Best of the Web Today - November 9, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Arafat Unplugged?
French doctors are carefully watching terrorist leader Yasser Arafat; if his condition improves significantly, they may be able to pronounce him dead today. As Reuters puts it, Arafat's "fate" is "mired in confusion":
Several Palestinian sources said Arafat, 75, had succumbed to the mystery illness that led to his being flown to Paris from the West Bank on Oct. 29 but a source close to the French medical team treating him said: "Mr. Arafat is not dead."
"He is dead," one of the Palestinian sources said in Paris. Another official close to Arafat said: "Yes, he is dead. There will be an announcement soon."
But Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath told CNN from Paris that Arafat was alive and no decision has been made to take him off life-support.
This morning, Dow Jones Newswires reported that "Arafat will be removed from life support around 12 p.m. EST Tuesday, according a report from the FOX News Channel, citing Palestinian sources." But the Associated Press later reported that the "foreign minister," Nabil Shaath, "said the possibility of euthanasia has been 'ruled out.' "
What about assisted suicide? Oh wait, that's more common among healthy Palestinian Arabs.
Best Scare Quotes Ever
"Yasser Arafat 'Dead'--Palestinian Sources Say"--headline, Reuters, Nov. 9
What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts Say Arafat's Death Could Usher In New Breakthroughs"--headline, Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.), Nov. 7
A Terror Myth Debunked
The Harvard Gazette, a university house organ, reports on a study that debunks a favorite liberal shibboleth, the notion that poverty causes terrorism. Alberto Abadie, an associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government, "examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth, political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations that have been targets of terrorist attacks":
Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences. . . .
Instead, Abadie detected a peculiar relationship between the levels of political freedom a nation affords and the severity of terrorism. Though terrorism declined among nations with high levels of political freedom, it was the intermediate nations that seemed most vulnerable.
Like those with much political freedom, nations at the other extreme--with tightly controlled autocratic governments--also experienced low levels of terrorism.
Though his study didn't explore the reasons behind the trends he researched, Abadie said it could be that autocratic nations' tight control and repressive practices keep terrorist activities in check, while nations making the transition to more open, democratic governments--such as currently taking place in Iraq and Russia--may be politically unstable, which makes them more vulnerable.
Of course, terrorism has a certain appeal to some alienated types even in the world's most stable, prosperous democracy. The Washington Post reports on the trial of Lynne Stewart, a far-left lawyer charged with supporting terrorism:
As a federal prosecutor questioned her statements and support for a "people's revolution," Lynne Stewart, 65, testified that her lifelong philosophy included fighting "entrenched ferocious capitalism that is in this country today."
"I believe that entrenched institutions will not be changed except by violence," Stewart said. "I believe in the politics that lead to violence being exerted by people on their own behalf to effectuate change."
She added, "I do not believe in civilian deaths or wanton massacres." That's nice to know.
Can We at Least Put Maher on Trial?
"U.S. Judge Halts Military Trial for Osama bin Laden's Driver"--headline, Bloomberg News, Nov. 8
"When You Ride Alone You Ride With bin Laden"--title of book by Bill Maher, published Nov. 1, 2002
Left-Wing Buchananites
Remember Pat Buchanan's "culture war" speech at the 1992 Republican Convention? Buchanan's belligerence over cultural issues didn't get him very far; he won the 1996 New Hampshire primary, largely as a protest vote, and then faded back into the obscurity of talking-headdom.
But we had an odd sense of déjà vu over the weekend, when we tuned in to "The McLaughlin Group," where Buchanan is a panelist, and saw his two liberal counterparts, Lawrence O'Donnell and Eleanor Clift, reacting to President Bush's stunning re-election victory by out-Buchananing Buchanan:
O'Donnell: The big problem the country now has, which is going to produce a serious discussion of secession over the next 20 years, is that the segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government. . . .
Ninety percent of the red states are welfare client states of the federal government. They collect more from the federal government than they send in. New York and California, Connecticut, the states that are blue are all the states that are paying for the bulk of everything this government does, from the ward of Social Security to everything else, and the people in those states don't like what this government is doing. . . .
That cannot hold. . . .
McLaughlin: Can the GOP cement forever, do you think, Eleanor, the allegiance of the evangelical voters by appointing Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade and make other decisions?
Clift: Well, this is the one area where Bush can very cleanly deliver to these voters who supported him. . . . By having probably three appointments over the next three--four years, he will put in place a Bush court that we will be talking about a generation from now. And I think that it will move to the right. Whether it will go so far as to overturn Roe v. Wade, which has been settled law for over 30 years, if they did that, they would trigger a revolution in this country. . . .
O'Donnell: I think the Bush court will overturn Roe. It will do it within these next four years. Absolutely. Then your blue and red map is going to be the blue states where abortion is legal, because [reversing] Roe simply sends it back to the states. And again, you're going to have a country saying to itself, what is the relationship between California and Texas? And it's--it will start to become virtually none.
Obviously, this is crazy talk. But it's interesting crazy talk, because it reveals something about how the liberal elite views America. O'Donnell talks about secession driven by economics: Blue states pay a disproportionately high share of federal taxes, while red states receive a disproportionately high share of subsidies. Well, fine, but isn't it the blue-state types who favor higher taxes, especially on "the wealthy"? If guys like O'Donnell feel overtaxed, why not make common cause with the Republicans and starve the beast?
Then we turn to abortion. Even O'Donnell recognizes that Clift is being hysterical when she says overturning Roe would foment a "revolution"; all it would do is return the question to the democratic process, leaving states free to regulate the practice as the people's elected representatives see fit.
But then listen to O'Donnell. The relationship between a California that allows abortion and a hypothetical Texas that does not is, he says, "virtually none." Does he really think Roe v. Wade is the glue that holds America together--that abortion is central to what this country is all about?
Put O'Donnell's economic views together with his social ones, and you have an interesting theory of the social contract as seen by wealthy blue-state liberals. They are willing to pay higher taxes to subsidize the rest of the country, provided the rest of the country allows them to dictate their social policies.
A week ago the red states rejected this view. The blue states are not going to secede, but maybe, just maybe, they will respond with a tax revolt. Now there's a liberal cause we could get behind.
God's Plan for Reforming Health Care
An Associated Press dispatch illustrates why liberals and Democrats have such trouble with "moral issues":
"We need to work really hard at reclaiming some language," said the Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the liberal-leaning National Council of Churches.
"The religious right has successfully gotten out there shaping personal piety issues--civil unions, abortion--as almost the total content of 'moral values,' " Edgar said. "And yet you can't read the Old Testament without knowing God was concerned about the environment, war and peace, poverty. God doesn't want 45 million Americans without health care."
It's nonsense to suggest that 45 million Americans are "without health care." Approximately that many may lack insurance at any given time, but all Americans have access to health care, via public hospitals, clinics, bad-debt pools and other provisions.
Whether and how to reform America's health-care system is a technocratic question, not a moral one; the Bible mentions nothing about insurance. To the extent that the liberal left has a "moral" vision on questions like health care, their vision is socialism--not an easy sell in a country that values freedom as much as America does.
This Just In
"Evangelicals Embrace Bible"--headline, Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, Nov. 9
The Beeb Imitates the Onion
"U.S. Inspires World With Attempt at Democratic Election"--headline, the Onion, Nov. 3
"U.S. Vote 'Mostly Free and Fair' "--headline, BBC Web site, Nov. 5
The Real Reason Kerry Lost Florida
"JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--A newspaper mistakenly published the telephone number of a sex talk service on the front page on its Election Day issue. The number was supposed to be for a national voter hot line."--Associated Press, Nov. 8
He Didn't Get Kerryed Away
The New York Post reports that Andrew Veal, whose suicide we noted yesterday, didn't kill himself over John Kerry's defeat after all. Rather, he was "anguished over his passion for two women: his fiancée and a love from his hometown, Athens, Ga. . . . At first, his friends believed he killed himself over the outcome of the election, but his written musings never mention it."
This makes his suicide no less tragic, but it at least restores one's sense of order in the universe. A suicide driven by failed romance is in some sense understandable, whereas a suicide driven by Kerry's loss would be wholly outside the realm of known human experience.
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Suddenly, They Need Gas
"Incentives No Longer Enough to Move Cars"--headline, Detroit Free Press, Nov. 9
Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
"When the dust settled on the day, the euro had not only broken [its] previous record, but had posted a new one at 1.2986!"--Daily Reckoning, Nov. 8
She Stays in Vegas
Friday's Las Vegas Sun carried the following obituary (ninth item):
Mary Noonan Knight, 91, of Las Vegas died Tuesday in a local hospital. She was born Aug. 20, 1913, in San Francisco. A resident for 39 years, she was a retired property investor.
Wow, Vegas really is a 24-hour city. They're mourning Noonan Knight! |
