Best of the Web Today - February 9, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Cut-and-Run Clintonites?
Here's a curious story that appeared in the Washington Post over the weekend:
"Some top Clinton administration officials wanted to end the Kosovo war abruptly in the summer of 1999, at almost any cost, because the presidential campaign of then-Vice President Al Gore was about to begin, former NATO commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark says in his official papers."
"There were those in the White House who said, 'Hey, look, you gotta finish the bombing before the Fourth of July weekend. That's the start of the next presidential campaign season, so stop it. It doesn't matter what you do, just turn it off. You don't have to win this thing, let it lie,' " Clark said in a January 2000 interview with NATO's official historian, four months before leaving the post of supreme allied commander Europe.
Clark's story is thin, to say the least. He didn't name the officials who purportedly pushed for ending the war "at almost any cost." In the event, Slobodan Milosevic capitulated on June 10, so the war was over by July 4 without any need to cut and run. The prospective July 4 deadline seems peculiar in any case--16 months before the election, and barely three months after the bombing began.
What's more, as the Associated Press reports, Clark quickly issued a denial:
Clark, campaigning in Virginia ahead of that state's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, said President Clinton and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, "were totally committed to this operation. I never had any political pressure to do anything but succeed." . . .
Clark did not say he was misquoted. Rather, he called the report "a stream-of-conscious dictation" with a historian. "I had to assemble all of my memory and think about what had actually happened. It was such a complex period of time," Clark said.
This is a Clintonian answer. He doesn't contradict his statement that "White House officials" wanted to end the war prematurely, saying only that Clinton and Berger were committed to victory. Whether his statement amounts to a flat denial depends on the meaning of the word "pressure."
It seems likely that Clark was telling the truth to the NATO historian. The administration had not yet relieved him of his command, so it's hard to see what motive he would have for badmouthing it. On the other hand, as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination he now has every reason to downplay his disagreements of his new party's last president.
Besides, Clark's description of the shenanigans in the Clinton White House is consistent with his party's behavior since. The Dems are about to nominate a candidate who has been all over the map on Iraq--voting for war, then opposing war, then even voting to defund the troops.
The party seems to have come to the conclusion that losing a war is a price worth paying for partisan political advantage. Apparently this was not Clinton's attitude vis-à-vis Kosovo, but would it really be a surprise if some officials in his White House took such an approach? That the candidates themselves are doing so with respect to Iraq just goes to show--we never thought we'd say this--how far the Democratic Party has fallen since Clinton.
Let's Get Physical
John Kerry notched another three victories over the weekend, easily finishing first in the Michigan, Washington and Maine caucuses. Blogger Mickey Kaus, a Kerry-loathing Democrat, has been tirelessly pointing out that Kerry is far from the mathematically certain nominee. Given certain fairly generous assumptions about Kerry's performance in upcoming contests, he "still doesn't mathematically wrap up the nomination on March 2, the date of the huge 10 state superprimary, or even by the end of the March 9 four-state southern primary, according to my admittedly insomniac algebra," Kaus writes.
Well, yeah, but so what? Bill Clinton didn't mathematically wrap up his re-election bid until he had 270 electoral votes, but it was obvious that he had won, and fairly handily, the moment he was projected the winner in Kentucky, a GOP-leaning swing state where the polls close early.
How prohibitive is Kerry's lead? This chart shows how often each candidate has finished in a given order in the 12 primaries and caucuses thus far:
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Kerry 10 1 1 0 0
Edwards 1 3 2 6 0
Clark 1 3 1 2 4
Dean 0 4 5 1 2
Kerry has more first-place showings than any other candidate has first-, second- and third-place showings combined. And the chart actually understates Kerry's strength, because it takes no note of the margins that separate the candidates. Alone among the contenders, Kerry has been competitive in every single contest, finishing a respectable second in South Carolina and a close third in Oklahoma. Many of his victories, though, have left even the second-place finisher far behind.
If Kerry has a weakness, it is the South. He finished 15 points behind John Edwards in the only Southern contest thus far, last week in South Carolina. If Kerry wins tomorrow's primaries in Tennessee and Virginia, that would essentially finish off John Edwards, the closest thing to a competitor Kerry has left. But even if Edwards wins those two states and everywhere else in the South, that won't be enough to stop Kerry.
It doesn't matter that Kerry hasn't mathematically sewn the thing up yet. Politics is better understood in terms of physics than math. We're all familiar with the physical metaphor--well, OK, cliché--of "momentum," as in Iowa gave Kerry the momentum he needed going into New Hampshire. "Momentum" in politics usually means "impetus," but in physics it means something a bit different: a body's mass times its velocity, or the power of its motion.
Momentum is closely related to inertia, the tendency of a moving body to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Kerry is now so far ahead that his inertia will be sufficient to carry him to the nomination. None of the other candidates retain enough force to stop him. Of course he could self-destruct, à la Howard Dean blowing up at Dale Ungerer. But does anyone think that's likely to happen?
The Heimlich Maneuverer
It turns out that guy from Vietnam isn't the only Republican who owes his life to John Kerry. The Las Vegas Sun reports that Kerry once saved Chic Hecht, then a GOP senator from Nevada. The story recalls a famous restaurant scene from "Bonfire of the Vanities," only this time, it has a happy ending:
On July 12, 1988, Hecht was attending a weekly Republican luncheon when a piece of apple lodged firmly in his throat.
Hecht stumbled out of the room, thinking he might vomit but not wanting to do it in front of his colleagues. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., thumped his back, but Hecht quickly passed out in the hallway.
Just then, Kerry stepped off an elevator, rushed to Hecht's side and gave him the Heimlich maneuver--four times. . . . "This man gave me my life," the 75-year-old Hecht said Thursday.
Whereas the Vietnam guy has said he'll support Kerry for president, Hecht declines to make his intentions known: "Only the Good Lord and myself will know how I'm going to vote," he tells the Sun. Still, that means that among Republicans whose lives Kerry saved, he has 50% to zero for President Bush, with another 50% undeclared. If he can save the lives of a few million more Republicans in swing states by Election Day, he ought to be unbeatable.
Overserved
John Kerry, the haughty French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in . . . Oh, never mind, we'll just let the Washington Post say it:
The simple mention of Vietnam spurs a John Kerry crowd to applause. . . . Simply say "Vietnam" and a Kerry gathering--in this case 300 supporters in a Marriott ballroom here Saturday night--yells approval. . . . "Vietnam" in and of itself has become a rock star brand within Kerry's apparent juggernaut for the Democratic presidential nomination. . . .
"This man knows John Kerry from Vietnam," said Virginia state Sen. Henry Marsh of Vietnam vet Del Sandusky of Elgin, Ill., who would introduce Kerry in Richmond, as he has at many rallies across the country. There were more knowing nods and affirming cheers, both for the men--Kerry and Sandusky--and for the asset itself, Vietnam. . . .
Vietnam is Kerry's best offense and defense: He was there, Bush wasn't. And if the Republicans deride him--when they deride him--as a "Massachusetts liberal," Vietnam will be his patriotic armor.
That "patriotic armor" line is telling. Kerry's entire campaign, it seems, centers on his defensiveness over his own patriotism. Every time Kerry says "Vietnam," it calls to mind Michael Dukakis in 1988: "Of course the vice president is questioning my patriotism. . . . And I resent it."
Ironically, it is precisely Vietnam--Kerry's "patriotic armor"--that rendered the Democrats unreliable on national security (or, as Dems and only Dems put it, that raised "questions" about their "patriotism"). It was Democrats who started the war in Vietnam, and Democrats who later opposed the war and cut off aid to Saigon. If his party hadn't made such a hash of Vietnam, Kerry wouldn't need "patriotic armor" any more than FDR or Truman did.
There's a weird psychological phenomenon at work when Democratic crowds cheer wildly every time Kerry mentions Vietnam. It's as if they believe nominating a Vietnam vet will finally allow the party to overcome the destructive legacy of Vietnam. But Kerry's approach to national security has been weak and vacillating (see today's Wall Street Journal editorial for examples).
Kerry's service in Vietnam was honorable, even heroic. But his service as a political leader has embodied the destructive legacy that war left for the country, and especially for the Democratic Party.
Mr. Populist
"Back when federal lawmakers legally could be paid for speaking to outside groups, John Kerry collected more than $120,000 in fees from interests as diverse as big oil, tobacco, the liquor lobby and unions," the Associated Press reports. "Between 1985 and 1990, Kerry's first five years in the Senate from Massachusetts, he pocketed annual amounts slightly under the limits for speaking fees set by Congress. Unlike many colleagues, he donated a speaking fee to charity only once."
This Just In
"Dean May Gain Little With Gore's Approval"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 6
Viral Politics
From a New York Times magazine article on computer virus authors:
''I am a social reject,'' admitted Vorgon (as he called himself), a virus writer in Toronto with whom I exchanged messages one night in an online chat channel. He studied computer science in college but couldn't find a computer job after sending out 400 resumes. With ''no friends, not much family'' and no girlfriend for years, he became depressed. He attempted suicide, he said, by walking out one frigid winter night into a nearby forest for five hours with no jacket on. But then he got into the virus-writing scene and found a community. ''I met a lot of cool people who were interested in what I did,'' he wrote. ''They made me feel good again.'' He called his first virus FirstBorn to celebrate his new identity. Later, he saw that one of his worms had been written up as an alert on an antivirus site, and it thrilled him. ''Kinda like when I got my first girlfriend,'' he wrote. ''I was god for a couple days.'' He began work on another worm, trying to recapture the feeling. ''I spent three months working on it just so I could have those couple of days of godliness.''
This sounds weirdly similar to the Howard Dean supporters described in a New York Times magazine article we noted in December. Could it be that there's some connection between the Dean campaign's collapse and the recent upsurge in virus activity?
We'd Like Some Fried Rice With That
"MI Dem Pres Sum"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 7
Who's Distracted?
"American officials here have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help to wage a 'sectarian war' in Iraq in the next months," the New York Times reports from Baghdad. The memo suggests that Iraq's liberation is crucial for America's war on Islamist terrorists, and that it's working:
The Iraqis themselves, the writer says, have not been receptive to taking holy warriors into their homes.
"Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother," according to the document. "However, they will not allow you to make their home a base for operations or a safe house."
The writer contends that the American efforts to set up Iraqi security services have succeeded in depriving the insurgents of allies, particularly in a country where kinship networks are extensive.
"The problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood and appearance," the document says. "When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region."
With some exasperation, the author writes: "We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases.
"By God, this is suffocation!" the writer says. . . .
"The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority," the letter states. "This is the democracy. We will have no pretexts."
The letter is believed to have been written by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an al Qaeda operative who American officials said was operating in preliberation Iraq.
Musharraf to Khan: Keep Your Dirty Money
"President Pervaiz Musharraf has pledged that the disgraced founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme can keep the vast wealth he accumulated selling bomb-making technology to rogue states around the world," reports London's Sunday Telegraph:
"He can keep his money," Gen Musharraf said, adding that there had been good reason not to investigate the origin of Dr Khan's suspicious wealth before 1998, when Pakistan successfully tested its first nuclear weapon. "We wanted the bomb in the national interest and so you have to ask yourself whether you act against the person who enabled you to get the bomb."
Gee, that's just great. The Daily Telegraph reports today that Musharraf shut down Khan's "nuclear supermarket" after American officials "with 'mind boggling' evidence" and threatened him with sanctions and isolation. "News of the secret confrontation helps to explain Washington's muted public response since Khan confessed last week to selling nuclear technology to the world's most radical anti-Western states."
Good Times at Gitmo
"An Afghan boy whose 14-month detention by US authorities as a terrorist suspect in Cuba prompted an outcry from human rights campaigners said yesterday that he enjoyed his time in the camp," the Sunday Telegraph reports. Mohammed Ismail Agha, 15, was released last week:
In a first interview with any of the three juveniles held by the US at Guantanamo Bay base, Mohammed said: "They gave me a good time in Cuba. They were very nice to me, giving me English lessons."
Mohammed, an unemployed Afghan farmer, found the surroundings in Cuba at first baffling. After he settled in, however, he was left to enjoy stimulating school work, good food and prayer.
"At first I was unhappy. . . . For two or three days [after I arrived in Cuba] I was confused but later the Americans were so nice to me. They gave me good food with fruit and water for ablutions and prayer," he said yesterday in Naw Zad, a remote market town in southern Afghanistan close to his home village and 300 miles south-west of Kabul, the capital.
The paper notes dryly that "his words will disappoint critics of the US policy of detaining "illegal combatants" in south-east Cuba indefinitely and without trial."
Looking Down on the South
Here's a weird piece in Salon, by the irritating TV personality Bill Maher:
New rule: Southerners have to at least consider voting for candidates from the North.
North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has a powerful argument in his bid to be the Democratic nominee when he says, "What I give people is a candidate who can win everywhere in America."
Translation: "We Southerners ain't gonna vote for no Yankee! You suckers up North will take our Clintons and Carters, but we just ain't buyin' Kerrys and Deans." . . .
I feel bad for the millions of intelligent people who live in a region still dominated by so much prejudice that anyone who wants to be president better have a twang in his voice and pronounce all four E's in the word "sh--."
But Southerners are quite willing to vote for non-Southern candidates. In 1980, for example, Ronald Reagan challenged Jimmy Carter. Carter carried his home state of Georgia, but the rest of the region went with the Californian. Similarly, in 1996 Bob Dole and Jack Kemp--a Kansan and a New Yorker--carried seven Southern states; their opponents, Southerners Bill Clinton and Al Gore, took only five (counting Kentucky).
True, no non-Southern Democrat has won a Southern state since 1968, when Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota carried Texas. Then again, Southerner Al Gore lost every single Southern state in 2000. Plainly the problem is not that Southerners don't like Yankees but that they don't like the attitude and ideology of today's Democratic Party. Maher himself embodies this condescending attitude:
Getting rid of slavery was a good start. But don't quit there: Stop being the place that's always challenging the theory of evolution. What's next, gravity? Is that just a plot by the Jews up North to get people to drop spare change?
Speaking of evolution, Sam Fulwood of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has an interesting column on the subject. Fulwood blasts "knuckle-dragging creationists--a.k.a. proponents of 'intelligent design' "--who he says "are trying to crawl back into Ohio's public schools." Here's his specific complaint:
In September, the state school board approved a draft of the science curriculum for field-testing and public comment. That draft requires that every facet of teaching about evolution be challenged point by point--a clear invitation to talk about creationism.
This column has no brief for creationism. Evolution is a scientific theory about the development of live, whereas an explanation that includes supernatural forces is outside the realm of science. But note that Fulwood is objecting to the idea that evolution be "challenged." This directly contravenes the scientific method, in which all knowledge is contingent and subject to challenge. It is very clever the way creationists have managed to trick their critics into presenting evolution as if it were not a scientific theory at all but merely a rival dogma.
Homer Nods
John Adams, not his son John Quincy Adams, lived to be 90; the younger Adams only made it to 80. In our Friday item on Ronald Reagan's 93rd birthday, we absent-mindedly cited the wrong Adams.
Our item also stated that President Reagan today is universally beloved and admired. Three readers wrote to us to say they either do not love and admire him, know people who do not, or have heard stories of such people. This has the sound of an urban legend, but let's just say it may be the case that Reagan is only almost universally beloved and admired.
When Thanksgiving Dinners Go Bad
"Two Men Charged in Deadly Turkey Collapse"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 6
Some Folks Are Easily Pleased
"Man Appreciates Not Being Killed"--headline, Nevada Appeal (Carson City), Feb. 5
News You Can Use
"Walking 10,000 Steps May Require Exercise"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 8
Gay Sex Is for the Birds
OK, we have to hand it to whoever wrote the headline for this New York Times story: "Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name." It seems Manhattan's Central Park Zoo has a pair of homosexual penguins:
For nearly six years now, they have been inseparable. They exhibit what in penguin parlance is called "ecstatic behavior": that is, they entwine their necks, they vocalize to each other, they have sex. . . . When offered female companionship, they have adamantly refused it. And the females aren't interested in them, either.
They even adopted a penguin chick--though if they want to marry, they'll have to move to the Franklin Park Zoo.
Meanwhile, our Friday item on Sen. Carl Levin prompted reader John Relle to observe: "Ever notice how much Carl Levin looks like the Penguin in the Batman comics and movies?"
Sweet and Sour Kerfuffle
Someone at a law firm made a silly ethnic joke, and it made the New York Times:
It began, like so many office controversies, with an e-mail message.
Responding to a note seeking someone to adopt a puppy, a partner in the London office of the law firm of Dewey Ballantine wrote, "Don't let them go to a Chinese restaurant." . . .
It is rare but not unheard-of for dog to appear on the menu in a restaurant in China, and dog is even less likely to be offered by Chinese restaurants in other parts of the world. The message was offensive, associates at the firm say, because it seemed to mock Chinese people.
"People say, 'Oh, you're just being oversensitive,' but I think it's a symptom of something underlying," said Karen Y. Tu, a second-year law student at Columbia who is co-chairwoman of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. She later said: "What is going to change this environment? What is going to make it easier? What is going to make Asian-Americans comfortable about going back to Dewey?"
Luckily for erstwhile weapons inspector David Kay, he isn't married to Karen Y. Tu, or he'd have a Y. Tu Kay problem. |
