by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, May 28, 2002 2:03 P.M. EDT

Ahead of His Time
On Sept. 12, 1994, a man named Frank Eugene Corder crashed a small plane into the South Lawn of the White House. Corder died, but no one else was hurt. In response, the Secret Service conducted a "White House security review" and issued a public report, an appendix to which contains this startling historical note:

Samuel Byck, a failed businessman with a history of mental illness, was investigated by the Secret Service in 1972 on the basis of reports that he had threatened President Nixon. In 1974, he hatched a plan called "Operation Pandora's Box" to hijack a commercial airliner and crash it into the Executive Mansion. On February 22, . . . Byck went to Baltimore/Washington International Airport carrying a pistol and a gasoline bomb. He forced his way onto a Delta flight destined for Atlanta by shooting a guard at the security checkpoint. He entered the cockpit and ordered the crew to take off. After the crew informed him that they could not depart without removing the wheel blocks, Byck shot the pilot twice and the co-pilot three times (the co-pilot died). Police outside the airplane shot into the cockpit and hit Byck twice. Byck fell to the floor, put the revolver to his head, and killed himself.

The Dallas Morning News appears to be the only news organization to have linked the Byck case to Sept. 11 (alas, its Oct. 12 piece on the subject doesn't appear to be on its Web site). Byck was a character in the 1990 Stephen Sondheim musical "Assassins," a Broadway revival of which was to have opened in November but was canceled in the wake of Sept. 11.

David Gregory Hits the Big Time
American journalists pride themselves on their "adversarial" relationship with government officials; we know, as it was drummed into our head back in J-school. President Bush is proving himself to be a worthy adversary. Covering a Paris press conference with Bush and President Jacques Chirac, NBC's David Gregory posed this inane question:

I wonder why it is you think there are such strong sentiments in Europe against you and against this administration? Why, particularly, there's a view that you and your administration are trying to impose America's will on the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to the Middle East and where the war on terrorism goes next?

According to the Washington Times, Gregory turned to Chirac and added in French: "And, Mr. President, would you maybe comment on that?"

"Very good!" Bush replied sarcastically. "The guy memorizes four words, and he plays like he's intercontinental."

"I can go on," Gregory boasted.

"I'm impressed--que bueno," (Spanish for "how wonderful"), Bush replied. "Now I'm literate in two languages." Bush went on to give a serious answer to the reporter's question:

Look, the only thing I know to do is speak my mind, to talk about my values, to talk about our mutual love for freedom and the willingness to defend freedom. And, David, I think a lot of people on the continent of Europe appreciate that. There's a heck of a lot more that unites us than divides us. We share the same values; we trade $2 trillion a year. I feel very comfortable coming to Europe; I feel very comfortable coming to France. I've got a lot of friends here.

One Man's Journalist . . .
Does this explain Reuters' position that "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter?" Ha'aretz reports that the Israeli Defense Forces "arrested a Reuters photographer in the Gaza Strip last Wednesday, for what military sources said were his links to terror activities":

Suhaib Jadallah Salem, 22, who was intercepted while traveling to Rafiah, at the southern end of the Strip, was in possession of a hand grenade when he was seized, military sources said.

Reuters' own report on the detention says nothing about the grenade.

'102 Minutes'
Sunday's New York Times featured one of the most powerful pieces of Sept. 11 journalism to date: an account of the last 2 1/2 hours of the World Trade Center--from 8 a.m., 46 minutes before the first plane hit the north tower, until 10:28, when that tower collapsed. (The south tower collapsed at 9:59, 29 minutes before the north tower, though it was hit 16 minutes after.) We can't do justice to this article with a description or a brief excerpt; suffice it to say that it will enrage you. David Warren nicely sums up the feelings this Times account renews:

I am struck both by the number of web readers I have in New York, and by what they write to me. On Sept. 11th, at least 20 million people could actually see the smoke and debris uttering from the former WTC with their own eyes. It is now written into each of their souls. I have yet to hear from even one of them who is not willing, in reply to further such attacks from the same family of terrorist fanatics, to take out every single Islamic regime, whether "radical" or "moderate". I don't think we in Canada, let alone those in Europe, fully appreciate the "commitment" there. That e.g. the moment the U.S. enters Iraq, Hillary Clinton will cry: "Get 'im!"

The Associated Press quotes Gen. John M. Keane, the Army's second in command, who sums up the situation nicely, addressing the 101st Airborne Division in Kandahar, Afghanistan: "We can't defend an open democratic society of 285 million people. The only way we can protect Americans is to kill those who would kill them." Words to live by.

The Weekly Standard presents an "honor roll" of American and allied servicemen who have died in the war. Along with 44 Americans, they include four Canadians, three Danes, two Germans and an Australian.

The FBI's Whistle-Blower
Time magazine has a lengthy report on Coleen Rowley's memo, an "edited" version of which is on the magazine's Web site. According to Rowley, the FBI's stonewalling on the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui didn't end even on Sept. 11: "Even after the attacks had begun, the SSA [FBI supervisory special agent] in question was still attempting to block the search of Moussaoui's computer, characterizing the World Trade Center attacks as a mere coincidence with Misseapolis' [sic] prior suspicions about Moussaoui." Mickey Kaus offers this observation:

Rowley actually underplays the extent to which the F.B.I. might have disrupted the 9/11 plot if it had pursued and been granted the right to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer, which contained the phone number of Mohammed Atta's roommate. Rowley seems to assume that if the feds had captured one or two of the hijackers, the others would have proceeded with their 9/11 operation (but with fewer people). Isn't it just as likely that they would have panicked, and either called off the operation or done something riskier or stupid? It's not inconceivable that a simple call to Atta's roomie might have produced some panicky behavior.

Kaus also has some political advice for President Bush:

Instead of trying to silence Democratic critics as per se unpatriotic, why don't the Bushies forcefully point out how misguided leftish ideology--supported over the years mainly by Democrats and the media--contributed greatly to the 9/11 failure.

Exhibit A: The FBI appears to have been actually deterred by the prospect that it would have been accused of ethnic profiling if it had searched all U.S. flight schools for Arab terrorists. In particular, it seems to have been stung by Wen Ho Lee's highly-publicized charges that he was singled out for prosecution because of his ethnicity.

Exhibit B: Dukakis-like civil-libertarian concern with the privacy rights of non-citizens produced a statute with what now seems an excessively high standard of "probable cause" the FBI had to meet before it could obtain the Moussaoui search warrant. Why do I suspect that some of the alien-defending, privacy-protecting statements of . . . oh, let's say Senator Leahy on this subject might prove embarrassing if publicized today? Again, the FBI can be faulted in large part for actually (and unexpectedly) internalizing the ACLU's values.

One problem with this: As our Tom Bray noted way back in October 2000, candidate Bush himself denounced "profiling" of Arabs in an apparent play for the Arab-American vote in Michigan (a state Al Gore carried anyway).

Another Glorious Martyrdom Operation
A Palestinian suicide bomber murdered a 56-year-old Israeli woman and her 18-month-old granddaughter in Petah Tikvah, Israel, yesterday. "I saw a baby that had half a regular face, and half a face that was just blood and flesh," an eyewitness tells the Jerusalem Post: Yasser Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades confessed to the atrocity.

The Associated Press identifies the murderer as 18-year-old Jihad Titi, a cousin of Mahmoud Titi, the al-Aqsa leader whom the Israelis killed last week. Jihad's mom is mighty proud that her boy died murdering a Jewish woman and child; she describes receiving a phone call from Jihad just before he killed himself: "I realized that he is going to carry out a suicide attack," she tells the AP. "I said, 'Oh, son, I hope your operation will succeed.' "

Jihad's pop, however, is disappointed: "I would hope that my son would be a nuclear bomb, not a normal bomb, to destroy everything," he tells the wire service.

Palestinian murderers keep getting younger. Ha'aretz reports that the suicide bomber who murdered two Israelis in Rishon Letzion last week turns out to have been a 16-year-old boy, and the Israeli Defense Forces reports the capture of another 16-year-old, wearing an explosives belt, riding in a Palestinian taxi in the northern Samaria.

Are even the Arabs losing patience with the Palestinians' depraved tactics? The Lebanon Daily Star quotes Jordan's Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher as saying: "These operations have lost all international support for the Arabs, who are the only countries in the world to support them."

Emily Literrorist
Two weeks ago, we noted that Yasser Arafat had signed a "law" establishing an independent judiciary.

Never mind.

The Jerusalem Post reports Arafat has decided to suspend the law. Among other things, the Post quotes a Palestinian legislative source as saying, the 72-year-old Arafat objects to age limits on judges.

Meanwhile, the Washington Times quotes an Arafat statement saying "we will steadfastly confront the enemy," meaning Israel.

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

My Brother the Terrorist
It turns out Eli Federman, the security guard who foiled a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub last week, has a brother who is an accused terrorist. Israelinsider.com reports Eli has been estranged since childhood from his brother, Noam, who is now in jail on charges that he helped plan terror attacks against Israeli Arabs. Noam Federman denies that he is involved with the "Jewish underground."

The Federmans' mother, Rina, says she's "proud of both my children." But that's where the equivalence between Jewish and Arab terrorism ends. After all, it's Israel that has charged Noam with terrorism.

The Jerusalem Post reports that "five Israeli soldiers have been sent to prison for looting and vandalizing Palestinian property during a six-week Israeli offensive in the West Bank." Again, it's Israel that is protecting the rights of Palestinians. In a "Jenin War Diary," Israeli Sgt. Maj. Rami Meir says incidents of looting are the exception:

Our soldiers searched every house in the camp and, by necessity, saw everything that was stashed there: money, jewelry, electrical appliances. No one touched any Arab property. Every soldier knows he has but one singular mission: to defend our homes by fighting terror. Each one came with clean hands and leaves with clean hands.

Israel treats Palestinians better than most Muslim countries treat their own citizens. A site called Freethe400million.com has a bill of particulars against 20 Muslim countries, including 18 Arab ones.

The Massacre That Wasn't--XVI
Writing in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Dan Gordon, described as "a peace activist who has held meetings with Arab leaders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza," offers some telling details on the aftermath of the battle of Jenin:

I was in the Jenin refugee camp on April 16. In addition to noting that there was no smell of death in the camp and that the booby-traps and anti-personnel bombs laid out by the Palestinian gunmen were still very much in evidence, I heard a story, which I did indeed find chilling. It was told to me by Dr. David Zangen, chief medical officer of the Israeli paratroop unit, which bore the brunt of the fighting in Jenin. Zangen stated that the Israelis not only worked to keep the hospital in Jenin open, but that they offered the Palestinians blood for their wounded.

The Palestinians refused it because it was Jewish blood.

That is a chilling story to an American of my age, with memories of white, bigoted-racial purists refusing to accept blood from African Americans in the segregated South.

The Israeli response, which could easily have been, "fine, have it you own way," was to fly in 2,000 units of blood from Jordan, via helicopters, for the Palestinians.

A Muslim Against Anti-Semitism
Ha'aretz profiles Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim who is a lecturer at two Swiss colleges, and who, despite being a strong critic of Israeli policy, also takes a firm stand against anti-Semitism.

"To my regret, anti-Semitic utterances have been heard not only from frustrated and confused young Muslims, but also from certain Muslim intellectuals and imams," he says, "who in every crisis or political backsliding see the hand of the 'Jewish lobby.' There is nothing in Islam that gives legitimization to Judeophobia, xenophobia and the rejection of any human being because of his religion or the group to which he belongs. Anti-Semitism has no justification in Islam, the message of which demands respect for the Jewish religion and spirit, which are considered a noble expression of the People of the Book."

It's a message some Europeans could stand to hear too. In one of the pettiest examples of anti-Semitism, the Jerusalem Post reports, TV announcers in Sweden and Belgium reportedly told viewers of the Eurovision Song Contest not to vote for the Israeli entrant--"due to [the Israelis'] treatment of the Palestinians," a viewer quotes a Swedish announcer as saying. This notwithstanding, the Israeli contestant finished a respectable 12th.

The Moscow Times reports on an incident of anti-Semitic terrorism in Russia: 28-year-old Tatyana Sapunova spotted a sign saying Smert Zhidam--"Death to Yids"--alongside a road some 20 miles southwest of Moscow. She stopped her car and tried to remove the sign, which exploded. Sapunova lost an eye in the blast.

Single White Terrorist
Hamis Tanjeh, the Palestinian terrorist exiled to Portugal as part of the deal that ended the siege at the Church of the Nativity, is looking for that special someone. "He is not married, he does not have a girlfriend," Agence France-Presse quotes Issam Beseisso, a Palestinian Authority representative in Portugal, as saying. "We are looking for a bride for him."

Meanwhile in Italy, exiled terrorist Khaled Abu Nejmeh tells AFP he wants his freedom: "When we arrived in Italy I asked the head of the Italian security service responsible for us not to track us too closely. I told him: 'at least give us some personal space and autonomy or we could just explode.' "

Silly Season
The BBC reports that "an Egyptian food manufacturer has launched a line of crisps packaged with Yasser Arafat's image." The chips come in a bag that shows "the snack being trampled under the Palestinian leader's feet" along with the words "Hand in hand, we are building our future. The more you buy, the more you build." Four percent of the proceeds will "go to the Palestinians," though the manufacturer doesn't say which organization will get the loot.

The New York Times reports that lawyers for alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid have filed a motion to suppress statements he gave on the grounds "that Mr. Reid had either invoked his right to remain silent, or was unable to stop talking because of the Valium and other drugs that doctors on board the flight used to sedate him."

And the editorialists at the Arab News have weighed in on the Chandra Levy case, as well as last week's conviction of Bobby Frank Cherry for a 1963 Alabama bombing that killed four black girls:

The bigotry that underpinned the long failure to find the Birmingham bomber and the inefficiency that left the body of Chandra Levy undiscovered in a Washington park for a year, demonstrate that America is still not a society that has earned the right to preach to the rest of the world. America's reaction to its own terrible bombing wounds was an hysterical and bigoted attack upon anyone in the country of Arab origin. America's onslaught against international terrorism, continues to focus exclusively upon the Muslim world, while ignoring the terrorism visited on the Palestinians by the Israelis.

In 1963, it was four little black girls who perished by a white bigot's bomb. Had they been Arab children and the bomber a US Zionist, would their killer have been brought to justice, even by now, or indeed ever?

Crackpot Convergence
Blogger David Carr writes of "the great convergence of all the world's idiots into one, big indistinguishable glob." Here's an example: Robert Fisk, the America-hating correspondent for London's Independent, is in full froth over President Bush's likening World War IV to World War II. Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, et al., after all, aren't Hitler.

Well, OK, fair enough. There are some important differences between the Nazis and the Islamofascists--most notably, that today's enemy is pathetically weak in conventional military terms and thus must resort to tactics of terror and weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand, there are some striking similarities, most notably the virulently anti-Jewish ideology of today's enemy, which is in significant part borrowed from the Nazis.

The cultural influences go both ways; the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that in Germany, "neo-Nazis have begun to wear the kaffiyeh, or Arab headdress, as a scarf--a fashion associated more with left-wing anti-Zionists." (Q: What do you call it when a fight breaks out between left-wing and right-wing Germans? A: A kaffiyeh clash.)

Fisk isn't interested in analyzing such fine points, though; he's content merely to sneer at the comparison before going on to make a truly ludicrous one of his own: "More and more, indeed, Mr Bush's rhetoric sounds like the crazed videotapes of Mr bin Laden."

Meanwhile, a Fisk admirer has started a Web site in his honor, Robert-Fisk.com. It includes links to Fisk's oeuvre as well as supplementary readings. A page called "Views on Why America Is Hated" includes links to five articles by white supremacist David Duke.

Are Fisk and Duke birds of a feather? They certainly have more in common than President Bush and Osama bin Laden.

Stupidity Watch
The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Calif., announces an exhibition called "The Flag," running through June 16 (emphasis ours):

A collaboration with the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Los Angeles, this exhibition explores the cultural impact of the American flag. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, there has been a remarkable national outpouring of patriotism, the focus of which has often been the flag. However, the display of the flag as an assertion of patriotic fervor has been associated historically with intolerance of the American democratic rights of dissent, free speech and equal rights under the law. Artists such as Kim Abeles, Erika Rothenberg, Yvonne Rainer and Dread Scott will present works that explore the flag's many roles in American life. Organized by Nancy Buchanan, faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts.

Of course, if America were really as intolerant as these folks say it is, they'd all be in prison rather than an art gallery.

Time magazine quotes David Childs, an architect who's been commissioned to draw up plans for the World Trade Center site, denouncing the twin towers' architects for "arrogance": "What they did to lower Manhattan was an act of vandalism just as complete as Sept. 11." Funny, we don't seem to remember 3,000 people being killed when the WTC was built.

Rambling Man
Bill Clinton pocketed a cool $250,000 for a rambling speech in Shenzhen, China, Britain's Guardian reports:

Mr Clinton was supposed to speak on Thursday about the "World Trade Organisation and the Chinese real estate economy." . . . Instead he uttered platitudes about the need for "personal understanding" between US and Chinese leaders and reminisced about his first visit to China in 1998, when he held a successful summit with the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin.

Members of the audience, who had waited for hours because his plane was delayed, then asked him about international affairs and politics. "Although he had nothing worth saying, he kept going on," the Yangcheng Evening News commented yesterday.

The Guardian says Chinese press reports showed "no apparent note of censure" but instead "a hint of admiration that he could get away with [it]."

BMW seems to have gotten a better deal from the erstwhile prez. The New Zealand Herald reports "Mr Clinton was asked by BMW to launch its 7 Series cars. The company said 55 of the vehicles, which sell for more than $200,000, had sold lately." We wouldn't buy a used car from this man, though.

President Gore?
The unofficial Al-Gore-2004.org Web site features the text of a speech Gore gave in Kiev a few years back. Scroll down to the bottom and read the attribution line: "President Al Gore, July 23, 1998."

Gore's supporters think he was president in 1998? And of course we know they think he's president now, thanks to Florida's sizable dimpled-chad vote. All of which means, of course, that he's ineligible to run in 2004, since he'll already have "served" two terms.

Zero-Tolerance Watch
Two weeks ago we noted that Centennial, Colo.'s Dry Creek Elementary School had suspended a group of fourth-graders for "pointing their fingers like guns." The principal also interrogated the children about whether their parents owned guns. Now, the Washington Times reports, the school district has ordered the principal not to quiz students about parental firearms. The pointless policy remains in place, though.

Colbert King's Better Half
It's fairly common for commentators to adopt a breathless tone as they report entirely unremarkable facts. Rarely, however, do they actually say they're breathless, as the Washington Post's Colbert King does:

Guess how many reports of violence against women were made to the D.C. police in 2000. I'm talking about domestic violence, sexual assaults, desperate calls for civil protection orders. Ready? More than 22,500.

That's right. Violence against women made up about 50 percent of all reported violent crimes to the D.C. police in that year. If those numbers take your breath away, they should.

Well, if about 50% of all reported violent crimes are against women, guess what percentage are against men? That's right, about 50%! Help, we can't breathe!

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ric Tower, Christian Peck, Damian Bennett, C.E. Dobkin, Robert LeChevalier, Raghu Desikan, Zalman Shmotkin, Ethan Brecher, Elizabeth Herman, Michael Segal, Carl Sherer, Howard Weiser, S.E. Brenner, Yehuda Hilewitz, Randy Schwartz, Erik Fortune, Scott Offen, Rafael Harpaz, Tammi Weinstein, Aaron Gross, Judith Wrubel, Paul Music, Natalie Cohen, Fred Lapides, Elena Matis, David Simon, Judith Weiss, Marie Bourgeois, Elliot Ganz, Avi Zirler, Gordon Kaplan, Jerome Marcus, Chana Lachjer, Anthony Brunsvold, Dan McNulty, Tom Elia, David Krause, Glen Smith, Timothy Kauffman and Aviva Ross. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Will America surrender to terror in the Philippines?
• Tunku Varadarajan: Spain, keep your paws off Gibraltar!
• Tom Bray on small-town America, where grand theft Tic Tac makes the papers.