I’m not sure if I should be concerned about this or not. Since I rarely watch TV news – especially the evening network news, I don’t care what Jennings et al report. But I’m not most people. If I were, I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

Home and online after two weeks in Europe. Family vacation for the most part, but talked a little politics with friends in Denmark, Germany, France and England.

My friends there say there is little anti-Americanism, but plenty of anti-Bush sentiment. You and I are OK, but they don’t think much of Dubya and Dick.

The most interesting observations were in Britain (because I could actually read the local newspapers), where problems reflect those we have here: higher real estate taxes due to cutbacks in national spending, gang problems (called yobbing there) and Prime Minister Tony Blair (called “B-LIAR” by his harshest critics) under the gun from a new report criticizing intelligence failures.

Blair was unscathed by the so-called Blair Report, helped in part by the Tories pulling a Kerry. The party’s leader Michael Howard, who had supported the war, now say he wouldn’t have if he knew the intelligence was bad.

In advance of elections scheduled for next year, Blair, from the Labor Party, is touting conservatives credentials by calling for a cracked down on crime and blaming today’s permissive society on the culture of the 60s. (Unfortunately, some British newspapers require subscription for back issues, so I don’t have links to all the specific articles I read.) One suggestion by a national task force was to ask neighbors who there most troublesome neighbors who would then be targeted by authorities. When my 15-year old son heard about it, his comment was, “Sounds like 1984.” I’ll second that.

Though the undergrounds and subways are better than anything we have except probably in New York, traffic congestion is a problem, and in the U.K., they are proposing an expensive way of paying for it.

There’s row brewing over property taxes. As in the U.S., people are complaining about being taxed out of their homes.

Overall, the cost of living in London and the U.K. in general is much higher than I realized during previous trips to U.K. Rents in London are astronomically. And houses have appreciated substantially in the last few years. Food is high and with the dollar depressed, it’s an expensive vacation spot, but then so is the rest of Europe. The declining dollar is hurting U.S. tourism.

While I was in Europe, Siemens announced a new contract with its workers that called for an increase in the work week from 36 to 40 hours. Probably made the papers here, too. Other European companies are following suit.

Still, in talking to my friends, I sense they have it better than they would in the U.S. My Danish friends say they pay about 40% in taxes but for it get free health care and free higher education. In fact, they are paid a stipend to attend universities there. They said the minimum wage in Denmark – one that someone who leaves school at the minimum age of 16 and goes to work flipping burgers is the equivalent of $25 an hour. Costs are higher there, but my friends tell me minimum wage is a livable wage there.

In Germany, my friend tells me she pays about 500 euros a month for health care, but that the plan recently introduced a $10 maximum charge per quarter for doctor visits. She pays about $750 a month for a small flat in a beautiful old section of Essen called Kittwich.

My English friends say things are tighter there. Now making about 40,000 pounds a year and living in a small three bedroom townhouse in Bristol, they say they’re OK, but with two small children, 50,000 pounds a year (about $88,000) would put them in fine shape.

These fragments of information don’t really add up to much, but my overall impression is that these friends (all of who are in their late 20s or early 30s) suggest Europeans are comparing better against us than I’ve observed in the past. They’re giving up some benefits of their more socialist states, but overall, the disparity among the working class is less than it used to be.

I’ll be traveling out of the country for two weeks with limited access to computers. But perhaps I’ll come back with a better understanding of how Europeans feel about America. Stand by.

A showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 tomorrow (Thursday, July 8) at the Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax will be followed by a discussion moderated by Rich Rubinstein, professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Fairfax. The panel includes, in the left corner, Marcus Raskin, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies. In the right corner, Lee Edwards, distinguished senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The Cinema Arts Theatre is in the Fairfax City Mall on Little River Road in Fairfax, near the intersection of Pickett Road. The movie begins at 7:40 p.m. The panel will discuss the film for about a half an hour and then time will be devoted to audience participation. A similar panel was held after “The Passion.” Then as now, the movie is playing to packed houses, so it’s a good idea to get your tickets early.

The New York Post gets it wrong. Which shouldn’t surprise too many people.

So we got the VP nominee many progressives wanted. John Edwards’s greatest attraction is his vitality, especially compared to Kerry’s dour, some say sour, disposition.

For Edwards, it’s a no-brainer. If Kerry loses, Edwards becomes the front runner for ’08, if he can figure a way to keep his profile high without being in the Senate. If the Dems wins, , he gets four or perhaps eight years to cement his place as Kerry’s successor.

The worry is that against Cheney, Edwards will be perceived as a lightweight on foreign policy. But then, Cheney’s record isn’t all that impressive the last few years. His tenure recalls the old saying that it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be perceived a fool, than open it and remove all doubt. I hope Edwards, when confronted with such attacks, reminds us that Bush had even less foreign policy experience when he became president. So even being a heart beat away, he can’t be any worse.

In a debate, Edwards’s skills will take him a long way against Cheney, especially on domestic issues, where Edwards’s “two Americas” speech resonates with many voters.

But there’s likely to be only one VP debate. What will be interesting to see his how much media coverage Edwards’s campaign can attract.

And will Edwards assume the typical VP role of being an attack dog? That wasn’t his style during the nomination races. Will he abandon his sunny optimism or use it to provide contrast to the mean-spirited obscenity of Dick Cheney?

More than anything, the benefit of Edwards may be that he will energize the grassroots. Or at the very least, he won’t deflate them as a Gephardt nomination would have.

I think it’s a great choice.

Here’s Larry Sabato’s take on the Edwards nomination.

The Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk web site had an excellent piece yesterday on how – and a little of why – journalism has become the profession of the timid. Some reporters, of course, risk their lives to get the story. But few risk their reputations.

The New York Times was compelled by Internet rumors to publish an article about the draft last week. This, after an op-ed in The Washington Post defended the idea of resurrecting the draft. The former assistant to President Nixon offered several reasons, the last of which is quite compelling.

America needs this fund of experience to expand the pool of people likely to find their way into the corridors of power and, when they get there, to bring with them a bone-deep appreciation of the true costs of conflict. Thus might we reduce the risks of counsel from those who have never had to learn the difference between a war and a cakewalk.

But Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) felt the need to deny on Meet the Press that any plans for a draft are being made.

He countered statements by retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who has said current deployment rates to Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea and elsewhere “will break the U.S. Army in the coming two or three years.”

Mr. Warner dismissed that notion, recalling that he was secretary of the Navy under President Nixon when the draft was abolished in 1973.

“I can tell you the all-volunteer forces worked,” he said. “We cannot bring back a draft now and make some young men and women go into uniform and not bring in a whole lot of others to do different tasks.”

Today, The Post’s E.J. Dionne asks “Whose lives, whose fortunes, whose sacred honor are now on the line for our country?”

…God forbid that Americans earning, say, more than $1 million a year be asked to pony up a little more in taxes to support a larger military at a time when, we are told over and over, the country is in the middle of a war on terrorism. Millionaires can’t be asked to sacrifice even a little bit. No, they deserve to have their taxes cut while others fight and die. And anyone who speaks up in opposition to this injustice risks being called unpatriotic by those who give up absolutely nothing themselves. Patriotism is defined as a solicitude for tidy incomes, a belief in anything Rush Limbaugh says on the radio and a demand that those in charge of the country never be held accountable for their mistakes.

The administration, of course, says there are no plans for drafting young men – and in today’s army, likely young women, too.

Seeking to blunt public speculation, the Web site of the Selective Service System carries a long notice saying in part that “both the president and secretary of defense have stated on more than one occasion that there is no need for a draft for the war on terrorism or any likely contingency, such as Iraq.”

“Additionally,” the notice says, “the Congress has not acted on any proposed legislation to reinstate the draft.”

“The bottom line,” said Dan Amon, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, “is it would take an act of Congress because we could not turn it on ourselves. And there is no mood or sentiment in Congress whatsoever for the draft.”

But none of these statements is MacArthur-esque: “no need for a draft for … any likely contingency;” “no mood or sentiment.”

First of all, how are we expected to believe any statement this administration makes? They keep repeating even the lies after everyone agrees they are lies, e.g., Cheney still insisting a link exists between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Secondly, should this administration be re-elected, what’s to stop them? Thirdly, can anyone honestly believe that if another war erupts, say in Korea, that we have enough troops to fight two wars?

The decision last week to recall 5,600 reservists has fueled speculation that this “back-door” draft, as John Kerry called it, is just a prelude to a general draft. But even Kerry could be forced to bring back the draft, if we don’t get out of Iraq fast enough.

A good reason for the draft is that it, like no other action, will focus the attention of young voters. Let’s face it: Those if us who not only remember but were subject to the draft were driven, perhaps more than ideology or certainly pacifism, to protest the Vietnam War precisely because we could envision ourselves in rice paddies.

That doesn’t mean I support the draft. But if we’re to fight wars whenever this administration sees fit to “spread democracy,” the men and women we send on its behalf should be democratically selected.

The Virginia GOP is still in court over its illegal eavesdropping on a Democratic conference call, while another state GOP leader – this time in New Hampshire – pleads guilty to jamming Democratic lines during the 2000 election.