk is proving to be particularly intense. The dispute over power sharing in the ethnically mixed city triggered an attack by a suicide bomber and ethnic clashes that killed 25 people there last month. This week, Iraqi lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on provincial elections legislation, placing in doubt the timing of the vote and slowing political reconciliation.

"There is no doubt the violence will increase in Kirkuk if its case does not get solved," said Khalaf al-Elayan, a Sunni lawmaker who heads the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, part of the largest Sunni political bloc.

Iraqi lawmakers and U.S. officials say several factors are behind the shaky transition to more robust politics. Militant groups are tired of fighting U.S. forces and are joining the political process as a way to survive. With the Bush administration in its last months, Iraq's political parties, sensing the possible end of the U.S. presence in Iraq, want to consolidate their political standing. Others view political ascendancy as a way to exert pressure on U.S. troops to leave Iraq.

Now McCain will have include George Bush in his list of defeatists along with Obama, and the American people.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has contended that Barack Obama is willing to lose in Iraq to win the election, on Thursday said his rival would forfeit the war as part of an agenda that also promotes big government and high taxes.

McCain told those gathered for a town hall meeting that Obama is a talented orator with an agenda that could be boiled down to simple policies the Arizona Republican opposes.

"Government is too big, he wants to grow it. Taxes are to high, he wants to raise them," McCain said. "Congress spends too much and he proposes more. We need more energy and he's against producing it. We're finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit."

Ron Suskind on Countdown: Bush Could get Impeached Over This Book

Ron Susskind was interviewed by Keith Olbermann on Countdown. He is the author of the book that claims the Bush White House paid an Iraqi insider to fabricate a letter as a way of pushing for war with Iraq. Read the entire transcript.

Ron Suskind in a moment. First, the details of what he has written in “The Way of the World” published today. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, writing that before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Bush already knew that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, something that did not stop him from ordering the invasion anyway.

Suskind speaking on the record with U.S. intelligence officials, who told him that in early 2003, in secret meetings with British intelligence, Saddam‘s own intelligence chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush, revealed that Iraq, in fact, did not have weapons of mass destruction, information that was passed on to the CIA.

When that information was then passed on to Mr. Bush—author Suskind says—the president became frustrated and said of Habbush, quote, “Why don‘t they ask him to give us something we can use to help us make our case?”

Habbush then held weekly meetings with British intelligence, telling them that Saddam had no WMD stockpiles and no active nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs.

When all this was shared with CIA Director George Tenet, he said, quote, “They‘re not going to like this downtown,” downtown being the White House. It sounds like a police drama.

“The White House then buried the Habbush Report. They instructed the British that they were no longer interested in keeping the channel open.

Rob Richer, the CIA‘s Near East Division head, telling Suskind again on the record, quote, “Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq from the very first few days he was in office. Nothing was going to stop that.”

Now, for the smoking gun about the smoking gun that was never a smoking gun. CIA division head, Richer, is telling Suskind that not only did the order to forge a fake letter come from the White House, but the assignment had been written on creamy White House stationary.

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ring leader , Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq—thus showing finally that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President‘s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”

Another CIA official, John Maguire who oversaw the Iraq operations group also is confirming the existence of the forged letter to author Suskind, but Mr. Richer backtracking for both of them tonight in a statement to MSNBC, quote, “I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document from Habbush as outlined in Mr. Suskind‘s book.

Further, today, (5 August 2008) I talked with John Maguire, who has given me the permission to state the following on his behalf, ‘I never receive any instruction from then Chief/NE Rob Richer or any other officer in my chain of command instructing me to fabricate such a letter. Further, I have no knowledge to the origins of the letter and as to how it circulated in Iraq.”

The letter, whatever its origins, was passed in Baghdad to Con Coughlin, a reporter for the “Sunday Telegraph” of London who wrote it about in the front page of his newspaper on December 14th, 2003, the same day that Saddam Hussein was discovered in his hiding hole in Iraq. That day, Mr. Coughlin describing the significance of his find to Tom Brokaw on “MEET THE PRESS.”

[...]They‘re coming at you kind of forcefully. What‘s your response to that forcefulness and these comments?

SUSKIND: Well, the fact is, a lot of this is expected. I‘m one person who is standing at this point with the sources behind me, those who are holding firm, and, obviously, they‘re under acute pressure—to say this is an action that has constitutional implications along with, you know, the possibility of impeachment proceedings. All this in an odd way, you know, character assassination is what they do when they have nothing else to say.

OLBERMANN: Ask Scott McClellan.

Obama has Big Lead Among Working Class Whites, Women

We've been told for months that working class whites wouldn't support Obama. And That was because the Illinois Senator was an elitist. Pat Buchanan has been making the argument sing Hillary beat Obama soundly during the West Virginia primaries. It turns out that it is not the case. They also said Obama had a woman problem and that's why they needed Hillary as a running mate. The latest poll debunk these theories. Furthermore, McCain is not catching up to Obama overall.

The new CBS poll has an interesting result for all of us who have been thinking about the day-to-day variations of the campaign: The top-line numbers have not changed one bit since their last poll three weeks ago.

The numbers: Obama 45%, McCain 39%, with a margin of error of ±3%. Three weeks ago it was Obama 45%, McCain 39%.

The internals have some interesting demographic numbers. The two candidates are tied 40%-40% among independents. Obama leads 46%-42% among men and 44%-36% with women, and Obama has a 55%-33% lead with voters under age 45 to McCain's 44%-36% lead among voters over 45; And Obama is ahead 44%-32% among working class whites, a demographic that conventional wisdom had held he'd do badly with.

The press still continues to insist that there is trouble for Obama. That people are getting tired of him. Where's the evidence?

After two weeks of sharpened attacks between the campaigns, Barack Obama is maintaining a narrow 5% lead over John McCain in the race for the White House, a new TIME poll shows. Overall, the poll shows Obama leading McCain 46% to 41% when undecided voters with a slight preference are included (the margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points). That gap is the same as the presumptive Democratic nominee held in June.

The CNN lead is 5 percent. It is still a statistically significant lead.

With three months to go before election day, Obama's advantage is largest on atmospheric issues: he is seen as far more likeable and a greater force for change than McCain. Asked which candidate is most likeable, Obama beats McCain 65% to 20%; as for which is the real candidate for change, he leads 61% to 17%. Obama also beats McCain 48% to 35% on who understands voters' concerns best, another key indicator of appeal.

But on specific issues, Obama is treading water or sinking a bit. On the number one issue of the campaign right now, the economy, Obama leads McCain 43%-39%, compared to 44%-37% reported by TIME's poll in June. Despite his highly touted tour of Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan last month, Obama may be in something of a late summer slump. The poll shows that voters have increased their faith in McCain's ability to manage the Iraq war, favoring him over Obama by a margin of 51%-36%, a five point jump since June. And voters boosted their belief that McCain would do a better job in managing the war on terror than they did in June, favoring the Arizona Senator over his colleague from Illinois by a 56%-29% margin, up from 53%-33% in June.

Obama did get good news from some segments of the population. Women now favor him by ten percentage points over McCain, 49%-39%. That seems to quell the notion that women would penalize Obama for beating Hillary Clinton in the primary. And Obama is holding his own with males, as he and McCain split them 43% each. McCain is leading Obama by seven points, 47%-40% among white voters, but that is well short of George W. Bush's 58%-41% edge over John Kerry in exit polls from the 2004 election. Obama, meanwhile, is getting the votes of 85% of blacks to McCain's 6%.

McCain is lagging in enthusiasm. Forty-nine percent of Obama voters describe themselves as "very enthusiastic," compared to just 21% of McCain backers, and a full 27% of the Republican nominee's supporters say they are either "not very" or "not at all" enthusiastic about him, compared with 10% for Obama.

George W. Bush, meanwhile, appears to still be a factor in the race to succeed him. Bush's approval rating hovers steadily at 29%. The percentage of people who disapprove of Bush who are supporting the Republican candidate anyway — a key indicator of the election — reveals how close the race remains. McCain is getting the support of 20% of voters who disapprove of Bush's handling of his job. Most pollsters believe that McCain will need closer to 30% of "Bush disapprovers" to beat Obama in November.

If you look at an average of all the polls, Obama continues to maintain a consistent lead (according to realclearpolitics.com). Whereas McCain numbers are inconsistent. He is dropping once again after rising last week. McCain has not been a 46% since early June, when the primaries were still going on. Conversely, Obama has been at 46 percent, and over, since early May! And now McCain is beginning to drop again while Obama is rising. The latest theory that the increased attacks on Obama are succeeding does not hold water.

FBI Case Against Anthrax Scientist Ivins: Where's the Evidence?

The Federal government unsealed documents today in the case against Bruce Ivins. It was supposed to make the case for concluding that the dead scientist was behind the anthrax attacks of 2001. The only problem with their presentation: no evidence. Among the assertions:

_An advanced DNA analysis matched the anthrax used in the attacks to a specific batch controlled by Ivins. It is unclear, however, how the FBI eliminated as suspects others in the lab who had access to it.

_Ivins' purported motive — sending the anthrax in a twisted effort to test a cure for it, according to authorities. Ivins complained of the limitations of animal testing and shared in a patent for an anthrax vaccine. No evidence has been revealed so far to bolster that theory.

_Why Ivins would have mailed the deadly letters from Princeton, N.J., a seven-hour round trip from his home. In perhaps the strangest explanation to emerge in the case so far, authorities said Ivins had been obsessed with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma for more than 30 years. The letters were sent from a mailbox down the street from the sorority's office, which is across the street from Princeton University.

Investigators can't place Ivins in Princeton but say the evidence will show he had disturbing attitudes toward women.

The FBI paints a picture of a monster. Ivins' colleagues, friends, and family remember him as a good man and model employee:

Five eulogists, all of whom worked closely with Ivins, praised him as a scientist and friend. Col. John Skvorak, the commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, said that Ivins was a top-notch researcher and generous mentor to younger scientists, always full of questions. Lt. Col. Bret Purcell, another Army scientist, struggled to maintain composure as he spoke of Ivins's unyielding dedication to the lab where he worked and the people who worked with him.

Ivins's wife, Diane, and their two children, Amanda and Andrew, both 24, sat in the front row and were greeted by Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, the commander of Fort Detrick. The family was presented with a dozen red roses by a tearful lab technician who worked alongside Ivins.

Ivins came to USAMRIID in 1980, specializing in the genetics and immunology of Bacillus anthracis. He was a recipient of the Defense Department's highest honor given to a civilian. But at the service he was remembered for the joy he brought others: his juggling; teaching another scientist's son how to ride a unicycle; and giving Patricia Worsham, the deputy chief of the bacteriology division, a purple T-shirt that said, "The Queen Is Not Amused." Mourners laughed as Worsham held up the T-shirt.

Many soldiers and Ivins's fellow researchers filled the pews, including those who found the allegations against him inconceivable. "I'm so angry," one of them said to another, waiting for the service to begin. "I'm so angry." A statement issued later in the day by Ivins's attorneys concluded: "No one who attended [the] service could believe that Dr. Ivins committed any crime."

As for e-mails and envelopes, did the FBI do match the handwriting to Ivins? What about fingerprints or DNA on the envelopes? Who were the emails sent to? And why would he bring suspicion upon himself by writing them? And was the context? Make the emails public just as you made the letters public.

Two weeks after the 2001 attacks, he sent an e-mail warning "Bin Laden terrorists for sure have anthrax and sarin gas" and "have just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans."

That was language similar to the anthrax letters that warned "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX . . . DEATH TO AMERICA . . . DEATH TO ISRAEL," investigators said.

How come he didn't get that stuff on himself or his property?

It's long been claimed that the property that rendered so dangerous the anthrax sent to Daschle and Leahy was that it was airborne. At times it was even claimed that the anthrax was aerosolized. Under all circumstances, in order for it to be inhalation anthrax, it would have to disperse rather easily. Wouldn't one expect that the FBI's swabs would reveal traces of anthrax somewhere on the clothes, in the home or other physical surroundings of the anthrax attacker? Yet apparently those multiple swabbing episodes turned up nothing, at least based on the documents that were released today.

Nor are there any real answers to the question of how Ivins would have manufactured, on his own and without being detected, anthrax grade of the type that was used in the attacks. The numerous hours he spent alone in the lab doesn't address what many of his colleagues said would have been his technological inability to produce anthrax of this type.

How did Ivins get to New Jersey many miles away from where he lived? And there is no proof that Ivins was ever in New Jersey around that time. And how could he have developed airborn anthrax within a week, assuming he used the 9-11 attacks as a pretext? And go undetected?

Long-time anthrax expert Dr. Meryl Nass (Curriculum Vitae here) uses crystal clear rationality to point out just some of the glaring flaws in what the FBI presented today. The fact that the FBI is plainly unable to place him near Princeton, New Jersey on either of the two dates on which the letters were sent -- and, worse, the fact that the FBI included several facts which cut against such a finding -- is, as Dr. Nass points out, by itself an enormous omission:

Put up or shut up: this is the most critical evidence in this case. If Ivins cannot be placed in New Jersey on those dates, he is not the attacker, or he did not act alone.

- Related Posts:

• FBI Tried Coercing Ivins' Children into Accusing Their Father in Anthrax Attacks
• Bruce Ivins was a Scapegoat in the FBI Anthrax Investigation
• Another Victim of the Government Anthrax Witch Hunt?

Bush "Scolds" China en Route to Olympics

Bush went to China to celebrate the Olympics. Don't kid yourself into thinking that his criticism of regime over there is sincere. Mr.Bush has shown himself to be a loyal lapdog for the Communist Chinese. China has been a great cash cow, and the President has devoted himself to furthering big business interests in that country. The Chinese rulers know very well that Bush's words of criticism are pure lip service intended for U.S. domestic consumption.

The same day of his arrival in Beijing for the Olympics, President Bush is carrying a message of "deep concerns" about the state of human rights in China and urging the communist nation to allow political freedoms for its citizens.

"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists," Bush will declare in the marquee speech of his three-nation Asia trip. "We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labor rights — not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential."

Bush delivers the address in a Bangkok, Thailand, convention center Thursday morning to a crowd of foreign diplomats, Thai government leaders and business officials, before flying to China later that day.

Of course the comments made by the President are not made on Chinese soil:

Bush arrived in Bangkok on Wednesday evening, and then traveled immediately to a meeting with Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. The White House released the text of the president's speech earlier Wednesday, nearly 18 hours in advance, as Bush traveled to Thailand from South Korea.

The speech was planned as a summary of what Bush says is the "stronger engagement" with strategically crucial Asia that has marked his presidency. But his remarks on China, among his most directly critical ever in public, stand out.

He might criticize but Bush is still a friend of dictators everywhere, unless they are hostile to Israel and Western oil interests.

Bush's Bangkok remarks devote only a few sentences to criticism for the "tyranny" in Myanmar, Thailand's neighbor, which is ruled by a military junta. He called for the release of the country's democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as other political prisoners.

Though Samak, the Thai prime minister, regards himself as a friend of Myanmar's generals, Bush planned to heap praise on his Thai hosts, calling the country a leader in the region and saluting them for restoration of democracy.

And you won't hear Bush calling for the Chinese authorities to allow in people whom are critical of the government. Where is the praising of people whom are fighting for freedom for the people of Tibet and China?

Former Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek had his visa revoked by Chinese authorities Wednesday, hours before he was set to travel to Beijing to promote his effort urging China to help make peace in the war-torn Darfur section of Sudan.

Cheek, the president and co-founder of a collection of Olympic athletes known as Team Darfur, was planning to spend about two weeks in China, when he received an unexpected call from authorities.

The 2006 American gold medalist said they told him they were denying him entrance into the country and were "not required to give a reason."

Oh, by the way, the Communist China support the genocide in Darfur.

One of Cheek's key initiatives was urging the international community to persuade Sudan to observe the ancient tradition of the Olympic truce during the Beijing Games.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in fighting in the western Sudanese region since ethnic African tribesmen took up arms in 2003.

The Olympic truce dates to the ancient games in Greece, when fighting was halted to ensure athletes had safe passage to travel to and from the competitions. Attempts to revive the truce in modern times have met with only modest success, most notably in the Balkans during the 1992 and 1994 Games.

Cheek said he has been upset by China's treatment of athletes involved in his cause and thinks the International Olympic Committee's rules that prohibit political protest go against the spirit of the games.

[...]Cheek said he has been greeted warmly on his previous trips to China.

"I don't begrudge them the Olympics, I think they'll do well with them," Cheek said. "But there are so many of their government's policies that I find repulsive, especially for athletes who have no intention but to help someone else."

He had planned to attend a United Nations Olympic celebration and some charity events but wasn't planning any big Team Darfur demonstrations. Now he's scrambling to figure out how to draw attention to his cause back home in Washington.