Best of the Web Today - October 26, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
The Times Spoils CBS's Surprise
To make his case against President Bush, John Kerry has been relying on intelligence from sources that have been proven unreliable--specifically, the New York Times (home of Jayson Blair and Maureen Dowd) and CBS (Dan Rather and Mary Mapes). Yesterday Kerry seized on a story in the Times, "reported in cooperation with the CBS News program '60 Minutes,' " that "nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives . . . are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations."
So after arguing for months that Saddam Hussein posed no threat and had no ties to terrorists, Kerry shifted to claiming that "terrorists could use this material to kill our troops and our people, blow up airplanes and level buildings." The Times, meanwhile, published an article today titled "Iraq Explosives Become Issue in Campaign." They're an issue in the campaign in part because Bush didn't talk about them:
The White House sought on Monday to explain the disappearance of 380 tons of high explosives in Iraq that American forces were supposed to secure, as Senator John Kerry seized on the missing cache as "one of the great blunders of Iraq" and said President Bush's "incredible incompetence" had put American troops at risk.
Mr. Bush never mentioned the disappearance of the high explosives during a long campaign speech in Greeley, Colo., about battling terrorism.
It wasn't long, though, before NBC News had raised questions about the Times/CBS October surprise. The Drudge Report summarizes the "NBC Nightly News" story:
The 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives were already missing back in April 10, 2003--when U.S. troops arrived at the installation south of Baghdad!
An NBCNews crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.
According to NBCNews, the HMX and RDX explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.
The New York Sun notes that the Times/CBS report was based on a letter from Mohamed ElBaradei, who is seeking a third term as head of the International Atomic Energy Commission. The Bush administration opposes ElBaradei's reappointment, so one suspects that this was a foreign effort to influence the outcome of America's presidential election, aided by our domestic partisan liberal media.
Ironically, the effort might have been undone by the Times' hurry to get the story out. The Los Angeles Times reports that "60 Minutes" originally planned to air it next Sunday--two nights and one day before the election. Would that have been enough time for the truth to out?
At Least It'll Keep Him off American TV
BBC World has signed up mendacious moviemaker Michael Moore to contribute to its coverage of the American election, reports the London-based Media Bulletin. To provide balance, the Beeb will also include such luminaries as far-left financier George Soros and Clinton consigliere Sidney Blumenthal.
This crew will certainly be fun to watch if President Bush wins.
Fabulism and Fury
Two follow-ups on yesterday's column. Blogger Joshua Trevino notes that there's another false element in John Kerry's tale of meeting with the U.N. Security Council prior to his vote in favor of the Iraq war. In a December 2003 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Kerry said that in 2002, "I sat with the French and British, Germans, with the entire Security Council." Problem is, Germany didn't become a member of the Security Council until 2003.
Meanwhile, blogger Napoleon Cole has the video of MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell's insane rant against Vietnam veteran and author John O'Neill.
Coalition of the Wailing
An outfit called United for Peace and Justice, which strongly opposes the liberation of Iraq, plans to hold "No Stolen Elections!" protests on Nov. 3. Apparently these guys favor the doctrine of pre-emption, but only when used against America's government.
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
"Homeless Man Meets Candidates in Film Debuting Today"--headline, Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald, Oct. 26, 2004
Shh, It's a Secret!
"Rehnquist's Illness Veiled in Secrecy"--headline, Contra Costa (Calif.) Times, Oct. 26
"Rehnquist Diagnosed With Cancer"--headline, Contra Costa (Calif.) Times, Oct. 26
Who Will Make It Start Again?
"Kerry to Make Macomb County Stop as Election Day Nears"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 25
Our Friends the Saudis
Arutz Sheva reports that "Saudi Arabia passed new regulations on citizenship this week that will benefit hundreds of thousands of foreigners living in the desert kingdom, with one exception: the 'Palestinians.' " Here's the explanation for this apartheid policy:
Citing a report in the Al-Watan newspaper, the English-language Saudi daily Arab News notes that one group will in fact be excluded by the new regulations: the estimated 500,000 Arabs from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza living in the kingdom.
This select sector of Arabs will not be allowed to benefit from the new law, says the paper, because of Arab League instructions barring the Arab states from granting them citizenship in order "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland."
Does anyone really believe the Israeli-Palestinian problem can be solved without first changing the political culture of the rest of the Arab world?
Meanwhile, the Middle East Media Research Institute translates an editorial titled "Bush the Nazi," which appeared in al-Riyadh, a Saudi government daily. It refers to claims that President Bush's grandfather had ties to the National Socialist regime, familiar fare in the left-wing fever swamps:
Either these documents were archived during the terms of [Bush] the father and [George W. Bush] so they could be used as a means of blackmailing the two presidents into continuing to serve Israel, or the time has now come to publicize these facts, if they are indeed true. That is to say, perhaps Bush Jr. has played all his cards and he has no choice left but to leave the White House, with [John] Kerry as his successor, about whom it has been said that he has Jewish roots, like [Madeleine] Albright, the former Secretary of State who didn't make public her religious identity until several years after [assuming office].
The delicate question is whether Israel cooperated with the ruling Bush family while knowing these secrets, according to the principle of whoever does you excellent service is your ally, even if in the past he had [ties] with the Nazis? Or perhaps this information is inaccurate or fictitious, and its publication has come at a time when the investigators don't have time to conduct a thorough investigation and to defend Bush, since the elections are fast approaching. If we assume that the accusation is true, it is probable that elements in the service of Israel and [acting] in conjunction with it felt which way the wind was blowing in anticipation of the elections, and [concluded] that Kerry was better suited to the Israeli positions. . . .
In any event, it is Israel that has gained the most from this.
Well, we're glad they nailed that down.
The Ice, Perhaps?
"Ice Skater Who Fell Face-First Still Doesn't Know What Hit Her"--headline, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Oct. 25
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The Redskins Rule
Huh? How can anyone say the Redskins rule when they're 2-4 and in last place? Actually, it turns out blogger Justin Taylor is using rule as a noun. Here's his claim:
For the past 72 years, the fate of the Redskins in their last game before the election has predicted whether or not the incumbent party holds the White House. If the Redskins win, the incumbent party stays. If the Redskins lose or tie, the incumbent loses the White House. The rule has held for the last 18 elections. . . .
David Dolan, an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, calculated the odds of this happening for PackerNews.com: 1 in 263.5 million. (By the way, that's 2,600 times higher than the chance of getting killed by lightning!)
This number seems vastly out of line. If we assume that the Skins have a 50% chance of winning each game and the incumbent party has a 50% chance of winning each election, the odds of the two indicators matching up for 18 elections in a row are 1 in 262,144 (2 to the 18th power). The odds that they will match up for 19 elections in a row are 1 in 524,288. Does this mean you should bet against the pattern repeating? Of course not. The odds that it will are 50-50 (with Bush and the Skins both slightly favored).
"As in sports," we noted in July, "streaks and slumps in politics go on only until they end." That's doubly true in this case.
The Menace of Plastic Dog Toys
"Police are investigating a case of alleged assault stemming from the theft of campaign signs in Seattle's Laurelhurt neighborhood," reports KIRO-TV:
Workers at the Talaris World Conference Center took action when they saw someone on surveillance camera video taking their signs, which support Republican candidates. They confronted the woman, who allegedly attacked one of them.
"The suspect became angry and struck the victim over the head with a green plastic three-foot-long ball throwing device, in addition to pushing him with his finger in the chest," said Sean Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Department.
Authorities are investigating this case as an assault and they have taken the dog toy and the incriminating pictures as evidence.
Clearly the time has come for more stringent dog-toy control laws. We fully support a dog's right to play, but what dog needs a three-foot-long ball throwing device? The only purpose such assault dog toys have is to commit violent acts. Of course, the dog-toy nuts will say "dog toys don't kill people, people kill people." Sorry, that dog won't hunt.
Reuters Dowdifies Us
Eighteen months after the news broke that John Kerry is French-looking, Reuters waddles in with a dispatch on the subject:
Capitalizing on anti-French sentiment among some Americans following France's decision not to back the war in Iraq, some Republicans have repeatedly accused Democratic contender Sen. John Kerry of "looking French."
The conservative press has jumped on the bandwagon, spurred by an anonymous Bush adviser making the comparison to The New York Times. Wall Street Journal commentator James Taranto, for example, has many times referred to Kerry as a "haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat."
Notice something missing from Reuters' quote? That's right, John Kerry isn't a haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat. He's a haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam! How convenient for Kerry that Reuters omits his participation in an unpopular war. |
