They then failed to provide speedy assistance, the lawmakers said in the document, according to excerpts released earlier this week.

"Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare," they said.

"At every level -- individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental -- we failed to meet the challenge that was Katrina."

US President George W. Bush's administration this week also faced scathing criticism from a Congress watchdog which said millions of dollars in Katrina aid was given to people who provided false identities and addresses.

Excerpts of the report said Bush's White House advisors did not check the incoming information nor react fast enough to the disaster.

It said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of the Homeland Security Department, knew more than two days in advance that 75 percent of New Orleans was probably going to be flooded. It criticized Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff for not sounding a strong enough alarm.

The US government has spent tens of billions of dollars on aid and reconstruction efforts following the disaster, but even much of that was misplaced, according to the
Government Accountability Office, a Congress watchdog.

Chertoff was due to appear Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security, where he was likely to flesh out his proposal unveiled earlier this week to overhaul FEMA to make it more responsive in the event of a catastrophic event.

In a speech on Monday, Chertoff said FEMA would upgrade its alert procedure and add hundreds of new staff, to allow it to respond more quickly to catastrophes.

Meanwhile, Bush's homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said Monday that she would release the results of her White House investigation later this month.

Despite the scathing criticism, Democrats in Congress said the report does not go far enough in holding underperforming officials accountable and charting the way forward.

"Thousands are still displaced. There's a stagnation of rebuilding. There's no certainty about what will happen in the impacted areas, particularly in New Orleans and in the surrounding parishes," US Senator Hillary Clinton said at a press conference Tuesday.

"There was a colossal failure of leadership within the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA," she said.

"No one in this administration was able to tell the American people who was in charge as the waters rose," the former first lady said.

"The president, his senior staff, his cabinet and other officials in his government were a major reason why we had a failed response to the distress caused by Katrina," Clinton concluded, calling for the creation of an independent commission to investigate the lackluster federal response.

"After reporting for almost 10 years these very modest gains for women, I have come to believe it is a very persistent social phenomenon," said Judith Saidel, the study's project director. "The problem does not appear to be going away."

The study examined statewide elected officials, state legislators, high court judges, department heads, and top advisers in governors' offices.

Arizona tops the list with 38.6 percent of women in top positions, followed by Nevada, Vermont, Washington and New Mexico. Women in Mississippi held the lowest percentage of top government jobs, just 12.9 percent. Kentucky, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Dakota rounded out the five states with the lowest female representation.

Just eight states — Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan and Washington — have female governors. Fifteen of the country's lieutenant governors are women.

The report showed gains for women in the judiciary. Women have two or more judicial leadership posts in more than half the states and serve as the chief justice in 15 states. They hold 27.7 percent of the top judicial positions, up from 22 percent in 1998.

Saidel speculated the demands made by government positions often interfere with family duties, such as caring for children or elderly parents, and discourage women from seeking office.

As more opportunities open up for women in business, philanthropy and other areas, women who may have pursued political opportunities are going elsewhere, she said.

Bob Kearney, the national director of the Political Opportunity Program at Emily's List, a group that helps women run for office as Democrats, said many women want to run but need money and know-how.

Kearney said in states with term limits, such as California, women who have achieved a level of power are forced out in six or eight years. In states without term limits, entrenched incumbents limit the opportunities for new lawmakers.

Politics is "one of the last glass ceilings to exist," Kearney said. "Women are breaking through it, but it only happens with intentional effort."

Hamza is a case in point. He was convicted on six counts of soliciting murder under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. As the date suggests, it's an archaic piece of legislation; the soliciting provisions had, in effect, lain in abeyance for over 100 years until 2003, when they were used to convict another loose-tongued preacher, Abdullah el-Faisal. As the Guardian noted then, it was the first time in over a century that a charge of soliciting murder under the act had been used in a case where the prospective assailant and target were unidentified.

The double standard in this becomes evident when you consider how many people could have been hauled in under this legislation and weren't. Theoretically the rapper Buju Banton could still be prosecuted for advocating the murder of homosexuals in an infamous 1992 track, Boom Bye Bye. Or, for that matter, the poet Tom Paulin, for telling an Egyptian newspaper in 2002 that Jewish settlers should be shot dead.

Hamza was also found guilty of stirring up racial hatred, underlining the point that this legislation has become an anti-Muslim cudgel. El-Faisal was also convicted of the same in 2003 and jailed.

Earlier this month we saw the BNP's Nick Griffin and Mark Collett acquitted of inciting hatred against Muslims, apparently because the statements they made were directed against a faith group, not a racial group. The Commons also voted to defang the government's attempt to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, leaving us with a situation where the offence encompasses a narrower range of behaviour than its racial counterpart, making it more difficult to enforce.

Then there's the dreaded Terrorism Act 2000, Britain's anti-Muslim "sus law". Hamza was convicted of having a handbook of guerrilla warfare originating in Afghanistan. Critics have noted how this act is so broad it can draw in anybody, from the protester sympathising with armed resistance to the occupations of Iraq and Palestine to the downloading of information from the internet. There was no requirement for the jury to be convinced that Hamza had ever used the information - possession was enough.

Our loathing of Hamza and his ilk should not blind us to the price the war on terror is exacting. This week sees the terrorism bill back in the Commons for a vote that seeks to extend the definition of terrorism by outlawing statements that glorify the conduct it already embraces. Why should the law differentiate terrorism from gangsta rap, whose glorification of violence exacts many casualties on our streets?

Even before the war on terror we had started to lose our liberties to politicians who wanted to erect a shield around future iniquities. They are free to wage illegal wars in which the original crime is compounded by abuses and atrocities, but we have to watch what we say. The widening net has caught Hamza, but relief and satisfaction are the wrong responses. None of us is safe.

· Faisal Bodi is news editor at the Islam Channel bodi_fy@yahoo.co.uk

Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security committee, called the reports a "fresh indictment" of FEMA. She said investigators uncovered "shocking examples of absent safeguards and wasted tax dollars."

Among them: FEMA spent $878.8 million on nearly 25,000 manufactured homes that the agency is paying to store around the country largely because its own regulations prohibit placing the homes in flood plains, such as New Orleans.

After hearing that FEMA issued thousands of checks and $2,000 debit cards to people whose identities and claims the agency never checked, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., called it "infuriating."

The reports were issued by the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, which runs FEMA.

They came as the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff vigorously defended their response after learning that New Orleans was flooding and people were in peril. (Related story: FEMA reforms unveiled)

On Friday, former FEMA director Michael Brown told Collins' committee that his warnings to the White House about the gravity of the situation in New Orleans went unheeded, and he said Chertoff failed to respond quickly because he was too focused on terrorism. Chertoff will appear before the Senate committee today in the final hearing of a months-long investigation into what went wrong.

On Monday, he lashed out. "I unequivocally and strongly reject this attempt to drive a wedge between our concerns about terrorism and our concerns about natural disasters," he told a meeting of state emergency management directors.

At the same meeting, President Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, defended her boss. "I reject outright that President Bush was anything less than fully involved," she said.

She said she will release her own report on the Katrina aftermath by the end of the month, with 100 recommendations for improving government disaster response.

Chertoff announced a few changes Monday. They include plans to:

¢ Use satellites to track trucks carrying emergency supplies such as ice.

¢ Place FEMA employees at shelters so victims can apply for aid in person rather than by phone or the Internet.

¢ Create a database of preapproved contractors so cleanup can start quickly.

Tom Noe pleaded not guilty this morning to 53 felony charges that he stole more than $1 million from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation and laundered more than $2 million from the coin funds he managed for the bureau.

Mr. Noe was taken to the Lucas County jail for processing as he attempted to post the $500,000 bond set by Judge Thomas Osowik.

A grand jury indicted Mr. Noe on 22 counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, eight counts of tampering with records, six counts of aggravated theft, five counts of grand theft, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

If convicted of all charges and he received the maximum penalty, he could face 172.5 years in prison. But Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates said only two of the felony counts have a presumption of incarceration and one, the RICO count, would require a mandatory 10 year prison term.

“We start a whole new chapter now,” Ms. Bates said. “We start the litigation process.”

Also indicted was Timothy LaPointe, Mr. Noe’s partner in Vintage Coins and Collectibles in Monclova Township, which has since been shuttered. He faces one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the RICO law and six counts of tampering with records. Mr. LaPointe will receive a summons to appear in court for arraignment.

Mr. Noe, 51, was taken into custody this morning after his attorney, Jon Richardson, entered a plea of not guilty on all charges.

The former GOP fund-raiser was accompanied by his sister and brother-in-law and said nothing during the six-minute hearing.

The charges mark the first state felony charges since mulitple law enforcement agencies began investigating Mr. Noe following The Blade’s revelations in April that he was investing state money in rare coins.

The indictment calls for the forfeit of Mr. Noe’s business Vintage Coins and Collectables and the sale of his shares in Numismatic Guaranty Corp. if convicted.

Mr. Noe was indicted in October in U.S. District Court in Toledo on three felony counts for allegedly laundering more than $40,000 to President Bush’s re-election campaign.

The state invested a total of $50 million with Mr. Noe’s Capital Coin funds, beginning with $25 million in 1998.

According to the indictment, the theft charges allege he stole more than $800,000 and laundered another $2 million.

Prosecutors declined to release details on where they think the money went or on what it was spent. Ms. Bates said she found the evidence in the case “very troubling, I’ve got to be very honest with you.”

Although Mr. Noe traveled from Florida for the hearing, it is unclear if he is cooperating with authorities. Ms. Bates declined comment on whether Mr.
Noe had attempted to negotiate a plea agreement.

She did say, however, that today’s indictment would escalate the activities of the task force looking into Mr. Noe and other aspects of state investments. “I think there are other things the task force will be turning to,” she said.

The indictment against Mr. LaPointe alleged that he “assisted” Mr. Noe in 2002, 2003, and 2004 in getting coins that did not belong to the state’s coin funds or their subsidiaries yet listing them as inventory of the coin funds.

The intent was to “mislead the auditors” about $1 million stolen from the coin funds.

Other BWC managers
The U.S. attorney in Cleveland is looking at problems involving other Workers’ Compensation fund managers, one of which lost $215 million in a Bermuda hedge fund. That loss was not revealed until Noe task force investigators began asking questions following revelations in The Blade.

The Bureau of Workers’ Compensation bureau is the state agency charged with paying medical bills and providing monthly checks to Ohio workers injured on the job.

Before the coin scandal unfolded, Mr. Noe was an extraordinary Republican fund-raiser who received high-level appointments from Governors George Voinovich and Bob Taft.

Today’s indictments came 10 months after The Blade first reported on the state’s $50 million rare-coin investment with Mr. Noe, documenting how the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation continued to invest millions of dollars in Mr. Noe’s Capital Coin Fund despite strong concerns raised by an internal auditor about whether the state’s millions were adequately protected.

Since that April 3 story, the state halted its investment in rare-coin funds controlled by Mr. Noe, and the scandal that ensued has led to four grand jury investigations, high-level resignations and firing in state government, the criminal conviction of Governor Taft and two top aides on ethics violations for failing to report gifts from Mr. Noe, and charges filed last week against two former aides to Mr. Taft for failing to disclose loans that they received from Mr. Noe.

Mr. Taft, who in an interview with The Blade on April 7 defended Mr. Noe and the state’s rare-coin investment with him, by saying “The bottom line is: Is it making money for the state; what’s the problem?’’ could not be reached for immediate comment.

On the day Mr. Noe received his first $25 million from the workers’
compensation bureau, he approved a wire transfer of $1.4 million from the coin fund to his own accounts to pay off previous obligations, officials have alleged.

Several of the counts of theft and money laundering focus on the early days of the coin funds. Within the first week, the indictment alleges that Mr.
Noe either stole or laundered $912,000.

With the first $25 million, Mr. Noe quickly invested money into real estate and his associates’ coin businesses. He brokered multimillion dollar coin deals that made the state little money, but allowed him to unload his own coins for hundreds of thousands to the state, according to rare-coin records released last year by the state after The Blade won a lawsuit filed with the Ohio Supreme Court.

***

Jeremy Jackson, press secretary for the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, reacted to the indictment of Mr. Noe by saying the agency is “pleased [investigators] are making progress on the criminal front.”

“It will provide greater clarity to what occurred with the coin fund, and we hope it is another step in the right direction to get to the bottom of this information,’’ he said.

Mr. Jackson said the indictment of Mr. Noe is expected to “give us direction in what went wrong on the investment from the perspective of the general partner. Obviously, we have learned a lesson that this investment was not a prudent one.”

The bureau on May 9, 2005 halted the rare-coin investment, saying it had “concerns about the ability of the managers to commit the necessary time and resources to make it profitable.”

The agency made its decision two days after The Blade reported that two rare gold coins purchased for the state probably had been stolen. Mr. Noe had said the coins were “lost in the mail.”

Mr. Jackson said the bureau has taken several steps to prevent what happened with the rare-coin investment that Mr. Noe managed.

***

Since the scandal erupted in April, 2005, Mr. Noe has sold his Maumee condominium and his million-dollar home on Lake Erie as well as boats and cars.

Last July, Attorney General Jim Petro, a Republican, accused Mr. Noe in a civil lawsuit of stealing at least $4 million of the state’s money from the coin funds. Mr. Petro said some of the money helped Mr. Noe build a home on Catawba Island, improve landscaping at his Florida Keys home, and show an imaginary profit to the state.

Mr. Noe’s campaign contributions to Republicans increased substantially in
1998 after he received the first $25 million payment from the state, and his contributions more than doubled again in 2002, the year after the bureau gave him his second installment of $25 million.

The workers’ compensation bureau was on the verge of investing a third $25 million in his coin funds last spring when The Blade began reporting on problems with the unusual investment. They quickly backed off further investments with Mr. Noe.

Although the indictment does not spell out the specifics of each alleged forgery, it does say that one occurred in April, 2002. Mr. Petro has earlier said that Mr. Noe transferred $150,000 from the coin funds into his personal business, Vintage Coins and Collectibles on April 30, 2002. That same day, he wrote a check from his business account to Gerry Gordon for $110,000. The check, endorsed with a signature, was deposited into the personal bank account of Mr. Noe and his wife, Bernadette, at National City Bank.

Four days earlier, Mr. Noe wrote a check from his personal accounts for
$43,773 for landscaping work on the family’s home in the Florida Keys.

Before transfer of the $110,000 check, the bank had insufficient funds from the Noes to cover the landscaping charge.

But Mr. Gordon, a former member of the Ohio Board of Regents, signed an affidavit swearing that he never received the check from Mr. Noe and that the signature endorsing the check was forged.

The collapse of the state’s rare-coin investment led to the resignation of the bureau’s administrator-CEO James Conrad, and the firing of Jim McLean, the former chief investment officer. Mr. McLean’s predescessor, Terry Gasper, was pressured to resign in October, 2004, after the hedge fund losses were exposed.

The collapse of the rare-coin investment and the $215 million loss in a risky hedge fund led to the bureau’s decision last November to terminate its
69 remaining money managers and invest nearly all of its $15.7 billion portfolio into fixed-income funds.

***

Today’s indictments are expected to make national news and breathe new life into a scandal that Democrats say gives them the best chance to capture the governor’s office, which the GOP has controlled since 1991. Mr. Noe, who was chairman of President Bush’s re-election efforts in northwest Ohio, gained the elite fund-raising status of Bush Pioneer for raising at least $100,000 for the re-election campaign.

Mr. Noe last year resigned from posts at the U.S. Mint, the Ohio Board of Regents, and the Ohio Turnpike Commission.

Politicians from Washington to California — including President Bush — have sought to return Mr. Noe’s political contributions, which exceeded $200,000 since 1990.

Brian Hicks, who served as Mr. Taft’s chief of staff from 1999 until 2003, was convicted on a first-degree misdemeanor charge for failing to disclose on his state-mandated ethics form that he received a cut-rate vacation at the Florida Keys home owned by Mr. Noe and his wife, Bernadette, a former chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party, as is Mr. Noe.

Mr. Hicks’ executive assistant, Cherie Carroll, was charged with an ethics violation because she accepted expensive meals paid by Mr. Noe that could have influenced decisions she made in her job. Mr. Hicks has a lobbying and consulting firm, and Ms. Carroll is among the employees. Both Mr. Hicks and Ms. Carroll were fined $1,000 each.

Last Friday, Columbus prosecutors filed criminal charges against H. Douglas Talbott and Doug Moormann, lobbyists and former high-ranking aides to Governors Voinovich and Taft.

Mr. Talbott was charged with one misdemeanor count of violating state ethics law for failing to disclose a $39,000 payment he received from Mr. Noe in September, 2002, which Mr. Talbott said was a loan to help buy a vacation home in Lakeside, Ohio. He left the governor’s office in May, 2000, to become a Columbus lobbyist.

He also was charged with failing to disclose meals and other gratuities he received as a member of the “Noe Supper Club” — a group of Columbus insiders who accepted lavish dinners from the coin dealer at Morton’s steakhouse, a popular upscale hangout for the politically connected, including members of Governor Taft’s staff.

It is a first-degree misdemeanor to falsify an ethics form, with a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Mr. Talbott was required to file an annual ethics statement because Mr. Taft had appointed him to the state Board of Cosmetology.

Prosecutors also charged Mr. Talbott, 41, with one count of violating state campaign finance law by funneling money from Mr. Noe to contribute to three Republican state Supreme Court candidates. If convicted, Mr. Talbott could face a fine of up to $10,000.

Mr. Moormann, 39, was charged with one misdemeanor for failing to disclose a $5,000 loan he received from Mr. Noe in 2004 after he had left the governor’
s office, said Lara Baker, chief legal counsel in the Columbus prosecutor’s division.

At the time, Mr. Moormann was a member of the Transportation Review Advisory Council, which reviews transportation projects for the Ohio Department of Transportation. He now is a lobbyist for the Cincinnati Area Chamber of Commerce.

Under state law, public officials must report the source of gifts valued above $75 and must disclose the sources of loans.

Contact Mike Wilkinson at:mwilkinson@theblade.com or 419-724-6104

Three former business associates of Abramoff, who worked with the lobbyist in various roles between 2001 and 2004, told The Associated Press that Abramoff routinely mentioned Rove when talking about his influence inside the White House.

One said he was present when Abramoff took a call from Rove's office to confirm a White House meeting had been approved between Malaysia's prime minister and Bush in May 2002. Abramoff was being paid by Malaysia for helping it in Washington, according to evidence the Senate has made public.

All three associates would describe the Abramoff comments only on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation of Abramoff's work and fears that speaking out could affect their current businesses. At least one said he had been interviewed by the FBI.

Abramoff was a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush and lobbying records obtained by the AP show his lobbying team logged nearly 200 meetings with the administration during its first 10 months in office on behalf of one of his clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.

The contacts between Abramoff's team and the administration included meetings with Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the AP reported last year.

Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, went to work for Rove in 2001. Abramoff's legal team declined comment Monday night.

According to one of the three former associates, frequently Abramoff's cell phone would ring and the lobbyist would tell the associate that the White House was calling. To prove that he wasn't making up what he was telling the associate, Abramoff occasionally would hold up the phone so that the associate could see the incoming call was indeed a White House phone number.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery conspiracy case and is cooperating with the investigation into those in Congress and the administration he used to lobby.

Asked about the three former Abramoff associates' account, the White House said Rove shared a common past with Abramoff as leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."

Healy said Rove has "no recollection" of talking to Abramoff about the Malaysian prime minister's meeting in May 2002. She said Bush first met the prime minister at a foreign summit in October 2001 and that the 2002 meeting in the Oval Office was "another opportunity to get together to discuss the war on terror."

© 2006 The Associated Press.

Mr. Hackett staged a surprisingly strong Congressional run last year in an overwhelmingly Republican district and gained national prominence for his scathing criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. It was his performance in the Congressional race that led party leaders to recruit him for the Senate race.

But for the last two weeks, he said, state and national Democratic Party leaders have urged him to drop his Senate campaign and again run for Congress.

"This is an extremely disappointing decision that I feel has been forced on me," said Mr. Hackett, whose announcement comes two days before the state's filing deadline for candidates. He said he was outraged to learn that party leaders were calling his donors and asking them to stop giving and said he would not enter the Second District Congressional race.

"For me, this is a second betrayal," Mr. Hackett said. "First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."

Mr. Hackett was the first Iraq war veteran to seek national office, and the decision to steer him away from the Senate race has surprised those who see him as a symbol for Democrats who oppose the war but want to appear strong on national security.

"Alienating Hackett is not just a bad idea for the party, but it also sends a chill through the rest of the 56 or so veterans that we've worked to run for Congress," said Mike Lyon, executive director for the Band of Brothers, a group dedicated to electing Democratic veterans to national office. "Now is a time for Democrats to be courting, not blocking, veterans who want to run."

But Democratic leaders say Representative Brown, a seven-term incumbent from Avon, has a far better chance of toppling Senator DeWine.

"It boils down to who we think can pull the most votes in November against DeWine," said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. "And in Ohio, Brown's name is golden. It's just that simple."

Mr. Fern added that Mr. Brown's fund-raising abilities made him the better Senate candidate. By the end of last year, Mr. Brown had already amassed $2.37 million, 10 times what Mr. Hackett had raised.

Senator Reid did not reply to repeated requests for comment.

Asked about Mr. Hackett's contention that he had been pressed to leave the Senate race, a spokesman for Mr. Schumer, Phil Singer, said, "We've told both Sherrod Brown and Paul Hackett that avoiding a primary will make it easier to win the Ohio Senate seat, " but he added, "Obviously, the decision to run is Mr. Hackett's and Mr. Hackett's alone."

Mr. Brown declined to comment on Mr. Hackett's candidacy, saying that he was strictly focused on building his own campaign.

Democrats wanted to avoid a drawn-out primary, especially one that could get bruising with a tough-talking outsider like Mr. Hackett.

The Ohio Senate race is regarded as critical to Democratic aspirations to take back Congress in the fall. Aside from focusing on Senator DeWine, the Democrats also hope to win as many as eight House seats in Ohio and the governorship from the Republicans.

Ohio Democrats are hoping to exploit the larger problems plaguing the Republicans. State Republicans have struggled to distance themselves from Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican who cannot run again because of term limits and who was found guilty last summer of four misdemeanor ethics violations. Representative Bob Ney's still-unfolding role in the scandal over the lobbyist Jack Abramoff also looms over the state's Republicans.

Mr. Hackett said he was unwilling to run for the Congressional seat because he had given his word to three Democratic candidates that he would not enter that race.

"The party keeps saying for me not to worry about those promises because in politics they are broken all the time," said Mr. Hackett, who plans to return to his practice as a lawyer in the Cincinnati area. "I don't work that way. My word is my bond."

Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report, said that part of what made Democratic leaders nervous about Mr. Hackett was what had also made him so popular with voters.

"Hackett is seen by many as a straight talker, and he became an icon to the liberal bloggers because he says exactly what they have wished they would hear from a politician," Ms. Duffy said. "On the other hand, the Senate is still an exclusive club, and the party expects a certain level of decorum that Hackett has not always shown."

Mr. Hackett was widely criticized last year for using indecent language to describe President Bush. Last month, state Republicans attacked Mr. Hackett for saying their party had been hijacked by religious extremists who he said "aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden."

Though Republicans called for an apology, Mr. Hackett repeated the mantra of his early campaign: "I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it."

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company