The Impeachment Hearing Room

Battle Over FISA to Reach Its End

By Tim Starks, CQ Staff

Efforts to confront President Bush over electronic surveillance laws likely will end abruptly in the Senate, with the White House the clear winner and Democrats dropping the fight until a new administration takes office.

The Senate is expected to send Bush a bill (HR 6304) Wednesday that would rewrite electronic surveillance guidelines after it votes down a trio of apparently doomed Democratic amendments.

The legislation would overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, PL 95-511). The White House supports the bill, assuming the amendments it opposes fail as expected.

Christopher S. Bond , R-Mo., said the bill ended up being essentially what Bush wanted. “There really is not much that is significantly different, save some cosmetic fixes that were requested by the majority party in the House,” said Bond, who strongly supports the bill.

Bush has repeatedly said one of his top legislative priorities is overhauling the law to authorize enhanced executive branch spying powers and to provide a legal shield to telephone companies that cooperated with his warrantless surveillance program. The bill would establish a process to give Bush both, although with some additional court and congressional oversight.

Many Senate Democrats are expected to vote for the legislation, including presumed presidential nominee Barack Obama of Illinois, who is scheduled to attend the vote. Obama has said he opposes the provisions that would effectively give the telephone companies immunity for past participation in Bush’s surveillance program, but he favors the bill’s spying authority provisions.

Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., said that when the Senate returns Wednesday, less than two hours of debate will remain on the FISA legislation, leading to a series of votes on amendments and then clearing the bill for Bush’s signature.

Reid issued a statement saying he would vote against the legislation, even as he noted that it was a “compromise bill” that he called an improvement over previous versions.

Looking Ahead

The bill would be effective through 2012, but some lawmakers, including Reid, might try to revisit the issue as early as next year.

“The debate on this FISA legislation may be nearing an end, but the history books are yet to be written,” Reid said in his statement.

Reid added, “Next year, for example, Congress will be required to revisit a number of provisions of the Patriot Act. That may provide a suitable occasion to review the related issues in this FISA bill.”

Action on the bill had been scheduled for Tuesday but was delayed for senators who wanted to attend the funeral of former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. (1973-2003).

Bush administration officials have signaled their opposition to all three pending amendments.

Each would modify a provision that would effectively wipe out lawsuits against the telephone companies for assisting Bush’s warrantless surveillance program.

The first amendment, by Democrats Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, would strike the entire section that deals with retroactive legal immunity, thereby letting the lawsuits proceed.

“I do believe at this point in time to give this retroactive immunity kind of makes a mockery of the fact that we’re supposed to be a government of laws, not people,” Barbara Boxer , D-Calif., said during Tuesday’s floor debate.

But Intelligence Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV , D-W.Va., defended the provision. “Private companies who cooperated with the government in good faith, as the facts before the congressional Intelligence committees demonstrate they did, should not be held accountable for the president’s bad policy decisions,” he said.

The amendment would need only a simple majority to win adoption, but a similar amendment offered during debate on an earlier FISA bill (S 2248) fell short, garnering 31 votes.

The other two amendments would need 60 votes for adoption. Since Bush officials have said they will recommend a veto should either succeed, it is unlikely that a significant number of the Senate’s 49 Republicans would vote for the changes.

The bill would give telephone companies immunity if a federal district court determined they received assurances from the government that the program was legal and authorized by the president. According to a Senate Intelligence report, they did receive such assurances.

Under an amendment by Arlen Specter , R-Pa., the court would instead review the constitutionality of the president’s program before the suits could be dismissed, which he said would ensure that Bush’s program received scrutiny. The administration argues that the amendment could jeopardize immunity.

The other amendment, by Jeff Bingaman , D-N.M., would stay all pending lawsuits until 90 days after Congress receives a report, required by the bill, by inspectors general on the president’s surveillance program.

That would give Congress a chance to decide on immunity based on a third-party review. If lawmakers took no action within 90 days, the provisions would go into effect.

“The current bill’s approach is to grant the immunity first and investigate later,” Bingaman said. “I don’t know myself what the facts are, but like most members of Congress who do not sit on the Intelligence Committee or the Judiciary Committee, I received very little information regarding what actually did occur.”

Greg Vadala and Catharine Richert contributed to this story.

From Coleman to Obama, senators feel pressure on wiretapping bill

July 9th, 2008 2:16 am | http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/ Minnesota Post

(DC TV THIS MORNING CALLING VOTE CLOSE)

Keep It Up Contact The Senate Now: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://theimpeachmenthearingroom.blogspot.com/2008/07/fisa-high-noon-show-downtoday.html

Mary Jane LaVigne climbed atop a red car on University Avenue Monday to trumpet her opposition to a wiretapping bill that is poised for a final vote in the U.S. Senate this week.

"Our constitutional rights are being eroded," said LaVigne, a writer who lives in Birchwood, from the roof of a touring display car that is shaped like a red telephone.

Others who are upset with the proposed overhaul of the nation's surveillance laws flooded their senators' offices with emails and phone calls Monday.

LaVigne's bid was to sway Minnesota's senators – Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Amy Klobuchar.

Coleman supports the legislation, his spokesman said. "For the past several months, our nation’s ability to gather intelligence regarding terrorist activity has been hampered due to the failure to pass the bill through Congress. Passage of this bill is critically important, as it will allow our intelligence community to acquire the information they need to keep our country secure while protecting civil liberties,” said LeRoy Coleman, press secretary.

Klobuchar could not be reached Monday, but she has cast a procedural vote on the compromise bill that signals she may vote yes, too.

They are voting on a package of sweeping updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was adopted in 1978. The law requires the government to get warrants from a special court if it wants to intercept communications between people it suspects of plotting to harm the United States. In a crisis, the government can listen in on the communications first and get the warrant later.

Pressure on Obama

The bill before Congress is a hard-fought compromise that would give the government more leeway to spy on communications in this country. It also would effectively forgive telecommunications companies for possibly violating the current law by turning over private communications to the government.

Much of the nationwide fury over the bill is directed at Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, from within his own party.

Obama called the compromise "far from perfect" in a statement published Monday by the Baltimore Sun.

But he said he planned to vote for it anyway.

"In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited," Obama said.

The compromise, he said, sets up several checks against abuse of the authority beginning with review by a special "FISA court" on any surveillance on Americans.

"Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I'm happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere," Obama said. "For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions."

The presumed Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, also is expected to vote for the bill along with most other GOP senators.

Punish Bush

In the face of heated opposition from Democrats around the country, the House compromised last month on the bill. Proponents say that final version will safeguard individual civil liberties while also helping to protect the nation against terrorist attacks.

But many Democrats want to punish President Bush for conducting a wiretapping program and other surveillance without the warrants current law requires.

They also denounce provisions in the bill that would forgive telecommunications companies for cooperating with the National Security Agency's now-defunct warrantless wiretapping program in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

Some companies resisted the government's call to open private records without the warrants. But several cooperated, and now they face at least 40 lawsuits claiming violation of privacy rights. The bill would allow federal judges to grant the companies immunity from lawsuits for past as well as future cooperation.

Earlier this year, Obama opposed extending retroactive immunity to the companies. In his statement Monday, Obama said he will work with like-minded senators to try striking immunity provisions from the bill.

The new bill would force an administration to use FISA courts which were set up in the aftermath of Watergate and the Vietnam War to obtain individual warrants for any spying on an American citizen. The government would have to show "probable cause" that that person was engaged in terrorist activities or espionage against the United States.

One particularly controversial provision would apply during emergencies, such as in a terrorist attack. It would allow the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to begin a surveillance project without a warrant as long as they seek the court's approval within seven days.

In the House's 293-129 vote to pass the bill, Minnesota's Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison, Jim Oberstar, Tim Walz and Betty McCollum voted no while Democrat Collin Peterson and all of the state's Republicans voted yes.

"The Fucking Stupidest Guy On The Face Of The Earth." This Guy Could Sink The Ship…Just Let Him Talk and Talk….Sooner Or Later The Judiciary Committee Has To Bring These Guys Down Or Face Civil Criminal Prosecution Themselves.

Every time I hear this guy talk I am just amazed that nothing has been done to bring this administration down!

He uses the terms ”Anticipatory Self Defense” and “preventive war”; to me that is like saying I have the right to Strap a Ruger .44 Mag on my hip and go gunning for all those that “I think” might be a danger to me. Talk about Dodge City come again and how we have gotten to where we are and where we’re going in Iran!

Sooner Or Later The Judiciary Committee Has To Bring These Guys Down Or Face Civil Criminal Prosecution Themselves.

Or

Can Bush Pre-Pardon everyone ever associated with his administration and the Congress for their Collaboration before he leaves office?

Doug Feith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Feith

http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1146.html

Douglas Feith is one of the most deceitful war architects, a difficult distinction to attain considering the company, with all the “miscalculations” he made as one of the primary enablers of the administration’s disastrous march to war.

Gen. Tommy Franks in Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, in which Franks calls Feith "The Fucking Stupidest Guy On The Face Of The Earth."

Franks shows a military man's ability to get to the heart of the matter. But Feith isn't dumb. His defenders, in fact, frequently stand up for him by citing his brilliance. But Franks' lament is a blunter, less eloquent version of what Fallows wrote in the Atlantic of the office of the secretary of Defense, particularly Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith: "What David Halberstam said of Robert McNamara in The Best and the Brightest is true of those at OSD as well: they were brilliant, and they were fools."

He really isn’t “the fucking stupidest guy on earth.” Huh-uh, he’s not even the stupidest in the Pentagon.

I’ve got the proof.

Feith Contract Not Renewed : Suspects Reason is Work With Bush administration By Julia Cai

In Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack, then-United States Secretary of State Colin Powell called Feith's operation at the Pentagon the "Gestapo" office, alleging that it amounted to a separate, unchecked governing authority within the Pentagon.^[25]

The former Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for the Coalition Provisional Authority, General Jay Garner, reported to Feith for five months following the invasion of Iraq. As quoted in Thomas E. Ricks's book Fiasco, Garner said of Feith: "I think he's incredibly dangerous. He's a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected, so he arc lights all the time. He can't organize anything."

Former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State, Larry Wilkerson

Regarding Feith and his colleague, David Wurmser, Wilkerson has stated:

A lot of these guys, including Wurmser, I looked at as card-carrying members of the Likud party, as I did with Feith. You wouldn’t open their wallet and find a card, but I often wondered if their primary allegiance was to their own country or to Israel. That was the thing that troubled me, because there was so much that they said and did that looked like it was more reflective of Israel’s interest than our own.^[36]

In 2005, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff, publicly stated he could "testify to" Franks' 2004 comment, and added "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." ^{[37] [38]}

Former CENTCOM Deputy Director, Lt. General Michael DeLong

In an interview with PBS on February 14, 2006, General Michael DeLong was asked about the information coming from Feith's office in the lead-up to the Iraq war. He replied:

Feith wasn't somebody we enjoyed working with, and to go much further than that would probably not be a good thing. To be honest, we blew him off lots of times. Told the secretary that he's full of baloney, his people working for him are full of baloney. It was a real distraction for us, because he was the number three guy in the Department of Defense.^[39]

Investigations of the Office of Special Plans and of Feith

Officially, Feith is currently under investigation by the Pentagon's Inspector General and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).^[63] Republican Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts began the investigation when he wrote to the Pentagon Inspector General asking him to start the review:

“The Committee is concerned about persistent and, to date, unsubstantiated allegations that there was something unlawful or improper about the activities of the Office of Special Plans within the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy ... I have not discovered any credible evidence of unlawful or improper activity, yet the allegations persist.” In an attempt to lay these allegations to rest once and for all, he requested the Inspector General to “initiate an investigation into the activities of the Office of Special Plans during the period prior to the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom to determine whether any of [its] activities were unlawful or improper; . . . [that is,] whether the personnel assigned to the Office of Special Plans, at any time, conducted unauthorized, unlawful, or inappropriate intelligence activities.” Senator Levin has asked the Inspector General to look at the activities of the OUSDP generally, and not just the OSP. The SSCI is awaiting the outcome of the DOD Inspector General’s review."^[64] Sources within the SSCI report Feith and the Defense Department have been less than helpful to their investigation.^[65]

As of March 2006 the news organisation Rawstory reports Pat Roberts, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was not allowing a complete investigation of Feith and his role at his Office of Special Plans. "One former intelligence official suggested that part of the reason for deferring the Feith inquiry was its sensitivity. A Feith investigation might unravel a bigger can of worms, the source said"^[66]

The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller twice alleged that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, or it's former head Douglas Feith may have engaged in unlawful activities,^[67] Phase II of the Senate_Report_of_Pre-war_Intelligence_on_Iraq "found nothing to substantiate that claim; nothing unlawful about the "alleged" rogue intelligence operation in the PCTEG , nothing unlawful about the Office of Special Plans, and nothing unlawful about the so-called failure to inform Congress of alleged intelligence activities."^[68] The previous year, the chairman released a press statement claiming that it appeared that the office's were "not in compliance with the law."^[69]

April 18, the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Rights held a hearing on abusive interrogation to look at the role of administration lawyers in crafting policies allowing the torture of detainees.

Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith was scheduled to testify today about his role in vigorously pushing to eliminate the standards of the Geneva Conventions and making the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay a “Geneva-free zone.” However, at the opening of the hearing, subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) declared that Feith “withdrew from the hearing.” Nadler explained:

Despite his prior commitment to testify, this morning, Mr. Feith informed this committee through his counsel that he would not appear today because he is not willing to appear alongside one of our other witnesses.

Sources on Capitol Hill told ThinkProgress that Feith was afraid to appear with Colin Powell’s former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who was also testifying today. After leaving the State Department in protest over Bush’s policies, Wilkerson became an outspoken critic of Bush’s foreign policy and aggressively criticized Feith’s incompetence. From a speech to the New America Foundation in 2005:

Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whom most of you probably know Tommy Franks said was the stupidest blankety-blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.

Nadler emphasized that Feith would “appear before this committee before too much time has elapsed,” adding, “We will reschedule a hearing at which Feith will appear so he can elucidate his testimony on this issue.”

Read what Feith was so afraid of in Wilkerson's opening testimony here. The Gavel has more coverage of the hearing***** here.*****

How In Hell Did This Guy Ever Get On The Georgetown Staff?

And How Bad Do Things Have To Get?

Americans' unhappy birthday: 'Too much wrong'
Jul 6, 06:43 AM EDT
By PAULINE ARRILLAGA - AP National Writer

Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days. Eighteen members of the volunteer organization's Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation's 232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book drive for schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags along the streets of one neighborhood.

They beam through the Pledge of Allegiance, applaud each other's good news - a house that recently sold despite Arizona's down market, and one member's valiant battle with cancer. "I didn't die," she says as the others cheer.

But then talk turns to the state of the Union, and the Optimists become decidedly bleak.

They use words such as "terrified," "disgusted" and "scary" to describe what one calls "this mess" we Americans find ourselves in. Then comes the list of problems constituting the mess: a protracted war, $4-a-gallon gas, soaring food prices, uncertainty about jobs, an erratic stock market, a tougher housing market, and so on and so forth.

One member's son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a daughter who's lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend who can barely afford gas.

Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aide inducted just this day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: "There's just entirely too much wrong right now."

Happy birthday, America? This year, we're not so sure.

The nation's psyche is battered and bruised, the sense of pessimism palpable. Young or old, Republican or Democrat, economically stable or struggling, Americans are questioning where they are and where they are going. And they wonder who or what might ride to their rescue.

These are more than mere gripes, but rather an expression of fears - concerns reflected not only in the many recent polls that show consumer confidence plummeting, personal happiness waning and more folks worrying that the country is headed in the wrong direction, but also in conversations happening all across the land.

"There are so many things you have to do to survive now," says Larue Lawson of Forest Park, Ill. "It used to be just clothes on your back, food on the table and a roof over your head. Now, it's everything.

"I wish it was just simpler."

Lawson, mind you, is all of 16 years old.

Then there's this from Sherry White in Orlando, Fla., who has a half-century in years and experience on the teenager:

"There is a sense of helplessness everywhere you look. It's like you're stuck in one spot, and you can't do anything about it."

In 1931, when the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase "The American Dream," he wrote of "a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."

In 2008, using history as a yardstick, life actually is better and richer and fuller, with more opportunities than ever before.

"Objectively things are going real well," says author Gregg Easterbrook, who discusses the disconnect in his book "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse."

He ticks off supporting statistics: A relatively low unemployment rate, 5.5 percent in June. (Employers did, indeed, cut payrolls last month by 62,000 jobs, but consider the 10.1 rate of June 1983 or the 7.8 rate of June 1992.) Declining rates of violent crimes, property crimes and big-city murders. Declining rates of disease. Higher standards of living for the middle class and the working poor. And incomes that, for many, are rising above the rate of inflation.

So why has the pursuit of happiness - a fundamental right, the Declaration of Independence assures us - become such a challenging undertaking?

Some of the gloom and doom may simply reflect a society that demands more and expects to have it yesterday, but in many cases there's nothing imaginary about the problems.

Just listen to farmer Ricardo Vallot, who is clinging tight to his livelihood.

Vallot expects to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on diesel fuel to plant and harvest his family's sugar cane crop in Vermilion Parish, La. His two combines burn up to 150 gallons a day, and with diesel running an average of $4.68 a gallon in the region, he sees his profits burning away, too.

"My God, it's horrible, it really is," the 33-year-old says, adding: "If diesel goes north of five, it will be really difficult at the price we're getting to stay in farming."

Stay-at-home-mom Heather Hammack grapples with tough decisions daily about how to spend her family's dwindling income in the face of rising food costs. One day, she priced strawberries at $1.75. The next day, they were $2.28.

"I could cry," she responds when asked how things are.

"We used to have more money than we knew what to do with. Now, I have to decide: Do I pay the electric this week? Do I pay for gas? Do I get groceries?" says Hammack, 24, who lives with her boyfriend, a window installer, and their 5-year-old son in a rented home in rural Rowlesburg, W.Va. "You can't get ahead. You can't save money. You can't buy a house. It just stinks."

Those "right direction, wrong direction" polls - the latest of which, in June, had only 14 to 17 percent of Americans saying the country is going the right way - show a general level of pessimism that is the worst in almost 30 years. Those feelings, coupled with government corruption scandals, lingering doubts over whether the Iraq war was justified, even memories of the chaotic response to Hurricane Katrina, have culminated in an erosion of our customary faith that elected leaders can get us out of a jam.

Says Arizona retiree Dian Kinsman: "You have no faith in anybody at the top. I don't trust anybody, and I'm really disgusted about it."

Stoking the furor is that Americans seem to feel helpless. After all, how can the average Joe or Jane control the price of gas or end the war?

"How am I, a little old West Virginia girl, going to go out and change the world?" asks Hammack.

Still, others suggest a lack of perspective and a sense of entitlement among Americans today may make these times feel worse than they are.

At 82, Ruth Townsend has experienced her share of downturns - in her own life and that of the country. She suffered a stroke years ago that left her in a wheelchair, and lives now in an assisted-living center in Orlando, Fla. Townsend recalls World War II and having to ration almost everything: sugar, leather shoes, tires, gas.

"You made do with the little you had because you had to. You shopped in the same stores over and over because you HAD to. We had coupon books and stamps to figure out what we could have," Townsend says. Americans have gotten so used to "things," she says, "that we can't take it when we hit a bad patch."

Allison Alvin condemns an "out of style" values system, in which even kids have cell phones, credit card debt is out of control and families purchase four-bedroom homes they can't afford instead of the two-bedroom ones they could.

"I'm mad at us ... all of my fellow Americans. Maybe a little hardship would be good for us," says Alvin, who at 36 has a job as a freight exporter in Cincinnati, a husband with a factory job, two healthy children, her own home and four cars, all paid off.

At the same time, she acknowledges feeling that "things are getting worse."

"When you're my age, you feel like you should be improving - more financially stable, instead of hand-to-mouth. It doesn't matter that we're better off than (others). It still hurts. It's still painful."

Easterbrook ascribes some of this to the media, noting that talk of "crisis" has become almost trendy - especially in an election year when politicians and pundits alike seem to feed on discontent as a catalyst for change, or ratings.

Round-the-clock saturation, shouting commentators and ceaseless images of "whatever's burning or exploding," he says, "give you the impression that the whole world is falling apart." Media reports noting that the world isn't rallying around U.S. policies also build frustration.

Perhaps that's why one of the Arizona Optimists, Marilyn Pell, couldn't help but raise her voice when referencing something she'd heard on the news: That gas prices might rise to $7 a gallon by 2010.

"What do you mean I've gotta pay $7 a gallon?" she exclaimed, even though it was just a prediction.

Such anxieties have concrete implications - affecting how we spend, how we vote and whether we are willing to take risks. These collective "bad moods" matter because they help steer the country's direction just as the country's direction shapes our mood. Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed this when he said in the depths of the Depression: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Perspective also varies between the haves and have-nots.

In California's Silicon Valley, one of the wealthiest places, the nation's housing crash can be seen as a healthy correction and a buying opportunity, and high gas prices are unpleasant, yes, but not unbearable.

Maybe it's no surprise that at Ferrari Maserati of Silicon Valley, where $200,000 models are still being snapped up, sales manager Larry Raphael says, "We really haven't been affected by what the media says is a low mood in the country."

Yet in these rarefied ZIP codes, others are affected - even if they feel personally secure. "I worry about my gardeners and how they're dealing with the cost of fuel, for example. Floods, fires, there are so many things going on that are going to cost everyone money," says Suzanne Legallet of Atherton, Calif.

Whether things are going well or not, it is part of human nature to be dissatisfied with the present state of things, says Arthur Brooks, professor of business and government policy at Syracuse University and the author of "Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America - And How We Can Get More of It."

"Very few Americans wake up in the morning and say, 'This is an unbelievable country. I'm going to go to the supermarket, and there's going to be food. When I go and vote, nobody's going to beat me up,'" he says. "We're horrible at appreciating the status quo. We're really good at appreciating positive changes."

With that in mind, then, Americans might take heart. Throughout our history, tough times have proved to be learning moments that provoked course corrections. The Civil War brought an end to slavery. Sit-ins and mass demonstrations prompted anti-segregation laws. Sept. 11 led to new anti-terrorism vigilance.

As Bob Dylan once said, "Chaos is a friend of mine."

At least it can be.

Perhaps, out of these trying days, we may see a more comprehensive energy policy, a sooner-than-later resolution of the war and, even, a more profound sense of personal responsibility - the motivation we needed to spend within our means, or make use of car-pool lanes and mass transit.

It's happening already, in big ways and small.

Hammack planted a garden of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots. "If I can save a few bucks," she says, "I'm going to."

In Louisiana, Vallot buys fuel in bulk now and is looking at ways other farmers might pool together to bring the cost of diesel down further. "We have to take matters into our own hands," he says.

Many have, and that certainly erases some of the helplessness that begets despair. But Americans also must recognize that happiness - the stuff that truly fulfills and gratifies - comes not from what we own but who we are, says Dr. David Burns, a psychiatrist at Stanford University's School of Medicine.

"We tend to base our self-esteem on certain things that we think we need to be worthwhile as human beings. A lot of us base it on achievement, intelligence, productivity. Our sense of self-esteem gets tied up with our career, our income. So when things start reversing, you begin to feel like less of a person."

Nevertheless, says Burns, "Where joy comes from is a completely different place."

For Ernestine Leach, it's keeping the faith that this, too, shall pass.

"I think that it's so deeply rooted in us," the 59-year-old substitute teacher says on a recent Sunday as sunlight filters through a stained-glass window at First Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C. "It's all that most Americans ... have ever known: That things did get better."

Her minister, the Rev. Dumas Harshaw Jr., has noticed some new faces in his pews as troubles deepen. He senses that more Americans are "in a wilderness, psychologically and spiritually," and "are trying to find grounding."

As Harshaw tells his congregation, we Americans are in a "season of testing."

Katy Neild, the Arizona Optimist whose son fights on in Iraq, understands that better than most. She worries about her child, and about the many other dilemmas confronting Americans.

"Did I cringe when I filled my car last week? Yes," she says. "But 100 years from now, if I were still alive, would I really care that I paid $4 a gallon for gas? No. I care my grandbaby is safe and she's well and she has a good place to live.

"Your joy can't be about your circumstances."

As she says this, the other Optimists nod in agreement. Then their president, Susan Kruse, begins reciting one of the 10 tenets of the "Optimist Creed," and the others soon join in, their smiles returning.

"Forget the mistakes of the past," they chime in unison, "and press on to the greater achievements of the future."

In the end, that's what the Optimists do. They get their troubles off their chests, debate possible solutions - and then move on to doing what they can to make some positive changes in their communities, and in their own lives.

A birthday lesson for all Americans, perhaps.

Contributing to this report were AP Writers Allen G. Breed, Martha Irvine, Todd Lewan, Martha Mendoza, Vicki Smith and Becky Bohrer.

And A Damned Good Question For A New American Government.