Best of the Web Today - April 6, 2006
By JAMES TARANTO
Sugg Smug Alert!
John F. Sugg interviews Jimmy Carter for Creative Loafing Atlanta:
Carter fittingly used a parable to illustrate how he'd like to see the political/religious debate unfold.
"I was teaching a Sunday school class two weeks ago," he recalls. "A girl, she was about 16 years old from Panama City [Fla.], asked me about the differences between Democrats and Republicans.
"I asked her, 'Are you for peace, or do you want more war?' Then I asked her, 'Do you favor government helping the rich, or should it seek to help the poorest members of society? Do you want to preserve the environment, or do you want to destroy it? Do you believe this nation should engage in torture, or should we condemn it? Do you think each child today should start life responsible for $28,000 in [federal government] debt, or do you think we should be fiscally responsible?'
"I told her that if she answered all of those questions, that she believed in peace, aiding the poor and weak, saving the environment, opposing torture . . . then I told her, 'You should be a Democrat.' "
Sugg doesn't say if Carter was talking with his eyes closed.
Strong, Tough and Smart?
Kevin Drum of the center-left Washington Monthly, citing a source of his own and a report in London's Sunday Telegraph, speculates that the U.S. may be seriously considering a military strike against Iran later this year, and he offers some political advice to his own party:
There's no question that the administration is already preparing the ground for an air strike on Iran, but it's likely that the real push won't come until late summer when it can be used as a cudgel in the midterm elections. Same song, new verse.
And once more: If Democrats don't start thinking about how they're going to respond to this, they're idiots. We don't always get to pick the issues to run on. Sometimes they're picked for us.
One would have more confidence in the Democrats if this leading young intellectual said they needed to start thinking about what was in the best interests of the country rather than "how they're going to respond to this" as a campaign issue.
Ivory Cower--II
Alan Dershowitz, the famously unsubtle Harvard law professor, has published a response (PDF) to Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's anti-Israel screed. It's 45 pages long, and we haven't had a chance to read it yet, but Power Line's Scott Johnson picks out one very good Dersh point:
Walt and Mearsheimer repeatedly claim that they have written their paper, at least in part, in order to stimulate dialogue concerning the influence of the Lobby. They claim that it is the pro-Israel side that seeks to suppress public discussion: "[The Lobby] does not want an open debate on issues involving Israel, because an open debate might cause Americans to question the level of support they currently provide."
Yet the pro-Israel side has risen to the Walt-Mearsheimer challenge and has participated in the marketplace of ideas, only to be greeted by silence from the authors, who have generally refused to defend their views. I have personally offered Walt and Mearsheimer an opportunity to debate the issues raised in their paper, but to date they have not done so. My invitation to debate remains open. I challenge Mearsheimer and Walt to look me in the eye and tell me that because I am a proud Jew and a critical supporter of Israel, I am disloyal to my country.
We noted Friday Walt and Mearsheimer had essentially gone silent--though Mearsheimer did show up at Boston University last night to argue the negative side in a debate titled "Should the U.S. Promote Democracy in the Islamic World?" Here's a report from reader Phil Levy:
Mearsheimer changed the question to "Should the U.S. intervene to promote democracy?" To argue this version of the question, he made three points: 1) that there is more terrorism in today's democratic Iraq than in the authoritarian regime that ended three years ago. This point was answered in the closing argument by the affirmative side in the person of Salameh Nematt, a Lebanese journalist, who said that 95% of terrorist acts in the past three years in Iraq were by non-Iraqis; 2) that intervention to promote democracy is why Iran wants to have a nuclear weapon--in other words, to defend itself against democracy. No one from the affirmative side spoke to that point; 3) that since 1945 the U.S. has intervened in 35 different countries to establish democracy but has succeeded in only one, Colombia. No one asked Mearsheimer to name the other 34.
If you can't get enough of the Walt-Mearsheimer kerfuffle, check out Eliot Cohen's piece in yesterday's Washington Post, titled "Yes, It's Anti-Semitic."
Make That 999,999 Things
"Brian Doyle, deputy press secretary of Homeland Security, says that since it was formed in 2002, his agency has done 'a million different things' to make the United States safer."--Washington Post, Dec. 4, 2005
"A deputy press secretary with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday night and charged with trying to 'seduce' a 14-year-old Polk County girl with graphic talk over the Internet. The 'girl' with whom Brian J. Doyle, 55, was corresponding was actually an undercover Polk County Sheriff's detective, the Sheriff's Office reported."--Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.), April 5, 2006
Throw the Book at Her
A federal grand jury is now considering whether to charge Cynthia McKinney with assault for last week's incident in which she breached Capitol security and then allegedly struck a policeman. Facing the possibility of criminal charges, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, she "apologized for her role" in the incident. But in fact if the AJC's quotes are accurate, she did no such thing:
"There should not have been any physical contact in this incident," McKinney, surrounded by a handful of lawmakers, said.
"I am sorry this misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation and I apologize," McKinney said, drawing applause from the partially-filled chamber.
"There should not have been any physical contact . . . this misunderstanding happened . . . I regret its escalation." It does not appear that she expressed any remorse whatever for her actions. What's more, the paper suggests that an employee of hers then proceeded to impersonate a policeman:
Even as McKinney appeared to be trying to put the issue to rest, a bodyguard she hired--reportedly a former Georgia state trooper--was raising another furor when he threatened a television reporter trying to interview McKinney outside the Capitol just minutes before she appeared on the House floor.
When the reporter from Cox Broadcasting tried to ask McKinney about the grand jury, the bodyguard told him, "I'm going to put your ass in jail. I'm a police officer," a videotape of the incident shows.
Asked if he worked for Capitol police, the man said, "I work for Miss McKinney."
The Hill reports that before the "apology," members of the Congressional Black Caucus were distancing themselves from McKinney:
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil-rights pioneer and the senior member of the Georgia Democratic congressional delegation, told Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) to stop making political hay out of her scuffle a week ago with a U.S. Capitol Police officer.
"I told her she needs to lower the temperature and stop holding the press conferences," Lewis said, recounting his conversation with McKinney on the House floor yesterday. "I don't think it had any impact because she is still going on all the TV shows."
Lewis said other members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) had also told McKinney to back off, adding that she had little support in the group. It held an emergency meeting last night to discuss the issue, a House source said.
The "apology" might have been meant to give the CBC cover to close ranks behind her. Whether it does so will be a test of the caucus's integrity.
Zero-Tolerance Watch
Arms are for hugging? Not at Greenmeadow Elementary School in Maynard, Mass., where a family "is outraged after their 5-year-old daughter was forced to write a letter denouncing hugging after a classmate embraced her," according to Boston's WCVB-TV:
Brenda Brier and Michael Marino pulled their daughter, Savannah, out of school early Wednesday. The couple was angry after a meeting with officials at the Greenmeadow Elementary School in Maynard, where Savannah is in kindergarten.
At issue is a hug Savannah said she got on the playground from a friend named Sophie. Savannah hugged Sophie back. The hugs resulted in Savannah having to write a letter, complete with teacher corrections, that read, "I touch Sophie because she touch me and I didn't like it because she was hugging me. I didn't like when she hugged me."
"She said, 'I'm really sad that I got in trouble for hugging,'" Brier said.
"I can understand if boys are playing rough or kids are pulling each other around--that's one thing. But when kids are being affectionate, I mean hugging, hey, they shouldn't be disciplined over it and they shouldn't be lying in letters making the kid say the opposite that they don't like to hug," Marino said.
The school superintendent says there was a "dispute of the facts between a hug and a lifting of a child off the floor. . . . One girl bear hugged another girl and lifted her off the ground. The aide who was monitoring told the teacher. The teacher asked several students to write a note to their parents and describe what happened."
Since When Do the Police Have Hit Men?
"2 Shots by Police Hit Man in Car"--headline, Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press, April 4
Otherwise Long Lives Are Shortened by Early Death
"Otherwise Placid Rallies Are Spoiled by Violence"--headline, Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.), April 5
'It's Mine!' 'No, I Want It!'
"Lawmakers Fight Over Ship Sewage"--headline, Florida Today (Melbourne), April 6
What Would Cats Do Without Experts?
"Cats Must Be Included in Flu Precautions--Experts"--headline, Reuters, April 5
What Would Cats Do Without Scientists?
"Cats and Bird Flu Don't Mix, Scientists Suggest"--headline, Globe and Mail (Toronto), April 5
What Would Houseplants Do Without Experts?
"Expert Says Hard Liquor Helps Houseplants"--headline, Associated Press, April 5
Thanks for the Tip!--LXII
"Health Tip: Apply Sunscreen the Right Way"--headline, HealthDayNews, April 5
Bottom Story of the Day
"Poll at Odds With Katie Couric Move"--headline, Associated Press, April 5
No 1's 2 Dum 2 Teech in a Publik Skool
"Rudy Rios was stripped of his duties as junior varsity baseball coach at Chavez High School last week after using a district copying machine to make a flier encouraging Latino students to attend a rally protesting restrictions on illegal immigration," reports the Houston Chronicle:
Rios, who still retains his duties as an English-as-a-second-language teacher, was copying and distributing a flier that read: "We gots 2 stay together and protest against the new law that wants 2 be passed against all immigrants. We gots 2 show the U.S. that they aint (expletive) with out us (sic)," according to district officials.
Gude thing he still gots his job 2 teech english 2 da immigrant kidz cuz itd B 2 bad F dey mist sumpin so importent 4 dare future. |
