Best of the Web Today - March 26, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Kerry's Great American Joke-Out
It's been a big week for Beltway kerfuffles, starting with Dick Clarke on "60 Minutes." Now things are getting really silly, as Democrats blast President Bush for his humorous speech at Wednesday's Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner. Townhall.com has a transcript; here is the Washington Post's description of the president's shtick:
Bush playfully provided mock captions to a series of photographs taken in and around the White House. The president's "White House Election Year Album" included pokes at himself, Vice President Cheney and his presumed Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.).
One series of photos showed the president in awkward positions--on his knees, looking behind draperies and moving furniture in the Oval Office--accompanied by such comments as "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," "Nope, no weapons over there!" and "Maybe under here?"
A crowd of about 1,500 politicians, journalists and celebrities generally laughed along with the president's presentation.
David Corn of The Nation, a far-left magazine, was there, and he was not amused:
Even if Bush does not believe he lied to or misled the public, how can he make fun of the rationale for a war that has killed and maimed thousands? Imagine if Lyndon Johnson had joked about the trumped-up Gulf of Tonkin incident that he deceitfully used as a rationale for U.S. military action in Vietnam: "Who knew that fish had torpedoes?" Or if Ronald Reagan appeared at a correspondents event following the truck-bombing at the Marines barracks in Beirut--which killed over 200 American servicemen--and said, "Guess we forgot to put in a stop light."
John Kerry himself echoed the sentiment, in a statement yesterday: "That's supposed to be funny? If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale for going to war is a laughing matter, then he's even more out of touch than we thought. Unfortunately for the President, this is not a joke."
Mickey Kaus, however, begs to differ: "I thought Bush's jokes were funny and self-mocking--maybe the closest he's come to actually admitting upfront that he was simply wrong in thinking the WMD's were there." Kaus has a pretty good answer to Corn's Vietnam and Beirut analogies:
The difference, of course, is that the war Johnson fought using the Gulf of Tonkin incident produced very little except massive carnage and a Communist government in South Vietnam. The Beirut attack was a total loss. But American soldiers in Iraq--whether or not there were WMDs--are in the process of freeing a nation from a dictator. This accomplishment survives the Kay report. It doesn't "cheapen the sacrifice" American soldiers made achieving this goal to admit the truth about the WMDs. Does Kerry think the troops haven't achieved this?
We're inclined to agree with Kaus, and we'd add that Kerry's outrage led us to ponder the role of humor in presidential leadership. It strikes us that a sense of humor is an important trait of good character; it bespeaks an ability to put things in perspective and to refrain from taking oneself too seriously--a particular danger when you're the most powerful man in the world.
There have been two utterly humorless presidents in our memory: Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. According to the WSJ/Federalist Society Survey on Presidents, they were the worst two presidents since Warren G. Harding. Perhaps that wasn't a coincidence. If John Kerry showed any sign of having a sense of humor, we'd be a lot less uneasy about the idea of him in the White House.
That said, of course it's also true that some humor is in poor taste. Corn and Kerry's argument is that Bush's joke came at the expense of the soldiers who've personally sacrificed, in some cases made the ultimate sacrifice, for the liberation of Iraq. Since that liberation, which we strongly supported, did not entail any personal sacrifice on our part, we're hesitant to dismiss the objection out of hand. Then again, the Iraq war entailed no personal sacrifice for either Corn or Kerry, and one could just as easily argue that they are exploiting America's servicemen by objecting, ostensibly on their behalf, in an effort to score political points.
We'd like to know what the servicemen themselves think. Kaus reports that at the dinner, "I was seated next to two soldiers who'd returned injured from Iraq and were being treated at Walter Reed hospital. If I'd known Bush's joke was going to be a major object of puffed-up outrage, I would have monitored their reactions closely. But I didn't. They certainly didn't register any audible displeasure."
This column has a substantial readership in the military. If you or someone you love served in Iraq, we'd like to hear what you think of all this. Write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and if we get enough interesting responses, we'll publish them in a future column.
McAuliffe Imitates Saddam
Some Democrats, to be sure, have a sense of humor. USA Today reports on a jape by Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe: "Entering McAuliffe's new corner office, which is equipped as a TV studio, visitors walk over a doormat bearing a likeness of President Bush and the words, 'Give Bush the Boot.' " The Drudge Report has a picture.
The joke here may, however, be on McAuliffe. As Drudge notes, Saddam Hussein had a mosaic of Bush's father installed at the entrance of Baghdad's Al-Rashid Hotel. The Associated Press reported last April that U.S. troops "dug out the intricate tile mosaic of the former president that was used for years as a state-sponsored insult."
Another Foreign Leader for Kerry
"Several European politicians are coming together in an effort to throw [President] Bush out of office, on 'behalf of Europe and the world,' " Norway's Nettavisen reports. But the network is able to name only one pol involved in the effort: Knud Berthelsen, "the former vice president of the Young Liberals in Norway." Even the former president and the current vice president apparently are sitting this one out.
Nettavisen quotes Berthelsen as saying: "We cannot just sit back and watch Bush destroy the whole world. If there is only one political issue that we all agree on in Europe, it's this one." So far as we know, the Kerry campaign has not yet disavowed Berthelsen's implicit endorsement.
Accentuate the Negative
"Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged not to give in to terrorists, bristling at the notion that the Spanish are 'cowards' when it comes to facing terrorism," CNN reports.
So Zapatero is denying cowardice. This calls to mind Richard Nixon's declaring, "I am not a crook," Michael Dukakis's insistence that "of course, the vice president is questioning my patriotism" (a favorite Democratic campaign theme to this day), and, most recently, the ad for this year's presumptive Democratic nominee that states, "John Kerry has never called for a $900 billion tax increase." (So how much was it, $950 billion?)
It's a basic principle of public communication that when someone levels a charge against you, you do more harm than good if you simply repeat the charge while denying it. (In the case of Dukakis's charge of "questioning my patriotism," it was even worse, since Vice President Bush had never in fact done so.) You'd think professional politicians would eventually wise up about this, but somehow they don't.
EU to Israel: Appeasement Is the Answer
"The Middle East is moving 'ever further' from a peace settlement after an upsurge of violence exacerbated by Israel's killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, EU leaders warned Friday," EUBusiness reports:
"The European Council (of EU leaders) expressed its deep concern at the situation in the Middle East and the deepening of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," they said in their conclusions of a two-day EU summit.
The conflict has worsened "following in particular the extra-judicial killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin," added the statement.
This seems absurd on its face. How could the elimination of a mass murderer who had made clear that he would never accept anything less than the destruction of his enemy do anything other than enhance the prospects for peace? Rewarding terrorism only encourages more of it. Ha'aretz reports that, contrary to the EU-niks' advice, Israel's toughness is having a salutary effect on the attitudes of at least some prominent Palestinians:
Over 60 prominent Palestinian officials and intellectuals Thursday urged the public to refrain from retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, saying it would ignite a new round of bloodshed that would only hurt Palestinian aspirations for independence.
A half-page advertisement in the PLO's Al-Ayyam newspaper called on Palestinians to lay down their arms and turn to peaceful means of protest to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The ad reflected apparently growing sentiment among many Palestinian leaders and intellectuals that military struggle is not helping the Palestinian cause.
That "military struggle," of course, consists largely of blowing up restaurants and buses. If Europe really wanted to encourage Middle East peace, it would stand with Israel in its effort against terrorism.
Clinton's Ninja Plan
With Dick Clarke having reignited the debate over whether Bill Clinton responded adequately to al Qaeda, it's worth rehashing this bit from a November 2002 Associated Press dispatch about "The Age of Sacred Terror," a book by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, who worked in the National Security Council during the Clinton administration:
T hey say Clinton wanted to do something about al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan late in his second term, his cruise missile attacks on the group's facilities in August 1998 having achieved little.
He approached Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and said, according to the book, "It would scare the (expletive) out of al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters in to the middle of their camp. It would get us an enormous deterrence and show those guys we're not afraid."
Homer nods: Yesterday's item about Clarke's contradictions (since corrected) misstated the date of the USS Cole bombing. It was October 2000, not 2001.
Unborn Victims Get Protection
By a 61-38 vote, the U.S. Senate has passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which, as the Associated Press explains, "would make violence against a pregnant woman two separate crimes--one harming the woman and another against her unborn child." The House passed the bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign it.
Opponents of the bill--which resembles laws already on the books in many states--made the bizarre argument that it somehow undermined the right to abortion, even though that right is predicated on "a woman's right to choose," and few if any women choose to be assaulted. For advocates of legal abortion, it's probably just as well that they've finally lost this battle, because waging it only made them look ridiculous.
Great Minds Think Alike
Yesterday, inspired by the decision of county commissioners in Benton County, Ore., to ban the issuance of marriage licenses in protest of the traditional definition of marriage, we floated the idea that Massachusetts could forestall court-mandated same-sex marriage by simply issuing a similar ban. It turns out we weren't the first to come up with this idea; in a Feb. 11 piece for National Review Online, legal scholars Douglas Kmiec and Mark Scarberry suggested a similar moratorium. Come to think of it, we wonder if that's where Benton County got the idea.
Does This Include Bushes?
"FBI Issues Alert for Plants in Texas"--headline, Associated Press, March 25
What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Uncertainty Is Bad: Expert"--headline, Taipei Times, March 25
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Kaopectate Didn't Work?
"US, Indian Experts Join Hands to Fight Diarrhoea"--headline, Rediff.com (India), March 25
Murder Most Fowl
"Canada to Kill More Foul to Halt Avian Flu"--headline, Associated Press, March 25
Wake Us When It's Over
"National Sleep Awareness Week starts Saturday and ends next weekend when we lose an hour of sleep as daylight saving time begins."--WMAQ-TV Web site (Chicago), undated
Belt That Bowwow
Taking government nannyism to new heights, Santa Fe, N.M., "is considering requiring doggie seat belts," the Associated Press reports:
A major rewrite of the city's animal control ordinance proposes that Santa Fe dogs be buckled up when riding in trucks and other vehicles.
The ordinance endorsed Tuesday by a City Council committee would require an animal in the bed of a truck to be "crated or restrained . . . so it cannot fall or jump from the truck or be strangled." It also would require that any animal "in or on" a vehicle be restrained to keep it from falling out.
Speaking of dogs, reader Doug Foust wrote us with a new theory about John Kerry's purported pooch from Vietnam:
In regard to Kerry's story about how his boat crew's pet dog, VC, was catapulted by an explosion to another boat without injury, I believe I have an explanation. I believe that the dog in question was actually a coyote (appetitus voraciatus) and probably in pursuit of a road runner (velocitus extraordinarius). I have viewed several films of these animals and I am familiar with their behavior. The coyote is an expert in assembling demolition devises which he intends to use to kill the road runner, however invariably the coyote ends up the victim of his own explosions without harm to other persons. This would explain why the boat crew was uninjured.
John Kerry stated that when the crew found VC, their pet was uninjured. These coyotes have remarkable recuperative powers. Immediately after the blast, VC was probably staggering around on two legs with a black eye, bandages around the head, an arm in a sling, and some of his fur smoldering from burns but shortly after this time VC was no doubt fully healed and filling out a purchase form for two Acme speedboat rocket accelerators for his next attempt to capture or kill the road runner.
If only he'd worn a seat belt.
Word Up
The BBC is running an online vote to select the best word among 10 options. We'd like to urge all our readers to click through to the link above and cast a vote for kerfuffle (or some approximate spelling). As we write, the K-word is leading the pack, with 18% of the vote, followed by love at 13% and serendipity with 12%.
Meanwhile, Time magazine reports that "the Ben-Jen (or, ugh, Bennifer) affair was mild as Hollywood kafuffle goes." OK, we have a vague idea of what "the Ben-Jen affair" is--but what the heck is a "kafuffle"? |
