Best of the Web Today - December 31, 2003
By JAMES TARANTO
Brazil Nuts
"I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis." See if you can guess to what the quote is referring:
The Sept. 11 attacks.
Mass murders by Palestinian suicide bombers.
Atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein's erstwhile Iraqi regime.
The correct answer, of course, is none of the above. The quote, from Julier Sebastiao da Silva, a Brazilian judge, refers to American plans to photograph and fingerprint Brazilians entering the U.S. Reuters reports this distinguished jurist has retaliated by issuing a court order mandating fingerprinting and photographing of Americans visiting Brazil--which, by his own lights, makes him a Nazi too.
We suspect the result will be less U.S. tourism to Brazil--not because fingerprints and photographs are really a major indignity, but because no one will want to spend time and money in a country populated by jerks like Julier Sebastiao da Silva.
Besides, as blogger Edward Morrissey notes, you'd think that boys from Brazil would be especially cautious about throwing around Nazi analogies.
A Belgian Bernard Goldberg
La Croix, a French newspaper, has fired reporter Alain Hertoghe for publishing a book critical of anti-American bias in the French press, the Associated Press reports:
The book, "La Guerre a Outrances" (The War of Outrages), criticizes the French reporting for continually predicting the war would end badly for the U.S.-led coalition.
"Readers can't understand why the Americans won the war," Hertoghe said in a telephone interview. "The French press wasn't neutral."
The book, published Oct. 15, charges French reporters were more patriotic than journalistic and what was written amounted to disinformation.
What's really pathetic is that in France, being "patriotic" means showing fealty to a fascist Arab dictator. The AP notes that while the book has received "rave reviews" in Hertoghe's native Belgium, French newspapers have refused to acknowledge it.
Who's Distracted?
"U.S. forces operating in the so-called Sunni Triangle--the region of Iraq most loyal to captured former dictator Saddam Hussein--found a significant weapons cache that included al Qaeda literature and videotapes," CNN reports. So it turns out Howard Dean was lying when he said that Saddam's capture does not "move us toward defeating . . . al Qaeda and its terrorist allies."
Howard Dean, Populist
OK, it's not exactly a log cabin, but in a New York Times profile, Howard Dean's mom labors mightily to paint a humble picture of her son's background:
The Park Avenue building where Howard Dean grew up has a neurologist's office on the ground floor and a church just behind. His mother, Andree Maitland Dean, is eager to emphasize that the family's three-bedroom apartment there is not luxurious.
"Look around," Mrs. Dean said in a recent interview, gesturing at the quarters where her boys grew up. "Howard didn't have the least bit of a glamorous upbringing."
Explaining that every time she had a baby, the dining room would serve as a bedroom for the newborn and his nurse, she concluded, "I don't think we could even keep up with the Bushes." . . .
Mrs. Dean sees her son's unpretentiousness as something he learned at home, pointing out that her own parents taught her to treat people in an egalitarian way.
"When I was growing up," she said, "we didn't even treat the servants like servants."
No wonder he's so down to earth! On Dean's official campaign blog, Britt Blaser of New York for Dean quotes Janet Purdy, who attended a Dean "house party," as saying: "I have a friend who is 84 and a former captain of the polo team at Yale. He told me, 'I've voted Republican all my life. In 2004, I'm voting Democrat.' " Plainly Dean's common touch is paying off politically.
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
"One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin Roosevelt
"The buck stops here."--Harry Truman
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John Kennedy
"CAFTA not only rhymes with NAFTA, but will extend the economic 'disasta' that Ohio knows something about."--Dennis Kucinich
Profiles in Courage
The New York Post reports on one New York-area congressman who won't be attending tonight's festivities in Times Square:
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) offered his regrets yesterday, telling The Post that he'd avoid the Times Square crowd because it's a "tempting target" for terrorists.
"I wouldn't go to Times Square. That is my opinion. It is one based on the reality that the government has declared a Code Orange," said Shays.
Air safety also worries Shays--"I wouldn't be flying from Europe to the U.S. in an airplane," he said.
Oh well, we we hope Shays has a nice New Year anyway. Maybe his mommy can fix him a nice warm cup of cocoa, which he can drink while clutching his teddy bear and watching the ball drop on television. Nah, come to think of it, that would probably entail staying up past his bedtime.
This Just In
"Millions Around World Celebrate New Year"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 31
Won't Terrorists Just Switch to Salami?
" Italian Police Order Controls on Bologna to Foil Letter Bombs"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 31
The Bilious and the Supercilious
Over at "Kicking Ass," the official blog of the Democratic National Committee, readers are offering nominations for the "worst GOP outrages of 2003." The most popular seem to be the liberation of Iraq and the "suppression of dissent." Then there's this offering from someone called Leila:
Perhaps instead of going on about why we are or should be angry, how about we concentrate on WHY voting Democratic is the only rational choice?
We keep drowning in our own bile and it's beginning to look an awful lot like there's four more years of this coming at us. . .
The attacks on Dean are disturbing. If he's going to be our nominee, I have a feeling these same attacks are going to be repackaged by the repugs come next year.
At this juncture, we're spinning our wheels. It's discouraging and depressing.
This is actually somewhat sensible, though in calling Republicans "repugs," Leila displays a certain biliousness herself. Abigail Mouat, meanwhile, has this to say: "I am outraged that more people aren't outraged. How could they not be?" We laugh at your pitiful outrage, Abigail!
Good news from the Merriam-Webster dictionary folks, meanwhile: Democracy has beaten out runner-up quagmire to top the "Words of the Year 2003" list.
The Old Ball and Ball
Time magazine made a good choice in naming "the American soldier" as its "person of the year." The only other reasonable choice was George W. Bush, but he was the person in 2000 and seems a shoo-in for 2004. But did you know that the Canadian edition of Time has a "person"-like feature called "Canadian newsmaker of the year"?
No, it's not "the Canadian soldier"--that would just be cruel. Rather, it is Michael Stark and Michael Leshner. The two Michaels were legally married in Toronto on June 10, pursuant to an Ontario Court of Appeal decision striking down the traditional definition of marriage. TimeCanada.com even features a photo of the two Michaels playing Canada's new national sport, men's tonsil hockey.
Years ago, the humor magazine National Lampoon described Canadians as being just like ordinary white people, only more boring. We'd venture to say this description is in need of updating.
Giving Them the Business
The San Francisco Chronicle has named its "businessperson of the year": Eliot Spitzer, the attorney general of New York, who "made a name for himself by going after the big guys, lashing out at high-flying corporate giants."
Uh, hello? Whatever you think of Spitzer's prosecutorial efforts, he's a politician, not a businessman.
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Just Asking
Why hasn't Maureen Dowd done a column in over a month? And why has former Enron adviser Paul Krugman had so many of them?
At Least He Didn't Clone Hillary
"New Jersey Governor Under Fire for 'Cloning' Bill"--headline, CNSNews.com, Dec. 31
What Would Mad Cows Do Without PR Experts?
"Don't Ignore Mad Cow, PR Experts Warn"--headline, USA Today, Dec. 31
As if Florida Wasn't Bad Enough
"Knighthood for Publicity-Shy Inventor of the World Wide Web," declares a headline in today's London Independent. But it's not who you think; it's physicist Tim Berners-Lee:
An unsung hero of the modern age, Mr Berners-Lee is named in today's New Year's Honours List for "services to the internet"--creating the system that has revolutionised computer use across the globe.
Al Gore wuz robbed again!
Terror Advocates Yes, Soldiers No
Yesterday we noted that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had published a feature called "Passages," celebrating people "who died this year, leaving our lives a little richer for having known them." The paper's staff waxed rhapsodic about Rachel Corrie, the terror advocate who caused her own death by stepping in front of an Israeli bulldozer in an attempt to save tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt.
Reader Gene Sinclair makes a very good point about the Post-Intelligencer's list:
Conspicuously absent from "Passages" is any mention of American soldiers who died serving their country and fighting terror in Iraq or Afghanistan--men and women who truly enriched our lives by giving theirs in the noble cause of freedom.
Well, at least this solves a mystery that we've been puzzling over for a long time: What kind of stupid name for a newspaper is the "Post-Intelligencer"? Now we know why they call it that: because the people who put the paper together are as intelligent as a post. |
