Best of the Web Today - August 23, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday Night at the Fights
If you're for peace, love and understanding, skip this column and pour yourself a strong drink, because everyone's fighting today! We begin with the Angry Left Daily Kos Web site, where proprietor Markos Moulitsas is ready for war--not against Islamist terrorists, but against the Democratic Leadership Council, a group that aspires to keep the Democratic Party tethered to reality. Here's militant Mark:
Ultimately, this is the modern DLC--an aider and abettor of Right-wing smear attacks against Democrats. They make the same arguments, use the same language, and revel in their attacks on those elements of the Democratic Party that seem to cause them no small embarrassment.
Two more weeks, folks, before we take them on, head on.
No calls for a truce will be brooked. The DLC has used those pauses in the past to bide their time between offensives. Appeals to party unity will fall on deaf ears (it's summer of a non-election year, the perfect time to sort out internal disagreements).
We need to make the DLC radioactive. And we will. With everyone's help, we really can. Stay tuned.
There's disharmony in the ranks of European neo-Nazis too, reports the Prague Daily Monitor:
Czech and German neo-Nazis are in a dispute over the Sudetenland border regions. The Germans demand the return of the lands to Germany and Austria, the weekly Tyden reported in its latest supplement.
German neo-Nazis conditioned the participation of a Czech representative in a meeting marking the death of Nazi leader Rudolf Hess in Bavaria last weekend on the Czechs explicitly giving up the former Sudetenland in favour of Germany and Austria. . . .
In July the Czech neo-Nazis released a statement on the Internet in which they distanced themselves from the post-war deportations of Sudeten Germans from then-Czechoslovakia, mainly Sudetenland, on the basis of the decrees issued by then-Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes. . . .
However, this was apparently not enough for the German neo-Nazis. At the beginning of August the organiser of the march, Juergen Rieger, told Czechs that they could give a speech at the meeting only on condition they pronounce the sentence: "We Czech nationalists agree with the return of Sudetenland to Germany and Austria." . . .
In the end, the German authorities resolved the controversy, as the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe banned the march last Wednesday.
Even the mild-mannered Canadians are girding for conflict, reports the BBC:
Canada is sending its navy back to the far northern Arctic port of Churchill after a 30-year absence. . . .
The move follows a spat between Canada and Denmark, over an uninhabited rock called Hans Island in the eastern Arctic region.
A visit there by Canada's defence minister last month angered the Danes.
We're totally on the side of Denmark, which is such a loyal U.S. ally that--unlike Canada--it actually celebrates the Fourth of July. The Canadians may be outmatched here anyway; remember that Denmark already has a vast Arctic empire, including the world's biggest island. It's not impossible to imagine that one day if you start in Detroit and travel south, you'll end up in Greenland.
As for the other two tilts, we're rooting for the neo-Nazis to battle it out to the death, and we guess we're on the side of the DLC over the Kossacks, but mostly because if the latter win, America essentially will have a one-party system, and it would be boring for the Republicans to win everything all the time.
Destabilized if You Do, Destabilized if You Don't
We think we've solved the mystery of why the press pays so much attention to Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator from Nebraska. Consider this quote from the Associated Press:
"We should start figuring out how we get out of there [Iraq]," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."
This just makes no sense. Going in to Iraq destabilized the Middle East (as opposed to the stability that prevailed pre-9/11?), so we need to pull out because our being there destabilized the Middle East, but we don't want to leave a vacuum that destabilized the Middle East. Whatever, dude!
But the press obviously is mistaking Hagel for Hegel and assuming that his maundering must be profound because he is, after all, a great philosopher.
Brother, Can You Spare 72 Virgins?
"Asking for increased vigilance in the wake of the London bombings, the government is warning that terrorists may pose as vagrants to conduct surveillance of buildings and mass transit stations to plot future attacks," reports the Associated Press:
"In light of the recent bombings in London, it is crucial that police, fire and emergency medical personnel take notice of their surroundings, and be aware of 'vagrants' who seem out of place or unfamiliar," said the message, distributed via e-mail to some federal employees in Washington by the U.S. Attorney's office.
Will Fox News Channel call them "homicide bums"?
Hogan's Arabs
Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, the Arab TV networks, are under fire for allegedly sympathetic coverage of Israel's evacuation of Jewish neighborhoods from Gaza, Agence France-Presse reports:
"We understand when the international media fall into the trap of the Jewish settlers and run live coverage of the evacuation," said Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based newspaper Al-Qods Al-Arabi. . . .
The criticism stemmed mainly from footage of the Jewish settlers crying over their lost homes, scenes which were seen as depicting the Israelis as victims, explained Atwan.
And the images of Israeli forces evacuating angry settlers without violence were seen as portraying the army as a powerful and disciplined institution.
Meanwhile, the Arab News reports on a scandal in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia:
Paper cups with Hebrew writing disturbed both employees and medical staff at King Khaled National Guard Hospital on Saturday. The catering subcontractor for the hospital coffee shops began using them on Saturday after their usual supply ran out.
"We were shocked and angry," said an employee. "How can Israeli products be allowed and how did they enter this hospital?" he asked. . . .
The paper cups were quickly withdrawn from use but might there not be other, less obvious, Israeli products in our shops and marketplaces?
Hegel (not Hagel) once observed that history repeats itself, and Marx (Karl, not Groucho) added, the first time as tragedy and the second as farce. The Arab world today, with its eliminationist anti-Semitism but without a hint of German competence or efficiency, is not a bad example of this adage.
Who's Slaughtering Whom Here?
"Belgian Jews Caught Up in Proposed Muslim Slaughter Ban"--headline, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 22
Publicist: Respect My Client's Privacy
From the Associated Press:
Jessica Lynch, . . . who gained fame when she was rescued as a prisoner in the Iraq war, started college, going largely unnoticed among 4,600 other freshmen at West Virginia University in Morgantown. . . . "She's been so out of the news for so long, she's not readily recognizable, which I think she appreciates," her publicity agent, Aly Goodwin Gregg, said.
If she appreciates privacy, why does she have a publicity agent?
Can't Stand Pat
Since we've defended the "religious right," we suppose we'd better say a word about Pat Robertson's latest foolishness, as reported by the Associated Press:
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a "terrific danger" to the United States. . . .
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." . . .
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.
"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
We agree that Chavez is a menace, but give us a break. Religious conservatives argue (to take an example) that embryonic stem-cell research is wrong because the sanctity of nascent life is absolute and thus outweighs any possible benefits. But Robertson is willing to countenance assassination because it is "easier" and "cheaper" than other ways of bringing about a desired outcome? It goes to show that one can be religious without being morally serious.
Mysteries of Our Times
Cleveland's WEWS-TV carries this report from Canton:
There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton Repository.
The article reported that some would say that movies, TV, videogames, lazy parents and lax discipline may all be to blame.
School officials are not sure they [sic] what has caused so many pregnancies.
If Timken High has a biology teacher, maybe the school officials should ask him if he has any theories.
Homer Nods
The USS Iowa was decommissioned in 1990 and thus did not participate in the 1991 Gulf War, as we stated in an item yesterday (since corrected).
By Running Away and Hoping It Goes Out on Its Own?
"Craven Firemen Deal With House Fire"--headline, WITN-TV Web site (Washington, N.C.), Aug. 21
Good News for Simian Insomniacs
"Drug Offsets Sleep Deprivation Effects, in Monkeys"--headline, Reuters, Aug. 23
Teresa Must've Been Busy
"Kerry Attends Funeral With Blow-Up Sex Dolls"--headline, WorldNetDaily.com, Aug. 22
They're Creepy and They're Kooky
Yesterday's item on John Kerry* included this quote: "We don't need some great lurch to the right or lurch to the left." Many readers wrote us to inform us that Kerry was making a joke--which, we're embarrassed to say, went right over our head.
In case you missed it too, here's what we've been able to piece together: Apparently before going on to his successful career as a Vietnam serviceman and veteran, Kerry dabbled in acting. In the 1960s he had a part in a TV series called "The Adams Family," about a famous Massachusetts political family. The name of his character? You guessed it: Lurch--a younger brother of John Quincy, if we remember right.
After last year's presidential campaign, according to this headline, "Kerry Left Volunteers in the Lurch." We hope this wasn't meant literally, because Lurch looks like someone with an awfully big appetite.
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam. |
