Best of the Web Today - September 23, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
About Last Night
Thanks to everyone who came to our Harvard Club symposium last night, and thanks for all the kind words about this humble column, our book ("Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House," available from the OpinionJournal bookstore) and The Wall Street Journal's other efforts.
Mr. Personality
John Kerry showed up for an interview with NPR yesterday, and Robert Siegel of "All Things Considered" actually managed--though not without considerable struggle--to pin him down on a point regarding Iraq. Here's our transcript (hat tip: blogger H.D. Miller):
Siegel: What do you do if you ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff what they need to achieve their mission in Iraq and they say, "We need a lot more troops"? Do you escalate the troop levels, or do you plan for a quick or a constant exit instead?
Kerry: You have to support our troops, and you have to do what's necessary to try to make this mission successful, but they have not asked for that. I have to wait until I'm president and sit down with them and see where we are.
Siegel: But you yourself have pointed out that Gen. Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, said there should be hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq, and you say he was fired for saying that. What if you get now the "real story," as you would say, the Army speaking candidly--
Kerry: I'll have to make a decision when I get there as to what the probabilities are. I can't hypothesize as to what I am going to find on Jan. 20--whether I'm going to find a Lebanon or whether I'm going to find a country that's moving towards an election. That depends on what the president does now.
Siegel: But--
Kerry: I think the leadership has been arrogant and disastrous.
Siegel: But should either you or whoever is president next year consider the possibility of an increase in troops? Is that even a consideration, or should it be completely off the table?
Kerry: I do not intend to increase troops. I intend to get the process in place that I described, and I believe as a new president, with new credibility, with a fresh start, that I have the ability to be able to change the dynamics on the ground.
So finally, after asking the question three times, Siegel gets an answer out of Kerry: "I do not intend to increase troops," even if that's what the generals say is necessary. (Note: This column, like Kerry, takes no position on the appropriate troop strength in Iraq, so please don't vote for us either.) He goes on to imply that it won't be necessary, because simply by being John Kerry, he will "be able to change the dynamics on the ground."
That's right, Kerry expects us to believe he will succeed in Iraq on the sheer power of his personality. Really makes you confident, doesn't it?
Kerry also took the opportunity again to explain his vote in favor of liberating Iraq:
The authority is the authority to do the inspections. The authority is the authority to build an alliance. The authority was necessary because it was the only way to make inspections happen so that you could hold Saddam Hussein accountable. But giving the authority did not start the war. The president started the war. The president made the choice of when to go to war. We also gave him the authority not to go to war.
By this logic, Ted Kennedy is a war monger, since he voted against giving the president "the authority not to go to war."
Iraq's Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, however, has a different view of what Kerry voted for. In an address to a joint session of Congress today, he said:
Ladies and gentlemen, I particularly want to thank you in the United States Congress for your brave vote in 2002 to authorize American men and women to go to war to liberate my country, because you realized what was at stake. And I want to thank you for your continued commitment last year when you voted to grant Iraq a generous reconstruction and security funding package.
In fairness to Kerry, we should point out that he voted against that funding package after he voted for it. The Associated Press notes that Kerry--who didn't deign to attend Allawi's speech--weighed in on it almost immediately:
Speaking in Columbus, Ohio, just after the Allawi speech, Kerry said, "The prime minister and the president are here, obviously, to put their best face on the policy. But the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story."
Despite the contention by Allawi and Bush that things are getting better in Iraq, Kerry said, "They're not getting better and we need to change the course to protect our troops and to win."
Such effrontery! Imagine, some Arab thinking he knows what's going on in his own country! Does Iyad Allawi know who John Kerry is?
'You Have to Support Our Troops'
"Kerry Rallies Troops With Fierce Attack on Bush's Credibility"--headline, Independent (London), Sept. 23
The Road to Surfdom
The Bush campaign has released what is probably the best political ad of the year. It shows footage of John Kerry windsurfing (though not surfing in Vietnam) in rapidly alternating directions, as a narrator reads off various positions he's switched. Johann Strauss's "Blue Danube Waltz" plays in the background. The concluding line is "John Kerry: whichever way the wind blows."
The Kerry campaign shot back with a response ad, which, bizarrely, tries to change the subject to Iraq. Against a backdrop of an American flag (wow, who knew these guys were so patriotic?), ominous music plays as a narrator delivers the message:
One thousand U.S. casualties. Two Americans beheaded just this week. The Pentagon admits terrorists are pouring into Iraq. In the face of the Iraq quagmire, George Bush's answer is to run a juvenile and tasteless attack ad. John Kerry has a plan for success. Get allies involved. Speed up the training of Iraqis. Take essential steps to get a free election next year. On Iraq, it's time for a new direction.
To be sure, there is a war on, but the scolding tone of this ad strikes us as a bit much. After all, if we're not supposed to be doing anything frivolous while men are dying in Iraq, what the hell was John Kerry doing windsurfing?
The Kerry ad is really just another manifestation of the Democrat's narcissism. The message is: Don't you dare make fun of me in time of war! (On the other hand, we're supposed to believe that badmouthing the commander in chief and the war effort is "patriotic" "dissent.")
Surely, though, if we stop mocking John Kerry, the terrorists will have won.
The Liberal Cocoon
Blogger Patrick Frey has a nifty example of what Mickey Kaus calls the "liberal cocoon." Today's Los Angeles Times reports that "California voters remain strongly in favor of ousting President Bush and replacing him with Sen. John F. Kerry." The Times' statewide poll finds Kerry up 55% to 40%:
With the election less than six weeks away, the findings suggest that California is all but locked down as one of the most solidly Democratic states in the race for the White House.
That seems like a reasonable enough conclusion, given Kerry's 15% lead in the polls. But just last week, the Times ran a story titled "Long a Republican Bulwark, a Growing Arizona Is in Play." Deep into that story, however, we learn that "a poll taken for the Arizona Republic and released last week showed Bush ahead of Kerry, 54% to 38%." That's a Bush lead of 16%--a percentage point higher than the Kerry margin the Times describes as enough to have "all but locked down" California.
Republicans and conservatives find this sort of bias frustrating, but it actually helps them--assuming the Democrats are foolish enough to believe what they read in the papers.
Good Thing He Had a Place to Stay
"Poll Puts Kerry Up Just Before Iowa Visit"--headline, Des Moines Register, Sept. 22
We Hope Kerry Paid for His Lodging
"Poll: Having Money Helps With Satisfaction"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 23
¿Cómo Se Dice 'Out of Touch'?
Columnist Juan Esparza of the Fresno Bee reports on a speech by Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union:
Responding to Republican efforts to woo the Latino vote by stressing conservative values, Huerta minced no words during her 16-minute speech in Spanish.
"I'm the mother of 11 children, and I'm Catholic. But [abortion] is the proper choice of every woman. It's not the government's decision to determine how many children we're going to have," said Huerta, a couple of hours after a Mass at the convention.
Instead of the usual loud applause and shouts of "Sí" ("Yes") common at UFW conventions, there were only scattered voices of support. Huerta continued by slamming Republicans who cozy up to Latinos by defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.
"Who cares if two men or two women get married?" asked Huerta, who is campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "What matters most to us is how much money they'll spend for educating our children."
This is how Democrats have managed to hold together what remains of their coalition: by persuading a majority of Hispanics and an even bigger majority of black Americans to disregard their own cultural values in the name of base appeals to self-interest. How long can this endure--especially since the Democrats are no longer the congressional majority and thus lack the power to make good on their promises?
Roe Effect, Anyone?
"Married women with children are even more heavily Republican than those without, while childless single women are even more sympathetic to the Democrats than unmarried mothers."--Guardian (London), Sept. 23
We Get Results
It's a small victory, but hey, we'll take it. The Houston Chronicle has published the following apology on its Web site:
A photograph accompanying this story, which ran on the Chronicle's Web site on Sept. 17, was given an inappropriate file name by one of the site's copy editors. It came across as an editorial commentary on the subject, and such commentary has no place in our news coverage. The Chronicle regrets this error in judgment and apologizes to those offended by it.
This came shortly after our item yesterday about the picture, which shows a little girl with her hair braided into a W in honor of the president. The original filename was brainwashedchild.jpg; now it's called bushdo.jpg.
The World's Smallest Violin
Ariel Sharon's antiterror fence seems to be working out quite nicely; few Palestinian Arab terrorists have managed to get into Israel to blow up innocent people. But there are exceptions; yesterday an 18-year-old woman managed to penetrate Israel's capital city and murder two people while also blowing herself up.
The Reuters "news" service, predictably enough, responds with a weepy piece about the family that produced this savage:
Relatives of Zeinab Abu Salem had little time to absorb the shock after the 18-year-old blew herself up in a suicide attack in Jerusalem.
They rushed instead to empty the family home in the Palestinian refugee camp of Askar near the West Bank city of Nablus, expecting Israeli bulldozers to soon come to demolish it. . . .
Her father Ali, recovering from surgery to open clogged arteries, collapsed and was taken to hospital after learning of his daughter's death. . . .
Minutes later, Abu Salem's mother also passed out and was rushed to a local hospital.
"She had a second shock. It was not enough that she lost her daughter. Now she fears she will lose her husband," a neighbour said. "Look at the house, which is empty of her daughter, her husband and all its contents."
Not a word of sympathy from Reuters about the families of the men she murdered. Meanwhile, Arutz Sheva reports that the murderer was the hostess of a children's television program, and her wealthy family owned the station on which she appeared. So much for poverty as the "root cause" of Palestinian barbarism.
But We're Still Not Surrender Monkeys
"Americans Eating More Cheese Than Ever"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 22
Not Too Brite--CXLVI
"A 67-year-old woman was killed when a three-meter tall metal crucifix fell on her head in a small southern Italian town," Reuters reports from Rome.
Oddly Enough!
Also notable is the last paragraph of this story: "Italy, home to the Vatican City, is a predominantly Roman Catholic country where crucifixes and religious icons and effigies are a common sight in most towns and villages." Thank goodness we have Reuters to explain to us the exotic cultures of the strange and far-flung lands from which it "reports."
(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)
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But Were They Accurate?
"School Official With Fake License May Have Faked Degrees"--headline, New York Times, Sept. 23
Where Did They Bury the 'Survivors'?
"Montana Plane Crash 'Fatalities' Hike to Safety"--headline, MSNBC.com, Sept. 23
Isn't That Old Enough for an R Carjacking?
"17-Year-Old Charged in One PG Carjacking"--headline, Washington Times, Sept. 23
Snickers, However, Has Nuts
"Frozen Sugar at Centre of Milky Way"--headline, Scotsman, Sept. 22
Getting Sauced
With anticipation, we opened our e-mail this morning to see what suggestions you, our readers, would have for Heinz ketchup slogans after our item yesterday on the subject. Here are our favorites:
"Only an idiot would use mustard."
"Our flavor is stronger at home and respected in the world."
"Foreign leaders prefer ketchup."
"Ketchup: C'est magnifique."
"The taste that's smeared--smeared--in your memory."
"For your papases fritas, your pommes frites, your patate fritte and your fritadas francesas."
"Mustard: The wrong condiment in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"By the way, served in your kitchen."
"Too good for the common man."
"Hunt's is for scumbags."
"It's red, like the blood John Kerry spilled in Vietnam." |
