Best of the Web Today - January 17, 2007
By JAMES TARANTO
Today's Videos on WSJ.com: James Taranto on "civil rights leaders" vs. Barack Obama and John Fund on the Democratic presidential field.
Pride Goeth Before the Fall
" 'We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta. California has the ideas of Athens and the power of Sparta,' [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger, who played Hercules in his first film role, told legislators at the capitol. 'Not only can we lead California into the future . . . we can show the nation and the world how to get there.' "--Reuters, Jan. 9
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the federal government Tuesday for disaster aid because of an ongoing cold snap that has destroyed nearly $1 billion worth of California citrus. . . . Visiting a Fresno orange grove, Schwarzenegger said he was asking the U.S. government for disaster status, which would allow California to seek aid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration to offset losses to growers and other businesses."--Associated Press, Jan. 16
The Cult of 'Sacrifice'
Last week we noted that aging Angry Left teen idol Markos "Kos" Moulitsas was unhappy with President Bush for "bellowing crap like 'decisive ideological struggle of our time' " without calling for "national sacrifice." Jim Lehrer, interviewing the president for PBS's "NewsHour" yesterday, picks up the theme:
Lehrer: Let me ask you a bottom-line question, Mr. President. If it is as important as you've just said--and you've said it many times--as all of this is, particularly the struggle in Iraq, if it's that important to all of us and to the future of our country, if not the world, why have you not, as president of the United States, asked more Americans and more American interests to sacrifice something? The people who are now sacrificing are, you know, the volunteer military--the Army and the U.S. Marines and their families. They're the only people who are actually sacrificing anything at this point.
Bush: Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night. I mean, we've got a fantastic economy here in the United States, but yet, when you think about the psychology of the country, it is somewhat down because of this war.
Now, here in Washington when I say, "What do you mean by that?," they say, "Well, why don't you raise their taxes; that'll cause there to be a sacrifice." I strongly oppose that. If that's the kind of sacrifice people are talking about, I'm not for it because raising taxes will hurt this growing economy. And one thing we want during this war on terror is for people to feel like their life's moving on, that they're able to make a living and send their kids to college and put more money on the table. And you know, I am interested and open-minded to the suggestion, but this is going to be--
Lehrer: Well--
Bush:---this is like saying why don't you make sacrifices in the Cold War? I mean, Iraq is only a part of a larger ideological struggle. But it's a totally different kind of war, than ones we're used to.
Lehrer: Well, for instance, Mr. President, some people have asked why--and I would ask you about--have you considered some kind of national service program, that would be civilian as well as military, that would involve more people in the effort to--not just militarily, but you talk about ideology, all this sort of stuff--in other words, to kind of muster the support of young Americans, and other Americans, in this struggle that you say is so monumental and so important.
Bush: Yeah, I have considered whether it ought to be compulsory, non-military service, I guess is the best way to put it. I'm not for compulsory military service, by the way. I think the volunteer army is working and we got to keep it strong.
I made the decision early on to set up what's--something called the USA Freedom Corps, which could encourage volunteerism; call people to take time out of their lives to serve our country with compassionate acts. And by the way, volunteerism is high in America.
But no, you know, I thought through compulsory national service and thought that the route that we picked was the best route.
What Lehrer is referring to is not really sacrifice--that is, giving oneself or something one values in the service of a higher purpose--but hardship imposed on others. Anyone who wishes to sacrifice more is free to enlist in the military or write a check to the U.S. Treasury.
Further, have you noticed that those who call for "sacrifice" never applaud such hardships as have been imposed on all of us as a result of the war on terror--such as increasingly burdensome airport security? More often they complain about imagined hardships, such as all the civil liberties they claim we've lost.
And there is something un-American about the idea of lauding "sacrifice" for its own sake. The ideology for which we are fighting is, after all, an ideology of freedom. It's hard to see how anyone would be better off if 18-year-olds were conscripted into make-work government jobs rather than left alone to pursue their own dreams and ambitions. If the draft--or higher taxes, or rationing, or other such wartime hardships--is necessary, then so be it. But anyone who demands to see such things as proof of seriousness is not serious himself.
Standards of Truth
The Week in Review section of the New York Times this Sunday featured an essay by Bob Morris on political candor, titled "Truth Be Told . . ." Check out his examples:
When the Australian author and commentator Germaine Greer astutely suggested that Steve Irwin, the much mourned crocodile hunter of Australia, was responsible for his own death because he got too close to wild animals, she suffered a severe lambasting.
One Australian politician was so outraged he labeled her stupid.
John Kerry got similar treatment last fall when his "botched" joke suggested that hard-working students don't end up in Iraq, even though many people do see the military as a last resort for people whose options don't always include a college education.
Now there are two ways in which one could defend the truth of Kerry's infamous statement: One could argue that it was factually accurate, that the military really is made up of stupid losers (the Charlie Rangel position); or one could argue that it was candid--that is, that Kerry was expressing his own prejudices, and his later backpedaling was deceitful (our position).
Morris, however, credits Kerry with neither accuracy nor sincerity. Instead, his defense of Kerry's statement is that "many people" do see things the way Kerry said he did. That is to say, by the Times's standard, expressing other people's prejudices is a form of truth-telling.
U.S. out of L.A.!
The New York Times reports on an outbreak of ethnic bloodletting in a city approximately the size of Baghdad:
The Latino gang members were looking for a black person, any black person, to shoot, the police said, and they found one. Cheryl Green, perched near her scooter chatting with friends, was shot dead in a spray of bullets that left several other young people injured.
She was 14, an eighth grader who loved junk food and watching Court TV with her mother and had recently written a poem beginning: "I am black and beautiful. I wonder how I will be living in the future."
"I never thought something like this could happen here in L.A.," said her mother, Charlene Lovett, fighting tears.
Cheryl's killing last month, which the police said followed a confrontation between the gang members and a black man, stands out in a wave of bias-related attacks and incidents in a city that promotes its diversity as much as frets over it.
We're still waiting for NBC to declare it a "civil war," though.
Barack Is Beautiful?--II
Some more background on our item yesterday about so-called civil-rights leaders' hostility to Democratic front-runner Barack Obama. Daniel Freedman of the New York Sun unearths a 1996 article from the Chicago Sun-Times--actually an opinion piece by Salim Muwakkil, an editor at the left-wing magazine In These Times--that raised similar questions during Obama's first run for state Senate:
Adolph Reed Jr., a progressive Northwestern University professor of political science, condemns Obama as a politician with "impeccable do-good credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics." Robert T. Starks, another academic-activist who serves as chairman of the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment, says Obama is the tool of forces outside the black community.
Stanley Crouch of New York's Daily News argued in a November 2006 column that Obama's background differentiates him from the typical black American:
After all, Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan. Other than color, Obama did not--does not--share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Obama has weighed in on Sunday's NFC Championship Game between the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints:
"The Bears are going to the Super Bowl," a gleeful Obama told reporters Monday outside a church in suburban Chicago. "I am happy for New Orleans. I think it's a wonderful story for their city, but this fairy tale ends when they come to Chicago."
Win or lose, there's no doubt Obama is speaking from the heart--in marked contrast with a certain "lifelong Yankees fan" we know.
Oh, and the Sunday Times article we cited yesterday mistakenly said Jesse Jackson was the first black presidential candidate. Actually it was Rep. Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, who ran in 1972.
Next Week on 'The Simpsons' . . .
"Obama to Launch '08 Bid in Springfield"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 16
Credit Where Due
Our Jan. 8 item on a discrimination lawsuit against Harvard prompted this response from Piper Hoffman, the plaintiff's lawyer:
Unfortunately, Mr. Taranto does not understand the law or our case.
Numerous studies, based on empirical data, have shown that minorities are more likely to have bad credit histories than whites. Accepting this fact does not require one to believe that credit agencies are intentionally downgrading minorities' credit, or that minorities are less responsible with money. It does require one to acknowledge the realities of many Americans' lives today: Low wages make it difficult to save money, and health insurance is unavailable to many people. As a result, the loss of a job or a medical crisis can force a cash-strapped family to charge their basic living expenses on credit cards and wind up with bad credit.
Our charge against Harvard does not accuse it of making any "effort to avoid hiring blacks." Mr. Taranto's confusion probably stems from the common misperception that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits only intentional discrimination. In fact, Title VII also bars disparate impact discrimination, which does not require any showing that the employer discriminated intentionally. Our charge alleges that Harvard's policy of using credit histories as criteria in hiring decisions has a disparate impact on minorities because minorities are more likely to have poor credit. This makes it discriminatory, whether or not that was Harvard's intention.
One can believe, as I do, that the policy of Harvard and many other employers of using credit histories as hiring criteria is discriminatory against minorities, without accepting either one of Mr. Taranto's propositions.
We should have made clear that we meant "discriminatory" in the layman's sense of the term--i.e., with an intent to harm minorities. Hoffman is right that under existing legal precedent, a company's hiring practices can be discriminatory without being intentionally so.
OK, Where's the Fire?
"Employees who frequently work from home may be hurting their chances to advance their careers, a survey by Korn/Ferry International reported on Tuesday," Reuters reports:
So-called 'telecommuters' are less likely to advance than peers who work in traditional office settings, according to 61 percent of the 1,300 global executives surveyed. That's even though some three-quarters of executives consider telecommuters to be as productive as their desk-bound colleagues, the survey found.
Workers climbing the corporate ladder need "face time," said Robert McNabb, chief executive of Korn/Ferry's Futurestep division, which provides recruitment outsourcing services and conducted the survey.
Meanwhile, Salt Lake City's Deseret News reports that "damage from a weekend blaze at a fire station in Draper is expected to reach $1.5 million." We hope the Draper firemen who put it out don't suffer too much as a result of working at home.
'You've Been Robbed'
"Crime Victims Need Notification"--headline, Paris (Texas) News, Jan. 16
Rowdiness? At a Hockey Game?
"Police Probe Rowdiness at Hockey Game"--headline, Boston Globe, Jan. 17
That Makes Him a Sad Panda
"Male Panda Said Too Fat to Have Sex"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 16
We'd Forgotten How Bad Thought Was
"Amnesia Is Worse Than Thought"--headline, United Press International, Jan. 16
News You Can Use
"Humane Society Says Watch Pets in Cold"--headline, RadioIowa.com, Jan. 16
Bottom Stories of the Day
o "Wisconsin Firefighters Rescue Cat"--headline, Firehouse.com, Jan. 17
o "P Bus Returning to Franktown/Parker"--headline, Denver Post, Jan. 16
o "CSSD Does Not Insist on Session to Elect New Lower House Head"--headline, Ceske Noviny (Czech Republic), Jan. 17
o "Jackson Takes No Action on Measure to End Nuisances"--headline, Huntsvlile (Ala.) Times, Jan. 12
o "Iranian Leaders Speak Out Against US"--headline, Financial Times, Jan. 15
Just Following Orders
"A 46-year-old German motorist driving along a busy road suddenly veered to the left and ended up stuck on a railway track--because his satellite navigation system told him to, police said Sunday," Reuters reports from Berlin:
The motorist was heading into the north German city of Bremen "when the friendly voice from his satnav told him to turn left," a spokesman said.
"He did what he was ordered to do and turned his Audi left up over the curb and onto the track of a local streetcar line. He tried to back up off the track but got completely stuck."
With that attitude, he'd better not try driving to Nuremberg.
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