Prevail

Nearly 85 percent of the state is now in moderate to severe drought. That's up from just 37 percent last week, and it's the most widespread Maryland drought since October 2005. Data issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows "severe" conditions prevail in Charles, St. Mary's and southern Calvert counties. "Moderate drought" extends from eastern Allegany County, across southern Baltimore County to the Lower Shore. "Abnormally dry" conditions continue in the state's far west and northeast.

ONCE AGAIN the Constitution is under assault by politicians seeking a so-called Balanced Budget Amendment. What is worrisome is that one of these years, maybe even this year, this exercise in dishonesty and irresponsibility will prevail as Washington seeks cover from fiscal problems it would rather ignore. So it is time to get back in the trenches, call up the reserves and do battle against those who would sully the Constitution with an amendment that substitutes economic lunacy for normal legislative procedure.

WHAT ACCOUNTS for the world's fascination with Pope John Paul II? His own church, after all, is bitterly divided -- on abortion, on contraception, on the celibate male priesthood. Yet the pope's global influence is as high as any statesman's, and higher than any pope's since the Age of Conquest half a millennium ago.The Roman Catholic church has always had a foreign policy, a legacy of the days when popes ruled states of their own. For the last century, with the Holy See reduced to 100 acres in downtown Rome, Vatican foreign policy mostly amounted to denouncing materialistic ideologies like communism and defending the rights of Catholics where they were in minority or oppressed conditions.

"At this point allowing the Bosnians to fight back seems to me to be the best hope of eventually stopping Serb expansionist drives. . . As a practical matter I do not see any other way of stopping Serb expansionism unless someone tries physically to stop it. Who is going to try to stop it?"So declaimed Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, of Minnesota, as he gave his support July 26 to an arm-the-Muslims resolution that, in Defense Secretary William J. Perry's opinion, could create a "nightmare scenario" in the former Yugoslavia.

Yonkers, New York. -- As we mark the 50th anniversary of World War II's conclusion, the temptation is to treat victory as somehow inevitable. Those who were there know better.Five years prior to victory, one man peered across Europe and saw anything but cause for optimism:''Behind us . . . gather a group of shattered states and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Danes, the Norwegians, the Belgians, the Dutch -- upon all of whom a long dark night of barbarism will descend.''In June 1940, France joined the legion of conquered nations, and only Britain stood geographically between Hitler and America.

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Republicans, armed with the power of the purse for the first time in four decades, have begun the long march toward their twin goals of a balanced budget and a leaner, less intrusive federal government.Congress is about to approve a spending plan that will shrink government in many areas, slow its growth in others, and deny federal regulators much of their power over American life."Assuming they prevail -- and there's better-than-even odds that they will -- they will reverse the direction of government for the first time in a half-century," said Allen Schick, an economist at the Brookings Institution, who has written several books on the federal budget.

The U.S. diplomatic mission of lasting significance in recent weeks was probably not President Clinton's to the group of Seven in Naples but FBI Director Louis Freeh's to Eastern Europe.He set up the first FBI office in Moscow. He was begged by the presidents of the Czech Republic and Poland to establish similar offices in their capitals.Mr. Freeh undertook to have the FBI train 30 Hungarian officers. He procured FBI access to a secure fax line that links the Russian Interior Ministry and the German Federal Criminal Police.

President Clinton has enjoyed a run of good luck in foreign policy. The unexpected death of Kim Il Sung helped avert, for the moment, a crisis over North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, new resident of Panama, stepped down instead of taunting the United States into a bloody invasion of Haiti. And Saddam Hussein of Iraq made Mr. Clinton's day with provocative military deployment to the border of Kuwait followed by withdrawal in the face of the U.S. response. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of hands rubbing in satisfaction in the White House.

Los Angeles.-- Bill Clinton's 1969 letter to the Army colonel he tricked made me think better of him. The document ''to thank you . . . for saving me from the draft'' could outlive the man as critical literature in the study of the political mind.Whatever happens to him next, Mr. Clinton's life view as a 23-year-old was deeper, more perceptive and perhaps more honest than my own, as I remember it. But there are a couple of critical differences between us: I am 10 years older than he; thus I was not eligible for the draft during most of the war in Vietnam.

By nearly a 2-to-1 margin, respondents to "It's Your Call" correctly predicted that Duke would defeat Kansas in last night's NCAA championship basketball game.In balloting that was cut off at 9 last night, 211 of the 322 callers (66 percent) said Duke would prevail after leaving the Final Four empty-handed four of the last five years. The other 111 respondents (34 percent) backed Kansas."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as would be done in a scientific public opinion poll.

Hollywood has often relied on its $20 million men - stars who can "open" films, immediately bringing in two or three times their prodigious salaries - to motivate moviegoers during the two bonanza weeks of Christmas and New Year's. This year will test their power to reach adults as well as children during Yuletide. Many of the stars who usually play quarterback to commercial franchises have chosen to go deep and get serious. For example, we'll see Will Smith as an IRS agent with a guilty conscience in Seven Pounds.

WASHINGTON -- Alan Greenspan's reputation is under siege, and he is incredulous. Hailed three years ago as "the greatest central banker who ever lived," the retired chairman of the Federal Reserve now is being criticized for his management of the U.S. economy before he retired in 2006. The Fed's low rates and laissez-faire regulatory oversight during his final years are widely blamed for sowing the seeds of today's financial crisis - one that began in the U.S. housing market and is now battering banks, stock markets, borrowers and consumers around the world.

Nearly 85 percent of the state is now in moderate to severe drought. That's up from just 37 percent last week, and it's the most widespread Maryland drought since October 2005. Data issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows "severe" conditions prevail in Charles, St. Mary's and southern Calvert counties. "Moderate drought" extends from eastern Allegany County, across southern Baltimore County to the Lower Shore. "Abnormally dry" conditions continue in the state's far west and northeast.

The president's response when a reporter asked whether he was "still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq." ?Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to the families? of those who have died. ?I also believe we?re going to succeed. I believe we?ll prevail.? President Bush

WASHINGTON -- The Maryland men's basketball team absorbed its first jolt of the season last night in the annual BB&T Classic. While showing little of the passion and precision that got them through tough tests against Michigan State and Illinois away from home, the 23rd-ranked Terrapins floundered in the second half at Verizon Center and became the fifth straight victim of Notre Dame, 81-74. Fordham @Maryland Wednesday, 8 p.m., 1300 AM, 105.7 FM

How refreshing and thrilling it is to hear good news from Iraq. The release yesterday of Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor correspondent kidnapped Jan. 7, shows that vicious brutality need not always prevail - that good will and good intentions and good sense, and patience and hard work, can still sometimes make things turn out right, even in the caldron that Iraq has become. Ms. Carroll says she was treated well, and whoever her captors were, they decided in the end that they no longer cared to hold her. They may have been moved by human sympathy or by cold political calculation, but in any case she's free.

This is a quiet time of year at Sandy Point State Park, where the marina is closed for the season and visitors to the beach are few. The recreation area, which bus tles during the warm summer months, has been transformed into a place where brisk temperatures, stark light and a reflective mood prevail.

WASHINGTON -- God, it has been said, is less exacting than General Motors because He floods the world with factory rejects. Because mankind is flawed, and because the United States has decided that as many people as possible should go to college, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, known as the SAT, has been central to the college admissions process at the most prestigious schools. Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California, wants his university to drop the SAT, partly to improve the student body's diversity.

ONCE AGAIN the Constitution is under assault by politicians seeking a so-called Balanced Budget Amendment. What is worrisome is that one of these years, maybe even this year, this exercise in dishonesty and irresponsibility will prevail as Washington seeks cover from fiscal problems it would rather ignore. So it is time to get back in the trenches, call up the reserves and do battle against those who would sully the Constitution with an amendment that substitutes economic lunacy for normal legislative procedure.

WHAT ACCOUNTS for the world's fascination with Pope John Paul II? His own church, after all, is bitterly divided -- on abortion, on contraception, on the celibate male priesthood. Yet the pope's global influence is as high as any statesman's, and higher than any pope's since the Age of Conquest half a millennium ago.The Roman Catholic church has always had a foreign policy, a legacy of the days when popes ruled states of their own. For the last century, with the Holy See reduced to 100 acres in downtown Rome, Vatican foreign policy mostly amounted to denouncing materialistic ideologies like communism and defending the rights of Catholics where they were in minority or oppressed conditions.