Best of the Web Today - June 4, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
The Stop-Loss Kerfuffle
The U.S. Army is imposing "stop-loss orders" on "all units being deployed on missions in Iraq and Afghanistan," the Los Angeles Times reports. "Such orders prevent active-duty soldiers and reservists from retiring or leaving their units from 90 days before they deploy until 90 days after they return--even if their volunteer commitments to the military end before then." The Times explains the Army's rationale:
Not only do the stop-loss orders boost the number of soldiers who can be sent to combat at one time, they increase the cohesion of deployed units by keeping together soldiers who have worked and trained together, [Army personnel chief Lt. Gen. Franklin] Hagenbeck said. . . .
Cindy Williams, a research scientist in the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and editor of the book "Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System," said that while the new orders were not expected to be popular, keeping units together could actually save lives in battle.
"In terms of military effectiveness, it's a good idea. It's really important to keep units together," Williams said. "It's also good from the point of view of the individual who serves. You don't want to be the person who gets brought into the unit when fighting is heavy and be the person that people don't trust yet."
It does, of course, impose a hardship on the soldiers involved, and John Kerry senses a political opportunity. The Associated Press reports from Independence, Mo., that the Democratic nominee-designate said Thursday that the Bush administration has instituted a 'backdoor draft.' " His response:
Kerry said his first priority as commander in chief would be to increase the activity duty force by 40,000 new soldiers who would be ready for possible conflicts outside of Iraq. Half of the new force would be combat troops, the other half civil affairs personnel trained for reconstruction.
Whether or not this is good policy, it certainly makes political sense, helping to blunt the effect of Kerry's weak record on defense. But stop-loss orders are nothing new. The Times notes that the military used them during the original Gulf War and that "since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Army has repeatedly blocked certain soldiers in heavily used specialties from retiring or leaving. Directly after the terrorist attacks, stop-loss orders were issued for special operations soldiers, whose skills were at a premium in Afghanistan."
What even the Times doesn't mention, however, is that in May 1999, as the American Forces Press Service reported at the time, President Clinton authorized the services to institute stop-loss orders. If, as Kerry claims, stop-loss orders are a "backdoor draft" and a sign that the military is too small, why is he only now getting around to proposing new troops? Where was he five years ago?
The Bush Boom
More good economic news, for everyone but the Bush-haters: The U.S. economy added some 248,000 jobs in May, according to government figures. The Associated Press reports:
Payrolls swelled by almost 1 million in the last three months alone, the Labor Department said Friday. Employment figures for March and April were revised up to reflect the addition of 353,000 and 346,000 jobs respectively.
On his campaign Web site, John Kerry promises to create 10 million new jobs during his four-year term as president. That's a rate of 625,000 every three months, or only 66% of the past three months' performance under President Bush. Can we really afford to elect someone who sets his sights so low?
Kerry Is One Hep Cat
Hey, is the Kerry campaign "with it" or what? The Hollywood Reporter brings us the news that the campaign plans a pair of fund-raising concerts next week--one Monday in Los Angeles and one Thursday in New York. "We did very well with younger voters in the primaries but they will be a hard-fought battleground in the general election, so concerts such as these are an enormous asset to us," Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill tells the Reporter.
So, which hot stars are helping appeal to young voters? Here's the list:
The Los Angeles gala will feature performances by Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Willie Nelson and Billy Crystal, while the New York show boasts Bette Midler, James Taylor, John Mellencamp, Jon Bon Jovi, Wyclef Jean, Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg.
This is how the Kerry campaign is appealing to young voters? We've heard of all these performers except Wyclef Jean. To put it charitably, none of them are exactly cutting edge--and we're not as young as we used to be! As for Wyclef Jean, apparently he or it is a favorite of 55-year-old Howard Dean, so it must be really before our time.
Oh, for the Days When They Ran on Time
"Italian Police Delaying Protestors Trains"--headline, BBC Web site, June 4
The Press Corps' Porn Addiction
If there remains any doubt that journalists' fascination with the Abu Ghraib story is primarily prurient in nature, consider how often it's showing up in entertainment stories:
From a New York Times article on Broadway shows: " 'Little Shop of Horrors,' for example, risks reminding people of the torture scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison." Not as much as the New York Times does, though.
From the Denver Post's review of the movie "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban": "The Dementors get their due--they are spectral Azkaban guards surrounding Hogwarts in search of Black. How little Rowling could have known a few years ago what Middle Eastern events would make her look prescient: Like certain other prison guards, the Dementors are more intent on capture and punishment than sorting right from wrong."
And from the Boston Globe review of the same film: "It's hard to watch the relentless Dementors curtailing liberties both at Hogwarts and in the surrounding country and not think about the current occupation of Iraq."
Perhaps in an attempt at political evenhandedness, the Associated Press includes this gratuitous reference in a dispatch about a Bill Clinton speech: "Clinton made no mention in his speech of Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern at the center of the sex scandal that dominated much of his second term."
The Paranoid Style of Journalism
From an online chat with Robert G. Kaiser, an associate editor of the Washington Post (quoting verbatim):
Atlanta, Ga.: I do not believe in conspiracy theories, but as of late, things that were once dismissed as laughable, impossible or "unpatriotic" are turning out to be at least partially true e.g. Halliburton's White House ties, intra-agency turf wars, U.S. government knowingly releasing "untruths," etc. My question to you, do you easily dismiss conspiracists or do you at least consider the possibility they may be speaking truths? How does this affect as you as journalist (assuming if affects you at all)?
Robert G. Kaiser: Lots of questions like this, too, but this is a particularly thoughtful version that I would like to answer.
Let's begin with an old joke: Even hypochondriacs get sick. Conspiracies are very difficult to run inside the U.S. government, thankfully. But they happen. Watergate is really a collection of conspiracies that were kept secret for a long time, and might never have been revealed. The Iran-Contra affair is/was a conspiracy that has never been fully explained (for example, we have never been able to discover the real role of George H.W. Bush in that dark business).
To answer your specific questions, I do personally react against theories of vast conspiracies. This is just part of my skeptical makeup, I guess. But I try never to reject the possibility entirely.
So, for example, I do think there was what amounted to a kind of conspiracy to get the U.S. into a war against Iraq, if we define the term as a secretive plot involving a group within the government but excluding many important officials, who bent events and information to their undeclared purpose. Although you'd have to say it was a barely undeclared purpose.
Now, as we recall, the liberation of Iraq was preceded by a lively debate, a congressional vote and a U.N. resolution, the 17th in a series. Kaiser calls this a "secretive plot." What does this tell us about the Post's coverage of Iraq?
The 'Exile' Double Standard
Charles Krauthammer makes a brilliant point about Iraq:
The new government [critics say] has no legitimacy because it is composed of so many exiles. . . . Strange. I do not remember any of these critics complaining about the universally hailed Oslo peace accords that imposed upon the Palestinians a PLO government flown in from Tunisia composed nearly entirely of political exiles.
Ah, but Yasser Arafat, thug and terrorist, instantly wins legitimacy in the eyes of Western intelligentsia because he is a self-proclaimed revolutionary, while Iraq's interim prime minister, who was nearly axed to death by Hussein's agents in London, is dismissed as an "exile."
El Pollo de Plata
Call it the Silver Chicken: Spain's Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has awarded medals for appeasement "to all those who helped in the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq," reports the Spanish news agency EFE. Among them were three generals and his own defense minister, José Bono, who had been in office all of six weeks when he got the award. Members of the opposition shamed Bono into giving the medal back.
Nobody's Hero?
It turns out Lyndon B. Johnson's silver star, which we noted in an item yesterday, is a matter of some controversy. CNN reported in 2001 that its own "review of the historical record raises new questions about the circumstances of its award by Gen. Douglas McArthur nearly 60 years ago."
Historian Robert Dallek--who contributed the chapter on LBJ in our forthcoming book, "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the World in the White House" (order it from the OpinionJournal bookstore), tells CNN he concluded that "there was an agreement, a deal made between LBJ and Gen. MacArthur. And the deal was Johnson would get this medal, which somebody later said was the least deserved and most talked about medal in American military history. And MacArthur, in return, had a pledge from Johnson that he would lobby FDR to provide greater resources for the southwest Pacific theater."
Bookies for Bush
Yesterday's item on Bush victory portents cited the Iowa Electronic Markets, which rate Bush the favorite. So, it turns out, do several bookmaking operations that take bets on the presidential outcome:
TradeSports.com (click on "Politics" in the left-hand navigation bar, then click on "US Presidential Elec") currently lists Bush as a 57.2% favorite--which means a bet of $57.20 wins $42.80 if Bush is re-elected.
Intertops.com has Bush at -155 and Kerry at +100, which means you have to bet $155 to win $100 on Bush, whereas Kerry is an even-money bet.
BestBetting.com lists British bookies' odds on the two candidates. Kerry's odds range from 9-10 (a $100 bet pays $90) to 1.2-1 ($120), while Bush's range from 4-6 ($66.67) to 8-11 ($88.89).
First Medical Marijuana, Now This
"Colleges Reap Savings With Joint Deals"--headline, CNN.com, June 1
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I Don't Think, Therefore I Am Fat
"Obesity Could Be More Widespread Than Thought"--headline, New York Sun, June 4
Dog Bites Man
This is gross, but we learned in Journalism 101 that it's the definition of news: "A 75-year-old man's body parts were found strewn all over a house in the city's Fishtown section Thursday and police said that his dog had been eating him," reports Philadelphia's WCAU-TV.
Still, the label on the link for a video version of the story is in rather poor taste. It reads "FeedRoom."
What Would Swimming Pools Do Without Experts?
"Experts Offer Tips for Keeping Swimming Pools Healthy"--headline, Associated Press, June 2
A Vote for Change?
"House Committee OKs Dollar Coin Bill"--headline, Associated Press, June 3
Bloomberg in Pyongyang
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has joined the world-wide trend towards the building of a new world without tobacco in the new century," reports the official North Korean "news" agency, KCNA:
Smoking has become one of the world's serious problems as it endangers human existence, destructs the ecological environment of nature and gives great damage to the socio-economic activities. . . .
The government has taken various practical measures such as encouraging shops and markets in the country to sharply increase the price of cigarettes and extending no-smoking places.
Hygienic information activities have been conducted extensively to make all the people interested in the no-smoking campaign.
Also included in the no-smoking campaign are propaganda through mass media, art propaganda squad's activities and hygienic lectures.
An increasing number of men have quitted smoking or refrained from smoking in public places, offices and families.
The North Korean regime has also made great strides against obesity. |
