From the WSJ Opinion Archives
A
Terrorist at Duke
Laura Whitehorn will be a guest speaker at Duke University's African and African-American
studies program on March 3. Who is Laura Whitehorn? Here's the bio on the department's
Web page:
Laura Whitehorn is a revolutionary anti-imperialist who spent over 14 years in federal prison as a political prisoner. An out lesbian, she initiated and worked in HIV peer education and support projects in each of the three federal prisons in which she did time. Since her release, she's worked with POZ Magazine, a national monthly for the communities affected by HIV. She is now writing about HCV/HIV co-infection in the prisons. She has also researched the many cases in the U.S. of HIV positive people locked up for supposed "crimes of transmission." She is also involved in work toward the release of all the remaining political prisoners in U.S. prisons, and she lives in Manhattan with her lover, the writer Susie Day.
That's more information than anyone could possibly want about Whitehorn's sex life--yet at the same time, it's not nearly enough information. The claim that Whitehorn was a "political prisoner" led us to think there was something Duke wasn't telling its students; after all, America does not throw people in prison for political reasons. This page from ImageOut, a Rochester, N.Y.-based gay organization, fills in the blanks. It's an ad for a screening of "Out: The Making of a Revolutionary," a documentary about Whitehorn:
Planting a bomb in the U.S. Capitol Building in 1983 was the culmination of a lifetime of radical protest for Laura Whitehorn, and 14 years in federal penitentiary have only solidified her stance as a committed American revolutionary. . . . More than simply a life and times story, OUT: The Making of a Revolutionary is a powerful indictment against the incarceration system, where still today over 100 political prisoners remain imprisoned for speaking out against the U.S. Government.
Nannerl Keohane is the president of Duke, and Charles Payne is director of the African and African-American studies program. Do they think that bombing the U.S. Capitol is a way of "speaking out," and that bringing a terrorist to campus is an appropriate way of teaching "African and African-American studies"?
The
Benefits of Self-Policing
President Bush announced yesterday that his administration will file a friend-of-the-court
brief with the Supreme Court opposing the University of Michigan's racial preferences.
"Quota systems that use race to include or exclude people from higher education
and the opportunities it offers are divisive, unfair and impossible to square
with the Constitution," the president declared (here's a full transcript
of his remarks).
As a legal matter, the president's decision is probably inconsequential; Supreme Court decisions seldom turn on the amicus briefs. But this is an important political moment. For years conservative intellectuals have pressed a principled case against what used to be called "reverse" discrimination. They've had some success in influencing policy, through the courts and ballot initiatives, but they've won little support from political officeholders. Democrats are uniformly behind the idea of race-based privileges, and for the most part they've succeeded in mau-mauing Republicans by throwing around accusations of "racism."
Many liberals thought, or at least hoped, that the Trent Lott imbroglio would make it harder for Bush to stand on principle; that his administration would take a split-the-difference approach, or beg off on the case entirely, or even endorse racial preferences, as Lott himself did in his disastrous Black Entertainment Television interview. But this misunderstands the issue. Conservatives oppose racial preferences not because they help black people, or even because they hurt white people, but simply because it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of race.
Segregation was far more invidious than today's racial preferences, but the principle is the same in both cases. And President Bush has been entirely true to this principle: He sharply criticized Lott for his nostalgic comments about the days of Jim Crow, and yesterday he said: "As we work to address the wrong of racial prejudice, we must not use means to create another wrong, and thus perpetuate our divisions."
Had Bush and the Republicans stood behind Lott, it would indeed have been much harder to present the Michigan stance as a principled one. And it's noteworthy that many of the conservatives who were most emphatic in calling for Lott's ouster--people like Ward Connerly and Abigail Thernstrom--are also among the strongest critics of racial preferences. The Connerlys and Thernstroms of the world rightly do not want to be associated with those who take the same position as they on this issue--but for what is very much the wrong reason.
There's a lesson here for our friends on the Democratic left, though one they probably won't learn. Republicans and conservatives have generally been much better at policing their own ranks for extremists and haters. Pat Buchanan, for example, no longer commands any respect within the Republican Party or the conservative movement, and David Duke never did.
In contrast, look at the freak show that makes up the American left: Jim McDermott, Al Sharpton, Cynthia McKinney, Patty Murray, Maxine Waters, Ramsey Clark, Noam Chomsky--the list could go on and on. Obviously one could make many distinctions here: Clark and Chomsky are not active in Democratic politics; most Democrats don't actually endorse McKinney's anti-Semitism or McDermott's pro-Saddam stance; Patty Murray may be more naive than evil.
And of course the Democratic Party includes many serious and sober political leaders. But the point is that they don't make these distinctions, at least not publicly. They don't repudiate the McDermotts, Sharptons and Chomskys of the world, the way conservatives repudiate their Lotts, Dukes and Buchanans. The result, to take the Iraq issue as an example, is that if there is a principled antiwar position, it gets drowned out amid the voices of extremism, who run the gamut from hyperpartisan to downright anti-American.
In this respect, conservatives owe a debt to the liberal media, which in a funny way help keep us honest. Conservative commentators have rightly taken some of the credit for Lott's ouster, but these efforts were also helped by news organizations like the New York Times and Time magazine, which set about digging into Lott's background for evidence of his segregationist past. They seldom subject liberal pols and activists to the same treatment. Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe's conservative columnist, condemns the media for soft-pedaling Al Sharpton's history of racial demagoguery. He's right, of course--but the likely result of this liberal media bias is that Sharpton will be taken seriously as a presidential candidate, to the detriment of whoever ultimately is the Democratic nominee.
Arguably the country would be better off if liberal journalists, activists and politicians policed their own ranks as effectively as conservatives do. From a purely partisan standpoint, though, Republicans can be thankful for the other party's poor political hygiene.
The
al Qaeda Connection
"The terror suspect who stabbed to death a police officer in Manchester
is alleged to be a 'key' al-Qa'ida member who was wanted by MI5 for plotting
chemical attacks in Britain," London's Independent reports. "The 27-year-old
suspect, who was not handcuffed, is accused of stabbing [Detective Constable
Stephen] Oake, 40, after he broke free from a uniformed officer and grabbed
a knife in the kitchen." The al Qaeda connection makes it all the more
astonishing that the officers were unarmed and didn't handcuff the suspect.
The
Iraqi Connection
The Associated Press reports, meanwhile, that "the United States has indications
that the men arrested in Great Britain with traces of the poison ricin are linked
to a terrorist group in northern Iraq"--Ansar al-Islam, a Taliban-like
group that, according to Jeffrey
Goldberg's report in The New Yorker last March, has connections to both
Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
An AP dispatch about a raid in which Italian police seized more than $1 million in counterfeit U.S. currency includes this intriguing detail: "Also seized in the raid were authentic notes from Middle Eastern countries, in particular Iraqi dinars, the police said."
An
American Hero
Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli air force, has become his country's first
astronaut, joining the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, which launched this
morning. A Jerusalem
Post biography notes that Ramon "is a career fighter pilot who bombed
the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981":
The attack, in which eight F-16 warplanes obliterated the French-built Osirak reactor near Baghdad, was a milestone in Israeli aviation history because the planes flew over enemy Arab territory for hours without detection. The pilots flew in a tightly bunched formation to send off a radar signal like that of a large commercial airliner.
Ramon isn't actually American, but we'll honor him anyway by calling him an American hero. Imagine how much more serious would be the threat from Saddam Hussein were it not for him and his fellow pilots.
Daisy
Cutter
MoveOn.org, a pro-Clinton Web
site, has produced a remake of the infamous "Daisy" political ad,
which features a little girl pulling petals out of a flower, followed by a nuclear
explosion--a plausible consequence, the new ad argues, of President Bush's Iraq
policy.
Um, are we missing something here? The original "Daisy" ad was for Lyndon Johnson's 1964 campaign, and its message was that Barry Goldwater was a crazed warmonger. It wasn't a fair accusation, but at least it had a comprehensible purpose: to discourage people from voting for Goldwater. What in the world is the MoveOn ad supposed to accomplish? President Bush won't face the voters again for another 22 months, and by that time the MoveOn ad will have long been overtaken by events. Maybe the MoveOn folks are trying to influence Congress? But Congress declared war on Iraq three months ago.
Well, here's the explanation MoveOn's Eli Pariser gives the Washington Post: "We wanted to run an ad that would highlight that very real possibility [of nuclear war] and help encourage a national discussion." Putting aside the nuke hysteria, isn't this the same argument we kept hearing last year? You know, "we need a debate on Iraq." The people who said this somehow never got around to stating their own positions on Iraq, which means we actually had a debate but a one-sided one, since only the proponents of regime change actually took the responsibility of weighing in. At least Pariser makes clear where he stands, but he's a little late. The debate is settled. Dude, move on!
The
Art of War?
Here are the first three paragraphs of an article by Christopher Knight in the
Los Angeles Times:
The imbecilic plan for war with Iraq currently on offer from the Bush administration has yet to register much support from the American public. A Los Angeles Times poll last month showed 72% of respondents--including 60% of Republicans--saying the president has not provided enough evidence to justify starting a war against Saddam Hussein.
Notably, however, the absence of public support for Bush's war is not the same thing as active opposition to it. Only recently has an energetic movement against the proposed war begun to stir.
The reason is simple. President Bush keeps shifting his explanations for invading Iraq; yet, even minus a coherent argument, he seems prepared to proceed without a public mandate. Fear begets action.
This seems a little shrill, but then the L.A. Times does publish Robert Scheer. Scheer, however, appears on the opinion page, while Knight's column is labeled--get ready for this--an "art review." This is art? Hey, who said L.A. was a cultural wasteland?
Ditching
for Saddam
Some 50 high school and junior high students in the nation's capital cut class
Tuesday to show their support for leaving Saddam Hussein in power, the Washington
Post reports. "Many at yesterday's rally said a U.S. military strike against
Iraq would be unjustified and called for the billions of dollars that would
be needed to fight a war to be put toward funding education," the Post
says. If kids aren't even going to go to class, that's a pretty good argument
for spending less on books and more on bombs.
You
Don't Say--I
"Rumsfeld: Lack of Evidence Could Mean Iraq's Hiding Something"--headline,
CNN.com, Jan. 15
You
Don't Say--II
"U.S. Isn't Going In Until It's Ready"--headlne, Omaha World-Herald,
Jan. 15
Stupidity Watch
Patti Davis,
daughter of Ronald Reagan, confesses in a Newsweek piece that she "gave
. . . the finger" to a man in a BMW who was tailgating her. The
guy retaliated by cutting her off. Why should anyone care? Well, here's what
happened next:
I pulled over to the shoulder, stopped and waited for him to be long gone; my hands were shaking, and I was officially frightened.
As I sat there for a few minutes, trying to calm down, I thought of President Bush and Saddam Hussein. I started to see this whole escalating conflict between the United States and Iraq as an exalted case of road rage . . . with far higher stakes.
Oh, of course! Why didn't we think of that? And in case her point isn't clear, she also recounts a story from her childhood. A boy picked on her in the school bus. Her father advised her to ignore him and he'd leave her alone. And guess what, he did! She acknowledges that "I have no idea if my father would advocate using that strategy with Saddam Hussein," but she does recommend that approach. George Will and Fareed Zakaria must be a bit embarrassed to write for a magazine that also publishes such infantile drivel.
Prince
Charmless
Alwaleed bin Talal, Saudi prince and benefactor of the President
George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, is blasting Colin
Powell's U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative, the Arab News reports:
He pointed out that Powell's advocacy of direct intervention to confront the challenges in the Arab world would not work in areas like economic openness, education, institution-building, the promotion of civic culture and the like. "Where the shoe rubs is the fact that this proposed partnership largely ignores what is at the heart of our problem: the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the daily massacre of Palestinians."
Wow, those Jews are amazing, aren't they? By establishing a tiny state with six million people, they've managed to impoverish and oppress hundreds of millions of hapless Arabs.
Yasser
Gets Hacked
"Hackers have attacked and destroyed the official Web site of Fatah's armed
wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades," the Jerusalem Post reports. But don't
worry, Yasser Arafat's crack detectives have identified whodunnit: It was "the
sons of monkeys and pigs."
Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
BBC
Catches Reuteritis
Here's an odd use of scare quotes in a BBC.com headline: " 'Bomb'
Kills Sri Lanka Children."
In Kim
Jong Il's Prisons
NBC News has investigated conditions in North Korea's prison camps. Among the
findings:
- At one camp, Camp 22 in Haengyong, some 50,000 prisoners toil each day in conditions that U.S. officials and former inmates say results in the death of 20 percent to 25 percent of the prison population every year.
- Products made by prison laborers may wind up on U.S. store shelves, having been "washed" first through Chinese companies that serve as intermediaries.
- Entire families, including grandchildren, are incarcerated for even the most bland political statements.
- Forced abortions are carried out on pregnant women so that another generation of political dissidents will be "eradicated."
- Inmates are used as human guinea pigs for testing biological and chemical agents, according to both former inmates and U.S. officials.
At the risk of sounding simplistic, this is evil.
You
Don't Say--III
"I believe a war on the Korean Peninsula would be inevitable if the North's
nuclear issue could not be resolved peacefully and the United States attacks
North Korea."--South Korean defense minister Lee Jun, quoted by the Associated
Press, Jan. 16
Oops
Slate founder Mike Kinsley is proud of his refusal to employ fact-checkers,
but even so, somebody should have caught the mistake in William Saletan's
column:
You know this isn't going to be a standard Democratic presidential campaign kickoff when the guy introducing Sen. Joe Lieberman asks everyone to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. With cameras rolling, Lieberman turns to the wall and recites the magic words: allegiance, flag, America, God. Stepping to the podium, he speaks of our "God-given talents." He says he feels "blessed by God" and believes "God's work must truly be our own." "My faith is at the center of who I am," he continues. "I'll not hesitate to talk about faith when it's relevant or to invoke God's name. . . . If the spirit moves me occasionally to say a word or two of faith, I think it's a very American thing to do."
He smiles and sips from his glass as the audience applauds. Nobody's going to out-Christian Joe Lieberman.
Lieberman is not Christian at all. He's Jewish. Then again, Saletan may be better off for not having known this fact. It would've sounded really bad if he'd written: "Nobody's going to out-Jew Joe Lieberman."
You
Don't Say--IV
"Lieberman's Mom Kvells, Predicting Her Son Will Be 'Best President' Ever' "--headline,
Jewish Telegraphic Association, Jan. 14
Life Imitates the Onion
"Miguel Nunez, a Brooklyn-based artist, has sparked protest and outrage within the art community with his "Jesus Rising #4," a non-controversial, non-feces-smeared painting that in no way defiles or blasphemes Jesus Christ."--the Onion, June 13, 2001
"Actor-director Mel Gibson said tonight he's under attack for making a realistic movie about the suffering, sacrificial death of Jesus."--WorldNetDaily, Jan. 14, 2003
Not
Too Brite--XLV
"About 8,700 frying pans sold through the Home Shopping Network are being
recalled because they can 'explode' while in use," Reuters reports. "Two
consumers have been burned from hot oil." Oddly Enough!
Who Is
Peggy Loonan--II?
It turns out our Peggy Noonan really does have a lamesake. Our item
yesterday on a New York Times op-ed bearing the byline "Peggy Loonan"
prompted many readers to check out the Web site of her group, Life and Liberty
for Women, "a new non-profit organization dedicated to aggressive abortion
rights education." Among other things, the group stages protests
outside churches, at which it displays "graphic sights of illegal abortion."
The group also offers a stage
show called "Abortion's Silenced Legacy."
Interestingly, Loonan's Times op-ed criticized the group now known as Naral Pro-Choice America for dropping the word abortion from its name. Naral should forthrightly stand up for abortion, she argues, not resort to euphemism. This does not seem to be the view of the New York Times, however. Reader Hampton Stevens, who used to moderate online forums for the Times, writes:
One of the first times I knew something was amiss at NYT Digital was when I pointed out that we had not impartially titled our forum for debating abortion. It was--and still is--called "The Debate Over Reproductive Rights." I suggested to my superiors that this was not the best way to phrase things. How would a pro-choice activists feel, for example, about a forum entitled "The Debate Over the Rights of the Unborn"? My comments were met first with surprise, then with the admonition that changing the forum's title to something like "The Abortion Debate" would create too much controversy.
Yep, we sure wouldn't want to have any lively conversation. Jeez, the next thing you know democracy might break out.
A
Smear Campaign
"A family doctor has been summoned to a formal hearing over his refusal
to put a 34-year-old male patient on the list for screening for cervical cancer,"
London's Daily Telegraph reports. "The man, who has fathered a child, believes
he is a hermaphrodite although his doctors have examined him and can find no
evidence for this. However, they did agree to his request to be re-registered
with a female name." This guy may not have a cervix, but he sure sounds
like a pain in the neck.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Jonathan Balsam, Charlie Gaylord, Barak Moore, Monty Krieger, Hershel Ginsburg, Brian Smith, Linda Cooke, Michael Segal, Mark Schulze, S.E. Brenner, Jerome Marcus, Robert LeChevalier, C.E. Dobkin, Joel Goldberg, Shawn Shuler, Carl Sherer, Mara Gold, Stephen Kelly, Charles Steinberg, Daniel Goldstein, Matt Hillson, Bob Fritz, Charlie Gaylord, Ronald Marshall, Mike Going, Michael Midura, Raghu Desikan, Michael Zukerman, Michael Steinberg, James Woodburn, Joe Hootman, Joshua Brook, Randal Voges, Bob Grinsell, John McKenna, Garrett Prendergraft, Dave Roberts, Bill Levenson, Skip Weitzen, Tim Sousley, Larey Kerling, Peter Fleming, Adam Wells, Bal Simon, Roger Congdon, Patrick Stansbury, Jeffrey Keys and Jennifer Ray. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Jason Riley: President Bush needs to lead his party on race.
- John Fund: Is Joe Lieberman a moderate again? Can he afford to be?
- Salil Tripathi: Tony Blair fails to win a sports boycott against Zimbabwe's dictator.
