Best of the Web Today - July 23, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Best of the Tube This Weekend
Wednesday morning found us giving a talk at New York's Harvard Club on "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House" at a breakfast sponsored by our erstwhile employer, the Manhattan Institute. (If you don't already have the book, or for that matter if you do, it's available from the OpinionJournal bookstore.)
A few hearty souls came out to see us in person, despite the ungodly hour of 8:30 a.m. If you weren't among them, you're in luck. C-Span cameras were there recording the event, and it will air on "Book TV," on C-Span 2 (not C-Span proper) this Sunday at the godly hours of 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern Time. If you tune in at the beginning, you can catch Peggy Noonan's wonderful intro, in which she likens us to a randy penitent in a Catholic priest joke.
Lanny the Leaker?
The partisan press is trying to recast Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger's alleged theft of documents from the National Archives as a Republican scandal. Today the Washington Post gets on board, with a news article reporting that "for the second day in a row, administration officials said yesterday that more of President Bush's aides knew about [the] investigation . . . than the White House originally acknowledged."
A Post editorial also takes aim at the administration:
It's hard not to be repulsed by the reaction to the affair by President Bush's campaign spokesmen and Republicans in Congress. They have suggested, without foundation, that Mr. Berger took the papers to benefit Mr. [John] Kerry, who [by the way served in Vietnam and] says that he knew nothing of the matter.
Well, fair enough; the claim that Berger filched the docs to help Kerry, repulsive or not, is indeed without foundation. But the Post concludes its editorial with some unfounded speculation of its own:
It's worth noting that news of the months-old investigation of Mr. Berger just happened to leak on the week before the Democratic convention, and two days before the release of the Sept. 11 commission's report--which covers serious lapses by President Bush as well as President Bill Clinton. Officials at the Bush White House had been briefed on the Berger probe. Could that be a coincidence?
It's weird to see journalists engaging in this Beltway speculation over who "leaked" the information to the press. After all, journalists are supposed to like leaks, which further "the public's right to know" and, more importantly, reporters' ability to get scoops. But somehow when the leak is seen as benefiting Republicans--recall the Valerie Plame kerfuffle as well--the press's partisanship seems to override its thirst for information.
But as long as everyone else is playing this game, we might as well join in. Many observers have made the point that it's far from a given that it was a Republican source who put this story into circulation. Democrats could have done so now to avoid its coming out just before the election. On Wednesday National Review's Jonah Goldberg fingers one suspect, Lanny Davis, a former special counsel to President Clinton:
The fellow who broke the Berger story was John Solomon [of the Associated Press]. And According to Davis, Solomon was "the most fair" reporter he knew because Solomon was willing to take so many items from Davis.
Goldberg quotes an April 12, 1999, article by the Washington Post's media reporter, Howard Kurtz:
In "Truth to Tell," [a book] out next month, Davis argues for "good," factually based spin over "bad," deceptive spin--but concedes that some of his spin was "so transparent that it is amazing that we thought we could get away with it." . . .
Davis called the reporter he deemed most fair, the AP's John Solomon, with documents suggesting that Clinton had made fund-raising calls from the White House residence. The leak occurred on July 3, 1997, so the story would get lost on the Fourth of July holiday.
Yesterday Davis appeared on Linda Chavez's radio program, and a caller named David asked him if he was the Berger leaker. He evaded the question (an audio clip, in MP3 format, is here):
David: National Review is insinuating that the whole hoopla about who leaked this to the AP reporter could be settled by posing the question to Mr. Davis. They've suggested that since he cites the same reporter in his book and his articles about public relations . . .
Davis: (laughter)
Chavez: I think we're getting a response, David.
David: . . . that he may be the one that may have leaked this, since this is his favorite reporter.
Chavez: . . . Lanny Davis, did you leak this?
Davis: Well first off, thank you caller for asking me that. I've heard about that. The caller is absolutely correct; I wrote a chapter in my book about one of the great reporters who covered the White House, John Solomon of the Associated Press. I always get him into trouble by saying he's a great reporter, because people think he treated us with a soft touch. In fact [he] killed us almost all the time. But I'm afraid that if I asked John Solomon "Who leaked it to you?" he would give me the same answer that he's always given me when I ask that question, which is, "None of your business."
Chavez: Well, OK, Lanny, but David was asking you; he wasn't asking John Solomon: Did you leak this information to John Solomon in order to get the bad news out first?
Davis: Oh, did I? (laughter) Well, let me put it this way: Had I been asked last October by my old friend Sandy Berger, who is a great man, an honest man, and has done something that he sincerely regrets--I would have suggested to Sandy that we call John Solomon and that he sit down with John Solomon and tell him the whole story and get the story out last October. Because sure as the sun rises in the east, Linda, there were enough people who knew about this that this particular week out of 52 weeks in 2004 is not surprising as the week that somebody chose to leak the story.
Davis's evasion doesn't necessarily mean he was the leaker, but it's certainly curious.
Mr. 'No'
The New York Sun reports that Sandy Berger nixed a proposal to get Osama bin Laden nearly five years ago:
On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council's counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: "In the margin next to Clarke's suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, 'no.' "
Meanwhile, New York's Daily News reports that "U.S. officials scrapped a 1999 plan to offer the Taliban a $250 million bribe to turn over Osama Bin Laden, fearing then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would object to paying off the infamous women's rights abusers":
According to the final 9/11 commission report, Bill Clinton's administration had already made fruitless overtures to the Taliban, paying $10 million to $20 million annually in bribes.
"Two senior State Department officials suggested asking the Saudis to offer the Taliban $250 million for Bin Laden," the report said, citing a May 1999 memo. But White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke "opposed . . . a 'huge grant to a regime as heinous as the Taliban' and suggested that the idea might not seem attractive to either Secretary Albright or First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton--both critics of the Taliban's record on women's rights."
The bribe idea sounds half-baked anyway, but should the sensibilities of the president's wife really weigh so heavily on questions of national security?
Did Reuters See a Different Report?
"Sept. 11 Panel Says Government Failures Not to Blame for Attacks"--headline, Associated Press, July 22
"9/11 Inquiry Damns US Government"--headline, Reuters, July 22
"Leaders Not Blamed in 9/11 Report"--headline, Associated Press, July 22
"9/11 Panel Point to Bush and Clinton Failings"--headline, Reuters, July 22
What Would We Do Without Panels?
"Fix Terror Strategy, Panel Says"--headline, USA Today, July 23
Is a Little Appreciation So Much to Ask?
"Al-Qeda [sic] Threat 'Not Appreciated' "--headline, Herald Sun (Victoria, Australia), July 23
It Was Not a Dark and Stormy Night
"Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States."--first sentence, first chapter, 9/11 commission report
Dude, Where's My Download?
"The 9/11 Commission Report" is available for $9 from Barnes & Noble's Web site, which informs us that "people who bought this book also bought" these titles:
"Dude, Where's My Country?" by Michael Moore
"Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush" by John Dean
"Perfectly Legal: The Secret Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else" by David Cay Johnston
"Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back" by Jim Hightower
"Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years" by Rich Lowry
As reader Mark Mogle notes: "All but one are left-wing propaganda books! So what does this mean? Most shoppers at B&N are liberals? Mostly liberals are reading the 9/11 report? Or liberals are dumb enough to purchase a book that you can download free!"
John Who?
The Associated Press sends reporter Margie Mason to the shores of Vietnam's Mekong River to try to nail down the persistent rumors that John Kerry served in Vietnam. She doesn't have much success:
Along the coffee-colored river on a placid, humid afternoon, Vietnamese old enough to remember the fighting shake their heads when asked if they've heard of Kerry. . . .
"I don't know who he is," Nguyen Van Mung, 60, said of Kerry. "I have to work very hard to make ends meet, so I have no time to watch TV or read newspapers," said the former soldier in the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese army.
"I would vote for Kerry," fisherman Nguyen The Cung, 68, tells Mason. "He knew about Vietnam and he knew about the cruelty and brutality of war." But another Indochinese oldster, 74-year-old Do Thanh Tam, tells Mason: "I think it's a mistake to go back and dig up all the stuff about the Vietnam War."
Kerry used to agree, back when Bill Clinton was running for president, but he's changed his tune. "United to Offer Vietnam Service" is actually a Crain's Chicago Business headline (the reference is to the airline), but it would serve nicely as a Kerry campaign slogan.
Are Dems Getting 'Kerreyed' Away?
As John Kerry prepares to accept his party's nomination for president, conventional wisdom has it that he is excellently positioned for victory in November. Conventional wisdom isn't always wrong, but RealClearPolitics.com's John McIntyre has a contrary view (italics his, boldface ours):
You see a gleefulness among the press who hate Bush keeping their fingers crossed that Kerry might just be headed to victory.
Now, maybe these people are looking at something different than what I'm looking at, but I just don't see all of this positive news for John Kerry. I see a President that has had a hostile, partisan press beating up on him relentlessly for months now hoping they can drive his job approval into Jimmy Carter territory still standing strong in the high 40's.
I see a Kerry/Edwards campaign that should be ahead today by at least 5 points nationally tied in the polls. I see a lack of appreciation among Democrats and the press for just how unappealing a candidate they are about to nominate.
Much of Kerry's current support in the polls is coming form the Anybody But Bush mindset. The dynamic of this race is going to change dramatically after both conventions and we are past September 11 when the public starts focusing on the choice between President Bush and Senator Kerry.
But a dispatch by the Associated Press's Nedra Pickler, whose coverage has often been fawningly pro-Kerry, suggests there is some appreciation of Kerry's lack of appeal:
As John Kerry winds his way across the country and ultimately to Boston to accept the Democratic presidential nomination next week, he'll be talking more about something he hasn't discussed much in his campaign--John Kerry.
Kerry's campaign has been more about what President Bush has done wrong and which policies Kerry would implement to do better. Kerry does not typically open up about himself personally, and it's part of the reason Americans don't know much about him.
The headline informs us that Kerry plans to spend his time until the convention showing Americans his "soft side." But that only underscores the problem. Honestly, is there anything you'd like less to see than Kerry's "soft side"?
Last month BusinessWeek published an interesting story about Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union, which included this observation:
In the U.S., Reagan's talk of the sinister nature of Communism was often dismissed as the rhetoric of a right-wing ideologue. In Moscow, policymakers believed he meant business. The Communist Party newspapers (of course, back then all of them were party newspapers) whipped themselves into a frenzy with invective about the 40th U.S. President. He was portrayed as a wild "cowboy," a "shameless liar," and "a rabid militarist" who employed the "slogans and methods of Hitler."
Sounds a lot like what the Democrats say now about President Bush. The analogy isn't perfect, of course: The Dems are a political party in a democracy, while the Soviet Union was a totalitarian empire. Still, perhaps the fate of the Soviet Union ought to give the Democrats pause.
This Just In
"Poll: Voters Split Between Bush, Kerry"--headline, CNN.com, July 23
Arabs Kill Palestinian Peace Activist
Yasser Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade this morning killed a 15-year-old Palestinian Arab boy "after the youth tried to stop them from setting up a Kassam rocket launcher near his family's home," the Jerusalem Post reports:
Members of the Arafat-linked terrorist group were trying to plant Kassam rocket launchers next to the Zanin family residence in northern Beit Hanun, when the family, concerned over IDF retaliation, argued and ultimately struggled with the terrorists.
In the ensuing scuffle, the terrorists opened fire on the Zanin family, killing Jamil Zanin, 15, and injuring 5 others. The Kassam crew gathered their launchers and missiles and left the scene. No Kassam rockets have been launched out of Northern Gaza so far Friday.
Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
Will this murder draw the same level of outrage as the accidental death of Rachel Corrie, who styled herself a "peace" activist but in fact was trying to prevent Israel from stopping the smuggling of arms to terrorists? Don't hold your breath.
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A NoKo Travelogue
Yesterday we noted an Agence France-Presse story that quoted one Ian Mote, who'd visited the "Democratic" "People's" "Republic" of Korea, as saying, "It was nice to see no Starbucks there." A more honest, not to mention fascinating, take on North Korea, comes from Scott Fisher, an American living in Seoul, who paid a visit there and wrote a lengthy travelogue that appears on 1stopKorea.com.
It's well worth reading in full, but we'll just quote our favorite few anecdotes. The first one, which took place at the Tower of the Juche Idea in Pyongyang ("the Juche Idea" is the late dictator Kim Il Sung's bizarro ideology), is both sad and chilling (all ellipses in original):
I hung back and tried to strike up a conversation with the tower guide. At first she was reluctant, saying her English wasn't very good. I persisted and she finally relented, once the idea of a white person speaking Korean worked its way past her preconceptions.
We started by talking about her job and whether a lot of people were coming for the Arirang Festival. As we talked she was walking me around the corner of the building, out of earshot of the others.
Once we were away from the others the questions came pouring out. "What's life like in the South? Why do you live there? What's it like living there? What about your students (I'd told her I teach at a university)--what are they like? What do people in the South say about the North?" The woman was full of curiosity about life across the border, barely two hours south of where we were standing.
I tried my best to answer as we both kept looking over our shoulders to see if the others were coming. I felt really sorry for this lady. All she was doing was asking some basic questions about life in another country but she was worried about getting into trouble. I'm going to wonder for a long time if I should even be writing about her . . .
This story, about a visit to the demilitarized zone, is hilarious:
The first time I took the DMZ tour from the South, and on some tours since, the US soldier leading the tour would tell everyone we weren't looking at a real building. Instead the North's building was "a facade designed to look large and impressive, but is in reality only a frame a few feet (one meter) thick." As the only view of the building at that time was from the front there was no way to confirm the thickness. Unless you visit the North . . .
While looking over the area from the balcony I told Mr. Huk the story I had heard about the building during my first tour on the Southern side. About how we weren't actually standing in a "real" building.
His reaction was immediate and will forever serve as my personal definition of "venomous."
"Now you can see the lies! The lies of the American imperialists and their South Korean puppets!"
He literally spat this out. Foam flew from his lips he was so incensed.
"Someday you will discover the truth about everything! They only tell you lies! Lies!"
"The main thing I took away from the whole episode," Fisher writes, "was why would the US Army guides give the North this kind of ammunition in the first place?"
Finally, an observation on journalistic ethics, from a visit to a museum displaying gifts to Kim Il Sung and his son and successor, Kim Jong-il:
Ever wonder why CNN seems to be the only Western news organization regularly allowed into North Korea? The next room perhaps offered a clue. In the 'Gifts from America' room a whole section of one wall is taken up by gifts from CNN. A few engraved plaques, a coffee cup (yeah, a freaking coffee cup!), a logo ashtray, etc. Probably at most a couple hundred bucks worth of crap that nonetheless get pride of place in the museum--for they reveal obvious signs of respect from a world famous news organization. The people at CNN are certainly using their heads and showing they know how to play the game. Though one wonders how that fits in with journalistic integrity . . .
Giving away trinkets hardly seems a major ethical lapse, though given what we know about CNN's conduct in Baathist Iraq, one wonders what else the network has done in Pyongyang.
AP Imitates 'King of the Hill'
From the March 2, 1997, episode of Fox network's "King of the Hill":
Hank: Are you Chinese or Japanese?
Khan: I lived in California for last 20 years, but I am Laotian.
Bill: You come from the ocean?
Khan: No, stupid. I come from Laos. A small country in Asia. Population 4.8 million.
Hank: So are you Chinese or Japanese?
From a July 23, 2004, Associated Press dispatch on forced prostitution in Vermont:
Asian women aren't the only ones enslaved. The Vermont case appears to be a Korean network.
No Comment
"Spokespersons for Reuters and One Equity Partners could not immediately be reached for comment."--Reuters, July 23
Does this mean even Reuters doesn't trust Reuters' reporting?
Hawking: Who's Talking?
Yesterday's item on physicist Stephen Hawking's revised views on black holes makes reader Charles Austin suspicious:
I don't know whether Stephen Hawking lied or not with respect to black holes, but the timing of his statement is very suspicious coming as it did just before the Democratic Convention next week. Clearly Mr. Hawking has flip-flopped on the critical issue of the permanence of black holes. Why is he now implying that matter can escape from beyond the event horizon via some quantum nuance? Who benefits from this sudden July Surprise in what he calls "astrophysical science"? What did Mr. Hawking know and when did he know it?
Another question: Who leaked word of this scandal to the press? Perhaps tellingly, Lanny Davis has yet to deny it was he. |
