Best of the Web Today - June 21, 2006
By JAMES TARANTO
Best of the Tube Tonight
We're scheduled to appear on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" as part of a "political roundtable." The program airs today at 6 p.m. EDT, with a repeat showing at 4 a.m. tomorrow, and we're told we'll be on in the second half-hour.
Terrorist Eden
Horrific news out of Iraq, where two U.S. soldiers, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, were either killed or captured and later killed in an enemy attack Friday. Their bodies were found Monday, CNN reports, "mutilated and booby-trapped":
The bodies also had been desecrated and a visual identification was impossible--part of the reason DNA testing was being conducted to verify their identities, the sources said. . . .
Not only were the bodies booby-trapped, but homemade bombs also lined the road leading to the victims, an apparent effort to complicate recovery efforts and target recovery teams, the sources said.
To most of us, this is a reminder of the depravity of our enemies. But blogress Jeralyn Merritt sees it as a reminder of America's sins:
Violence begets violence. Inhumanity and cruelty bring more of the same. The whole world is watching and we don't have the right to claim the moral high ground so long as those responsible for the abuses at Guantanamo and detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan go unpunished, the policies stand uncorrected and the Pentagon continues to prevent the media from learning the facts first-hand.
The always excitable Andrew Sullivan similarly laments "the cycle of depravity and defeat."
This rhetoric about "cycles" appears to reflect a theory of moral equivalence, but in fact it is something else. After all, if the two sides were morally equivalent, one could apply this reasoning in reverse--excusing, for example, the alleged massacre at Haditha on the ground that it was "provoked" by a bombing that killed a U.S. serviceman--and hey, violence begets violence.
But America's critics never make this argument, and its defenders seldom do. That is because it is understood that America knows better. If it is true that U.S. Marines murdered civilians in cold blood at Haditha, the other side's brutality does not excuse it. Only the enemy's evil acts are thought to be explained away by ours.
Implicit in the "cycle" theory, then, is the premise that the enemy is innocent--not in the sense of having done nothing wrong, but in the sense of not knowing any better. The enemy lacks the knowledge of good and evil--or, to put it in theological terms, he is free of original sin.
America ought to hold itself to a high moral standard, of course, but blaming the other side's depraved acts on our own (real and imagined) moral imperfections is a dangerous form of vanity.
The 'Chickenhawk' Canard
Howard Dean on "Hardball" the other night:
John Murtha and John Kerry[*] served in Vietnam. Karl Rove did not, George Bush did not, Dick Cheney did not, Don Rumsfeld did not and they wouldn't listen to the people who did. The fact is you can't trust these folks, they didn't serve abroad defending America.
The other day, we got a lengthy email from a manic liberal reader who called us a "chicken hawk" because we support the liberation of Iraq and did not serve in the military. We wrote back asking which branch of the military our interlocutor served in, and he replied, "The same branch you did." The same branch, one might add, in which Howard Dean did. (By contrast, although neither saw combat, Secretary Rumsfeld served in the Navy and President Bush in the Texas Air National Guard.)
Rawstory.com has a transcript and YouTube.com has video of an exchange on the House floor between Murtha and Rep. Louis Gohmert, a Texas Republican, in which, as RawStory puts it, Murtha "dresses down" Gohmert:
Gohmert: Let me close by saying some have not had nice things to say about our colleague Mr. Murtha, and others wanting to pull out of Iraq quickly. I understand the faithful visitation that he does routinely. So I say thank God for his big heart. I say thank God for his compassion. Thank God for his visits to the wounded. Thank God for his ministering to grieving families.
But thank God he was not here and prevailed after the bloodbaths at Normandy and in the Pacific or we would be here speaking Japanese or German. Thank you.
Murtha: Was the gentleman at any of those locations? Either at Normandy or any of those locations?
Gohmert: You want to know which locations?
Murtha: Yeah. Normandy? I say were you there?
Gohmert: No, sir. I wasn't.
Murtha: Were you in Vietnam?
Gohmert: No, sir.
Murtha: Iraq?
Gohmert: No. I have been over there. I haven't been fighting.
Murtha: Boots on the ground?
Gohmert: I do admire the gentleman's compassion and all he has done for our wounded. He has done a great service that would be you, Mr. Murtha.
Gohmert was born in August 1953, more than nine years after Normandy. He was 49 in March 2003, when the liberation of Iraq began. He was old enough--barely--to have served in Vietnam, and in fact he was in the Army, a captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps. But he didn't join until 1978, after he finished law school, and also after conscription had ended.
But what does any of this have to do with the merits of the Iraq debate? There are, after all, Vietnam veterans, noncombat veterans and nonveterans on both sides. By Dean's logic, we should trust John McCain, who favors winning in Iraq, rather than Dean himself, because McCain served in Vietnam and Dean did not.
The New York Times reports that Senate Democrats are criticizing Kerry behind his back:
Mr. Kerry has found his resolve. But it has not made his fellow Democrats any happier. They fear the latest evolution of Mr. Kerry's views on Iraq may now complicate their hopes of taking back a majority in Congress in 2006. . . .
Senate Democrats have been loath to express their opinions publicly, determined to emphasize a united front. But interviews suggest a frustration with Mr. Kerry, never popular among the caucus, and still unpopular among many Democrats for failing to defeat a president they considered vulnerable. Privately, some of his Democratic peers complain that he is too focused on the next presidential campaign.
If Republicans were leveling criticisms like this, they'd be accused of "swift-boating" Kerry.
What all this is really about isn't Iraq but Vietnam. As we noted earlier this month, the antiwar movement in the 1960s and '70s was driven primarily by young men's desire to avoid conscription. Those who opposed the Vietnam War, and now oppose the Iraq war, for ideological reasons are embarrassed by this fact and frustrated that the "antiwar movement" is not catching on today in the absence of a draft. That is why they are now hiding behind those veterans who agree with them. But it's hard to see how this tack will end up persuading anyone.
* Did we mention he served in Vietnam?
Story Ideas for ABC
Yesterday we noted that ABC News was looking for stories from people whose lives have "been directly affected by global warming." We received a couple of amusing responses, including this from Mike Sierra:
Thought you might be amused at the text I submitted to ABC News in their global warming story. All this stuff is true and at least theoretically relevant.
This winter was unusually warm here in New England. I went the whole time in my light jacket rather than my heavier leather one. I had great heating bills. Still, it was unusual. This May right around Mother's Day there was a lot of rain here. My basement got flooded. I had to throw out a bunch of stuff. I didn't get any video, though, sorry. I hear one of the things global warming causes is bad storms. We had another big one come through about a week and a half ago when I was on vacation, and I came back to find puddles in my basement. They said that was the tail end of a hurricane, I forget which one. I heard that hurricanes are caused by global warming.
Also, a year or two ago there was this wild turkey who walked across our lawn. It was really weird. He didn't seem to care that we were there. He seemed really interested in checking out my kids' big plastic playhouse. He seemed a little disoriented. Maybe he (she?) was suffering from lost habitat? I've also been finding it a lot harder to plant grass in my backyard. The soil seems drier than it's ever been, and even after daily watering it doesn't seem to take. So there are these bare spots here and there, and they become overrun by ants. I don't know what to do other than spray.
Forgot to mention about my vacation, it was pretty cold and dreary in San Diego. What's up with that?
And this is from reader Jeff Beliveau:
Tharg and me used to hunt mighty mammoth but he scared to cross ice bridge. It now too thin to take weight of even saber cat. Only mouse or rabbit can cross.
Many of my people have left the caves in search of food.
Sister's daughter's husband says it because of He-Who-Tamed-Fire. He say smoke from fire anger gods and they make it hot. Medicine Man say he full of mastodon droppings.
Medicine Man say Sun God told him Sun God get belly ache every 200 lifes of man. Belly ache make Sun God hotter, like when Og ate red berries birds don't touch.
Sun God say it good thing. He say now we can go south past ice to land he call "Iowa."
He mumble "junk science" and "media hype" and "poorly educated reporters." We no understand these powerful magic words. We afraid to say words now that Moon God warn us. She say magic words make research grants dry up. We no understand.
Must go, little Ky-Rock need help flaking obsidian.
A Jonah Goldberg correspondent adds: "How about this? The 'HEAT' won the NBA finals and the 'HURRICANES' won it all in the NHL. If that does't prove it, nothing will!" And a Reuters headline points to another possible global-warming consequence: "Arctic Monkeys' Bass Player Quits Band."
Metric Football Imitates 'The Simpsons'
"This match will determine once and for all which nation is the greatest on earth: Mexico or Portugal!"--TV announcer, "The Cartridge Family," an episode of "The Simpsons," originally aired May 21, 2000
"Mexico, Portugal Both Looking for at Least a Draw"--headline, Shanghai Daily, June 21, 2006
His Wife and Family Keep Giving Him Dirty Looks
"Biologist Discovers New Way to Date Books"--headline, Associated Press, June 20
Bottom Story of the Day
"Naomi Watts Arrives for Kidman Wedding"--headline, Associated Press, June 21
Fetus Saves
"Delegates of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are to tackle whether to adopt gender-inclusive language for worship of the divine Trinity along with the traditional 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit,' " the Associated Press reports from Birmingham, Ala.:
The divine Trinity--"Father, Son and Holy Spirit''--could also be known as "Mother, Child and Womb'' or "Rock, Redeemer, Friend'' at some Presbyterian . . . services under an action Monday by the church's national assembly.
"Mother, Child and Womb"? That's even more sexist than the old patriarchal Trinity. We suspect God will be quite angry at the suggestion that she is no more than an Incubator. It ought to be "Woman, Fetus and Body."
"Rock, Redeemer, Friend" is much better, and it's easy to remember. Rock crushes Redeemer, Redeemer cuts Friend, Friend covers Rock. |
