Best of the Web Today - December 30, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Angry Left Flameout
Last night found us reading the new issue of Commentary, whose cover story is a 9,400-word history of the 2004 presidential election by Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute. It's a very thorough and thoughtful piece, one that will probably reward rereading years from now, when memories of the campaign are not so fresh.
But we have one quibble: Muravchik's introduction rings something of a false note. "The aftermath befitted the morrow of a civil war," reads his opening sentence--a nice turn of phrase. He describes the despairing reactions of Bush opponents to the president's re-election: the Florida fruitcakes who sought therapy for postelection "trauma"; the hysterical rantings of Garry Wills, Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman. Post-2000, Muravchik argues, Bush hatred was comprehensible, because "to many" his disputed election "appeared excruciatingly unfair, not to mention undemocratic."
He continues: "But in November 2004, the fact that Bush's second term would now be legitimate beyond any doubt seemed only to compound the hatred," Muravchik continues. That's where we stopped and thought: Wait a second.
Of course, we were reading Muravchik's article with the benefit of nearly two months' perspective. It's not that his observations were wrong; they just seem out of date. There was indeed a heightened intensity to the Bush hatred just after the election, but it lasted maybe three days. It calls to mind the Helix Nebula: "The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic that it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce." In other words, the Angry Left was flaming out.
Think about it. Michael Moore is now making a documentary about insurance (it'll be a blockbuster for sure). Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has gone off to read an economics textbook. George Soros is nowhere to be found; for all we know he actually did join a monastery. And of course Susan Sontag has gone to the Great Cocktail Party Up in the Sky.
Whither the Angry Left? Well, a few of them were seen stalking John Kerry* the other day, as the Boston Globe reports:
The election is long over. A new year is starting, and even most of the more ardent liberals are moving on. But in Louisburg Square this week, one determined group isn't quite ready to let go. About a half dozen supporters of John Kerry are holding vigil in front of his house, still hoping for a Kerry presidency.
The little knot of demonstrators, calling themselves the Coalition Against Election Fraud, stood shivering in the cold yesterday, hoisting signs and pressing fliers into the hands of bewildered passersby. Taxi drivers, neighbors digging cars out of the snow, and Beacon Hill residents who happened to be strolling by were subjected to earnest pleas to join the cause.
''Who knows? Maybe we'll overturn the election," said Sheila Parks, a vigil organizer.
The Globe offers the creepy detail that Parks "years ago legally changed her surname to that of the famed civil rights activist Rosa Parks." Even in ultraliberal Boston, these folks didn't find much sympathy: "Residents peeked from windows with looks of disdain. A man who spent a good 40 minutes of the hourlong vigil digging his van out of the snow with a clipboard, harumphed as Parks thrust a flier at him." Jim Fraivillig, a reader of this column, rebuffed the group's requests "to send a post card to Kerry urging the senator not to certify the electoral college results."
It's hard to believe now how fearsome the Angry Left once seemed. This column never thought it was the stuff of a winning political campaign, but sometimes we felt as though our skepticism put us in the minority. We're sure we'll continue to hear from the Dowds and the Krugmans and maybe even the Moores and the Soroses; not even the fascist Bush regime can silence them. But the Angry Left will loom much smaller in 2005 than it has in many years.
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.
The Be Kind to Terrorists Party
The American Spectator's "Washington Prowler" reports that "tough sledding" may be ahead for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales (second item):
A month ago, White House legislative affairs and transition staff were predicting a choppy set of hearings, with some dust-ups for the current White House Counsel. But as time has elapsed, there is growing concern that with new revelations of prisoner abuses in Iraq and in military holding facilities elsewhere, and with Democrats in the Senate looking to score points with the public, the Gonzales hearings may be rougher than initially thought.
There were some genuine abuses at Abu Ghraib, for which people are being prosecuted. But if the Democrats really think that belaboring complaints about harsh treatment of the enemy is the way to "score points with the public," they're more out of touch than we thought.
Arabs Fighting for Israel
A recurrent theme among what Clifford May has dubbed the "posthumanitarian left," often echoed by "realists" on the right, is that Arabs are congenitally or culturally incapable of democracy. But there are in fact some one million Arabs living in the Middle East under a democratic government. We refer, of course, to the Arab citizens of Israel.
Israeli Arabs, unlike Jews, are not subject to military conscription. But they can volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces, and Ha'aretz reports increasingly many are doing just that:
While Bedouin have been volunteering for the IDF, primarily as trackers, for dozens of years, Muslim and Christian Arabs have been doing so, on a very small scale, only since the 1990s. . . .
The number of Muslim volunteers in 2003 was 64.5 percent higher than in 2000, while the enlistment of Christians increased by 16 percent over the same period.
A senior source at the IDF's Personnel Directorate notes that incomplete figures for 2004 show a further increase, at a rate of some 20 percent, in the enlistment of youth from both sectors.
The numbers are still small; "it appears that the annual number of volunteers from both sectors together does not exceed 150." But if Arabs in Israel are willing to risk their lives for democracy, why should we expect any less of Arabs in Iraq or elsewhere?
Conventional McWisdom
USA Today's Al Neuharth penned a column last week in which he encouraged America to cut and run from Iraq. Ho hum. He wrote the same column in May. This time, though, some readers apparently noticed and wrote angry letters in response. Editor & Publisher, the journalistic trade magazine, apparently thinks it's newsworthy that anyone actually reads Neuharth's columns, and who are we to argue.
But we were quite amused by the headline and subheadline of a story yesterday by Greg Mitchell: "Some Readers Want to Lock Up Al Neuharth: Apparently, it is now an act of treason to offer an editorial opinion on the Iraq war that goes against the conventional wisdom." Neuharth's stunningly unconventional insight is that Iraq is just like Vietnam.
Even funnier is the first sentence in Mitchell's piece:
Unless you've been living in a bubble the past few months, surely you know that the partisan divide in this country has grown wider with each passing minute and that increasing numbers of Americans hate or at least distrust the press.
Wow, Greg, way to go against the conventional wisdom!
Et Tu, Ashcroft?
"US Attorney-General Joins Saddam"--headline, news.com.au, Dec. 29
Zero-Tolerance Watch
Trinity South Elementary School in Washington, Pa., has a "terrorist" in its midst. No, we haven't gone all Reuters on you; the scare quotes are actually appropriate in this case. Trinity suspended 10-year-old Kelli Ilyankoff for a day for making "terroristic threats." Here's what happened, according to the Observer-Reporter, a local paper:
A female classmate, Kelli's friend, had passed her a piece of paper with a sketch depicting a gravestone with a third child's name on it. Kelli, in turn, sketched another tombstone with her friend's name, along with "1993-2004--nobody cares about you."
The two then began to giggle, attracting the attention of a student teacher who confiscated the note, tore it up and threw it in a wastebasket, according to Kelli.
"We were just kidding around, playing," she said.
The student teacher told another teacher about the sketch, which was then reassembled and delivered to [principal Charles] Braden.
Hat tip: ZeroIntelligence.net.
I'm Crazy 'Bout My Fetus
In a post titled "Crazy Freak Fetus Resembles Human Baby," the BlameBush! blog offers another perspective on the natal nomenclature debate. The post begins with a series of headlines, all of which use the term fetus:
Notice a pattern here? Even fascist Faux News and the Moonie Times agree that the bizarre creature brutally extracted from a murdered woman . . . was a fetus. Not a human child, mind you, but a F-E-T-U-S. Yet despite a media consensus to the contrary, the anti-choice crowd still insists on referring to the damned thing as a "baby." A poor womyn [sic] is killed and a fetus is on the loose, yet all these repugs can think about is how to exploit this tragedy in order to undermine Roe v. Wade. . . .
Yes, I know the fetus has cute little "baby hands" with cute little "baby fingers" and makes cute little "baby noises," but that doesn't make it any more human than a baby-shaped intestinal parasite. Furthermore, I don't recall this fetus being "born," nor have I read anything remotely hinting that the host organism wanted it to be. She could have been on her way to the abortion clinic for all we know. . . .
I hear that the "father" has already claimed custody of the fetus and is going to selfishly raise it as if it were his "child," oblivious to the damage he's doing to the cause of reproductive freedom. As with the Laci Peterson case, the anti-choicers will use the fetus' humanlike characteristics to insinuate life where there is none, and chip away at a Woman's Right to Choose.
One can almost smell the smoke as the Bill of Rights burns.
We don't necessarily agree with all this; we present it simply to underscore what a complex and sensitive issue this is.
This Just In
"Relief workers find devastation in Indonesia"--subheadline, CNN.com, Dec. 30
You Don't Say
"Tsunami Hampers Thailand Tourism Industry"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 30
What Would Tsunami Victims Do Without Health Experts?
"Diseases Threaten Tsunami Victims, Health Experts Warn"--headline, Voice of America Web site, Dec. 28
Since When Do Environmentalists Smoke?
"Green Lights at Airport"--headline, KKTV Web site (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Dec. 29
It Must Be 'Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever'
"Cold Kills 32 in Bangladesh"--headline, South African Press Association, Dec. 29
Police Are Investigating It as a Hat Crime
"Man, 42, Shoots Himself in Derby"--headline, Buffalo News, Dec. 30
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
From an article in yesterday's New York Times by Jennifer 8. Lee, on a nest of Manhattan birds:
"It was like a belated Christmas gift," said Amanda Tree, a Brooklyn actress and singer-songwriter who had waited, bundled up with wool hat and rainbow scarf, since 9 a.m. to see the hawks. "You couldn't imagine receiving anything nicer. It makes me happier than my first Barbie doll."
From an article in today's New York Times, also by Jennifer 8. Lee (with David Chen), on the dwindling population of New York during the holidays:
Amanda Tree, an actress who walks dogs to earn extra money, has found herself cutting corners this week as her dog-walking and modeling jobs have dried up. The five or six dogs she walks regularly have all left New York on vacation.
"You scrimp," she said, shrugging. Holding up a brown paper bag, she said, "I'm making a bowl of soup do for the day and I have an apple in my bag and half a banana that I had to share with my cocker spaniel."
Apparently New York is so deserted that even Greg Packer is out of town.
Singular Susan
Reader Donald Pugh calls our attention to this probably unwittingly funny passage from the New York Times' obituary of Susan Sontag:
She was undoubtedly the only writer of her generation to win major literary prizes (among them a National Book Critics Circle Award, a National Book Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant) and to appear in films by Woody Allen and Andy Warhol; to be the subject of rapturous profiles in Rolling Stone and People magazines; and to be photographed by Annie Leibovitz for an Absolut Vodka ad.
Hmm, we can't remember his name right now, but it seems to us there was at least one other writer of her generation who won major literary prizes, appeared in films by Woody Allen and Andy Warhol, and was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for an Absolut Vodka ad. Oh but wait. The profile of that guy in Rolling Stone was merely fervent, not rapturous.
Pugh imagines this sentence from the Times obit of Woody Allen: "He was undoubtedly the only filmmaker of his generation to have season tickets to the Knicks and cast his live-in lover in several of his films before marrying her adopted Korean teenage daughter." Undoubtedly! |
