Tilting at windmills: Rummy's doomed reform Saddam the sissy Woodward the protector Broadway's bad review the Jameson's of toxic waste.

• Author: Peters, Charles

FOR YEARS THIS COLUMN HAS delighted in exposing one flaw of continuing medical education programs. Many of them are merely fronts for a vacation, with far more time spent on the ski slope, golf course, tennis court, and beach than in the classroom. Another problem with these courses is that they are often sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. The downside of this practice, writes The Wall Street Journal's Scott Hensley: "The courses tilt toward promoting the corporate sponsors' drugs." Continuing medical education was originally conducted by medical societies and medical schools. Now, however, 60 percent of the cost of the programs, $729 million out of $1.18 billion, is paid by industry.

A TEST OF THEIR GOOD FAITH now confronts Republican congressional leaders. Will they repeal, as they promised Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) they would, the three special-interest provisions that mysteriously crept into the homeland security bill at the last minute? One of the provisions exempts Eli lilly from lawsuits arising from a vaccine preservative it makes, which may have caused--causation is "biologically plausible," says the National Academy of Sciences--brain disorders in thousands of children.

Another provision exempts the manufacturers of anti-terrorism devices like gas masks, even if, according to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), "they engage in intentional wrongdoing." And, most galling of all, the bill now permits the homeland security agency to do business with corporations that evade U.S. taxes by maintaining offices overseas, even though in July, the House had voted 318-110 to forbid such contracts.

ANOTHER BLOW TO MY ANGLOphilia: In a recent opinion poll, Britons voted that the most significant event of the past hundred years was the death of Princess Diana. Whatever happened to the England of Shakespeare, Dickens, and the heroes of the RAF? Come to think of it, the Brits are probably looking at George W. Bush and wondering whatever happened to the land of Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.

ALTHOUGH I DISLIKE DONALD Rumsfeld's relentless hawkishness, I do admire his effort to move the armed forces into the 21st century and get rid of the antiquated force structures that have little relation to modern warfare. I fear, however, that one of his reforms is doomed. He is attempting to unify the senior dining rooms at the Pentagon and charge officers a fee, "maybe as high as $300," according to Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times.

These dining rooms are one of Washington's most treasured perks. It is said that when the Coast Guard was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Transportation some years ago, the main sticking point was that Treasury officials Couldn't bear to give up the Coast Guard dining room, with its gleaming silverware, white tablecloths, and white-coated attendants. And when it was discovered that lunch in the Pentagon Generals' Mess cost taxpayers an average of six times what the officers paid, the top brass back then, like Rumsfeld today, announced reform: "Meal prices must be sufficient to cover operating expenses and food costs." But the generals refused to be cowed. They simply redefined expenses to exclude waiters' and cooks' salaries, as well as the cost of kitchen equipment.

GEORGE W. BUSH HAS NOT mentioned the fact, but did you know that "Israel ranks second only to Russia as a weapons systems provider to China, and as a conduit for sophisticated military technology," according to a recent report by the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 2000. These sales, reports Reuters, "create an ironic possibility that in the event of war, China, with weapons supplied or enhanced by Israel that may have been supplied by the United States, would face Taiwan, armed with U.S.-made jets and other military hardware." It would be even more ironic if China used the technology against us, or, as seems more probable, sold it to Bush's dear friends in North Korea and Iran, which are regular customers of Chinese military exports.

THE...