Wednesday, December 21, 2005 1:00 P.M. EST

Best of the Web is off today. In its place, we offer a free sample of Political Diary, the editorial page's daily, subscription e-mail newsletter on American politics (subscribe here). James Taranto returns tomorrow.

• Correction: Ohio Gun Group Says 'Any of the Above'
• Patriot Act Posturing
• Apoplectic Over ANWR
• Social Security Fallout? Shaw Shrugs
• School Wars Just Keep Evolving (Quote of the Day I)
• Seriously, It's Time to Drill (Quote of the Day II)
• Lessons in Subway Strikes
• Releasing 'The Prisoner'

Contrary to an item in the Dec. 9 Political Diary, the Ohio-based Buckeye Firearms Association says it hasn't endorsed Attorney General Jim Petro for governor. A spokesman for the pro-gun PAC tells us Mr. Petro and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell are "both outstanding candidates, as is [Democratic frontrunner] Ted Strickland."

It isn't yet clear whether key provisions of the Patriot Act will expire on December 31 because of a Democratic filibuster against a renewal of that vital measure. What is clear is that Democrats are starting to worry they will pay a political price for their obstructionism. President Bush may be facing difficulties over the war in Iraq, but there's no doubt that when the subject turns to protecting the American mainland against terrorism, he's playing on a home field.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid didn't do his party any favors last Friday when he openly boasted to a group of political supporters that by their successful filibuster Senate Democrats had "killed the Patriot Act." When he was then asked if defeating the Patriot Act was a reason to celebrate, he replied: "Of course it is."

Mr. Reid's statements only served to infuriate Senate GOP leaders, prompting them to reject a 90-day extension of the Patriot Act and press Democrats to either end their filibuster or face the political consequences. Democrats, recalling how President Bush scored points by attacking their intransigence over the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, had by yesterday clearly gone on defense. "The president is posturing for the 2006 elections," Mr. Reid complained to reporters. "He should stop playing politics." Mr. Reid also claimed that he really did want to pass the legislation.

The Senate is likely to attempt to do just that again today. Since it was Mr. Reid who began the political games by voting to block a delicate House-Senate compromise to extend the Patriot Act, it will be interesting to see if he's the one who ultimately calls it quits today.

The Senate is preparing for an energy showdown, in particular whether to finally get the country's resource production back on track by allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. All eyes are now centered on two Senate Republicans, Alaska's Ted Stevens and Majority Leader Bill Frist. The former is the architect of a new strategy for pushing ANWR through Congress; the latter has the job of making it happen.

Mr. Stevens recently managed to include ANWR drilling in the defense appropriations bill. The drilling provision had originally been in the broader budget reconciliation package -- that is until 25 House Republicans, most from Northeast states, said they'd withhold their vote. Including ANWR in the defense legislation in theory makes the vote harder, as it will require overcoming a 60-vote filibuster rather than the 51 votes necessary to pass the budget package. But Mr. Stevens is no dope, and this time he may have boxed in his drilling opponents. Few want to go on record as having voted against money for the troops. Moreover, the defense bill contains Hurricane Katrina relief money that many Senators are eager to see released. The House overwhelmingly approved its version of the legislation earlier this week.

Such political hardball has sent environmental groups around the bend. At least 14 radical green groups, including Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, fired off an apoplectic mass email calling the defense insertion a "cheap trick," a "cynical, politically motivated scheme" and a "national disgrace." (Tell us what you really think.) Missing from the missive was any mention of sky-high oil and gas prices that are only set to worsen unless the U.S. starts responding to its own energy needs.

Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, are working overtime to kill the drilling addition. Minority Leader Harry Reid has denounced the new ANWR provision as a breach of Senate rules, on the grounds that it was not part of the original defense spending bill. This is pretty rich, given Senator Reid is on record having supported just such a late addition in the past, this one having to do with a 1996 recommendation from then-Vice President Al Gore's commission on aviation security. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is threatening to filibuster anything that touches on Arctic drilling.

Thus the focus on Mr. Frist, who is being urged by drilling supporters to hold Congress in session as long as it takes to get cloture on the defense bill and enact ANWR. The calculation is that even the most die-hard drilling opponents will be reluctant to miss out on Christmas vacation. Mr. Stevens underlined that point, noting "We're going to face up to ANWR either now or Christmas Day or New Year's Eve or sometime -- however long we stay in." With any luck, Mr. Frist is just as determined to hold the Senate in place. Republicans have been trying to open ANWR and do something about America's failing energy supply for years now. This may be the best shot they'll have for some time to come.

If there's anyone who might be concerned about the political fallout from Republican attempts at Social Security reform, it's Florida Rep. Clay Shaw. The enthusiastic supporter of reform is also among the most vulnerable House Republican on the issue. About 35% of his Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach district is made up of seniors collecting Social Security checks. He also has a district that both Al Gore and John Kerry carried and which Mr. Shaw won in 2000 with a narrower margin than George Bush managed statewide. He is now facing a credible Democratic challenger in State Sen. Ron Klein, who as a novice politician in 1992 picked off a 10-year incumbent state representative.

Yet when I caught Mr. Shaw on his cell phone doing a little Christmas shopping yesterday he wasn't worried at all. He'd be vulnerable, he said, "only if [Mr. Klein] had a better plan" to reform Social Security. Mr. Shaw himself has proposed personal "add on" accounts and held 10 town hall meetings in his district to sell reform. He noted to me that the media never caught on to the fact that many voters nod their heads in agreement when he talks about saving Social Security and setting aside the program's surplus. He's not deaf to voter complaints about putting Social Security funds into "the risky stock market," he said. Yet he points out that those complaints dissipate whenever he gets a chance to respond to them with more than just a sound byte. "Offense is a good idea," he concludes.

Mr. Shaw also disagrees that Republicans will pay a price at the ballot box simply for raising the issue. There is widespread agreement that Social Security will eventually go broke, and until Democrats put a positive vision or agenda on the table, they're in trouble. One Democrat who dared to do that on Social Security this year was Florida Rep. Robert Wexler, but he was shouted down by the party's leadership in Washington. What we need to pass Social Security reform, Mr. Shaw said, "is enough people with the courage to do it."

"The Pennsylvania ruling [barring the teaching of "intelligent design" in science classes] will do nothing to end the battle over the teaching of human origins that has plagued public schools since the Scopes trial of 1925. It, and all the other cultural and religious 'school wars' that divide our nation, will rage on unless we do something about their root cause: our one-size-fits-all government school system." -- Andrew J. Coulson and Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute.

"The world's thirst for oil is outstripping the industry's ability to produce it. That imbalance has driven up energy prices and can't be fixed through conservation alone. Allowing ANWR drilling would show that the nation is finally getting serious about acting in its best interest by tapping a rich energy source and curbing its dependence on Middle Eastern dictatorships. Now that gasoline is again closer to $2 a gallon than $3, a sense of complacency is returning. That's predictable but regrettable. Extracting more oil from Alaska in an environmentally sensitive fashion is important insurance against future energy shocks." -- USA Today editorial.

Add another person to the list of irresponsible characters involved in New York's wretched transit strike: Randi Weingarten, head of the city's teachers' union.

Ms. Weingarten appeared at a rally on behalf of the transportation union to cheer for its efforts to grab a 24% three-year pay raise as well as write into its contract a limit on the number of disciplinary actions that can be taken against its members for misconduct. She told a local TV station that the illegal strike was justified because the playing field "isn't fair" between the union and management. She said that justified the union's "civil disobedience."

Lesson to New York City students: Anything that they consider "unfair" justifies illegal behavior. As for the importance of attending school in the first place, Ms. Weingarten urged Mayor Michael Bloomberg to cancel classes because of the transit strike.

One of the biggest mistakes the city made after the last transit strike, in 1980, was to ignore the law's requirement that the union lose its right to automatically deduct members' dues from the payrolls. This privilege was quietly restored after the strike was settled, freeing the union from having to collect dues on a person-to-person basis, a cumbersome process.

No matter what the outcome of this strike, the city should not be so forgiving on the dues check-off issue this time. As Henry Stern, a former New York City parks commissioner, wrote in the New York Sun today, "The city of New York is being held hostage by an illegal strike. Laws mean nothing if they are not enforced." Ms. Weingarten may not be interested in sending that message to the children of New York, but Mayor Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki can -- and should.

No TV series -- not even "Star Trek" -- has quite achieved the quirky cult status of "The Prisoner," which first ran on British and U.S. networks almost 40 years ago. It now looks as if the show, which still airs in re-runs in some 60 countries, will be making a comeback next year.

In the original 1967 version, Patrick McGoohan played Prisoner No. 6, a former secret agent who is kidnapped to a strange seaside village where everyone is known only by a number and where he is told that "by hook or by crook" the reasons for his resignation as an agent will be extracted from him. For 17 surreal episodes, the series explored profound issues of privacy, individualism and mind control. I view it as Mr. McGoohan's take on George Orwell's novel "1984," but with a sense of humor. The final episode was a kaleidoscope of bizarre images and obscure allegories that still leave Prisoner fans in heated arguments.

The British magazine Broadcast reports that the Sky One channel has commissioned eight new episodes of the series. Executive producer Damien Timmer says they will deal "with themes such as paranoia, conspiracy and identity crisis." The episodes will be partly written by Bill Gallagher, a creator of the BBC series "Conviction," an edgy police drama about vigilante behavior in society.

Sadly, the new "Prisoner" will not be set in the Welsh village of Portmeirion, a strange, planned community with eclectic Mediterranean architecture. Known simply as "The Village" in the original series, Portmeirion attracts thousands of "Prisoner" fans a year who tour the grounds with the help of a new guidebook.

The final page of the guidebook contains the trademark farewell of a show that anticipated today's rampant use of security cameras: "Be Seeing You." You can bet that the new show will attract the eyeballs of a lot of old Prisoner fans, as well as those of new generations who are curious about why the show has attained such cult status.