Best of the Web Today - January 19, 2006
By JAMES TARANTO
Which Side Are They On?
Rumors flew last week that a U.S. missile strike in eastern Pakistan had killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 man. Reports of Zawahiri's death turned out to be exaggerated, but yesterday came the news that the missile appears to have hit another important target:
ABC News has learned that Pakistani officials now believe that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan.
Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of four known major al Qaeda leaders present at an apparent terror summit in the village of Damadola early last Friday morning.
The United States had posted a $5 million reward for Mursi's capture. He is described by authorities as the man who ran al Qaeda's infamous Derunta training camp in Afghanistan, where he used dogs and other animals as subjects for experiments with poison and chemicals. His explosives training manual is still regarded as the bible for al Qaeda terrorists around the world.
"The bible for al Qaeda terrorists," huh? Someone's having a little fun over at ABCNews.com. Over at The Weekly Standard, the Manhattan Institute's Dan Darling elaborates on Masri's importance:
If [Abu] Khabab can be said to have had a lasting effect on the development of Islamist extremism, it would be that he moved the possibility of Islamists using unconventional weapons out of the theoretical and into the practical. Those wishing to view his legacy need look no further than the extremely crude but deadly chemical and biological experiments set up under the auspices of Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion.
Or as the Democrats call it, northern Iraq which has nothing to do with northern al Qaeda.
Anyway, the TigerHawk blog has a roundup of reaction from left-wing blogs, before it was reported that Masri was hit:
AmericaBlog: "At least when Clinton 'lobbed cruise missiles at tents' he wasn't blowing up entire innocent families in small villages who had no idea what was about to happen to them."
"mcjoan," DailyKos.com: "What this strike has achieved is the further alienation of Pakistan, and provided further proof of the Bush administration's utter ineptitude. It's a reminder that the disastrous Iraq debacle diverted resources from the critical effort to contain al-Qaeda and calls into question exactly what it is that our intelligence agencies are doing."
Juan Cole: "Ooops. The bombing of a village in northern Paksitan, apparently done in hopes of killing al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahir, missed its intended target."
"Scrolling through perhaps a dozen big lefty blogs, I did not see a single post that actually expressed regret that we had not killed al Zawahiri," TigerHawk notes. And it's not just the bloggers; consider this column from Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe:
The airstrike in Pakistan reaffirms how our behavior is plummeting in the direction of the evil we proclaim to fight. At home, we are appalled by drive-by shootings that take out innocent children. Abroad, the fly-by airstrike is the source of no remorse, with dead children and mothers taken very lightly.
It strikes us that some of these people are so consumed with hatred for President Bush that they have crossed the line into reflexive anti-Americanism. As a prominent politician once said:
There is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government. There is nothing heroic about turning your back on America, or ignoring your own responsibilities.
The speaker: Bill Clinton, May 5, 1995.
Life Imitates the Onion
"Starving, Bandaged bin Laden Offers U.S. One Last Chance to Surrender"--headline, Onion, Dec. 12, 2001
"Bin Laden Warns of Attacks, Offers Truce"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 19, 2006
Le Cowboy de Belette
"France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent," Reuters reports, leaving out its usual scare quotes around terrorist:
Deflecting criticism of France's costly nuclear arms program, President Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit back hard at a hostile state's centers of power and its "capacity to act."
He said there was no change in France's overall policy, which rules out the use of nuclear weapons in a military conflict. But his speech pointed to a change of emphasis to underline the growing threat France perceives from terrorism.
"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in northwestern France.
Sacre bleu! Who eez zees cowboy with his simpisme and his hyperpuissance?
Who's Butchering the Language?
NewsBusters.org, a project of the Media Research Center, criticizes the Associated Press for an allegedly snide headline:
The President met at the White House [yesterday] with Iraqi victims of the regime of Saddam Hussein. After spending an hour or so with the victims, and families of victims, he allowed the press in for a couple of minutes. The AP decided that the most worthy piece of information on the day, the thing that belonged in the headline, was the fact that the President either mispronounced or stumbled on the word "butcher." They highlighted that fact in their headline, Bush Meets Victims of 'Butcherer' Saddam.
Possibly the AP decided its headline had been unfair, because the story at NewsBusters' link now reads "Bush Meets Victims of Saddam's Reign." But a Google News search turns up plenty of instances of the "butcherer" headline.
Newsbusters defends the president:
I don't think anyone would argue that President Bush is the most articulate man to ever hold the office. But this is just nonsense. Anyone who speaks in public with any regularity makes gaffes. It is impossible not to. Republicans have theirs highlighted and ridiculed, because they indicate lack of intelligence, while Democrats have theirs ignored, because they represent simple mistakes that anyone might make. At least in the template worldview of the mainstream press.
But actually, this whole kerfuffle is over nothing. Butcher can be either a noun or a verb, so butcherer is a perfectly good word meaning "one who butchers."
Searchlight's Dim Bulb
Remember when Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, said that Clarence Thomas wasn't very bright? Here's Reid last night in an interview with Jim Lehrer on PBS's "NewsHour":
Lehrer: You know, speaking of the hearings, the senators themselves caught a lot of heat, many of them, for the suggestion was they talked a lot more than Samuel Alito did. What do you think about that? And the senators--well, what do you think about that? I'll leave it at that.
Reid: Well, those eight members of the Judiciary Committee that are Democrat--they know those issues so well. They talked about unitary government and all these things. I was a practicing attorney for many years, went to court a long time. I told all my Senate Democratic colleagues that are on the Judiciary Committee, I said, "I don't know what the hell you were talking about." So anyway, I think they did a good job.
Reid hasn't announced how he'll vote on Alito's confirmation (our tally of those who have is, as usual, here), but he's certainly dropping strong hints, as Reuters reports:
"This is a very poor choice," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said after he and fellow Democrats privately discussed Bush's nomination of Alito.
"He (Bush) should have gone with Harriet Miers," Reid said.
Meanwhile, Newsmax.com quotes President Bush as saying that his wife will never run for Senate: "She's not interested in running for office. She's interested in literacy."
Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make
"Many of my friends ask me why I criticize President Bush, when they feel he is trying very hard to protect America and stand up for the American people," writes one Patricia Bruch of Amherst, N.Y., in the Buffalo News:
It makes me nervous that the president ignores Congress so often. Everything makes me nervous lately. I dread turning on the news or reading the paper. I certainly don't feel safer because of his war on terror.
I guess my mother says it best. Whenever the president comes on TV, she sighs and says, "I just wish he wasn't there."
Me, too. My friends may think he loves America, and he probably does, but I will continue to criticize him because my life under Bush has become very stressful, to say the least.
This is not an angry piece; the tone is quite civil, and Bruch actually offers some specific criticisms of the Bush administration that are at least plausible. It sounds as though one could have a reasonable, adult conversation about politics with her.
And yet. The piece does capture, in a milder form, something of the psychology of the Angry Left. Bruch doesn't seem to hate the president, but her distaste for him is, in her description, something of an unhealthy obsession: "Everything makes me feel nervous lately."
We witnessed a far more severe case the other day. An old lady was standing at a bus stop, wearing a button that said YES, I REALLY DO HATE GEORGE W. BUSH. Another old lady walked up to her and said, "Right on!" The first old lady replied, "Well, at least I still have the right to wear this button." The tone in which she said this suggested not that she recognized her good fortune at living in a free country, even if she doesn't care for its current leadership, but that she fears that her freedom to wear obnoxious buttons is in danger. This is a totally irrational fear.
Whatever the merits of the underlying political viewpoints, people who feel nervous about politics all the time or who are consumed with hate are suffering from a certain lack of perspective. There is no reason to think that those on the political left are inherently more prone to this sort of problem. Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" was, after all, largely an essay about the American right circa 1964. As we suggested Tuesday, this seems to be one of the hazards of being out of power politically.
When Is a Whistleblower Not a Whistleblower?
Blogger John Hinderaker makes a great catch in today's New York Times story on the just-released independent counsel investigation of Henry Cisneros, President Clinton's housing secretary. "A copy of the report was obtained by The New York Times from someone sympathetic to the Barrett investigation who wanted his criticism of the Clinton administration to be known," the paper said.
As Hinderaker notes: "This particular leaker was no whistle-blower and no patriot; just a partisan with an axe to grind." Unlike all the "whistleblowers" who want their criticism of the Bush administration to be known.
Culture of Corruption
"Pelosi Weds in Prison"--headline, Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.), Jan. 19
Giving It Away
Our friends at BusinessWeek Online took exception to our mentioning them in the same breath with former Enron adviser Paul Krugman's employer as a subscription-only Web site. BWO has many offerings for nonsubscribers, and you can now read here the article about Krugman to which we were referring.
Wasn't It Supposed to Be a Slam Dunk?
"Intel Fails to Meet Its Targets"--headline, New York Times, Jan. 18
What Would Accompany Cheese Without Experts?
"Use Ropey Old Plonk to Accompany Cheese, Experts Suggest"--headline, Guardian (London), Jan. 19
By Paying the Mortgage?
"Experts Tell How to Cut Foreclosures"--headline, Charlotte Observer, Jan. 18
It's Called 'Water'
"Study Finds Fire Retardant in Great Lakes"--headline, United Press International, Jan. 14
Only Because They Didn't Look Anywhere Else
"Students Find Housing On and Off Campus"--headline, Daily Texan (University of Texas at Austin), Jan. 18
Maybe July 4?
"Nintendo Sez Revolution Due in the US Before Thanksgiving"--headline, Engadget.com, Jan. 19
They Attend a Very Strict Church
"Two Women Charged With Transporting Guns to Mass."--headline, Boston Globe, Jan. 19
So Much for the Headache Excuse
"Aspirin Benefits Depend on Sex"--headline, MyDNA.com, Jan. 18
Triumphs of Modern Medicine
"The French woman who received the world's first partial face transplant . . . visited a bar without incident on Sunday."--New York Times (Paris edition), Jan. 18
"Face Transplant Patient Smokes Again"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 18
Bottom Story of the Day
"Hamster and Snake Forge Unlikely Friendship"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 18
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Does the federal government invest enough in crucial infrastructure? Well, how's this for an answer:
I'm heading on down this one-way highway,
down the road
Another morning waits for me,
Each day another mystery.
Not satisfied? Try this on for size:
Return to Highway 2
The danger zone
Highway 2,
The danger zone
Highway 2,
The danger zone
Everybody go to highway 2
The danger zone
Lookout!
Or this:
I am the emperor of the highway
I wield the universal will . . .
Don't forget who's emperor of the highway
For I am the emperor of the highway!
These all come from a page called "Some Road Songs Lyrics," that appears on the Federal Highway Administration's Web site under the heading "Infrastructure."
Notably missing, for some reason, are Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55" and AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." |
