"...Things may start getting a little tense around the liberal side of Beltway....
BY JAMES TARANTO Thursday, December 2, 2004 3:51 p.m.
The Dems' U.N. Corruption Problem
Remember Marc Rich? He's the fugitive financier who fled to Switzerland in 1983 after his indictment on 65 counts of tax fraud, tax evasion and racketeering, then received a pardon from Bill Clinton just before President Bush's inauguration in 2001--and he's back in the news. ABC News reports that Rich "was a middleman for several of Iraq's suspect oil deals in February 2001," the month after Clinton pardoned him. "A U.S. criminal investigation is looking into whether Rich, as well as several other prominent oil traders, made illegal payments to Iraq in order to obtain the lucrative oil contracts."
Is this a political problem for the Democrats? Maybe not in itself, but the New York Post's Deborah Orin argues that U.N. corruption more generally "spells more trouble for a Democratic Party still reeling from its Nov. 2 election losses":
Why? Because Democrats tend to reflexively back the United Nations--that's what 2004 loser John Kerry did, suggesting that a corrupt U.N. that cheerfully let Saddam Hussein rip off $21.3 billion could be trusted more than President Bush in Iraq.
"The idea that we need the U.N. to help us was certainly not a popular thing in focus groups that I watched this fall," dryly remarks senior Democratic strategist Anita Dunn.
Against this backdrop, the possible implication of Rich in the scandal looks like more of a problem for the Dems, since it suggests they're not merely naive but corrupt. That's even more true if the party's 2008 presidential nominee turns out to be someone related by marriage to the man who pardoned Rich.
A New Liberalism?
Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic, has a cover story in his magazine calling for "a new liberalism"--by which he actually means the old, hawkish liberalism of the Truman era:
Of all the things contemporary liberals can learn from their forbearers half a century ago, perhaps the most important is that national security can be a calling. If the struggles for gay marriage and universal health care lay rightful claim to liberal idealism, so does the struggle to protect the United States by spreading freedom in the Muslim world. It, too, can provide the moral purpose for which a new generation of liberals yearn.
Sounds good to us, but will it sound good to Democrats too? We have our doubts. Beinart acknowledges (and analyzes at some length) the obvious: that the Democratic Party today is in thrall to those who are soft on America's enemies, the Michael Moore and MoveOn liberals. But he takes heart in the party's history--specifically, the formation of the anticommunist Americans for Democratic Action in 1947:
At the time, the ADA's was still a minority view among American liberals. Two of the most influential journals of liberal opinion, The New Republic and The Nation, both rejected militant anti-communism. Former Vice President Henry Wallace, a hero to many liberals, saw communists as allies in the fight for domestic and international progress. As Steven M. Gillon notes in Politics and Vision, his excellent history of the ADA, it was virtually the only liberal organization to back President Harry S Truman's March 1947 decision to aid Greece and Turkey in their battle against Soviet subversion.
But, over the next two years, in bitter political combat across the institutions of American liberalism, anti-communism gained strength. With the ADA's help, Truman crushed Wallace's third-party challenge en route to reelection. The formerly leftist Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expelled its communist affiliates and The New Republic broke with Wallace, its former editor. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) denounced communism, as did the NAACP.
But there's a big difference between 1947 and 2004: In 1947, the Democrats were still the majority party, and domestic liberalism was ascendant. This made it easier to marginalize the "softs" and turn the party hawkish. As Beinart notes, when the New York Times asked delegates to the 2004 Democratic Convention "which issues were most important," only 2% mentioned terrorism, 1% defense and 1% homeland security. If there's a significant constituency for a 21st-century ADA, the Democratic Party probably isn't where it's likely to be found.
Beinart's call to action reminds us of something we often hear from Republicans in New York: If only the GOP would give up its opposition to abortion, they argue, it would win over the votes of urban dwellers who are conservative on economic and foreign policy but pro-choice. Maybe so, but this ignores the opposite side of the equation--namely, that Republican opposition to abortion has won over a great many traditionally Democratic voters.
For our pro-choice Republican friends, an ideal world would be one in which legal abortion could be taken for granted and elections were fought over other issues. Similarly, Beinart would obviously prefer if his party were as responsible on national security as the Republicans. So would we--but it's not at all clear that a move in a hawkish direction would gain the Democrats more votes than it would cost them.
Stalking the Electorate
Yesterday's item on Mel Gilles's comparison of Democrats to a battered wife brought this comment from reader David Bricker, who describes himself as "a psychologist who specializes in marital therapy":
Gilles takes the position that the Democrats are looking a lot like a battered wife, and there is something to this. Some of the behaviors do overlap. But the logic breaks down immediately. Gilles sets it up so that the partner in this analogy is the Republicans, who defeated them. And she suggests that the 56 million Kerry voters form a kind of really big support group to get by. But where does this lead? And specifically what are they going to do about the next election? Is Gilles suggesting that they secede and only deal with good folks like themselves? Because if they come back to contest the next election, they are going back to the abusive spouse, something that no one in the domestic violence field is ever going to feel too good about.
A better analogy is that the partner is the country as a whole. The marital analogy is a good one if we see the Democrats as the rejected spouse and the U.S. as the rejecter. This makes much more sense. The insistence on recounts is like the husband who stalks his ex-wife, who doesn't understand what "no" means. The denial, the rationalizations, the vilification, the aimless depression are all typical of someone who's in the early stages of rejection and can't figure out what to do next. Likewise, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton experimenting with finding religion look a lot like someone trying anything to get the partner back. "Maybe if I get a hairpiece, she'll come home."
Gilles also errs in assuming that since the Democrats are acting battered that someone must be battering them. It doesn't work that way. As the saying goes, "If you walk around with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail." Closer to home, if you walk around with control issues everyone looks like a bully.
A Blessed Absence
A New York Sun editorial offers an amusing observation on the disputed election in Ukraine: Jimmy Carter is nowhere to be found, even though "in recent years, scarcely a trouble spot has been spared the ministrations of our ex-president." The Sun asks "why he has left Ukraine alone":
Search for the dog that didn't bark. It's not the post-Soviet thugs who are seeking to rig the contest in favor of Moscow's candidate, for they are noisily preserving their privileges. Nor is it the democrats who bravely and brazenly wish to align with the West. They aren't Mr. Carter's kind and can't lay claim to any sort of leftist legitimacy. Why, it's Karl Marx who's missing from the field. Ukraine is thus rescued by virtue of the fact that the peanut farmer from Georgia hasn't got a dog in this fight.
I, Robot. You, Dead Man.
Wired News has a delightful story of Yankee ingenuity on the battlefield:
The Army is prepping its squad of robotic vehicles for a new set of assignments. And this time, they'll be carrying guns. As early as March or April, 18 units of the Talon--a model armed with automatic weapons--are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq. . . .
Four cameras and a pair of night-vision binoculars allow the robot to operate at all times of the day. It has a range of about a half-mile in urban areas, more in the open desert. And with the ability to carry four 66-mm rockets or six 40-mm grenades, as well as an M240 or M249 machine gun, the robots can take on additional duties fast, said GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike.
"It's a premonition of things to come," Pike said. "It makes sense. These things have no family to write home to. They're fearless. You can put them places you'd have a hard time putting a soldier in."
Arafat's Heir?
The Jerusalem Post has more on imprisoned terrorist Marwan Barghouti's campaign to succeed Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority:
Barghouti said he is running "to protect the intifada," Barghouti associate Ahmed Ghanem told The Jerusalem Post. He and other Fatah leaders received a letter from Barghouti Wednesday in which he accused the Fatah leadership of trying to discredit the uprising and blame the late PA chairman, Yasser Arafat, for the misery of the Palestinian people. Talking about the possibility of achieving true peace now, after Arafat's death, is tantamount to discrediting his path, Barghouti wrote.
Perhaps Barghouti is angling for a Nobel Peace Prize. As for Arafat, he remains in stable condition after dying in a Paris hospital.
"PA source close to" Barghouti rival Mahmoud Abbas tells the Post that, in the paper's words, "Barghouti is playing a tactical game, . . . to pressure Fatah into giving the younger generation and the Tanzim greater representation and more political power." The Tanzim is Barghouti's terrorist faction of Fatah, the political movement Arafat founded.
In an item yesterday, we likened Barghouti to Lyndon LaRouche, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination at least once while serving time in prison. Several readers wrote to point out that America has seen another jailbird presidential candidate: Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party, whose 1920 campaign slogan was "From Atlanta Prison to the Whitehouse." Debs got more than 900,000 votes, or 3.4%, well behind Republican Warren Harding's 60.3% and even Democrat James Cox's 34.1%.
American Terrorist's Conviction Stands
Here's some good news from the Latin American front in the war on terror: The Associated Press reports that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has upheld the conviction of Lori Berenson, a New York woman who collaborated with Túpac Amaru, a communist terror group in Peru, in a planned attack on the Peruvian Congress. (For more background, see this 2000 column by Tunku Varadarajan.) Berenson isn't scheduled to be released until 2015.
"It is undoubtedly a great satisfaction and tranquility for Peruvian justice and all Peruvians," President Alejandro Toledo said of the ruling. And for New Yorkers, who've had enough terrorists in our midst these past few years.
What Would the Next Homeland Security Chief Do Without Experts?
"Experts Foresee Serious Challenges for Next Homeland Security Chief"--headline, Toledo Blade, Dec. 2
Lazy Columnist Watch
"Here's a trivia question for you: Who is the deputy Treasury secretary?" asks Thomas Friedman in today's New York Times. "It's a pretty important job, but I have no clue who it is."
The answer is Samuel W. Bodman. It took us less than two minutes to find this out by checking the Treasury Web site. If it's too much trouble for Friedman to look it up, doesn't he at least have a flunky who could do it for him?
You Don't Say
"Beer Belly More Common Among Binge Drinkers"--headline, Join Together Online, Dec. 1
Greyhound Racing
"Man Accused of Letting People Gamble on Buses"--headline, Tennessean (Nashville), Dec. 1
Man Bites Fox
"Performance artist Mark McGowan, who counts among his feats pushing a peanut along the road to Tony Blair's Downing street home with his nose, has eaten a fox, in protest at the public fixation with a government ban on fox hunting," Reuters reports from London:
He described the roast fox, which he ate in public, as quite tasty, although he admitted to nearly vomiting at times. "It was a bit like rack of lamb," he told Reuters on Wednesday. "The trouble was the retching noises from the other people in the room."
There's nothing more annoying than people who can't stop coughing during a performance.
Cereal Port
The Associated Press reports there's a new restaurant in Philadelphia that serves nothing but cereal. Cereality is "a cafe with jammies-clad servers pouring cereal day and night, topping it off with everything from fruit to malted milk balls, and serving it in 'bowls' resembling Chinese takeout containers." All they need is wireless Internet access so the guys in pajamas can blog from there.
The Naked City
"A man posing as a stripper working for "Strip-O-Gram" approached women employees at three businesses Monday evening in the North Rapid area and told one he was there to strip," reports the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal:
Rapid City Police Lt. Dave Walton said that so far, the man's actions have not been illegal, but police are interested in identifying and talking to him. "We definitely want to know who he is, and we want to visit with him," Walton said. . . .
Witnesses described the man as white, heavy set, and in his 40's. On Monday he was wearing a plaid shirt, jeans and a baseball cap.
Hey, we think we found someone who fits the description!
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to M. Gilbertson, Barak Moore, Chris Lynch, Michael Siegel, Dan O'Shea, John Williamson, Kathleen Myalls, Sharon Langworthy, Mara Gold, Ed Lasky, Jeffrey Shapiro, Michael Segal, Kevin Berger, Paul Cashman, Gene Felder, Edward Himmelfarb, Cliff Thier, Tom Dever, Mary Stolzenbach, Ethel Fenig and Chris Bergman. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
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