Best of the Web Today - October 26, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
A Win for O'Grady
Congratulations to our colleague Mary O'Grady, editor of The Wall Street Journal's "Americas" column, who last night was awarded the Frédéric Bastiat Prize for Journalism, named for the famous French free-market thinker (no kidding!). It's the Journal editorial page's second Bastiat; Brian Carney won the award two years ago.
Miers Nomination Death Watch
The Washington Post reports on a 1993 speech Harriet Miers gave to a group called Executive Women for Dallas, which surely will give conservatives further cause for pause over her nomination:
Miers appeared to offer a libertarian view of several topics in which the law and religious beliefs were colliding in court.
"The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women's [sic] right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion," Miers said.
Those seeking to resolve such disputes would do well to remember that "we gave up" a long time ago on "legislating religion or morality," she said. And "when science cannot determine the facts and decisions vary based upon religious belief, then government should not act."
These comments aren't problematic in themselves, since they don't go to the question of judicial philosophy. This column, for instance, is mildly pro-abortion, but if we somehow wound up on the Supreme Court, we would zestfully dismember Roe v. Wade. (Whoops, we guess now we're unconfirmable.) But White House surrogates have been suggesting--and by some accounts saying outright--that Miers will be sound on Roe because she is "pro-life." That conclusion was always dubious, and the Post report calls the premise into question too.
But Miers did make some unsettling comments about judicial philosophy--comments that seem to contradict the belief she stated in her Senate questionnaire that the proper role of judges is as "arbiters of disputes, not policy makers":
At the time [of the speech], Texas was embroiled in an education funding dispute. The Texas Supreme Court had threatened to shut off most school funding if the legislature could not quickly devise a plan for fair funding. Some lawmakers pushed to remove school funding from the court's jurisdiction.
But Miers blamed the legislators for what she called an "unacceptable" school funding plan and for ducking tough issues such as imposing a state income tax.
"My basic message here is that when you hear the courts blamed for activism or intrusion where they do not belong, stop and examine what the elected leadership has done to solve the problem at issue," she said.
At a speech later that summer titled "Women and Courage," Miers went further. Citing statistics that showed Texas's relatively high poverty rates, Miers said the public should not blame judges when courts step in to solve such problems.
"Allowing conditions to exist so long and get so bad that resort to the courts is the only answer has not served our state well," she said. "Politicians who would cry 'The courts made me do it' or 'I did not do that--the courts did' should not be tolerated."
Miers's criticism of politicians who shirk their duty is well taken, but if pols aren't doing their jobs, it's up to the voters to toss them out, not to judges to fill the breach. The notion that political inaction justifies judge-made social policy is the very antithesis of judicial restraint.
Little wonder that, as the New York Times reports, the Miers nomination has set off a "drumbeat of doubt from Republican senators." Among those offering negative or "notably neutral" comments: Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter; committee members Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; and nonmembers Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Trent Lott of Mississippi and John Thune of South Dakota. Judiciary Committeemen Jon Kyl of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma are said to have "privately raised questions about her judicial philosophy," though neither would talk to the Times.
On Miers's side are Orrin Hatch of Utah and John Cornyn of Texas. And Ohio's Mike DeWine "said on Tuesday that she was a qualified nominee who deserved a hearing before the Senate," which we guess falls somewhere between lukewarm support and notable neutrality.
Sen. Graham suggests that the neutral senators are taking that position only out of party loyalty: "To support the withdrawal would be a rebuke of the president, not her, because she has not said anything yet, so that is a slam on the president, not Harriet Miers, so I don't think any Republican wants to do that." The Times piece concludes on a note of exasperation:
Asked if the debate had become "one-sided," with too few defending Ms. Miers, Senator Sessions, the Alabama Republican, struggled for words, then pushed a button for a nearby elevator in the Capitol building and told an aide, "Get me out of here."
A lot of Republicans are hoping Harriet Miers soon says the same thing.
Nobody Can Beat Bush
If the election were held today, would President Bush lose? It seems obvious that he would, given that today is an October Wednesday in an odd-numbered year, so very few people would know to vote if the election were held today. As former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has pointed out, Republicans tend to benefit from high turnout.
The obviousness of the answer didn't stop pollsters from asking the question, as CNN reports:
A majority would vote for a Democrat over President Bush if an election were held this year, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.
In the latest poll, 55 percent of the respondents said that they would vote for the Democratic candidate if Bush were again running for the presidency this year.
Thirty-nine percent of those interviewed said they would vote for Bush in the hypothetical election.
Finally, a formula for Democratic success! All they need to do is (1) refrain from nominating a candidate, (2) arrange for the GOP to nominate someone who is constitutionally ineligible to run, and (3) hold the election in an off year. What could be simpler?
More Is Less
John Kerry* gave a speech at Georgetown University today, in which he offered the following brilliant insights on Iraq:
o "When they [the Bush administration] could have listened to General Shinseki and put in enough troops to maintain order, they chose not to. They were wrong."
o "General George Casey, our top military commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that our large military presence 'feeds the notion of occupation' and 'extends the amount of time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.' . . . It is essential to acknowledge that the insurgency will not be defeated unless our troop levels are drawn down."
Apparently Kerry was for more troops before he was against it.
* Should we have heard of this guy?
The World's No. 1 Military
Yesterday's item on a U.S. Navy research project studying " 'no flush' urinal technology" brought several responses from readers who serve in the Navy. William Pollak thinks we're all wet:
In my experience (one aspect of my current assignment is management of the ship's sewage system) this study is long overdue. These systems are difficult to maintain, and many require at least minor repairs once a week or so, due to frequent breakdowns.
Sewage discharge regulations forbid discharge inside three nautical miles of land at any time. Sewage tanks are relatively small. As the Navy increases littoral presence, I would think flushless urinals might be useful in that regard, in terms of increasing stay times.
Any improvement that could reduce the group of folks whose jobs include sewage work by one sailor per ship would save somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars per year in manpower costs alone, not to mention maintenance costs.
Though I certainly agree it sounds odd, and though I am not familiar with the specifics of this study, I would suggest it might have some value after all.
But Joe Baxter says there's an easier approach:
Twenty-odd years ago, when I first served aboard ship, we had a very, very simple "solution" to this "urinal problem": We relieved ourselves into a long, gutter-like urinal through which flowed plain, abundantly available sea water from the fire mains. The dilute urine then flowed right back over the side.
The bozos who've invented this "need" for a no-flush urinal ought to be flushed themselves! I'm currently operating a 155-person Navy police department (at an undisclosed overseas location) on a $2,000 shoestring continuing-resolution allowance because Congress can't get it together and pass the damned budget. The $2 million sucked out of the operations budget to be flushed down this no-flush urinal would be much better spent on things these sailors can really use: better body armor and other equipment. Or, perhaps, simple things like name tapes for their camouflage uniforms, for which we currently have no funding.
Give 'Em a State!
"Armed Palestinians released two men on Tuesday after holding them in captivity since last week," the Jerusalem Post reports:
The two men, from Gaza, were accused of collaborating with Israel, Army Radio reported.
As punishment, before the men were released they were each shot in the legs by their captors.
This just goes to show how much progress the Palestinians have made. We're old enough to remember the dark old days when they'd shoot "collaborators" to death.
Zero-Tolerance Watch
"An 11-year-old sixth-grade girl was arrested Friday afternoon at Fox Chapel Middle School on a charge of possessing a weapon," the St. Petersburg Times reports from Spring Hill, Fla.
The "weapon" was a butter knife:
The girl, who won't turn 12 until March and whose name is being withheld by the Times because she is a minor, was handcuffed, taken to the Hernando County Jail and charged with the possession of a weapon on school property, a third-degree felony. . . .
This started not because of the butter knife, according to the arrest report, but because of a small, clear-plastic vial with a purple lid that was in the girl's book bag. The vial contained a white powder. The girl told school administrators that it was "glitter"--her makeup.
She did tell the sheriff's deputy and the administrators that she had shown the vial to a friend and said, "Look at this," but that she was "just kidding."
The substance in the vial, the deputy wrote in the arrest report, tested negative for cocaine, and was sent to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab to "confirm its identity."
When administrators asked the girl to dump out the contents of her bag, though, out came the knife--wrapped, the arrest report says, in a Sonny's Bar-B-Q napkin with tape around it.
Says Deputy Donna Black of the Hernando County Sheriff's Office: "For bringing weapons onto school property, there is zero tolerance. It's been that way for years. And this is not just here. That's nationwide." (Hat tip: ZeroIntelligence.net.)
If it's "nationwide," we wonder how Deputy Black would explain this headline in the Tucson Citizen: "Another Shot at the AIMS Test." Arresting kids for possessing butter knives is ridiculous, but would it be too much to ban guns during the administration of standardized tests?
You Don't Say
"Cars Provide Convenience"--headline, Yale Daily News, Oct. 26
What Would We Do Without Ferrer?
"Possible I Will Lose, Sez Ferrer"--headline, New York Daily News, Oct. 26
Thanks for the Tip!--VIII
"Health Tip: Surgery Can Be Traumatic"--headline, HealthDayNews, Oct. 26
In Hoover's Day, They Oversaw Surveillance in Skirts
"Some in FBI Have Skirted Oversight of Surveillance"--headline, USA Today, Oct. 25
From the Folks Who Brought You 'Gigli'
"Militants Sharing Bomb Expertise"--headline, USA Today, Oct. 24
'Pardon Me, Doc, Whatcha Doin' With That Hammer?'
"Use Many Tools to Avoid Waking During Surgery, Anesthesiologists Told"--headline, Canadian Broadcast Corp. Web site, Oct. 25
High Officeholders
"State Leaders Meet on Methamphetimine"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 25
An Optimist Would Say It's Half Full
" 'The talk about the WNBA being full of lesbians is not true,' [MVP Sheryl] Swoopes says. 'There are as many straight women in the league as there are gay. . . .' "--ESPN the Magazine, Oct. 26
The Swift Boat Veterans Made Jayson Blair Do It!
In the Daily Collegian, a student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, columnist Andrew Freeman bemoans plagiarism:
Plagiarism defeats the true purpose of education, which is to learn processes--how to research, how to write, how to conduct an experiment and broadly, how to think about complex ideas. The biggest reason plagiarism occurs is that most students are not intellectuals, and neither see nor care about the value of these processes. The goal for most of them is to acquire a degree or get good grades, and they see no other meaning in the work they do. In that vein, they have no respect for the standards that ideas and their origins are held to.
Freeman then offers this conclusion:
Plagiarism, and cheating in general, is ultimately a sign of something far worse for society. Journalists like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair fabricated entire articles for respected publications. The Catholic Church allowed priests to molest children, moved them around and covered it up, not just in one city but across the nation. The nation was defrauded on a massive scale by businessmen, like Kenneth Lay of Enron, who amassed immense wealth while their companies fell. The President let his allies slime a war hero and lied to us repeatedly to promote a war that was never necessary.
All of these scandals start when someone decides that the goal he seeks to accomplish is so important that any method is justified in achieving it. People who do not care about the impact of their actions, from criminals to bishops, make the country a more miserable place. When my cheating classmates mature and enter the working world, I hope that lesson will be clear. If not, if there is no respect for ideas, no concern for the common good, then the scandals of today are but a prelude to the suffering we will face.
Of course! Molesting children is just like liberating Iraq and being mean to John Kerry! UMass is doing a bang-up job teaching Freeman "how to think about complex ideas." |
