Best of the Web Today - May 22, 2006
By JAMES TARANTO
What Is Kevin Phillips Puffing?
It has been nearly three years since the Valerie Plame kerfuffle began, and the Angry Left has shown enormous discipline in focusing with such intensity on it, even if it is an utterly trivial matter (Plame, by all evidence, not having been a covert agent as the kerfuffle's champions claimed). The result, so far: Scooter Libby is under indictment, though not for "outing" Plame.
The guy the Angry Left really wants is Karl Rove, and earlier this month there was a flurry of excitement when a far-left Web site called Truthout (whose motto, we guess, is "If you want the truth, get out of here") "reported" that Rove had already been indicted. (Disclosure: The author of that article, Jason Leopold, once worked for a wire service owned by Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this Web site.)
On Friday Truthout issued a "partial apology" acknowledging that "we erred in getting too far out in front of the news-cycle"--an amusing new twist on the fake-but-accurate ethos so beloved by members of the "reality-based community." Rove's attorney has a sense of humor about the whole thing, as the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports:
Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's lawyer, says he spent most of the day on May 12 taking his cat to the veterinarian and having a technician fix his computer at home.
He was stunned, therefore, when journalists started calling to ask about an online report that he had spent half the day at his law office, negotiating with Patrick Fitzgerald--and that the special prosecutor had secretly obtained an indictment of Rove.
The cat's medical tests, Luskin says, found that "the stools were free of harmful parasites, which is more than I can say for this case."
The Rove rumor leads Kevin Phillips, writing at the Puffington Host, to spin an elaborate fantasy. Phillips argues that a Rove indictment could force both President Bush and Vice President Cheney to resign--and that's just the beginning:
Under the Constitution, the resignation of Bush and Cheney would hand the presidency to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, at present Dennis Hastert, a former high school wrestling coach, well liked but manifestly less than qualified for promotion. Wise Republicans, however, would be aware of a critical anomaly: the person elected as Speaker of the House does not, as a matter of law, have to be a Member of the House. If Bush and Cheney were obliged to resign this summer, the House GOP could elect as Speaker a plausible interim president and have the presidency devolve on him. Someone like Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, the respected Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, comes to mind. . . .
Two other contemporary circumstances--Bush's 29% approval and the crumbling consumer confidence that has eroded the stock market indexes--suggest that economic developments between now and November could also increase the likelihood of a Democratic takeover of Congress. Come January, that would make California Democrat Nancy Pelosi the next House Speaker, and she would become the next president in the event of Bush and Cheney resigning or being forced out of office in 2007.
Still, the Democrats could easily replace Pelosi with a national figure in the same way that the Republicans could replace Hastert. They could even make former president Bill Clinton Speaker on a few days' notice. Although he has already served two terms, the Constitutional prohibition against a president being elected to more than two terms would probably not apply to a former president taking the Oval Office by devolution in a line of succession.
Will it happen? Probably not.
In 1969, when he was still in his 20s, Phillips wrote a very prescient book called "The Emerging Republican Majority." Since then, he has been spectacularly wrong about virtually everything. In 1982, for instance, he published a book called "Post-Conservative America," in which, according to George Gilder's review in The Wall Street Journal, "he predicts an era of violent upheaval, as Ronald Reagan's conflicting majority of populists and patricians falls apart, his tax cuts foster depression (just as, Mr. Phillips asserts, Calvin Coolidge's did), Middle America rages and youths throng to take inspiration from Gordon Liddy and Conan the Barbarian."
Remember when that happened?
Anyway, Phillips seems to be trying to repair his reputation as a prognosticator. The key is the very end of the passage we quoted above: "Will it happen? Probably not." It is very likely that, for the first time in nearly 40 years, he will prove to have been right.
Ex Ray? No Way.
Speaking of being wrong, on Friday we all but predicted that Mayor Ray Nagin would lose his election bid in New Orleans to Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. Instead, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Nagin "surged to a second term" in the Saturday runoff. Official returns give Nagin 52% to Landrieu's 48%.
Landrieu belongs to a Louisiana political dynasty; his sister is the state's senior U.S. senator, and his father was the last person of pallor to serve as mayor of the Crescent City. The Times-Picayune notes that Landrieu's loss could have implications statewide:
While Landrieu retains his post as the state's No. 2 elected executive and might still make a bid for the governor's office in 2007, his political prospects may have dimmed.
For Democrats seeking statewide office, a strong showing in New Orleans is a must, and Landrieu seems unlikely to have Nagin's support should he make a run next year.
The ripple effect could extend to Landrieu's sister, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, who was standing next to her brother on stage Saturday night and will next face the voters in 2008. In 2002, New Orleans cinched Mary Landrieu's victory over Republican challenger Suzanne Haik Terrell; Landrieu won Orleans by 78,900 votes, more than twice her overall margin of victory.
Although both Nagin and Landrieu are Democrats, Drudge reports the challenger had the support of the national party:
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) secretly placed political operatives in the city of New Orleans to work against the reelection efforts of incumbent Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin, the Drudge Report has learned.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean made the decision himself to back mayoral candidate and sitting Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu (D-LA), sources reveal.
Dean came to the decision to back the white challenger, over the African-American incumbent Nagin, despite concerns amongst senior black officials in the Party that the DNC should stay neutral.
The party's field efforts also coincided with a national effort by Democrat contributors to support Landrieu. . . .
DNC Communications director Karen Finney said the report was "absolutely false." Finney explained: "The DNC does not as a policy get involved in Democratic primaries. . . . The only thing that the DNC did was a campaign helping ensure that displaced voters had an opportunity to vote."
Drudge also reports that Nagin praised President Bush in his victory speech: "You and I have probably been the most vilified politicians in the country. But I want to thank you for moving that promise that you made in Jackson Square forward." Perhaps Nagin, spurned by the Democrats, will switch parties and help the Republicans make inroads at last into the black community.
Will it happen? Probably not.
Angry Left Gets a Fight
Ned Lamont, whom we interviewed two weeks ago, has earned the right to challenge Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary. Lamont needed 15% of the delegates' votes at Friday's state party convention, and he got more than double that. Kevin Rennie, formerly a Republican state legislator and now a Hartford Courant columnist, says Lieberman is in trouble:
The Lieberman crowd was beaten, even with 65 percent of the vote. A curiosity in January, the Lamont campaign has become a growing army that could overthrow the incumbent in the Aug. 8 primary. For 90 minutes, party loyalists who have known Joe Lieberman for decades rose and turned their backs on him in favor of an engaging stranger.
Lamont told us that he was inspired to run by Lieberman's Wall Street Journal op-ed last November, in which the senator rebutted Rep. John Murtha's call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
The Associated Press reports that today, "Murtha is to be awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in Boston for his bold pronouncement that U.S. troops should be pulled out of Iraq." This hardly seems in keeping with JFK's pronouncement in his Inaugural Address:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
The folks who give out the PIC award would presumably argue that they are rewarding Murtha for political courage, not for the substance of his views. But Lieberman's pro-Iraq stand has put him in a lot more political jeopardy than Murtha's anti-Iraq one.
Which Witch Is Which?
Numerous readers have enjoyed a chuckle at our expense because we keep referring to Harry Pelosi and Nancy Reid as "Nancy Reid and Harry Pelosi." But we're not the only one who mixes up the two of them. So does Sherman Frederick, a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Nevadans who see Sen. Reid exercise his position as the Democratic leader of the Senate don't see the hardscrabble conservative Mormon from Searchlight. They see a political transvestite who forsakes his home state to kowtow to the wildly liberal wing of the Democratic Party. When Harry meets Nancy on the national stage, they seem indistinguishable. Not because she's him, but because him's she. I know that's not proper grammar, but it is a correct assessment from a Nevada perspective.
Frederick predicts that Reid will lose his next re-election bid--which, unfortunately for Reid detractors, is still 4 1/2 years away.
Zero-Tolerance Watch
Students in Chandler, Ariz., are getting in trouble for bringing contraband to school. The forbidden substance: ketchup. The Arizona Republic reports:
Kirk Alvers has done the math: He's being charged $3 for a gallon of gas but $18 for 36 ounces of ketchup.
Alvers and other Basha High students are seeing red over a school policy that charges them 25 cents for two half-ounce packets of ketchup at lunch. The policy was enacted recently to limit waste and messiness in the school's lunch area. Three free ketchup packets come with the purchase of a burger and fries, but students are charged for any extras. There is no charge for other condiments.
"If you have unrestricted access to things that explode, things will happen," said Kristine Marchiando, the school's principal. She said students were twisting ketchup packets and stomping on them, requiring an outdoor lunch area to be steam-cleaned regularly.
Students opting to bring their own ketchup bottles to school have had them confiscated by security. They have been told the bottles are considered open food containers and represent a health-code violation. Students have been threatened with suspension if they persist.
Could it be that this is John Kerry's* way of raising money for a 2008 presidential race?
* The outspoken ketchup heiress and philanthropist's husband, who by the way served in Vietnam.
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
"Some Iraq War Vets Go Homeless After Return to US"--headline, Reuters, May 19
Now Can We Impeach Him?
"Bush Kills Pensioner"--headline, Sun (London), May 19
Raging Pacifists
"Brawl at Anti-Violence Rally Preceded Shootings"--headline, New Haven (Conn.) Register, May 19
Perverse Incentives
"France, Italy and Germany sanctioned the payment of $45 million in deals to free nine hostages abducted in Iraq, according to documents seen by The Times," reports the aforementioned London newspaper:
All three governments have publicly denied paying ransom money. But according to the documents, held by security officials in Baghdad who have played a crucial role in hostage negotiations, sums from $2.5 million to $10 million per person have been paid over the past 21 months. Among those said to have received cash ransoms was the gang responsible for seizing British hostages including Kenneth Bigley, the murdered Liverpool engineer.
The list of payments has also been seen by Western diplomats, who are angered at the behaviour of the three governments, arguing that it encourages organised crime gangs to grab more foreign captives.
"In theory we stand together in not rewarding kidnappers, but in practice it seems some administrations have parted with cash and so it puts other foreign nationals at risk from gangs who are confident that some governments do pay," one senior envoy in the Iraqi capital said. . . .
A number of other governments, including those of Turkey, Romania, Sweden and Jordan, are said to have paid for their hostages to be freed, as have some US companies with lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
One can certainly sympathize with the desire to free one's countrymen and colleagues; no less a cowboy than Ronald Reagan sold arms to Iran, precipitating the worst scandal of his presidency, because of just this weakness. But surely the "senior envoy" is right: This is a case in which hard-heartedness is, as a practical matter, the more compassionate course.
Homer Nods
Contrary to our Friday item, Skinema.com does include the character Powder, from the movie of the same name, on its "comprehensive list of movie characters with albinism."
The Onion, meanwhile, has picked up on the albino theme. Its Friday "American Voices" item posed the question: "The release of The Da Vinci Code, the long-awaited film adaptation of the bestselling novel, is being met with controversy. What do you think?" Production assistant Larry Brun answers: "Yet another film with an evil albino. I put it to you, Hollywood: When are you going to give me a positive albino role model?"
In the photo, Brun appears to be African-American, so we guess he's an albino of color.
Pull It Off Quickly to Minimize the Pain
"Congressman Caught on Tape, Documents Say"--headline, Associated Press, May 22
What Would We Do Without British Polls?
"French Are Rudest, Most Boring People on Earth: British Poll"--headline, Agence France-Presse, May 20
What Would Education Experts Do Without Uganda?
"Uganda: Large Classes in Schools Worry Education Experts"--headline, AllAfrica.com, May 18
Why Would a Dinosaur Be Interested in Such a Thing?
"Scientists Show Dinosaur Fingernail Fossil"--headline, Associated Press, May 19
Bottom Stories of the Day
o "Amish Village Gripped by Mystery of the Missing Manure"--headline, Sunday Telegraph (London), May 21
o "Train Nearly Hits Woman's Car Stalled on Tracks"--headline, Jerusalem Post, May 21
o "Beatles, Stones Top Hillary Clinton's iPod Picks"--headline, FoxNews.com, May 22
o "Bush Not Likely to See Gore's Film"--headline, Associated Press, May 22
Dispatches From the Porn Belt
The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun (Alachua County, Kerry by 13.2%) features an op-ed by one Richard Burt:
For years now, the right has been telling us that humanities professors are "dangerous" nihilists who think that words mean only whatever the powerful say they mean. As usual, the right has got it all wrong.
For it has become increasingly clear that the real nihilists are George W. Bush and his legal advisers, Supreme Court Justice Alito and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales chief among them. As if taking Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty as his model, the law for Bush "means just what I choose it to--neither more nor less."
You get the drift. But who is Richard Burt? His bio at the end of the piece says he is "a professor in the Department of English and the Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Florida." You have to go to his university Web page, however, to learn that he is the author of a great scholarly work titled "Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares: Queer Theory and American Kiddie Culture."
He has also turned up in this column before--back in July 2002, when he was up north. The story to which we linked then came from the Republican of Springfield, Mass.:
A University of Massachusetts [Amherst, Kerry by 72.3%] English professor who two years ago was advised to remove his Web page from the UMass system because it had pictures of naked women and links to porn stars now apparently has an even stronger link to the adult film industry.
Richard A. Burt, a tenured professor of English who has been at UMass since 1986, has written a screenplay for an X-rated take-off of Shakespeare's "Othello" titled "Hotel O."
"Hotel O"--and as the script notes, it should be pronounced with emphasis on the "ho"--stars Nina Hartley and Lexington Steele, apparently two of the bigger names in the business,
Agence France-Presse reports from Cannes (France, Kerry by 378.4%) on the latest triomphe cinématographique:
"Shortbus," an explicit, largely improvised arthouse flick that includes a rendition of the American national anthem during a gay sex scene, is a direct provocation, director John Cameron Mitchell admitted.
"It's a little bit of a cri de coeur to us, a little bit of a call to arms" against the prevailing conservatism, he told a media conference, adding that his country was living in "the era of Bush, which is about clamping down, being scared." . . .
One scene likely to create controversy in the United States and some other countries shows a gay threesome in which one participant joyfully bellows "The Star Spangled Banner."
The actor with the singing voice, PJ Deboy, said he did the scene to show that he was as American as anyone, despite resistance to gays in parts of the country, including Washington.
"I thought to myself: 'Can I do it . . .?' And I decided I could, because it is a patriotic act. . . . There's nothing un-American about gay sex and there's nothing unpatriotic about it," he said.
How could the Profiles in Courage awards have overlooked these guys? |
