Best of the Web Today - January 25, 2006
By JAMES TARANTO
Troops Shmoops
Someone calling himself Mephistopheles, responding to a John Kerry* posting on the Angry Left Web site DailyKos.com,
Liberals shouldn't pretend to be in favour of the military (as a concept most liberals are instinctively against it) when we aren't. The military are
"special cirucmstances [sic]"--men who must do a dirty job when all other opportunities and options are exhausted. They aren't men to be lionised and put on a pedestal--they're like toilet cleaners: it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.
A similar take comes from one Henry M. Bowles III in the Daily Northwestern, a student newspaper:
Protesting military recruiters on campus, so long as they ban open gays from joining, is admirable. But there's a more permanent reason to keep the military away from our brightest students. Young males are easily manipulated during the period of their lives when they exist outside the female domain, after the mother and before the wife. They are above all eager to demonstrate masculinity. With its promises of order, fraternity and cohesion, the military taps into this angst.
A real tragedy occurs when a young man, susceptible to the military's appeal and nonetheless intelligent and creative, signs up to become cannon fodder. He'll probably leave the military alive, but he'll have been irreversibly molded, less inclined to dissent. Less intelligent people are better equipped for most military positions, and have far less to lose.
OK, so big deal, right? An anonymous poster on an extremist blog and an improbably named undergraduate don't prove anything, do they? But then there is Joel Stein:
I don't support our troops. . . . I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken. . . .
I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.
Stein is not some fringe lunatic; he is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, the fourth most widely circulated newspaper in America. In December we noted that liberals and Democrats ritually declare "I support the troops" to take the edge off their defeatist pronouncements. Now that Stein has broken the taboo against showing contempt for servicemen, we wonder if other "mainstream" figures will follow.
* The haughty, French-looking Vietnam Democrat, who by the way accuses U.S. servicemen of "going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children."
National Security: Who Needs It?
The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne yesterday offered some advice for Democrats:
By not engaging the national security debate, Democrats cede to [Karl] Rove the power to frame it. Consider that clever line about Democrats having a pre-Sept. 11 view of the world. The typical Democratic response would be defensive: "No, no, of course 9/11 changed the world." More specifically, there's a lot of private talk among Democrats that the party should let go of the issue of warrantless spying on Americans because the polls show that a majority values security and safety.
What Democrats should have learned is that they cannot evade the security debate. They must challenge the terms under which Rove and [President] Bush would conduct it. Imagine, for example, directly taking on that line about Sept. 11. Does having a "post-9/11 worldview" mean allowing Bush to do absolutely anything he wants, any time he wants, without having to answer to the courts, Congress or the public? Most Americans--including a lot of libertarian-leaning Republicans--reject such an anti-constitutional view of presidential power. If Democrats aren't willing to take on this issue, what's the point of being an opposition party?
So Dionne's advice to the Democrats seems to consist of (1) refusing to acknowledge that "9/11 changed the world," (2) defending vigorously the "civil liberties" of terrorists, and (3) setting up and attacking a straw man, the notion that President Bush is asserting the authority "to do absolutely anything he wants, any time he wants."
Dionne is right that for the most part the Democrats have not done (1), at least paying lip service to the significance of 9/11. But (2) and (3) are exactly what the Democrats are doing, and, as today's Los Angeles Times notes, it doesn't seem to be a political winner:
These exchanges establish contrasts familiar from debates over law enforcement and national security throughout the 1970s and '80s, with most Republicans arguing for tough measures and many Democrats focusing on the defense of constitutional protections.
That emerging alignment worries some Democratic strategists, who believe it may allow Bush to portray Republicans as stronger than Democrats in fighting terrorism, as he did in the 2002 and 2004 campaigns.
"If Democrats want to be the party of people who think [the government] is too tough and the Republicans are the party of people who are tough, I don't see how that helps us," said one senior Democratic strategist who asked not to be identified while discussing party strategy.
The dilemma for Democrats is that although Angry Left paranoiacs and civil-liberties fetishists constitute a big chunk of the party base, there aren't nearly enough of them to make up a majority of the country.
Paranoia, the Destroyer
This New York Times report is notable for its complete lack of irony:
Kathryn Hanson, a former telecommunications engineer who lives in Oakland, Calif., was looking at BBC News online last week when she came across an item about a British politician who had resigned over a reported affair with a "rent boy."
It was the first time Ms. Hanson had seen the term, so, in search of a definition, she typed it into Google. As Ms. Hanson scrolled through the results, she saw that several of the sites were available only to people over 18. She suddenly had a frightening thought. Would Google have to inform the government that she was looking for a rent boy--a young male prostitute?
Ms. Hanson, 45, immediately told her boyfriend what she had done. "I told him I'd Googled 'rent boy,' just in case I got whisked off to some Navy prison in the dead of night," she said.
Ms. Hanson's reaction arose from last week's reports that as part of its effort to uphold an online pornography law, the Justice Department had asked a federal judge to compel Google to turn over records on millions of its users' search queries.
Hugh Hewitt puts this "silliest article of the year" into perspective:
Quick. Everyone. Google "Rent Boy" to protect Kathryn Hanson, who is in fear of being "whisked off to some Navy prison in the dead of night," for having done so.
At what point does the New York Times recognize it is a fool's paradise?
If you want to Google "rent boy," click here. The Times article also includes this:
Last week's court motion is giving some people pause. Sheryl Decker, 47, an information technology manager in Seattle, said she was now thinking twice about what she said in her personal e-mail correspondence. "I have been known to send very unflattering things about our government and our president," Ms. Decker said. "I still do, but I am careful about using certain phrases that I once wouldn't have given a second thought."
Let's hope those subpoenas are quashed so that the Bush administration isn't able to track Decker down!
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
"Not so long ago," we noted in September, "the Angry Left was exulting in the election victories of anti-American, or at least stridently anti-Bush, candidates in places like Germany, South Korea and Spain." At the time we wrote that, pro-American candidates had won elections in Australia, Britain, the U.S. and Japan. Since then, Germany has switched sides, and now we can even add Canada to the list.
In Monday's elections up there, the Conservative Party defeated the incumbent Liberals. The Conservatives have only a minority government, which means that, as Bloomberg notes:
Some of Harper's other initiatives may get stalled by opposition parties because the Conservatives, unlike the Liberals, have no natural allies in Parliament. These measures include corporate tax cuts, allowing domestic banks to merge under certain conditions, and lifting foreign ownership limits on industries such as telecommunications. His plan to reverse Canada's support for the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas emissions may also be blocked.
Still, it's nice to see the good guys win yet another one.
Party Down!
Along party lines, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-8 yesterday in favor of Judge Sam Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. Three members of the committee--Pat Leahy of Vermont and Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin--voted against Alito although they had voted for Chief Justice John Roberts last year. According to our tally, eight of the 22 Democrats who voted for Roberts have voted or said they'll vote against Alito; still only one, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, has promised a "yes" vote.
The other day we received a press release from the National Italian American Foundation containing an "official statement" from chairman Kenneth Ciongoli:
Some Senators voted for John Roberts but will not vote for Samuel Alito. Why? With Alito these Senators were presented with someone almost identical in intellect, credentials and philosophy to John Roberts, and yet they reject him.
Is there an element of upstairs-downstairs, gown-town snobbery? As the media suggests, do they see Roberts as a soft white-bread American and Alito as a hard-crusted ethnic somehow different than they are?
Ciongoli doesn't directly accuse the anti-Alito Democrats of prejudice against Italian-Americans, a charge that would be hard to support. But given how impressed everyone was with Roberts's polished demeanor, the allegation of snobbery is not without a hint of truth.
Lieberman to Dodd: Leave My Mother Out of This!
"Dodd to Oppose; Lieberman Mum"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 24
The World's Greatest Deliberative Body
"Senators Beat Leafs Again"--headline, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Web site, Jan. 23
Antichoice Fanatics Invade Ivy League!
The Columbia Spectator reports that the Ivy League campus in upper Manhattan is involuntarily playing host to a group called Pro-Women/Pro-Life. As if that isn't bad enough, the antichoice fanatics seem to have taken over the Columbia Spectator itself. Check out this quote from Mary Kate Johnson, one of the group's founders:
"What that program shows is exactly what is at the heart of the matter," Johnson said. "The [fetus'] heart beats, the fingers move, and it has its own unique DNA, all before the mother is considered too far along to seek an abortion. It is a live human being."
Now granted, the Spectator's editors changed whatever Johnson actually said to the proper term, "fetus." But anyone would have done that. Here is how the quote should have read in order to be respectful to women:
"What that program shows is exactly what is at the heart of the matter," Johnson said. "The [fetus'] heart beats, the fingers move, and it has its own unique DNA, all before the [host] is considered too far along to seek an abortion. It is a [clump of cells]."
Is this a mere oversight, or do the Spectator's editors really mean to take Columbia back to the dark old days of coat alleys and back hangers?
Homer Nodss
Because of an arrant search-and-replace operation, every double-S in yesterday's Political Diary, when it appeared in this space, was changed into a single-S, so that it contained "words" like acces, Congres and posible. We fixed it after about 45 minutes, but Best of the Web e-mail subscribers received the bad copy. Political Diary subscribers, however, were spared, which is a great reason to click here and subscribe.
What Does the Loser Wear?
"Male Student Wins Fight to Wear Skirt"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 25
My My My Delilah
"Bad News: Warriors Can't Beat Clippers"--headline, San Jose Mercury News, Jan. 23
That Chekhov Is a Real Blast
"Party Hasn't Ended for Hoarse Steelers Fans"--headline, New York Times, Jan. 24
They Play Baseball in Finland?
"Ryanair Looking for Second Base in Finland"--headline, AirWise.com, Jan. 24
Bottom Story of the Day
"Rising Temps Not Killing Frogs"--headline, Arizona Republic, Jan. 24
Timber!
The news that trees cause "global warming" seems to have inspired Al Gore to try to kill more of them. Reuters reports that "Gore's second book about global warming will be published in April with the title 'An Inconvenient Truth,' his publisher Rodale Books said on Tuesday."
Rodale, eh? That's a pretty impressive imprint. Its Web site lists some of its other books:
o "The South Beach Diet"
o "The South Beach Diet Cookbook"
o "My Prison Without Bars" by Pete Rose
o "The Abs Diet"
o "Dr. Shapiro's Picture Perfect Weight Loss"
o "Taking On Heart Disease" by Larry King
Good to see Rodale is diversifying its offerings by branching out into less serious fare. |
