Now the bad news: As we investigated the charges this morning, it became evident that almost nobody except us and American Spectator’s John Tabin was working this beat. Granted: it’s a busy day, with the great battle raging over healthcare reform. Yet Schlussel’s charges were important, they were facially credible, and they got wide pickup on the left-hand side of the blogosphere. You’d think the conservative world would want them investigated, if only to be debunked.

Our friend John Guardiano tweeted this afternoon: “Earlier today @DavidFrum asked why conservatives were “ignoring” the charges against Sean Hannity. Now we know why: because they were bogus!” The charges were indeed bogus. But sadly, that’s NOT “why” they were “ignored.” The people who ignored the charges did not know the charges were bogus, and in almost no case did they make any effort to find out. If conservatives now know the charges against Hannity are bogus, it’s because we at FrumForum asked on their behalf.

Freedom Alliance put out a statement earlier today. But that statement was not fully responsive to the charges. And while we appreciate Freedom Alliance’s willingness to invest the time to answer our questions, too often they seemed to take for granted that their plain statement should suffice to dispose of all concerns.

Conservatives rightly demand accountability from government. We need an accountability culture within our own institutions too however. We’re delighted to report that Sean Hannity has not betrayed his fans’ trust. But remember that old Reagan saying about needing to verify as well as trust? More of that please.

FrumForum has done an exhaustive investigation of the charity in question, Freedom Alliance, and found enough evidence to substantially rebut each of Schlussel’s claims. I’ll approach them one by one.

1. Sean Hannity improperly benefited from Freedom Alliance by charging private jets, hotel stays and luxury cars.

Freedom Alliance’s press release today stated categorically that they have “never provided planes, hotels, cars, limos, or anything else to Sean [Hannity] … to be clear Sean pays for all his own transportation, hotels, and all related expenses for himself and his family and friends and staff.” We are satisfied that this is true.

It is true that Freedom Alliance spent $60,000 on aviation services in 2006, but there is no evidence that this was for Sean Hannity’s benefit, and it seems unlikely that the money was used to lease a Gulfstream 5. Rates for G5 aircraft average around $8,000 an hour. $60,000 would not buy much at that rate.

We have also been able to confirm that Sean Hannity has no operational control over the organization. Nor is he even a member of the group’s board.

If Schlussel stands behind her statement, then she will have to do better than a quote from a blind source, who is, as she admits, a friend of a friend.

2. Too Little of Freedom Alliance’s Spending Has Gone to Program Outcomes.

FrumForum has intensively investigated Freedom Alliance’s 990 Forms, which have been submitted to the IRS and checked by an independent auditor.

Debbie Schlussel alleges that only $1 million of the organization’s $8.8 million in revenue was going to soldiers and scholarships in 2008. This figure is the product of a misleading and selective reading of the organization’s tax forms.

The numbers that Schlussel cite refer to direct financial transfers to individuals – that is, if there is a direct grant that Freedom Alliance gives to a soldier. This does not include all the positive work that doesn’t involve a direct grant.

Freedom Alliance also spends money on non-cash benefits for military families, involving things like taking soldiers to sporting events and sending care packages to troops.

The highest paid employee earned $152,000 in 2006. The second highest paid employee earned $83,000. In 2007, Freedom Alliance spent about $1 in $7 on salary and benefits.

Total staffing costs may seem high, but they are not out of line with what is spent at many other charities. For example, the Armed Services branch of the YMCA spent about $1 in $2 on salaries and benefits in 2008.

3. Soldiers Get Grants of Very Low Value

Schlussel is unhappy with “the fact that in each year’s tax returns soldiers described as having brain trauma injuries, multiple amputated limbs, and severe burns over most of their bodies get a few hundred bucks each from Freedom Alliance and in almost every case, no more than $1,000.”

However, this accusation is much weaker when you examine the Department of Defense regulations regarding donations to active duty soldiers.

According to the DOD Joint Ethics Regulation, gifts with a value of over $1,000 must go through a lengthy bureaucratic process which involves ethics officials. Calls to the Department of Defense confirmed this point.

What becomes clear is that there is a bureaucratic process to get approval from an ethics official, and that the costs of working through the bureaucracy for this purpose may want to be avoided by a charity, especially one that is working in a lot of other areas.

Schlussel also decries Freedom Alliance donations of less than $1,000, complaining for example that Freedom Alliance only gave $200 to a serviceman who lost both legs and his left arm. FrumForum has determined that lower-value grants like these are approved for specific purposes, often requested by a DOD case officer. This applies to cases where, for example, a serviceman may need a bus ticket home to visit his family.

The sums may seem small, but a soldier who is already receiving a government benefit may greatly value an airline ticket that goes above and beyond the Department of Defense’s budget.

4. Too Little Money Is Being Spent on Scholarships for Children of the Fallen

Schlussel complains that “167 students got an average of just $4,803.89 each in tuition.  With the amount this charity raises, these kids should all be getting a free ride paid for by Freedom Alliance.”

The scholarships that she is referring to are considered and approved annually, meaning that a freshman can qualify for about $20,000 over four years.

Further, $4,800 covers more than a year’s tuition at an average Catholic private school and a substantial portion of tuition at many colleges. For example, it nearly covers a year’s tuition at the University of Georgia ($4,900), and covers about a third of a year’s tuition at the University of Michigan ($11,600 for freshmen, $13,000 for upper-classmen).

Overall, Freedom Alliance raised $2.1 million for scholarships in 2008. About $800,000 of that went to scholarships for that year.  Schlussel claims that the remainder, “$1,238,636 – all of which was supposed to go to scholarships for these kids of the fallen – went to Freedom Alliance.”

FrumForum was able to confirm with Freedom Alliance that the $1.2 million that Schlussel cites did not go into the general Freedom Alliance revenues, but instead to the organization’s Scholarship Trust Fund.

Why didn’t Freedom Alliance spend all of its $2.1 million on scholarships that year? Considering your average active duty combat soldier is in his mid-20s, many fallen soldiers have children that are not of age to go to college. Saving a substantial part of funds is simply good planning – the process of funding children of the fallen will continue for fifteen to twenty years. The organization’s trust fund now stands at around $15 million.

5. Freedom Alliance’s Postage Costs Are Too High

Debbie Schlussel complains that Freedom Alliance spends too much on postage. Freedom Alliance’s listed cost for postage was $775,599 in 2008, which may seem high given their overall expenses. However, Freedom Alliance sends care packages to active duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, which explains a good deal of the cost behind the postage figure.

Comparing Freedom Alliance to other groups that specialize in sending care packages, Freedom Alliance’s expenditures seem ordinary. The high cost of postage can be explained by the necessarily high cost of sending packages around the world into two war zones.

For example, Operation Gratitude is a group that specializes in “sending care packages addressed to individual Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines deployed overseas.” When reviewing their tax forms, FrumForum found that they spend similar amounts on postage. Operation Gratitude spent $773,680 in 2008; Freedom Alliance spent $775,599. 

*  *  *

A day of hard work by Tim Mak and Noah Kristula-Green was able to debunk the charges Debbie Schlussel levied against Sean Hannity.

Tim and Noah worked through IRS forms and comparisons with other charities to conclude that Freedom Alliance does not spend the money it raises on lavish living.

There are other questions of course: After all, only a small portion of the money spent on tickets to “Freedom Concerts” is received by the Freedom Alliance. If say a $40 ticket yields a $4 donation to Freedom Alliance, we can’t vouch for what happens to the other $36. Some must pay for rent of the stadium for example. We have only the written record and what we could find by asking questions.

If people wanted to suggest that a concert is not a very efficient way to raise money for a good cause, they might have a point. The Washington Post reported in 2007 that many military charities spend too much on fundraising expenses.  If you were asking my advice about how best to aid wounded soldiers, I’d suggest you give to Fisher House.  That’s where President Obama chose to direct a good portion of his Nobel Prize money.

But we were dealing with a specific allegation – not of inefficiency – but of corruption. Schlussel charged that Hannity supported a lavish lifestyle with charitable gifts. And that’s the charge we think we have rebutted.

Posted at 7:25pm by David Frum

Follow Tim Mak on twitter: @timkmak

Considering that close to 50 of his 70 years of life have been spent in one prison or another, and that he’s likely to die in prison, it seem ludicrous that he’d be entitled to benefits he doesn’t need, doesn’t deserve and hasn’t earned.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that in discussions, Olson sees the absurdity in getting this income. It also raises the question of aging inmates in our prisons.

In the U.S., there are some 35,000 prison inmates who are over 65. Most of them have committed crimes that will never entitle them to parole. In Canadian prisons, there are some 500 federal inmates 65 and over – 1.5% of the prison population. That’s an 87% increase of inmates over 65, since 1993.

On any given day, some 33,500 Canadians are in correctional institutes. The oldest inmate in Canada is 87 – but his name is withheld for “privacy”(?) reasons.

Health costs triple for prisoners over 65; some require 24-hour medical or nursing care. The cost of maintaining an inmate in a federal prison is roughly $87,000 a year – and double that for female prisoners.

The ratio of Canadians in prison is 131 per 100,000. In the U.S. it’s 750 per 100,000 – the highest ratio in the world. The U.S., with 2% of the world’s population, boasts (well, maybe not ”boasts”) 25% of the world’s prison population — assuming Beijing’s and Moscow’s statistics are truthful, (which would be news if they were).

A concern in Canada is the high number of aboriginals who are in prisons. Roughly 4% of Canada’s adult population are aboriginals, as are 21% of the male prison population and 30% of the female prison population.

At the other end of the scale, of 400 inmates of federal prisons who are under 20 years old, about 140 are aboriginals.

As for aging inmates, Corrections Canada initially said it could not reveal the longest serving inmate or the oldest inmate “because these are privacy issues.” What isn’t a privacy issue is America’s oldest and longest-serving inmate.

The U.S.’s oldest death row inmate was Leroy Nash, Arizona State Prison, who died this year at age 94 and had been in prisons since he was 15  -  some 80 years behind bars. He died deaf, blind, crippled and with dementia. A burglar, he had killed a cop, a postman, a store clerk.

Another, Charles Friedgood, is 89. As a surgeon, he injected his ailing wife with Demerol in 1976 and was arrested skipping the U.S. with his mistress (with whom he had two kids) and $450,000 of his wife’s money. He is now up for parole because he has terminal cancer which has already cost $300,000 for treatment.

William Heirens, 81, has been in prison 64 years and counting, since he was arrested in 1946 as Chicago’s “Lipstick killer” (death messages he left in lipstick). He killed two women and dismembered a six-year-old for whom he was hoping to collect $20,000 ransom.

Britain’s longest serving prisoner, John Straffen, died in prison after serving 55 years for murdering a schoolgirl.

At age 70, Clifford Olson has already spent more time in prison than any other Canadian and, like a fish in water, has adjusted perfectly to his environment.

In a Rasmussen poll released on Wednesday, McCain leads Hayworth by only seven percentage points, down from his 22 percentage-point lead in January. Currently, forty-eight percent of likely Republican primary voters support McCain, forty-one support JD Hayworth, eight percent are undecided and three percent support another candidate.

The McCain-Hayworth race has been back-and-forth for months. In the fall, McCain and Hayworth were in a dead heat. Then, earlier this year, McCain had a wide lead over the former talk show host. Now, five months away from the primary, the race is competitive again.

McCain’s trouble continues to be Arizona’s conservative grassroots.  Among self-described “conservatives,” Hayworth leads the former GOP presidential candidate by five percent. Among liberal and moderate Republicans, however, McCain has a wide lead. If the Arizona GOP primary is closed off from independent voters, as state party officials hope, the primary might be dominated by the anti-McCain conservative party base.

Dear Friends,

Diana and I would like to invite you to our Third Annual Non-Zionist Passover Seder, which we are celebrating this year on the fifth night, Friday, April 3rd, at our home. The address will be supplied to those who RSVP.  For some people this may mean the third seder in a short period of time; for others, it may be the only one.  However – our seder will be different!  Why is this seder different from all other seders?  Because we concern ourselves with the liberation of all people, not just Jews.  Because the service takes a couple of hours, we’re asking people to get here about 5:00 pm.  It coincides with Good Friday this year, so hopefully will mean that the day is a holiday for most of us, though it may be the end of the work day for some.

Our seder is both serious (we’re serious about the liberation of the Palestinian people, as well as about the liberation of Jews from being the persecutors of the Palestinians) and fun (we sing silly songs – e.g. A Few of my Passover Things, to the tune of A Few of My Favourite Things; Don’t Sit On the Afikomen, to the tune of Glory, Glory Halleluyah).  We eat well (we’re asking everyone to bring something).  We enjoy ourselves hugely.  Dress is casual and kippot (the little beanies, for those unfamiliar with the word) are not required.

Please RSVP!  Diana and I have enough room at our place to accommodate about 18 people at a sit-down meal.  So please RSVP ASAP!!!  When we reach our limit, we’ll have to turn others away.  If you want to bring someone – a spouse, friend or children – let us know.  Also, let us know whether or not you or anyone you want to bring is vegetarian.  When we have the list of people who want to come, we’ll send more info about food.  For those who don’t know, during Passover, many foods are prohibited, especially grains of any kind (which includes flour), legumes, and leavening (yeast and baking powder or soda).  No bread, only Matzah, the “bread of affliction,” is allowed.  Although Diana and I do not keep Kosher during the rest of the year (we love seafood!), at Passover we try to observe the restrictions.  So I’ll be asking you to bring something specific.

We’re looking forward to spending another Passover with our dear friends.

Tuesday’s Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

Tea Partyers also seem to have a very distorted view of the direction of federal taxes. They were asked whether they are higher, lower or the same as when Barack Obama was inaugurated last year. More than two-thirds thought that taxes are higher today, and only 4% thought they were lower; the rest said they are the same.

As noted earlier, federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president.

Read it all in Bruce Bartlett’s column in today’s Forbes.com.

[L]ess than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferret the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes.  Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.

It’s of course possible that this is a misunderstanding or mistake by Schlussel.

If mistaken, one would assume we’ll hear a defense from Hannity himself or his many admirers. If not mistaken, you’d assume we’d hear some kind of reaction from conservatives – and some kind of explanation/apology from Hannity. It’s not possible – is it? – that the conservative world will just pass by the affair in embarrassed silence?

True, Schlussel’s piece went up yesterday evening, and as of 9 am I can find no mention or reference in the conservative blogosphere. But its early.

So here’s my personal query. I’m going to set my google alert and twitter feed to find Hannity items. If anybody who can plausibly be considered a conservative discusses – even mentions – the Schlussel allegations, I’ll let you know. And if nobody does … well that’s not possible. Is it?

UPDATE: First mention! TheNextRight’s blogger RBIII tweets at 9:38 AM.

Apparently, allegations about Hannity are more important than that shredding of the Constitution if you’re a ‘Progressive.’

Posted at 9:44am

UPDATE 2:  Here’s John Tabin at the  American Spectator blog:

As Schlussel points out, reputable charities are expected to run with overhead of no more than 25%; these concerts are running with overhead of as much as 96%. I suppose it’s possible that Hannity himself wasn’t aware of what the balance sheet looks like, but a source tells Schlussel that Freedom Alliance founder Oliver North confronted Hannity at one point about how much of the charity’s money was being spent on private jets, luxury SUVs, and hotel suite. If that’s true, Hannity has a lot of explaining to do.

Posted at 11:20am

UPDATE 3: John Tabin updates his report at AmSpec:

“I’m hearing from reliable sources that Schlussel’s suggestion that Freedom Alliance pays for Hannity’s travel expenses is wrong. There’s little doubt that, if the numbers she cites are correct, the charity is seriously mismanaged, but it might not be as bad for Hannity personally as Schlussel’s report makes it look. Stay tuned.”

Posted at 1:45pm

UPDATE 4: Freedom Alliance has released a statement responding to Debbie Schlussel’s allegations.

Posted at 3:00pm

To win a vote in Congress, the President, practically speaking, must present a compelling national interest for the use of force. The clearest such national interest is to repel, prevent, or punish an attack on the United States. The resolution allowing the President to pursue those responsible for 9/11 represents the clearest such example. Another case involves where an ally of the United States comes under attack. NATO was created precisely for that case. Today, while a military threat to a NATO member has dropped in likelihood, there are American allies for whom such threats still exist. America has a relationship with Israel of this nature. We provided Patriot Missiles, and military crews to operate them, when Israel was under attack from Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. America used military force to restore Kuwait to its independence. Though we sought and obtained United Nations’ approval for that action, we never said our military action was conditioned upon obtaining that approval. Nor should it. When an ally is attacked, it is in our direct interest to defend our ally and repel the attack. And as the world knows this, attacks will be less likely.

*  *  *

“This 2010 election proceeds at a grim time for our country and for our state.

“Americans and Californians are enduring the most savage recession since World War II. This recession was incubated by bad government policy: bad policy on credit, bad policy on regulation, and especially here in California, by bad policy on government spending. Now a crisis brought on by misgovernment is being used to foist even more government – the biggest expansion of government since the New Deal.

“As government muscles into areas that are not its job, it neglects what is its supreme job: national security.

“The Rand Corporation reports more terrorist attempts on US soil in 2009 than in any year since 2001 itself. And since 2001, we have a new category of individuals: enemy combatants. This category was not in our vocabulary when I was in Congress. Enemy combatants have allied themselves with Al Qaida, or other similar groups who have made war on the United States. For them, the appropriate treatment is to be tried under military tribunals, with incarceration in Guantanamo, or, where appropriate, the death penalty carried out by military authority. The precedent for this comes from World War II, where we did not try Nazi saboteurs in civilian courts, nor hold them for deportation, but where we used military tribunals, culminating, in some cases, with the death penalty. For today’s enemy combatants, incarceration is entirely appropriate, pending the time when the organization with which they freely chose to affiliate themselves, no longer poses a threat to the United States. If that is a long time, so be it – that’s the course they chose.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that terrorist detainees are entitled to a hearing regarding whether they are, in fact, associated with such a terrorist group, a group that is essentially at war with America, but the Court has not ruled that any other rights we commonly apply to civilian trials are necessary.

“Yet the Obama administration has proposed to organize a full federal court civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in lower Manhattan. The New York authorities estimated the cost of providing security for the trial at $200 million for just the first year – only slightly less than New York annually spends on parks and libraries combined.

“The Obama administration’s approach is not only costly and risky – but legally and strategically ill conceived.

“Terrorism is real, and a deathly threat to our nation’s people. Terrorists allied with organizations that have taken up arms against the United States are not the same as bank robbers or securities fraudsters. They are more analogizable to pirates in our nation’s legal categories; and, from the earliest days of our Republic, our navy ships have been empowered to seize pirate ships on the high seas and hang the pirates.

“The harm from applying civilian court principles to the enemy combatants in the war on terror has already been seen. Out of fear of violating Constitutional principles developed in the civilian context, our country has already released many from Guantanamo; two of whom are now battle commanders in Afghanistan again fighting our troops. It is almost absurd that we allowed that result to occur.

“Let me make a quick review of other parts of the world.

“American troops are engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. Every American takes pride in our forces. We wish them success – and look forward soon to welcoming them home.

President Obama is winding down the war in Iraq – a war separately authorized by Congress in 2002. The president has approved his own “surge” in Afghanistan, and he was right to do it. As a member of the US Senate, I will vote to ensure that the president and our forces in Afghanistan have all the resources they require to accomplish their mission.

“When force is needed, the Powell Doctrine best states the rules for its use. America must be united behind the use of force, the objective must be achievable, our use of force should be overwhelming, and it should be pursued to the finish. There is no war “on the cheap.” Such wars are unfair to our armed forces, and do not work out to be cheap as they pay in duration more than what they save in initial investment.

“To win a vote in Congress, the President, practically speaking, must present a compelling national interest for the use of force. The clearest such national interest is to repel, prevent, or punish an attack on the United States. The resolution allowing the President to pursue those responsible for 9/11 represents the clearest such example. Another case involves where an ally of the United States comes under attack. NATO was created precisely for that case. Today, while a military threat to a NATO member has dropped in likelihood, there are American allies for whom such threats still exist. America has a relationship with Israel of this nature. We provided Patriot Missiles, and military crews to operate them, when Israel was under attack from Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. America used military force to restore Kuwait to its independence. Though we sought and obtained United Nations’ approval for that action, we never said our military action was conditioned upon obtaining that approval. Nor should it. When an ally is attacked, it is in our direct interest to defend our ally and repel the attack. And as the world knows this, attacks will be less likely.

“What is true for an ally is no less true for America itself. An attack on America will be met with punishing force. The Taliban government in Afghanistan did not attack the United States on September 11, 2001, but it provided the safe haven for those that did. America under President George W. Bush rightly and clearly showed what consequence flowed from the Taliban’s permitting Al Qaida to operate out of Afghanistan territory.

“Uncertainty leads to heightened risk. Prior to invading Iraq, Saddam Hussein was told by our State Department’s representative that America had no interest in a border dispute with Kuwait. He greatly misunderstood that message, of course, but it was not free of ambiguity. When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, it was following a speech by Dean Acheson that America’s security in the Pacific extended as far north as Japan. North Korea wrongly inferred from that a statement that it did not go further. Today, the uncertainty that poses the greatest danger to world peace is Iran. What’s uncertain is not that Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon. Pray as we may, wish as we may, I don’t believe it’s practical to assume any sanctions will deter Ahmedinajad from finishing his work on a nuclear warhead, and a missile capable of delivering it. The uncertainty, rather, is whether the US will stand with Israel if Israel takes the step with regard to Iran that it took with Syria in September of 2008, and Iraq in 1981, and strikes to destroy the nuclear capability before it becomes operational. In the Vice President’s recent trip to Israel, the Administration sent a message that the US was restraining Israel for defending itself in this way. I believe that was exactly the wrong message to send. Rather, if the message that Ahmedinajad, and others in Iran, perceive is that the US will support Israel if Israel takes this step, then whatever small chance there may be to avoid having to take this step will have been enhanced. Uncertainty of what America will do, if Israel has to act, should be removed, and removed now.

“But the rest of the world has not vanished off the map. And, sadly, we see this administration presiding over failure in many other regions of the world.

“In South Asia: the Obama administration has put at risk the important new relationship the Bush administration built with India. Only last week, India inked a $7 billion arms deal with Russia, including the purchase of an aircraft carrier – this after the US made clear that the retired US carrier desired by India, the Kitty Hawk, would be mothballed, not sold. President Obama has made misstep after misstep with India, but the worst occurred during his November visit to China, when he suggested that China might have a role to play in the Kashmir dispute. If you sat down to deliberately invent the single most objectionable thing an American president could do or say from an Indian point of view, inviting China into Kashmir would be it.

“In Europe: the Obama administration burned our Czech and Polish allies by abruptly canceling a land-based missile defense on 24-hours notice. Governments that had braved threats from Russia to cooperate with us were left stranded and humiliated. The man who committed massive electoral fraud to cheat Ukrainians out of their free vote in 2004 has now been restored to power in that important country.

“In the Americas, the record has been especially bad. The Free Trade Agreements with Panama and Colombia molder in a desk drawer somewhere, even as Venezuela supports narco-trafficking terrorists. When a Venezuelan-sponsored chief executive overthrew the Honduras constitution to extend his grip on power, the Obama administration sided with him, not the country’s unanimous Supreme Court, nor the country’s legislature, which agreed with the ouster 122-6.

“In Mexico, we have a crisis of drug-related war and violence that spills across our border. There are courageous, honest police and armed forces fighting the drug lords in Mexico, but they are too often outnumbered. Here is an area of direct importance to all of us in California. We need to reduce the demand for illegal drugs in our country; Colombia wouldn’t grow, Mexico wouldn’t transport, illegal drugs but for our country’s demand. Our foreign aid assistance to training and equipping police is nowhere more needed than with our friends in Mexico. Taking the steps long necessary to make our border less porous will help immensely with drug traffic and potential terror infiltration as well. I think Mexico offers great potential for energy production and water desalination, facilities for both of which can be completed sooner than in our own state, and shipped north to where our demand is, while employing thousands of Mexican nationals in their own country. And in getting serious about the border, we also need to recognize that legal immigration, by those who follow our country’s rules, is now, and has always been, a net benefit to our country. For nine years, I represented Silicon Valley in Congress. Silicon Valley would never have existed without the legal immigrants who came to our state from every country on earth, to study, to invent, to stay, and to make our country better.

“America has provided economic assistance to other countries, to help open them up to free trade, to assist in the creation of democratic institutions, and to help alleviate suffering in the face of disasters, especially when acute, as recently shown in Haiti. I have been privileged to travel to more than twenty sub-Saharan countries as a Member of Congress, Subcommittee on Africa of the House International Relations Committee. I have formed a judgment that this kind of aid has to be kept to the achievement of simple goals. Disaster relief certainly qualifies. Providing wells and purification plants for clean water qualifies. Inoculating children from disease qualifies. A variant of the Powell Doctrine is needed here: our economic aid should be targeted to where it is likely to be successful, either alone, or in combination with the aid of other developed countries.

“I came to appreciate the unique gift of America to the world, indeed, to the progress of human civilization. We Americans are the society with the greatest amount of personal liberty the world has ever seen. It is not a coincidence that we have also achieved the ability to create more economic opportunity than any other country ever has. As a Congressman, and especially as a Member of the International Relations Committee, I was presented with the reality of how the rest of the world sees us, not in the press, or in the posturing of a regional strong man, but in the heartfelt, candid conversations of average persons around the world, and especially in the Third World.

“I recall visiting Burma, meeting with Ang Sung Su Ky, who was under house arrest for the simple fact that she had chosen to run for President against the military junta. But I also remember the whispered conversations with individual Burmese, especially the older folks, who had learned English in school, and who talked with us when the government guides were not around. They remembered a time when there was freedom in their country. They remembered the US as liberators, and begged us to help liberate them again.

“I remember the same in Syria, where a shop keeper constantly looked around, as she told us that things were not good, that one could not speak, that one had to leave to have any future, but that America alone could broker a peace that would undo the government’s hold over its people through the threat of war.

“I remember meeting the rebel commander in the Congo, at a time when US official policy was to support then President Mobutu. We met Laurent Kabila in the bush near Goma, and I and Congressman Don Payne, just by being there, carried a message that there would be a welcome for him in American eyes when he marched into the capital of Congo, Kinshasa, which he did a year later.

“I remember meeting the rebels in Yei, in southern Sudan, and talking on the phone with John Garang, then in armed resistance to the Bashir regime. That regime, still in power today, was repressing the people of the south, and also perpetrating horrors on its own citizens in Darfur. The promise of world condemnation was slow in coming, but at least he heard from two US Congressmen that there were Americans who stood with him, and against the horrors.

“In Somalia, citizens lined along the roadway from the airport, waving small American flags, just because two US Congressman cared enough to visit their country, when so many others were afraid.

“A village chief in Mali thanked me for the water pump that had been provided by US Aid to his people, to bring water from the Niger River to irrigate vegetables, providing just the difference between self sufficiency and hunger. He knew the United States as the country whose people had given his people such a simple thing. Nothing more complex, but nothing more important. And because of that tangible evidence of our country’s caring, and ability to care, he and his villagers, will never believe the lies spread about us by our detractors and sowers of hate.

“In Rwanda, students I was teaching, after class, out of hearing of others, told me that they had lost their families in the genocide, and what would America do if it started up again? What would WE do. Because America meant opposition to tyranny and savagery.

“And in Haiti, I learned that the transcendent hope was that they might have there what their relatives tell them about in America: a country where one does not have to fear physical danger, or even death, for speaking up for one’s own beliefs, and where someone has the right to make a living without being preyed upon by the more powerful.

“In every one of these instances, and in a hundred more, I saw America through the eyes of the hundreds of millions in the poorest parts of the world. I did not see anger, or resentment. I did not hear argument, or rehearsed repetition of slogans. I saw how America is really viewed: as the hope, as the place where there is real freedom, as the place where a productive economy allows enough for those willing to work to provide for themselves, and to make things better for our children than we ourselves were able to enjoy.

“I want to bring to mind the exceptional reality of what we are as Americans. We are what the rest of the world wants to be. Not because we are wealthy, but because we are free.

“There are many other issues where the next senator from the state of California should take strong stand in international relations. I have touched on only a few tonight. But I do hope I have conveyed the fundamental principles that would govern my approach to this most important component of the job of a United States Senator, especially a Senator from California, which is so much a part of the world. I would summarize all my points in one phrase: a commitment to freedom. We stand for freedom. We stand with our allies who grant freedom to their citizens. We stand for freedom of expression, and freedom of trade, and freedom of conscience. We stand for the right to live with freedom, freedom from fear of terrorist attack, either in our country, or upon our allies in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The rest of the world will once again know America for its unswerving stand for freedom, as it did when President Ronald Reagan, and President Harry Truman, from different parties, but both patriots, stood up to the greatest modern threat to freedom, the Soviet empire, and with determination, patience, and unambiguous declaration of principle, achieved for our generation what we must now achieve and pass along to the generation that follows.”