The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued the following call to action today:

INCITEMENT: CAL THOMAS COMPARES MUSLIMS TO 'SLOW SPREADING CANCER' - WTOP-FM, 7/2/07
WTOP-FM's July 2nd morning radio show featured conservative guest Cal Thomas commenting on the recent terror attacks in Scotland and London.
In response to these attacks, Thomas asked: "How much longer should we allow people from certain lands, with certain beliefs to come to Britain and America and build their mosques, teach hate, and plot to kill us?"
Thomas also compared Muslims to a "slow spreading cancer" that must be stopped.
Please call or e-mail WTOP to express your concerns about the Islamophobic attitudes expressed in this commentary. As always, be POLITE.
CONTACT: Jim Farley, WTOP Programming Vice President, Tel: 202-895-5071, Fax: 202-895-5088, Email: jfarley@wtopnews.com
Were Cal's comment taken out of context? You be the judge.

LISTEN here.

President Bush's decision to commute the 30-month prison sentence of former vice presidential aide Lewis I. "Scooter" Libby has generated seething rage from the administration's critics.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald sees the commutation as an inside-the-Beltway scam:

That Lewis Libby has been protected by George Bush from the consequences of his crimes only highlights how corrupt and broken our political system is. It reveals nothing new. This is the natural, inevitable outgrowth of our rancid political culture, shaped and slavishly defended by our Beltway ruling class and our serious, sober opinion-making elite.

The disasters and rampant lawlessness and fundamental erosion of our country's political values and institutions are exactly what Fred Hiatt and David Broder and Time Magazine and Tim Russert and Tom Friedman and the New Republic geniuses have spent the last six years protecting, enabling and defending.

A president who lied us into a war and, in so doing, needlessly killed 3,584 of our family and friends and neighbors; a president whose administration initially tried to destroy the first man to nail that lie; a president whose henchmen then ruined the career of the intelligence asset that was his wife when intelligence assets were never more essential to the viability of the republic; a president like that has tonight freed from the prospect of prison the only man ever to come to trial for one of the component felonies in what may be the greatest crime of this young century.

President Bush's commutation late yesterday afternoon of the prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will at least spare his former aide from 2 1/2 years in prison. But by failing to issue a full pardon, Mr. Bush is evading responsibility for the role his Administration played in letting the Plame affair build into fiasco and, ultimately, this personal tragedy. ....
Joe Wilson's original, false accusation about pre-war intelligence metastasized into the issue of who "outed" his wife, Valerie Plame, as an intelligence officer. As the event unfolded, it fell to Mr. Libby to defend the Administration against Mr. Wilson's original charge, with little public assistance or support from the likes of Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell or Stephen Hadley.

I guess this is his way of splitting the difference between people who want Libby pardoned and people who think he should serve out the sentence prescribed by the judicial process. ...

Stories like this are so transparently partisan that it’s almost not worth covering the reaction.

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times

Political commentators are noting renewed interest among President Bush and his team in the administation's legacy.

The legacy obsession has been cited in the mainstream media, like the Washington Post to the political blogs, like Powerline.

Lynne Olson wrote an article for the Washington Post on July 1 that theorizes history will remember Bush not as his stalwart hero, Winston Churchill, but as the dunderheaded Neville Chamberlain.

"I think Bush's hero would be bemused, to say the least, by the president's wrapping himself in the Churchillian cloak. Indeed, the more you understand the historical record, the more the parallels leap out -- but they're between Bush and Chamberlain, not Bush and Churchill."

But not everyone expects Bush to receive poor marks from historians.

Paul Mirengoff, reacting in an entry at Powerline, said Olson's piece was pessimistic and wrong about Bush, Chamberlain and Churchill.

"Olson ... puts forth the absurd proposition that President Bush more closely resembles Neville Chamberlain than Winston Churchill. Steven Hayward correctly observes that Olson's piece is too "dismal" to warrant a point-by-point rebuttal. For example, Olson makes no mention of that which, more than anything else, Chamberlain is remembered for -- his underestimation and appeasement of an expansionist dictator."

The Bush legacy. Critics are convinced time will be particularly hard on this two-term president. Others, more sympathetic, insist that history will judge him more favorably.

What do Times' readers think the history books will say in 20 years?

-- Brandon Leonard, intern, The Washington Times

The Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports today:

Al Qaeda terrorists are rebuilding their capabilities and continuing to plan mass-casualty attacks inside the United States, according to an intelligence assessment made public yesterday.

"We assess [al Qaeda] has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in ... Pakistan [tribal areas], operational lieutenants and its top leadership," according to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a consensus analysis of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

It's the latest in a series of recent stories speculating about a summer attack on the United States. Critics of the administration accuse the Bushies of manipulating news coverage of these potential attacks for political advantage.

Does that charge ring true to you? Are you more skeptical than you were two years ago?

Or are you on the other side of the issue: the plots seem feasible, the dangers seem real, and those who ignore the threats are playing with a lit fuse?

What do you think?

-- David Eldridge, managing editor, WashingtonTimes.com

Public pressure is mounting on Capitol Hill Democrats to include the "John Doe" provision into a written conference report of the final 911 Commission bill.

The provision would protect the public for reporting suspicious behavior that may be terrorist connected, and is the result of a current lawsuit against U.S. Airways and "John Doe" passengers filed by a group of imams who were kicked off a flight.

"Democrats have been backed into a corner by public outrage over their efforts, so we are seeing these Democrats publicly say they support it in principle, but behind the scenes they are working to kill it," said one Republican leadership aide close to the conference process.

"There are powerful Democrats in the House and Senate trying to kill this provision," the aide said.

"Keeping the pressure on" to include the provision are Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Independent and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the committee's ranking member, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine whose efforts last week fell three votes short of passing the provision to an education bill, and Rep. Pete King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee and an author of the provision.

Some Republican aides are attributing the mounting pressure to support the provision to press reports and the blogosphere, where bloggers turned bloggyists are posting phone numbers of Democrat congressional leaders and urging readers to call in with their support.

"The blogs have been a terrific vehicle for expressing public outrage over Democratic attempts to kill this provision," said a spokesman for Mr. King.

According to Congress Daily, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wants to alter the provision so that "it does not lead to racial profiling or the targeting of innocent people."

"Thompson's office did not clarify by press time whether he is trying to change the language," Congress Daily reported.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the Minneapolis Star Tribune this weekend his organization supports the imams' lawsuit, but they have "no particular problem" with immunity legislation.

"Our concern has never been with reports made in good faith by ordinary people," Mr. Hooper said. "Our concern is with malicious reports based on bigoted views or which are just meant to harass people based on their ethnicity."

-- Audrey Hudson, Homeland security reporter, The Washington Times

CAIR weighs in on the "John Doe" provision to protect airline passengers from being sued for reporting suspicious activity that may be linked to terrorism.

-- Audrey Hudson, Homeland security reporter, The Washington Times

National security reporter Bill Gertz is one of the most famous members of The Washington Times staff. But to aficionados of skateboarding, the real star of the Gertz family was Bill's son Derek -- who died last week, doing what he loved best:

Derek Gertz, 18, of Bowie, a nationally distinguished skateboarder, died Friday of head injuries suffered in an accidental fall while skateboarding in College Park. ....

A semiprofessional, he was a two-time winner of the local Mountain Dew Free Flow Tour, in 2003 and 2004, and he competed in a national tournament in San Diego. He participated in several film and video productions about skateboarding.

"Everybody in Bowie that's ever been good on a board, and everyone who wanted to be good, thought Derek was the best skateboarder Bowie ever produced," said Kevin LeMaster, co-owner of Velocity Skate Shop in Bowie, which sponsored Mr. Gertz from 2003 to 2007. "He was a natural," agreed Velocity co-owner James Grayson.

Derek was an extremely talented Skateboarder, Video Producer, Writer and DJ. Derek lived his life with a direction that most can only dream we had the courage to do, but never will.

He was definitely a ripper and a chill kid, he really helped me out trying to get my friend sponsored and gave me some good advice. A real loss

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times