by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, June 28, 2002 11:31 A.M. EDT

'Under God,' for Now
The courts waited 48 years before banning the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Now they're waiting a little longer. Judge Alfred Goodwin, who wrote Wednesday's Ninth Circuit decision ordering the pledge's censorship, has issued a stay that will delay the order's implementation pending appeals. The likely next step is an en banc (full court) reconsideration by the Ninth Circuit itself. Since Goodwin has "senior status," he won't participate in that proceeding.

Yesterday's "Special Report With Brit Hume" carried this intriguing report:

Michael Newdow, the atheist activist who brought the suit challenging the Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional, claimed in the suit that he was trying to protect his grade school daughter from being forced to sit and listen while her teachers led other students in the pledge.

Newdow told Fox News that his 8-year-old daughter voluntarily says the pledge along with her classmates. He also said--quote--"this is more about me than her. I'd like to keep her out of this."

Doesn't it make you wish he were your dad?

Newdow turns out to have traversed the country--from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam--in his effort to to free himself from those oppressive two words. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Newdow, who at age 45 was living with his parents in Broward County, originally filed suit there, but Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages threw the case out when she learned he'd moved to California.

What we really want to know, though, is what does People for the American Way, which styles itself a champion of church-state separation, think of this ruling? There's nothing about it on the group's Web site. It can't be because they're on vacation, because they've already managed to denounce yesterday's Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of financial aid for students attending parochial schools.

McCain vs. the Pledge
In yesterday's item on the Pledge, we noted that the Senate could help ensure that Goodwin's ruling is overturned by moving expeditiously to confirm President Bush's three nominees to the Ninth Circuit. Contrary to what we said, one of those nominees received a hearing. The Justice Department Web site notes that the Senate Judiciary Committee held the hearing for Richard Clifton on May 9; the committee unanimously voted to confirm Clifton a week later. But the full Senate has yet to vote on Clifton.

Why? Blame John McCain. Roll Call reports that "McCain is demanding a written commitment from the White House that President Bush make a recess appointment of Ellen Weintraub, nominated to a Democratic seat on the Federal Election Commission, or else he will object to any vote on any nominee." Weintraub favors a restrictive interpretation of the recently passed McCain-Feingold campaign-censorship law.

Hiding Behind Her Religion
A Florida judge has ruled that a Muslim woman can pursue her lawsuit seeking to force the state to issue her a drivers license in which her photo depicts her wearing a veil. (We noted the case in January.) If Sultaana Freeman wins, will that mean anyone in Florida will be able to cover his face for a drivers license photo? If not, doesn't that amount to a government establishment of religion?

Our friends the Saudis, of course, have a solution to this problem: They simply forbid women from driving.

Heartburn on West 43rd Street
One of the best thing about yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that school vouchers are constitutional is that it's got the folks at the New York Times really, really upset. A news article on the ruling contains the following observation:

As important as today's ruling was, it may not be the Supreme Court's final word on the issue. On a few issues of transcendent importance, the Supreme Court has reversed its own rulings, most notably in the 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, in which the court declared segregated schools unconstitutional, thus voiding an 1896 ruling that upheld the "separate but equal" principle.

This paragraph could appear in any story on an important Supreme Court case, but can anyone imagine it in a piece on, say, a ruling upholding abortion rights? And does the Times really mean to imply that a decision upholding financial aid to poor students is the equivalent of a decision upholding segregation?

Meanwhile, a Times editorial rehearses the arguments against vouchers. This is all familiar stuff, but worth noting is the Times claim that vouchers "skim off some of the best-performing students, and the most informed and involved parents, from public schools that badly need their expertise and energy." This may be true, but if so, it is an argument not against vouchers but against private schools. If the Times had the courage of its convictions, it would denounce any parents--including many of its readers and, we'd guess, some of its editorial staff--who send their kids to private schools, no matter who pays the tuition.

Pakistani Cooperates
This week's raid on an al Qaeda hideout in Pakistan "marks the first major combat operation inside Pakistan's autonomous tribal areas, and underscores the shift in the war on Al Qaeda from Afghanistan to Pakistan," the Christian Science Monitor reports. "This latest ongoing operation is also an acknowledgment by Islamabad, say analysts, that Osama bin Laden's followers are regrouping in its territory--and that President Pervez Musharraf's government is willing to cooperate fully with US efforts."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tells the Washington Times, in the paper's words, "that al Qaeda and hard-core Taliban fighters are receiving new shipments of equipment to fight American troops and their allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Rumsfeld describes the weaponry as "modern stuff," and says "he has ordered his commanders to stop destroying all the arms they find and to save the best for the emerging Afghan national army." Rumsfeld isn't more specific about the weapons that were found. Asked where they come from, he answers: "Everywhere."

Turtle Bay Terrorists?
The U.S. has expelled two men who work at the Iranian U.N. mission in New York, ABC News reports:

Sources told ABCNEWS that the two Iranians were seen five days ago videotaping the Brooklyn Bridge, the entrance to the tunnels into Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. The men, who have been in the United States only four months and are described as security workers for the mission, were stopped and questioned by New York police, sources said, but were not arrested because of their diplomatic immunity.

The U.N. won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.

Take This Job and Shove It
A bizarre editorial in the Syria Times denounces the FBI for trying to recruit Arab-Americans. "This new activity of the FBI clearly indicates that Arab-Americans have become a real target of all U.S. intelligence organizations. Being an American citizen does not mean that he or she is a free citizen in a free, democratic country. You are under constant surveillance in and outside your country."

Not only that, but the Damascus editorialists are interested in expanding Jews' opportunities for careers in law enforcement: "The United States has a 5 or 6 million Jewish community. Has the FBI thought of installing agents with it? Or do they dare to think about it? Anti-Semitism and discrimination charges are the slightest thing they will be confronted with."

G-8 Endorses Palestinian Reform
The Group of Eight industrialized nations has endorsed President Bush's vision of democratic reform in Palestine, Ha'aretz reports:

"We stressed our commitment to work for peace in the Middle East, based on our vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognized borders," the G8--Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States--said in a statement.

"We agreed on the urgency of reform of Palestinian institutions and its economy, and of free and fair elections."

But some G-8 leaders, including Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, remain attached to Yasser Arafat, whom Schroeder calls, in Ha'aretz's words, "a viable dialogue partner."

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports that Palestinian Authority officials are insisting that "Bush's remarks have only strengthened Arafat, assuring him of victory in upcoming elections." Can we please dispense with the canard that taking a strong stand against terrorists somehow makes them stronger? We heard during Operation Defensive Shield that it was strengthening Arafat. We heard during the Afghan war that America was only making the Taliban stronger and increasing support for al Qaeda throughout the Muslim world.

Somehow, it's only America and Israel that supposedly make their enemies stronger by fighting them. Are we supposed to believe they'd be weaker if only we surrendered?

Suicide Porn
A few months back, there was a rumor that Israeli soldiers were waging psychological warfare by broadcasting pornography on Palestinian television. Palestinian sympathizers denounced the purported porn as an affront to Arab Muslims, who have demure attitudes about sex. But now the Media Line reports the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp. is running a sex video:

A dark-haired and good-looking 35-year-old Arab man is seen walking with an attractive woman of about the same age. It is clear that she is his wife or his girl-friend and that he loves her. . . .

The movie clip . . . is about Palestinian "martyrdom"-its causes and its rewards.

The man and his wife see Israeli army (IDF) soldiers, and frowns darken their features, and the music is very morose.

The young man clearly starts thinking about how to strike out at the Israeli soldiers.

Almost immediately, the music changes to a more optimistic tone as, out of a kind of mist, stunningly beautiful young women-between 18 and 22 years of age-begin to beckon to him.

The gorgeous women, who are younger than his wife, are all clad in billowy white robes. They are all smiling fetchingly as they call to him, making motions with their hands as if to say "come-here" and "join us."

After the Israelis shoot the Arab man, he goes to paradise, where "one of the gorgeous women in white greets him and pulls him into the mist where she and seven or eight beautiful women begin to surround him and gently caress him."

Palestine's Baby Boom
In a Palestinian family photo album, Israeli soldiers found a sick photo:

The picture . . . shows a boy, about 18 months old, standing wide-eyed in a baby suit.

Red wires are strapped to his waist, which is clad in a pretend explosives belt, and across his head is tied a red bandana of the extremist Islamic group, Hamas.

Reuters reports that "a relative of the little boy confirmed the photo was genuine but said it was a party joke and there was no intention to turn him into a suicide bomber." Another Reuters dispatch claims: "Ordinary Palestinians said if the photograph were genuine it was likely the child had been dressed up for fun and did not mean Palestinians were about to use children in suicide bombings--something they have never done." This is simply inaccurate. Although the Palestinians haven't yet used infants to commit mass murder, there have been 16- and 17-year-old suicide bombers.

This page has a collection of photos showing Palestinian children, some clad in camouflage and black hoods, acting out violence against Jews.

Suicidal Animals
No, this isn't another item about Arab terrorists--we're talking about actual animals. The Associated Press reports that a cow in Vienna "strayed from a hillside pasture to the top of a tunnel entrance" and then fell 15 feet onto a woman's car. The driver suffered minor injuries; her husband, in the passenger seat, was unharmed. The cow, however, is dead meat.

An "aroused giraffe," meanwhile, apparently perpetrated a murder-suicide near a Nairobi, Kenya, hotel, South Africa's Independent Online reports. The beast is "the prime suspect in the death on Sunday of a middle-aged American pastor resident in Kenya who was found in the hotel's private game sanctuary." When Kenya Wildlife Services officers shot the giraffe with a tranquilizer, it ran off a cliff to its death. "You can never get into the mind of a giraffe," says Aberdare Country Club general manager James Drysdale. "They are massive animals, it's not like taking a cow for a walk." Not unless the cow is grazing on a Vienna hill, anyway.

Krugman Watch
"Six months ago, in a widely denounced column, I suggested that in the end the Enron scandal would mark a bigger turning point for America's perception of itself than Sept. 11 did," writes former Enron adviser Paul Krugman. "Does that sound so implausible today?" Boy, does it ever. But we suppose Enron looms larger for those, like Krugman, who used to work for the company.

Acting on a Hunch
"A British theater company has dropped the word hunchback from its stage adaptation of the classic novel 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' to avoid offending disabled people," Reuters reports. "Oddsocks Productions has renamed its touring production 'The Bellringer of Notre Dame' after discussions with a disability adviser raised the possibility of offending people with spina bifida or the disfiguring scoliosis of the spine." Sounds as though someone needs a backbone transplant.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Andrew Foster, Allan Downen, John Sanders, Dave Anderson, John Nowacki, Janice Lyons, Victor Colvin, Aaron Gross, Paul Zieke, Tom Fenton, Raghu Desikan, Robert LeChevalier, Jason Whitney, Damian Bennett, Natalie Cohen, Drew Parkhill, Carl Sherer, Gershon Dubin, Jerome Marcus, Marie Bourgeois, Michael Delman, Elliot Ganz, C.E. Dobkin, Daniel Foty, Yehuda Hilewitz, David Simon, Michael Williamson, Marc Gueron, David Motley, Fred Lapides, Jonathan Yunger, Daniel Katz, Barry Kaplovitz, Hershel Ginsburg, David Potaznik, Brian Collar, Pat Rowe, Jose Guardia and Aviva Ross. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Free at last, private-school choice is free at last.
• Daniel Henninger: Just what we need--the pledge is now unconstitutional.
• Peggy Noonan: The rise of the White Collar Big Money Psychopath.
• John Fund: Politicians can't stop school choice now.
• From the archives: Vouchers in Milwaukee--the Polly Williams story.

And on the Taste page:

• Review & Outlook: In praise of the Met's Renaissance man, Philippe de Montebello.
• Tony & Tacky: Believers are more generous.
• Michael Judge: Why do soccer fans riot?
• Bill Kauffman: Local theater that doesn't put the hiss in history.
• Stephen Martin: The Mormons come home.

And don't miss "WSJ Editorial Board With Stuart Varney," tonight at 9 EDT and PDT on CNBC.