Best of the Web Today - December 12, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
Turtle Bay Truth-Teller
Interesting things are happening at the United Nations, where U.S. Ambassador John Bolton is showing a propensity--disturbing, no doubt, to some--to tell the truth. Last week the Voice of America reported on Bolton's response to the Security Council's refusal to pass a resolution condemning suicide bombing in which Palestinian Arabs murdered five Israelis at a mall in Netanya:
Diplomats attending the meeting say several Council members raised concerns about language in the U.S.-drafted document. Ambassador Bolton, however, blamed Algeria for quashing the measure by objecting to a passage urging Syria to close offices of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claims responsibility for the attack. "Other governments had questions about particular language. We were perfectly prepared to engage in discussions about constructive suggestions, but Algeria categorically refused to name Syria and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad," he said.
The U.S. envoy later read the text of the statement to reporters, and lashed out at the Council for what he called "failing to speak the truth."
He said "you have to speak up in response to these terrorist attacks. It's a great shame that the Security Council couldn't speak to this terrorist attack in Netanya, but if the Council won't speak, the United States will."
At a dinner last night (no link; we were there), Bolton told the Zionist Organization of America to expect more such unilateral veracity. He singled out for criticism a recent U.N. conference at which Israel was literally wiped off the map (well, wiped off a literal map anyway). U.N. watchdog Anne Bayefsky has a photo of the map of "Palestine" that was used in last month's annual U.N. Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People.
Bayefsky has a photo of Kofi Annan on the dais with the map in the background. The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a press release Friday in which it "condemns the participation" of the secretary-general in a conference that denies the existence of a U.N. member state.
We would like to know where the 43 senators--42 Democrats plus the lachrymose George Voinovich--who blocked a vote on Bolton's cofirmation, forcing President Bush into a recess appointment--stand on all this. One could wave away such outrages, and indeed we're inclined to do so, on the ground that the U.N. is a hopelessly corrupt and worthless institution whose expressions count for nothing. But that is an awkward position for Bolton's detractors to take, since they claim to believe in the U.N.
They don't really believe in the U.N., of course. As we noted in April, in 1991 many of them voted to defy the U.N.'s request for troops to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. They are "pro-U.N.," it seems clear, only when the U.N. is anti-U.S. But again, if the U.N. has "moral authority" when it takes Saddam Hussein's side over ours, how about when it seeks the obliteration of Israel?
Graham Questions Dems' Patriotism
It actually happened! A Republican questioned Democrats' patriotism! Here's what Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had to say on "Meet the Press" yesterday:
Tim Russert: Waving a white flag [in a Republican campaign ad], is that appropriate?
Graham: The '06 election is going to come and go. Iraq will be still a problem after '06. I don't think it's appropriate. Howard Dean is wrong when he says we can't win. It doesn't mean he's not a patriot. Murtha wants to leave the region and deploy outside of Iraq. I think he's wrong, doesn't mean he's [not] a patriot. John Kerry wants to cut the force by two-thirds. I think he's wrong, doesn't mean he's not a patriot.
Hey Lindsey, you forgot to mention that they support the troops!
In fairness to Graham, his fellow guest, Madeleine Albright, raised these questions before he did. But in any case, who cares if the Democrats are patriotic? If a man bullies and belittles his wife, does this mean he doesn't love her? Not necessarily, but whatever is in his heart, his behavior is still wrong.
Murtha's Tantrum
Newsweek's cover story is a hit piece on the president called "Bush in the Bubble," meant to suggest that he is out of touch. It begins with a story from that media saint, Rep. John Murtha:
Jack Murtha still can't figure out why the father and son treated him so differently. Every week or so before the '91 gulf war, President George H.W. Bush would invite Congressman Murtha, along with other Hill leaders, to the White House. "He would listen to all the bitching from everybody, Republicans and Democrats, and then he would do what he thought was right." A decorated Vietnam veteran, ex-Marine Murtha was a critical supporter for the elder Bush on Capitol Hill. "I led the fight for the '91 war," he says. "I led the fight, for Christ's sake."
Yet 13 years later, when Murtha tried to write George W. Bush with some suggestions for fighting the Iraq war, the congressman's letter was ignored by the White House (after waiting for seven months, Murtha received a polite kiss-off from a deputy under secretary of Defense). Murtha, who has always preferred to operate behind the scenes, finally went public, calling for an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.
In the furor that followed, a White House spokesman compared the Vietnam War hero to "Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party." When that approach backfired, President Bush called Murtha a "fine man . . . who served our country with honor." The White House has made no attempt to reach out to Murtha since then. "None. None. Zero. Not one call," a baffled Murtha told Newsweek. "I don't know who the hell they're talking to. If they talked to people, they wouldn't get these outbursts. If they'd talked to me, it wouldn't have happened."
So by Murtha's own description, his call to cut and run from Iraq was merely a response to a perceived slight. It's reminiscent of a decade-old incident, described in a 2001 story by Newhouse News Service:
A 1995 trip on Air Force One triggered a tantrum by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who bitterly complained about having to ride in the back of the plane and use a rear exit on a round-trip flight to Israel with President Clinton for the funeral of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The difference between the two incidents is that Gingrich's "tantrum" didn't endanger national security. But how is it that their respective fits of pique led the media to make Newt a goat and Murtha a hero?
Look on the Sunni Side
Iraq's elections are three days away and there's lots of encouraging news, even from Reuters (!):
Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday's polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack.
In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Graffiti calling for holy war is now hard to find.
Instead, election campaign posters dominate buildings in the rebel strongholds of Ramadi and nearby Falluja, where Sunnis staged a boycott or were too scared to vote last time around.
"We want to see a nationalist government that will have a balance of interests. So our Sunni brothers will be safe when they vote," said Falluja resident Ali Mahmoud, a former army officer and rocket specialist under Saddam's Baath party.
"Sunnis should vote to make political gains. We have sent leaflets telling al Qaeda that they will face us if they attack voters."
Fox News, meanwhile, reports that "Iraqi citizens turned over a high-ranking Al Qaeda member known as 'the Butcher' to U.S. forces in Ramadi Friday a military statement said":
Amir Khalaf Fanus was No. 3 on the 28th Infantry Division's High Value Individual list for Ramadi, wanted for murder and kidnapping in connection with his affiliation with Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Or, as the Democrats call it, al Qaeda Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq in Iraq Which Has Nothing to Do With al Qaeda. (Apparently the Iraqis didn't get that memo.) On this page you can find a collection of political cartoons from January, just before the election for Iraq's interim government. Their pessimism is astonishing.
Who's Leaking U.S. Intelligence to Saddam?
"[The] Lincoln [Group] says it planted more than 1,000 articles in the Iraqi and Arab press and placed editorials on an Iraqi Web site, Pentagon documents show. For an expanded stealth persuasion effort into neighboring countries, Lincoln presented plans, since rejected, for an underground newspaper, television news shows and an anti-terrorist comedy based on 'The Three Stooges.' "--New York Times, Dec. 11
"Saddam Blasts US 'Stooges' "--headline, Scotsman, Dec. 5
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
o "One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
o "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin D. Roosevelt
o "The buck stops here."--Harry S. Truman
o "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John F. Kennedy
o "When we work together, when rely on one another, when we care about one another we remove the fear of sharing."--Tom Vilsack
Pathological Bias
The Washington Post reports that some psychiatrists are urging the creation of a new diagnosis that would cover people who display "extreme forms of racism, homophobia and other prejudice":
"They are delusional," said Alvin F. Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has long advocated such a diagnosis. "They imagine people are going to do all kinds of bad things and hurt them, and feel they have to do something to protect themselves.
"When they reach that stage, they are very impaired," he said. "They can't work and function; they can't hold a job. They would benefit from treatment of some type, particularly medication."
The Post gives several examples of people who might fit the diagnosis:
o A 48-year-old man who "blamed most of his personal, professional and emotional problems on the gay and lesbian movement."
o A "young woman in Los Angeles who thought Jews were diseased and would infect her--she carried out compulsive cleansing rituals and hit her head to drive away her obsessions."
o "A waiter so hostile to black people that he flung plates on the table when he served black patrons and got fired from multiple jobs."
o "A Vietnam War veteran who was so fearful of Asians that he avoided social situations where he might meet them."
What about black people who entertain paranoid conspiracy theories about white people? The Post doesn't address this question, so we have to turn to an NBC report, in which our old friend Alvin Poussaint shows up singing a somewhat different tune:
Dyan French, also known as "Mama D," is a New Orleans Citizen and Community Leader. She testified before the House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday.
"I was on my front porch. I have witnesses that they bombed the walls of the levee, boom, boom!" Mama D said, holding her head. "Mister, I'll never forget it."
"Certainly appears to me to be an act of genocide and of ethnic cleansing," Leah Hodges, another New Orleans citizen, told the committee. . . .
Harvard's Alvin Pouissant [sic] says such conspiracy theories are fueled by years of government neglect and discrimination against blacks: slavery, segregation and the Tuskegee experiments, during which poor blacks were used to test the effects of syphilis.
"If you're angry and you've been discriminated against," Pouissant says, "then your mind is open to many ideas about persecution, abandonment, feelings of rejection."
Now, maybe there's some subtlety here that doesn't come across in the two quotes, but it certainly sounds as though Poussaint is saying behavior that is normal in blacks is a sign of mental illness in whites.
Donkeys vs. Christians
Blogger David Carson reports that the Democratic Party of Washington state last week was offering for sale car magnets showing the familier Christian fish symbol--only inside the fish appears the word HYPOCRITE and a cross against a background of red-orange flames.
Presumably the cross-burning imagery is unintentional. Even so, the politics of this are puzzling. To be sure, there are people with a strong distaste for Christianity, and especially for Christian conservatives, but this is a fairly small group, and the vast majority of them surely vote Demoratic anyway. According to Adherents.com, 82% of Americans are Christians. It's hard to see how a political party can hope to build a majority by alienating four-fifths of the electorate.
We guess this occurred to the Dems, who quickly removed the offending magnet from its Web page advertising it--but not before radio hostess Dori Monson saved a copy.
AIDS and the Religious Right
Quite a few readers took exception to this statement Friday in an item from our "Great Moments in Socialized Medicine" series: "If you aren't scared by the idea of Hillary Clinton or Mike Bloomberg deeming you unworthy of medical care because of your bad habits, imagine how the 'religious right' would treat AIDS patients if they gained power under such a regime."
Our readers point out that most religious conservatives, even if they regard the conduct that spreads AIDS as sinful, would not deny medical care to AIDS sufferers, and indeed that many Christian groups assist and minister to those with the syndrome. It's a fair point. By the scare quotes around "religious right," we meant to refer to the secular left's stereotype, not make a comment on actual religious conservatives. But we suppose we could have been clearer.
What Would We Do Without Historians?
"Historians: Past Eras Were Worse Than Now"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 10
Wow, Nice Shot!
"Vomiting Bug Hits Over 250 Pupils"--headline, BBC Web site, Dec. 9
If Cars Were Outlawed . . .
"Louisiana Outlaws Selling Cars Damaged by Recent Hurricanes"--headline, The Wall Street Journal (link for subscribers), Dec. 8
Bottom Stories of the Day
"Joss Stone Named Best Celebrity Dog Owner"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 12
"Little Religious Uproar From 'Narnia' Opening"--headline, USA Today, Dec. 12
Vote for Alex
Beliefnet.com is holding a reader survey to pick the most inspiring person of 2005. Among the finalists is Alex Scott, a little girl who died of cancer last year. Alex was diagnosed with cancer two days before her first birthday, and as she got older, she became quite an activist:
In 2000, when she was just four years old, Alex told her parents she wanted to raise money for cancer research. She chose a time-honored kid's project--a front-yard lemonade stand--but unlike most lemonade stands, she raised $2,000 in a single day. Soon, Alex's friends joined in to help, opening lemonade stands in her name. Word spread about Alex's dream of raising $1 million for pediatric cancer research. On June 12, 2004, she raised nearly $40,000 in three hours at her lemonade stand, while supporters nationwide raised $220,000 in one day at hundreds of Alex's Lemonade Stands nationwide.
She died Aug. 1, 2004, but Alex's Lemonade Stand continues to raise money for pediatric cancer. Alex holds only a narrow lead in the Beliefnet poll, in part because one blogger has been campaigning for her opponent. Put her over the top; vote here. |
