Kerry: Terror, Shmerror
Best of the Web Today - April 16, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
<font size=4>
"Democratic White House challenger John Kerry has accused President George W. Bush of manipulating fears about security and terror for political gain," Reuters reports from New York:
Kerry, who is running even with or leading Bush in most polls seven months before the November election, said on Thursday the president wanted to turn the political debate to issues of terror and security in hopes of gaining political advantage.
"Home base for George Bush, as we saw to the nth degree in the press conference, is terror. Ask him a question, he's going to terror," Kerry said, referring to Bush's prime-time news conference on Tuesday.
Perhaps it has slipped Kerry's mind, but terrorists
actually did kill some 3,000 people on America soil just 2
1/2 years ago. What could possibly be more important for a
president than preventing another attack, one that could
be even deadlier?
Kerry's complaint about the press conference is just
silly. Every question the president was asked was about
the war on terror. Is Kerry faulting Bush for answering
the questions rather than changing the subject? And if so,
what should he have changed the subject to?
Democracy, Dictatorship, What's the Diff?
This column is not a fan of Bill Clinton, but watching John Kerry in action makes us appreciate some of Clinton's good points. For example, Clinton was able to speak the language of American idealism.<font size=3> Here is an excerpt from a speech Clinton gave in November 1995 about the conflict in Bosnia:
From our birth, America has always been more than just a place. America has embodied an idea that has become the ideal for billions of people throughout the world. Our founders said it best: America is about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In this century especially, America has done more than simply stand for these ideals. We have acted on them and sacrificed for them. Our people fought two world wars so that freedom could triumph over tyranny. After World War I, we pulled back from the world, leaving a vacuum that was filled by the forces of hatred. After World War II, we continued to lead the world. We made the commitments that kept the peace, that helped to spread democracy, that created unparalleled prosperity and that brought victory in the Cold War.
Today, because of our dedication, America's ideals--liberty, democracy and peace--are more and more the aspirations of people everywhere in the world. It is the power of our ideas, even more than our size, our wealth and our military might, that makes America a uniquely trusted nation.
<font size=4>
Apart from the mild disparagement of the U.S. military, these are sentiments any patriotic idealist can applaud. It makes for quite a contrast with Kerry's recent comments about Iraq, which we noted yesterday:
"I have always said from day one that the goal here . . . is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy. I can't tell you what it's going to be, but a stable Iraq. And that stability can take several different forms."
In Kerry's defense--a backhanded defense, to be sure--this is one case in which he is not vulnerable to charges of flip-flopping or opportunism. On April 22, 1971, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (link in PDF, quote on 17th page) against the Vietnam War, the young activist expressed nearly identical sentiments about the country in which by the way he served:
<font size=3>
"I think that politically, historically, the one thing that people try to do, that society is structured on as a whole, is an attempt to satisfy their felt needs, and you can satisfy those needs with almost any kind of political structure, giving it one name or the other. In this name it is democratic; in others it is communism; in others it is benevolent dictatorship. As long as those needs are satisfied, that structure will exist."
<font size=4>
Kerry's views on Iraq may have changed a dozen times since Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, but for more than three decades he has been philosophically consistent in his indifference to America's democratic ideals. Why would anyone vote for a Democrat who isn't even a democrat?
.
<font size=4>
Une Grenouille Joue la Carte du Racisme
Criticism of their perfidy vis-à-vis Iraq has the French fried, Agence France-Presse reports from Los Angeles:
<font size=3>
Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, told staff, students and diplomats at the University of California at Los Angeles that Fox News and the New York Post, media baron Rupert Murdoch's properties, led the onslaught with a daily barrage of insults.
"It was a racist campaign," he said in a speech to the university's School of Public Policy and Social Research. "We were insulted just because we were French and it was unfair and dangerous."
<font size=4>
Well, c'est la vie. But what does Levitte mean when he calls anti-French attitudes "racist"? We were under the impression that most Frenchmen were white, as were most of France's critics, including Murdoch.
<font size=3>
Levitte adds that, in AFP's words, "the wave of insults and disinformation spurred by France's opposition to the US invasion of Iraq has since been halted and relations between the two countries and their peoples were strong." But The New Yorker reports that John Kerry is distancing himself from his own French connections. Kerry used to be "enthusiastic about the French reporters covering his campaign," not only speaking French with them but using obscure words like affreux ("awful"):
Everything changed, though, when, in recent months, Republicans started intimating that Kerry was too Continental. Conservatives complained about his touting of endorsements from foreign leaders, and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans told reporters that Kerry "looks French." Right-wing talk-show hosts began referring to him as "Monsieur Kerry" and "Jean Cheri." A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that G. Clotaire Rapaille, a French anthropologist known for identifying the subconscious associations that people from various cultures make in the "reptilian" part of their brains, had offered to become the Senator's Gallic Naomi Wolf, devising ways for him to rid his speaking style of French influences.
Suddenly, Kerry appeared to develop linguistic amnesia. "During a press conference, I asked Kerry a question, on Iraq," [French TV reporter Alain] de Chalvron recalled. "He didn't answer. In front of the American journalists, he didn't want to take a question that was not in English." Loïck Berrou, the United States bureau chief for de Chalvron's competitor, TF1, has been having similar problems. Berrou chatted in French with Kerry on a commercial flight last year; the Senator reminisced about his family's country house in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, a village in Brittany, where Kerry's cousin is the mayor. "We've pushed hard to get an interview with him, and no answer," Berrou says.
Family members have apparently been put on a leash as well. Kerry's wife, Berrou says, "speaks with us in French with no problem, and her press attaché has to pull her by the shirt to get her away from us."
<font size=4>
Isn't it just shockingly irresponsible for Kerry, in the name of political expediency, to alienate a key U.S. ally?
.
John Kerry, This Is Your Wife
<font size=3>
The Boston Globe has an article about Teresa Heinz Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for first lady, which describes her as Mr. Heinz Kerry's "secret weapon." It contains this impressive bit of investigative reporting:
True, she is one of the richest women in America, wears suede Chanel boots, and speaks five languages. But she is also comfortable enough--and has distinct professional interests she will continue to pursue if her husband makes it to the White House--to move from her high station in life and commiserate with the young and old, black and white, rich and poor.
<font size=4>
Incidentally, we'd like to clarify the pronunciation of Mrs. Heinz Kerry's name, which has been the source of some confusion. Americans usually pronounce "Teresa" teh-REE-seh, but she favors the more European-sounding teh-RAY-zeh.
In case you have trouble with this, just remember that her husband wants teh-RAY-zeh your taxes.
.
Foreign Leaders for Kerry
<font size=3>
Josh Marshall has one of the odder commentaries we've read recently, on a left-wing party's victory in South Korean elections yesterday. He begins by drawing an implausible parallel between the recent impeachment of the country's leftist president:
An out-of-touch conservative opposition party impeaches a liberal president on the basis of essentially trumped up charges against the overwhelming wishes of the public. Conservative party then faces a fierce backlash at the polls as the electorate punishes them for an attempted constitutional coup and ignoring the popular will.
We don't know Korean politics well enough to have an opinion on the impeachment over there, but we follow American politics pretty closely, and we're puzzled as to which "fierce backlash" here Marshall is referring. In the 1998 election, held the month before President Clinton's impeachment, the GOP lost five seats in the House and none in the Senate. As backlashes go, this would seem to be a fairly tame one--if indeed it was a backlash at all. After all, the GOP had picked up dozens of House seats in 1994, and it was probably inevitable that some of the weaker seats would fall back into Democratic hands.
Clinton's acquittal in February 1999 kept Al Gore out of the White House for the next two years, and probably for the subsequent four. Had the Senate removed him from office, Gore would have had the advantage of incumbency and might have been able to escape the Clinton taint, which doubtless contributed to Gore's loss in his adopted home state of Tennessee and elsewhere.
Then Marshall makes this argument (emphasis his):
[The Korean election] is the continuance of a global trend in which elections in countries allied to the United States are being won by parties advocating loosening ties with America. Running against America--or really against George W. Bush makes for great politics almost everywhere in the world.
We saw it in South Korea two years ago. Then later that year in Germany. Recently in Spain. And now again in Korea--with many other examples along the way.
Each election had its own internal dynamics. But in each case opposition to the policies of the Bush administration became a salient, even defining issue.
The picture Marshall paints is incomplete. Since Bush's election, numerous countries--Israel, Italy, the Netherlands--have elected governments sympathetic to the Bush administration.
But let's say Marshall is mostly right. Is this supposed to be an argument for electing Kerry? Since Marshall is the authoritative voice of partisan Democrats, we must assume so. But what is supposed to happen if Kerry does win? Will foreign countries start electing governments that support the Bush administration? There wouldn't be much point in that, since there would no longer be a Bush administration to support.
Or maybe the point is that countries would start electing governments that support Kerry. But they're already doing that.
.
<font size=4>
Rangel's Racial Demagoguery
New York's Rep. Charles Rangel is getting increasingly obnoxious in his efforts to undermine the American war effort in Iraq. The Associated Press reports from Washington on his latest harangue:
Speaking of military personnel serving in Iraq, Rangel said: "Where they're going, what a heavy tax is paid on their lives. . . . The real death tax is a tax on the poor."
The congressman said about a quarter of those killed in action so far have been black or Hispanic, and are drawn to the military as a way out of economic hardship.
According to the 2000 census, Hispanics make up 12.5% of the population and non-Hispanic blacks 12.1%, for a total of 24.6%. If about a quarter of the soldiers killed in Iraq belonged to one of these groups, that means blacks and Hispanics are dying at almost precisely proportionate numbers to their share of the population.
<font size=5>
Even more obnoxious is Rangel's assertion that black and
Hispanic servicemen join the military for economic
reasons. How dare he question the patriotism of America's
fighting men simply on the basis of their race or
ethnicity?
<font size=4>
.
Canada's Fjord Explorer
<font size=3>
Paul Martin, the prime minister of Canada, is confused about European geography, reports the CanWest News Service:
"Sixty years ago, Canadians were working alongside their British and American allies planning for the invasion of Norway and the liberation of Europe," Martin said in an address to 350 soldiers at the CFB Gagetown training base outside Fredericton, N.B.
A few minutes later, he repeated the gaffe. . . .
Norway is more than 1,000 kilometres from Normandy, where on June 6, 1944, soldiers from across Canada--farm boys, office clerks, fishermen and students--stormed Juno Beach with the allies to defend Europe.
<font size=4>
Everyone makes mistakes, but can you imagine the cries of derision that would arise if President Bush said such a thing?<font size=3>
.
Mistaken Identity
In our item yesterday on Rachel Corrie, we erroneously attributed to her a letter glorifying Palestinian "martyrs" who attacked Israeli soldiers. Blogger Joshua "Tacitus" Chamberlain points out that the letter was actually written by "a batty Welsh nurse named Anne Gwynne." Gwynne and Corrie were both activists for the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement, on whose Web site the letter appears, attributed to Gwynne.
Tacitus is rather hard on blogger Charles Johnson, whose Little Green Footballs blog alerted us to the letter. The mistake was actually made by a New Zealand-based Web site called Scoop, which published the Gwynne letter without attribution on the same page as a genuine Corrie letter. Tacitis faults Johnson for a failure of "basic fact-checking." But Johnson tells us he did fact-check the letter, and so did we. The result exemplifies the limitations of fact-checking as a way of avoiding error.
The odd way in which Scoop presented the two letters led us to wonder if the first one was really from Corrie, so we did a Web search and turned up this page on a pro-Corrie Web site called TearItAllDown.com ("the revolution starts with you"). An article on Corrie's death is followed by a series of links under the following titles:
Remembering Rachel Corrie
Rachel Corrie: In her own words
Courage and More Martyrs
Letter from Corrie to Indymedia
"Courage and More Martyrs" links to the Scoop page. We assumed--wrongly, as it turns out--that a pro-Corrie site would be unlikely to misrepresent the letter as being Corrie's work.
Corrie did write a series of e-mail letters, which were widely publicized after her death, and last night we received an e-mail from Brij Patnaik, the Corrie cousin whose defense of her we published earlier this week, asking us to provide links to them on the Web site of London's Guardian. We're happy to oblige: They're here and here.
The third letter at the first link, which Corrie wrote to her mother on Feb. 27, 2003, 17 days before her death, includes this passage:
I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. . . . If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours--do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed--just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.
Although Corrie isn't exactly endorsing Palestinian violence, it's hard to square this passage with Patnaik's claim that she "unequivocally condemned the violent acts of both Palestinians and Israelis."
<font size=4>
The ISM Web site has a page answering the question "What is the ISM Position on Suicide Bombings?":
Attacks on innocent civilians, be they Israeli or Palestinian, are forbidden under most understandings of international law and ISM seeks nothing more for Israelis and Palestinians than the implementation of international law. But besides stopping Israeli and Palestinian attacks on innocent civilians, compliance with international law requires ending a long list of Israeli violations. . . .
In order to stop attacks on Israeli civilians this kind of violence, we must look at the source of violence and address that, instead of arguing about whether one act of violence is worse than another. We need to treat the disease of all the violence and not just one of its symptoms. . . .
That some Palestinians have turned themselves into weapons is not something inherent to Palestinians or Muslims. Rather, it is a tragic weapon of those who have nothing else to fight with. This does not justify the action, but we are certain that if the Palestinians had F-16s or Apache helicopters, they would not use their bodies and explode themselves. This does not mean the ISM calls for an escalation of weapons armament, rather the ISM maintains that all military tactics should be stopped by all sides in favor of nonviolent alternatives. Most importantly, we've concluded from experience that as long as occupation remains, and the Palestinian people are denied freedom, human rights and self-determination, there will be those who will use violence against the underlying, systematic basic and foundational violence of the occupation.
<font size=5>
In other words, yes, Palestinian violence is bad, but it's
Israel's fault. Did Corrie disagree with this position of
the ISM? So far we don't know of anyone who's claimed she
did.
<font size=3>
-----------------------------------------------------------
<font size=4>
Zero-Tolerance Watch
The Associated Press reports that an unnamed 13-year-old boy at Miami's Centennial Middle School showed up on campus with "with what looked like a rifle covered up." The school "was locked down for about three hours" as the cops investigated.
It turned out to be only a "rubber-band shooter." But the boy was arrested and charged with "disrupting a school function." The police consulted with prosecutors and decided to add a weapons charge.
"Even though it's plastic, it has a trigger mechanism and it can fire," police spokesman Edward Torrens says. "It fits the criteria for a weapon." Sounds like a pretty elastic definition to us.
<font size=3>
(Hat tip: ZeroIntelligence.net.)
.
Man Bites Dog
"Cop Wins Doughnut-Eating Contest"--headline, FoxNews.com (fifth item), April 15
<font size=4>
Another Sorry Bunch of College Journalists
Here's the latest pathetic story from the world of American academia. Earlier this week, the Barometer, Oregon State University's campus paper, published a groveling apology, which reads in part:
On Friday, April 9, The Daily Barometer published a column by staff columnist David Williams that was racially insensitive and inappropriate.
We apologize to everyone for printing the column.
While the opinions expressed in columns are not representative of the staff members of the Barometer, we have a policy never to print material that is discriminatory, racist or sexist.
By printing such material in the Barometer, we legitimize the messages, even if we don't agree.
We never meant to offer racially insensitive opinions as valid ones by printing the column. . . .
The plain and simple fact is this: We made an inexcusable mistake.
We apologize to the African American community, who was [sic] no doubt disappointed, hurt and outraged by the column. . . .
David Williams will no longer be writing for the Barometer.
<font size=5>
In fact, Williams's column makes a quite reasonable point.
It faults prominent black Americans for rallying behind
famous blacks accused with crimes or various other sorts
of wrongdoing:
There is a lack of morality in the black community because
African American leaders, whether Jesse Jackson or the
NAACP, choose to rally around minorities who seem to have
little quality characteristics about them.
<font size=4>
Why don't black leaders call out people like Allen Iverson and Sammy Sosa and say, "Hey, there are millions of young African Americans who worship you; why don't you start showing up for work on time and stop putting cork in your bat?"
Williams, who is white, took care to keep the tone of his article nonconfrontational, and while one can certainly disagree with what he says, the idea that it is inherently "discriminatory, racist or sexist" is far-fetched. It may be "insensitive," but only because some on campus--including those who, according to the apology, gathered Monday to protest--are oversensitive.
Granted, the Barometer editors are only students, so
perhaps it's a bit much to expect them to stand up for the
right to express unpopular opinions. But the campus
culture at OSU--which seems to prevail in most of American
higher education--would appear to have nurtured the sense
of grievance that led the protesters to answer views they
found disagreeable with a demand for their suppression
rather than by making cogent arguments against them. It's
hard to see how this will be helpful to them when they
graduate and go out into the real world. |
