Best of the Web Today - April 2, 2007
By JAMES TARANTO
Today's Video on WSJ.com: Mary O'Grady on communist human-rights abuses in Cuba.
He's Just Not That Into You
Matthew Dowd, a former Democrat turned aide to President Bush, has now broken from the president, telling the New York Times that, as the paper puts it, "his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced." What caught our attention about the Times piece, though, were these passages:
Mr. Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Mr. Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Mr. Dowd and a mentor to Mr. Bush.
"It's almost like you fall in love," he said. "I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides. And this guy's personality--he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration." . . .
Mr. Dowd said, in retrospect, he was in denial.
"When you fall in love like that," he said, "and then you notice some things that don't exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say 'No no, no, it'll be different.' "
This theme strikes a chord with former Time magazine blogger Andrew Sullivan:
What Dowd calls a "love-affair" is sometimes hard to walk away from cleanly or even recognize as a nightmare before it is too late. . . . The Federal Marriage Amendment obviously hit me in the solar plexus as well. It felt like a gratuitously vicious attack on a minority and a violation of conservatism. I knew my relationship with this president was over by the beginning of 2004.
Something tells us if we were to ask President Bush to reflect upon his love affairs with Matthew Dowd and Andrew Sullivan, he would look at us as if we'd lost our mind. Sorry, guys, he's just not that into you!
Are we wrong to think that there is something deeply weird about grown men who have trouble distinguishing between politics and affairs of the heart?
Pelosi's Road to Damascus
Before Congress left town last week, the Senate passed a resolution denouncing the Iranian regime "in the strongest possible terms" for its illegal capture and imprisonment of 15 British sailors and marines. The House, however, demurred, because Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't want to do anything rash, as the Associated Press reports:
Pelosi's spokesman Brendan Daly said the speaker was reluctant to weigh in on the incident without knowing that such a message would do more good than harm. Daly said the British government had not asked Congress to try to pressure Tehran.
"The leadership discussed it and agreed that inserting Congress into an international crisis while ongoing would not be helpful," Daly said.
Pelosi is traveling in the Middle East, where she plans to visit Syria, Israel and the West Bank.
If she doesn't want to insert Congress into an international crisis, why in the world is she going to Syria, whose regime is waging war against America in Iraq? As Bloomberg reports, the White House advised her against the trip on precisely the same grounds her spokesman cited for avoiding a meaningless resolution:
Pelosi's outreach to a state sponsor of terrorism is a "really bad idea," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said at a briefing in Washington. "Someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends and the message that it sends to our allies."
Bloomberg notes that a group of Republican congressmen also are visiting Syria. It's not clear whether the White House cares.
But maybe Pelosi won't make it to Damascus. As blogress Karol Sheinin notes, the Syrian regime has a strict policy of refusing entry to anyone who has visited Israel--as Pelosi did, last week. She probably avoided getting the Israeli stamp in her passport, but we're sure the Syrians must've heard about her visit anyway, since it was in all the papers (well, maybe not the Syrian ones). So, will she get turned back at the airport? Or will the Alawite Entity tacitly recognize Israel, if only for a moment, for whatever propaganda value Pelosi's visit may yield?
Chicken à la Reid
"If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker 'wants to play chicken with our troops,' Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday," the Associated Press reports.
Well, maybe not no lawmaker, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will announce today that he has endorsed a plan by Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold to end funding for the Iraq war by March 31 next year.
Curiously, Obama, although not yet in Congress, truculently opposed the liberation of Iraq back in 2002, whereas Reid voted for it.
Obama's support for the troops has onetime Angry Left heartthrob Markos "Kos" Moulitsas in a colicky mood:
What a ridiculous thing to say. Not only is it bad policy, not only is it bad politics, it's also a terrible negotiating approach.
Instead of threatening Bush with even more restrictions and daring him to veto funding for the troops out of pique, Barack just surrendered to him.
Let me repeat that--Obama just surrendered to Bush.
Obama, of course, wants to be president--and he realizes that he can never win that office by appealing only to people who think the nation should surrender to its actual enemies in order to hand a defeat to the current president.
Suicide? Not Just Yet.
Does the U.S. Constitution protect terrorists waging war on America? No--not yet anyway. The U.S. Supreme Court this morning declined to hear an appeal in the case of Boumediene v. Bush, in which the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 stripping federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions filed by terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
The court had previously ruled, in Rasul v. Bush (2004), that detainees have a statutory right to habeas--a right that Congress has effectively repealed. The court's decision not to review Boumediene means that alien detainees do not have a recognized constitutional right to habeas review.
It takes the agreement of four justices to hear a case, and three of them wanted to hear this one: David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Breyer explained his rationale in a dissent (PDF), while Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy issued a "statement" (also PDF) explaining their decision to demur until "the exhaustion of available remedies"--namely, detainees' ability to appeal their designation as enemy combatants to the D.C. Circuit.
Blogger Lyle Denniston speculates that it all came down to intracourt politics:
It was apparent from the array of votes publicly recorded in the cases that those Justices who wanted to hear the cases, now or next Term, very likely had failed to attract the support of Justice Kennedy. While Justice Stevens probably would have been inclined to vote for review, that woud [sic] have meant only four votes for review, enough for review but leaving the outcome on the merits uncertain because of Kennedy. Thus, Stevens appeared to have opted to join with Kennedy in writing separately to salvage some prospect of ultimate relief for the detainees if the government does not deal promptly or fairly with the detainees. The nature of that potential relief, however, was uncertain, since Stevens and Kennedy did not spell it out.
As we've noted before, it's likely, for actuarial and medical reasons, that Justice Stevens, Justice Ginsburg or both will leave the court before the end of the first term of President Bush's successor. Another justice of the Roberts-Alito persuasion would give the country some assurance that the Supreme Court does not regard the Constitution as a suicide pact. That is what is at stake in the next presidential election--and, if there is one, in this summer's Supreme Court confirmation battle.
Death to Mountains!
"Terrorism on Agenda at South Asian Summit"--headline, Voice of America Web site, April 2
Paws Are Still Permitted
"Dangerous Animals Ban Heads for Debate"--headline, Des Moines Register, March 29
Must've Been a Mouse on the Trading Floor
"Wall Street Eeks Out Higher Finish"--headline, FoxNews.com, March 30
Mr. Ed, in the Study, With the Poison
"Bar Harbor: Owner Claims Horse Killed With Poison"--headline, Bangor (Maine) Daily News, March 30
'Do These Pants Make Me Look Short?'
"Pet Owners Likely to Get Little in Suits"--headline, Associated Press, April 1
Say What?
"LG.Philips Aims to Make 11 Mln Modules by '11 in Poland"--headline, Reuters, March 31
Breaking News From 1981
"Pope Shooting Goes 'Way Beyond Basketball' "--headline, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, April 1
'I Still Remember His First Year'
"Golden State Recalls Rookie O'Bryant"--headline, Associated Press, March 29
Let's Hope It's Not a Spalling Test
"Einstein's Challange"--headline, WKKJ-FM Web site (Chillicothe, Ohio), March 30
Anyone Needing a Transplant, That's WHO!
"WHO Says Organ Demand Outstrips Supply"--headline, Associated Press, April 30
Bottom Stories of the Day
o "Sean Lennon Unfazed by Public Attention"--headline, Associated Press, March 30
o "DNR: No History in Singer's IU Home"--headline, Indianapolis Star, March 31
Fool's Gold
April Fool's Day fell on a Saturday last year and a Sunday this year, which means we haven't published our usual annual hoax issue of Best of the Web Today since 2005. But we'd like to tip our hat to a couple of excellent journalistic hoaxes from yesterday.
First, an Associated Press headline: "Thompson Declares Candidacy, Joining G.O.P. Field." After all the hype over Fred Thompson's possible run for president, readers like Matthew Yglesias were surprised that he made it official so soon. But the AP story wasn't really about Thompson; it was about someone named "Tommy" Thompson.
Then there is this New York Times headline: "Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms." It's the classic joke--"World Ends, Poor Hardest Hit"--but some clever devil actually managed to get it into the Times. April Fool, Pinch! |
