Best of the Web Today - October 23, 2006
By JAMES TARANTO
Resenting the Liberator
The New Republic's Peter Beinart notes a statistic we've heard thrown around elsewhere:
Even as Iraqis grow more hostile to one another, they are also growing more hostile to us. A recent University of Maryland poll shows that more than 60 percent of Iraqis (and an even higher percentage of Arab Iraqis) now support attacks on U.S. troops, which makes counterinsurgency--a strategy dependent on winning hearts and minds--much harder.
Those ingrates! This obviously is fodder for those who want to bug out of Iraq, and Beinart presents that argument:
The optimistic case for withdrawal--that once Americans leave Iraq the Sunni insurgency will lose its rationale, thus making a reconciliation possible--has weakened over the last year, as Sunnis have grown more afraid of Shia death squads than American G.I.s. But the pessimistic case has grown stronger: If Iraq is doomed to hell no matter what we do, why send brave young Americans down with it?
Beinart doesn't actually come out in favor of withdrawal. Instead, this is one of those Olympian columns in which he sets forward various options (three of them, in this case), giving their pros and cons but refraining from casting his lot with any one of them.
But what about those 60% of Iraqis who favor attacks on U.S. troops? Is this as ominous as it sounds?
In considering that question, it's worth comparing these results with opinion surveys taken while Saddam Hussein was still in power. In a Zogby poll conducted in October 2002, 46% of Iraqis said they "strongly agree" that "America should be wiped off the face of the Earth," and another 74% said they "very strongly agree." (Because of rounding, the figures don't add up to 100%.)
OK, so we're kidding. There were no public opinion polls while Saddam was in power. But that's kind of the point, isn't it? The Iraqi population (to some extent excepting the Kurds in the north) is newly liberated from a totalitarian regime. Those of us fortunate enough to have lived our entire lives in freedom can only begin to imagine the distorting effects totalitarianism must have on the human psyche. Thus we should be careful about jumping to conclusions.
In "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era" (available from the OpinionJournal bookstore), Shelby Steele describes how, as a boy in the 1950s, he accepted second-class status on account of his race as simply the way things were. But in 1967 he had an epiphany:
Up to this point I, like my father before me, had lived like a citizen in a totalitarian state. But what happens when an authority that was totalitarian--against which you had no recourse--admits that it was wrong, that it violated and dehumanized you? For one thing, you lose a degree of fear.
Black militancy, Steele argues, is entirely a phenomenon of the post-civil-rights era--a baleful byproduct of liberation:
Black America faced two options. We could seize on the great freedom we had just won in the civil rights victories and advance through education, skill development, and entrepreneurialism, combined with an unbending assault on any continuing discrimination; or we could go after these things indirectly by pressuring the society that had wronged us into taking the lion's share of responsibility in resurrecting us. The new black militancy that exploded everywhere in the late sixties--and that came to define the strategy for black advancement for the next four decades--grew out of black America's complete embrace of the latter option.
If Iraqis now resent their liberators, a similar psychology may be at work. And American overconfidence might have made the problem worse. We promised to bring stable democracy to Iraq, and we thought that would be easier to achieve than it has turned out to be. Maybe all the poll result shows is that Iraqis are mad at us because they feel we've let them down.
Now consider again Beinart's "pessimistic case," which he says has "grown stronger": "Iraq is doomed to hell no matter what we do." It's as if Iraq has let us down, and we are thereby off the hook. Such a flight from responsibility is unworthy of America.
Multiple Choice
Who wrote the following passage?
"Bush's fellow Republicans applied a rubber stamp to much of his conservative agenda the past six years, including tax cuts that went largely to the rich."
A. Bob Herbert
B. Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman
C. John Kerry's speechwriter
D. Ayman al-Zawahiri
If you're a regular reader, you're already familiar with the trope: The answer is none of the above. It was written by Thomas Ferraro, a "reporter" for the Reuters "news" service.
Paranoia, the Destroyer
Lyn Davis Lear, third wife of "Sunday Dinner" creator Norman Lear, weighs in on the forthcoming elections over at the Puffington Host:
All week I've been reading in disparate sources from Drudge to US News and World Report about Bush, Rove and Cheney being overly confident about the midterm elections. Even Republican strategists are increasingly concerned because the White House doesn't have a plan if they lose. This lack of planning shouldn't surprise anyone, but if you really think about it a creepy, crawly feeling grows in your gut.
Here are some questions: Are these guys simply narcissistic idiots Rove-ing around in some never-never land bubble or do they know something we don't? Have they planned a grab bag nose punch of an October/November surprise? Or have Diebold, ES&S, and local state secretaries assured them that they will do "whatever it takes" to get a Republican Congress elected again? . . .
Whether it is hubris, loony tunes, or both, the White House's freakish calm about the elections makes me as nervous as the hell we seem to be headed for. Therefore we should all be on alert. If for whatever reason we don't win back Congress in November the only real answer will be to take to the streets.
This is an unusual election in that the media have not even waited for the polls to open before declaring the results. Indeed, the Associated Press was forecasting a Democratic "landslide" as early as May. And since we all know that everything in the papers is true, if the Republicans end up winning, or at least holding their majorities, it can only mean that Karl Rove stole the election.
Normally the media feed liberal-left complacency, as we've argued; in this case they are feeding paranoia too.
Dishonor Roll
On Friday we noted that New Jersey's Sen. Bob Menendez had endorsed independent Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman over dependent Democrat Ned Lamont. As it turns out, this endorsement was a one-off for the benefit of the Jewish group to which Menendez was speaking. As the Newark Star-Ledger reports:
A audience member asked Menendez why he was putting party loyalty ahead of a good candidate by backing Lamont. Menendez became indignant and he told the crowd of hundreds the premise of the question was dead wrong. He called Lieberman a "tremendous Senator," and said, "We wish him well. We hope he returns."
But after the event, safely away from the hundreds of audience members, Menendez had a different response when a reporter asked if he was endorsing Lieberman. No, he said, he is "officially" supporting Lamont, the party nominee.
So off the list he comes:
Senators:
o Tom Carper (Del.)
o Mary Landrieu (La.)
o Bob Menendez (N.J.)
o Ben Nelson (Neb.)
o Mark Pryor (Ark.)
o Ken Salazar (Colo.)
Representatives:
o Ed Case (Hawaii)
o Harold Ford (Tenn.)
o Brad Sherman (Calif.)
The day after the primary, Jersey blogger Wally Edge reported that Menendez had endorsed Lamont. So he endorsed Lamont before he endorsed Lieberman before he endorsed Lamont. It's a trip-flop!
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 "I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry--and the control of nuclear arms."--Jimmy Carter
o "The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now it will be in the hands of America's children."--Nancy Pelosi
And What Could Be More Tempting Than a Root Canal?
"Croatia Tempts Tourists With Cheap Dental Care"--headline, Reuters, Oct. 16
'It Was Creamy and Delicious. We Sure Do Miss It'
"Company Recalls Egg Salad in 17 States"--headline, CNN.com, Oct. 22
And It's Not Even the Fourth of July
"Bunting Out at North Carolina"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 22
Bottom Stories of the Day
o "Scientists: Dogs Not Injured by WTC Work"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 20
o "No Charges in Billy the Kid Exhumation"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 23
o "Attorneys' Fees Called Excessive"--headline, Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, Oct. 20
o "No Mention of Foley Accusation at Mass"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 22
Political Hardball
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois is going to bat for Ron Santo, a third baseman who wants in to the National Baseball Hall of Fame (hat tip: Steve Bartin):
In a letter to the Hall's Veterans Committee, Durbin says Santo was great--and probably would have been better if he hadn't played for the Cubs.
"We can't know how much better Ron Santo's statistics might have been had he not played his entire career with a life-threatening illness, in an era that suppressed the long ball, for a team that, God bless them, never once saw post-season action," wrote Durbin.
Santo played for 15 seasons with diabetes.
Affirmative action for diabetic baseball players? Hey, how come we can't get into the Hall of Fame? We can't know how much better James Taranto's statistics might have been had he not had the misfortune, through an accident of birth, to lack both strength and ability. |
