From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, December 20, 2002 12:16 P.M. EST

His A-Lotted Time Is Up
Expect to hear a lot of kind words from Republicans about Sen. Trent Lott over the next few days. Now that he's officially toast, there's no reason not to butter him up. Lott released a statement this morning:

"In the interest of pursuing the best possible agenda for the future of our country, I will not seek to remain as majority leader of the United States Senate for the 108th Congress, effective Jan. 6, 2003. To all those who offered me their friendship, support and prayers, I will be eternally grateful. I will continue to serve the people of Mississippi in the United States Senate."

Yesterday Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee made clear he was in the running for Lott's position. Frist "called numerous GOP senators to ask for their support to become the next Senate majority leader if Lott voluntarily steps down or is forced out by colleagues," today's Washington Post reports.

The Osama bin Laden Day-Care Center
Writing in The Wall Street Journal last week, John McWhorter drew an analogy some readers thought overwrought:

It's 2057 and Osama bin Laden turns 100 in an American prison. An aging Senate majority leader chuckles in a public address about what a cool fella ol' Osama was after 9/11. Upon questioning, he insists that he was referring to "other things," such as bin Laden's religious fervor and his giving wayward youth a sense of direction. There would be no question of "forgiveness" and "moving on." Nor can there be here.

Sen. Lott did not just "slip up" last week--he showed his hand. And now that you have, Sen. Lott, please step down.

The notion of a U.S. senator singing the praises of Osama bin Laden is too far-fetched to take seriously, right? Wrong. Here's the Columbian of Vancouver, Wash., describing a speech by Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) to a group of southern Washington state high-school students:

Murray concluded the session by challenging the students to consider alternatives to war.

"We've got to ask, why is this man (Osama bin Laden) so popular around the world?," said Murray, who faces re-election in 2004. "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries . . . that are riddled with poverty?

"He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that.

"How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

Coming next: Patty Murray describes how Hitler built the Autobahn. Actually, it's true that bin Laden financed some road construction in Sudan, back when that was the headquarters of his terror network, but Murray must have a screw loose if she thinks al Qaeda has been building "day care facilities." What, to cater to all the fundamentalist Muslim families in which the husband and all four wives have to work?

Murray, by the way, was until recently a member of the Democratic Senate leadership. She served as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 107th Congress.

Crass Cass
You'd think the Lott matter would have served as a warning to congressmen of both parties to watch what they say, but instead foot-in-mouth disease seems to be breaking out all over Capitol Hill. The Associated Press reports on the latest incident:

Responding to Sen. Trent Lott's recent comments, Rep. Cass Ballenger told a newspaper he has had "segregationist feelings" himself after conflicts with a black colleague.

Ballenger, a North Carolina Republican, said former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., so provoked him that "I must I admit I had segregationist feelings."

"If I had to listen to her, I probably would have developed a little bit of a segregationist feeling," Ballenger told The Charlotte Observer in Friday's editions. "But I think everybody can look at my life and what I've done and say that's not true.

"I mean, she was such a bitch," he said.

Great Moments in Law Enforcement
ABC News reports that a pair of FBI special agents, Robert Wright and John Vincent, say the bureau stifled a Clinton-era investigation of al Qaeda:

In the mid-1990s, with growing terrorism in the Middle East, the two Chicago-based agents were assigned to track a connection to Chicago, a suspected terrorist cell that would later lead them to a link with Osama bin Laden. Wright says that when he pressed for authorization to open a criminal investigation into the money trail, his supervisor stopped him.

"Do you know what his response was? 'I think it's just better to let sleeping dogs lie,'" said Wright. "Those dogs weren't sleeping. They were training. They were getting ready."

The FBI says its handling of the matter was appropriate at the time.

After al Qaeda blew up two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, Wright tells ABC, the agents established a money trail from the attacks to some of the people they'd been investigating in Chicago, and to a Saudi businessman named Yassin al-Kadi. "Yet, even after the bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no arrests." Prosecutor Mark Flessner "was assigned to the case despite efforts Wright and Vincent say were made by superiors to block the probe." Flessner "said he . . . couldn't figure out why Washington stopped the case--whether it was Saudi influence or bureaucratic ineptitude."

There may also have been an element of political correctness, as evidenced by this appalling detail:

Perhaps most astounding of the many mistakes, according to Flessner and an affidavit filed by Wright, is how an FBI agent named Gamal Abdel-Hafiz seriously damaged the investigation. Wright says Abdel-Hafiz, who is Muslim, refused to secretly record one of al-Kadi's suspected associates, who was also Muslim. Wright says Abdel-Hafiz told him, Vincent and other agents that "a Muslim doesn't record another Muslim."

"He wouldn't have any problems interviewing or recording somebody who wasn't a Muslim, but he could never record another Muslim," said Vincent.

Wright said he "was floored" by Abdel-Hafiz's refusal and immediately called the FBI headquarters. Their reaction surprised him even more: "The supervisor from headquarters says, 'Well, you have to understand where he's coming from, Bob.' I said no, no, no, no, no. I understand where I'm coming from," said Wright. "We both took the same damn oath to defend this country against all enemies foreign and domestic, and he just said no? No way in hell."

Far from being reprimanded, Abdel-Hafiz was promoted to one of the FBI's most important anti-terrorism posts, the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia, to handle investigations for the FBI in that Muslim country.

The World's Smallest Violin
The Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American Islamic relations is unhappy about Wednesday's arrests of four men who allegedly funneled money to the terrorist group Hamas. Among CAIR's complaints: insensitivity to the TV schedule. Folks, if we made this stuff up, people would accuse us of anti-Muslim bigotry, but there it is in CAIR's press release:

What was the reason for choosing December 18th for the arrests? What new evidence caused the urgency to act on the long-standing allegations listed in the indictment? It is no secret that Muslims nationwide have been publicizing this day for months. It was the day that the documentary about the life of the prophet Muhammad on PBS was scheduled to air nationwide. We hoped to defuse some of the bigoted remarks about Islam made by many hateful prominent figures, including the US Attorney General himself!

CAIR also asks: "Why did the FBI arrest these men in such a humiliating manner with utter disregard for their families? The children involved witnessed demeaning treatment of their fathers during the pre-dawn raid on their homes." We'll send a crisp dollar bill to the first reader who can locate a CAIR press release expressing sympathy for the children blown to smithereens by Hamas terrorists.

Oh, and CAIR adds: "One is left wondering whether these arrest orders were issued from Tel Aviv or Washington, D.C!"

Analyze That!

"War Appears Increasingly Unavoidable"--headline, "news analysis," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20

"Despite Countdown, War Isn't Certain"--headline, "analysis," Washington Post, Dec. 20

Muslim Fashion Victims
Islamic fanatics "killed three young women in their homes just days after posters appeared in India's Jammu and Kashmir state ordering women to wear a veil," Reuters reports from Jammu, India:

Two of the women, both aged 21, were shot dead in their house in Rajouri district in the south of the revolt-torn Muslim-majority state Thursday night. The third woman, 22, was taken away and beheaded, an official said.

And how does Reuters characterize the barbarians who carried out these murders? As "suspected militants," of course.

A Religion of Peace
"Two confessed organizers of an Oct. 12 terrorist bombing in Bali targeted Christian priests for assassination last year in a plan directed by alleged Jemaah Islamiah leader Abu Bakar Bashir, according to a statement by a captured operative," the Los Angeles Times reports.

Not Too Brite--XXXV
"A Pakistani man has been sentenced to life in prison under the country's blasphemy laws for being a follower of a self-proclaimed prophet," Reuters reports from Multan. Oddly Enough! Ha, ain't theocracy the cutest thing?

Addled Arafat
Yasser Arafat is not well, Ha'aretz reports: "Recent visitors to Arafat's office in the Muqata said his behavior has become strange. They said he was not focused, spoke in a confused manner, and his lips are shaking again. His doctors attribute the shaking lips to neurological damage that followed an airplane crash in the Libyan desert that Arafat survived."

An American Hero
"A Marine sergeant based in North Carolina who served in Afghanistan earlier this year shot and killed a would-be carjacker," the Associated Press reports from Montgomery, Ala. "Sgt. James C. Lowery, 22, returned fire after being shot in the face in the drive-thru lane of a fast-food restaurant. He was listed in fair condition Thursday at a Montgomery hospital."

Bitter by Proxy
Al Gore's aplomb on "Saturday Night Live" last week, and his announcement the next day that he won't seek the presidency in 2004, bespoke a man finally at peace with his strange bad luck in the 2000 presidential campaign. But Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic, is still bitter:

No political figure in living memory has been as targeted by the media as Gore, so relentlessly ridiculed for offenses invented mostly by the media itself. Gore never really asserted, or even suggested, that he had created the Internet. He knows, first of all, that the Internet is not something that is, mirabili dictu, invented. What he actually did say--that he played a critical role in the political process that made way for the Web--isn't simply plausible; it's undeniable. Still, the ludicrous assertion that he had claimed scientific paternity gained such currency with TV pundits, who do nothing if not repeat themselves and emulate each other, that charging Gore with untruths became national sport. By contrast, Bush's big lie--that he could pass a massive tax cut without sending the country into fiscal distress--was largely ignored.

Great Moments in Public Education
"Parents Object to Human Sacrifice in School Show," reads a headline in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "A Venango County elementary school performance was canceled after parents objected to scenes in which third- through fifth-grade students re-enacted human sacrifices in the Aztec civilization," the Associated Press reports from Pleasantville (!), Pa.

Couldn't they have just compromised and sacrificed a goat or something?

You Don't Say
"King Tut's Curse 'a Myth' "--headline, Australian Broadcast Corp. Web site, Dec. 20

A Makeover for Mother Teresa
"Mother to Be Beautified in Oct 2003"--headline, Microsoft Network (India), Dec. 20

A Vast Bat-Wing Conspiracy
"A practical joke Tuesday night sent a local man to the emergency room, after he bit into what he thought was a burger," the Jackson (Tenn.) Sun reports. "It turned out to be a bat sandwich." A teenage girl gave 21-year-old Timothy Gooch the sandwich. "I heard a crunching sound and looked at the sandwich," says Gooch. "I saw the wing of a dead bat sticking out of the side of the sandwich where I had tried to take a bite. I asked her if that was a real bat and she nodded yes. I thought it was strange that she got a smirk on her face when I started to bite into the sandwich."

Science Marches On
The Daily Telegraph reports on a study in the British Medical Journal that "has revealed that female models are becoming less curvaceous." The researchers "studied" 577 issues of Playboy and found that "Playmates have become more boyish or androgynous, with smaller breasts and smaller hips in 2001 compared with 1953." And this finding will shock you: "They also weigh less than females in general."

This was a trans-Atlantic effort, involving researchers working in both Toronto and Vienna, who apparently get paid to sit around reading girlie magazines. Nice work, if you can get it.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Elliot Ganz, A.J. Fechter, Bob Krumm, Damian Bennett, Michael Segal, Barak Moore, Mara Gold, S.E. Brenner, Natalie Cohen, Steven Getman, Jerome Marcus, Steve Baus, Mark Schulze, Richard Yale, Chris Hayes, Jim Orheim, Russell DePalma, Marie Bourgeois, Joel Goldberg, Chris Fehr, Pamela Giss, Brian Otey, Luke Pingel, Edward Baer, Robert LeChevalier, Abhijit Jain, Michael Drucker, Janice Lyons, Sadiqi Az Zindiki, Bernard Cohen, Edward Tannen, Joshua Weiner, Tony Booth, Aviva Ross, Rajan Raman, Eric Akawie, Steve Ginnings, Jarrod Musser, T.J. Bodgwic, Paul Stinchfield, Janine Wenzig, Jason Crawford, John Gaylord and Raghu Desikan. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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