Best of the Web Today - February 23, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO - WSJ.com
The Emperor's New Uniform
"I'd like to know what it is Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have against those of us who did," John Kerry said in a statement over the weekend. He even wrote a letter to President Bush:
Over the last week, you and your campaign have initiated a widespread attack on my service in Vietnam, my decision to speak out to end that war, and my commitment to the defense of this nation. Just today, Saxby Chambliss--a man elected to the US Senate on the back of one of the most despicable campaigns ever conducted against Max Cleland, a true American Hero--was carrying this attack for you.
Hey, did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam?
What's going on here? Well, for one thing, as we've said before, John Kerry is awfully thin-skinned. As the Associated Press points out, what Chambliss said is that Kerry has a "32-year history of voting to cut defense programs and cut defense systems."
This overstates the case slightly, since Kerry didn't actually go to Congress until 1985 (before that, he was an antiwar activist, district attorney and Michael Dukakis's lieutenant governor), so he's been in a position to vote against defense for only 19 years. But as Joshua Muravchik points out in today's Washington Post, Chambliss is otherwise on target:
The litany of weapons systems that Kerry opposed included conventional as well as nuclear equipment: the B-1 bomber, the B-2, the F-15, the F-14A, the F-14D, the AH-64 Apache helicopter, the AV-8B Harrier jet, the Patriot missile, the Aegis air-defense cruiser and the Trident missile. And he sought to reduce procurement of the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Tomahawk cruise missile and the F-16 jet. Time and again, Kerry fought against what he called "the military-industrial corporate welfare complex that has relentlessly chewed up taxpayers' dollars."
Kerry also backed communists in Central America. "I see an enormous haughtiness in the United States trying to tell them what to do," the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, said of Ronald Reagan's Nicaragua policy--which, despite the efforts of Kerry and other congressional Democrats, produced free elections in 1990. He voted against the liberation of Kuwait and has been all over the map about the liberation of Iraq.
So no wonder Kerry would rather talk about his Vietnam service, which ended in 1969, than about anything he's done during the intervening 35 years.
There's something else going on as well. Kerry, remember, is still running for the Democratic nomination, and he is playing to his party base, which has bought into a self-defeating mythology, according to which any Republican criticism of a Democrat's national-defense record amounts to questioning the latter's patriotism, and this GOP approach works only because Democrats don't "fight back."
Like the grown-ups in "The Emperor's New Clothes," Democrats have persuaded themselves that Kerry's service in Vietnam is sufficient to shield him from scrutiny on his defense record. That's why they think he's "electable." Partisan Democrats want to believe they can beat President Bush, so they're happy to avert their gaze from unpleasant truths about Kerry's record in the Senate. The centrist voters Kerry would need to win in November are unlikely to be so forgiving.
Kerry Runs From Vietnam Record--II
Look again at that Kerry statement: "Over the last week, you and your campaign have initiated a widespread attack on my service in Vietnam, my decision to speak out to end that war, and my commitment to the defense of this nation." True enough, Republicans have questioned Kerry's commitment to America's defense by examining his voting record, which is perfectly legitimate. But Kerry is awfully defensive about his Vietnam service and his antiwar activity.
Indeed, as we noted Friday, he has already lied about the latter, claiming that he never accused American troops of war crimes, when in fact he did just that in his April 22, 1971, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (link in PDF format). He told CNN's Judy Woodruff last week that he was only "accusing American leaders of abandoning the troops."
The New York Post's John Podhoretz further debunks this claim, reporting on Kerry's activities with Vietnam Veterans Against the War:
Kerry was present at [VVAW's New York] offices in September 1970, when the group decided to write then-Mayor John V. Lindsay and demand that the city refuse to welcome another organization, one dedicated to representing other American servicemen.
The group John Kerry and his associates were protesting was The National Guard Association, which had its 1970 convention in New York at the Americana Hotel (now the New York Sheraton) from Sept. 13 to Sept. 17. Kerry's group set up a picket line in front of the Americana, and staged a protest rally against the Guard on Sept. 17, 1970 at 5:30 pm.
Why would they do such a thing? Here's the sort of rhetoric Kerry and Co. used to gather anti-war forces in a mimeographed flyer:
"The National Guard Uses Your Tax Dollar:
"To support the military-industrial complex
"To honor war criminals--Westmoreland, Laird, Nixon, etc.
"To applaud campus murders by National Guard units
"To encourage armed attacks on minority communities"
The decision to stage this defamatory protest against the National Guard--which then comprised 409,412 Army Guard and 89,847 Air Guard personnel--was made in John Kerry's presence and with his full knowledge. Executive-committee minutes for Vietnam Veterans Against the War note that among the six "members attending" a meeting to plan the protest was "John Kerry-NE Rep."
Now, Kerry and others will tell you that Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a group dedicated to advancing the interests of American servicemen--protecting them, bringing them home, helping them. The group's protest against the National Guard Association demonstrates that this claim is revisionist history with a vengeance.
Blogger John Henke notes this passage in a June 2003 Boston Globe piece on Kerry, describing a June 30, 1971, debate between Kerry and pro-war veteran John O'Neill on "The Dick Cavett Show":
Again and again, the question was asked: Did Kerry commit atrocities or see them committed by others? Kerry stuck to his script.
"I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that," Kerry said. "However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these acts, I find out later on, are contrary to the Hague and Geneva conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the application of the Nuremberg Principles, is in fact guilty. But we are not trying to find war criminals. That is not our purpose. It never has been."
Is John Kerry really a war criminal? Or did he just make this up for propaganda purposes? Either way, one begins to understand why Kerry might be on the defensive over his Vietnam-era record.
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
"One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin Roosevelt
"The buck stops here."--Harry Truman
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John Kennedy
"For Saxby Chambliss, who got out of going to Vietnam because of a trick knee, to attack John Kerry as weak on the defense of our nation is like a mackerel in the moonlight that both shines and stinks."--Max Cleland
The Angry Alternative
So Ralph Nader is running for president again. Will it matter? Probably not. Nader's candidacy probably was decisive in 2004, but only because the election was so freakishly close, and anyone who says this year's election is likely to be as close is just being silly; the chances of such an outcome are minuscule. (Which doesn't mean nonexistent; the chances of such a close election were minuscule last time around too.)
It's even possible that Nader could end up helping the Democratic nominee. He has become an object of hatred for many Democrats Todd Gitlin in Salon:
What Nader's decision amounts to is not logic but an exercise in monomania by a man who once accomplished great things and now believes that whatever he claims to accomplish is great by virtue of the fact that he claims it. Quixotic Nader, whose first run was tragedy, now tries farce. It's not funny.
Gitlin is wrong; it is funny. But if Nader's presence on the ballot helps stir up the Democratic base, Republicans may not be laughing come November.
Of course, this could go either way. Nader has a certain appeal to the extreme Angry Left, the kind of people who vote for Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich in Democratic primaries. In his interview on "Meet the Press" yesterday, Nader said things so extreme as to make Dean look like a paragon of reason, calling on Congress to impeach President Bush and describing Bush as "really a giant corporation in the White House masquerading as a human being."
This sort of thing may appeal to the hard-core Angry Left, but the Democratic primaries made clear this is a small consituency--and many of them will hold their noses and vote for Kerry (or whoever) anyway. Having Nader around could benefit Kerry further by making him look moderate, just as Dean did during the early nomination contests.
Party of Projection
In an article posted on the Angry Left site DemocraticUnderground three weeks ago, one Michael Dobbins blasted the White House for its supposed hostility to civil liberties:
After months of attempting to express their frustration with President Bush, hundreds of protesters were finally able to get into shouting distance during the President's public relations stunt celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This was just a taste of what Bush would hear at every visit if it were not for the illegal "free speech zones."
When these folks point at Republicans, they should remember that three fingers are pointing back at them. Friday's Boston Globe:
Protesters at this summer's Democratic National Convention in Boston may be confined to a cozy triangle of land off Haymarket Square, blocked off from the FleetCenter and convention delegates by a maze of Central Artery service roads, MBTA train tracks, and a temporary parking lot holding scores of buses and media trucks.
Under a preliminary plan floated by convention organizers, the "free-speech zone" would be a small plot bounded by Green Line tracks and North Washington Street, in an area that until recently was given over to the elevated artery. The zone would hold as few as 400 of the several thousand protesters who are expected in Boston in late July.
Likewise, the pro-Saddam types who insist that BUSH LIED!!!! about weapons of mass destruction never have an answer when you point out that Bill Clinton said much the same things that Bush did. But Seth Ackerman of the left-wing media criticism outfit Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting argues in Mother Jones that "the Clinton administration engaged in a pattern of stretching and distorting weapons data to bolster their claim that Saddam Hussein was still hiding an illicit arsenal. . . . In its desperate quest to salvage a crumbling Iraq policy, the Clinton White House laid the groundwork for the deceptions of their successors."
We're inclined to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt on this, though we fault him for leaving Saddam in power. But we'll give two cheers to Ackerman, an honest enough liberal to admit that if Bush lied, Clinton did too.
Who's Distracted?
"The top bomb-maker for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed in Fallujah," Fox News reports. "The bomb-making lieutenant, whose name wasn't released, died in a gun battle at a terrorist safe house late last week, military sources told Fox." Zarqawi, of course, is the al Qaeda man Colin Powell last year said had been operating inside Saddam's Iraq--but the "antiwar" crowd will still insist there's no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.
The World's Smallest Violin
Abdul Qadeer Khan was "a national hero in Pakistan," but that doesn't mean life was easy. He "suffered from depression owing to the pressure of work," London's Sunday Telegraph reports. "Dr Khan's personal psychiatrist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Telegraph that the 68-year-old scientist suffered from chronic depression, acute anxiety, hypertension and insomnia for many years. The doctor, who treated Dr Khan for a decade, said that work stress was his most serious problem."
You probably already know Khan's line of work, but in case you don't, he's the scientist who sold nuclear parts and know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
And here's an encore: The Associated Press reports Palestinian Islamic Jihad is complaining its Web site was hacked: "In an attempt aimed at silencing the Palestinian voice--which speaks for the resistance and defends the Palestinian people's right--hostile and malevolent Zionist and American quarters have struck the official Web site of Al Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement," according to a statement faxed to the AP's Beirut bureau.
What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Middle East Resents Outside Pressure to Implement Democratic Reforms, say Experts"--headline, Voice of America Web site, Feb. 22
Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Roly Poly Fish Heads
"Kerry Vows to Name Salmon Czar"--headline, Idaho Statesman (Boise), Feb. 22
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Schumer's Ap-peel Is Slipping
"Frankly, sharing a media market with Chuck Schumer is like sharing a banana with a monkey. Take a little bite of it, and he will throw his own feces at you."--Sen. Jon Corzine (D., N.J.), on his New York colleague, quoted in the New York Daily News, Feb. 20
Zero-Tolerance Watch
In a case we first noted last month, the Davis, Calif., Board of Education has voted to expel Howard Liston, an 18-year-old senior at Davis High School, for absentmindedly leaving an unloaded shotgun in his locked truck, which he drove to school. The Davis Enterprise quotes one of the board members, Joan Sallee, who voted in favor of the expulsion:
"More than an elected official or board member, I am a mother," Sallee said. "This has been the most heart-rending case that has been brought before us. Kids make dumb mistakes. But expulsions are mandatory under law. We have no options" under state law, she said.
In nearby San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom has been handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples, in violation of a law the voters passed in 2000, and the Rainbow Network reports Attorney General Bill Lockyer is defying Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order that he put a stop to this lawbreaking. If California's top law-enforcement official doesn't care about state law, why should Joan Sallee and her fellow board members?
Not Too Brite--CXXXIV
"A grenade exploded at a wedding in eastern Ethiopia, killing the bride and three other people," Reuters reports from Addis Ababa.
Oddly Enough!
(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)
It's the Eponymy, Stupid
Readers keep sending us e-mails about scholars, medical professionals and others with funny names, so here's another list of them:
Astoria, N.Y., has an optometrist named Anastasios Fokas. Writes reader George Lenz: "We all got a laugh when my wife started going to a new optometrist and the receptionist said: "Dr. Fokas, Mrs. Lenz."
In Fort Collins, Colo., there's a urologist named Peter Standard.
San Francisco dentist Les Plack "lives up to his name," Wired News reported in 2000. Let's hope Eagle River, Alaska, orthodontist Eldon DeKay doesn't live up to his.
If you needed your cornea reshaped, wouldn't you worry a bit if Dr. B. Stuart Trembly were conducting the procedure?
Along similar lines, would you go to a chiropractor named Alan Bonebreak?
And then there's Stubbs Prosthetics & Orthotics of Chattanooga, Tenn.
Assembling the following list proved quite an undertaking: the Bruce & Stiff Funeral Home, Appomattox, Va.; the Amigone Funeral Home, with 12 locations in the Buffalo, N.Y., area; Boxwell Brothers Funeral Directors, Amarillo, Texas; the Cease Funeral Home of Minnesota; Knell Mortuary, Carthage, Mo.; and the Deadman Funeral Home of Manchester, Tenn.
It's not clear if that last one is related to the Dedman Life Sciences Building at Southern Methodist University. And check out this 1999 announcement from International Jeweler magazine:
The American Gem Society's Jewelers Education Foundation, Las Vegas, NV, has named Lynn Diamond, executive director of the Diamond Promotion Service, to its board of governors. Diamond was formerly editor in chief and associate publisher of National Jeweler magazine. She has received the American Defense League's Torch of Liberty Award and the ORT Community Achievement Award.
Finally, there's this twofer--come to think of it, their first names make it a fourfer--the authors of the 1997 book "The Imperial Animal" are Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox. |
