Best of the Web Today - July 20, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Max Attacks
Sunny John Edwards, as we've noted before, is singularly ill-suited to the traditional vice-presidential role of political hatchet man. So the Kedwards ticket has outsourced that job to a surrogate, someone John Kerry apparently never seriously considered as his running mate: Max Cleland, the patriotic former senator from Georgia.
Agence France-Presse reports that in a conference call with reporters yesterday, "Cleland said that Bush went to war 'because he concluded that his daddy was a failed president and one of the ways he failed was that he did not take out Saddam Hussein' in the 1991 Gulf war. 'So he (Bush junior) is Mr. Macho Man.' " Cleland did not note that Bush also went to war because he was authorized to do so by Congress, or that Cleland himself was among the 77 senators who voted in favor of the war.
There's no nice way to say this: Cleland is talking like a lunatic. "His daddy"? "Mr. Macho Man"? This is how the Democratic Party talks about matters of war and peace? And when Cleland suggests that the Iraq war is some sort of personal psychodrama for the president, he is engaging in what psychologists call "projection"--attributing one's own faults to others. As a devastating Los Angeles Times profile points out, Cleland claims his 2002 Senate re-election loss was more traumatic than being maimed in Vietnam:
As difficult as it is physically, Cleland has visited more than 20 states, appearing at countless VFW halls and veterans' memorials and barbecues and picnics and Democratic fundraisers. He has to, he says, to preserve his mental health and stability. Inside, he's a mess.
For months after his defeat, Cleland sank into a black hole. He joined the support group Al-Anon, and doctors prescribed three kinds of medication to treat his depression. It was "worse than coming back from Vietnam," he says. "Worse than being blown up."
"The Senate gave me a sense of meaning, purpose and destiny," Cleland says in his soft drawl. "When you lose that you've lost something profound. It's more than an arm. It's more than a leg."
Cleland insists his election crusade is not motivated by hatred or vengeance. It's the best tonic, he says, for the emotional upheaval he still suffers.
The article notes that "it is striking to hear Cleland speak with such ambivalence about becoming, as he puts it, 'the poster boy for what the Republicans did to me.' " Cleland adds: "I'm a veteran, not a victim. I've never been comfortable with that role." The Kerry campaign apparently views the dignity of a patriot like Max Cleland as a small price to pay if it'll help beat George W. Bush.
What Secrets Lurk in Sandy Berger's Pants?
A top foreign-policy adviser to John Kerry "is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings," the Associated Press reports.
Sandy Berger, who served as President Clinton's national security adviser, has acknowledged that he "inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio" and that "he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants."
United Press International reports that David Gergen, a former aide to Clinton and other ex-presidents, told the "Today" show that he thinks Berger's action is "more innocent than it looks." It's hard to think of anything that looks less innocent than stuffing documents into his pants. Did Berger tell the 9/11 commissioners he was just glad to see them?
The Heckler's Veto
Songstress Linda Ronstadt, best known for a long-ago affair with then-California governor (now Oakland mayor) Jerry Brown, "not only got booed, she got the boot after lauding filmmaker Michael Moore and his new movie 'Fahrenheit 9/11' during a performance at the Aladdin hotel-casino," the Associated Press reports from Las Vegas:
Before singing "Desperado" for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about President Bush.
Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air.
The Alladin threw Ronstadt out; security guards escorted her off the property.
The Las Vegas Sun's music reviewer suggests that the concert was a complete rip-off: "Ronstadt was merely going through the motions. . . . Her performance was uninspired and generally flat. She lacked stage presence, doing little more than sleepwalk from song to song." The concert was billed as part of her "Greatest Hits Tour," but she refused to perform more than a few such hits, telling the audience: "Driving into town I saw this big billboard up there with my picture on it saying 'The Greatest Hits Tour.' That was news to us. We didn't know it was 'The Greatest Hits Tour.' "
Some of the audience members' behavior--vandalizing posters, throwing drinks--was boorish and unacceptable. But so too was Ronstadt's contempt for those who'd come for an evening of music, not political hectoring. And lest anyone point to this as an example of "censorship," let us be the first to point out that no government action was involved.
Kerry's 'First Obligation'
The New York Times has a compilation of some recent quotes from the presidential candidates. Last Friday in Crystal City, Va., John Kerry had this to say:
"The obligation of the commander in chief of the United States is to be able to look parents in the eyes, look a family in the eyes and be able to say to them, 'I tried to do everything in my power to avoid the loss of your son or daughter. But the threat was so real, the threat was so imminent, we had no choice.' And I believe that this president failed that test in Iraq."
This from a man who voted to send the troops to war and then voted against funding them.
Cussing Out of Both Sides of His Mouth
From an article on John Kerry's childhood in yesterday's Boston Herald:
Sent by his American parents to a posh Swiss boarding school in the foothills of the Alps, an 11-year-old John F. Kerry did what most any other kid would do--he learned to curse in Italian.
"Spaccare la faccia, porco," Cam Kerry remembered his older brother saying, a phrase which, loosely translated, means "Shove it in your face, pig."
But as we noted earlier this month, Kerry claimed on July 3 that he had learned "my first cuss word sitting on a tractor"--at age 12. Both of these stories can't be true. Of course, it doesn't really matter when Kerry learned to cuss; the important thing is that he has a %#!@ credibility gap.
Gee, How Heartwarming
From a Reuters profile of Teresa Heinz Kerry: "She is wealthy from her marriage to [Sen. John] Heinz, the heir to the Pittsburgh ketchup empire who died in a plane crash and who, she said, was 'kind enough to even introduce me to John (Kerry) the day before he was killed.' "
This Just In
"Voters Looking for Right Candidate"--headline, Honolulu Advertiser, July 19
The Anti-Bush Mantra
President Bush is finding little support in that all-important voting bloc, people who do yoga, reports the Los Angeles Times. But even in this group, it's hard to find anyone who's enthusiastic about John Kerry. The paper quotes one Robert Rabbin, "a writer who has practiced meditation for 35 years":
"There isn't a lot of policy difference between Bush and Kerry on some issues," Rabbin said. "But there's a world of difference between their levels of consciousness. I'm voting for Kerry and Edwards because in my mind they and the people they will bring in are at least human beings. In my mind, George Bush et al are a group of psychopaths--it's a clinical term, the primary element of which is an absolute lack of empathy."
Ah, so dehumanizing your political opponents is what yoga is all about.
A Green Paradox
"If the poor summer weather continues, Norway's delivery rooms will most likely be cramped this spring as statistics indicate that bad weather drive [sic] people to the bedroom," reports the Nettavisen TV network:
When the vacation months of June, July, and August have been colder than normal, the number of children born nine months later is higher than usual, reported the Norwegian paper Nationen.
This means that if "global warming" were real, it would prevent "overpopulation."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not Too Brite--CLIV
"Two prisoners died, but four managed to flee a Rio de Janeiro prison on Monday when 50 members of a local drug gang sprayed guard towers with gun fire to cover the escape," Reuters reports.
Oddly Enough!
(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)
Swedes Lie, People Die
"The Swedish organization A Non Smoking Generation covered Stockholm in posters claiming that smoking stunts penis growth and that cigarette filters are filled with mouse excrements, along with other lies aimed at getting kids to stop smoking," Agence France-Presse reports:
"We wanted to raise awareness about how the tobacco industry always promotes its products--through lies," head of the organization Anne-Therese Enarsson told AFP.
"Our lies are so exaggerated that we hope they will make people stop and think, and then come to our website to find the truth," she added.
One wonders if it's occurred to ANSG that their lies will make youngsters less likely to believe them when they do tell the truth.
Brown Shirts, Red Wine
The European edition of Time magazine reports on a line of Italian wines whose labels feature Hitler and other totalitarian figures:
Gazing up at me from dozens of wine bottles on the station's shelves is Adolf Hitler, his right arm outstretched in the familiar Nazi salute. Alongside him is a bottle bearing a portrait of SS chief Heinrich Himmler, organizer of the mass murder of 6 million European Jews. Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini are there as well, staring out from hundreds of bottles of Merlot, Burgundy, Cabernet Sauvignon and the like. . . . The Historic Line is dominated by Nazi images but also features others, including the Communist Collection with labels of Lenin and Che Guevara.
While the wines are sold openly in Italy, "German law bars any trade using Hitler portraits, swastikas or National Socialist symbols." But communist symbols are perfectly acceptable; Germany even produces Karl Marx vodka. |
