Best of the Web Today - June 25, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Best of the Tube Tomorrow
We're scheduled to appear tomorrow at 1:20 p.m. EDT on Fox News Channel's "Weekend Live" program to discuss our new book, "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House," which by the way is available through the OpinionJournal bookstore.
Thanks, incidentally, to those readers who've let us know, by e-mail or in person, how much you are enjoying the book. Believe it or not, there are actually two guys who don't like it. Unfortunately, both of them, Tom Denty and Jon Hunt, have written reviews of it for Amazon.com. Our impression is that Amazon publishes positive as well as negative reviews, so we just wanted to reassure you that we wouldn't take offense if you were to submit one.
Gore: Nazis Invaded My Internet!
Al Gore is kicking himself for having taken the initiative in creating the Internet. It turns out that people who disagree with Gore's views are able to use the Internet to (horrors) express their opinions. And that means they're Nazis! So said the erstwhile veep yesterday, in his latest wild-eyed rant:
The [Bush] administration works closely with a network of "rapid response" digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for "undermining support for our troops." [Former Enron adviser] Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, was one of the first journalists to regularly expose the President's consistent distortions of the facts. Krugman writes, "Let's not overlook the role of intimidation. After 9/11, if you were thinking of saying anything negative of the President . . . you had to expect right-wing pundits and publications to do all they could to ruin your reputation."
You have to love this. Just imagine Krugman, who espouses his views twice a week with the protection of the First Amendment and the support of the mighty New York Times Co., cowering in his Princeton mansion, so "intimidated" is he by a motley crew of Internetters. It's not clear if Gore is referring to bloggers and online columnists--that is, people like us--or, as Jonah Goldberg interprets it, to "GOP flacks who email rebuttals to journalists." But in any case, it's sheer lunacy to refer to people as "brownshirts"--i.e., Nazi storm troopers--merely for exercising their First Amendment rights in criticizing the likes of Krugman.
Of course Gore too is simply practicing free speech, and we wouldn't dream of stifling him--especially since, applying Godwin's Law, his resort to Nazi analogies proves that his side has lost the argument.
The funny thing is, Gore was originally on the winning side. Back in 1992 he said: "There were repeated incidents of terrorism in which Iraq had a part, terrorists operating openly in Baghdad, and repeated warnings from our national security people telling the Bush administration that Saddam was on a crash program to develop nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction."
But here he is this week:
President Bush repeatedly gave our people the clear impression that Iraq was an ally and partner to the terrorist group that attacked us, al Qaeda, and not only provided a geographic base for them but was also close to providing them weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bombs. But now the extensive independent investigation by the bipartisan commission formed to study the 9/11 attacks has just reported that there was no meaningful relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda of any kind. And, of course, over the course of this past year we had previously found out that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
What happened to Gore? Was he lying in 1992? Is he lying now? Does he believe that Saddam Hussein reformed in the interim? Who knows?
Meanwhile, Paul Krugman's New York Times reports that "contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990's were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq."
The Times says it received this document "several weeks ago," which would be before it published a June 17 editorial declaring flatly that "there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda." The editorial went on to say that "President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different."
Will the Times now apologize to the American people--not to mention the Iraqi people, who, if the Times had its way, would still be living under Saddam's boot? Will Al Gore?
From the Big House to Your House
Remember William Horton? He's the Massachusetts murderer who ended up becoming a campaign issue in 1988. Released from prison under a weekend furlough program while Michael Dukakis was governor, Horton traveled to Maryland, where he visited a couple. He brutalized the husband and raped the wife. Al Gore, in his losing campaign for the Democratic nomination, brought up the Horton story in an attempt to paint Dukakis as soft on crime.
Horton later endorsed Dukakis in the general election, though he wasn't able to vote for him, since he was behind bars in Maryland, which, unlike Massachusetts at the time, did not permit incarcerated felons to vote. For the past 16 years, Democrats have constantly talked about Horton, taking special care to draw attention to his race (he is black).
Anyway, a Democratic group funded by anti-American jillionaire George Soros, seems to think it's a great idea to have violent felons visit Americans at home, as the Associated Press reports:
A Democratic group crucial to John Kerry's presidential campaign has paid felons some convicted of sex offenses, assault and burglary to conduct door-to-door voter registration drives in at least three election swing states.
America Coming Together, contending that convicted criminals deserve a second chance in society, employs felons as voter canvassers in major metropolitan areas in Missouri, Florida, Ohio and perhaps in other states among the 17 it is targeting in its drive. Some lived in halfway houses, and at least four returned to prison.
ACT canvassers ask residents which issues are important to them and, if they are not registered, sign them up as voters. They gather telephone numbers and other personal information, such as driver's license numbers or partial Social Security numbers, depending on what a state requires for voter registration.
One shudders to think what happens to those who tell the ACT canvassers they're Republicans. Anyway, another AP dispatch says ACT has now "pledged . . . to weed out any employees convicted of violent or serious offenses." But "it declined to define what it considers violent or serious offenses under the new policy."
Meanwhile, the AP reports from Phoenix that two Democrats have filed a lawsuit seeking to deny left-wing independent Ralph Nader a spot on Arizona's ballot. The plaintiffs "alleged in the complaint that some of those who circulated petitions for Nader didn't meet residency requirements and other qualifications. Three of the petition circulators are prohibited from gathering signatures because they are convicted felons, the lawsuit said."
A Sorry Judge
Judge Guido Calabresi has apologized for likening George W. Bush's 2000 election victory to the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, Reuters reports in its "Oddly Enough" section. "My remarks were extemporaneous and, in hindsight, reasonably could be--and indeed have been--understood to do something which I did not intend, that is, take a partisan position," Calabresi said in a letter to John Walker Jr., chief judge of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Since Calabresi urged Americans to vote against Bush, it's hard to see how he could not have intended it as a "partisan position."
The New York Times, which argued that Justice Antonin Scalia's personal friendship with the vice president disqualified him from ruling in a case involving the office of the vice president, has yet to editorialize on Calabresi's blatant disregard for judicial ethics, though it did waddle in today with a brief news story about Calabresi's remarks, four days after being scooped by the New York Sun.
The Times also, so far as we know, did not call on Justice Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee, to recuse himself from a case involving federal mandatory sentencing, even though, as a news story on yesterday's decision notes, Breyer was "an author of the federal system when he worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee as its chief counsel in the late 1970's. As a federal appeals court judge, he then served on the United States Sentencing Commission."
The Chicago Tribune reports on another apparent conflict of interest: Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the 9/11 commission, showed up the other night at a Washington screening of "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's agitprop piece blaming President Bush for the terrorist attacks on America. "When asked whether he had any qualms about attending a highly partisan screening one month before the panel releases its report on the attacks, Ben-Veniste huffed, 'What a foolish question.' "
A Cult Movie
The Village Voice takes to the streets of New York to survey viewers of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Among the questions the lefty weekly asks: "Did the film change your mind?" Here are the answers:
"No. It intensified it."--Alan Page
"Nope. As a foreigner, this is the view we have of the war outside the U.S. We see what they're telling you, so this film is very important for the U.S."--Patricia Arriaga
"No, it ddn't."--Tom Allsup
"It reinforced my views."--Kenneth Breger
"Yes. I thought that Michael Moore was the biggest ass on earth and I wanted to attack him, but he is a genius. He knows the power of image and cinema. Even though I hate Bush, I thought doing this on Bush is easy. Everybody could do it. I was ready to kill the guy [Moore], but I must say, it's a good movie."--Lena Cohen
"No. Not one bit. It totally reinforced me and made me more angry. I want people who believe the Bush line to go see it."--Shazia Ahmad
"No. I was [already] convinced Bush has no integrity. I felt for the first time how horrible it is for the people who died or are wounded. Americans are victims. These are our people who are dying."--Sheila Schwid
"No, it reinforced it."--Casey Krugman (Note: The Voice doesn't say if he's related to the former Enron adviser with the same surname.)
"No, it reinforced [it]. It made me feel like I had to spring into action."--Tim Grimes
"I'm a Michael Moore fan. I'm already anti-Bush, but now people who would've voted [for him] before are against him."--Rory Broadfoot
So the Voice couldn't find a single soul whose mind the movie changed about Bush. It seems likely that "Fahrenheit 9/11" will end up being nothing more than a work of Angry Left pornography.
Separation for Thee, Not for Me
"Let's keep religion out of the presidential election campaign," begins the latest column by Helen Thomas. American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic is angry with the country's Catholic bishops, who've authorized priests to deny communion to pols who back legal abortion, which the church regards as murder:
The bishops' policy affects Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a Catholic and former altar boy who is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
If Thomas wants to keep religion out of politics, why does she feel compelled to inform us that Kerry is a "former altar boy"?
Don't Know Much About History
John Kerry made a rare appearance on Capitol Hill the other day, hoping to cast a vote on "an amendment to bolster veterans' health care," Reuters reports. Mischievous Republicans postponed the vote, so that Kerry was gone by the time it took place.
Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, isn't happy:
Daschle blasted Republicans for not bringing his proposed amendment for a vote by late on Tuesday and noted the Senate has often accommodated members running for president.
"Often"? In fact, the last sitting senator to be nominated by either party for president was George McGovern in 1972, 14 years before Daschle's election to the Senate. (Bob Dole had already left the Senate by this point in the 1996 campaign.) Daschle was born in 1947; in his lifetime, only three sitting senators have received their party's presidential nod: John F. Kennedy in 1960, Barry Goldwater in 1964 and McGovern.
This Just In
"Bush, Kerry Focus Attention on Economy, but See It Differently"--headline, Olympian (Olympia, Wash.), June 23
What Would We Do Without Lewinsky?
"Lewinsky: Clinton Lied About Relationship"--headline, CNN.com, June 25
The Senator From Splitsville
Probably the Democrats' best hope for picking up a Senate seat is in Illinois, where their man, Barack Obama, has had a comfortable lead in the polls over GOP nominee Jack Ryan to replace retiring Republican Peter Fitzgerald. Now the Republicans are going to have to find a new candidate. "Ryan intends to abandon his Senate bid after four days spent trying to weather a political storm stirred by sex club allegations, GOP officials said Friday," the Associated Press reports.
The Chicago Tribune describes the allegations:
This is not the usual fare of Illinois politics. Sex clubs. Whips. Cages. Mattresses in darkened cubicles. Among the allegations contained in Ryan's 1999 divorce and child-custody files are that he tried to pressure his wife, television actress Jeri Ryan, to perform sex acts while others watched.
Unfortunately for Ryan, Illinois, where Al Gore beat George W. Bush by 12%, is not generally considered a "swing" state.
The Wrong Kind of Black Student?
America's elite colleges have made Herculean efforts to enroll black students, but now some proponents of racial preferences are complaining that they're admitting the wrong blacks, the New York Times reports from Cambridge, Mass.:
While about 8 percent, or about 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Harvard's African and African-American studies department, pointed out that the majority of them--perhaps as many as two-thirds--were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples.
They said that only about a third of the students were from families in which all four grandparents were born in this country, descendants of slaves. Many argue that it was students like these, disadvantaged by the legacy of Jim Crow laws, segregation and decades of racism, poverty and inferior schools, who were intended as principal beneficiaries of affirmative action in university admissions.
What concerned the two professors, they said, was that in the high-stakes world of admissions to the most selective colleges--and with it, entry into the country's inner circles of power, wealth and influence--African-American students whose families have been in America for generations were being left behind.
If blacks who are immigrants from African and Caribbean countries--lands that aren't exactly "advantaged" themselves--are doing so much better than black Americans whose lineage is pure enough to satisfy Guinier and Gates, doesn't that give the lie to the claim that continuing racism is the reason for black Americans' underachievement?
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What Would We Do Without Manure Handlers?
"Manure Handlers Become Experts"--headline, Farm and Dairy, June 24
You Don't Say
"Drowning Underscores Water Hazards"--headline, Oregonian (Portland), June 22
His Cellmate Is the Hamburglar
"Ronald McDonald Charged Following Nuclear Bunker Armed Siege"--headline, Scottish TV Web site, June 11
This Is Why Jefferson Bought It?
"Blanco Aggressively Selling Louisiana to Corporate America"--headline, Sherveport (La.) Times, June 25
Stamp Out Stigma?
"The U.S. government wants to end the stigma of food stamps--by giving them a new name to add to their new look," Reuters reports. Food stamps haven't literally been "stamps" for some seven decades:
Food stamps, which help poor people buy groceries, were offered for four years to combat the Great Depression in the 1930s. Paper coupons succeeded the original orange and blue stamps when the program was revived in the 1960s. It became a nationwide program in 1974.
Now the coupons are to give way to electronic cards. Advocates of changing the name, Reuters says, argue that "a new name would remove the stigma associated with the coupons."
But that's silly. The stigma doesn't come from the name. After all, there's no stigma to shopping at a food store or using postage stamps. If there's a stigma associated with food stamps, it's because of what they are--a government handout at taxpayer expense. Food "cards"--or whatever we end up calling them--would surely carry the same stigma. And if that helps encourage some people to avoid the government dole and work for a living instead, surely it's all to the good. |
