From the WSJ Opinion Archives
We Get Results
On Thursday, we
noted blogger Eugene Volokh's report that Stanford Law School had invited
alleged terror conspirator Lynne Stewart to be a "visiting public interest
mentor." Now we've received an e-mailed statement from Kathleen M. Sullivan,
dean and Richard E. Lang Professor and Stanley Morrison Professor at the law
school:
An invitation was issued to Lynne Stewart by the Director of Public Interest Programs at Stanford Law School to serve as a David W. Mills Public Interest Mentor without full consultation with faculty and senior administrators. Stanford Law School welcomes discussion and promotes rigorous debate on difficult and controversial issues. The student-sponsored "Shaking the Foundations" conference being held this weekend is an appropriate forum for Ms. Stewart and others with various points of view to speak on many issues, including the ethical limits of client representation. However, it has come to my attention that Ms. Stewart has expressed sympathy for and tacit endorsement of the use of directed violence to achieve social change. Therefore I have decided that it is not appropriate to confer the title of David W. Mills Public Interest Mentor to Ms. Stewart, and have today issued a letter to Ms. Stewart rescinding the offer to serve in the capacity of mentor to our students during her visit.
It seems that Stewart is still welcome at Stanford Law School, but at least she's no longer a "mentor"? Or is she? The school's "public interest" calendar still lists her as scheduled to speak as a "Mills Mentor" at 12:30 p.m. PST today.
Harvard
Fetes a Pro-Terror Poet
America's elite universities have a real quality-control problem when it comes
to inviting outside speakers. Irish poet Tom Paulin will be delivering the Morris
Gray Lecture at Harvard this Thursday. Who is Tom Paulin? As we noted
in April, he's the guy who says Jews in the disputed territories "should
be shot dead." He added: "I can understand how suicide bombers feel. . . .
I think attacks on civilians in fact boost morale."
Nancy
Pelosi's Hometown
Writing on the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate.com Web site, "conservative
activist" Adam Sparks notes that San Francisco is spending $13,500 on today's
Veterans Day parade. That's less than it spends on the parades for the Brazilian
holiday Carnival ($113,000), the Juneteenth Festival ($22,000) and even Samoan
Flag Day ($15,000). Memorial Day gets only $5,500, which at least is more than
the Dyke March's $4,800.
You
Don't Say--I
"More and More WWII Veterans Dying"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 10
Unintact
Co-Conspirator
"The U.S. citizen killed by a missile launched from a pilotless drone aircraft
over Yemen was the ringleader of an alleged terrorist sleeper cell in Lackawanna,
N.Y.," the Washington Post reports. Kamal Derwish was "one of two
unindicted co-conspirators in the Lackawanna case." He wasn't, however,
the main target of the attack, which killed six terrorists altogether.
Target:
John Paul II
Al Qaeda planned to kill Pope John Paul II when he visited the Philippines,
according to the Associated Press, which picks up a report from the Sunday Times
of London (which no longer makes its articles available to most of us online).
"Quoting documents from Philippines intelligence services, The Sunday Times
said Osama Bin Laden's lieutenant, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, planned on killing
the pope with a pipe bomb planted in a park where John Paul was to speak, or
if that failed, with high-velocity rifles equipped with laser scopes."
Is this because the Vatican is too pro-Israel, or because of the troops it stations in Saudi Arabia?
Arafat's
Latest Peace Initiative
Arab murderers infiltrated "the dovish Kibbutz Metzer" in northern
Israel and killed five people, including four- and five-year-old Zionist oppressors,
the Jerusalem Post reports:
In the attack, a terrorist stormed into a house at Metzer shortly before midnight, and shot Revital Ohayoun to death as she tried to shield her two boys Noam, 4 and Matan, 5. But they, too, were shot and killed.
According to police, Ohayoun was reading a bedtime story to the boys when she heard shots and ran to call her ex-husband. Relatives said he listened to them being shot over the phone and then collapsed on the floor.
The gunman left the house and continued in the direction of the communal dining room where he met a couple taking a walk, Lieber said. He shot and killed the woman, Tirza Damari, 42, of Eliachin, while the man managed to flee. Kibbutz secretary Dori Yitzhak, 44, drove up in his car and was killed, Lieber added.
Yasser Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades confessed to the crime. "The PLO maintains that Sunday night's terror attack on Kibbutz Metzer was not in breach of its promise to the European Union to stop assaults on civilians inside Israel," the Jerusalem Post reports. Apparently by European lights, it's kosher to murder Jews in the disputed territories. But Kibbutz Metzer is within Israel, so how do the Arabs justify this one? An IMRA summary of an Israel Radio report explains:
Israel Radio Arab Affairs Correspondent Avi Yissakharov reported this morning that Yasser Arafat's Tanzim Al Aqsa Brigade . . . slaughter of 5 last night at a kibbutz within the Green Line technically did not violate the deal being brokered by the European Union that there be no suicide attacks within the Green Line since this was not a suicide attack.
Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
A
Religion of Peace
The New York Times profiles Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant to the Netherlands,
who "made a name for herself pressing for the emancipation of Muslim women
and documenting how thousands, living even here [in Amsterdam], were subjected
to beatings, incest and emotional and sexual abuse":
Ms. Hirsi Ali, 32, began receiving hate mail, anonymous messages calling her a traitor to Islam and a slut. On several Web sites, other Muslims said she deserved to be knifed and shot. Explicit death threats by telephone soon followed. The police told her to change homes and the mayor of Amsterdam sent bodyguards. She tried living in hiding. Finally, last month, she became a refugee again, fleeing the Netherlands.
At least she got support from "moderate" Muslims, right? Well, sort of. "Almost 20 Muslim associations have condemned the threats," the Times reports--"but at the same time faulted her for criticizing Islam."
Saudi
Tolerance
Is Saudi Arabia showing signs of moving toward the modern world? From this BBC
Riyadh dispatch, it's hard to know:
The former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki, recently wrote an article for the Washington Post about the fire at the school in Mecca in which 15 girls died because the religious police allegedly stopped them from fleeing unveiled--a story of explosive sensitivity here.
But when the Saudi papers translated this piece, they cut several crucial sentences.
Absurdly, Prince Turki was moved to write a letter of protest to his own papers.
Among other things, he pointed out, the article had been about the government's more liberal attitude to the media.
Turki got some support last week from the Arab News's expat-Brit news editor, John Bradley: "Prince Turki's . . . comments should leave us in no doubt that it was the newspaper, and not Prince Turki or the Ministry of Information, who acted as censors on this occasion. What Saudi journalism needs is bolder editors, like those who for some time have been asserting their independence."
Like John Bradley, perhaps? Here he is last December, explaining why Saudi Arabia's press is actually freer than America's:
As journalists here in Saudi Arabia, we are at least battling with reality. There are restrictions on what we can say (although fewer and fewer by the day). However, they are crystal clear. We know where we stand. At least there is no hypocrisy. Better this way than to be hoodwinked by the kind of insidious censorship--always the most dangerous kind--that is now so pervasive in the West.
A self-deluded journalist, who is a journalist only to be the kind of superstar journalist he always wanted to be, is no real journalist at all. Thomas L. Friedman is the perfect embodiment of that.
How ironic it is that if English is one's native language, the only way to keep oneself decently informed about what's going on in the world today is to read the best English-language newspapers that appear outside the English-speaking world. A regular reader of Dawn in Pakistan, Arab News in Saudi Arabia, Al-Ahram Weekly in Egypt and the Times of India would merely giggle derisively if they stumbled upon a Friedman column, whatever that reader's politics may be. This is because he will have been exposed to a variety of dissenting, principled and objective perspectives, and will probably have experienced first-hand the complex, intense reality so painfully absent in the columns of writers who have gotten blind drunk on the idea of being the defenders of "freedom of expression".
So now I am confident enough to challenge the journalists who derided my decision to leave London for this part of the world with the question they themselves initially posed.
How could you write in such a restrictive environment?
Lesson for the Saudis: Even a useful idiot is still an idiot.
'I
Missed John Ashcroft Desperately'
The New York Times' Maureen Dowd has been visiting Riyadh, and an encounter
with the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice
prompts an uncharacteristically good column. Accompanied by Crown Prince Abdullah's
adviser Adel al-Jubeir (a pleasant enough fellow, in our experience), she's
confronted in a Riyadh mall by the wacko religious police:
Suddenly, four men bore down on us, two in white robes, one in a brown policeman's uniform and one in a floor-length brown A-line skirt (not a good look). They pointed to my neck and hips, and the embarrassed diplomat explained that I had been busted by the vice squad.
"They say they can see the outline of your body," [al-Jubeir] translated. "They say they welcome you to the mall, which is a sign of our modernity, but that we are also proud of our tradition and faith, and you must respect that." . . .
I figured they'd shrink away upon learning that Mr. Jubeir's boss was Crown Prince Abdullah. But they didn't. I thought I'd catch a break because I'm an American Catholic, not a Muslim. I didn't. Apparently, the mutawwa are not on board with the Saudis' multimillion-dollar charm offensive to persuade America that the kingdom is not a hotbed of hostile religious zealots.
Mr. Jubeir asked whether I'd "placate" the mutawwa by putting on an abaya from a nearby shop. . . . I was loath to get shrouded up again to walk a few yards.
After the men argued for 15 minutes, I fretted that I was in one of those movies where an American makes one mistake in a repressive country and ends up rotting in a dungeon. I missed John Ashcroft desperately. The Saudis, after all, have been fighting with the U.N. Committee Against Torture so they can keep using flogging and amputation of limbs as disciplinary measures.
Finally, the mutawwa agreed to let me go, appeased by the promise that I would soon be leaving Saudi Arabia.
You
Don't Say--II
"Iraqis Expert at Blocking Inspectors"--headline, USA Today, Nov. 8
Democracy,
Reuterville Style
"A key Iraqi parliamentary official recommended on Monday parliament should
reject a new U.N. resolution on disarmament and the leader of the assembly blasted
the text as a 'a preamble for war,' " Reuters reports from Baghdad.
That's right--Reuters, the "news" service that refuses to call Sept.
11 terrorism without using scare quotes, is still pretending that Iraq is a
parliamentary democracy.
Iraq's apparent defiance of the U.N., though, is good news. More dawdling serves no one's interests but Saddam's.
Homer Nods
When we said
on Friday that the U.N. had imposed a deadline of Feb. 11 on Saddam Hussein,
we were wrong. The deadline is actually Feb. 21--a day before Washington's Birthday,
not Lincoln's. Somehow when we added 60 and 45, we came up with 95. Plainly
arithmetic is not our strong point.
It's somehow fitting, though, that the war is likely to start on the birthday of the original President George W.
An
'Antiwar' Movement of Peace
"A protest march of at least 1,500 demonstrators against war in Iraq turned
violent Sunday in downtown Brussels when dozens of youths clashed with police
and attacked American-owned businesses," the Associated Press reports.
"Masked, stone-throwing youths broke windows at a McDonald's fast food
restaurant and a Marriot [sic] hotel, as well as a local temporary employment
agency. . . . The rioting began when up to 100 youths, many of them
of Arab origin, broke away from the main body of the anti-war protesters who
were marching through the city centre."
It's a telling contrast, isn't it? America bends over backwards to avoid civilian casualties when it goes to war, but these these idiots can't even walk down the street without erupting in violence. How can we possibly take seriously their pleas for "peace"? Meanwhile, blogger James Morrow notes that at the communist-sponsored "peace" demonstration in Florence, Italy, protesters held up signs reading "Victory to the intifada," "F--- Israel," "U.S.A. and Israel: The TRUE Terrorists" and "U.S.A. and [Star of David]: Cancers of Humanity."
Then again, every time we're tempted to doubt the moral gravity of the anitwar movement, we look at the latest list of "Not in Our Name" petition signers:
- Dewey P Blue
- Jehtro D. BoDean, "Double Naught Spy"
- Droppa D Bomboniraq, "Peace Activist"
- Uni Bombur
- A. Craven Coward
- I P. Daily, "Urologist"
- SadaamWill B. Destroyed, "Defense Contractor"
- Anita Dickey
- Barney the purple Dinosaur, "PBS"
- Jason forget
- Majlis Friden, "female leftish oganisation"
- Issuc Mooskock
- Alika Myballzgood, "Student, Auburn University - War Eagle!!"
- Jonathan S. Tuttle, "US Army, Capt., 4077 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital"
Meanwhile, the Columbia University anti-Israel petition has been signed by one Aiheit Djus. A protégé of Edward Said?
Three
Cheers for Romania
Smug and vicious anti-Americanism may be the rule in Brussels and Florence,
but it's far from universal in Continental Europe. The New York Times reports
from Bucharest that "Romania, burdened by its legacy of Stalinist totalitarianism,
values the muscular international stance of the United States":
While Western Europeans fought for a compromise United Nations resolution on Iraq and sniff with disdain at Mr. Bush's midterm election mandate, members of the Romanian elite heartily approve of the White House's policies. "Unofficially, there is a feeling of quiet jubilation" about the American elections, said Sergiu Celac, a former Romanian foreign minister. "We're happy because Bush is happy."
Opinion polls in Romania show approval ratings of 80 percent and higher for the United States. Romania sent its own troops to Afghanistan and became the first country to support the American demand that American soldiers be exempted from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Along with Bulgaria, another prospective member of NATO and the European Union, Romania recently granted the United States access to its military bases and flyover rights should there be a war with Iraq.
Romania and Poland will bring a "pro-American critical mass" to NATO, said Mircea Geoana, Romania's foreign minister in an interview. Indeed, whenever Mr. Geoana's French diplomatic counterparts worry about Romania's enthusiasm for the United States, he said he tells them that "after Romania enjoys several decades of prosperity like France, then we will have the luxury of taking the U.S. for granted."
America
Wins an Award
The Muhammadiyah Students Association, a Muslim students group in Indonesia,
"will confer the 'Terrorism Award' to the United States," Iran's Islamic
Republic News Agency reports. "The US does not pay any heed to the interests
of other countries, and instead interferes in the affairs of other countries
just to further its own interests. Such a country deserves to be given he Terrorism
Award," IRNA quotes chairman Piet Hizbullah Haidir as saying.
We're rather proud that our country has won this "award," which reflects the same inverted thinking that confers Nobel Peace Prizes on terrorists and appeasers.
You
Don't Say--III
"Syrians' Hopes for Freedom Remain Mostly Unfulfilled"--headline,
New York Times, Nov. 10
You
Don't Say--IV
"CIA Says Terrorism a Priority"--headline, Daily Sundial (California
State University, Northridge), Nov. 7
You
Don't Say--V
"Blair: Britain Faces Terror Threat"--headline, CNN.com, Nov. 11
The
Rights of Dead Terrorists
"Prosecutors in Germany are investigating a claim that the brain of urban
guerrilla Ulrike Meinhof was removed after her death and examined to find a
reason for her violent behaviour," CNN reports. "Bettina Roehl, Meinhof's
daughter, discovered the brain was being kept in a cardboard box in Magdeburg
university in eastern Germany":
State prosecutor Eckard Maak told Bild newspaper on Saturday: "If Ulrike Meinhof did not give permission for her body to be used for scientific purposes, then the brain should have been destroyed after her autopsy."
Roehl said she wants the organ back to give her mother a proper burial.
She wrote in the Magdeburger Volksstimme newspaper on Friday: "You can only say there has been a proper funeral if the brain is buried with the body.
"A dead terrorist has a right to be treated fairly and the right to a decent burial."
Isn't it touching that the German authorities are so concerned with the rights of dead terrorists? How does that Holocaust epigram go again? First, they came for the dead terrorists, but I was alive and I wasn't a terrorist, so I did nothing . . .
Another
American Terror Suspect Nabbed
James Kilgore, a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army who was wanted in
the 1975 murder of Myrna Opsahl, has been arrested in South Africa, the New
York Times reports. "It was not known whether Mr. Kilgor's [sic] arrest
was linked to the plea agreements reached by his four former comrades. The Associated
Press reported that a lawyer for Emily Montague, one of the defendants, denied
any connection. 'The coincidence is terrible,' the lawyer, Stuart Hanlon, said."
The
Death of Logic
As far as we know, there is no logical argument against the death penalty. Either
you believe on faith that it's wrong for the state to take the life of a criminal
or you don't. (It's rather parallel to the abortion debate.) So why do death-penalty
foes feel compelled to present their views with a patina of pseudologic? Here's
an example, from a Boston Globe editorial on the Washington sniper case:
This page opposes capital punishment, but it would be hard for anyone to deny the stark proof of the penalty's arbitrary nature in this case. The murders were just as deadly in Maryland as they were in Virginia, yet whether the killers receive a sentence of death or life in prison is determined by an accident of geography.
The case also calls into question the supposed deterrent effect of capital puinishment [sic]. These killers hardly considered the criminal penalties involved while meticulously selecting their venues and targets.
We suppose this is true enough, but the threat of prison time didn't deter the killers either. By the Globe's logic, we should just let them go. Just pass a law prohibiting them from owning or using guns, and they doubtless will never kill again.
You
Don't Say--VI
"Poll Suggests Public Credits Bush Popularity, Handling of Iraq as Keys
to Republican Election Success"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 9
You
Don't Say--VII
"Democrats Say National Security, Taxes Cost Votes"--headline, Reuters,
Nov. 10
You
Don't Say--VIII
"Republicans Won a Big Victory, But Now They Have to Govern"--subheadline,
(Long Island) Newsday editorial, Nov. 10
This'll
Be News to Hastert
"Rep. Pelosi Favored to Head House"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 8
The
Fantasy President
In a postelection man-on-the-street article, the New York Times quotes one James
Bludworth, "a freelance photographer and a Democrat," who doesn't
like President Bush:
"He just scares me as the guy in charge with his finger on the button," Mr. Bludworth said.
His preference?
"I watch 'The West Wing,' and I kind of wish Martin Sheen could be the president," Mr. Bludworth said. "He's so much more thoughtful. I don't have the feeling that the same kind of thoughtfulness is in the Bush White House."
Bludworth isn't the only one who has trouble distinguishing the idiot box from the ballot box. Columnist Ellen Goodman names Sheen one of the "winners" in Tuesday's election:
Winner Two: Martin Sheen, aka Jed Bartlet of "The West Wing." Yes, he's an incumbent too, but the one goose-bump moment of the political season was Bartlet's debate with the platitude-pushing Robert Ritchie. I found myself actually rooting for a candidate. Memo to the Democratic National Committee: hire Aaron Sorkin for 2004.
The
Saddest Words of Tongue or Pen
"The prospect of the Democrats recapturing the House . . . is
a far more frightening possibility for the White House. . . . Some
Democratic lawmakers have said that if they had control they would demand that
Harvey L. Pitt, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Committee, appear
before them to explain the controversies over his efforts to appoint a board
to oversee the accounting profession."--New York Times, Nov. 3
The
Katz Meow
ChronWatch.com, the conservative San Francisco Chronicle watchdog site, blasts
the New York Times' John
Tierney over this passage that appeared in his report last week on the elections
effects on turncoat senator Jim Jeffords:
Jeffords defended his defection as a decision to be loyal to his principles, and many of his constituents applauded him at the time for courage. Now he is in roughly the same situation as the Woody Allen character in "Bananas" who bravely pushes a gang of thugs out of a subway car as the doors are closing, only to have his moment of heroism abruptly end when the doors open to let the thugs back in.
Chronwatch's David Katz is beside himself:
The party representing a majority of the American view is a ''gang of thugs.'' Nice. This isn't reporting. This isn't even editorializing. This is gutter politics and character assassination. Where are the standards of journalism that once insured the New York Times was worthy of its readership? Apparently, journalistic standards, accurate reporting and separating fact from opinion no longer matter at the New York Times. It is sad to see the Times destroy its greatest quality, credibility, in slow motion. As the Times and other major media outlets divorce themselves from their American people, new competitors will spring up to wrest the ground from under their tottering feet.
Interestingly, the version of Tierney's piece that appears on the Times' Web site refers to a "gang of tough guys," not "thugs." ("Thugs" does appear in the syndicated version that ran in several other papers.) But in either case, Tierney was merely drawing a humorous analogy to Jeffords's predicament; he obviously did not mean to call Republicans "thugs." Tierney isn't even a liberal; those who know him and his work as a Times columnist realize he's more of a libertarian. Katz ought to lighten up. Remember, liberals are supposed to be the humorless ones.
If
He Were a Republican, This Would Be Hate Speech--VIII
Florida radio host Neil
Rogers has been broadcasting a racist song parody about National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Fox News Channel reports: Among the song's lines:
"Is you their black-haired answer-mammy who be smart?" and "Does they like
how you shine their shoes, Condoleezza? Or the way you wash and park the whitey's
cars?" Says Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality: "If Rogers,
instead of being a white liberal, were a white conservative like Rush Limbaugh
using the type of language that Rogers was using, he'd be kicked off the air."
Not
Too Brite--XVII
"A German man killed his mother and then lived with her [body] for six
weeks in their apartment, police said on Friday," Reuters reports. You
guessed it--"Oddly Enough!"
You
Don't Say--IX
"Shootings by Police Put Lives in Danger"--headline, Miami Herald,
Nov. 10
Great
Moments in Human Rights
"Prisoners are to be allowed hardcore pornography inside British jails
for the first time after mounting a successful challenge based on the Human
Rights Act," London's Daily Telegraph reports. "The decision follows
a campaign by Dennis Nilsen, the serial killer jailed in 1983 for murdering
six young men, to be allowed to receive explicit homosexual pornography. Nilsen,
who kept the bodies of his victims for days, is expected to use the ruling to
challenge previous decisions to deny him access to such material."
Stupid
Is as Stupid Does
Sixty-one-year-old James Welles has been arrested "for allegedly trying
to arrange sex with a 15-year-old girl over the Internet. The girl turned out
to be an undercover male detective." Welles is the author of a pair of
books, "The Story of Stupidity" and "Understanding Stupidity." You
have to admit, he knows his subject.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Monique Wilson, Will Tysse, Nancy Zimmerman, Michael Segal, Robert LeChevalier, Monty Krieger, Shane Nicohls, Natalie Cohen, C.E. Dobkin, Raghu Desikan, William Specht, Paul Stinchfield, Mara Gold, Aaron Spetner, Barak Moore, Steven Wallach, Carl Sherer, Shabtai Atlow, Mirmiam Himmelfarb, Hershel Ginsburg, Howard Weiser, Jerome Marcus, Doug Levene, Yehuda Hilewitz, Dan Meir, Ben Sandler, Shalom Mitchell, Derek Wong, Harold Moskowitz, Jose Guardia, Aharon Mayne, S.E. Brenner, David Gerstman, Ryan Nelson, John Liljegren, Aaron Gross, Jeff Meling, Brian O'Rourke, Kathleen Donegan, Thomas Tirney, Joseph Schick, Joe Deltoro, Steven Mason, Marshall Cooper, Cliff Their, Erik Moy, John Archer, Scott Siegel, Steve Hilton, Steve Heyman, Brandt Zembsch, Robert Mroz, Roger Heinig, Daniel Goldstein, Dave Yeary, Brent Schneider, Ed Morrissey, David Drucker, Dan Feld, Joshua Stern, Zabelle Huss and Aviva Ross. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Do the Dems really want a San Francisco liberal as leader?
- Robert Bartley: Bush wins a sputtering economy.
- Brendan Miniter: New York's election wasn't close--but it sure was sloppy.
