Best of the Web Today - March 2, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Amnesty: You Gotta Know When to Hold 'Em
The Pentagon has turned over seven Russian nationals who were among the enemy combatants held at Guantanmo Bay, Cuba, the Associated Press reports:
However, the human rights group Amnesty International questioned the move.
"There is no evidence that the U.S. has adhered to its obligation to not forcibly return anyone to any country where they may face serious human rights violations, including detention without charge or trial, unfair trial, or torture," said Amnesty's Maureen Greenwood.
Haven't these jokers been bitching for years about America holding enemy fighters at Guantanamo?
Terror Hits Shiites
"Simultaneous explosions ripped through crowds of worshippers Tuesday at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, killing at least 143 people on the holiest day of the Shiite calendar," the Associated Press reports from Karbala. At least 22 of the victims were Iranian.
There's some good news amid the horror: Iraqi police in Basra "kept the wave of violence from being even bloodier, arresting four would-be suicide bombing suspects--two women wearing explosive belts during a Shiite procession and two men in connection with a car bomb discovered before it blew up."
In Quetta, Pakistan, meanwhile, "at least 44 people were killed when suspected Sunni Muslim extremists attacked Shi'ites with automatic rifles and grenades," Reuters reports.
Those apologists who think Islamist terrorism is an understandable response to American or Israeli policies should be required to explain today's massacres.
Political Ghost Story
Here's a creepy coincidence. Remember Wallace Carter? He's the Massachusetts man who in 1991 received two letters, nine days apart, from Sen. John Kerry, one opposing the Gulf War and the other supporting it. The New Republic published excerpts from both two months later. It turns out that soon thereafter, one of Kerry's colleagues gave a speech in which he mocked the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the war served in Vietnam, for the Carter letters. Dennis Roddy, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, tells the story:
It happened at the annual Lincoln Day Dinner of the Allegheny County Republican Party, March 20, 1991, at the William Penn Hotel.
At the time the first George Bush was still flush with victory in the Persian Gulf, and dinnergoers chortled over a videotaped presentation of assorted senate Democrats backpedaling in the wake of a war they'd opposed. Ted Kennedy was shown. News clips were shown. But for Kerry, the speaker simply read the two letters, to everyone's amazement.
"It's like those before-and-after pictures they print in the papers," the speaker said. "If they didn't tell you so themselves, you'd think they were different people."
Kerry has to remember that one. The speaker was Sen. John Heinz. Two weeks later, he would die in a plane crash. Four years after that, Kerry would marry his widow.
If only the political parties were reversed, this would have the makings of a great Angry Left conspiracy theory.
You Don't Say
"Rebuffing Bush Seems to Be Primary Goal of New York's Democratic Voters"--headline, New York Times, March 2
Haughty and Haiti
Speaking of conspiracy theories, Kerry already has one about Haiti, a country he discovered just last week. On NBC's "Today" show this morning, the Associated Press reports, Kerry "said he thought there ought to be some investigation of the claim that [deposed despot Jean-Bertrand] Aristide was forced out and escorted by U.S. troops."
Here's the Kerry quote: "I have a very close friend in Massachusetts who talked directly to people who have made that allegation. I don't know the truth of it. I really don't. But I think it needs to be explored and we need to know the truth of what happened."
This has become standard operating procedure for Democrats: put out some outlandish statement (President Bush had foreknowledge of Sept. 11, Bush was a "deserter"), then say you "don't know the truth of it" but it's "out there" and "we need to know" what happened. The Republican National Committee has two Web pages--here and here--chronicling Kerry's conspiracy-mongering, and of course former candidates like Howard Dean and Wesley Clark have been playing the same game.
When America was liberating Iraq, of course, Kerry opposed the action because "allies" like the French weren't on board. He now seems to oppose the liberation of Haiti from Aristide even though, as Agence France-Presse reports, "Aristide's departure 'was the result of perfect co-ordination' between Washington and Paris, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said." You'd almost think Kerry likes dictators--or at least any dictator President Bush acts to depose.
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
"One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin Roosevelt
"The buck stops here."--Harry Truman
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John Kennedy
"This isn't going to be some kind of, you know, we're-like-them-they're-like-us-wishy-washy-mealy-mouth-you-can't-tell-the-difference deal. This is going to be something where we're giving America a real choice."--John Kerry
The Man From Hopes
"Edwards Hopes to Get Jump on Calif. Primary"--headline, WNBC-TV Web site (Los Angeles), Feb. 25
"Edwards Hopes for Strong Debate Showing"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 26
"Edwards Hopes to Gain Momentum From Debate"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 26
"Edwards Hopes Debate Fuels Support Surge"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 26
"Edwards Hopes to Score Upset"--headline, Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.), Feb. 26
"Edwards Hopes Georgia Repeats History"--headline, New York Times, March 1
"Edwards Hopes to Beat Odds"--headline, Raleigh News & Observer, March 2
"Edwards Hopes for Late Surge"--headline, Associated Press, March 2
"Edwards Hopes to Keep Bid Alive"--headline, News-Daily (Clayton County, Ga.), March 2
"Edwards Hopes to Hang On for Fla."--headline, St. Petersburg Times, March 2
"Barring a Miracle, Edwards' Hopes Likely to Evaporate After Super Tuesday"--headline, American International Automobile Dealers Web site, March 2
What Would Kids Do Without Violent-Swedish Experts?
"Video Games Make Kids Fat, Violent-Swedish Experts"--headline, Reuters, March 1
This Just In
"Antibacterial Soap Doesn't Prevent Viral Infection"--headline, Reuters, March 1
And You Thought It Was Here to Report the News!
"Press Here to Control the Universe"--headline, New York Times editorial, March 1
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America's Funny Uncle
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a speech by 87-year-old retired CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite:
Just before railing against the Christian right's objection to gay marriage--"That's about as obnoxious a thing as has ever happened"--Cronkite was asked at the Ritz to what he attributed the longevity of his own marriage to Betsy.
"I do think one of the factors was we were of different sexes." He looked delighted as the laughter billowed around the room. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't have been happy to be married to several friends I had of the same sex," he followed. "It just never came up in our particular relations."
Old "Uncle Walter" was once known as "the most trusted man in America." Who knew he fantasized about homosexual polygamy?
Tipper vs. Bomber?
Yesterday's item on Yahoo.com dubbing Tipper Gore an "enemy of freedom" brought numerous e-mails from readers with theories about what had happened. The most common theory was "Google bombing," a practice explained in this Slate article. This, however, could not be what happened in this case.
In brief, here's how Google bombing works: You hyperlink a phrase to a particular Web page and encourage others to do so as well. Google's and Yahoo's search engines take into account the frequency with which keywords link to pages, even if the pages don't contain the keywords. This is why, for example, a search for "miserable failure" turns up a link to President Bush's biography, as well as links to actual miserable failures like Jimmy Carter.
But our Yahoo search was of the site's directory, not the Web, so Google bombing does not apply. Reader Martin Shoemaker offers this explanation: "Yahoo doesn't write the headlines in their directories. Rather, people create sites and submit them to Yahoo for inclusion in the directory; and when they do so, they include a page title. Whoever submitted the page to Yahoo must have provided them with that title"
It turns out, however, that there was once a Web page called "Tipper Gore: Enemy of Freedom." The original no longer exists, but it's archived here. Perhaps Yahoo just made some sort of clerical error and changed the link while keeping the old title intact.
It's the Eponymy, Stupid
In keeping with our one-day-old tradition, we open this feature with letters from readers complaining about it. Chris Scharman feels squeezed: "I'm about ready to stop reading your column just because of your name fetish." And Allen Killworth writes:
I'm pretty sure you're wrong in your thinking that more people like the "It's the Eponymy Stupid" section than do not.
I imagine most people who dislike it simply skip it, like I do. But since you're wondering, it's lame. Really lame. Do you turn the "Best of the Web Today" over to a couple of 13-year-olds for that segment? It is so horribly unfuny. The guy who invented the toilet is named John Crapper! Oh, the wit!
You can keep running it (and I'll keep skipping it), but it's not going to get any funnier.
So Killworth doesn't think it's worth reading, but he doesn't think it's worth killing either. Then there's this, from Hans Pew:
Count me as one of those who's tired of the eponymy section. I think it stinks. I wish you'd just sit on it (in church, maybe?).
We're not sure we take this complaint seriously. It could just be that Hans Pew knows wringing his hands and making a stink is the only way someone with such a normal name will ever be mentioned in this feature.
Today we begin in the wide world of sports, with Boston University's swimming coach, Reagh Wetmore. Craig Shankland is one of Golf Magazine's "best instructors in America," while the runner who holds the distinction of running the third-fastest 400-meter race in Colorado high school girls' history is Yolanda Waddles. And this guy is apparently famous: Tim Duncan, who plays basketball professionally for the San Antonio Spurs. A Washington Times headline about a Tiger Woods opponent reads: "Woods Has No Match in Love." We hear he's no slouch in golf, either.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last month that Fred Creel, formerly an assistant principal at a high school in the city's West Kensington neighborhood, "was transferred out of his post to a teaching position . . . after parents complained he made disruptive students write sentences such as 'I will not hit or head-butt someone' 100 times." The school where Creel meted out this "repetitive-writing punishment"? Cramp High. One suspects discipline is a bit more lax at Florida's Dunedin High, where the principal is one Mildred Y. Reed.
More lawyers: Dean Suing, Sue Yu, the firm of Wynn & Wynn and David Crook, an assistant district attorney in Maine. The city of Raleigh, N.C., employs an "analyst" who "monitors dog licensing," including whether the Carolina canines are spayed or neutered. His name, according to the Raleigh News & Observer, is David Fix.
Des Moines, Iowa, boasts a company called Freese Notice Weather Services. The Everglades National Park employs a wildlife biologist whose name is appropriate for the South Florida weather: Skip Snow. WOWO-AM, a Fort Wayne, Ind., radio station, boasts a meteorologist named Ken Weathers. Some station ought to hire away Weathers, traffic reporter Tom Carr from WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee, and anchorman Josh Talkington from KVVU-TV in Las Vegas. Probably not CBS, though; they'd Rather have Dan.
Tim Harris has another complaint--not about eponymy, but about our favorite word:
If the debate is still open over your monotonous use of this silly word, let me add my vote for its elimination. You sound like a greasy-haired college student in the '70s sporting thick-lensed plastic glasses all aflutter over having watched "Firing Line" for the first time. Or a first-year law student that can't stop saying "res ipsa loquitur." Being in your 40s is no reason to act this way.
No one with a recognized talent for speaking or writing has ever used this word (I hope). Lincoln did not say we were engaged in a great kerfuffle; Churchill did not refer to "their finest kerfuffle" or the "kerfuffle of Britain." Reagan did not refer to the "Cold Kerfuffle." Whittaker Chambers did not refer to the contest with communism as a kerfuffle. Shakespeare certainly didn't describe the dispute between the families in Venice as a kerfuffle. If he had, literary criticism courses might have something to teach as they waste taxpayers money. It grates on my ears.
Well, nice going, Tim. Thanks to you, today's column contains six instances of the word kerfuffle. Oops, make that seven. |
